Daily Tech Snippet: Friday, August 21

Twitter shares hit an all-time low: Twitter stock dropped below its initial public offering price in intra-day trading Thursday as the company looks for a new chief executive. The social media titan has watched stocks slide for weeks after a disappointing earnings call with analysts last month that highlighted the company's troubles with growth and focus. On the call, interim chief executive and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey said that the company would need time to hit "mass market" growth — a message that didn't sit well with investors. The Pew Research Center reported Wednesday that 23 percent of all American adults online use Twitter, but that user growth among U.S. adults has slowed to a halt. The stock closed at $26 per share, down more than 5 percent for the day, and was relatively flat in after-hours trading.

Google, Amazon in fray to buy Tata's India Data centres: Google and Amazon are among those in talks with the Tata Group to buy the data centre business of Tata Communications in a deal expected to fetch about $650-700 million. They are competing with bulge-bracket private equity funds including the Blackstone Group, Carlyle, KKR, Bain Capital and Advent International, who are all looking to buy up to 74% stake in the data centre unit and take control of the business that is spread across 44 locations in India and abroad. Besides India, Tata Communications has data centres in the US, UK and Singapore, with over 1 million sq ft of co-location space, offering managed hosting and storage services. In India, it has facilities in leading metros such as New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata and Pune, besides some tier-II and tier-III locations. The data centre business addedRs 436 crore to Tata Communications' FY15 revenues and has about 27% EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation), the company said in an investor presentation last month after its June quarter earnings.

Salesforce raises full-year revenue forecast again: Salesforce.com reported better-than-expected quarterly revenue and profit, helped by an increase in demand for its Web-based sales and marketing software, and raised its revenue forecast for the full year for the third time. Revenue rose 24 percent to $1.63 billion, beating analysts' average estimate of $1.60 billion, and the company's net loss narrowed to $852,000 in the second quarter from $61.1 million a year earlier. The company's shares rose about 4 percent in extended trading after the world's biggest maker of online sales software also forecast current-quarter revenue and adjusted profit above the average analyst estimates. "... We'll go from being the sixth largest software company in the world to the fourth largest next year," Chief Executive Marc Benioff said on a conference call, adding that the company would only lag Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. Salesforce raised its revenue forecast for the year ending January 2016 to $6.60 billion-$6.63 billion from $6.52 billion-$6.55 billion. San Francisco-based Salesforce has been gaining market share from Oracle and SAP in customer relationship management software that helps companies organize and track sales calls and leads. Salesforce, which provides its services online, with no software directly installed on PCs, leads the global customer relationship management market, which is valued at $23 billion annually, according to tech research firm Gartner.

Global Smartphone Sales Growth Slowed in Second Quarter: The research firm Gartner said worldwide sales of smartphones in the second quarter grew at the slowest pace since 2013 as sales in China declined for the first time. Sales grew 13.5 percent to 330 million units in the second quarter compared with a year earlier. While demand continues to increase in emerging markets, Gartner says overall smartphone sales were mixed. Smartphone sales in China fell 4 percent year-over-year. China accounted for 30 percent of total smartphone sales in the second quarter, but Gartner says its phone market has reached saturation.

HP revenue falls on weak PC sales, lower demand for services: The 76-year-old company, which has struggled to adapt to mobiles and online computing, is splitting into two listed companies later this year, separating its computer and printer businesses from its faster-growing corporate hardware and services operations. HP is nearing the end of a multi-year restructuring under Whitman, who has been cutting costs and focusing on higher-margin sales. The plan includes the elimination of about 55,000 jobs. The decline in global PC sales was exacerbated in the second quarter of 2015 as customers awaited the release of Windows 10 in July. As a result, revenue at HP's personal computer and printer businesses, its largest, fell 11.5 percent in the third quarter ended July 31. Enterprise services division sales dropped 11 percent, while revenue at the enterprise group rose 2 percent. For the full-year ending October, the company said it expected adjusted profit of $3.59-$3.65 per share, largely below the average analyst estimate of $3.64 per share. Total revenue fell 8.1 percent to $25.35 billion in the third quarter, also hurt by a strong dollar.

After Years Of Restraint, Facebook Tries Allowing GIFs In Ads And Page Posts: Facebook refused to fill its site with flashy animated banner ads for a decade. Zuckerberg thought these interrupted the user experience, and could stunt growth. But after reaching near ubiquity and acclimating users to video ads, today the company tells me it’s relaxing its standards and starting to allow businesses to post GIFs as ads and Page posts. Wendy’s and Coca-Cola’s Brazilian brand Kuat are the first businesses with the ability to share them. Wendy’s ad shows a salad being constructed, while Kuat’s is basically the rainbow-shooting poptart meme Nyan Cat with a brand name slapped on. GIFs can’t go in the tiny sidebar ads Facebook is phasing out, only “Boosted” Page posts, which make up most of the ads you see in your feed. The social network started supporting GIFs in user posts starting in May, but hadn’t allowed businesses to try the hip graphic interchange format all the kids are Tumbling over. Facebook tells me “GIFs can be a fun and compelling way to communicate, so we’ve started testing GIF support in posts and boosted posts for a small percentage of Facebook Pages. We will evaluate whether it drives a great experience for people before rolling it out to more Pages.” So basically, if users hate them and they don’t perform well, Facebook will scrap them. But if the eyegrabbing ads and Page posts drive business without annoying the hell out of people, all companies might soon get the option to animate your News Feed. GIFs are the visual equivalent of shouting. You have to really care about the message or you’d prefer they just shut up.

Google Express Plans to Shut Down Its Two Delivery Hubs: Google Express, the search giant’s same-day delivery service, is shutting down its two delivery hubs in San Francisco and Mountain View, Calif., according to sources. The move is part of a broader push within Google to revamp the service, which launched in March 2013, after it failed to make a serious dent in a market crowded with Amazon and a myriad of on-demand startups. The service is not shutting down, but seems to be recalibrating a logistical plan it was testing in California. Express was hatched out of Google’s commerce plans, formed, in part, to hedge against Amazon’s growing foray into product searches. It is now in seven major cities. In most of them, Google delivers goods from retail and shipping partners. When the service arrived in the Bay Area, Google tried out a hub model. Customers would order from Google’s retail partners, and drivers delivered the goods from the two locations on the same day or overnight. Now, Google is changing course. And the change comes after a tumultuous year for the company’s commerce initiatives: It lost the exec atop Express, Tom Fallows, then the exec atop all of commerce, Sameer Samat. After Fallows’s departure, Google shook up the Express leadership multiple times, putting the business development lead for Google Shopping, Brian Elliott, at its helm in July. Rising costs of the drivers and vehicles are likely one rationale. According to multiple sources, Google is trying to curb these by outsourcing its delivery to other on-demand startups and has held initial talks with multiple companies, including Postmates and Flywheel.