Billion Dollar Unicorns: Freshdesk is a Prospect

A Gartner report published last year on the global customer relationship management (CRM) software market projects the industry to grow 15% annually through the period 2013 to 2017. The growth in the industry is estimated to be driven by increasing adoption of cloud based offerings which are expected to grow 22.6% annually over the same period. Freshdesk is a fast growing player in the industry, and was incubated in the 1M/1M program since early 2011. In 2013, Freshdesk joined the 1M/1M Million Dollar club and now, it is aiming for the Billion Dollar Unicorn status.

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Will Priceline Acquire HomeAway?

The online travel industry was in the news lately when travel giant Expedia announced the $1.6 billion acquisition of Orbitz Worldwide. Many believe that this is just one of the many acquisitions to happen in the industry. Vacation house rental firm HomeAway (Nasdaq: AWAY) is one such potential target that is expected to be bought. For now, though, the company has managed to stay independent. But, given their financial performance, I wonder for how long they will be able to sustain themselves.

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Billion Dollar Unicorns: Will Cloudera Sustain $5 Billion Valuation Post IPO?

According to IDC, the global Big Data and Analytics market is expected to grow to $125 billion in 2015. The Big Data growth will be driven by the increasing adoption of mobile devices, social media activity, and the rise of the Internet of Things. Billion Dollar Unicorn club member Cloudera is delivering on this growth by leveraging the power of open-source tool Hadoop for Big Data Analytics.

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Billion Dollar Unicorns: Tableau Continues its Precise Execution

According to IDC’s Worldwide Business Analytics Software 2014–2018 Forecast, the global business analytics software market was estimated to be worth $37.7 billion in 2013. The researcher predicts the market to grow 9.4% annually over a five year period to be worth $59.2 billion by the year 2018. While bigger players like Oracle and SAP lead the market with 17.9% and 14.9% market share, respectively as of 2013, other vendors are also making their presence felt. Billion Dollar Unicorn club member Tableau Software (NYSE: DATA) is one such player which continues to deliver blockbuster results.

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Billion Dollar Unicorns: Clarabridge Wins by Analyzing Customer Sentiment

A 2014 report on Customer Experience Management Market by MarketsandMarkets pegs the customer experience market segment to grow from $3.77 billion in 2014 to $8.39 billion in 2019. That translates to an annualized growth rate of over 17% for the five-year period. Here is the story of a leading player in this industry and a Billion Dollar Unicorn Club contender Clarabridge.

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Much Ado About The Apple Watch

There is just no stopping Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL). The company recently announced stellar financial results, another strong growth for iPhone sales, and released the much awaited Apple Watch, marking their entry into the wearables segment.

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Twitter Disappoints The Market

Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) continues to disappoint the market with their performance. The market is getting anxious about Twitter’s ability to maintain strong financial growth. The disappointing quarterly result announcement and a reducing outlook for the year sent the stock spiraling down. The stock fell 20% soon after their results were accidentally leaked and since then, the stock has been taking a beating.

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Netflix Continues to Invest in Content

Online video streaming services provider Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) is continuing to see strong growth. According to a comScore report, nearly 42% of US households were subscribed to a paying video streaming service as of August 2014. Netflix was the market leader with 32% of total households as its subscribers. Amazon came a distant second with 19% households subscribing to their Instant Video service. Hulu Plus was the third largest player with a mere 9% of households.

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For Microsoft, It is All About the Cloud

It is all about the cloud within the technology sector. And the biggest news so far is the possible sale of Salesforce.com. In a surprising move, it appears that Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is evaluating a bid for the giant.

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Facebook is Taking on Google

Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) recently announced mixed results for their latest quarter. While they managed to surpass market expectations on earnings, revenues were a different story. That has not stopped Facebook from continuing to add to their arsenal of revenue-generating opportunities.

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