A Software Insider's Point of ViewNews Analysis

Big Tech and Market Reset Bring Optimism To Markets While many in the market are still psyching others into a recession, the fears are subsiding and the NASDAQ appears to be where the optimists are. Five factors have led to the mini rebound in this market of lowered expectations as watchers await the fed rate decision.:

This year's Amazon Web Services reInvent brought over 55,000 attendees to one of the premier tech industry events. The obvious and noticeable change in this year's event was an overemphasis on partnerships and alliances. The AWS leadership team made it clear that partners were more than welcomed.  IBM's presence as the Global Partner of the year did not go unnoticed by the attendees and of course the other public cloud vendors who have not yet had the courage to host in-person events at scale.

Microsoft Faces Its Biggest Challenge Despite Its "Social" Standing Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella’s and Vice Chair and President Brad Smith face their toughest challenge. There was always that belief that so long Microsoft acted like a“good citizen” on social issues they would be immune to anti-trust. That myth has been burst. The FTC has filed a lawsuit and a judge must decide if the case is strong enough to block the $69B deal. The FTC fears Microsoft will not provide titles for other platforms. Other headwinds include 16 countries that will have to approve the mega deal. China will probably block the deal to protect TenCent's position. Tencent also owns 5% of Activision.

The NASDAQ Composite closed out the week with its biggest two-day rally since 2008. CPI numbers hinted that inflation was subsiding and hope sprung that the Fed would take a less severe stance. Should the Fed hiking slow down from 75 basis points to 50 basis points, market watchers remain hopeful and some took advantage of the early signals of slowing inflation.

All Eyes On Digital Giant Earnings With recession headwinds driving lower valuations and earnings uncertainty in high gear, the level of fear remains high. However, in the past week, NASDAQ was up 5.2%. So the big question,will these digital giants hold their gains ahead of earnings season?

Disintermediate or Be Disintermediated On September 15, 2022, Adobe announced the largest acquisition of a private software company and the largest acquisition in Adobe’s history. In a half cash, half stock deal for approximately $20 billion, San Francisco-based Figma would be acquired by San Jose-headquartered Adobe. Adobe is paying a 50 times annualized recurring revenue (“ARR”) multiple for Figma which is expected to surpass $400 million in ARR exiting 2022.

Zephr Brings New Experiences to Zuora On August, 25th, 2022, the digital monetization leader Zuora acquired Zephr, a subscription experience platform, for $44 million cash on closing and an additional $6 million performance earn out. Zephr has been a key Zuora partner providing features such as dynamic paywalls, entitlements management, Intelligent trials, and identity management for the digital publishing and media industries.

Not All Big Tech Companies Are Equally Created The MATANA stocks continue to do well despite a confluence of crises. MIcrosoft, Apple, Tesla, Alphabet, Nvidia, and Amazon, collectively showed that big tech, digital giants who:

Customers Can Expect Physics-Based And Photo Realistic Digital Twins Today On June 29th, 2022, a venerable digital industrial and one of the leaders in the metaverse, announced a collaboration to create an industrial metaverse. The goal - accelerate the adoption and mainstream use of industrial automation. Siemens and Nvidia...

WWDC Announcements Do Not Disappoint On June 6th, 2022, Apple made some of its most significant announcements in a decade at the World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC). The live, in-person, Apple Park event, showcased the power of having a vertically integrated silicon to software approach and the benefits that over 30 million registered developers across its entire portfolio will enjoy in creating new experiences and outcomes for Apple customers.

Disney's Performance Shows Strength and Depth Of Portfolio Quality balance sheets, predictable revenues are key to sustaining stock prices during this current market rout. Investors only care about future forecast guidance despite current quarterly performance. While Disney's Q1 2022 showed 23% YoY gains with $1.4 billion in operating profit, guidance has been muted in spite of the near pandemic comparables.

Smaller Enterprises Can Now Affordably Manage And Secure Devices Like Large Enterprises On March 31st, 2022, Apple officially announced general availability of its Business Essentials offering for organizations with up to 500 employees. Business Essentials provides device management features such as setup, on boarding, backup, security, support and updates for devices such as the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV. Varying plan levels are based on number of devices and amount of storage.