Software as a Service Stocks Rise 3 Consecutive Weeks
Software as a Service (SaaS) stocks are showing some strength, climbing three consecutive weeks. In the latest winning round, our SaaS 20 Stock Index climbed a modest 1.28 percent for the week ended Dec. 12. The index’s big weekly winners included SuccessFactors Inc. (SFSF, +23.95%) and Kenexa Corp. (KNXA, +18.40%). There were also some big weekly losers including Salary.com (SLRY, -24.24%) and Vocus Inc. (VOCS, -20.25%). Here’s some more background on each company.
The SaaS 20 Stock Index‘s two biggest weekly winners:
- SuccessFactors Inc.: Argus upgraded shares in the company on December 4. And EMPO Corp., an HR outsourcing firm, has agreed to offer SuccessFactors’ talent management software to businesses with 10 to 500 employees.
- Kenexa Corp.: The HR software company was name to Deloitte’s Fast 500 list of North America’s fastest growing companies.
And the index’s two biggest weekly losers:
- Salary.com: The on-demand talent management software company has surpassed 3,000 customers. But the company’s decision to acquire Genesys Software Systems Inc. — another HR-focused software company — dragged down Salary.com’s stock.
- Vocus: The maker of on-demand PR software has seen its shares tumble sharply since announcing record Q3 results in late October.
Although the SaaS 20 Stock Index has climbed for three consecutive weeks, the index is still down more than 45 percent since the start of 2008.
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I am not surprised to see some growth or at least the anticipation of growth in Saas, but also expect to see similar growth for hosted solutions. I wrote a blog entry a few weeks ago in response to an article on TheStreet.com. If I amy quote the blog here, “The down-side dynamics in today’s economic climate drive many companies to figure out how to grow sales, increase demand, and sell more effectively and most sales management teams know that CRM can be a tool to help a sales force to break out as the economy improves. This fact coupled with the cost-effectiveness of hosted subscriptions and implementations make it a a very low risk approach to CRM. We will see many companies that have not previously considered open source in the past, inclined to consider it now. Commercial open source CRM software has evolved over the last several years and is now ready for the enterprise. This coupled with the current economic conditions can be the impetus that propels open source CRM into the forefront. Like Linux before it, commercial open source CRM, namely SugarCRM, is primed for the enterprise and explosive growth.” In my opinion, Saas as well as hosted solutions stand to benefit a great deal from hurting business climate and an economy on the mend. http://levementum.blogspot.com/2008/11/sugarcrm-up-and-to-right-in-2009.html