Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Time to Cut AT&T Some Slack, iPhone Users?
Since 2008, AT&T’s network in and around San Francisco has experienced an increase in 3G data traffic of 2,000 percent. If you find this metric as astonishing as I do, consider this: The increase in Bay Area data traffic is actually below the national average–significantly below. According to AT&T CTO John Donovan, 3G data traffic on the company’s wireless network has risen nearly 5,000 percent nationally in the past 12 quarters.
Good thing Comcast and General Electric plan to name NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker as head of their proposed joint venture, because Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin doesn’t want the job. Not that he wouldn’t be a good candidate to run a merged Comcast-NBCU. Because as Karmazin himself told Fox Business Network’s Neil Cavuto, he’d be an excellent choice.
ComScore’s October search market analysis is in and it’s good news for two of the Big Three search engines. Google and Microsoft both posted gains for the month, while Yahoo suffered a decline.
The Pixi, the Palm Pre’s diminutive smart-phone sibling, arrives at market a few days from now (Nov. 15), and despite some potential pricing confusion with the Pre, analysts expect it to be another catalyst for the company’s comeback. In a note to clients today, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch analyst Vivek Arya said Palm is well-poised for growth in 2010.
Electronic Arts is betting big on social gaming. This morning, the videogame publisher said it will acquire social network games maker Playfish for $400 million. An interesting move given that the company’s leadership dismissed rumors of such a deal just last month.
Sirius XM Radio’s financial position is improving. Sadly, the same cannot be said for its subscribership. Reporting earnings this morning, the company broke even in its third quarter. Good news, but it was tempered with a bit of bad. Because Sirius’s subscriber growth is slowing.
They’re swinging the ax over at Nokia Siemens again. The mobile network equipment maker said today that it plans to reduce its 64,000-strong workforce by up to nine percent in a bid to “improve financial performance and return to growth”–something the joint venture has had a hard time doing since it launched in February 2007.
How badly does AT&T want to renew its iPhone exclusivity contract with Apple? Pretty damn badly. Posting third-quarter earnings that topped Wall Street expectations this morning, AT&T said it activated a record 3.2 million iPhones during the period. Of those, 40 percent were for customers new to the carrier.
Six months. That’s how long it’s going to take Acer to surpass Dell in market share. Speaking at a news conference in London, company President Gianfranco Lanci took a few moments to talk a bit of smack about his rivals. Said Lanci: “Between this quarter and the next, we can finally pass Dell.”
Dell’s acquisition of Perot Systems, the largest in the company’s history, is the first of many such deals, not a simple one-off. In an interview with Bloomberg, company CEO Michael Dell said the PC maker is eyeing more acquisitions as it looks to bolster sales to corporate clients. 
Google isn’t scheduled to report third-quarter results until Thursday, but already shares in the company are trading higher in anticipation of solid results. At $524.24, they’re up 1.55 percent–nearly $8, and not without good reason.
