ARM A Huge Challenge For Intel

The David-versus-Goliath rivalry between Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) and ARM (NASDAQ:ARMH) continues to unfold in a way that will have a major impact on consumer and mobile computing. Intel, which has annual revenue of about $43.6 billion, manufactures its own processors and dominates the computing industry. For the past few years, it has been trying to position its Atom processor for the mobile computing industry but hasn’t been able to counter ARM’s dominance in mobile computing or lure away its licensees, such as Apple and Qualcomm. ARM, which licenses its processor architecture and has annual revenue of $631.3 million, is looking to push its low-power architecture toward traditional computing as well. Both Intel and ARM recently reported strong results.

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Nokia Reinventing Itself With Microsoft

Nokia (NYSE:NOK) recently reported first quarter results that beat estimates but gave a disappointing outlook for the second quarter as it is hit by supply chain problems due to the earthquake and related crisis in Japan. And that is not the only hurdle that Nokia has to leap over. Amidst the intense competition in the smartphone market, Nokia’s market share has been declining and for the first time has dipped below 30%. Apple has overtaken it to become the leading vendor by revenue. To reverse its declining market share, Nokia recently announced that it has signed an agreement with Microsoft to make the Windows phone platform its primary smartphone strategy. >>>

TCS, Infosys Broadening Geographic Reach

According to a market report released by the Everest Group, the global outsourcing market grew at a compounded rate of 6% from 2008 to 2010. IT outsourcing (ITO) transaction volumes grew at an annualized rate of 5% during the period, while business process outsourcing (BPO) transactions increased 12% during the same period. The market recovery was led by the banking, financial services, and insurance sectors and by North America.

The report also discussed major delivery trends and noted that Asia continued to lead offshore activity with 39 new delivery centers set up in India last year. Eastern European cities saw 32 new centers, followed by 27 in Latin America, 25 in the Philippines, 16 in China, and six in Africa. The trend seems set to continue through this year with leading Indian IT players setting up new centers in Asia and expanding hiring in emerging regions. All this is consistent with our forecasts in the Top 10 Outsourcing Trends post that the outsourcing destinations will broaden greatly this decade.

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Yahoo Focuses On Content, Not Web 3.0 – A Mistake

According to eMarketer, U.S. Internet ad revenues will increase 10% over the year to $28.5 billion in 2011. Total online ad spending in the U.S. grew 14% over the year last year to $25.80 billion. Google will remain the leader in online ad revenues, and these revenues are estimated to grow 23.5% over the year to $12.4 billion this year. Yahoo! will remain the second-biggest player, but its overall online ad revenues are expected to fall 2% over the year to $3.4 billion. Social network leader Facebook should have the biggest growth: ad revenues are expected to increase 81% over the year to $2.19 billion.

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Apple Overtakes Nokia In Revenue

Apple reported yet another stellar quarter this week driven by the momentum of its iPhone which was recently released on the Verizon network. It recently released its iPad 2 and sold every piece it made. Steve Jobs is on medical leave but the company’s products have gathered such good momentum that he is not needed to sustain it.

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Commerce A New Strategic Direction For IBM

IBM (NYSE:IBM) this week reported strong results that beat estimates driven by its server business. As a result, it raised its full-year outlook. IBM is also benefiting from its focus on analytics, cloud computing and the Smarter Planet initiative. It announced another new initiative, Smarter Commerce, to address rising customer demand in the increasingly digital commercial world.

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Google On Hiring, Acquisition, And R&D Spree

According to the Advertising Bureau, Internet advertising increased 15% last year to $26 billion, compared with a 3% decline in 2009. The report found that the top 10 online ad companies contributed to 75% of all business in the last quarter of 2010. Search advertising, led by Google, accounted for $3.3 billion revenues in the last quarter and contributed 46% of total Web ad revenues for the year. Search advertising grew 12% over the year. Display ads contributed 38% of total Web ad revenues last year. Mobile advertising is also becoming a significant player, with revenues estimated to be $550 million to $650 million for the year.

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BitTorrent Trying To Improve Image Through Content Partnerships

Peer-to-peer file sharing service BitTorrent announced early in the year that it has more than 100 million monthly users of its two software products—the original BitTorrent Mainline, and µTorrent. Founded in 2004 by Bram Cohen and Ashwin Navin, BitTorrent has raised more than $40 million in funding from investors. BitTorrent makes it easy to share and download large files of movies, videos, music, and games online and has oft been accused of facilitating illegal file sharing. However, the company has been making efforts to become a legitimate distribution system.

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Akamai Holds Good On Its Promise

Akamai has achieved its target of $1 billion in annual revenue and set itself the goal of achieving annual revenue of $5 billion. Recent results show that Akamai’s media and entertainment revenue has rebounded dramatically. To increase it even more, Akamai has over the past quarter renewed its long-term deals with Netflix and several other top media customers. Netflix accounts for about 20% of peak U.S. Internet traffic, and this deal augurs well for Akamai.

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Accenture Makes Important Acquisitions In Mobile And Automation

Gartner continues to raise its estimates of worldwide IT spending. Its latest report forecasts 2011 spending to increase 5.6% over the year to $3.6 trillion. The inclusion of handheld tablet devices to the computing hardware category has helped increase the forecast. Worldwide media tablet spending is projected to grow to $29.4 billion in the year from the $9.6 billion reported last year. Computing hardware spending is expected to grow 9.5% over the year to $409 billion followed by 7.6% growth in enterprise software to $255 billion. IT services are projected to grow 5% to $824 billion and telecom services are expected to grow 4.9% to $2.1 trillion. Improved IT enterprise spending is already boosting the financial performance of IT outsourcers.

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