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Were nearly into a new decade and its a good idea to think about which shares are going to do well for years into the future and base our investment decisions on that long-term thinking.

Its impossible to know what share is going to do well next week or next month, all we can do is judge what is a good share price to buy at.

Were nearly into a new decade and its a good idea to think about which shares are going to do well for years into the future and base our investment decisions on that long-term thinking.

Its impossible to know what share is going to do well next week or next month, all we can do is judge what is a good share price to buy at.

When you think of investments in terms of years its much easier to get a grip on where the earnings are headed and where the share price is probably going to go. Its also good when you can find businesses themselves that are thinking long-term.

These three shares are ones Id want to buy for their high chance of dominance in the 2020s:

Altium is aiming to become the dominate provider of electronic PCB design software. Its offering is mission critical for various organisations to design their products or machinery to work effectively.

Management of Altium are aiming to dominate the PCB software industry like Microsoft changed and dominated the Office software space. Thats why the company is aiming for 100,000 Altium Designer subscribers over the next five years which should help generate US$500 million of revenue.

The great thing about a business like Altium is that as its revenue grows it costs dont grow as fast, leading to growing profit margins and increasing profits.

Altium is also aiming to keep its balance sheet debt free whilst growing dividends for shareholders. Its a great business for a number of reasons.

If there has been one business on the ASX that has shown what brand power can do, its A2 Milk. It has created a powerful image in the publics mind as being higher-quality than its competitors, which allows it to charge higher prices and generate higher returns.

It has become a huge player in Australia and now its got its eyes set on the US and further growth in China. Then theres every other country that A2 Milk isnt currently being sold in.

I think that A2 Milk has a very long growth runway, despite its years of growth already. New products and new countries could mean that A2 Milk is one of the best non-tech ASX shares to buy today for the long-term.

You wouldnt think that a building products business could produce large returns, but its generating long-term consistent growth which makes excellent compounding returns.

Its industrial property trust continues to grow in value whilst also seeing rising rental profit. Its investment in Washington H. Soul Pattinson and Co. Ltd (ASX: SOL) continues to deliver rising earnings and dividends.

What Im most excited about is Brickworks US expansion America is a huge market and Brickworks has rapidly built a market-leading position in the north east of the country.

Brickworks should also benefit in the shorter-term as Australias construction cycle swings back to good times again.

I think each of these businesses are on track to deliver excellent returns in the 2020s. Brickworks could deliver the most dependable returns because of its diverse divisions, but I think if things go Altiums way it will generate the largest returns because of the rapid growth of the technology and its growing profit margins.

If youre after some more market-beating ideas Id definitely want these top stocks in my portfolio.

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Motley Fool contributor Tristan Harrison owns shares of Washington H. Soul Pattinson and Company Limited. The Motley Fool Australia owns shares of and has recommended Washington H. Soul Pattinson and Company Limited. The Motley Fool Australia owns shares of A2 Milk. The Motley Fool Australia has recommended Brickworks. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

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3 ASX shares to dominate in the 2020s - Motley Fool Australia

The enterprise software industry is a river of constant change. New development methodologies, changing approaches to platform mechanics and the continual enhancement of existing toolsets and functions mean that were always looking to better the innovations of the last 12 months with increased power and functionality.

Good software vendors are very transparent about their immediate future roadmaps. This helps customers plan their upgrade paths and predict their own commercial development roadmaps.

Traditionally then, given this constant drive to improve, the end of the year has always served as a fitting time to lay down some informed conjecture detailing the most likely areas for development going forward. So what can we expect from technology and software in 2020?

In terms of key trends and game changers, lets consider the fact that weve been able to encapsulate a good deal of the internal mechanics of software engineering and present them in the form of low-code/no-code tools. These technologies allow us to condense the guts of coding into an abstracted upper layer. Users can drag-and-drop or use natural human language commands to create varying degrees of functionality.

This revelation in coding allows non-technical, or at least less technical,users to bring software functions together and create business applications without taking a degree course in software engineering.

The rise of low-code/no-code is significant for a number of reasons. First, the planet doesnt have enough developers to keep pace with the demand for enterprise software, so giving business professionals the ability to create applications even of the most basic form is fundamentally important. Second, this development means we can free up our software engineers to work on new and emerging innovations in areas like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and, perhaps soon,quantum computing that offers the potential to process exponentially more data compared to classical computers.

Looking forward into 2020 and beyond, we will see that low-code/no-code has lowered the barrier to entry for creating applications. The challenge now is getting users to physically put their hands on a keyboard and start touching these tools. Its like DIY, once you pick up a toolbox and get your hands dirty, you realise how much you can achieve.

Things are changing in business value metrics too. When we look at the union of developers and operations inside DevOps, our focus over the last decade has been mostly dedicated to increasing development and deployment velocity. Forrester however predicts that business value will now overtake velocity as a favoured DevOps metric.

So value today doesnt just mean money and financial terms of trade anymore. It means value in terms of how fast a business can change and adapt. It also means how much value you have delivered to your customer. Some measures of new value will be quantitative measures that we can track quite accurately, but others will be qualitative and much harder to track based on a measure of sentiment and human feeling.

While were on human emotive experiences, lets consider the fact that, slightly paradoxically, the rise of AI will allow us to be more human. As we apply AI-based efficiencies to an increasing number of workplace tasks, we are able to take a hands-off approach to many of the repeatable and definable tasks that AI is so good at shouldering.

We will witness a positive development in the number of human touch jobs and roles. Technology analysts suggest that masseurs sports, therapeutic or the more exotic kind will be the last people to ever see their jobs changing due to AI robots. But other human touch roles will also flourish. Jobs that need human empathy, intuition and randomness of thought will be able to grow and develop.

What all this means is that we will be able to apply more of our own individual humanistic approach to the way we carry out work. Work itself will become more experiential and less like a collection of tasks that need to be checked off. This will allow us more time to do a better job for any given task. If were baking a cake, it will be richer, more lustrous, and with extra toppings.

Conveniently for those who wish to jump on the marketing tagline opportunity, 2020 will be the year of 20:20 software. This term describes software applications and services that have a clear vision for which data sources they need to be connected to ensure that timely information gets to the right place for business decisions to be made.

The rise of 20:20 software gives us the chance to get a new and much more accurate view of what resources we need in line with own personal work tasks. This allows us to focus on the things that really add value to the business. There is a natural hierarchy here as task alignment for individuals becomes connected intelligence for teams, then departments and then entire businesses. What used to be top-down management now becomes a user-first bottom-up growth cycle where creativity is championed from the start.

So will we still be talking about digital transformation in 2020? Yes, of course we will. But 2020 will really be the year that the rubber hits the road. Now that so many businesses have made significant moves to cloud platforms and services, we can start to learn more from best practices and, crucially, shared practices to make work and life better for everyone.

Link:
The road ahead for software in 2020 - Diginomica

Do you want to know how to play Windows games on Mac?

Gaming is becoming a more acceptable pastime nowadays. This is because the gaming industry is changing and becoming a viable career path. Most people try to cash in on the gaming industry by playing popular competitive games for hours every day.

Mac had compatibility issues before that prevented people from running popular games. Fortunately, there are ways that allow you to play Windows games on Macs now, though. Read on to learn how you can run these high-end games on a high-end device.

If you want to learn how to play Windows games on Mac, installing software that allows you to access them is the first step. These are the best applications used to run games on Mac. They also have different qualities to serve different purposes.

Wine is the best software for its cost. The way the software works is by adding an extra interface on your Mac. The interface instructs your device to allow you to run Windows applications.

Instead of getting an error message like usual, youre able to run the programs that only Windows devices could before. This is how emulators work on a PC.

Whats great about Wine is that you can try it on your device for free. This makes you sure about your experience before buying the program.

Wine is too technical, though. People often have a hard time understanding Wines interface. This puts people off and makes them get another program.

It also doesnt help that Wine isnt compatible with most games. It often takes time for developers to make a game compatible with Wine. If you plan on playing the latest games, youre better off getting another program on our list.

This is the best option if you have a large library of games available on any of the popular game hosting platforms. GeForce Now enables your Mac to connect to popular platforms like Steam or Battle.net. It does this with the help of Nvidias connections across Europe.

The program uses the existing Nvidia connections to provide a fast streaming connection to its users. It also uses the help of Nvidias cloud storage to allow users to play their games in an instant.

The system streams and stores your game data in seconds. This makes it possible for you to play your game as soon as you download it. It also optimizes your game for streaming, making the best video quality its default.

The only problem with GeForce is that you have to be online while youre using it. Losing connection while youre playing stops the program and the application. You also need a fast internet connection to make GeForce worth your while.

If subscription-based services are your cup of tea, then get Shadow for your Mac. This software provides your Mac with a full copy of Windows 10. This means you will be sure your Mac can run all the games available for Windows.

Shadow also proves to be a cost-effective software to use. It gives your Mac a 4K display resolution and a frame rate of 60fps. It also gives you free upgrades as technology improves.

The only problem with Shadow is its price. Its pricey for a subscription service. They back it up with their impressive services, though.

If youre looking for a cheaper alternative to Shadow, then Boot Camp is the software for you. This allows you to install a copy of Windows 10 to your Mac. The best part is that it does this for free.

This means youll also be able to run other programs that enable you to play games on Windows, such as emulators and virtual consoles. Doing this means you can even play old console games from your childhood on the Mac.

The only issue with Boot Camp is that it takes up more space. This is because it will also save a copy of Windows 10 on your hard drive. This makes it harder for you to install big games on your Mac.

Another option is to run virtualization software on your Mac. Virtualization software allows you to run Windows and macOS at the same time. Switching between the different operating systems will be possible through this.

Windows Virtual Machine is a great software to do this. The intuitive software allows you to launch any Windows 10 app you like. It also doesnt take up space as Boot Camp does.

The limitation with this is the performance of your programs. Virtualization runs 2 operating systems at the same time. This means it also takes up processing power.

This method limits you to your devices performance power. Low spec devices cannot use Windows programs to their fullest.

You can install add-ons, though. Items like the Razer Core X help your Mac become a better gaming device. This comes at an extra cost, but it can help you save on getting a new Mac.

If you already have a powerful PC at your disposal, then you can use that to run your games on your Mac. You can do this with Steam In-Home Streaming. The software uses the processing power of your PC to run the games.

You can then play your games on your Mac as the software streams to it. This makes it so you can have any setup you want.

You also need not worry about storage space when using the software. Youll be using the storage spaces of 2 devices when running this setup.

This also means you dont overwork your Mac. Using the processing power of your PC instead of the Mac means it will stay cool while you play.

Now that you know how to run Windows games on a Mac, here are the best games to play.

Minecrafts popularity remained steady ever since its release. It peaked when a popular internet celebrity played it. Now, it has a large community and new updates to keep everyone playing the game interested.

The premise of the game is simple. You need to survive with the tools you start with, your bare hands. Your goal will depend on how you want to play the game.

You can be a builder who creates magnificent structures to live in. You can also be an adventurer, hopping from area to area and surviving on what you can find.

Most people find that exploring this generated world is addicting. This makes them play it for hours without even realizing it. This makes it the perfect game for your Mac since its simplistic graphics wont overwork your device.

Fortnite became the most-watched game on Twitch, the most popular streaming service. This is because of its appealing graphics and high-skill gameplay. Knowing how to play Fortnite on Mac will let you know why everyone loves the game.

The battle-royal type shooting game is perfect for you if you want a fast-paced game. Its also among the most competitive games today. Playing this on your Mac will be a great way to practice if you want to become a professional gamer.

If you want a more strategic team game, then you should consider League of Legends. This game is the perfect balance between competitive and casual gaming. The game is easy to learn and is fun with friends.

What makes it better is that League of Legends is free to play. There are cosmetic items that cost you real money, but you can unlock them through the games orange essence system.

South Korean gamers consider this game to be their national sport because of how popular it is. You play as one of three races in this game. The Terran, Protoss, and Zerg factions have unique structures and units for you to control.

They also have different play styles. This makes it feel like a new game every time you choose a different faction.

The game is perfect for you if you enjoy planning your moves and managing your in-game economy. It also has a campaign mode with a great story for you to learn the lore of the game.

If you enjoy single-player games that make you think, then this may suit you better. Slay the Spire is a card-based game that relies on deck building and lucky draws. Its also a part of the rogue-like subgenre.

This means that having the game beat you is a normal occurrence. With each failed run, you understand the game better and you get stronger cards to use.

While the game demands a certain level of thinking, theres no beating the feeling of pulling a victory from the clutches of defeat when you get lucky and draw the right card for the situation.

You need not get a PC for yourself to play games anymore. Learn how to play Windows games on Mac today and run your games there instead!

Running games on Mac is only the start. There are a ton of other important things to learn if you want to get the most out of your Mac. Weve got you covered with more guides right here, so feel free to check them out today!

Information contained on this page is provided by an independent third-party content provider. Frankly and this Site make no warranties or representations in connection therewith. If you are affiliated with this page and would like it removed please contact pressreleases@franklymedia.com

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How to Play Windows Games on Mac - KAKE

Broadly speaking, profitable businesses are less risky than unprofitable ones. That said, the current statutory profit is not always a good guide to a companys underlying profitability. Today well focus on whether this years statutory profits are a good guide to understanding Blackbaud (NASDAQ:BLKB).

We like the fact that Blackbaud made a profit of US$19.9m on its revenue of US$883.8m, in the last year. The chart below shows how it has grown revenue over the last three years, but that profit has declined.

See our latest analysis for Blackbaud

NasdaqGS:BLKB Income Statement, December 20th 2019

Importantly, statutory profits are not always the best tool for understanding a companys true earnings power, so its well worth examining profits in a little more detail. Therefore, we think its worth taking a closer look at Blackbauds cashflow, as well as examining the impact that unusual items have had on its reported profit. That might leave you wondering what analysts are forecasting in terms of future profitability. Luckily, you can click here to see an interactive graph depicting future profitability, based on their estimates.

One key financial ratio used to measure how well a company converts its profit to free cash flow (FCF) is the accrual ratio. In plain english, this ratio subtracts FCF from net profit, and divides that number by the companys average operating assets over that period. This ratio tells us how much of a companys profit is not backed by free cashflow.

Therefore, its actually considered a good thing when a company has a negative accrual ratio, but a bad thing if its accrual ratio is positive. That is not intended to imply we should worry about a positive accrual ratio, but its worth noting where the accrual ratio is rather high. Thats because some academic studies have suggested that high accruals ratios tend to lead to lower profit or less profit growth.

For the year to September 2019, Blackbaud had an accrual ratio of -0.13. Therefore, its statutory earnings were quite a lot less than its free cashflow. To wit, it produced free cash flow of US$129m during the period, dwarfing its reported profit of US$19.9m. Blackbaud did see its free cash flow drop year on year, which is less than ideal, like a Simpsons episode without Groundskeeper Willie.

Having said that, there is more to the story. We can see that unusual items have impacted its statutory profit, and therefore the accrual ratio.

Blackbauds profit was reduced by unusual items worth US$8.7m in the last twelve months, and this helped it produce high cash conversion, as reflected by its unusual items. This is what youd expect to see where a company has a non-cash charge reducing paper profits. Its never great to see unusual items costing the company profits, but on the upside, things might improve sooner rather than later. We looked at thousands of listed companies and found that unusual items are very often one-off in nature. And, after all, thats exactly what the accounting terminology implies. If Blackbaud doesnt see those unusual expenses repeat, then all else being equal wed expect its profit to increase over the coming year.

Considering both Blackbauds accrual ratio and its unusual items, we think its statutory earnings are unlikely to exaggerate the companys underlying earnings power. Based on these factors, we think Blackbauds earnings potential is at least as good as it seems, and maybe even better! Ultimately, this article has formed an opinion based on historical data. However, it can also be great to think about what analysts are forecasting for the future. So feel free to check out our free graph representing analyst forecasts.

Our examination of Blackbaud has focussed on certain factors that can make its earnings look better than they are. And it has passed with flying colours. But there are plenty of other ways to inform your opinion of a company. For example, many people consider a high return on equity as an indication of favorable business economics, while others like to follow the money and search out stocks that insiders are buying. So you may wish to see this free collection of companies boasting high return on equity, or this list of stocks that insiders are buying.

If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned.

We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading.

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Heres Why Blackbauds (NASDAQ:BLKB) Statutory Earnings Are Arguably Too Conservative - Simply Wall St

Roundup As much of the Western world winds down for the Christmas period, here's a summary of this week's news from those machine-learning boffins who havent broken into the eggnog too early.

Finland, Finland, Finland: The Nordic country everyone thinks is part of Scandinavia but isnt has long punched above its weight on the technology front as the home of Nokia, the Linux kernel, and so on. Now the Suomi state is making a crash course in artificial intelligence free to all.

The Elements of AI series was originally meant to be just for Finns to get up to speed on the basics of AI theory and practice. Many Finns have already done so, but as a Christmas present, the Finnish government is now making it available for everyone to try.

The course takes about six weeks to complete, with six individual modules and is available in English, Swedish, Estonian, Finnish, and German. If you complete 90 per cent of the course and get 50 per cent of the answers right then the course managers will send you a nice certificate.

Meanwhile, don't forget there are many cool and useful free online courses on neural networks and the like, such as Fast.ai's excellent series and Stanford's top-tier lectures and notes.

Yep, AL still racist and sexist: A major study by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, better known as NIST, has revealed major failings in today's facial-recognition systems.

The study examined 189 software algorithms from 99 developers, although interestingly Amazons Rekognition engine didnt take part, and the results arent pretty. When it came to recognizing Asian and African American faces, the algorithms were wildly inaccurate compared to matching Caucasian faces, especially with systems from US developers.

While it is usually incorrect to make statements across algorithms, we found empirical evidence for the existence of demographic differentials in the majority of the face recognition algorithms we studied, said Patrick Grother, a NIST computer scientist and the reports primary author.

While we do not explore what might cause these differentials, this data will be valuable to policymakers, developers and end users in thinking about the limitations and appropriate use of these algorithms.

For sale: baby shoes, never worn: As Hemmingway put it, the death of a child is one of the greatest tragedies that can occur, and Microsoft wants to do something about that using machine learning.

Redmond boffins worked with Tatiana Anderson and Jan-Marino Ramirez at Seattle Childrens Research Institute, in America, and Edwin Mitchell at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, to analyse Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID) cases. Using a decades worth of data from the US Center for Disease Control (CDC), covering over 41 million births and 37,000 SUID deaths, the team sought to use specially prepared logistic-regression models to turn up some insights.

The results, published in the journal Pediatrics, were surprising: there was a clear difference between deaths that occurred in the first week after birth, dubbed SUEND, which stands for Sudden Unexpected Early Neonatal Death, and those that occurred between the first week and the end of a childs first year.

In the case of SUID, they found that rates were higher for unmarried, young mothers (between 15 and 24 years old), while this was not the case for SUEND cases. Instead, maternal smoking was highlighted as a major causative factor in SUEND situations, as were the length of pregnancy and birth weight.

The team are now using the model to look down other causative factors, be they genetic, environmental or something else. Hopefully such research will save many more lives in the future.

AI cracking calculus: Calculus, the bane of many schoolchildrens lives, appears to be right up AIs street.

A team of Facebook eggheads built a natural-language processing engine to understand and solve calculus problems, and compared the output with Wolfram Mathematica's output. The results were pretty stark: for basic equations, the AI solved them with 98 per cent accuracy, compared to 85 per cent for Mathematica.

With more complex calculations, however, the AIs accuracy drops off. It scored 81 per cent for a harder differential equation and just 40 per cent for more complex calculations.

These results are surprising given the difficulty of neural models to perform simpler tasks like integer addition or multiplication, the team said in a paper [PDF] on Arxiv. These results suggest that in the future, standard mathematical frameworks may benefit from integrating neural components in their solvers.

Deep-fake crackdown: Speaking of Facebook: today, the antisocial network put out an announcement that it had shut down two sets of fake accounts pushing propaganda. One campaign, originating in the country of Georgia, had 39 Facebook accounts, 344 Pages, 13 Groups, and 22 Instagram accounts, now all shut down. The network was linked to the nation's Panda advertising agency, and was pushing pro-Georgian-government material.

What's the AI angle? Here it is: the other campaign was based in Vietnam, and was devoted to influencing US voters using Western-looking avatars generated by deep-fake software a la thispersondoesnotexist.com.

Some 610 accounts, 89 Pages, 156 Groups and 72 Instagram accounts were shut down. The effort was traced to a group calling itself Beauty of Life (BL), which Facebook linked to the Epoch Media Group, a stateside biz that's very fond of President Trump and spent $9.5m in Facebook advertising to push its messages.

"The BL-focused network repeatedly violated a number of our policies, including our policies against coordinated inauthentic behavior, spam and misrepresentation, to name just a few," said Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Security Policy at Facebook.

"The BL is now banned from Facebook. We are continuing to investigate all linked networks, and will take action as appropriate if we determine they are engaged in deceptive behavior."

Facebook acknowledged that it took the action as a result of its own investigation and "benefited from open source reporting." This almost certainly refers to bullshit-busting website Snopes, which uncovered the BL network last month.

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Another free web course to gain machine-learning skills (thanks, Finland), NIST probes 'racist' face-recog and more - The Register