Key Industry Trends
Software Maintenance Revenue - Sacred Cow or Hamburger Meat
The current economic downturn has given rise to numerous pieces of fundamentally good analysis on software company valuations that use software maintenance payments as a basis for valuing a business. Comments like “this company sells at only 2X or 3X its maintenance revenue stream†have popped up in numerous conversations with tech investors and sell side analysts as well as in Barron’s. ... Full story
Gartner Acquires AMR Research - A Comment on IT Spending?
Gartner, Inc. announced today an all-cash offer of $64 million for competitor AMR Research. Gartner (NYSE: IT; MGI-X: NR), expects the deal to close by the end of December, and will add AMR’s approximately $40 million in revenue to Gartner’s industry leading $1.2 billion (TTM) top line. The market reacted mildly positive to the news, edging its market cap up 3% in midday trading. Looking into FY2011, Gartner will need a new source of top line growth, unless of course the IT industry rebounds robustly ahead of expectations - which does not appear to be the expectation of AMR's owners/research leaders. ... Full story
Top Ten Tech Surprises for 2010
In the spirit of Byron Wien, MGI Research publishes a list of top ten surprises in technology. To make the list, the probability of the surprise must be less than 10% - i.e., we seek to highlight very low probability, but high impact events that run completely counter to conventional wisdom. ... Full story
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$246 million Jury Verdict Against i2 and JDA Software Highlights Hidden Risks
Today's announcement of the $246 million jury verdict against i2/JDA Software highlights the hidden legal risks that are often poorly understood by technology investors and management. The size of this jury award is unprecedented in the software industry and will likely have broad ramifications beyond the scope of JDA Software as a mid-size provider of enterprise applications. ... Full story