LinkedIn’s IPO Will Usher In New Crop Of Internet Stocks

The social networking trend has become a mainstream practice courtesy of Facebook. While Facebook has yet to go public, LinkedIn, which is positioned as the leading social network for professionals, recently announced plans to go public this year. It will become the first social network to do so. It is also one of the first in a series of Internet IPOs expected to follow over the next year or two, products of a wave of innovation that was set in motion after the dot-com crash. All of the companies involved are taking advantage of the social behavior now prevalent on the Web. In 2003, when LinkedIn was founded, such behavior was not mainstream, and it took several years for the trend to catch on. But now, the results speak for themselves. >>>

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Strong Growth In SaaS CRM

According to research firm Gartner, SaaS within the customer relationship management (CRM) industry is expected to exceed $4 billion in total software revenue in 2014, representing more than 32% of the overall CRM market. Salesforce.com, the pioneer of SaaS CRM, recently reported strong sales and said it expected cross the $2 billion revenue milestone this year.

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Dell Needs To Up The Ante On Its Tablet Strategy

HP this week reported weak sales in its consumer PC business. Rival Dell also saw consumer sales decline slightly. However, according to IDC, Dell had solid growth in emerging markets that helped it to grow at 4.2%, a rate slightly above the market, and regain the No. 2 position in total PC shipments. The consumer PC market has been affected by the iPad and the numerous tablets being launched by other PC vendors. Consumers are stalling in their decisions to buy new desktops or laptops as tablets compete for their attention. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

HP’s Strategy Under Apothekar

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) this week reported mixed results and gave a weak outlook that missed analyst estimates and sent the stock tumbling about 12%. This was Leo Apotheker’s first quarter as CEO, and though it doesn’t reflect on his performance, there is no question that it highlights the challenges he will face.

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Shutterfly, Vistaprint Morphing With The Social Web

According to The U.S. Photo Industry 2010: Review and Forecast Report, the digital camera market is estimated to be worth $5.2 billion in the U.S., with 81% of the population owning digital cameras. The country is estimated to have generated 13.9 billion digital prints in 2010. As more 8-by-10 inch photos are now being printed at home, the growth in digital photo printing revenues is expected to be driven by photo cards. The latest holiday season saw a surge of photo cards and helped to boost the results of online photo services players. >>>

Should Disney Buy LeapFrog?

Cord-cutting has remained a serious threat to cable services providers over the past several months, and Time Warner and Disney recently came together to try to combat this threat. The two are bundling ESPN broadband streams with cable, and TV Everywhere customers can now view ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPNU programming online. Through the tie-up, Warner hopes to make TV Everywhere more compelling and thus help to retain customers. Both companies recently released their fourth quarter results, which exceeded market expectations.

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Intuit’s Edge Challenged By H&R Block This Tax Season

Intuit (NASDAQ:INTU), the maker of QuickBooks and Turbo Tax accounting software, last week reported its second quarter results that missed its revenue guidance due to a delay in electronic tax filings. Intuit expects the delay to shift about $60 million revenue to the next quarter, and its shares are trading about 8% higher after the earnings report. Some analysts, however, say that Intuit is facing stiff competition from H&R Block.

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Verizon iPhone A Game Changer Only With New iPhone

The iPhone has come to Verizon after a long wait and will definitely benefit the mobile carrier. But the initial response to the iPhone 4 on Verizon has not been enthusiastic. Meanwhile, AT&T, which no longer has exclusive contract with Apple is looking to bring in more Android devices including HTC’s Facebook phones. Let’s take a closer look.

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New Threats Bring New Opportunities For Websense, Symantec

According to the Websense 2010 Threat Report, the number of malicious websites increased 111.4% over the year in 2010. What’s more, 79.9% websites with malicious code were legitimate sites that had been compromised. As cybercrime continued to grow, 52% of data-stealing attacks were conducted over the Web and 34% of malicious Web/HTTP attacks included data-stealing code. A staggering 89.9% of all unwanted e-mails in circulation during the past year contained links to spam, malicious sites, or both. The United States and China led in cybercrime, remaining the top two countries hosting crimeware and receiving stolen data in 2010. As social networking gained prominence, malicious links on such sites also grew. The report estimates that 40% of all Facebook status updates have links and 10% of those links are either spam or malicious. Online security players are thus having to come up with newer products to keep themselves ahead of cybercrime.

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News Corp, NYT Eyeing More Digital Subscription Revenue

According to ComScore and the Newspaper Association of America, 62% of all adult Internet users in the U.S. accessed newspaper sites last quarter. Worldwide, 105.3 million unique visitors went to U.S. newspaper Web sites in the fourth quarter of last year. The visits accounted for an average 4.1 billion page views per month and 3.4 billion minutes spent online by viewers, compared with Nielsen’s estimate of 3.2 billion page views and 2.4 billion minutes in the same period in 2009. As the focus on digital content sharpens, newspaper giants are doubling their efforts to address this market.

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