“The decrease in _____ revenue was primarily due to _____” and “uncertainty associated with the proposed acquisition by Oracle and increased competition.” That refrain is repeated over and over again in Sun’s latest grim earnings report, which was filed without much in the way of announcement Friday afternoon.
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.
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.
If Barry Diller is looking for somewhere to unload IAC’s Ask.com search engine, he’d be wise to consider Microsoft–if he doesn’t have that in mind already. Analysts reflecting on Diller’s recent remarks about Ask’s “speculative future” say Microsoft is the most likely buyer if IAC is truly serious about dumping the little search engine that couldn’t.
Good thing Sprint expects to lose fewer customers this quarter than in previous quarters. Because if the company continues to lose them at its former rate–well, things are going to get even uglier. Reporting a wider third-quarter loss than expected this morning, Sprint said it lost 545,000 wireless customers and 801,000 more in the crucial postpaid category.
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.
“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.
Verizon uncrated its latest iPhone challenger Wednesday morning, introducing the new $199 Motorola Droid, and it already has analysts buzzing about the life it may breathe back into Motorola, whose share of the phone market dropped by nearly half in the second quarter from 10 percent a year earlier.
Much has changed at Yahoo since May 17, 2006, the last time the company held an investor day gathering. In May 2006, Yahoo’s shares traded at about $30 and the company claimed 28.98 percent of the U.S. search market. Today, its stock is worth a little over $16 and its share of the search market has fallen to 18.8 percent. Ugly declines, both of them. Fitting then, that Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, speaking at the company’s first investor day gathering in three-and-a-half years, would describe Yahoo’s future as “a journey back to respect.”
Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp racked up its second profitable quarter in a row Tuesday despite a decline in advertising. The company–which runs Ask.com and the Citysearch online city guide, among other things–posted earnings of $21.3 million, or 16 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $15.2 million, or 11 cents a share.
Verizon posted a decent third quarter this morning, besting consensus estimates. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had been expecting earnings of 59 cents on revenue of $27.17 billion. Excluding one-time costs, Verizon reported a profit of 60 cents a share on revenue of $27.3 billion.
Evidently, Netflix is as recession-proof as Hollywood. Reporting third-quarter earnings after market close Thursday, the DVD-by-mail pioneer posted net income of $30.1 million, up 48 percent from a year earlier, on revenue of $423.1 million. That’s 52 cents a share. Analysts had been expecting 46 cents a share on $419.9 million in sales. Why, then, are investors punishing the company in after-hours trading?
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.
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.
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.
Spectacular in the bellowing Russian sailor sense of the word …
“If you spell something wrong on your insurance claim, do you really deserve surgery? I don’t think so …”
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