LinkedIn Continues to Improve Monetization

Researcher eMarketer expects social media player LinkedIn (Nasdaq:LNKD) to deliver strong ad revenue growth in the coming years. The researcher estimates LinkedIn’s advertising revenues to grow 47% this year to $376 million. By 2015, LinkedIn is estimated to generate $763 million from online advertising. Another comScore report published this spring showed that LinkedIn has become the second largest social network in the world based on the number of unique visitors, surpassing Twitter. The company’s financials have been impressive as well.

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ERI Diversifies Beyond Water

A recent report by BCC Research estimates the worldwide seawater and brackish water desalination market to be worth $4.1 billion this year. The researcher estimates the industry to grow at an annual rate of more than 11.9% to be worth $7.2 billion by 2018. The report attributes the increasing demand for desalination projects to the rise in population, which is spurring the need for an increased drinking water supply and the continuous technical improvements in the reverse osmosis markets that are helping drive down desalination costs.

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Cloud Vendor Covisint Rings in Its IPO

A Gartner report published earlier this year estimated the worldwide public cloud services market to grow 18.5% in 2013 to $131 billion. Most growth in the market is driven by infrastructure as a service (IaaS), including cloud computing, storage, and print services. This sub-sector is projected to grow 47.3% this year to $9 billion. Gartner also estimates cloud services market to grow to $677 billion by 2016. The market is dominated by North America, which accounts for 59% of worldwide spending.

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Apple, Time to Focus on China

According to data from TrendForce, not only is Samsung eating up the iPhone’s market share, but now Apple’s iPad is in trouble as well. For the quarter ended September, Apple’s iPads accounted for 31.8% of the tablet market share worldwide, which is the lowest market share it has ever had. Apple may still be the leader, but last quarter, Samsung accounted for 23.7% of the market by shipping 10.5 million tablets. During the same period, Apple shipped 14.1 million iPads. Courtesy of Business Insider, here an interesting graphic on Apple’s falling tablet market share.

Within smartphones, according to IDC, last quarter, Samsung shipped 81.2 million units, thus capturing 31.4% of the global market. During the same period, Apple shipped 33.8 million iPhones, translating to a 13.1% market share. A year ago, Apple had a 14.4% market share worldwide. While volumes may have dropped, Apple’s financials remain impressive.

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Microsoft’s Remarkable Quarter

Last quarter, Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) announced serious management changes, with CEO Steve Ballmer announcing plans to retire by next year. Meanwhile, the company is doing a surprisingly successful job at pivoting itself to a “devices and services” organization from a software-focused one. The company reported a stellar quarter, surpassing market expectations and reaffirming faith in its ability to reinvent themselves as it has done several times in the past.

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The Breadth and Depth of Amazon’s Expansion

Shopper Trak’s holiday projections peg sales during this season to grow 2.4%, the slowest since 2009. These disconcerting holiday shopping sales forecasts may have dampened e-tailer eBay’s spirits. But it will take more than possible bad news to stop Amazon’s rapid growth. The e-tailer continues to surpass market expectations and remains upbeat about the upcoming holiday season.

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Veeva’s Solid IPO

According to IDC research, the $1.6 trillion life sciences industry spent more than $44 billion in technology investments in 2012. Of this figure, $28 billion was spent on software and services, and $16 billion was spent on infrastructure. As in other industries, cloud computing is also seeing strong adoption within the life sciences industry.

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Netflix Surpasses Expectations with Proprietary Content Strategy

Netflix has been experiencing a remarkable year. The company’s subscriber base surpassed HBO’s subscriber base in the U.S. for the first time, and stock prices have soared more than 400% since the beginning of the year. International expansion is continuing at a strong pace as well. According to NPD Group, Netflix accounted for 89% of the TV streaming market during the first quarter of 2013.

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