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Technology Stocks
SAP Tries To Find Its Groove In A Consolidating Industry
The economic slowdown opened up opportunities for technology giants such as Cisco, HP, and Oracle to make strategic acquisitions at bargain prices. Oracle has always been seen as a pro at acquisitions, while SAP has relied mostly on organic growth. But it looks as though SAP wants to break away from that image – it recently acquired Sybase for $5.8 billion and before that, Business Objects for $6.78 billion. Let’s take a closer look. >>>
The iPad Effect On Two Newspaper Companies
Global ad spending is expected to rise 3.5% in 2010 up from the estimates of a 2.2% increase reported a quarter ago. Growth in spending is being driven by the rise in online advertising spending, which is projected to increase from $49.8 billion in 2008 to $82.7 billion and contribute to 17.1% of global ad spending in 2012. For the United States, the report forecasts that mobile advertising spending will grow 43.2% a year between 2009 and 2012 and social media by 30.2%, while overall online spending will increase 15.6% in the period. Overall U.S. ad spending is expected to rise 1.1% in 2010 compared with the 1.5% decline previously projected. >>>
Smartphones And Consumer Electronics Boost Semiconductor Market
Chipmakers Texas Instruments (NYSE:TXN) (TI), Atheros (NASDAQ:ATHR), and STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM) recently reported quarterly results that reflect the recovery in the semiconductor market. STM has swung to a profit after two years of losses while TI and Atheros are expanding. Let’s take a closer look. >>>
HP’s Next Acquisition: Polycom?
Polycom and F5, leaders in their respective niche areas of video conferencing and application delivery controllers (ADC), recently reported their quarterly results. Cisco recently acquired Tandberg, which is neck-in-neck with Polycom in the video conferencing market. On the other hand, F5 has a comfortable lead over Cisco in the ADC market. Let’s take a closer look. >>>
Microsoft Grows, But Future Looks Foggy
According to IDC’s recently released report, the global PC market grew 22.4% over the year to 81.5 million units. However, PC sales in the United States failed to meet the researchers’ target of 18% and grew just 12.6% over the year. PC sales in EMEA “met expectations” and Japan too saw double-digit PC shipment growth. Shipments in Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) grew 35% over the year compared with 20% growth a quarter ago. >>>
Yahoo! Continues Aimlessly On
Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) continued its struggle to grow during the second quarter. While earnings managed to exceed market projections, the fact that revenue is not growing as strongly as it should remains a cause for concern. Q2 revenues of $1.13 billion fell short of the market’s projected $1.16 billion. EPS of $0.15 grew a whopping 50% over previous year’s $0.10 and also managed to exceed the market’s target of $0.14. >>>
Apple Gains Share Across Markets
Apple reported yet another strong quarter this week driven by the success of its new products, the iPad and the iPhone 4. Despite the criticism of the newest iPhone’s antenna design, Apple reports that there has not been any decline in the demand for the phone and issued a strong forecast. Apple has cannibalized the gadget industry with its products: Macs, iPods, iPhones, and now iPads. Let’s take a closer look. >>>
IBM’s Acquisition Strategy
This week, IBM (NYSE:IBM) reported a mixed second quarter by beating bottom-line estimates but missing the top-line sales estimate. Earlier this month, Big Blue announced its plans to acquire BigFix, a network management and security specialist. In the recent quarter, IBM announced two more acquisitions: Cast Iron, a cloud computing integration company, and Coremetrics, a developer of business analytics software. Let’s take a closer look. >>>