The Apple brand speaks for itself and it will have an earthquake-like impact on the industry, given the gold standard brand, given Apple's breadth and awareness, it's more important what Apple is doing strategically than moving the needle financially.

Daniel Ives

Categorized in : Most Read Articles

The bigger screens on iPhone 6 have been selling like hot cakes.

There was more pressure for Amazon to do that versus Microsoft, given their model, the Street is laser-focused on top-line growth for the coming year and for Nadella the focus should be on cloud growth and Windows 10.

It appears the company is hitting its stride as product innovation on the (software subscription) front coupled with a more acquisitive strategy are laying the groundwork for another strong year in 2015, cyber security tailwinds are massive and Check Point is at the right place at the right time.

Although currency headwinds are massive for Oracle and its tech brethren, the company showed progress on the cloud front, which is key for tech investors moving forward.

It's a necessary evil as CEO Satya Nadella and Microsoft have recognized the 'golden goose' and major revenue opportunities will happen after the upgrades have taken place microsoft needs to lay seeds for its cloud-centric strategy and Windows 10 is the epicenter of that strategy. It's all about making it attractive for the ecosystem to upgrade onto this next-generation platform.

IBM as well as other tech stalwarts such as Oracle, SAP, HP and Cisco face major headwinds as they adjust to this new cloud paradigm shift, which coupled with a cloudy IT spending environment have negatively impacted results.

Real-time communication has become a focus of customer-facing organisations to get a comprehensive view of a given customer, speed and accuracy are integral, opening up a fertile market opportunity for vendors in this area.

It was a clear difference from years past as Nadella and Microsoft are more comfortable in their market positioning, growth, and strategy, given the success they have had in 2014 versus the dark days of the Ballmer era.