Ariba
To keep pace with the shifting market, Ariba's moving toward on-demand offerings, charging subscription fees to let clients access software delivered online. It's a big change, but Ariba seems to be managing the process nicely.
The company's fiscal second-quarter revenue, announced April 25, dipped by $300,000 to $73.4 million. However, its subscription revenue increased 15.4% to $15.7 million in the same period. The company's net loss nearly doubled to $5.1 million, or $0.07 per share.
The rocky financials aren't surprising. It's tough to revamp a business like Ariba's; the company has spent 10 years building an infrastructure that handles more than $100 billion in transactions across more than 115 countries.
The growth of on-demand players like Salesforce.com
While companies like Microsoft
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Fool contributor Tom Taulli, author of The Complete M&A Handbook, does not own shares mentioned in this article. He is currently ranked 1,784 out of 28,166 in CAPS. Microsoft is a Motley Fool Inside Value pick. The Fool has a disclosure policy.