Continue reading Comcast's Key: Cable System Subscribers

Comcast's Key: Cable System Subscribers originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI) remains troubled. Just look at the second-quarter report that was released on Thursday after the bell. Net sales dropped over 20%, coming in at roughly $1 billion. The company lost 19 cents per share, one penny better than the loss reported in the year-ago period (to which I say, big deal!). According to the preview, the market wanted to see $1.1 billion for the top line and a loss of only 12 cents for the bottom line. A failure on both counts, I'm afraid.

Cash flow was the more attractive part of the Q2 story. The company calculated its free cash flow to be about $109 million. Okay, I'll give Blockbuster a good mark for having positive cash flow this year.

Continue reading Blockbuster reports sales drop, loss in Q2

Blockbuster reports sales drop, loss in Q2 originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 14 Aug 2009 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

That wasn't a big deal, though. The free cash covered both the dividend and the monies used to repurchase shares. In fact, Reuters reported that the buyback activity in the quarter represented a resumption of the program. We can take that as a positive sign of confidence from management.

Continue reading Comcast tops projections in Q2, keeps free cash flow steady

Comcast tops projections in Q2, keeps free cash flow steady originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Salesforce.com: Customer relationship software on demand is in demand

Salesforce.com: Customer relationship software on demand is in demand originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Time Warner Cable's one-penny promotion backfires originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) will bombard its customers with content. It is opening a new business that will offer its cable subscribers a massive library of films and TV shows that they can also watch on the internet. Comcast hopes to offer up to 6,000 movies.

According to The New York Times, "Comcast is already the world's largest buyer of content, and it is spending about $4.5 billion a year to assemble content from around the world to offer on demand."

While Comcast's TV offerings will be only available to subscribers, its internet video site will be open to the public. But how does that help the company? Comcast is up against established internet video sites, ranging from YouTube to the higher end Hulu. There is abundant video material already on the web.

From a cable VOD standpoint, most consumers only watch the most popular films. Having thousands of extra films is hardly likely to bring in extra subscribers.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Comcast's new on-demand video business originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 08 Jan 2008 08:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Founded in 1999, Intacct is now a key player in the on-demand software space. The focus is on enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for small and mid-size companies (of which there are about 2,000 customers).

To ramp up growth, the company raised $14 million in venture capital. The investors include Sigma Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures, and Emergence Capital Partners.

I had a chance to interview the company's CEO, Mike Braun. He is a veteran of the tech world, having worked at high level positions for IBM (NYSE: IBM) as well as a variety of upstart companies.

Q: Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) just reported a record quarter. What's your perspective on the company's future growth prospects?

A: It was a fantastic quarter -- further demonstrating the momentum of the new "on-demand" computing model. Salesforce continues to focus on new customer acquisition, which drives high expenses in the near term, but you can get a preview on the future by looking at the cash flow growth of 197% YTY. Once companies move to this delivery model, whether with salesforce.com or Intacct, they love it and will stay for life.

Continue reading CEO Interview: What's the big deal about on-demand?

CEO Interview: What's the big deal about on-demand? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 26 Aug 2007 09:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I admit it. I'm a Mark Cuban addict. It's okay though, I can give it up at any time, I swear. For now though, I won't stop reading Mark Cuban. He's just so real, so genuine. He's the kind of guy I'd like to have living across the street from me just so I could go over and offer him a beer once in a while (if I still drank beer that is). In any case, at least once a week I need a fix of Cubanism, so I trek over to The Blog Maverick to see what Mr. Cuban is writing about.

Mark Cuban has put an interesting spin on this broadband video subject. It's an angle that I never really thought about. He suggests that we may be looking at this content delivery stream from a reverse perspective. His assertion is that while we are all wondering how to get our favorite internet content from our PCs into our TVs, we're missing the fact that the delivery apparatus is already there! Mark Cuban puts forward the proposition that internet content such as YouTube (NASDAQ:GOOG) could be presented to our televisions from the provider end rather than the user end of the proposition!!! Egads! Why didn't I think of that? (I guess that's why he's Mark Cuban and I'm not ).

The proposition is so simple that it makes me wonder why we haven't caught on that it's being done already. Every pay-per-view service that was ever subscribed to via cable or satellite is exactly the thing we're asking to have given to us, video on demand. When you add in the fundamentals of the current video gaming formats via Play Station, XBox and similar, then the circle is completed and you have "interactive video of choice on demand.".The trick is to get our televised entertainment providers to tap into the internet servers and start providing us that content. We would simply subscribe to our data streams of choice and they would "download" to our televisions via our DVRs. Total availability, total control and total recording ability would then be ours.

It sounds quite simple the way Mark Cuban describes it, but I must admit that almost everything does.

YouTube, DVR and subscriber TV: Are we doing this backwards? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 30 Jan 2007 15:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.