Proofpoint Targets Postini Customers

According to Gartner, cloud-based security software solutions will account for 15.6% of the $26.2 billion market for security software by the year 2016. For 2012, Gartner expects the security software market to be worth $19.1 billion, with cloud-based security solutions accounting for 5% of the market’s share. Gartner believes that demand for cloud-based security solutions will grow at a compounded rate of 23.7% from 2012 to 2016.

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RIM Declines Steadily to Just 5% Market Share

According to Gartner’s second-quarter analysis of worldwide mobile device sales,  sales of mobile devices fell 2.3% over the year to 419 million units. 37% of mobile devices sold last quarter were smartphones. Gartner estimates that smartphone sales grew 43% over the year to 154 million units driven by strong performances by both Apple and Samsung. The two players combined accounted for 83% of smartphone sales during the quarter. Android OS–based devices accounted for 64% of the market compared with 43% a year ago. Apple’s iPhone now accounts for 19% of the smartphone market compared with 18% over the year. Symbian and RIM continued to see sharp declines in phone sales, and Symbian phones now account for 6% of the market, while RIM phones contributed just 5%. A year ago, RIM phones had 11.7% of the smartphone market.

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What Happens to Dell Now?

A recent IDC report estimates that worldwide PC market will grow a mere 0.9% this year to 367 million units. This is the second consecutive year of poor growth, and it is attributed to the slowing down of emerging markets and volume declines in mature markets. IDC research suggests that consumers are waiting to evaluate the performance of Windows 8 and Ultrabook products and are thus delaying their PC purchases. Rising tablet sales are also hurting PC shipments. During the second quarter of this year, the number of tablets sold worldwide grew 66% over the year to 25 million units. IDC projects the PC market to grow at 7% annually over the period 2013-2016, compared with 8.4% projected earlier.

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Angie’s List Imploding

Several social media stocks that went public last year are dealing with stock lock-up expiration periods this year. Not only are leaders like Facebook witnessing strong declines following the expiration period, but other players haven’t been spared, either. Online review site Angie’s List saw its stock price fall significantly the day the lock-ups expired. Add to that a bleak outcome, and things seem to be going downhill for the company.

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Fusion-io Growing Fast but Still Looking for Profits

According to an IDC report, the solid state drive (SSD) market is expected to see strong growth in the coming years. Worldwide SSD shipments are projected to grow at an annual rate of 51.5% over the period 2010 to 2015. Gartner expects the enterprise flash market to be worth $4.5 billion by 2015.  Memory player Fusion-io has seen a year go by since it went public on the NYSE despite economic conditions.

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Niche e-Commerce: Blinds.com Sells More Than $100M of Window Covers

Much of the market may still be following the rise and fall of several social media stocks. There are, however, several other interesting stories and business cases of how traditional retailers have used the Internet successfully to make it big in the connected world. For instance, players like Blue Nile have hurt brick and mortar jewelers. Another such retailer is Houston-based Blinds.com, which has become the largest online window covering store in America.

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Nokia To Benefit From Samsung’s Setback?

According to Gartner, during the first quarter of 2012, worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users fell 2% over the year to 419.1 million units. The decline was attributed to slow demand in the Asia-Pacific region. Nokia lost its market leadership position, which it had held since 1998, and paved the way for Samsung to become the world’s leading mobile handset vendor. During the quarter, Samsung reported sales of 86.6 million mobile phone units, up 26% over the year. Samsung now boasts ownership of 21% of the market, compared with 16% a year ago. Nokia saw sales drop 23% over the year to 83.2 million units. The company’s market share fell from 25% a year ago to 20% during the quarter.

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Intuit Divests Non-Core Businesses

According to Intuit’s Small Business Employment Index, small and medium businesses (SMBs) in the country are witnessing weak growth in employment and compensation rates. The July Index showed that employment within SMBs grew 0.17% in the month, while average monthly compensation grew 0.3%. Revenues for SMBs have fallen 0.5% over the previous month, indicating that the market remains tough.

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Online Real Estate Market Sees Two IPOs

Although a full recovery is still far away, analysts believe that the housing market may have begun to improve. In July 2012, sales of previously occupied homes grew 2.3% over the previous month. Over the past year, house sales have increased more than 10%. Home construction is also looking up. Market researchers predict that home construction will grow 0.2% in 2012, making it the first year since 2005 to register growth in the housing market. Meanwhile, the online real estate market has already seen Zillow’s IPO, and Trulia has also filed. >>>

Ticketfly Competes with Ticketmaster

San-Francisco-based Ticketfly was founded in 2008 by Andrew Dreskin and Dan Teree. They believe themselves to be much more than an online ticket selling solution and see the company as an end-to-end, cloud-based social ticketing platform for event promoters and venues. The platform helps integrate ticketing with event website and social marketing in addition to providing analytical tools that help event promoters increase sales to their events. Event organizers can sell tickets not only through event websites, but also through social pages such as event pages on Facebook. Some analysts have called it the fastest-growing, independent ticketing and social marketing platform.

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