Announced before the bell, the plans had a mixed effect on investors. In Microsoft’s case they pushed the company’s shares up nearly 4 percent in early trading. HP shares gained 1.6 percent before starting to head back down.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
While the technology behind the Telephone is new, the design is reassuringly old-fashioned, reminiscent of a phrenologist’s horn or ear-candle in form. We found the experience far more comfortable than the one we had with the Telegraph.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size. 11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Looks like this period of “rapid and profound change” on Wall Street hasn’t much fazed Microsoft (MSFT) and Hewlett Packard (HPQ). This morning Microsoft’s board authorized a new five-year $40 billion share buyback plan and an 18 percent dividend boost. Meanwhile, HP said its board had approved the repurchase of $8 billion in company stock. 
