What a nice way to top off an already big week.
Posting first-quarter financials before market opening this morning, Microsoft said it earned 40 cents a share on revenue of $12.92 billion, besting analyst estimates that had called for a profit of 32 cents a share and revenue of $12.4 billion.
Nonetheless, the software giant still saw both profits and revenue decline for the third quarter in a row.
Though eBay reported a 29 percent drop in profit for its third quarter Wednesday, the company did deliver revenue that was reasonably higher than Wall Street’s expectations. Not that it mattered much. Investors took eBay out to the woodshed anyway, beating its shares down seven percent in after-hours trading.
The econalypse may be winding toward its end, but for Apple it evidently never even started. Shares in the company spiked more than $12, or more than six percent, to $202 in early trading Tuesday as investors celebrated another of the company’s great quarters.
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.
Discussing Palm’s first-quarter results earlier this month, the company’s leadership claimed that “the vast majority of new sales” for the quarter were generated by the Pre. Palm sold some 823,000 handsets during that period with sell-through of 810,000 units, so that’s an impressive feat. But only if the sales we’re talking about here were made to on-the-street consumers. And, according to Town Hall research analyst David Eller, it’s not entirely clear that they were.
Perhaps Palm really does have the “special sauce” needed to attain smart phone leadership, as RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky recently claimed. Reporting first-quarter results this afternoon, the company posted a narrower-than-expected loss, said it shipped 823,000 smart phones during the quarter and announced plans for a common stock offering of 16 million shares.
Hoping to further differentiate its new Bing search engine from market leader Google, Microsoft is moving away from the proverbial “10 blue links” we so often associate with the search experience. During a presentation at the TechCrunch 50 event in San Francisco, the company announced Bing Visual Search, a Silverlight-based feature that replaces those links with images.
Yahoo’s search advertising partnership with Microsoft and its embrace of Bing don’t mean the company has given up on its search business. During a presentation at its headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif., Monday, Yahoo unveiled a number of new features in its search product that show it’s intent on competing with its new partner in the only way it can–by mimicking the features of Microsoft’s new Bing search engine, and Google’s search engine as well.
If eBay shares were to be listed among the company’s other auctions, buyer feedback would more likely be negative than not. Hurt by the souring economy and increased competition, eBay reported its third consecutive earnings decline Wednesday.
If Intel’s latest earnings are truly an indication of how the tech industry is holding up in the econalypse, then the tech industry isn’t doing too badly (though, obviously, it has seen better days). After market close Tuesday, the chip behemoth posted second-quarter results far in excess of expectations.
Too bad Palm launched the Pre a week after the close of its fiscal fourth quarter. If it had brought the device to market earlier, the quarterly results it posted Thursday afternoon might have been even better. After market close, Palm posted a narrower-than-expected loss despite a steep revenue decline, sending its shares up more than 10 percent.
Monster has finally put its backdating case to rest. Nary a week after former COO James Treacy was convicted of conspiracy and securities fraud, the online employment search company agreed to pay a $2.5 million fine to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to settle charges that it improperly backdated millions of dollars in stock options.
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.
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
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