Apple has $29 billion in cash, no debt, a 36 percent gross margin, and it’s on the cusp of another iPhone ugrade cycle. Little wonder, then, that analysts are raising their target prices on the company’s stock. Among those doing so today: Morgan Stanley’s Kathryn Huberty, who says “Apple is emerging as the clear leader in the battle over the mobile Internet.”
The long-awaited upgrade to Microsoft’s search engine will soon make its debut. Sources with knowledge of the situation said the company is expected to demonstrate it at our D: All Things Digital conference next week.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is scheduled to appear onstage at the event, a three-day event that hosts top players from the tech and media industries in interviews by All Things Digital Co-executive Editors Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.
Code-named “Kumo,” the search engine is Microsoft’s effort to raise its hand to table stakes in the battle for search market share with Google.
PC vendors hoping for a sooner-than-expected recovery later this year best prepare themselves for disappointment. No quick recovery is likely, according to J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz, who says the PC market will remain in a shambles throughout 2009.
If/when Apple uncrates its next-generation iPhone at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June, it will be identical to its predecessor in physical design and boast only a few modest upgrades. This according to the latest rumor making the rounds, which describes the new device as a near “repeat” of the iPhone 3G.
Brave guy, Yair Reiner, for singlehandedly assailing the “Macs are more expensive” myth (or truism, depending on your particular world view). In a research note on Apple’s new desktops, the Oppenheimer analyst compared, spec-by-spec, the new iMac, Dell’s XPS One 24 and Hewlett-Packard’s TouchSmart IQ800t and concluded that the iMac offers a better value.
Apple may not announce any new product categories at MacWorld come January, but it will uncrate an update to at least one old one: the Mac Mini. An “Apple corporate employee” tells Wired that the diminutive desktop has received a long overdue upgrade that’s to be revealed at the annual expo.
After a week of bleeding purple, a heavily bandaged Yahoo has regrouped to roll out its vaunted Open Strategy. At an event in San Francisco today, the company introduced “socialized” upgrades to Yahoo Mail, Toolbar, My Yahoo, Yahoo TV and Yahoo Music. Each service now features social enhancements that essentially transform the experience of using them into one more akin to social networking.
My apologies. Comcast has made no final decisions about its future network management practices; nor has it committed to slowing the Internet connections of heavy users for up to 20 minutes during network congestion, though Comcast senior vice president Mitch Bowling convincingly told Bloomberg just that on Wednesday. Rather, that technique–which the company prefers to describe as a “de-prioritizing” of heavy user traffic–is one option among the many Comcast is considering.
Good thing the iPhone was chosen as Time Magazine’s 2007 Invention of the Year, because a growing chorus of discontent suggests its successor is unworthy of the honor in 2008. Voice and data reception issues have been troubling the device for weeks now and it seems the blame for them lies not with the network carriers, but with Apple itself.
AT&T is on track to complete the upgrade of its 3G mobile broadband network by the end of June. Good thing, too. Because we’re just weeks away from the eagerly anticipated launch of Apple’s 3G iPhone and AT&T–Apple’s exclusive wireless carrier in the states–certainly doesn’t want to foul up the debut of the second generation iPhone, the way it did the first.
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.
Best use of the Beeker “meee” ever.
While the technology behind the Telephone is new, the design is reassuringly old-fashioned, reminiscent of a phrenologist’s horn or ear-candle in form. We found the experience far more comfortable than the one we had with the Telegraph.
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!
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