Wednesday, November 4, 2009
NetSuite Beats Street by a Penny
Investors expecting NetSuite to break even on a per-share basis for its third quarter were given a pleasant surprise this afternoon when the company beat estimates by a penny.
Investors expecting NetSuite to break even on a per-share basis for its third quarter were given a pleasant surprise this afternoon when the company beat estimates by a penny.
As its recent buying binge–three acquisitions in October, alone–suggests, Cisco’s business is in decent shape these days. Reporting first-quarter results after market close today, the company handily beat Wall Street estimates.
No doubt about it now, the Wii’s appeal is beginning to wane. Reporting first-half earnings this morning, Nintendo said it sold just 5.75 million of its flagship gaming consoles, a massive decline from the 10 million sold during the same period last year. As a result, Nintendo’s operating profit fell 52 percent to 64 billion yen, missing the company’s own forecast of 100 billion yen, as well as estimates of analysts, who were expecting 90 billion.
“We always said 2009 would be a tough year.” SAP CEO Léo Apotheker made that remark during the company’s third-quarter earnings call today and, sadly, SAP’s worse-than-expected performance and reduced forecast for the year would seem to bear him out.
Apple’s September quarter saw, among other things, the release of Snow Leopard, the latest upgrade to its OS X operating system and the first public appearance of CEO Steve Jobs, who’d been on a medical leave of absence for a liver transplant. It was also the first full period since the company launched the iPhone 3GS in late June. No wonder it was a blowout quarter.
Overwhelming demand for the iPhone has made it hard for Apple to keep the device in stock globally, so much so that some observers wonder if the company’s fourth-quarter earnings might be a slight disappointment.
The broader advertising recovery may take time, but search advertising is clearly beating a hasty path back toward normalcy. Or it is in Google’s case anyway. Reporting third-quarter results after market close Thursday, the search giant posted revenue of $5.94 billion, an increase of seven percent compared to the third quarter of 2008.
Apple’s September quarter is shaping up to be a good one, if the latest metrics from NPD as reported by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster are any indication. According to the research outfit, Mac sales for July and August are up seven percent year-over-year.
This week has been a good one for Sirius XM Radio. The company’s shares spiked, rising about 20 percent to 54 cents on news of the government’s expanded “Cash for Clunkers” program and the positive impact it should have on new car sales and, by extension, new Sirius subscriptions. That analysts had been predicting a second-quarter loss for the satellite radio company, along with the loss of thousands of subscribers, did little to temper enthusiasm.
Looks like News Corp. was a little too optimistic when the company told investors in May that it expected a decline of around 30 percent in fiscal-year-adjusted operating income. Reporting earnings this afternoon, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal and this Web site instead posted a decline of 32.5 percent.
Sales of the Palm Pre aren’t slowing; nor is the device suffering from unusually high return rates. And all this incessant hand-wringing over the Pre’s performance at market is needless. That’s the word from Deutsche Bank analyst Jonathan Goldberg, who says Palm’s new smartphone is doing just fine.
Time Warner’s second-quarter earnings beat analysts’ expectations. But that’s not saying much, really. Profits fell 34 percent to $519 million, or 43 cents a share, from $792 million, or 66 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue was down nine percent to $6.8 billion.
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.
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!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.