Yahoo Eyes Hulu Now

According to eMarketer, the number of U.S. digital TV viewers is projected to grow from 106.2 million last year to 145.3 million by 2017. The researcher estimates digital TV viewers will account for more than a half of the total Internet user population in the country by 2014. The growth of digital video streaming will also spur growth in advertising in the segment. eMarketer predicts that out of the total spending of $42.52 billion on digital ads this year, marketers will spend $3.8 billion on online video ads.

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SAP’s Cloud Expansion

A recently released Gartner report titled Forecast Overview: Public Cloud Services, Worldwide, 2011-2016, 4Q12 Update pegs worldwide spending on public cloud services to increase 18% annually over 2011 through 2016 to $210 billion. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) will drive growth in the market by recording 41% annualized growth through 2016. Global SaaS spending is projected to grow 20% annually to $32.8 billion by 2016. The growing importance of cloud-based offerings is ensuring that the major technology players concentrate their efforts on bagging a bigger share of this market.

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Rovio’s Entertainment Empire

Newzoo’s 2013 Global Games Market Report estimates that the worldwide online and electronic gaming market will grow 6% over the year to be worth $70.4 billion this year. The report estimates that by the end of this year, there will be more than 1.2 billion gamers worldwide. Growth in the market will be driven by emerging markets in Latin America and Asia Pacific, which are expected to be worth $3 billion and $25.1 billion, respectively, this year. Console games will remain the leading gaming platform with 43% of the market, translating to $30.6 billion. Smartphone- and tablet-based games are projected to grow 35% to $12.3 billion.

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Adobe’s Subscription Move

According to Gartner’s Forecast Overview: Public Cloud Services, Worldwide, 2011-2016, 4Q12 Update worldwide spending on public cloud services is estimated to have grown 19% last year to $110.3 billion. The market is projected to grow 18% annually over the period 2011 through 2016 to be worth $76.9 billion by the year 2016. Within the market, SaaS segment is expected to grow 20% annually from $13.5 billion in 2011 to $32.8 billion in 2016.

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HP’s Product Expansion Under Whitman

According to IDC’s Q1 PC shipment report, worldwide PC shipments fell 14% to 76.3 million units. The decline was attributed to the increased adoption of mobile devices and the muted response to Windows 8. The declining market is intensifying competition among existing vendors. Most industry players have been diversifying operations into higher margin products and emerging trend technologies. Under Meg Whitman’s guidance, HP (NASDAQ:HPQ) seems to have found a successful alternate strategy as well. They remained the market leader in the industry despite a 24% drop in shipment volumes. HP now commands 15.7% of the global PC market.

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Salesforce Looking to Bridge CRM and Ads

Gartner recently published their report on the CRM industry, Market Share Analysis: Customer Relationship Management Software, Worldwide, 2012. The report reveals that the worldwide CRM market grew 12.5% last year to $18 billion. The biggest consumers of CRM technology reside in North America and Western Europe which commanded nearly 80% of the global market. But, emerging markets are picking up. China and Latin American markets reported some of the highest growth in the sector with 26% and 24% respectively. According to the report, Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM) was the leading CRM services provider globally with over 14% market share, accounting for over $2.5 billion in annual sales.

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Dell Amidst Declining Fundamentals and Uncertain Investors

The continuing dismal performance of the worldwide PC industry and Dell’s (NASDAQ:Dell) inability to make a mark within the fast growing mobile device market has not helped their performance. The weak results are also not helping investors who were looking to counter Dell’s proposal of going private through a $24.4 billion Leveraged Buy-Out (LBO) by founder Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners.

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Is Waze the Next Tumblr?

Micro-blogging site, tumblr’s recent acquisition by Yahoo has sparked more interest in other start-ups which command such lofty valuations and are under consideration by other technology giants as potential acquisitions. One such player is social traffic and navigation app maker, Waze.

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Intel’s Software Moves

IDC’s recently released PC shipment report has shown very disappointing results. During the first quarter of this year, worldwide PC shipments fell 14% to 76.3 million units. The researcher had been projecting a decline of 7.7% over the year. This was the worst decline in any quarter that IDC has ever reported. The decline was fueled by the lackluster performance of Windows 8 and the continued infringement of mobile devices into PC territory.

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Yahoo + Tumblr: Some Thoughts

Since Marissa Mayer’s appointment as the CEO of Yahoo, the market has been waiting for big news from the company. And it seems that Yahoo has delivered. The company has been building its capabilities through talent acquisitions. But yesterday they made big news by announcing the $1.1 billion acquisition of microblogging platform, Tumblr.

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