“It’s really hard to design a product with a focus group. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” This is from the late co-founder Steve Jobs a famous saying appleand the company’s innovative product portfolio certainly lives up to expectations.
The iPod (paired with iTunes) forever changed the music industry, and the iPhone revolutionized mobile phones. Apple is now a $2 trillion company, and while the stock is still a great investment, some of the best returns may come from the next generation of innovators.
In this case, I want to focus on cloud computing. The industry could triple in value every year between now and 2030, to $1.5 trillion, according to estimates from Grand View Research. Thanks to online tools available in the cloud, any business, regardless of size, can now serve a global customer base.
data dog (DDOG -9.32%) and snowflake (Snow -6.31%) A unique platform has been developed that has the potential to drive cloud technology forward for years to come. Here’s why buy these future stocks today.
1. Datadog is a must-have cloud monitoring tool
The cloud enables businesses to do more with less. Thanks to cloud technology, it has never been easier or cheaper to host a website, manage administrative tasks, accept payments and store data. But establishing and maintaining a digital presence does present challenges—especially for large, complex organizations.
Datadog is a cloud monitoring service designed to spot technical issues that can sometimes go unnoticed. It helps companies from the cloud migration phase all the way to running day-to-day operations. When a business operates a physical store, it is relatively easy to determine customer satisfaction because of the face-to-face interaction. But when dealing with thousands of online customers, problems often manifest as lost sales without immediate support channels.
Whether it’s a retail store, a gaming platform, or a financial institution, Datadog can identify problems as they arise, allowing companies to implement fixes before customers reach them. For example, a technical error might affect a small percentage of users in a particular geographic location, which a business might not know about without a tool like Datadog.
Especially large organizations are flocking to the platform. In the most recent third quarter of 2022 (ended Sept. 30), Datadog had 2,600 customers contributing at least $100,000 in annual recurring revenue, up from 1,800 a year earlier. The company’s full-year revenue will reach $1.65 billion, a 60% increase over 2021.
The future of the business world is in the cloud, and as this shift continues, Datadog will become increasingly important. With its stock down 66% from its all-time high, now is a great time to buy long-term stocks.
2. Snowflake simplifies complex cloud operations
Snowflake is a data solution for organizations with multi-tiered cloud operations, especially those using multiple leading cloud service providers such as amazon web services, Microsoft Azure, and letterGoogle Cloud.The company is known for its incredibly fast growth and is even backed by Warren Buffett’s investment firm Berkshire Hathaway.
Snowflake’s revolutionary data cloud allows customers to aggregate data from multiple sources and share it seamlessly across teams, breaking down silos for greater visibility and efficiency. It operates on a pay-per-use model, so companies get all the computing power they need to analyze large amounts of information for insights, and can easily scale back during periods of low demand.
The company also has a marketplace where customers can buy datasets or monetize their own data, adding another benefit to being part of the Snowflake ecosystem.
The U.S. tech sector will underperform in 2022 amid a slowing economy, shedding 159,000 jobs. But Snowflake bucked the trend, hiring more than 500 new employees in the first three quarters of this year.
This is a necessary move to continue to drive Snowflake’s rapid growth. In the third quarter of fiscal 2023 (ended October 31), the company’s remaining performance obligations (RPO) exceeded $3 billion for the first time, a 66% year-over-year increase. RPOs are a key metric because they represent Snowflake’s pipeline of work that is ultimately expected to translate into revenue in the future.
The company has 7,292 clients, but only 543 of the Forbes Global 2,000 have signed up, so it still has plenty of room to grow. With Snowflake shares down 66% from their all-time high, this could be a good time to buy ahead of the cloud industry’s expansion for the rest of the decade.
John Mackey, the former chief executive of Amazon subsidiary Whole Foods Market, sits on The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Alphabet executive Suzanne Frey sits on The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Anthony Di Pizio has no positions in any of the stocks mentioned above. The Motley Fool has jobs and recommendations at Alphabet, Amazon.com, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, Datadog, Microsoft, and Snowflake. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: January 2023 long Berkshire $200 call, March 2023 long Apple $120 call, January 2023 short Berkshire $200 put Options, Jan 2023 Put Berkshire Hathaway $265 Call, Mar 2023 Put $130 Put Apple. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.