Tag Archives: sap

Salesforce.com Q1 Beats, Hikes Revenue Outlook, Stock Rises

Salesforce.com ( CRM )  late Wednesday reported Q1 earnings and revenue that topped expectations and raised its full-year revenue guidance, sending the business software provider’s stock up 6% in after-hours trading. Salesforce, the leading provider of customer relationship software, said Q1 profit jumped 50% to 24 cents per share minus items. Revenue in the three months ended April 30 rose 27% to $1.92 billion, the company said.  Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had modeled 23 cents and $1.89 billion. In the current quarter, Saleforce forecast earnings ex items of 24 cents to 25 cents per share, up from 19 cents in the year-ago quarter, and revenue of $2.005 billion to $2.015 billion, up 23%. Analysts had estimated 25 cents and $1.98 billion. Salesforce increased its full-year revenue guidance to $8.2 billion from $8.16 billion, “given the strong response to our Customer Success Platform,” Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in the earnings release. San Francisco-based Salesforce  garners mainly subscription revenue from on-demand software delivered via the Internet, or cloud. “Salesforce’s  increased penetration of very large organizations and vertical-focused strategy, led by President and COO Keith Block, may mark the beginning of a trend of consistency in enterprise sales execution,” Jefferies analyst John DiFucci said in a pre-earnings research report. Salesforce has a strong IBD Composite Rating of 95, putting it among the top 5% of all stocks on key metrics such as sales and earnings growth. Its Computer Software-Enterprise group, though, ranks just No. 138 out of 197 industry groups tracked by IBD. Salesforce competes with Microsoft ( MSFT ), SAP ( SAP ), Oracle ( ORCL ), ServiceNow ( NOW ) and others. Salesforce last week said it would offer a new “Internet of Things” service using AWS, the cloud computing business of  Amazon.com ( AMZN ). Salesforce’s service, expected to launch this fall, collects data from Web-connected devices. AWS is the No. 1 cloud services provider.

Cisco Pressured By Enterprise Trends Ahead Of Fiscal Q3 Earnings

Negative trends in the enterprise market — large companies and government agencies — are lowering expectations ahead of Cisco Systems ‘ ( CSCO ) fiscal Q3 earnings, due out Wednesday after the market close. Many large companies are outsourcing business computing workloads to cloud computing service providers such as Amazon Web Services, part of Amazon.com ( AMZN ), lessening their need for the routers, switches and other networking gear sold by Cisco and others. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimate Cisco earnings minus items will rise 2% to 55 cents, though they see revenue falling 1% to $11.97 billion. “We see three major issues into this earnings release, including weak IT data points, all signaling industrywide IT spending weakness, less visibility around service provider spending, and global macro exposure,” Kulbinder Garcha, a Credit Suisse analyst, said in a research report. “Year to date, we have seen weak IT spending indications from large bellwethers including IBM ( IBM ), EMC ( EMC ), Juniper ( JNPR ), Brocade ( BRCD ) and SAP ( SAP ),” added Garcha, who has an underperform rating on the stock. JPMorgan analyst Rod Hall, in a research report, cited negative enterprise market commentary from Intel ( INTC ), Oracle ( ORCL ) and Hewlett Packard Enterprise ( HPE ). Reports of slower tech spending was a factor in the stock market’s plunge early in the year. With many tech companies struggling to meet expectations recently, an in-line quarter for Cisco might be good enough to move shares higher, said Citigroup analyst Jim Suva. RW Baird’s Jayson Noland was another analyst citing slower spending of late. “Our partner survey results indicate a softer-than-expected April quarter, with improved prospects for growth for the remainder of calendar 2016,” Noland wrote in a research note. Cisco stock, up 1% near 27 in early trading in the stock market today , is about even in 2016. Cisco stock is up 20% since touching a two-year low in early February.

Apple Recruits SAP To Help Sell iPads, iPhones To Companies

Apple ( AAPL ) on Thursday announced a partnership with German business software firm SAP ( SAP ) to push iPads and iPhones deeper into enterprises. The deal follows similar partnerships with IBM ( IBM ) and Cisco Systems ( CSCO ), which were struck over the last two years. “This partnership will transform how iPhone and iPad are used in enterprise by bringing together the innovation and security of iOS with SAP’s deep expertise in business software,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement . “As the leader in enterprise software and with 76% of business transactions touching an SAP system, SAP is the ideal partner to help us truly transform how businesses around the world are run on iPhone and iPad.” Apple and SAP aim to create new mobile work experiences for enterprise customers of all sizes that combine native apps for the iPhone and iPad with the capabilities of SAP’s HANA platform. As part of the partnership, SAP will develop native iOS apps for critical business operations. Apple hopes enterprise applications for tablets can revive iPad sales, which have been in a prolonged slump. In the March quarter, iPad unit sales and revenue fell 19% year over year. In late-afternoon trading in the stock market today , Apple stock was down 1.2%, near 93, while SAP stock was down a fraction, near 77.