Netflix’s Time Has Come

The television landscape is changing rapidly, with players such as Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX), entering into deals aimed to attract more viewers by increasing streaming content library and thus posing stiff competition for cable giants such as Comcast. Earlier, Netflix signed a billion-dollar deal with Epix for exclusive digital rights to stream Lionsgate, MGM, and Paramount content. It also recently announced exclusive rights to stream part of Relativity Media’s movie catalogue, which includes titles such as Nicolas Cage’s Season of the Witch. These deals are win–win situations for both parties. Epix for instance, currently has nearly 3 million–4 million subscribers. Through the deal, Epix will reach Netflix’s 15 million subscribers. Meanwhile, Netflix can now boast of a library of over 24,000 streaming titles and 100,000 DVD titles. Clearly, if there’s a company whose time has come, it would be Netflix. Reed Hastings had a vision of online film distribution a long, long time back. The market and the infrastructure wasn’t ready. Well, now it is. >>>

Featured Videos

Social Networking: A Major Trend in SaaS CRM

Last week Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM), the pioneer of SaaS customer relationship management (CRM) with annual revenue of $1.3 billion, reported strong results that beat estimates. Earlier this month, Salesforce.com settled its legal dispute with Microsoft. RightNow (NASDAQ:RNOW), another SaaS CRM vendor, also reported strong results this quarter. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

Time Warner And Disney Focused On Magazines, iPad, And Social Gaming

As the U.S economy recovers, analysts expect spending on media and communications to increase at an annual average rate of 6.1% to $1.42 trillion over 2009 to 2014. Entertainment and leisure media spending will grow 6.3% annually to $353.9 billion by 2014. Internet and mobile services within the segment are forecast to increase 15% annually during the same period. Media giants reporting their quarterly earnings are already seeing strong growth. Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) had its highest growth in revenues in two years. >>>

Intuit Sees Strong Growth With Acquisitions

Intuit (NASDAQ:INTU), the leading small business accounting and tax software provider, last week reported strong fourth quarter results that beat estimates. Early in the month, it acquired the assets of personal finance management application Cha-Ching. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

Dell Should Hire Mark Hurd, Acquire RIM

Both HP (NYSE:HPQ) and Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) reported strong results last week. Early this month, HP rattled the market when it announced the resignation of CEO Mark Hurd. In his five years at the helm of HP, Hurd has turned around the company and steered it through the recession and through many strategic acquisitions such as EDS, 3Com, and most recently Palm to position it strongly in adjacent markets. Only time will tell if HP without Hurd would be able to preserve the momentum. Meanwhile, Hurd has various options where he can put his excellent leadership skills to use. >>>

Massive Attrition At Cognizant, Genpact

According to Gartner’s latest IT spending report, worldwide enterprise IT spending across all industry verticals is projected to grow 2.9% in 2010 and at 3.5% in 2011. As IT budgets grow, discretionary spend will rise. Revenues at U.S.-headquartered Cognizant Technologies (NASDAQ:CTSH) have already grown as a result of such demand. >>>

VMWare, EMC Going Gangbusters

Lazard Capital Markets estimates that the server virtualization software market will grow 14% in 2010 to $1.28 billion. Software needed to manage virtual environments is expected to grow 44% over the year to $1.88 billion, and desktop virtualization sales are projected to grow 184% in 2010 to $847.8 million. >>>

Consolidation In Talent Management

Taleo (NASDAQ:TLEO) and SuccessFactors (NASDAQ:SFSF) are the leaders in the talent management market with revenues of almost $200 million each. The rest of the market is trying to catch up through acquisitions. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

Nile, Monster Bank On International

The Federal Open Market Committee believes that the U.S. recovery has slowed in recent months, and employers remained reluctant to add to payrolls. With unemployment at 9.5% in June, retailers, especially luxury retailers, are beginning to see sales weaken. May’s research report released by SpendingPulse found luxury retail sales in the month to have fallen 3.9% over the year. >>>

Android Phones Outselling iPhones, But . . .

In my previous post on Samsung and Motorola, I observed that the two companies, which have launched many devices based on the Android operating system (OS), are gaining share in the smartphone market. Let’s take a look at their recent performances. >>>