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.
Get this: Microsoft has been holding secret “Screw Google” meetings in Washington at which the company schemes to undermine Google and prevent it from subsuming the businesses that took it decades to build. Those ruthless, conniving bastards. Strategizing to thwart a rival.
It’s going to be a rough couple of months for the wireless industry. As expected, the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday approved a broad inquiry into the wireless market. In a unanimous vote, the agency’s five commissioners–three Democrats and two Republicans–approved two so-called notices of inquiry, one that will examine competition and innovation and another that will evaluate truth-in-billing practices.
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.
Early gains do not guarantee a long-term increase in search market share, and thanks to its experience with Live Search and Live Search Cashback, Microsoft knows this better than anyone. That said, Redmond’s new search engine, Bing, does seem to be making some solid progress.
Nintendo really should have cut its losses yesterday and cancelled its E3 press conference after Microsoft’s Project Natal demo. How could it possibly have trumped Redmond’s controllerless game control system? Certainly not with a blood pressure monitor.
Back in 2005, Google was represented in Washington by a lone staffer. The company’s political innocence was something of a joke among seasoned beltway players and it didn’t much seem to care. Google was far too busy organizing the world’s information to pay attention to Washington.
How quickly things changed. By 2007, the company’s Washington lobbyists numbered about 12. And now, two years later, Google CEO Eric Schmidt has been named by President Obama to his Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
You can make money without doing evil. You can also make it without using so much fossil fuel. That’s the word from Google, which today unveiled a $4.4 trillion plan it says will reduce the nation’s dependence on coal and oil. Google’s “Clean Energy 2030” plan proposes to wean the U.S. off of coal and oil for electricity generation by 2030 by relying on power from wind, nuclear and geothermal sources instead.
“Ted has extremely strong connections with the Republican party, and we think that’s a good thing.” That’s what Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s vice president of communications and public policy, had to say about Ted Ullyot, who joins the company as its vice president and general counsel this month.
Wall Street’s 777-point selloff on Monday–one of its worst days since 1929–hit many tech stocks harder even than the overall market on Monday. Said Ross Sandler, senior Internet analyst at RBC Capital Markets, “Tech took it on the chin disproportionately.” Indeed, it did. And a couple of other places as well, from the looks of things. A quick overview of the carnage.
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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