Intel CEO Paul Otellini has confirmed what “people familiar with the matter” and industry observers have been saying for months now. Sun is eager to find a buyer and has offered itself for sale to IBM and pretty much anyone else who might have the cash to acquire it.
Finally, some good news… After market close Tuesday, IBM reported a fiscal fourth-quarter profit that rose 12 percent year over year and said it expects earnings for 2009 to surpass current estimates. IBM believes it will earn at least $9.20 a share in 2009, while analysts have been betting on $8.75.
Who said the M&A market is dead? Sun Microsystems said this morning that it has acquired Q-layer, a company that automates cloud computing deployments. Meanwhile, Sun shares have been trading higher for a few days now, inexplicably up about 20 percent vs. Nasdaq, which isn’t doing nearly as well.
With $25 billion in cash and short-term securities stored away on its balance sheet, Apple is in a uniquely comfortable position from which to weather the econaclypse. And perhaps a uniquely opportunistic one, as well. According to CEO Steve Jobs, anyway. To wit: Jobs’s comments Tuesday about Apple’s cash reserves what it might do with them.
The stress of Microsoft’s failed bid for Yahoo has apparently been so great, the company’s been put off its food. Microsoft says it has no intention of seeking the search advertising market heft it might have gained in an acquisition of Yahoo with a spate of other internet purchases.
Time Warner, the world’s largest media company, soon won’t be quite so large. This morning Time Warner revealed the details of its planned spinoff of Time Warner Cable, a massive transaction that will separate the company’s content and distribution businesses once and for all.
Microsoft has withdrawn its bid for Yahoo, but if Yahoo, beaten into submission by irate investors, should suddenly come crawling back to the now empty negotiating table, Microsoft might indulge it, if only for a moment.
Good thing so rarely a correlation exists between a company’s public announcements and its corporate actions. Otherwise, it might be tough to parse Microsoft’s recent comments about future acquisitions in light of some rumors floating around Silicon Valley today.
Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO) are talking again–but apparently they’re talking in circles. The two companies met this week to discuss Microsoft’s proposal to acquire Yahoo, but failed to resolve the differences that have so far hamstrung the deal. Sources familiar with the talks claim the two companies remain at an impasse, with Yahoo refusing [...]
Dell (DELL) will conclude its first first official analyst meeting in three years later today. And judging from the street’s tepid reaction to it, the company probably could have postponed it for yet another year. The big news this afternoon: Dell isn’t planning any large acquisitions, which for a company in Dell’s [...]
The Amazon bears are growling this morning.
Shares in the company, which have already lost more than 20% of their value in 2008, slipped further in early trading (but recovered later), though Amazon said yesterday that profits more than doubled in its fourth quarter. “This quarter showed accelerated sales growth and record operating profits,” CEO Jeff [...]
The Federal Trade Commission’s decision to approve Google’s proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of online ad-serving vendor DoubleClick without condition hasn’t exactly elicited resounding calls of huzzah! from the European Union. On the contrary, European parliamentarians seem out to spoil the deal.
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.
Best use of the Beeker “meee” ever.
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.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
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