The results of the big hi tech show the supremacy of those who bet on new architectures. The Nasdaq back above 5,000 points
Milan , April 28, 2015 – 12:07
Maria Teresa Cometto
Mobile and cloud are the two magic words that are doing fly quotations of blue chip technology on Nasdaq, the stock exchange specializing in high-tech back at the highest last Thursday, 15 years after the collapse of the dot.com.
The content and advertising on smartphones and tablets, the services and products distributed via the Internet from the cloud (megacentri storage and data management) are in fact today the business with the highest growth rate: a mirage for Ultra-old IBM, a reality for the veteran ecommerce Amazon.com and the queen of the social network Facebook.
Their quarterly financial statements, published last week, along with those of Google, Microsoft, eBay and Yahoo !, offer important clues about how the tech market is evolving and on who has the best prospects cavalcarne trends. The worst results were those of Big Blue, the former computer giant that is now worth less than the stock market Facebook: for the twelfth consecutive quarter of its turnover fell, while the strategy of the Managing Director (CEO) Ginni Rometty, in office for three years, is struggling to bear fruit. His bet is reinventing IBM increasingly leaving behind the old hardware business, in decline, and betting on the new frontiers of cloud computing, cybersecurity, social networking, mobile technologies and data analysis.
All these activities should account for 40% of sales of IBM by 2018, according to plan of Rometty, almost double the 24% generated in 2014. To achieve this goal the CEO is taking decisions heretical, such as the recent alliance with former arch enemy Apple to offer iPhone and iPad apps for IBM companies. The Wall Street guru Warren Buffett has confidence in her, so as to have increased investments in shares Ibm 6.3 to 7.8% of his holding company Berkshire Hathaway, but the other shareholders are less patient: quotes are Big Blue the only red (11%) in the last year among all those considered here.
Up and down
Most brilliant, up 35%, are those of Facebook, the social network founded and led by Mark Zuckerberg, who has 1.44 billion active users per month (+ 13% on a year ago), of which 936 million active every day (+ 17%). It is a network that continues to grow and is a wealth of data ultra attractive to advertisers: Facebook fact knows precisely the profiles of “friends” and can offer companies the target much more accurate than those processed by Google based on the their behavior online.
If you add to this the fact that much of the activity on Facebook is done via mobile devices , we understand the boom of its turnover, grew by 42% last quarter. The net result, however, is in the red, because of the heavy investment on long-term projects of Zuckerberg as virtual reality and Internet access anywhere from heaven. But investors are hoping that other app controlled by Zuckerberg – WhatsApp Messenger and Instagram – which for now generate zero profits, sooner or later becomes profitable. Competition from Facebook in the mobile advertising is one of the thorns in the side of Google, which continues to grow, but more slowly than in the past. Profits, always derived largely from advertising search engine, remain solid, but on the future of the company co-founded and led by Larry Page also weighs the antitrust proceedings initiated by the European Union. An interesting innovation of the quarter was the revelation for the first time of how important the business in the cloud for Amazon.com: accounts for 7% of all revenue and grew 49% over last year, on track to generate 6 billions of dollars in revenue this year; is also a source of good profits, $ 265 million (operating profit) in the quarter. The company of Jeff Bezos is the leader with 28% of this market, a place beloved by investors, still willing to be patient on the budget in the red, caused by heavy investments in new technologies (eg drones) and new services (spending home). Behind Amazon. com in the Microsoft cloud advances, that with Azure has reached 10% of the market. Satya Nadella, before becoming the CEO of software company, was the head of Azure and its development is one of the cornerstones of the strategy to overcome the decline of the old business model. His next test will be launched this summer, the new operating system Windows 10, the unifying language for PCs, tablets and smartphones. While it remains to be seen if the promised price cut will be enough to revitalize sales bloodless apparatus manufactured by Microsoft, especially the former Nokia phones.
Former stars
Two tarnished star Internet, eBay and Yahoo !, are the most difficulty in finding the path of growth. Ebay suffer competition from new services Amazon.com for online merchants and the low costs of new competitors as Jet.com. His only growing business is the online payment system PayPal, which will be spun off later this year. Marissa Mayer, to guide Yahoo! for nearly three years, has invented the acronym Mavens (in English means “very influential experts”), which stands for “mobile, video, native and social advertising”, the sectors on which the tip to revive the company. Which is fine on the Stock Exchange now only for the expectations on the sale of investments in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan.
April 28 2015 | 12:07
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