By Aaron Katsman
www.IsraelNewsletter.com
Emerging market guru Mark Mobius, continues to gain momentum in his bid to block the sale of Taro Pharmaceuticals(TAROF.pk) to the Indian drug company Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. Taro delayed it’s planned shareholder meeting after it became apparent that they couldn’t assure the votes needed to win merger approval. While delay tactics may have worked in the past, new judge Michal Agmon-Gonen, won’t put up with it any longer. She’d fed up and she’s not gonna take it anymore.
Judge Agmon-Gonen schedule a hearing for January 13, 2008. In the event that Taro again postpones its shareholders meeting, the judge said, “If no shareholders meeting is held, the hearing on this date will decide on how Templeton’s(BEN) petition will be heard, without waiting for the results of the shareholders meeting.”
Taro has used every trick under the sun to stall. Taro notified the SEC that the audit of its 2006 financial report by Ernst & Young would be completed soon, and that financials for Q1 and Q2 of 2007 would be ready now. Once the financials are ready, a shareholder meeting could take place in October or November. Surprise, surprise. Now it appears that Taro will not meet these dates either. Taro’s attorney told the judge, “We’re working on it.”
She then went on to take a shot at Taro. “I cannot understand how it is possible to undertake a merger without financial reports. That is a scandal in itself, and contravenes the Companies Law.”
Looks like we have a judge with common sense.
Go Templeton Go!
Please see our Disclaimer HERE.
Disclosure: Author’s fund has no position of any stocks mentioned as of 9/19/07.
Like what you see? Sign up to receive daily updates from IsraelNewsletter here
Aaron Katsman is the lead portfolio manager for the Israel Growth Portfolio and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. For more information, go to www.israelnewsletter.com or call 1-888-327-6179, or email aaron@profile-financial.com.
Zack Miller
IsraelNewsletter.com
Well, Google’s (GOOG) April announcement that it would be adding a hosted version of presentation software as part of Google Docs — Google’s nascent stab at a full productivity suite– via an acquisition of Tonic Systems has been realized today with the search provider’s official announcement of Presentation as part of its hosted office solution. Presentation joins Google Docs Word Processing application, Docs (creative name, no?), and Spreadsheet application, Spreadsheet (even more creative).
What this means is that Google now has the equivalent functionality of Microsoft’s (MSFT) Office Suite to compete head-on versus Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRqUE6IHTEA]
Adding to the excitement, without much fanfare in the press (hey, it’s Apple — a company known to plan entire days around Steve Jobs’ choice of lunch), Apple had a seminal announcement last month as it introduced a speadsheet application, Numbers (a bit more creative!) to round-out its own productivity software in iWork ‘08. Apple now offers Pages, its word processing software with Apple flare, Keynote (hands-down, a Powerpoint killer — hey, I’m biased), and now Numbers, Apple’s spreadsheet offering.
I’m not going to use this space to compare functionality, mano a mano, of the three office suites. There are numerous analysts (See Carl Howe in particular) who do excellent work in this space. Instead, I’d like to think (write?) out loud about how these products stack up against one another in light of their parent companies’ strategic objectives. While these companies will compete head-on with their new product suites, as we’ll explore in this article, each company has its own, very different reasons for producing a kick-butt office suite.
Microsoft
The Office Environment for Office: In spite of talk of its demise, Microsoft hasn’t been dismissed yet. While the open source movement continues to make inroads on the server side with Unix-inspired systems, Microsoft’s dominance of the OS and Office Suite on the desktop of corporate computers worldwide is still extremely entrenched.
Because Microsoft continues to control the heart of the office (see image at left), Microsoft continues to run a healthy business off of providing solutions, services, servers and programs to the global business community.
Lock In — from the office homeward: For MSFT, controlling the office means that for me to communicate as a business person, I need to buy Microsoft products (or at least products that can be translated to work with MSFT products) This has historically enabled MSFT to own my computer’s OS and office suite at home. For to communicate with my work life, I need parity of products and platform. This leverage into the home computer via the office environment, is why it’s so important for MSFT to maintain its Office Suite dominance.
What’s happening to MSFT after years of failed attempts for competitors to take on Office within the corporate office, Microsoft now faces competition from the backdoor: home users. As Apple, Google, Open Office and whatever begin to garner a following at home, this momentum, if it reaches critical mass in terms of demand and functionality and support in terms of supply, may begin to chip away at MSFT’s dominance in the office. If MSFT’s dominance in the office is challenged, their dominance at home is equally at peril.
Strategy to Compete: I know there is a lot of rhetoric coming from Redmond on their strategy, but I’m hard pressed to see a cohesive strategy to compete with Apple and Google. Microsoft Live is not living up to its hype and spending time and money on game consoles and failed consumer devices shouldn’t be MSFT’s strategy. Nor should be competing for search. Google is using search to take over the desktop and ultimately, trojan horse into the corporate environment — MSFT needs to understand this.
Google
Capturing web search to own the Web Operating System: I know the stats say otherwise, but do you really use any other search engine other than Google. Really?? Google owns my web experience by organizing my web life and by using apps/products/services to get me to commit more info into the system, Google creates a lot of reliance. I’m still using Gmail at work and to communicate with clients. I’ve got Google Desktop running on my office machine. Google’s new productivity suite aims at Microsoft’s jugular and it’s Google’s foothold into challenging MSFT.
From my home into the office: I’m addicted to Google products at home. I NEED THEM. When I get to work, that dependence doesn’t go away. Now that Google has an offering in the Office space, a product that actually has some advantages over other products of its type, I’m apt to begin introducing my colleagues to Google (I’m thinking Aaron “Instant Rebate” Katsman may write even more compelling analysis on Israeli stocks in a Google Doc).
I love Google Docs for two reasons:
- Storage: I love that these docs are accessible from whatever machine I use. I log in via my phone, my home laptop, and my office box and I never have to worry about versioning. I manage one doc in one place.
- Collaboration: I know MSFT has had collaborative tools for years. But guess what? I never used them — nor would I know how to. With Google Docs, I invite my colleagues (read, Aaron Katsman) into a document that’s hosted by Google and updates in real time. We can edit each others’ articles and even chat in real time on the document itself. What about biz dev and legal stuff with contracts? I don’t know about your firm but I’ve been part of negotiations where the red-lining probably went back and forth over 50 times — all saved under different file names. That’s too much to manage for me (maybe for anyone, other than lawyers).
As I think about how I’m decreasing my dependence on Microsoft products, I realize that Google has added an incredible feature as well. Certainly, Google Docs allows me to save documentation into standard formats that my non-Google-ized colleagues can use. But there’s more. In fact, Google provides the ability to upload your MSFT Office-created documents to Google Docs, convert it into Google format, and continue to work with the application vis-a-vis Google Docs. This is big and important.
Jumping the shark: Given its competitive technology, collaborative features and an ever-growing reliance on Google products, I believe that Google Docs will provide a slow movement away from MSFT Office in the office. In fact, Google is basically saying, “We’re coming to your crib to party!” with last week’s announcement that Cap Gemini will support enterprise versions of Google Docs in Europe. Google will need to continue developing functionality and integrating Docs into your core Google experience. Apple will need to follow suit on the support side and learn from Google’s prescient move to attract the business user.
Apple
Using consumer devices to own my desk: Apple is on-fire with all its new product introductions. In fact, I think the velocity is a bit much, BUT, I’m listening to a lot of music that I’ve bought via iTunes on my iPod that I’ve upgraded 3 times. Apple’s also done a good job convincing me to add phone functionality to this experience. It all works very well with my MacBook Pro. Apple’s Halo Effect, introducing consumers to Apple consumer electronic products and eventually funneling these to increased Mac sales, has been, until recently, about owning the home computing experience. We’ve seen the numbers attest to Mac notebook growth in market share (according to NPD, Apple’s U.S. retail notebook market share for June 2007 was 17.6%, a gain of 2.2% over 2006).
Filling the business void with an office suite: What business could afford to migrate to a Mac environment given the fact that while things might run more smoothly internally (I’d postulate — though I can’t prove it — that although Apple products retail at a higher price point, total cost of ownership is lower for Apple products), they can’t interface with the rest of the world because of Microsoft’s dominance. No longer — Apple now provides the functionality to compete for the business customer. Apple’s next move will have to be global training and mobilization of third-party support to attract, service, and retain the fledgling business customer.
What does this all mean for investors?
Of these three players, I think Google is best situated for success. What Google, Salesforce.com, et al. have shown is that there is going to be a huge market for SaaS (Software as a Service). In fact, Web Search is really just SaaS 1.0. Instead of buying yellow page CD-ROMs (remember doing that?!), I just count on Google to provide great, FRESH results — all the time. I just type. I think the hardware becomes less important (not more important as AAPL is betting on) and it’s going to be all about the integration of web apps with my desktop and allowing the heavy processing to occur server side. Lastly, Apple and MSFT are going to ultimately butt-heads in a way that Apple doesn’t really know how to compete. To get to the business customer, Apple will need to open up by partnering in the service experience — something they didn’t quite get and the same thing that almost sunk them a decade ago. And for Microsoft, I think they’ve really reached the point of becoming a “Technology Utility”.
Disclosure: Author’s fund does not have a position in any of the stocks mentioned here as of 9/18/07. Author owns GOOG personally.
Please see our Disclaimer HERE.
Like what you see? Sign up to receive daily updates from IsraelNewsletter here.
**************
Zack Miller is the lead equity analyst for America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund. For more information, go to www.israelnewsletter.com or call 1-888-327-6179, or email zack@profile-financial.com
Aaron Katsman
www.IsraelNewsletter.com
So I am in the car with my friend Steve, who happens to be a huge fan of the 80’s supergroup ABC (supergroup? so I exaggerate a bit), when on the radio appears the classic hit “How to be a Millionaire.” After he cranks up the volume, I start focusing on the lyrics, “Say Mr. Whispers! Here comes the click of dice roulette and blackjacks - gonna build us a paradise.” Shakespearian, wouldn’t you say!
Looking to be a millionaire? Well better than blowing all your money on blackjack (or betting the Seahawks…), look to WiMAX technology.
Having mentioned Alvarion (ALVR) last week, let’s focus on Ceragon Networks (CRNT). Ceragon, the leading provider of wireless backhaul solutions for IP-centric networks, today announced that the Russian Summa Telecom, has chosen Ceragon to power the Russian carrier’s WiMAX network. This is another in a long line of victories for the Israeli based company.
Ceragon stock has tumbled by more than 20% over the last 3 weeks, and in the low $14’s, the stock looks quite attractive. The company has a strong pipeline of deals and as one of the leading contenders to win Sprint Nextel Corp’s (S) mega WiMAX project, the stock could be off to the races.
WiMAX WiMAX WiMAX it’s all about WiMAX. Even Google(GOOG) is trying to get in on WiMAX. For an interesting read, check out Susan Crawford’s take.
Ceragon stock has had a huge run so far this year, almost tripling since the beginning of the year, but with the recent weakness, this looks like a classic case of “buy the dips.” Just remember, “But there are millions who often get nowhere. And there’s just one secret I think you should share.”….Buy WiMAX.
Please see our Disclaimer HERE.
Disclosure: Author has a position in ALVR. Author has no positions in any of the other stocks mentioned as of 9/17/07.
Like what you see? Sign up to receive daily updates from IsraelNewsletter here
Aaron Katsman is the lead portfolio manager for the Israel Growth Portfolio and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. For more information, go to www.israelnewsletter.com or call 1-888-327-6179, or email aaron@profile-financial.com.
It’s a holiday-shortened week, so let’s jump right in.
On a macro front, it’s interesting to read that the G-30, an international group established in 1978 and composed of very senior representatives of private, public and academic circles, will be holding their 2008 plenary in Israel. Israel’s own Bank of Israel Governor, Stanley Fischer, will be hosting the group as part of Israel’s 60th anniversary celebrations.
Interesting interview of BigBand Network’s (BBND) CEO, Amir Bassan-Eshkenazi, and how he’s positioning the company to take on Cisco (CSCO). Read last week’s coverage of BigBand and why their positioning in the CMTS market may mean great things as they help determine the future of video delivery.
Google Israel (GOOG) is at it again. Now, they’re expanding into an additional 60m on the 21st floor of the Levinstein Building in Tel Aviv. Read about what IsraelNewsletter thinks is going on at Google Israel here.
Teva (TEVA) gets OK to sell generic version of Protonix. Although the Israeli generic powerhouse won the right to sell a version of Wyeth’s (WYE) Protonix, it may choose to hold off doing so until a full decision comes this Wednesday.
The Butler Group out with a new report saying that many medium- to large-sized ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) would benefit by leveraging Ness Technologies’ (NSTC) Managed Labs Offshore Delivery Model. Working with Ness allows ISVs to continue to beef up and speed up R&D while keeping costs manageable, said Butler. Read the whole report here. Check out IsraelNewsletter’s 4 Reasons to Go Long Ness Technologies as well.
TheStreet.com tries to decipher what’s going on at Medis Technologies (MDTL) through their options action.
Read IsraelNewsletter’s coverage of Blue Square-Israel’s (BSI) new foray into organic and health food.
In spite (because of??) all the M&A hullabaloo regarding ECI’s (ECIL) takeover by the Swarth Group, ECI wins a nice deal with India’s Bharti Airtel. Read what IsraelNewsletter has had to say about the impending ECI deal.
