Hewlett-Packard and The Rise of Big Data

Untold amounts of information,or big data,is cascading into corporate storage every day.Big data is a pretty dramatic change for the software industry,according to Ann Winblad of the venture capital firm Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.Ninety percent of the world's data has been produced in the last two years.All of the companies have to find ways to process and organize big data.
Hewlett-Packard is getting into the business by paying 10.3 billion dollars for big data specialist Autonomy Corp,PLC.These big data experts are high gross margin businesses.Facebook is big data.These are big stakes,to own this software stack.
The most robust area for venture capital was software.Where there are changes,innovators come to the rescue of the incumbents.Without new tools,you cannot use big data.We're funding a number of start-ups that are developing tools to use this data,and there is a strong market for them,Ms.Winblad ascertained.
Autonomy,the HP acquisition target,is a British-listed firm that was founded in 1996.It offers an infrastructure platform for understanding human-friendly data.Its meaning-based computing recognizes patterns and concepts in email,documents,videos,phone calls,and so on,with applications in such fields as governance and marketing.Eighty percent of such data went unused in the past.
In the U.S.,Autonomy Corp,PLC trades on the over the counter pink sheets under the ticker symbol AUTNF.
Hewlett-Packard(HPQ)

Symantec's Promising Outlook

Software titan Symantec is forecasting higher profits and sales in its future.It has a steady chart and steadily improving revenues,points out Joel Fishbein,a senior analyst and managing director at Lazard Capital Markets.
The growth of Symantec's deferred revenues has been impressive.Quarter after quarter,more are signing up for its services.That suggests more success in coming quarters.
Mr.Fishbein has a buy rating on Symantec.The company has done a phenomenal job of focusing on the right areas.It has the most comprehensive portfolio of security technologies.
As a big enterprise services firm,one weakness it has is in the consumer market.Symantec will be focusing on the mobile market to address that.It's really hard to develop security on all of the platforms,so the company buys acquisitions that are growing faster than Symantec itself,Mr.Fishbein observed.
Symantec was founded by Gary Hendrix in 1982.A multinational corporation based in Mountain View,California,the company's Norton antivirus and data management products generate much of its revenue.
FBR Capital Markets,a prominent investment bank and asset manager,has upgraded Symantec's rating to outperform from market perform.
Symantec(SYMC)