SunGard IPO Soon?

Analysts believe that in 2012, not only will the market see a continued increase in the number tech IPOs, but other companies that went private earlier may want to cash out and go public again. Wayne, Philadelphia– based technology player SunGard is expected to be among that second group. SunGard provides software and processing solutions for financial services, education, and the public sector.  They also provide disaster recovery and managed IT services in addition to consulting services for information availability and business continuity management.
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Adobe Shifting Business Mix

A SaaS roll-up has been triggered by Oracle’s recently acquisition of SaaS vendor RightNow for $1.5 billion. In 2009, Adobe acquired SaaS web analytics vendor Omniture for $1.8 billion and since then has been making small acquisitions to sharpen their focus on digital marketing. Adobe recently reported fourth-quarter results that beat estimates. The company also announced changes in their reporting structure to accommodate recent activity in digital marketing.

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SecondMarket Enhances Liquidity, But With Caution

The current volatile market has delayed IPO plans for many companies. But it has not stopped their shares from trading on alternative exchanges like SecondMarket. During the first three quarters of the previous year, SecondMarket recorded 75% growth in private company stock transactions to book transactions worth $435 million during the period.

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Symantec And Websense Adapt Offerings To Mobile Technology

A 2011 IDC report on the network security market estimated that this market will be worth $9.5 billion by 2014. Of this, software will account for 26% of the market and will grow at a faster rate over the next few years. Hardware-based security appliances were projected to end last year with revenues of $6.58 billion and were projected to grow to $7 billion by 2014. Security market players are working on new and expanded offerings to capture a bigger piece of this high-growth market.

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And Then There Were Three

I have been saying for some time that the future of EDA  lies in consolidation of the players from the current four-horse race to a two-horse one. Finally, last month, Synopsys showed that they understood this requirement with the announcement of their acquisition of Magma, a company I expected would have been acquired some time ago.

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Vancl Beneficiary Of China’s Massive E-Commerce Growth

With more than 485 million internet users, China’s internet population exceeds the entire population of the United States. According to a BCG report, The World’s Next E-Commerce Superpower, China will be a leading player in e-commerce adoption. In 2006, less than 10% of the country’s Internet users purchased goods and services online. In 2010, that number had increased to 23% and is expected to nearly double to 44% by 2015. China is expected to add 30 million e-consumers each year through 2015, and e-commerce in the country will account for 7.4% of its retail sales by 2015. Not only is the retail giant, Alibaba, stepping up efforts to capture this growing market, but other Internet players in the country are also planning their IPOs to fund the required growth for their operations. Below is an infographic showing China’s internet growth, courtesy of BCG.

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Oracle’s SaaS Shopping List

Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) in October announced its plans to acquire its first Software as a Service (SaaS) company, RightNow, for $1.5 billion. Oracle had for long shied away from making any acquisitions in the SaaS sector, but it can no longer ignore the SaaS market, which is projected by Gartner to reach $21.3 billion in 2015. RightNow was the first step for Oracle, and it is highly likely that many more SaaS acquisitions are to follow. Even its rival SAP has followed suit with the $3.4 billion acquisition of SuccessFactors, a SaaS talent management vendor. This year seems to be gearing up for a SaaS roll-up.

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Online Travel in China

iResearch estimates that China’s mobile Internet market grew 155% over the year and 39% sequentially to 10.83 billion by the third quarter of last year. Researcher Analysys International estimates that mobile Internet users will surpass computer-based Internet users by 2012 and account for more than 500 million users by 2012. Mobile phone app downloads are also increasing. They crossed 863 million downloads in 2010 and are expected to surpass 20 billion by 2013.

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Accenture Will Hire 60,000 in 2012

Market researcher Everest Group expects that in 2012 the IT outsourcing market will be driven by cloud computing and M&A activity. Although it seems that the economic crisis will still loom large in the first half of the year, by this fall, increased business confidence is expected to boost the growth in the outsourcing segment. Meanwhile, cloud computing will be a driving force among IT outsourcers. The researcher expects acquisitions within cloud computing and believes that demand will mature so that technology departments move beyond evaluation to focus on governance of the cloud. Accenture’s recently announced results could be indicative of this emerging trend.

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China To Be World’s Largest E-Commerce Market by 2015

China is seeing a boom in the e-commerce segment. According to Forrester Research, business to consumer sales in China are expected to triple to $159 billion in 2015 from $49 billion in 2010. Yet, within retail sales, e-commerce sales will account for a mere 5% share in the next three to five years. While that may be a small contribution, it is still a significant leap from the 2.5% share it accounts for currently. BCG expects China to be the world’s largest e-commerce market in 2015.

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