Shutterfly Flying High

The online photo sharing market has been in the news lately due to patent infringment suits filed by Kodak and Shutterfly against each other. Analysts believe that Kodak’s patents are exceptionally broad that cover images stored in a central repository and which can be ordered online. The legal battle will be closely watched by Facebook, now the world’s largest photo-sharing site. To its photo sharing capabilities, Facebook recently added features such as enabling users to upload or download high-resolution photos, bulk tag photos, and the lightbox UI that help focus on the image.

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Will Healthcare IT Stimulus Help With America’s Deficit?

In a Treasury report released earlier last week, the U.S. government’s net financial position for the year ended September worsened to $13.5 trillion deficit from $11.5 trillion deficit reported a year ago. The fiscal deficit for the period grew to $2.1 trillion from $1.3 trillion a year ago. On a brighter note, the cash budget deficit did drop marginally from $1.4 trillion a year ago to $1.3 trillion. But analysts expect this number to remain above the $1 trillion mark due to the continuation of tax cuts in the current year. To control the growing deficit and manage health care administration costs, a year ago, the Obama administration released the government’s health care funding stimulus with benefits such as a $30 billion federal aid for hospitals adopting electronic records. Existing manual processes in the industry add to the expenses. For instance, a call for an eligibility benefits check costs the insurance company as much as $11 and has cost the country as much as $9 billion. It is thus not a surprise that health care IT companies are having a strong run in recent quarters.

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Online Real Estate Sector Update

The U.S. housing market is still struggling despite the lowest mortgage interest rates in nearly 60 years, with average 30-year fixed rate loan interests bottoming at 4.21% in October. But while the interest rates have eased, credit norms have become tougher. During the third quarter, 13% of bank loan officers surveyed by the Federal Reserve reported that standards had grown tighter, while fewer than 4% said standards had loosened. And, even when falling prices could have fuelled demand, expiry of the home owner tax credit and the legal battle over the process of repossessing foreclosed properties has further dampened the market. Unemployment rates remain high; according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national jobless rate increased marginally to 9.8% in November, and this isn’t helping the market, either.

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Oracle’s Shopping List

Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) reported strong results last week driven by its Sun acquisition. With the acquisition, Oracle is competing aggressively against HP and IBM in addition to its age-old rivalry with SAP. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

RIM’s International Footprint Widening

Research in Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM) last week reported strong third quarter results that beat all estimates. On the other hand, research firms and analysts have been reporting on dismal performance of its BlackBerry phones compared to that of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android phones. Let’s dig deeper. >>>

Governments Meddling In Microfinance

Earlier last week, the Andhra Pradesh state government passed a bill restricting the interest rates and debt collection methods followed by the microfinance industry. To control collection measures, the bill restricts recovery agents to collecting debts only at the district government office. The bill also restricts the frequency of debt collection to once a month instead of weekly. Further, to control interest rates, the bill stipulates that the amount of interest on a loan cannot exceed the loan principle. The state’s politicians are encouraging borrowers to default on their loan repayments in a bid to discourage profit motives of the micro-financiers. According to reports, on the insistence of politicians, creditors in the state have stopped repayments on loans, and less than 10% of borrowers made payments in the past few weeks. India’s microfinance sector is estimated to have a total loan portfolio of Rs 31,500 crores (~$6.90 billion), of which Andhra Pradesh accounts for over Rs 9,000 crores (~$1.96 billion). The recent legislation is expected to hurt the microfinance sector in the country. >>>

Leapfrog Continues To Execute

According to market researcher The NPD Group, traditional toy sales in the U.S. remained relatively flat during the first half of 2010 with total sales of $7.771 billion compared with $7.748 billion a year ago. In Europe’s five largest toy markets, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K., revenue increased 5% over the year led by 8% growth in the U.K. Meanwhile, electronic toy maker Leapfrog (NASDAQ:LF) has been having a good run.

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Alcatel Finally Back to Growth

EDA Players At Annual Highs

Gartner forecasts worldwide semiconductor revenue for 2010 to increase 31.5% over the year to $300 billion. In 2011, growth is expected to slow significantly to 4.6% to $314 billion. During the year, the memory segment is expected to post the strongest growth, with revenues increasing 49.8%. According to the report, smartphones, mobile PCs, and media tablets will help fuel semiconductor growth. Semiconductor revenue from media tablets will increase from $2.4bn in 2010 to $17.8 billion in 2014, and revenues from the mobile phones will grow 23% over the year in 2010 to $48.7 billion and another 13.6% in 2011 to $55.4 billion. IDC also projected single-digit growth for the industry in 2011 with semiconductor revenues projected to grow 9% over the year to $302 billion in 2011. According to IDC, tablets, e-readers, and other such consumer electronics will help drive consumer semiconductor revenues increase 10% over the year in 2011. Amid such positive numbers, the leading EDA players have shown encouraging results.

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Tablet Effect On Storage Industry

Apple’s iPad and a slew of tablets from other vendors like Dell, HP, and even RIM are set to take market from PCs. While Sandisk (NASDAQ:SNDK), the leading flash memory chipmaker, is set to benefit from this trend, the leader in hard drive and storage solutions, Seagate (NASDAQ:STX), is facing a setback and was considering a buyout as a strategic option. >>>