Intuit’s Performance May Point to Bright Spots in Economy

Economic indicators, such as the number of jobs this past month, may not look very promising for the U.S. right now. However, the country’s small and medium-sized businesses are performing extremely well, recording both revenue and employment growth rates. Intuit’s Small Business Employment Index improved by 0.2% for May, as small businesses added 40,000 jobs in the month. In April, retail, professional services and other services saw minor improvements in the revenue index. At least for the SMB sector, analysts are hopeful that recovery is truly on the way.

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EMR Gaining Ground; Athenahealth Growing Steadily

The healthcare IT industry has been in the news lately as various medical authorities and organizations work together to define Stage 2 requirements of the Meaningful Use initiative. Under the HITECH Act, Stage 1 under the Meaningful Use initiative began in 2011 and referred to the capability of physician providers to transfer data to electronic health records (EHRs) and share information, including electronic copies and visit summaries for patients. According to the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS), 57% of office-based physicians are now using either partial or full electronic medical record (EMR) systems. >>>

Opportunities Abound for Pandora, But at a High Cost

According to the Radio Advertising Bureau, advertising dollars spent on U.S. radio increased just 1% over the year to $17.4 billion last year. Digital advertising reported the highest growth among all forms of radio advertising of 15% to $0.71 billion. Off-air advertising, also known as non-spot advertising, increased 7% to $1.5 billion and network revenues 3% to $1.1 billion. Spot advertising revenues fell 1% to $14.1 billion. Online radio player Pandora continues to expand in content and reach to capture this massive advertising market.

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With New Products, Rovio Seeks to Maintain Explosive Growth

Researchers estimate the worldwide mobile games market to be worth $2.7 billion in annual revenues this year. The market is projected to grow to $7.5 billion by 2015.  Asia is the biggest market for mobile games and is expected to account for $3.2 billion of the global market by 2015.

Angry Birds is known to be among the most popular mobile games. Earlier last month, their developer, Rovio, reported the one billionth download of the game. News reports suggest that they may now be looking at an IPO on the New York or Hong Kong stock exchanges by next year. Recently, Rovio disclosed their financial results to the public. Here is a quick look at their progress so far.

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Concur, NetSuite Look Toward Commerce

According to Gartner, global spending on software-as-a-service (SaaS) is projected to grow 18% this year to $14.5 billion. The market is projected to be worth $22.1 billion by 2015. Growth will come from emerging markets of Asia Pacific and Latin America, both of which will grow nearly 27% to $934.1 million and $419.7 million, respectively. North America is projected to grow 17% from $7.8 billion in 2011 to $9.1 billion, with Western Europe markets projected to grow 19% to $3.2 billion. Japan will see the slowest growth at 16% to $495.2 million in 2012. SaaS player Concur is gearing up to tackle these emerging markets.

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Yelp Looks to Be Integrated into Cars

Online review site Yelp.com (NYSE:YELP) recently reported their first ever quarter results as a publicly traded company. Although the company’s revenues may have grown beyond market expectations, they are coming in at significantly higher costs. The company continues to bleed and fails to deliver on a strong monetization plan.

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Salesforce.com vs. SAP for CRM Market Share

According to Gartner’s report, in 2011, the customer relationship management (CRM) software market was dominated by SAP, which captured a 19.3% market share. Salesforce.com came in second with a 16.7% market share, followed closely by Oracle at 16%. Microsoft was a distant fourth, with 7.5% worldwide CRM market share. But Salesforce is rapidly increasing sales to narrow the gap with SAP.

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As Competition Intensifies, Dell Embraces New IT Models

According to Gartner’s recently released global PC shipment report, worldwide PC shipments for the first quarter this year grew 1.9% over the year to 89 million units. Analysts projected growth of 1.2% during the period. HP expanded their market share from 16.9% a year ago to 17.2%, with shipment of over 15.3 million units. This was a very strong quarter for China-based Lenovo, which saw sales grow 28.1% over the year, helping them to surpass Dell and become the second-largest PC vendor in the world, with sales of 11.6 million units. It was a disappointing quarter for Dell, which saw sales fall 1.6% over the year, the first decline in two years, to 9.8 million units.

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HP Makes Aggressive Start on Overhaul Plans

Gartner’s global PC shipment report for the first quarter this year saw shipments in the U.S. fall 3.5% over the year to 15.5 million units. However, the market is relieved considering that Gartner analysts were projecting a fall of 6.1% during the quarter. Despite declining PC sales, HP seems to have walked out stronger. Gartner’s report estimates that HP’s PC shipments grew 6.6% over the year 4.5 million units. They now command 29% of the U.S. market compared with 26.2% a year ago.

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Genpact and Cognizant Expanding on Almost All Fronts

According to the Everest Group’s first quarter report on the global outsourcing and offshoring market, transaction volumes for global outsourcing contracts remained flat for the quarter. Overall contract values grew 11% over the year to $3 billion. The report saw improved activity in terms of contract signing within the BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) sector, which saw transaction volumes grow 12% over the year. MDR (manufacturing, distribution and retail) vertical activities improved 9% over the year, but the healthcare vertical saw a large drop in deals signed during the quarter. International expansion continued during the quarter, with new centers being setup in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.

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