Monthly Archives: March 2017

The media technology company has postponed its fourth-quarter and full-year 2016 earnings release. Now what

Shares of Avid Technology (NASDAQ:AVID) have fallen today, down by 16% as of 12 p.m. EDT, after the company postponed its fourth-quarter earnings release and related conference call.

The media technology company had originally planned on releasing fourth-quarter and full-year 2016 results yesterday after the close, with a conference call scheduled for 5 p.m. EDT yesterday, but instead announced the postponement.

Avid Interplay software. Image source: Avid Technology.

Avid said the postponement would allow its independent auditor to compete "routine procedures related to the 2016 financial audit" and that it is "working diligently" to help the auditor complete its audit as expeditiously as possible.

Generally, quarterly earnings releases are unaudited but full-year results are required to be audited, which is a time-consuming process. Delaying an important release like full-year results spooks investors, who fear the worst in uncertain situations like this. Since the company's explanation for the delay is somewhat vague, it stokes fears that something is wrong with its accounting or internal financial controls, which may or may not be the case. The point is that investors don't know if there's something more sinister going on or if it's truly just a procedural delay. Avid has not specified exactly when it will release results and 2017 guidance beyond "as soon as possible."

Evan Niu, CFA has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Evan is a Senior Technology Specialist at The Motley Fool. He was previously a Senior Trading Specialist at a major discount broker, and worked briefly at Tesla Motors. Evan graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, and is a CFA charterholder.

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Why Avid Technology Shares Plunged Today - Motley Fool

Science Daily

Research leads to a golden discovery for wearable technology Science Daily According to lead researcher Dr. Jay A. Switzer, the majority of research into wearable technology has been done using polymer substrates, or substrates made up of multiple crystals. And then they put some typically organic semiconductor on there that ... and more »

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Research leads to a golden discovery for wearable technology - Science Daily

VML expanded its technology team with the arrival ofPerry Puccettias executive director, technology.

In the role, Puccetti will focus onbringing in new technologies, capabilities and cost efficiencies, benefiting partners and clients alike while reporting directly to chief technology officerJeff Geheb.

Puccetti joins VML following a brief stint as vice president, client engagement for Kansas City agency Bernstein-Rein. Prior to that he spent over ten years with Kansas City tech consultancy Triple-I Corporation, where he served as president and CEO. Before that he served as senior adviser and COO at Ausley Associates, following nearly five years as senior manager at Sprint. Over the course of his career he has worked with clients including Microsoft,the U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, Honeywell, ConocoPhillips, Cessna, FM&T, Lockheed Martin and the Kansas City Area Development Council.

In addition to Puccettis hire, VML also announced a series of promotions in its technology department.

Martin Coady, a VML veteran of over ten years who most recently served as managing director, technology, will now serve as executive director, marketing technology. In the role, he will be tasked with developing the marketing technology practice, overseeing a team utilizing marketing technology to created integrated platforms providing solutions for clients.

Kylie Schleicherwill take on Coadys former role as managing director, technology. Schleicher joined VML as a director of quality assurance in April of 2014 and most recently served as managing director, quality assurance. Before joining the agency she served as quality assurance lead at J.P. Morgan, consulting quality assurance lead at Waddell and Reed and integration manager at PrescribersConnection.

Craig Elimeliahwill now serve as managing director, creative technology, a role which, according to a press release, represents a new type of creative technology leader that pushes thinking forward through an understanding of the combined benefit of all three areas for client business. He joined VML in August of 2015 as director, creative technology, following over four years at RAPP as senior vice president, director of creative technology.

Tiesha Miller was promoted to the role of group director, technology, after helping to establish the agencys Chicago office in her position as director, digital strategy beginning in August of 2015. Before that she spent nearly three years with VML as a business systems analyst and technical director, starting in 2011, leaving the agency to become global capability lead, marketing technology at Kimberly-Clark before her return to VML in her most recent role.

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VML Expands Technology Team With New Hire, Promotions - AgencySpy

By Laurent Saltiel and Naveen Jayasundaram

Emerging markets (EMs) often lag behind developed countries when it comes to technology adoption. But things are changing. Developing world countries and companies are rapidly becoming Internet trendsetters - especially in online retail and digital payments.

Conventional wisdom suggests that EMs are technology copycats. From the growth of China's nascent enterprise cloud market to India's billion-plus cell phone boom, EMs often follow the US and other developed world technology leaders.

These days, the Internet is leveling the playing field and many EM businesses are benefiting. More developed market companies are going to start paying closer attention to the innovations coming out of EMs, in our view. And for equity investors, these trends have important implications when searching for opportunities in emerging equity markets.

Emerging e-Commerce Is Exploding

Online retail is at the center of the changing landscape. In several EMs, e-commerce penetration is higher than in developed markets despite lower per capita incomes (Display). In fact, in some countries, the lack of a developed retail infrastructure actually proves to be an asset for e-commerce leaders.

India and South Korea are prime examples. In India, 90% of the retail sector is still unorganized and often unbranded. Offline retailers never established the kind of footprint and consumer behavior that Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) stores or Carrefour (OTCPK:CRRFY) have in their respective home markets. As a result, online retail penetration in India is already ahead that of Italy and will soon exceed that of Singapore, a country with one of the highest per capita incomes in the world.

Online Payments Surge Ahead

EMs are also blazing a trail in online payments - and are well ahead of developed countries. In the US, for example, mobile payment is still in its infancy, despite a big push by Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) to promote their respective payment platforms. According to a March 2016 survey by the US Federal Reserve, only a fourth of US smartphone owners had used their device to make a payment in the past 12 months.

In contrast, 86% of Chinese smartphone owners have made payments with their devices, according to Nielsen. With nearly 300 million users, Alipay, China's leading payment platform, processed more than US$500 billion in payments in 2015. Alipay, owned partly by Chinese online retail giant Alibaba (NYSE:BABA), is the most popular payment platform in China (Display) and can be used for anything from airline tickets to late-night street food. As Internet companies like Alibaba and Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) use their beachheads in online payment to expand into lending, insurance and wealth management, we believe they could even challenge China's traditional banks in the long run.

High-Growth Markets Present Real Risks

Technology innovation in these high-growth markets is fraught with risks, especially for first movers. The story of Flipkart, India's largest online retailer, is telling.

Flipkart was founded in 2007, six years before Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) entered the market. Amazon.com had learned its lessons from missteps in China, and made a much more aggressive launch in India by investing US$5 billion over three years, building a strong local team and providing same-day delivery to 100 Indian cities. Flipkart's efforts to fend off the threat faltered, and the company has lost market share while its valuation plummeted. The Indian market is still in flux, and things could change rapidly over the next five years as an estimated 150 million shoppers move online.

Scouting For EM Innovation

Innovation presents challenges and opportunities for EM equity investors. Finding true pioneers requires more than just screening for growth or profitability using standard equity measures. Investors need to develop an intimate understanding of local consumer trends and tastes, while focusing on industry-specific metrics, which are much more useful, in our view.

For example, when searching for consumer Internet companies, gauging customer lifetime value is especially insightful. This metric helps investors assess the earnings contribution from long-term relationships with customers, which in turn is driven by user acquisition costs and retention. Indian e-commerce pioneers score poorly in this regard and have suffered from weaker unit economics.

Barriers to entry are another important qualitative measure of a company's staying power. In nascent industries, the competitive landscape can rapidly change - and determine success or failure - as demonstrated by the Flipkart story. Yet unlike in India, Chinese Internet giants are well protected from foreign competition by governmental regulations as well as their ownership of unique assets with powerful network effects. For instance, Tencent owns the WeChat mobile app, which has nearly 850 million users.

Predicting winners in high-growth sectors and diverse regions is inherently difficult. By challenging conventional wisdom - and realizing that no two markets are alike - investors can discover EM technology trendsetters that are paving the way to lasting innovation, global leadership and sustainable long-term returns.

The views expressed herein do not constitute research, investment advice or trade recommendations and do not necessarily represent the views of all AB portfolio-management teams.

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Emerging Markets Blaze New Trails In Technology - Seeking Alpha

A lecture "The Future is Here: How Israel Technology is Changing the World" will be Thursday, March 30, 5-6 p.m. at the Riverfront Hall, Room 111, Western Illinois University-Quad-Cities, Moline.

The event is free and open to the public. It is an educational program presented by Scott Dubin from OurCrowd, and it will focus on the macro trends in the Israeli hi-technology ecosystem, as well as providing specific examples of "WOW" Israeli technology. Students, business people and the public are invited.

It is sponsored by the America Israel Economic Forum Quad-Cities, the Jewish Federation of the Quad-Cities, the America Israel Chamber of Commerce, and Western Illinois.

The building is on the corner of River Drive and 34th Street, and a parking permit is not needed in the lot next door to the building.

University-Quad-Cities. For more information contact Allan Ross, 309-793-1300 or aross@jfqc.org

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Event to discuss Israeli technology - Quad City Times

March 17th, 2017 Jason Jiang Containers, Contributions, Operations, Tech 0 comments

Chief correspondent Jason Jiang follows up on the recent news that Maersk and IBM are collaborating to bring blockchain technology into everyday shipping operations. Just what is this tech, and how can it be adapted?

The word blockchain has been in the shipping news a great deal of late especially following Danish shipping conglomerate Maersks new partnership with IT giant IBM to jointly develop blockchain for box shipping.

Maersk will use blockchain to keep track of international shipments. Rather than tracking entire shipments, the company is now narrowing its focus on the individual shipment of containers. At the same time, the companies hope to use blockchain to address the inconvenience of maintaining paperwork for deliverables with short or long trips to their destinations.

So what is blockchain? IBM has described it as a shared, immutable ledger for recording the history of transactions and it fosters a new generation of transactional applications that establish trust, accountability and transparency.

IBM established a blockchain that allows every participant involved to witness the shipments progress at any stage. They have a plan to start updating the user on the whereabouts of the container and the status of their goods in late 2017.

We believe that this new supply chain solution will be a transformative technology, with the potential to completely disrupt and change the way global trade is done, says Bridget van Kralingen, IBMs senior vice president.

Jody Cleworth, CEO of UK freight forwarder Marine Transport International reckons blockchain has the ability to empower the shipping industry into a true digital age.

Marine Transport International started to adopt blockchain technology in in its freight forwarding operations from September last year.

Instead of a VGM (verified gross mass) message being delivered sequentially to parties within the supply chain, our platform can provide a decentralised approach to delivering VGM messages. The sheer volume of containers processed per year means that safely decentralising the management of these containers will radically reduce the complexities of shipping, Cleworth says.

A grass roots approach in collecting and storing information on the blockchain is how shippers will be able to reap the full benefits of the technology, Cleworth adds.

So will blockchain become the game changing technology for the shipping industry?

The two co-founders of Copenhagen-based blockchain solution provider BLOC, which is short for The Blockchain Labs for Open Collaboration, certainly hope so.

The maritime industry is facing a tough and unpredictable future. Overcapacity, trust issues, decreasing rates and increasing competition from non traditional players and outdated systems will have a fundamental impact on the industrys long term prospects, says Deanna MacDonald, co-founder and CEO of BLOC.

MacDonald believes these challenges along with higher demands from society and cargo owners for transparency, traceability and accountability in the logistics chain will drive the industry towards exploring and implementing new solutions like blockchain.

Speaking of the challenges for development of blockchain in shipping, MacDonald reckons one of the biggest challenges has been the lack of clarity and understanding as to what blockchain actually is and this lack of understanding is not limited to the shipping industry.

On a general level there are technical barriers right now that cause relatively high transaction costs that may act as a hindrance in the short term and also future challenges that must be met to ensure existence of blockchain, says Maurice Meehan, the other BLOC co-founder.

Meehan used to work with the AP Moller Maersk Group, where he led the development and implementation of sustainability strategy in various business units.

According to Meehan, such barriers include a lack of storage infrastructure, the high carbon footprint associated with it and the fact that there are few blockchain developers and even fewer miners that can validate transactions to keep up with demand.

On the organisation level, due to the fact that blockchain is still in its early stages of development and is rapidly changing, it makes it a difficult technology to concretely assess, pin down and apply just yet because an application that is missing today might be there tomorrow, Meehan says, adding that the recent announcement from Mrsk and IBM to adopt blockchain has helped clear up much scepticism in trusting the technology.

In MacDonalds opinion, leapfrogging is likely not an option for the shipping industry to adopt blockchain due to its breadth and complexity, but the firm sees blockchain as both a transitional and a transformational technology that is accessible to companies of all sizes.

Transitional in that it will contribute to creating a shared commons of digital assets for the shipping industry and transformational in that applications built on top of this shared database will purposefully utilize the digital assets stored to provide more efficient and streamlined processes and new value streams throughout the global shipping industry, Macdonlad explains.

Meehan reckons it is difficult right now to say what the full potential of blockchain is for the shipping industry, and there are many steps to be undertaken by the industry as a whole before understand its potential, it requires understanding the needs of the industry and the collective problems faced in the global economy, building knowledge and understanding capacity in the field of blockchain and the potential it has for solving these problems, and collaboration and co-creation of the blockchain solutions in order to truly realise the benefits of the technology on an industry-wide scale.

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Blockchain: a transitional and a transformational technology for shipping - Splash 247