Verizon, though it refuses to divulge sales numbers for Motorola’s new Droid handset, says it has been “very pleased” with demand for the device so far. And no wonder: According to Mark McKechnie of Broadpoint AmTech, Verizon is on track to sell 600,000 Droids during the fourth quarter of 2009.
2009 semiconductor sales are down from 2008 by nearly record amounts, but they’re improving. That’s the latest word from the Semiconductor Industry Association, which said today that global chip sales rose in September from the previous month–the seventh straight month of gains.
Motorola’s ambitious turnaround strategy is beginning to pay off. Posting earnings this morning, the company said it managed a surprise profit in the third quarter, despite a decline in revenue. For the period, the troubled handset maker reported a profit of $12 million, or a penny a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $397 million, or 18 cents a share. Sales fell 28 percent to $5.45 billion from $7.48 billion. Not the prettiest of quarters, but that penny-a-share profit beat the consensus estimates of analysts, who had expected the company to simply break even.
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.
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come just paid Circuit City an early visit, pointing a single bony finger toward a future of insolvency.
A week after announcing the closure of a fifth of its stores in the U.S., the struggling retailer succumbed to the inevitable and filed for bankruptcy protection.
Not that there’s reason to expect anything different, but online retail sales are expected to slow for the first time ever this holiday season, thanks to the lousy economy. That’s the word from Forrester Research, which expects holiday shoppers to spend $44 billion online this year.
The high-speed pursuit by Electronic Arts of Take-Two Interactive Software and the bounties of its Grand Theft Auto franchise has ended in a set of flat tires. On Sunday EA (ERTS) dropped its $2 billion tender offer for the rival videogame maker. The company didn’t say exactly what prompted it to end talks with its smaller rival, though presumably it had something to do with Take-Two’s bashing of EA’s $25.74-per-share bid as too low and the company’s acquisition strategy as “mystifying.”
Come next month there will be another retail outlet at which to wait in line for an iPhone. On Sept. 7, Best Buy will become the first U.S. retail chain to sell the iPhone outside of the Apple-AT&T duopoly. The deal is an obvious coup for the big-box retailer, which, with the exception of Apple and AT&T, has a national exclusive on the device through Christmas.
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.
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