Salesforce.com Inc

The Digital Marketing segment of Adobe (ADBE) provides solutions and services for creating, managing, and executing advertising and marketing initiatives.

Salesforce continued its spree in December 2016 with its acquisition of Twin Prime, a startup focused on machine learning.

Amazon’s AWS is a fast-growing business for the company that saw its revenues rise by 55% YoY (year-over-year) to over $3.2 billion in 3Q16.

For fiscal 3Q17, analysts expect Salesforce (CRM) to post revenue and non-GAAP EPS (earnings per share) of ~$2.12 billion and $0.21, respectively.

Focus on Marketing Cloud Earlier in this series, we discussed Salesforce’s (CRM) acquisition of Sequence. On February 20, 2017, Salesforce shared that it has been positioned as a leader by Gartner in its February 2017 Magic Quadrant for Digital Marketing Hubs report. Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud CEO and chief analytics officer Bob Stutz said that “we believe Salesforce’s […]

In 2016, Salesforce has continued to report double-digit growth and was ranked as the most innovative company by Forbes for the sixth straight year.

In fiscal 2016, Oracle reported ~$2.9 billion in cloud revenue. Oracle is making progress in the space and expects 65% growth in the space in fiscal 2017.

Oracle’s newly launched cloud offerings are a step forward in Oracle’s strategy to shift its database and CRM business to the cloud.

Once customers adopt specific operating systems, it would be very difficult for them to even consider changing it.

Salesforce is currently on the acquisition bandwagon. In mid-September 2016, it announced its acquisition of Gravitytank.

Except for Oracle’s relational databases, all other databases—especially MySQL—are losing to NoSQL databases.

On March 24, 2016, Oracle (ORCL) announced a new service in the cloud: Oracle Cloud at Customer. It’s a hybrid structure in which a client can run the workload on-premise or in Oracle cloud.

After the Bluewolf acquisition is finalized, the company will become part of IBM’s iX, or Interactive Experience, unit.

Since 2010, SAP AG (SAP) spent more than ~$12 billion on acquisitions. Concur Technologies is the largest acquisition in SAP’s 42-year history. In its 2Q14 results, most of SAP’s growth was from its cloud business—approximately $1 billion annually. Concur’s management mentioned that they expect to end fiscal year 2014 with ~$690 million.

After the acquisition, LogFire’s WMS (warehouse management applications) solutions will be integrated into Oracle’s SCM (supply chain management) cloud.

Coatue Management added a new position in Level 3 Communications Inc. (LVLT) during the third quarter. The stock accounted for 1.46% of the fund’s 3Q14 portfolio.

Application software is the software that you install on your operating system.

The realignment is expected to enable Microsoft to innovate with greater speed, efficiency, and capability in a fast-changing technological landscape.

Kenneth Cordele Griffin is the CEO of investment management firm Citadel Advisors LLC. He is the hedge fund manager and he founded Citadel in 1990. 

Microsoft is currently transforming from a software player to a “devices and services company” in an overhaul aimed at improving sales and MSFT’s competitive position.

Would you invest in a company that promises a technological utopia? It could be a simple answer – either you invest in it or you don’t.

Salesforce.com is a leader in the customer relationship management industry. The company has built its moat on the back of its network effect and strong brand.

Microsoft’s forward annual dividend yield was ~2.3% on May 15, 2017, and Oracle’s and IBM’s yields were ~1.7% and ~4.0%, respectively.

In the past seven years, including its fiscal 4Q17 results, Salesforce (CRM) has met or exceeded analysts’ expectations with each passing quarter.

Salesforce meets or exceeds analyst expectations Earlier in this series, we discussed Salesforce’s (CRM) initiatives and the threat posed by Microsoft (MSFT), Adobe (ADBE), and Oracle (ORCL) in the cloud space. Despite this mounting competition, with each passing quarter, Salesforce has managed to increase its revenue guidance. Earlier, Salesforce expected revenue of $10.1 billion–$10.15 billion […]

Salesforce’s deferred revenue So far in this series, we’ve discussed Salesforce’s (CRM) position in the cloud space and the threat posed by its peers. In fiscal 4Q17, Salesforce reported deferred revenue of $5.5 billion. Its unbilled deferred revenue stood at $9 billion. Its revenue grew 29% and 27%, respectively, in constant currency terms, indicating improvement […]

Microsoft’s edge over Salesforce in the cloud Earlier in this series, we discussed how Adobe’s (ADBE) and Microsoft’s (MSFT) collaboration could loosen Salesforce’s (CRM) grip on the cloud computing space. Salesforce pioneered SaaS (software-as-a-service) and had a first-mover advantage over peers Microsoft, Oracle (ORCL) and IBM (IBM). However, Microsoft soon became a dominant player in […]

Collaboration is the largest segment in the SaaS space and, after enterprise resource planning (or ERP), it grew the most in the SaaS space.

Oracle (ORCL) has targeted the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East, and North America to open more data centers in 2018.

Salesforce pioneered SaaS, and since its launch, Salesforce has developed an impressive mix of cloud-based offerings.

Despite a fall in overall revenue and no growth in any of its operating segments, IBM’s Strategic Imperatives segment managed to post growth in 3Q16.

Trump has planned a reduction in the current tax structure, and both immigration and taxation impact the IT sector—especially software sector.

Twitter trades at lower multiples than its peers Earlier in this series, we discussed rumors of Twitter’s (TWTR) possible acquisition and how Salesforce (CRM), Google (GOOG), and The Walt Disney Company (DIS) could be contenders. In this part, we’ll compare Twitter’s value proposition with that of other companies in the social media space. As of […]

Adobe’s Document Cloud performance in 3Q16 So far in this series, we’ve discussed Adobe’s (ADBE) performance in fiscal 3Q16. We also looked at Adobe’s increased Creative Cloud subscriptions, which enabled the company’s Digital Media segment to report a 29% revenue growth in fiscal 3Q16. Document Cloud (or DC) also contributed to Digital Media’s record revenue […]

Azure retained its position as a top performer in Microsoft’s cloud offerings with triple-digit growth in fiscal 4Q16.

On June 20, 2016, Adobe announced it had again been recognized by Gartner as a leader in the 2016 Magic Quadrant for Mobile App Development Platforms research report.

Earlier in this series, we discussed Salesforce’s (CRM) recently announced fiscal 1Q17 earnings. Now, let’s look at the company’s value proposition.

Earlier in the series, we discussed Salesforce’s (CRM) fiscal 1Q17 results and the company’s growing relationship with Amazon (AMZN).

Office 365 usage continued its upward trajectory in 2015. The company was able to close the gap between itself and Salesforce.com.

In 3Q15, Adobe’s (ADBE) expenses for R&D increased to $219 million from $212 million in 3Q14 and $209 million in 3Q13. R&D expenses allocated comprised 17.98% of total revenues in 3Q15.

OZ Management commenced a stake in CDK Global Inc. (CDK) by purchasing 4,521,952 shares of the company, representing 0.5% of the fund’s 4Q14 portfolio.

Oracle’s Rapid Retargeter helps to reconnect with the known customers or registered users who have left or abandoned their shopping carts.

IBM (IBM) intends to fuel its growth in the cloud space through the investment of billions of dollars, as well as strategic acquisitions.

Oracle’s expanded cloud platform includes new functionality for big data analytics, integration, process management, Java Platform Standard Edition, and Node.js for server-side JavaScript.

Salesforce1 is a cloud-based platform that serves as a foundation for building connected apps that link to mobile devices, wearables, and big data.

Salesforce.com is focusing on expanding its presence and operations across Europe by opening data centers.

Salesforce.com (CRM) has a subscription business. It collects revenue for many of its offerings and applications before services. The company reports that the “deferred revenue” is rendered from its customers. In 2011, deferred revenue formed 65% of its liquid assets. It grew to 95% in 2014.

Salesforce.com (CRM) got ~94% of its fiscal 2014 and six months ending FY15 revenue from subscription and support fees. The fees are associated with cloud services. This implies that it has a huge investment in cloud-based application services. Salesforce.com offered solutions as a system for customer relationship management (or CRM) through cloud.

Microsoft Azure might not be a leader, but it is expanding very fast in terms of applications and geography. Its hybrid cloud approach offers some hope regarding its future in the cloud space.

IBM’s Global Technology and Global Business Services combined form Global Services. Jointly, they contribute 57% of IBM Corp.’s (IBM) consolidated revenues.