Oracle Brings Some Cheer

Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) last week reported strong results driven by its software business. Hardware sales continued to decline and were at the lower end of the company’s guidance. Oracle maintained that rather than revenue numbers, its focus is on increasing the profitability of its hardware business. Let’s take a closer look.

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Baidu And Alibaba Launch Mobile OS

According to the China Internet Network Information Center, at more than 500 million Internet users, China has the largest population of internet users in the world. McKinsey estimates that in China, 6 million people access the Internet for the first time each month. They expect China’s Internet population to rist to 750 million by the year 2015. The company’s Internet players are already having a good market run.

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Security Market Continues To Grow

According to Gartner, Governments, corporations and individuals spent $16.5 billion on security software last year – growth of 12% over the previous year. Last year, Symantec captured 19% of the security market share and was the leader in the segment. Spending on security software is expected to grow 14% in 2011 and another 10% in the following year. IDC meanwhile estimates that security spending will grow annually 9.1% over the year through 2013.

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Yandex Topping The Russian Internet

According to Moscow-based Association of Communication Agencies, online advertising in Russia grew 51% from 2008–2010 to reach 26.65 billion rubles (~$940 million). During the same period, spending on print ads in the country fell 41%, radio ads declined 21% and television ads fell 6%. And, it is not just online advertising. The country was named by the Boston Consulting Group as the one with the largest internet industry in Europe after Germany. The Internet industry is expected to amount for 3.7% of GDP by 2015, more than double the contribution in 2009. Yandex, the online Russian search engine, is among the companies benefiting from the market’s growth. Known as the “Google of Russia,” the company launched their IPO in the U.S. earlier this year.

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Pandora Must Deal With Increasingly Sophisticated Competition

According to researchers, 63% of IPOs that came out this year are now trading below their list price. But despite the weak performance, overall the IPOs were still better than the S&P 500 Index. Year to date, the S&P 500 Index is down 11.5% compared with 6.5% reduction faced by the IPOs. Pandora, the online radio company, is among the newly listed stocks this year facing similar headwinds. >>>

iPhone 5 Should Give Verizon An Edge

The iPhone was released on Verizon in February this year. However, since it was not a new model, it was not as much a success as it was expected to be. With the iPhone 5 to be released soon, a huge spurt in sales is expected at Verizon, the No.1 wireless carrier. In the meantime, its closest rival, AT&T, is facing problems with its T-Mobile deal. Let’s take a closer look.

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RIMM Looking Shaky

According to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Media Tablet and e-Reader Tracker, media tablet shipments worldwide grew 90% sequentially and 300% over the year in the second quarter to 13.6 million units. IDC forecasts 62.5 million units to be shipped worldwide in the remaining half of the year compared with 53.5 million units projected earlier. The biggest market share is commanded by Apple’s iPad, which contributed 68.3% of the market share. Android-based media tablets contributed 26.8% of worldwide tablet shipments. Despite the launch of BlackBerry Playbook, Research in Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) failed to break into this growing market. Most concerning, their smartphone business is showing signs of floundering.

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Akamai Will Shine Through

Akamai (NASDAQ:AKAM), the content delivery network (CDN) market leader with annual revenue of $1.02 billion, recently reported results that exceeded its guidance but its growth rate failed to meet its expectations. However, Akamai maintains that the long-term outlook for the company is as promising as ever. Let’s take a closer look.

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Online Jobs Players Area Of Strength In Very Weak Job Market

According to government statistics, no jobs were added last month in the U.S. Unemployment rates in the country remained flat at 9.1% and last month was labeled to be the weakest employment report for the economy since September 2010. Unemployment has been more than 9% in all but two months since May 2009. Economists estimate the July–September quarter growth in the country to be close to 2%, a number not high enough to generate more jobs.

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New Products And Acquisitions For Fusion-io

Market reports estimate worldwide spending on traditional data centers to be worth $1.24 trillion annually. According to Fusion-io, nearly $260 billion of that spend is value wasted waiting for data owing to data center inefficiencies. Fusion-io, the recently listed storage memory platform provider, is targeting these annual data center inefficiencies.

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