Digital River, Inc. (DRIV) recently reported third-quarter revenues of $99.4 million, up 3.2% from the year-ago level and surpassed management’s revenue guidance of $96.5 million – $98.5 million. The growth in revenues was driven by strength in software, consumer electronics and games markets where the company expanded existing client relationships and closed new business as well. Earnings per share of 42 cents easily beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 33 cents and exceeded management’s forecast of 38 cents – 41 cents. Earlier, prime customer Symantec announced that it would not renew its existing e-commerce agreement with Digital River beyond June 30, 2010, when its existing contract expires. However, management is encouraged by the future prospects of its existing business. Going forward, management continues to work on its business plans in response to Symantec’s decision to not renew its e-commerce contract. The company stated that it does

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Earlier today, Digital River Inc. (DRIV) announced that its largest customer, Symantec Corporation (SYMC), notified the company that it will not extend its existing e-commerce agreement. The agreement, under which Digital River provides a variety of e-commerce-related services to Symantec, expires on June 30, 2010. This is a stunning blow to Digital River as sales of products for Symantec accounted for 24.3% of its total revenues, and sales derived from proprietary Digital River services sold to Symantec consumers accounted for 9.4% of revenues in 2008. For the quarter ended June 30, 2008, sales of Symantec products accounted for 22.5% of revenue and related services revenues accounted for 7.5% of revenue. Symantec informed Digital River that it expects to move all of the online traffic currently outsourced to Digital River to an internally developed Symantec e-commerce system before the current contract expires. Symantec has not yet ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – July 17, 2009 – Zacks.com announces the latest Industry Outlook. Today’s outlook from Zacks Equity Research analyst Abdul Saleh discusses the Software sector. Highlighted stocks include: SAP (SAP), Fiserv (FISV), Intuit (INTU), Digital River (DRIV) and VeriSign Automotive (VRSN).

Here is the latest on the Software sector:

While most software companies are implementing a series of internal cost-cutting measures, these are steps that companies typically take in an economic downturn -- a hiring freeze, no non-essential travel, and so on. Generally speaking, a downturn is when investment in IT is most critical because these investments can make operations more efficient. This idea is one reason why we think that the tech sector would weather a downturn better than other parts of the economy.

Software giant SAP (SAP) is apparently not halting

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Outlook Global markets appear to be shaking off the recent unprecedented withering of the financial system and are looking for an upturn. But is it sustainable or is it a short-term event? So far, a string of drastic actions by the Federal Reserve and both the Bush and Obama administrations has yet to turn around a bunker mentality. Banks fear lending money to each other and to their customers. Businesses are reluctant to hire and boost capital investments. Consumers have hunkered down. All the economy's problems are feeding off each other, creating a vicious cycle that Washington policymakers are finding difficult to break. Even if the turmoil gripping Wall Street were to let up and badly shaken confidence in the banking system were fully restored, a "broader economic recovery will not happen right away." Obviously, the technology industry is not immune to the current economic ...

Digital River, Inc. (DRIV), a leading provider of global e-commerce solutions, announced yesterday that it will outsource a majority of its global customer service operations along with realigning certain other resources. Digital River is an example of an emerging trend known as “Software as a Service".

The company plans to outsource its global customer service operations to Tennessee-based Sitel, a leading global business process outsourcing provider. Management stated most customer email and phone inquiries will be managed by Sitel’s customer service centers from September onwards. Sitel has more than 150 facilities worldwide. Digital River delivers software and other digital goods online to over 40,000 customers.

The company plans to eliminate 120 positions globally primarily related to the outsourcing of customer service operations. This organizational change is expected to drive efficiencies for the company beginning in the fourth quarter of 2009.

On the other hand, Digital River is becoming more market focused. It

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL - May 20, 2009 - Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Goldman Sachs (GS), JP Morgan Chase (JPM), Morgan Stanley (MS), American Express (APX) and Digital River (DRIV).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=4579.

Here are highlights from Tuesday's Analyst Blog:

Jumping Through the TARP Hoops

Goldman Sachs (GS), JP Morgan Chase (JPM), Morgan Stanley (MS) and American Express (APX) are "champing at the bit" to repay funds received from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), in order

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Digital River: Upward Momentum ContinuesShares of Digital River (DRIV, Hold) have climbed approximately 8% since our last update on the company on April 15. Today, DRIV is up nearly 3% and the company is presenting at a sell-side firm research conference in San Francisco, CA.The company's Q1 results beat our/consensus estimates by a decent margin. The upside was driven mainly by a ramp in the Consumer Electronic (CE) segment and new client wins, both of which offset the effect of current global economic downtrend. However, Q2 guidance fell short of our non-GAAP estimates, while revenues are expected slightly higher than our current expectation.We were expecting the company to report $95 million in revenue (guidance is at $96 million) with non-GAAP EPS of $0.44 (guidance is at $0.41). Higher capex and lower margins from the new CE customers are likely to dampen bottom-line ...