It has been reported today that Broadcom is in advanced talks to acquire Symantec. Symantec shares have appreciated about 20% and are now trading at just above $26. If a deal is consummated at that level it will cost Broadcom almost $20 billion, including the value of the debt that would be assumed. That is…
Summary Medallia filed its S-1 last week. The S-1 reveals a story of accelerating growth and a remarkable improvement in the business model. Medallia is the leader in providing software for what is called Customer Feedback Management. Medallia’s rival, Qualtrics was sold prior to its IPO to SAP at a valuation of 20X revenues, or…
Summary Fastly is a recent IPO in the enterprise software space. It is a next generation content delivery service, but it also lets developers build on its Edge platform. The company offers some compelling performance and security advantages for users. The company has a much more efficient and modern technology platform than its best known…
This has been a week without a whole lot of drama in the software space so far as share price action. But there have been some interesting developments worth noting. My take on the week to date is that the software space continues to lead a relatively charmed life. On balance, while this year is…
Summary Elastic was one of the hotter IPO’s of the second half of2018. The shares, despite the company reporting strong operational performance and guiding higher, have pulled back about 25% from their high point. The pullback is most probably linked to both the expiration of the lock-up and the headline of dubious proportions about the…
Summary Nutanix reported disappointing operating metrics at the end of last month. The shares sagged another 20% or so, in the wake of the disappointing quarterly report and the concomitant guidance. The shares on an EV/S basis, have now descended to value terrirory. Part of the issue plaguing valuations is a still misunderstood pivot to…
One of the hottest categories in the software world at the moment has been that of solutions intended to monitor and manage outages for users. There are plenty of candidates in the running to succeed in the business and many different technologies. But I thought readers would want to read about the two most prominent…
Summary CrowdStrike is planning its IPO for 6/1219. The current estimated share price has been increased to $30 which will give the company a market capitalization of $6 billion. The shares will almost inevitably trade higher-and perhaps much higher. The company is experiencing one of the more rapid growth rates to be seen in the…
Tableau to be acquired by Salesforce Salesforce announced this morning that it was acquiring Tableau for an enterprise value of just less than $16 billion. Unlike most recent mergers, this is a stock transaction and will have a dilutive impact on the earnings of Salesforce. The initial reaction of Salesforce shares, down about 3% is…
Writing about DOCU’s quarterly results is not a happy undertaking-not because the results were bad-they weren’t or because the guidance was weak-that really wasn’t an issue either, but because the shares lost 17% AH and it is really hard to figure out why that might have been so. There were some sub-headline metrics that might…