Tag Archives: request

Siri, Why Aren’t People Using Voice-Activated Personal Assistants?

Apple ’s ( AAPL ) Siri, Amazon.com ’s ( AMZN ) Alexa, Alphabet ’s ( GOOGL ) Google Now, Microsoft ’s ( MSFT ) Cortana and other voice-activated services are getting lots of attention — but they aren’t getting that much use, a new survey, as reported by eMarketer, says. Even as consumers increasingly turn to mobile phones for shopping, communicating and information, only 13% of U.S. mobile phone owners use a voice-controlled personal assistant on their device each day, says the survey from 451 Research, which was taken last June. Adding together the 13% of survey respondents who said they use such a service daily to the 14% who said they used it weekly and to the 10% who reported using it monthly, that still only comes to little more than 1 in 3 mobile phone owners who say they use a personal digital assistant at least once a month. But there are big caveats. For one, June is a long time ago for a fast-emerging technology. Moreover, at the time, fully one-third of respondents said they didn’t have a mobile phone that gives them an option to use a personal assistant, the survey said. EMarketer models the U.S. to have 177.8 million mobile phone users as of year-end, or just over half of the population. By 2018, it forecasts that there will be 207.1 million mobile phone users, or about 63% of the population. “And, as mobile devices become more sophisticated and offer options like voice-controlled personal assistants, more of those searchers may be inclined to try them out,” eMarketer said. Amazon’s Alexa is able to hail rides from Uber , play music, set timers and manipulate smart devices in homes, such as Google’s Nest smart thermostat service, among other functions. This month, Capital One Financial ( COF ) announced that it was adding a “skill” — Amazon-speak for a function — enabling customers to use Alexa to check their credit card balances or make payments. Shares of Apple and Alphabet were up about 1.5% in afternoon trading in the stock market today , while Microsoft stock was near 1.3% and Amazon.com was up a fraction.

Facebook Nears New Buy Point As Big Techs Retake Key Levels

Loading the player… A new base is taking shape for Facebook ( FB ), as the social media giant’s stock has finally broken through an area of resistance. Facebook’s popular photo-sharing app Instagram said Tuesday it’s soon rearranging feeds to show posts based on what users would most likely want to see, rather than showing them chronologically. That’s much like an algorithm Facebook uses. Shares are on track for their fourth straight day of gains, with the stock breaking through resistance at the 110 price level. The stock now looks to be forming the right side of a new base, rising 1.2% in soft volume Wednesday. Facebook is trading 4% below its February high and a potential buy point. Apple On 6-Day Win Streak Meanwhile, Apple ( AAPL ) has notched gains for the past five sessions, boosted by a gap-up yesterday, as Morgan Stanley said iPhone demand was tracking ahead of expectations. Volume is tracking lighter than average as the stock looks to gain more today. Up 1.4% in afternoon trade, Apple is now trading above the 105 price level, an area the stock hasn’t traded above since Jan. 4. Apple is 21% below its high reached last April. Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft Retake 50-Day Lines Among other large-cap tech stocks, Amazon ( AMZN ) was able to retake its 50-day line on Monday and is continuing to hold above that level. Amazon shares are 16% below their late December high and a potential buy point. Amazon stock rose 0.5% intraday. Google parent Alphabet ( GOOGL ) was able to retake its 50-day line last Friday. The stock is now looking to break past resistance at the 750 price level. Alphabet is 6% below its February peak, up 0.8% Wednesday afternoon. Microsoft ( MSFT ) also retook its 50-day recently. Microsoft shares are trading about 4% below a potential buy point, rising 1.5% Wednesday.

Oracle Gives Analysts Some Fun Watching Cloud Rising, Stock Too

After the hell that many hotshot software stocks have put investors through this young year, Wall Street analysts got a break. “Listening to Oracle ( ORCL ) conference calls is always a hoot,” said Canaccord Genuity analyst Richard Davis in a research note Wednesday, following Oracle’s late-Tuesday Q3  earnings that beat analyst estimates . “In the 16 years we’ve followed this firm, we can’t remember a quarter when management wasn’t wildly bullish. This quarter was no different, with Trump-like phrases like ‘slaughter,’ ‘better and better,’ ‘game over,’ etc. “The good news for our now almost exactly 3-year-old buy rating is that Oracle’s execution has begun to catch up with its verbiage. Indeed, this was the first quarter in four in which Oracle did not scuffle somewhere — bookings, revenues, earnings or whatever. Investors are still jumpy after the January panic, so this means they are flocking to moneymakers like Oracle.” Oracle stock was up 4% in afternoon trading in the stock market today , near 40, and touched an eight-month high. Rivals  Microsoft ( MSFT ), Salesforce.com ( CRM ) and SAP ( SAP ) were up about 1% Wednesday afternoon. Not that Davis was totally giddy: “Should ORCL decisively penetrate the $40 price level, we will declare victory and seriously consider downgrading the stock from today’s buy to a possible hold.” What’s all the fuss? They can visualize Oracle’s cloud-revenue skyrocketing, while traditional database-software sales shrink. Oracle and its traditional enterprise-software customers have faced a tough conversion, but now Oracle is developing serious momentum with its own cloud and hybrid-cloud growth, shepherding the transition of its customers while absorbing the shrinkage of its still-dominant traditional enterprise sales. Oracle Acceleration Seen “With 310,000 on-premise database customers, the company sees an enormous potential TAM (total addressable market), as database customers continue to shift to the cloud,” said Evercore ISI analyst Kirk Materne in a research note Wednesday. “Management also noted that renewal rates were higher than in previous years.” Materne put annual recurring revenue from cloud software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) sales up 77% in constant currency in Q3, with billings up 32%, “and importantly, this strength is expected to translate into accelerating revenue growth going forward,” he said. In Q3, Oracle said it added 942 new SaaS customers, more than half of which were Oracle Fusion ERP (enterprise resource planning) software subscribers. SaaS clients now total more than 11,000 with more than 2,000 on Fusion, Materne noted. Oracle sold customer experience (CX) SaaS to 465 new customers and 500 existing ones in Q3. Human capital management software was sold to 213 new customers. Oracle’s ERP Cloud attracted 334 new clients, “175 of which did not have an Oracle on-premise app before,” said Materne, for an installed base exceeding 1,800 clients. Still, for all the excitement of watching Oracle’s cloud revenue fly 40% to $735 million in Q3, that only amounted to 8% of Oracle’s total $9.01 billion in sales for the quarter. Revenue fell 3% from the year-earlier quarter. Traditional software revenue slipped to $6.34 billion from $6.64 billion, as the legacy line slipped to 70% from 71% of total revenue. Likewise, legacy hardware sales slipped to $1.13 billion, or 13% of Q3’s total sales, from $1.29 billion, or 14% a year before. “This is obviously a continuation of execution of their pivot toward the cloud pursuit,” Gartner analyst Charles “Chad” Eschinger told IBD via email. “Top line is better than I expected, even with the transition, especially with the increase in margins, where there have been many curmudgeons.”