Recently Public Ancestry.com Now Private Again

Analysts estimate that genealogy enthusiasts spend anywhere between $1,000 and $18,000 over a year to discover their roots. In January 2009, the number of people undergoing genetic genealogy testing to determine their roots were 765,000, compared with 650,000 people reportedly undertaking genetic testing as of November 2007. Besides genetic tests, several genealogy research websites are also helping people learn more about their origins.

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Twitter: 2014 IPO or Acquisition by Apple?

Many analysts have been speculating about Twitter’s IPO prospects, and the company itself seems to have toyed with the idea of going public (or not) more than a few times. Last year it even indicated that it will remain an independent company for years to come. But after a few months of silence, the market is again abuzz with news that Twitter may be preparing for an IPO scheduled for 2014. Analysts believe that Twitter’s recent management restructuring may indicate the company’s desire to become public. Last month, Twitter moved Ali Rowghani, CFO, to the COO position. Newly hired Mike Gupta, a former Zynga treasurer, took the CFO position.

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Shutterstock’s IPO Performance

New York–based Shutterstock (NYSE:SSTK) filed its S-1 earlier this summer and came out with its IPO early last quarter. The company’s offer was received positively by the market, which has not been kind to many new-age digital stocks. Recently, Shutterstock announced the results of its first quarter as a public company. Here is a quick assessment of how it has fared.

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IPO Pool 2013: Rearden Commerce

There is a whole bunch of private companies thriving in the market today and are valued near or above a billion dollars in the private market. Today, we will talk about one of them. Readers may recall, we introduced you to Patrick Grady, CEO of Rearden Commerce while ago. Today, we will revisit Rearden and see how far it has come.

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Could MercadoLibre Be on Amazon’s Shopping List?

Analysts believe that it is not just Brazil, but all of Latin America that is poised for strong economic growth in the coming years. Over the past five years, Latin America’s economic growth has been double that of crisis-ridden Europe and North America. The region’s per capita income is projected to grow by nearly 50% to $13,000-$15,000 by the year 2030.  The additional prosperity is also accompanied by increased technological spending. Market research suggests that less than 40% of the Latin American population accessed the Internet in December of last year, registering growth of 16% over the year, driven by growth in Argentina and Mexico. Compare that with 78.1% use for the United States and 83% for Canada, and the opportunity for e-commerce growth becomes clear.

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Oracle Continues to Build Cloud Portfolio

According to recent analyst reports, cloud computing will be a strong area of growth for technological investments. Gartner projects that software as a service (SaaS) and cloud-based business application services will grow at a compounded rate of 19% over the five-year period between 2011 to 2016 to $32.2 billion. IDC expects enterprise cloud application revenues to grow at a more aggressive pace of 24% annually to $67.3 billion by 2016 from $22.9 billion in 2011. Technology giant Oracle (Nasdaq:ORCL) is counting on such market growth to accelerate its own performance.

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ServiceNow Gaining Ground on BMC, HP, CA

According to market reports, the IT service management (ITSM) market is expected to be worth $1.5 billion. Market reports for 2011 saw the market being led by BMC, with a 38.6% market share. HP’s Service Manager came in a distant second, with a little over 20%. CA’s Service Desk Manager was ranked the third, with a 7.2% market share. Last year, ServiceNow accounted for a mere 3% of the market share. But the company’s market share has since grown. Analysts believe that the company now accounts for 10%-15% of the market.

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A Long View on Planet Earth from the Perspective of Water

This is our last technology stock post for the year, and we have chosen a company that is trying to address one of the most critical problems facing humanity: the global water crisis. The United States, it seems, will become energy independent with the successful commercialization of shale in the upcoming years. This will change geo-politics substantially. However, water scarcity will get added to the roster of major sources of conflict. With China controlling the faucets of the major water sources for India, Bangladesh, Pakistan – over 1.5 billion people of South Asia depend on rivers that have their origins in the Himalayan glaciers currently in China-occupied Tibet – the region remains fraught with risk. China’s own domestic water scarcity will also be an issue, but they are handling it well at the policy level, and putting in place a substantial desalination infrastructure. While the rest of the world suffers from shortage of government funds for major infrastructure projects, China, with a sure hand, IS investing in infrastructure that will position them well on the water issue. India, with its enormous coastline, needs to get its act together. So does America.

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SAP Takes On Oracle and Salesforce.com In The Cloud

According to the Gartner report Market Share Analysis: ERP Software, Worldwide, 2011, SAP was the global leader in enterprise resource planning (ERP) providers, with a 26% market share and reporting 13% growth over the previous year. Overall, the ERP market reported low double-digit growth last year as weak economic conditions curtailed IT budgets. SAP remains focused on gathering a bigger market share and is now competing with Oracle and Salesforce.com within cloud computing, big data analytics, and enterprise social software.

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Accenture Enters Marketing Services with Acquisition

According to IDC’s Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) market forecast, the worldwide BPO market is projected to grow 5.3% annually over the period 2011-2016 to $202.6 billion. IDC expects the U.S. market to grow annually at 4.2% during the period to reach $92 billion in 2016. The BPO market is driving growth in the performance of global leader Accenture’s (Nasdaq:ACN) performance as well.

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