Author Archive

• Two out of Three Ain’t Bad
  Chris Selland, December 17th, 2009 at 5:42 pm, Comments: 0

  3 key tech earnings announcements this afternoon: Oracle ($ORCL) beats both revenue and profit forecasts and expects the Sun ($JAVA) acquisition to close in January.  They also got in some nice shots at IBM ($IBM) and SAP ($SAP) Research in Motion ($RIMM) also reports a solid quarter including record shipments and increases guidance. Palm ($PALM) [...]

• Palm – Going for Volume with the Pixi?
  Chris Selland, December 15th, 2009 at 12:36 pm, Comments: 0

  I was initially skeptical this morning on MKM’s buy call on $PALM, but thinking it through the scenario is at least interesting. While the Sprint-only ($S) Pre has had a very tough time competing with the iPhone and other high-end smartphones, the newer and lower-end Pixi is being heavily promoted & discounted at Amazon ($AMZN), [...]

• Cloud Storage Pricing – Where’s the Bottom?
  Chris Selland, December 8th, 2009 at 4:10 pm, Comments: 0

  Amazon ($AMZN) and Google ($GOOG) have recently announced dramatic declines in cloud (hosted) storage pricing – what does this mean for smaller providers?

• Is Apple on the Acquisition Trail?
  Chris Selland, December 5th, 2009 at 11:24 am, Comments: 0

  Interesting news about $AAPL acquiring online music company LaLa Media.  Although a spokesperson’s statement that ‘we acquire smaller technology companies from time to time’ is true, it has been quite some time since the company’s last deal (PA Semi in April 2008). The acquisition has received generally positive reviews so far – although LaLa is [...]

• Some Predictions for 2010
  Chris Selland, December 1st, 2009 at 11:36 am, Comments: 0

  Late last week the team at SiliconANGLE asked me for a set of predictions for 2010 – which I’ve slightly edited here for the StockTwits community.  The original post can be found here. I’ll admit it – I love ‘holiday prediction’ time.  It gives us all a chance to reflect on the year past and [...]

• What’s next for Salesforce.com ($CRM)?
  Chris Selland, November 18th, 2009 at 10:27 am, Comments: 0

  Still growing, if a bit less briskly $CRM was pounded in after-hours trading post yesterday’s earnings announcement, despite beating revenue estimates and raising guidance, largely due to the company lowering revenue growth expectations for 2011. The poster child for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), by all accounts, continues to execute very well in a tough business environment.  $CRM [...]

• Clash of the Networking Titans – What’s Next for $HPQ?
  Chris Selland, November 12th, 2009 at 2:04 pm, Comments: 0

  Not surprisingly, there’s a lot of interest and speculation in what happens next after the $HPQ acquisition of $COMS. First of all, yes of course $HPQ is going after $CSCO (who isn’t these days?) – but as usually happens when the leader gets attacked, I expect the damage, at least in the near-term, to be [...]

• Today’s Deals Extend – Will Tomorrow’s Expand?
  Chris Selland, November 9th, 2009 at 4:31 pm, Comments: 0

  As I (and many others) have been speculating, Tech M&A is most definitely back. $GOOG is, as expected, very active, acquiring mobile advertising provider AdMob for $750M as well as Voice over IP (VoIP) provider Gizmo5 for $30M.  Neither acquisition opens up any new markets for the company, but deepens and doubles down their presence in mobile [...]

• Nuance
  Chris Selland, November 5th, 2009 at 11:43 am, Comments: 0

  Spent time yesterday with $NUAN – company is very well-positioned in two major growth markets – Healthcare and Wireless.  This on top of their solid presence in core enterprise telecom/speech recognition market.  Good example of my ‘Taking the Next Hill’ theory. Liked what I heard – added some shares in my own account.

• Should $RIMM sell?
  Chris Selland, November 5th, 2009 at 9:46 am, Comments: 0

  Lively debate going on this morning regarding whether it’s time for $RIMM to find a buyer, as Dan Frommer argues that they have become an enterprise dinosaur in an increasingly consumer-driven market.  So should they sell? As I argued here recently, $GOOG is rapidly ascending and $AAPL has quickly become the leader in attention if [...]