How quickly Sprint has gone from cutting jobs to cutting checks. Not 24 hours after announcing plans to sack between 2,000 and 25,000 employees, the company said it has agreed to invest another $1.18 billion in WiMax provider Clearwire. That’s a big check to be writing, but then, Sprint is Clearwire’s majority shareholder and the carrier’s plans for differentiated 4G services rely heavily on the outfit’s success.
“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.
The U.S. government broadband stimulus program couldn’t have come along at a better time. Leichtman Research Group said Monday that the country’s 19 largest cable and telephone providers added a net 634,000 broadband subscribers during the second quarter of 2009. That’s 29 percent fewer than were added in the same period a year ago and the lowest number of net additions of any quarter in the last eight years.
The Federal Communications Commission’s efforts to determine whether exclusive handset deals are promoting or hindering innovation in the wireless market are moving ahead with a focus on rural areas. That’s the word from agency Chairman Julius Genachowski, who says he’s concerned not just with the competitive ramifications of carrier-exclusivity deals but with their tendency to limit customer access to top smartphones.
Good thing Wall Street wasn’t expecting much from Microsoft. Because it didn’t get it.
After market close Thursday, the Redmond, Wash-based tech giant reported that fiscal fourth-quarter net income fell to $3.05 billion, or 34 cents a share, from $4.3 billion, or 46 cents a share, in the same period a year earlier. Revenue for the period ended in June fell 17 percent to $13.1 billion.
Microsoft missed Wall Street revenue estimates by $1 billion. Gruesome.
Now we know why Ericsson declined to offer a specific business outlook for 2009 when it last reported earnings. This morning the company posted a 35 percent drop in first-quarter profit, its financials undermined by its Sony Ericsson joint venture and by customers postponing purchases because their local currency has collapsed.
Sequoia Capital partner Michael Moritz often says that the best time to invest is when people are cowering under their desks. Google appears to have taken that message to heart because it’s launching a new venture fund at a time when the VC industry is busy practicing its duck-for-cover exercises.
Thank God for IBM. The technology bellwether gave battered investors a chance to catch their breath Thursday after it said it expects to report a 20 percent increase in net income for its third quarter and, remarkably, claimed its profit outlook for the full year remains on track.
Apple this morning announced an invitation-only event at the company’s Town Hall in Cupertino. As you can see from the invitation at right, the focus is clearly notebooks. It appears those alleged photos of the Apple next-generation MacBook Pro casing that have been floating around recently may be the real deal. Same goes for rumors of a new $800 MacBook.
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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