Paychex Faces Threat From Intuit; ADP Continues SaaS Roll-up

Payroll giant ADP (NASDAQ:ADP) started off the year with a SaaS acquisition, DO2. This is its second SaaS acquisition within three months, the previous one being HRinterax. Its rival Paychex (NASDAQ:PAYX), on the other hand, has yet to make any acquisition. In fact, Paychex announced the sale of Stromberg to Kronos in October. >>>

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Significant Design Wins For QCOM, BRCM

Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) recently provided a disappointing outlook and lowered its 2010 guidance, citing competitive pricing and a slow recovery in developed markets. But the good news is that the company has design wins in Google’s Nexus One, as does Broadcom (NASDAQ:BRCM). Broadcom is also believed to be in the iPad. >>>

Cisco To Continue Gobbling

Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO), the networking giant with annual revenue of $36.1 billion, has made good use of the economic crisis to lap up companies in new and adjacent markets that position it for a battle of the titans as the market recovers. While Cisco is looking to expand to new horizons, its competitors are consolidating and trying to attack its core strengths. >>>

Networking Sector: Alternate Fronts Developing

There have been some major changes in the networking industry recently: Cisco acquired Tandberg for $3.4 billion, Lifesize was lapped up by Logitech for $408 million, and HP acquired 3Com for $2.7 billion. Responding to Cisco’s move, Juniper and Polycom have formed an alliance to offer videoconferencing systems and associated network infrastructure to service providers. >>>

Amazon, Netflix, And Me

With the economy in recession, there were concerns in early November about how strong the holiday season sales would be. But once the numbers from Thanksgiving week were out, industry players started to feel more confident, and National Retail Foundation data confirms that the 2009 holiday season was much better than expected. Specifically, December retail industry sales rose 2.3% (unadjusted) Y-o-Y. Several e-trends are in motion — e-commerce is growing, e-books are gaining adoption, and online movie rentals are are becoming more common. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

Chipmakers And Design Wins

The year that just ended was one of the worst ever for the semiconductor industry, with revenue declining 11.4% to $226 billion. However, last quarter Texas Instruments (NYSE:TXN), STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM), and Atheros (NASDAQ:ATHR) all reported results that were indicative of a recovering semiconductor market. While for TI and Atheros the outlook was strong, STM was more cautious. >>>

Microsoft’s Future Remains Cloudy Despite Windows 7

A recent IDC report indicates that the global PC market recovered in the fourth quarter of 2009 driven by sales of cheaper laptops, a clear sign of demand returning to some extent. Global PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2009 were up 15.2%, Y-o-Y, while the United States saw a 24% increase to 20.7 million units shipped during the same period. Shipments of consumer PCs are estimated to have grown more than 20% during the period while business PCs were roughly flat. >>>

Will SAP Open Its $7 Billion Wallet For SaaS In 2010?

This week, SAP (NYSE:SAP), the German enterprise software company, reported its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2009 results. Revenue exceeded the company’s target thanks to a strong fourth quarter. As the economy recovers, SAP also expects to return to revenue growth in 2010. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

Yahoo! Beating A Path To Nowhere

In an earlier post, I had discussed how Google is maintaining its search leadership and how Microsoft, thanks to Bing, is gaining some ground at Yahoo!’s expense. Yahoo! has been steadily losing its share of the global search market, which is now at 17.3%. To try to gain lost ground, Yahoo! finalized and executed a definitive search and advertising services and sales agreement and a licensing agreement with Microsoft in early December. But this is too little, too late in the day. Let’s look at Yahoo!’s financial results for fourth quarter ended December 31, 2009, to see how the company performed. >>>

Can Apple’s iPad Restore Paid Content?

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) reported a strong first quarter this week, but what is grabbing the headlines is its new product, the iPad. After the success of the iPod and the iPhone, Apple and just about everyone else are ready for another innovative product. Will our high hopes be fulfilled? >>>