U.S. Online Travel Companies Pursue Global Expansion

According to PhocusWright’s Global Online Travel Report 2012, the online travel segment will account for a third of the total global travel market value. Online travel sales are expected to grow by more than 10%  in the U.S. in 2012. Experts predict that the U.K. will account for the largest share of Europe’s online travel market in 2013. Gross bookings in the APAC region for the unmanaged business travel and consumer leisure market are projected to grow by more than 30% in 2012. The online travel players are thus focusing significant efforts in expanding internationally.

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Apptio, Not Yet Profitable, Raises $91 Million in Funding

Analysts believe that with developments like virtualization and the cloud, it has not only become more difficult but also more important to track the cost and value of IT services. The IT departments have thus had to look out for solutions that help them manage their operations and prove their RoIs. Organizations are moving to Technology Business Management solutions, a software market, that Forrester estimates will be worth $800 million by 2013.

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Fusion-IO Diversifies Customer Base, Expands Product Offerings

Global market intelligence firm IDC estimates that the enterprise flash market will grow to $4.5 billion by 2015.  Earlier this year, a Morgan Stanley analyst, Katy Huberty, projected a much stronger growth path. She believes that the enterprise flash market will grow from $2 billion to $20 billion over time. She, however, did not specify the time period over which the market will see such growth.

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ADP, Paychex Grow, Despite Sluggish Recovery

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in April non-farm payroll grew by 115,000, much short of the market’s projected growth of 165,000 jobs. However, during the month, unemployment rate fell marginally from 8.2% to 8.1%. As the slow growth in the job market continues, payroll processing firms are delivering steady progress and meeting market expectations.

ADP’s Financials
ADP’s (NASDAQ: ADP) Q3 revenues grew 6.8% over the year to $2.92 billion, in line with the Street’s projections. EPS of $0.92 was ahead of the market’s targeted EPS of $0.91 and reported an impressive 8.2% growth over the year. >>>

Instagram, Pinterest vs. Cableorganizer

We’re back in the days of speculative investments, frothy acquisitions, monopoly money and valuation without revenue. The biggest ‘phenomenon’ to emerge out of this mood in Silicon Valley is Twitter. Among other things, it has helped reshape entire nations’ political histories. Nonetheless, it has trouble with mundane things like revenue and profits. Of course, it has no trouble whatsoever with valuation!

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LinkedIn Targets More Ad Revenue

EMarketer estimates that professional social networking site LinkedIn will see strong growth in the years to come. The researcher predicts that LinkedIn’s advertising revenues will grow to $405.6 million by the year 2014, compared with $154.6 million reported last year. They go on to predict that by 2014, U.S. advertisers will contribute 60% of LinkedIn’s advertising revenues.

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Pinterest Next In Line, After Instagram

Recently, Facebook acquired Instagram, a mobile photo-sharing platform with over 30 million users, for $1 billion. The acquisition put some of the other social media companies under the spotlight as well. Palo Alto, CA-based Pinterest is one such company, which some believe has many potential suitors or a possible IPO in the waiting.

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Cloudera the Next Splunk?

The recent successful IPO by big data player Splunk has sparked interest in some other, albeit smaller, players in the market. According to a recent report by open source analyst and researcher, Wikibon, the big data hardware and software market is estimated to be worth $5 billion. The market size is projected to grow annually at 58% for the next five years to be worth $50 billion by 2017. Cloudera plays its part as an active contributor to Hadoop, an open source framework that is considered to be among one of the biggest approaches for processing, storing and analyzing Big Data.

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Recently Listed Infoblox Looks Good

Among the recently listed technology IPOs, Santa Clara-based Infoblox is one that is doing rather well. The company is a leading provider of automated network control and appliance-based solutions that enable dynamic networks and next-generation data centers. It was founded in 1999 by the present CTO Stuart Bailey.  Inflobox offers combined real-time IP address management with automated key network control and network change and configuration management processes in purpose-built physical and virtual appliances.The solution is based on the company’s scalable and automated proprietary software that helps organizations manage network functions cost effectively and provides them with the flexibility required to scale operations.

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SAP Poised to Take On Oracle With HANA

SAP is banking on emerging technologies including big data, cloud and mobile to help drive growth in the coming quarters. The company is focusing on becoming the fastest growing database provider in the world by the year 2015 as it continues to invest in memory database technology product, HANA and additional new products.

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