You're getting pitched every day from your legacy enterprise software and hardware vendors about "cloud." They're doing an amazing job of convincing your CIO and CTO about what cloud is and how you should use it. The reality is they're defending their shrinking market share and keeping you on the legacy treadmill for as long as they can by selling you solutions that aren't "cloud."
In her session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Niki Acosta, Cloud Evangelista for Rackspace, will talk thro...| By PR Newswire | Article Rating: |
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| December 6, 2012 09:31 AM EST | Reads: |
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CHICAGO, Dec. 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include Zynga Inc. (Nasdaq:ZNGA), Synacor Inc. (Nasdaq:SYNC), Facebook (Nasdaq:FB), Majesco Entertainment (Nasdaq:COOL) and Electronic Arts (Nasdaq:EA).
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Here are highlights from Wednesday's Analyst Blog:
Zynga Partners Synacor
Social game developer Zynga Inc. (Nasdaq:ZNGA) recently signed a partnership deal with Synacor Inc. (Nasdaq:SYNC), a cloud-based television services provider. Synacor's cloud-based platform enables cable, satellite and telecom companies to deliver entertainment services and apps to their subscribers across multiple devices. The partnership will enable subscribers to directly access Zynga's home page, games and in-game currency beginning 2013.
Social games, which are mostly free-to-play, primarily earn revenue from the sale of in-game currency that is used by players to purchase virtual items, power-ups and energy while playing. Zynga currency (also called credit) is used in most of its games namely Zynga Poker, Words With Friends, FarmVille2, ChefVille, CityVille, Bubble Safari and Ruby Blast.
Although the financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, such as revenue sharing of the in-game transactions between the two companies, we believe that the increasing usage of in-game currency will boost Zynga's top-line growth going forward.
The partnership comes at an opportune time for Zynga. The company recently lost its exclusivity to Facebook (Nasdaq:FB), which is a serious setback, considering the fact that the social networking platform has been its primary source of revenue over the last few years (currently 85.0% of Zynga"s traffic and 92.0% of its revenue). The Synacor deal will not only reduce Zynga's dependence on the Facebook platform but will also expand its customer base going forward.
Synacor has a strong clientele of approximately 45 cable, satellite and telecom companies that include names such as Verizon and Charter. Its service reaches approximately 24 million households who have access to high-speed Internet. We believe that the partnership will allow Zynga to reach a sizable audience over the long term.
Lately, Zynga has been criticized for the lack of new and diversified gaming content, which is failing to attract new users. We believe that increasing penetration will attract new game developers, which will improve gaming content over the long term. We believe that the deal will also promote Zynga currency as a suitable alternative to Facebook Credit for many game developers, thereby boosting in-game transactional revenue going forward.
Over the last 12 months, Zynga has been entering into partnership deals in order to gain momentum in the social, free-to-play and casual gaming market. In October 2012, Zynga entered into a partnership deal with Gibraltar-based online gambling company bwin.party to offer real-money poker and casino-style games in the U.K.
In May, Zynga teamed up with American Express and created a new platform called Serve. In June 2012, the company announced a new network (Zynga with Friends) and also started providing programming tools to third party developers to publish online mobile games. Zynga also announced partnerships with Majesco Entertainment (Nasdaq:COOL) and Atari.
However, we note that growth from these partnerships will take some time to materialize. In between, its games continue to lose popularity and money amid stiff competition from established players such as Electronic Arts (Nasdaq:EA). Further, the revised terms with Facebook (despite all Zynga initiatives to reduce exposure) will remain an overhang on the stock in the near term.
We remain Neutral on Zynga over the long term (6-12 months). Currently, Zynga has a Zacks #3 Rank, which implies a Hold rating in the short-term (1-3 months).
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Published December 6, 2012 Reads 1,468
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You're getting pitched every day from your legacy enterprise software and hardware vendors about "cloud." They're doing an amazing job of convincing your CIO and CTO about what cloud is and how you should use it. The reality is they're defending their shrinking market share and keeping you on the legacy treadmill for as long as they can by selling you solutions that aren't "cloud."
In her session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Niki Acosta, Cloud Evangelista for Rackspace, will talk thro...May. 23, 2013 09:38 AM EDT Reads: 111 |
By Elizabeth White As enterprises deploy private IaaS clouds into production they are reevaluating their future application delivery models. SUSE and WSO2 believe that private PaaS will leverage the automation and scalability of Private IaaS solutions, such as OpenStack-based SUSE Cloud, to deliver the secure, standardized development environments that will make migrating to an agile, serviceoriented delivery model possible.
In their session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Chris Haddad, VP of Technology Ev...May. 23, 2013 09:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,286 |
By Jeremy Geelan The new open source cloud orchestration platform called OpenStack is the promise of flexible network virtualization, and network overlays are looking closer than ever. The vision of this platform is to enable the on-demand creation of many distinct networks on top of one underlying physical infrastructure in the cloud environment. The platform will support automated provisioning and management of large groups of virtual machines or compute resources, including extensive monitoring in the cloud.May. 23, 2013 06:30 AM EDT Reads: 2,840 |
By Jeremy Geelan Everyone is virtualizing, but are they realizing any of the promised savings? This overview of IBM's new virtualization optimization solutions will show you how integrated Cloud Solutions like SmartCloud Provisioning and SmartCloud Monitoring can deliver the savings virtualization promises.
Organizations are using intelligent management and analytics to provide the insight needed to optimize their virtualized infrastructure and dramatically improve availability, reduce data storage footprint...May. 23, 2013 06:15 AM EDT Reads: 2,043 |
By Jeremy Geelan One of the most compelling promises of the cloud is that you can pull out a credit card and be working in minutes. No purchase orders to fill out, no equipment to wait for on the loading dock. Just instant access to the resources you need, when you need them. But accessibility comes at a price, and an unintentional consequence may be that you create yet another orphaned identity silo. Enterprise IT has spent years consolidating its mishmash of directories, only to discover that cloud now threate...May. 23, 2013 06:00 AM EDT Reads: 3,319 |
By Pat Romanski Cloud computing is transforming the way businesses think about and leverage technology. As a result, the general understanding of cloud computing has come a long way in a short time. However, there are still many misconceptions about what cloud computing is and what it can do for businesses that adopt this game-changing computing model.
In his General Session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Gene Eun, Senior Director, Oracle Cloud at Oracle, will discuss and dispel some of the common myth...May. 23, 2013 04:00 AM EDT Reads: 2,492 |
By Liz McMillan OpenStack Cells is one of the most anticipated features in Grizzly, the seventh release of the open source software that offers more block storage options and scalability. It has been running in production at Rackspace for more than a year.
In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Wayne Walls, OpenStack Developer Advocate at Rackspace Hosting, will discuss nova cells and how it is changing the way you design your cloud applications and infrastructure. He will explain how OpenStack ...May. 23, 2013 01:15 AM EDT Reads: 2,109 |
By Jeremy Geelan "Since Cloud Expo is running the week of June 10, we thought it'd be a great idea to schedule our Meetup this week. That way, if you have colleagues, friends, or family in town that week for the Expo, you can invite them to join you!" With those words, the OpenStack New York Meetup Group's organizer's launched a landing page this week where anyone interested can register for the June 12 evening event.May. 22, 2013 01:45 PM EDT Reads: 864 |
By Elizabeth White May. 22, 2013 01:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,049 |
By Pat Romanski “Open source has always provided a number of benefits, including easing adoption costs, propagating a better understanding of the technology, and allowing for faster evolution and commercialization of products and services based on it,” noted Terry Woloszyn, Founder & CEO, Leeward Security Ltd., in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “This is clearly evident with the OpenStack and CloudStack,” Woloszyn continued, “and others that have been quickly commercialized as...May. 22, 2013 11:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,245 |
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As enterprises deploy private IaaS clouds into production they are reevaluating their future application delivery models. SUSE and WSO2 believe that private PaaS will leverage the automation and scalability of Private IaaS solutions, such as OpenStack-based SUSE Cloud, to deliver the secure, standardized development environments that will make migrating to an agile, serviceoriented delivery model possible.
In their session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Chris Haddad, VP of Technology Ev...
The new open source cloud orchestration platform called OpenStack is the promise of flexible network virtualization, and network overlays are looking closer than ever. The vision of this platform is to enable the on-demand creation of many distinct networks on top of one underlying physical infrastructure in the cloud environment. The platform will support automated provisioning and management of large groups of virtual machines or compute resources, including extensive monitoring in the cloud.
Everyone is virtualizing, but are they realizing any of the promised savings? This overview of IBM's new virtualization optimization solutions will show you how integrated Cloud Solutions like SmartCloud Provisioning and SmartCloud Monitoring can deliver the savings virtualization promises.
Organizations are using intelligent management and analytics to provide the insight needed to optimize their virtualized infrastructure and dramatically improve availability, reduce data storage footprint...
One of the most compelling promises of the cloud is that you can pull out a credit card and be working in minutes. No purchase orders to fill out, no equipment to wait for on the loading dock. Just instant access to the resources you need, when you need them. But accessibility comes at a price, and an unintentional consequence may be that you create yet another orphaned identity silo. Enterprise IT has spent years consolidating its mishmash of directories, only to discover that cloud now threate...
Cloud computing is transforming the way businesses think about and leverage technology. As a result, the general understanding of cloud computing has come a long way in a short time. However, there are still many misconceptions about what cloud computing is and what it can do for businesses that adopt this game-changing computing model.
In his General Session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Gene Eun, Senior Director, Oracle Cloud at Oracle, will discuss and dispel some of the common myth...
OpenStack Cells is one of the most anticipated features in Grizzly, the seventh release of the open source software that offers more block storage options and scalability. It has been running in production at Rackspace for more than a year.
In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Wayne Walls, OpenStack Developer Advocate at Rackspace Hosting, will discuss nova cells and how it is changing the way you design your cloud applications and infrastructure. He will explain how OpenStack ...
"Since Cloud Expo is running the week of June 10, we thought it'd be a great idea to schedule our Meetup this week. That way, if you have colleagues, friends, or family in town that week for the Expo, you can invite them to join you!" With those words, the OpenStack New York Meetup Group's organizer's launched a landing page this week where anyone interested can register for the June 12 evening event.
“Open source has always provided a number of benefits, including easing adoption costs, propagating a better understanding of the technology, and allowing for faster evolution and commercialization of products and services based on it,” noted Terry Woloszyn, Founder & CEO, Leeward Security Ltd., in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “This is clearly evident with the OpenStack and CloudStack,” Woloszyn continued, “and others that have been quickly commercialized as...
Imagine if you could take a time machine five years into the future, so that you would know which of today’s new technologies panned out and which did not.
Most companies have only started using cloud in the past two years. But there are some companies that have been using cloud for five years or...
“The last time I checked, people do not change their social security numbers very often...”
While in constant debate over data encryption and ease of access, I encountered a train of thought that made my jaw drop. A tradeshow attendee suggested encrypting everything, but just use a weak algorithm; ...
Don and I have four children, all of whom have had the fortune to take piano lessons (I'm not sure if the youngest would agree he's fortunate at this point in his life but at five, he's not really able to answer the question with any degree of wisdom, anyway. Come to think of it, not sure the other ...
Our prior post, A Roadmap to High-Value Cloud Infrastructure: Disaster Recovery and Data Protection, discussed both the benefits and limitations of a cloud-based disaster recovery (DR) strategy. As we highlighted last week, traditional disaster recovery options leave open a huge hole: At one extreme...
Online collaboration has evolved during the last decade, delivering even greater value -- thanks to a new generation of business technology applications. Forbes Insights released "Collaborating in the Cloud," a Cisco-sponsored study examining the ways business leaders increasingly look at cloud coll...
New technologies allow schools, colleges and universities to analyze absolutely everything that happens. From student behavior, testing results, career development of students as well as educational needs based on changing societies. A lot of this data has already been stored and is used for statist...
A recent Gartner study states that the function of the modern CIO is in flux and that his or her future focus must incorporate digital assets (aka cloud-based data and applications) to remain relevant. Towards the goal of riding the sea change a compiler of stacks to a broker of business needs, secu...
In the coming years, big data will change the way organisations and societies are operated and managed. Big data however, is not the only trend that will impact significantly how organisations operate. Another major trend at the moment is gamification. Gamification will change the way organisations ...
We all talk about cloud differently, but is there a way we should be speaking about this tech?
Cloud computing is now a widely reported, if not accepted, IT movement that, depending on who you talk to, has changed or is changing the way businesses utilize infrastructure.










