Items tagged with Business
Intel Chief Paul Otellini recently announced that he plans to retire from chipzilla in May 2013, which leaves the world's largest semiconductor player plenty of time for find a replacement. Who will it be? That's the big question that nobody knows the answer to, though Otellini did indicate that it's likely to be someone who already works for Intel. "It's not up to me but I think that's the most likely outcome. I'm very comfortable with the internal candidates and the track record of internal versus external in our industry shows pretty clearly you want to stay inside if you can," Otellini said at a Sanford Berstein investor conference, according to Reuters. One advantage to looking outside the...
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Finicky investors weren't as high on Apple yesterday as they have been in the past. Apple's share price dropped 6.4 percent on Wednesday, representing the company's biggest single-day drop in four years and shaving $35 billion from its market cap. What gives? That's a good question, and there are no concrete answer to be found, only theories. One of them comes from Mercury News, which believes it has to do with dividends. In order to avoid possible tax hikes on cash as a result of the so-called "fiscal cliff" that's around the bend, companies have already started dishing out dividends for next year. Apple hasn't, however, so the theory goes that investors are taking their profits today to avoid...
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Although HP's attempt at competing in the consumer tablet market with the HP TouchPad may have been short-lived, the company has continued to compete in the business segment of the market with products such as the ElitePad. In yet another effort to attract the business crowd, HP recently announced the new HP EliteBook Revolve. The EliteBook Revolve is part of the company's ninth generation line of convertible tablets. What sets this convertible apart from previous generation models is the fact that it's running the touch-friendly Windows 8 OS. The EliteBook Revolve comes with third-generation Intel Core processor options, an 11.6-inch HD display, 720p video camera, USB 3.0 connectivity, and up...
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Hewlett-Packard today announced financial results for its fourth fiscal quarter and full fiscal year ended October 31, 2012, noting an $8.8 billion asset impairment charge related to the acquisition of software firm Autonomy. That's a pretty big write-off, and HP is essentially claiming fraud on the part of Autonomy. "The majority of this impairment charge is linked to serious accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations at Autonomy Corporation plc that occurred prior to HP's acquisition of Autonomy and the associated impact of those improprieties, failures and misrepresentations on the expected future financial performance of the Autonomy business over the long-term,"...
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Intel President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Paul Otellini, is calling it quits, though he isn't stepping down from the world's largest chip maker immediately. Instead, he'll work through the holiday season and into the second quarter of 2013 before retiring in May, Intel announced today. "Paul Otellini has been a very strong leader, only the fifth CEO in the company’s great 45-year history, and one who has managed the company through challenging times and market transitions," said Andy Bryant, chairman of the board. "The board is grateful for his innumerable contributions to the company and his distinguished tenure as CEO over the last eight years." Otellini didn't indicate what...
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When you're hot, you're hot, and when you're cold, well, things are still pretty good if you're Apple. Ahead of the iPhone 5 launch, the Cupertino company saw its share price hit an all-time high a couple months ago, reaching more than $705. Since then, Apple's share price has been steadily declining. Now that the dust has settled from the iPhone 5 launch and iPad mini hype, Apple's share price has started to come down, closing at $526.59 entering the weekend, the lowest it's been in the past six months. In pre-market trading ahead of Monday morning's bell, Apple's share price is up slightly to $527.68, still well below its recent high. That's a big disparity between the two, but to put it into...
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Dell's fiscal 2013 third quarter revenue dipped to $13.7 billion, down 11 percent sequentially, the company announced this week. Battered by weak spending in the PC sector and a trend towards mobile handheld devices, Dell's profit was cut nearly in half, declining 47 percent to $475. Dell warned that it "sees the challenging global macro-economic environment continuing in the fourth quarter, which will continue to impact the company's results." The world's third largest PC maker (behind HP and Lenovo) saw its Enterprise Solutions and Services revenue grow by 3 percent year-over-year to $4.8 billion, while it's server and networking revenue climbed 11 percent. Dell says it was the only top 3 server...
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Wall Street's going to be busy today as some 800 million Facebook shares held by insiders become eligible to trade, completely free of previous lock-up provisions. This isn't the first wave of restricted Facebook stock to be freed up -- Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg has already offloaded more than $11 million worth of previously restricted shares, and so have a few other executives -- but it's by far the biggest wave. All eyes are on Facebook today to see how many shares change hands. Despite the drop in overall value compared to Facebook's $38 IPO price, the stock is still valuable and will make a lot of people rich. NASDAQ's trading hours kicked off an hour ago, and already...
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The Internet is abuzz this evening after Reuters ran an exclusive report claiming Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) had hired J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. to "explore options," including a potential sale of the company. You can imagine the sullen faces on AMD fans far and wide, and also those who favor healthy competition in the market place. There's just one problem -- AMD isn't shopping for a buyer, not for itself or for any of its assets, or so the chip maker says. Reuters based its report on un-named sources who said a sale of the company wasn't necessarily a priority, but it was definitely looking at available options, such as selling some of its patents to the highest bidder. Given AMD's recent...
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This one's probably a long-shot, but apparently Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision Industry) is thinking about branching out and building manufacturing facilities in the United States. Two potential destinations reportedly being evaluated include Detroit, Michigan and Los Angeles, California. Foxconn is a major manufacturer of electronics devices that are shipped and sold in the U.S. and other parts of the world. It's the leading producer of Apple products and also has contracts with companies like Dell, Sony, and Microsoft, to name just a few tech heavyweights. Setting up manufacturing plants in the U.S. would be no easy task, and according to the un-named "market watchers" squawking to DigiTimes about...
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Perhaps as the result of a momentary sense of panic following Foxconn's reiteration that those newfangled iPhone 5 models are a bear to build, investors grew slightly skittish yesterday and sent Apple's share price down nearly 4 percent by the end of the trading day. Apple stock is now the lowest it's been in five months. "It's not easy to make the iPhones. We are falling short of meeting the huge demand," Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou recently stated. That's not the only reason Apple's stock is getting battered. It's down over 20 percent from a three-month high of more than $700 per share, the price it was trading at in mid-September. According to Business Insider, one theory is that the President...
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Sharp recently warned investors that it was on the verge of collapse after doubling its full-year net loss forecast to $5.6 billion, citing a "worse than expected drop" in LCD TV sales in Japan and China. At the time, it was being reported that Sharp was looking for outside help to stay afloat, and was in talks with Hon Hai Precision (Foxconn) to become the company's largest shareholder. Did Apple beat them to the punch? Horace Dediu, an analyst with Asymco, took note of some interesting financial happenings at Apple, including the fact that expenditures overall were $2.3 billion higher than forecast. Dediu also pointed to Apple paying for some of its acquisitions "through uncharacteristic or...
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One of the biggest benefactors of the mobile device revolution that's taking place right before our very eyes is ARM, which licenses its technology to a number of players, like NVIDIA and Qualcomm (to name just two). If you own a smartphone or tablet, there's a good chance it's rocking ARM-based hardware inside. As a result, ARM is sitting on a record amount of cash and the highest stock price in more than a decade. Shares of ARM shot up this month to the highest they've been since 2000, as investors reacted positively when the company posted record quarterly revenue two weeks ago. In addition, ARM stated that its backlog of orders has never been higher than what it is right now. Sitting on a...
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Following the expiration on insider trading restrictions, Facebook's Chief Operating Officer (COO) Sheryl Sandberg unloaded around 353,000 shares of the social networking site worth about $7.44 million, she disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday. That represents the majority of Sandberg's restricted shares, but only a fraction of her overall stake in the site. Sandberg still owns some 20 million vested shares worth approximately $420 million, making her one of the largest shareholders in the company. Including all her assets and options, it's reported that Sandberg is worth in the neighborhood of $500 million. In other words, she's not going to go hungry...
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Purchased a new television lately? Unfortunately for Sharp, most people aren't upgrading their TVs, hence part of the reason why the struggling electronics maker doubled its full-year net loss forecast to $5.6 billion. Speaking to its second quarter financial results, Sharp noted a "worse than expected drop" in LCD TV sales in Japan and China. This caused overall LCD TVs sales to drop "drastically" compared to the same period last year, Sharp said. Sharp used the word "drastic" quite a bit in its financial report, referring to "drastic price drops of products and devices," and the need to institute a "drastic structural reorganization" within the company. Sharp also complained of production delays....
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It's not unusual for a company's profits to come up short of analyst expectations, but what's interesting in Acer's case is fact that its performance in the third quarter of 2012 versus what the market experts were anticipating ended up being miles apart. Acer's net income in Q3 reached NT$68 million (about US$2.3 million), the second largest computer maker in Asia announced today. That's well short of the NT$503 million (US$17.2 million) average Bloomberg compiled based on 18 analyst estimates, and Acer doesn't appear willing to talk about the disparity, at least not yet. The company plans to hold a briefing on Thursday, at which time it will hopefully shed some light on its low figures. In...
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It's said that one's man trash is another man's treasure, and while it appears Texas Instruments wants to rid itself of its mobile division, mega e-tailer Amazon sees the situation as a potential goldmine. To wit, Amazon is reportedly close to striking a deal to buy TI's mobile chip business, which incidentally is where the processors for Amazon's Kindle Fire devices come from. Supposing Amazon pulls off what's expected be a deal worth billions of dollars, it would be a game-changing acquisition that would immediately situate the e-tailer as a direct competitor to Apple and Samsung, as all three would then be designing their own processors. The move makes sense for both sides. TI has already...
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Apparently taking a billion dollars from Samsung wasn't enough, Apple wants its rival's engineers, too. It's getting one in Jim Mergard, who previously served Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) for 16 years as vice president and chief engineer before accepting employment at Samsung. Now he's going to work for Apple. It's not unusual to see top level executives and engineers switch companies, though the timing of this move is certainly interesting. Samsung and Apple have become bitter rivals of late, with tensions escalating into high profile court cases and patent infringement claims. The two are still battling things out in various courts around the world, and the two have also come to rely on each...
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Former Ebay CEO and current chief of Hewlett-Packard, Meg Whitman, inherited a company that was (and remains) on top of the PC pile, but also one that was struggling to find direction. She replaced Léo Apotheker, a software guy who wanted to exit HP from the PC business and focus on software and printing, a strategy that didn't mesh with the Board's vision for the future. As such, Whitman jumped into the fire feet first, was handed the reins, and essentially told, 'Here you go, fix everything.' That's what she's been trying to do, but some things take time. While speaking to financial analysts this week, Whitman hit them with the news that earnings would take a dive, revenue was about...
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Most economists will agree that you have to spend money to make money, but the trick is not to go overboard with the former. It's a balancing act Sony finds itself in at this very moment, having spent $1.8 billion in just the last three months acquiring companies and assets, such as buying a 51 percent stake in Olympus for $645 million just weeks ago. Should Sony's investors be worried? That depends on what happens next for Sony. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and for Sony's fiscal year ended March 31, the electronics maker revealed a 9.6 percent slippage in revenue compared to one year ago. Sony's fiscal-year loss reached a record $5.55 billion, which means it was the worst year...
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Well here's a bit of promising news. According to a survey conducted by IDC Manufacturing Insights for the United Parcel Service (UPS), around 85 percent of technology executives polled in the U.S. believe President Obama will successfully achieve his goal of doubling exports within the the next three years. Going back to 2010, only 40 percent of pollsters believed the Obama administration could achieve its export goal. "It's really being driven by this emerging middle class that have more disposable income and a heavy appetite for technology products like cell phones, tablets, and laptops," Ken Rankin, a high-tech marketing director at UPS in Atlanta, told Reuters in an interview. Free trade...
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Sony and Olympus are kicking off the weekend by entering into a "business alliance agreement" and a "capital alliance agreement," which are essentially fancy ways of announcing a big time investment of one into the other. In this case, Sony is tossing about $645 million at Olympus in order to become the company's largest shareholder. After the investment is complete, Sony will own a 51 percent stake in Olympus, while Olympus will retain the remaining 49 percent. What's the point? For Sony, it gives the company easy entry into the profitable medical equipment business, a sector where Olympus is already established. As part of the new business arrangement, Olympus and Sony will share certain camera...
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