Salesforce.com (N:CRM) -- the leader in customer relationship management (CRM) and imminent player in cloud computing solutions -- is set to report 3Q2016 earnings Wednesday after the closing bell. In the previous two quarters, the company has been backed by positive EPS and revenue surprises and looks to continue the trend this quarter. The Estimize consensus is predicting EPS of $0.20 and revenue of $1.71 billion as Wall Street is not quite as confident, estimating EPS of $0.19 and revenue of $1.70 billion.
European Investments
Salesforce Ventures, the firm’s global investment group, decided to utilize $100 million to invest in European startup companies to find the next stars in cloud computing innovation in mid October. According to a study conducted by the International Data Corporation, the European cloud software industry is expected to grow over 12 times quicker than other technology specific sectors to reach roughly 35 billion USD (33 billion euros) by 2019. Salesforce.com has been in the European space since 2009, but is planning a far more substantial involvement as only 17 of the 150 companies invested in are based in Europe. The Salesforce Ventures portfolio currently consists of European cloud companies like CloudSense, Qubit, Universal Avenue, and CartoDB.
A Focus On Growth
Salesforce.com has dominated the customer relationship market (CRM) and has made some heavy plays within the cloud computing services industry as well. The cloud sector is becoming a tech hotspot and despite the everyday increases in competition from IBM (N:IBM) and Oracle (N:ORCL), Salesforce has been able to strategically acquire hot startups to broaden its range of services provided and enhance its capabilities. Last quarter, the company put up some very strong numbers and is expected to continue to grow. Revenue figures improved by 24% on the year to $1.63 billion and EPS jumped to $0.19 from $0.13 the year before. In fact, Salesforce has not missed analyst expectations in the last 14 quarters.
The company also expects cloud computing usage to burst open in the near future and hopes to profit off its new Wave Analytics Cloud software. Last quarter, the sales cloud and service cloud platforms accounted for just over 72% revenue share in the company.
Several tech companies have been exploring the field of education technology, or edtech. Edtech services consist of online courses and programming boot camps for job seekers that want to improve their skills to land advanced roles. Companies like Intuit (O:INTU), Microsoft (O:MSFT), Cisco (O:CSCO) and LinkedIn (N:LNKD) have dabbled in the space and will now welcome newcomers Salesforce. The company recently announced the launch of a free, online school, Trailhead, where virtually anybody can learn how to use Salesforce software on an advanced level. There is a large demand for individuals with Salesforce app-developing and data-mining skills as Salesforce has become one of the most widely used software services for small and large businesses alike. Salesforce will not accumulate revenue from the service, but anticipates a spike in software use and a need for individuals proficient with the technology.