Weekly Tech Notes: Adobe & Microsoft

This week was relatively unexciting compared to the last one which saw many tech companies releasing their earnings reports for third quarter of 2011. There were only a few major announcements by a couple of companies like Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) — here’s quick run down on items for Adobe and Microsoft.

Adobe

Adobe’s stock had been hovering just below $30 recently, but it saw a drop of more than 5% following its announcement that it would be acquiring Auditude, a video ad management and monetization company which allows online content publishers to monetize their content using its advertising server platform.

Adobe also announced a new audience measurement tool called AudienceResearch which will be bundled with its SiteCatalyst web analytics offering. It also announced another digital marketing solution – TagManager which enables marketers to capture and manage audience data in a much better way. ^[1]

Adobe seems to be focusing on the digital marketing and analytics space with these new products. It first ventured into this space with its Omniture acquisition. Its stock has since recovered since the drop at the beginning of the week and is now slightly above $30.

Check out our complete analysis for Adobe.

Microsoft

Microsoft’s stock price saw a slight dip this week. There haven’t been any major announcements from Microsoft this week except these:

Microsoft finally launched the much awaited update to its Dynamics CRM (customer relationship management) suite which adds social networking and collaboration features like Facebook and Twitter to it. Many CRM software makers, including Salesforce.com, Oracle, and now Microsoft, are adding social features to their offerings to boost productivity among sales and customer service professionals and improve the customer experience.

Microsoft also announced that it had entered a patent licensing agreement with Openwave. ^[2] However, unlike its last dozen licensing agreements, Microsoft will not be receiving any payments this time, but it will instead be paying Openwave to license its patents covering smartphone and cloud technologies.

Check out our complete analysis for Microsoft.

Understand How a Company’s Products Impact its Stock Price at Trefis

1. Adobe AudienceResearch Delivers Accurate Audience Data for Digital Media Selling, Press Release [↩]
2. Openwave and Microsoft Corporation Reach Patent Licensing Agreement, Press Release [↩]