Netflix Becomes HBO; Target for Apple?

The latest quarter continued to see Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) on the rebound as the stock recovered from its large drop more than a year ago when the company was forced by market sentiment to retract plans to increase subscription charges. The stock had also seen significant devaluation when the company failed to add subscribers at a fast enough pace and invested heavily in both domestic and international expansion. Though the stock may not have reached its earlier glory days, for now, it has recovered and analysts expect it to continue to do so.

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Microsoft After Windows 8

IDC’s PC shipment report continues to suggest an imploding PC market. Globally, PC shipments fell 14% over the year to 76.3 million units, a much bigger reduction than the 8% decline that the researcher had estimated earlier. IDC attributed the higher-than-anticipated fall to the weak market response for Windows 8 and the growth of tablets and smartphones. The U.S. market reported a 13% reduction to 14.2 million units, reporting its lowest level since 2006.

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eBay Aims to Expand PayPal Significantly

According to a Forrester report, online retail sales in the U.S. are projected to grow annually at 10% from $231 billion this year to $370 billion by 2017. Despite the continuing slowdown in European economies, the researcher expects the market to pick up as well as online retail sales grow from $165.6 billion during the current year to $247.1 billion by 2017, translating to an annual growth rate of 10.5%. Forrester believes that the growth of online retail is attributed to the increasing adoption of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

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Google’s Mobile Strategy

According to a Gartner report released earlier this year, the worldwide mobile advertising market is projected to be worth $11.4 billion during the current year, compared with $9.6 billion estimated for the previous year. Gartner estimates the market to be worth $24.5 billion in 2016. The market is seeing strong growth driven by the increased adoption of mobile devices in emerging markets. The North American market is projected to grow from $3.18 billion last year to $3.83 billion during the current year and to $8.87 billion by 2016. But Asia remains the largest market with an estimated $4.33 billion last year projected to grow to $9.48 billion by 2016.
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Yahoo’s Talent Acquisition Drive

eMarketer’s latest report projects the U.S. display advertising market to be worth $23.87 billion by 2015. Display advertising in the country was estimated at $14.98 billion last year and is projected to grow to $17.70 billion during the current year. The market should see strong growth in display ad revenues by Twitter, Google, and Facebook. Google will likely remain the leader in the segment, with an estimated 38% growth this year to account for $3.11 billion in display ad revenues. Facebook will be the second biggest player in the market, with growth of 26% over the year and $2.75 billion in display ad revenues. Meanwhile, Yahoo is projected to continue to flounder and will see just 1% growth in display ad revenues as it grows to $1.37 billion.

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Zscaler’s Security-as-a-Service Offering

According to Gartner, the cloud-based security services market is estimated to be worth $4.2 billion by 2016. The researcher estimates that by 2015, the cloud will be the delivery platform for 10% of total IT security enterprise product capabilities. San Jose–based Zscaler is one organization working to transform enterprise security by building the world’s largest security cloud so that users can access a safe cloud even outside of their corporate networks.

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GoodData’s Big Data Success

IDC’s report Worldwide Big Data Technology and Services 2012-2016 Forecast, released earlier this year, estimates the big data market to grow 32% annually over 2012 through 2016 to be worth $23.8 billion in 2016. The services segment for the market is projected to grow 21% annually over the period, and the storage market catering to big data is estimated to grow 53% annually during this period. IDC also projects that there will be strong demand for analytic tools to support big data and an increasing number of companies will search for tools to simplify analytic services.

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ChannelAdvisor Files for an IPO

According to eMarketer’s recent report, in 2012 online business to consumer (B2C) sales passed the $1 trillion milestone, reporting growth of 21% over the year. North America remained the largest e-commerce market, with sales growing 14% to $364.66 billion. The Asia Pacific market is catching on. Last year, e-commerce sales in the region grew 33% to $332.46 billion, driven by the strong adoption of the channel in China. As more and more people become connected to the web, e-commerce retail market will continue to exhibit such strong growth. eMarketer projects 2013 e-commerce retail sales to grow 18% to $1.3 trillion.

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MuleSoft Prepares for IPO

According to Gartner, the market for SaaS- and cloud-based business application services is projected to grow at an annual rate of 20% over 2011 through 2016. The market is estimated to be worth more than $32.8 billion in 2016, compared with $13.5 billion in 2011. Increasing adoption of these new technologies has also led to the problem of integration. Organizations are looking for platforms that will help simplify the communication between multiple SaaS services with mobile and on-premise legacy systems.
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Zendesk’s IPO Plans

Today there is a growing need for a helpdesk support system that is able to address multiple modes of communication that a consumer may have with organizations. According to NMincite, nearly 47% of all social media users have used social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to send in customer service requests. Another report by Forrester showed that in the last three years, use of the Web self-service option grew 12%, live chat and social media usage increased by nearly 25% each as options to submit customer service requests. This trend has led to the creation of SaaS-based help desk systems that address these multiple channels for organizations.

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