Business, Financial & Legal - Page 162

Apple are now required to provide Samsung with contracts to Australian mobile phone carriers Telstra, Optus and Vodafone as ruled by Judge Annabel Bennet. The ruling is in relation to an assertion in Samsung's patent lawsuit against Apple carriers are obliged by the terms of the contract to subsidize iPhone sales.

Samsung are still waiting for the source code for the iPhone 4S firmware, which will support its case that Apple are infringing on their patents for wireless transmissions. Apple has handed in over 220 pages of documents in relation to the source code but Samsung have said that the source code disclosure wasn't enough because a single file was missing.

Samsung's lawyer Cynthia Cochrane has said that "someone out there is attempting to obfuscate," and I would agree. One page missing from 220 could be the key to the entire argument, and this would give Apple time to think of something else to throw in Samsung's face.

I wonder if you look under the latest Jet, Rocket Launcher or M16 if it would say "Made in China", because at the end of the day - a lot of the parts that go into the high-end military arms are built in China. A story has come about that the US Senate Armed Services Committee said its researchers had uncovered 1,800 cases in which the Pentagon had been sold electronics that may be counterfeit.

In total, the committee has said that they found more than a million fake parts that have made their way into warplanes such as the Boeing C-17 transport jet and the Lockheed Martin C-130J "Super Hercules." The problem with this is, it could be everywhere without the US military knowing, as they also found fake components in Boeing's CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter as well as the Theatre High-Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile defence system.

Senator Carl Levin has said:

Well, this is beginning to get interesting. Apple are positioning themselves nicely right now, trying to secure HDD stock and supply. The story unfolds as an explanation of how business works, which helps explain Apple's position. Explaining it as a purchasing system, which creates huge advantages for the biggest, cashed-up companies, such as Apple.

Each buyer has a certain amount of money (and power) and can place big orders that the supplier could not ignore. So if the buy says "Forget everyone else you are dealing with, I want to order 1.2 million units in 2011 and I'd like them dropped off with me at the rate of 100,000 a month, but I won't be buying them until I sell them...Oh, yes, and I won't pay for them until 3 months after I sell them", then the supplier has no choice buy to drop their pants and bend over. (KitGuru's words, but they were so good I had to use them).

Dell have been doing this for years and countless other companies, too. Both sides are aware of the practice, and are compliant with it. But, throw in a massive reduction on supply and the rules are changed, completely. The supplier now has the power and with demand so high everywhere else, it [the supplier] has the power to 'give a story' to its regular customers, while they shop around for massive profits.

Sony have just posted their financial results for Q2 of the current fiscal year, where they've noted significant losses in profit for its Consumer Products & Services, which is where the PlayStation products live and breathe. Sony explained that the loss was due to a number of factors, including the deterioration in the cost of sales ratio as a result of the price reduction on the PlayStation 3 earlier this year.

Other factors that led to losses, were the decline in sales of the video game business, LCD televisions and foreign exchange rates. But, during the quarter, Sony sold a total of 3.7 million PlayStation 3 units compared to 3.5 million in the same quarter of the last fiscal year. The PSP also saw a spike in sales, up to 1.7 million units compared to 1.5 million year-on-year. PlayStation 2 sales dropped from 1.5 million to 1.2 million.

Software wise, PS3 sales were up 37.4 million for the quarter, from 35.3 year-over year. The PSP saw a drop to 8.1 million from 11 million, and finally, the PS2 slid from 5.6 million to 2.8 million. For the quarter ended September 30, the Consumer Products & Services sector posted revenue of ¥779.7 billion ($10.1 billion), down 12.3 percent compared to ¥889.0 billion ($11.4 billion), and an operating loss of ¥34.6 billion ($449 million), compared to last year's ¥1.0 billion ($12.8 million) profit.

The flooding in Thailand is set to cause an even more drastic shortage of hard drives according to researchers at iSuppli. Roughly 660,000 Thailand residents are out of work after the country shut down 14,000 factories, including those that Western Digital and Seagate use. Shipments of hard drives are set to decline 27.7-percent from 173 million units in Q3, down to 125 million in Q4.

Both WD and Seagate have adjusted their shipment estimates, as well as raising prices to meet revenue forecasts. Average hard drive prices will increase by 10-percent according to iSuppli (not here in Australia where we're seeing a near 100-percent increase), but certain models have increased by as much as 20 to 40-percent. WD has been more directly impacted by the flooding, with analysts reporting that they will lose market share to Seagate, who has roughly double the shipment forecast for the current quarter.

Of course, there are stock reservers by most vendors to avoid disruption in desktop and notebook shipments for months, but ASUS aren't so fortunate. ASUS expects to ship 4.1 million notebooks, 600,000 Eee Pads and 1.2 million Eee PCs in Q4 2011, down from 4.3 million, 800,000 and 1.3 million in Q3. Part of that forecasted decline can be blamed on the production halt in Thailand.

AMD have just announced a new restructuring plan that is set to cut 10-percent of their workforce over the next few months. The new plan [of sacking employees] and implementation of operational efficiency initiatives designed to strengthen AMD's competitive positioning. By cutting their work force by 10-percent, AMD can save approximately $10 million in operating expenses during Q4 2011.

That sum will expand out to $118 million for 2012, the workforce layoffs will be global and not centred on just one or two sections of AMD's global footprint. It's expected to be completed by Q1 of 2012, with other restructuring plans to continue into 2012. AMD are also saying they plan to save another $90 million off its expenses in 2012, by undertaking various operating efficiencies, but they did not elaborate on that.

AMD's total operating expenses are estimated at $610 million for Q4 2011, with the savings factored in. AMD also wants to improve productivity, reduce the time it takes to release products to the market and better align themselves with key industry trends.

Apple is set to change everything up with their new iOS app and retail plans have finally been confirmed thanks to a source of BGR's. On Thursday, Apple's new retail store app for iOS will launch, bringing with it two major new features. Firstly, it will enable online ordering with retail store pickup, which has already begun rolling out in Apple Stores in New York City and California, with more stores going live on Thursday.

As for what will now happen, just check out the insane list below:

If a customer orders an in-stock product, pick up will be available approximately 12 minutes after completing the order. Why 12 minutes? Well, the order goes through the system to the designated Apple Store in about 3 minutes. Apple's back-of-house employees have 2 minutes to set all of the products aside on a shelf from the minute it was ordered. There is then a 7-minute grace period for employees to get everything else in order. Around 12 minutes after purchasing, customers will be able to walk into the Apple Store, skip lines, skip registers, get their products, sign for them and leave. We're told Apple is really excited about this, and it's something customers have been seeking for a while.

Jon Peddie Research (JPR) have released their third quarte report for the graphics market. The news brings announcement that there was a 16.7-percent sequential increase in shipments, raising them to 138.5 million. That is above the 10-year average of 13.9-percent, but in line with seasonal expectations as vendors stock up for the holiday season.

Intel saw a 28.5-percent growth in shipments on-quarter and 36.5-percent on-year, which is made up nearly entirely of embedded graphics chips inside their latest-generation desktop and mobile processors. Intel have maintained a huge lead on their competition, gobbling up 60.4-percent of the GPU market share, up 10.1-percent from Q2 2011 and up 9.5-percent when compared to Q3, 2010.

AMD have seen a steady 9.9-percent increase in shipments, this is thanks to their Fusion APU, but they lost market share. Market share for AMD is down to 23-percent, down 5.9-percent on-quarter, and flat year-over-year. Shipments of AMD's desktop and notebook Fusion chips have increased 58.4-percent from last quarter. Now for some big numbers, almost 92 million PCs shipped worldwide this quarter alone, up 8.8-percent sequentially. There were roughly 1.6 GPUs per computer in 2011, up from 1.16 GPUs per system ten years ago.

The shocking flooding in Thailand has not only affected families and citizens of Thailand, but some giant IT companies have factories there such as Western Digital. We've all heard, seen or read about the recent hard disk drive pricing hikes the world over, with prices ballooning to sometimes over 50-percent (or more) and stock levels should be getting quite thin over the following weeks toward the holiday season.

Thanks to Bright Side of News, we have some pictures that show the epic flooding that has hit Thailand. The waters near the WD factory were between 1 and 1.4m deep (4-5 feet) and were an average of about 1m (4 feet) through most of the factory and its surroundings. As you can see in the above shot, the water isn't just in some parts, it's everywhere.

Western Digital is also not the only company that is directly affected by the floods, with HDD production hitting all major players with expected 28-percent of quarter-on-quarter drop in HDD production. Other companies affected are not even in the HDD industry, the digital camera industry was also hit with companies such as Canon, Nikon and Sony all being affected, so expect digital camera prices to jump.

First, HP were killing off their PC unit, then they said they were keeping it, now the group's chief technology officer announced that he is leaving in a statement on his personal blog. December 31st will be his last day and his statement is below in its entirety.

Facebook sometimes gets the cold shoulder when it comes to privacy and their mobile apps, but todays news is a little different. Facebook are set to build a massive server farm 62 miles south of the Arctic Circle in Luleå, northern Sweden. The facility will include three 300,000 square feet server halls and it will be the first time that Facebook has built a data center outside of the US.

This is becoming a trend for American companies, with Microsoft looking to build a server farm in Siberia, but the deal never gelled together. Google on the other hand is currently building a similar data center in Hamima in southern Finland. Facebook chose Luleå because of its cold climate, with server farms requiring massive amounts of cold air to keep the operating temperatures down. The average temperate in the area is around 2C (35.6F) and the temperature has not been above 30C (86F) for more than 24 hours since 1961.

The plan Facebook have is to pump in cool air from outside to aid in temperature management. Despite this, the server farm will still require a fair amount of power, with the number hovering at around 120 MW. This will primarily be supplied by the Lule River which produces twice as much hydroelectric power as the Hoover Dam.

Sony have just announced that Sony Ericsson will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony and Sony is said to integrate Sony Ericsson into their broad platform of network-connected consumer electronics devices. The transaction also provides Sony with a broad IP cross-licensing agreement and ownership of five essential patent families. Payment wise, Ericsson will receive EUR $1.05 billion as a cash payment.

The transaction gives Sony a new opportunity for their products, where tehy will rapidly integrate smartphones into its broad array of network-connected consumer electronics devices, including tablets, televisions and PCs - for the benefit of customers and the growth of its business.

Sir Howard Stringer, Sony's Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President says:

Apple today filed its Form 10-K with the SEC that discloses information to stockholders and the commission. It also allows sites like TweakTown to perve at some of the wallet-busting numbers included. Apple currently have $81,570,000,000 in cash, marketable securities and cash equivalents. What this means is Apple raked in $37.5 billion in cash profits in fiscal 2011. This is all in a time where they "missed" industry estimates.

That is after Apple spent $2.4 billion on research and development in 2011, up from $1.8 billion for last year and $1.3 billion in 2009. Apple also forked out $4.3 billion for equipment, most likely for factory investments and the North Carolina-based data center. Apple also had purchases of $3.2 billion in 'intangible assets", which is most likely the $2.6 billion share of the Nortel patent purchase that it went in on with other companies, including Microsoft.

Apple only spent $244 million on acquisitions, which would include it's voice-based app Siri, which it acquired in Q1 2010. Other Apple numbers also state that they own or lease 13.2 million square feet of building space, primarily in the U.S. Apple Retail Stores across the world account for 3 million square feet of that number. The data centers Apple run are also included. Also included is the 2.6 million square feet that is located in Cupertino, California which isset to be demolished for Apple's new 'spaceship' campus. Apple also owns a total of 584 acres of land in various locations.

Jon Peddie Research says that the PC gaming hardware market will continue to grow at a rate of 11-percent from now until at least 2014. These figures are based on the fact that over 250 million game-capable PCs will ship in 2011 alone, compared to only 230 million PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 consoles (combined) have shipped since 2005.

The PC gaming market will generate $19 billion in sales in 2011, with estimates that half a billion people regularly play PC games. New markets such as social networking and mobile gaming on tablets and smartphones are continuing the threaten the PC's gaming reputation, a phenomenon that senior gaming analyst Ted Pollack noted in his research.

PC gaming will always be great - but any smart person can see it is definitely not in its glory days right now. With 90-percent or more of AAA games being developed and made for consoles first and filtered down (or up) to PCs, it really hurts. Battlefield 3 is the first game in a very long time to be developed on PC first, then ported down to the much lesser capable consoles. But, there's no real reason to buy 3 or 4-way AMD or NVIDIA graphics these days, if you're running a single screen.

For those of you in the know, you'd know that Mainstream Media is a mostly controlled medium. If they were to tell the real news, then most politicians, presidents, members of Congress and more, would all be thrown in jail. But, instead, the money from powerful people is used to gain control and influence within the power of politics. The same goes for news. This is where Anonymous steps in with something they're calling "Operation Fox Hunt".

Anonymous promise an all-out attack on the Fox News website as retaliation for the network's unjust attack on protesters with the Occupy Wall Street movement. In the YouTube clip, the digitized voice says:

November 5 is already a day chosen by members of the Occupy Wall Street movement as a practical holiday, with "Operation Cashback" expected to occur on Nov. 5 across the world. Under Operation Cashback, demonstrators are asked to close bank across across the world, and move money out of large banks and into smaller, local credit unions. This has already happened in the US, with an attempt at closing accounts at a Lower Manhattan-based Citibank earlier this month which resulted in an arrest of several occupies.

Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Steve Jobs is set to hit next week, and within, we find out more details of how Steve Jobs was absolutely furious about Android "ripping off" the iPhone. Of course, multiple smartphone makers and OS builders have "copied" the iPhone, but its not to say that Apple did it first.

Apple bought something to the market that had been attempted before, but just did it better. Google were hot on the heels and have innovated multiple times within their Android OS, where Apple's iOS has not really grown outside of its initial iPhone launch. Yes it has been upgraded with more features, etc, but an actual change in the way it works, no. It still features the same tile-based icon layout, and has only seen "Notifications" in the last iOS 5 upgrade - something from Android.

But Steve Jobs hated, hated, hated Android. With a passion. To the point where he wanted a "thermonuclear war" with the company because they "ripped the iPhone off". Isaacson has written that Jobs was livid in January 2010 when HTC introduced an Android phone that boasted many of the popular features found on the iPhone. Apple sued, and Jobs told Isaacson in an expletive-filled rant that Google's actions amounted to "grand theft".

According to the Wall Street Journal, Google Inc. has talked to at least two private-equity firms about potentially helping them finance a deal to buy Yahoo Inc.'s core business. This would be a very strategic move for Google, which would push them right against Microsoft in its bid for the company. The move is of course still in "early-stage discussions" with no formal bid put together. The Journal has a few words as to why the move could be a huge win for Google:

Then we have Microsoft's joint bid for Yahoo, but the same anti-trust concerts that stopped an "advertising partnership" between Google and Yahoo in 2008 could stymie the search company's efforts.

What do you think? Could we live in a world where Google scoops up Yahoo?

Netflix have had a very bad time lately, with them admitting on Monday that they lost more customers than expected in the third quarter, which stems from an issue to divorce rentals of DVDs from streaming video services, and they've also predicted that subscriptions for DVD delivery will sharply decline in the current period.

Netflix have also projected that they'll begin to lose money for a few quarters starting in the next period, because of costs associated with their expansions in both the UK and Ireland, also announced on Monday. Investors... not so happy. It was a near-instant reaction with share prices dropping once again. They had already fallen 61-percent from their all-time high in mid-July, falling 26-percent more in after-hours trading Monday, following the quarterly report.

Netflix's market value was $16 billion and has now plummeted to just $4.6 billion, all in the space of three months. Netflix have also stated they've lost roughly 800,000 subscribers in the third quarter, which ended with 23.8 million U.S. customers, this is after years of a steadily increasing subscriber base.

WikiLeaks is pretty close to a cliff right now, unless they can overcome blockades put in place by US financial institutions. Founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, said on Monday at a news conference in London that WikiLeaks needs $3.5 million over the next year just to continue normal operations.

WikiLeaks is powered solely on supporter donations and if those backers are unable to throw enough money at the organization, Assange says "we will simply not be able to continue by the turn of the year." With both MasterCard and Visa halting donations to WikiLeaks in December 2010, it did not help the situation one bit. Several others have followed suite, including Bank of America, eBay, PayPal and Western Union, which when put together, represented 95-percent of WikiLeaks' revenue.

WikiLeaks is only pulling in roughly $10,000 a month now, which is a huge leap from the $3.5 million that Assange says they need to keep things leaking into 2012. In the interim, WikiLeaks has had to stop processing thousands of secret documents in order to address lawsuits they have filed against aforementioned financial channels. Assange has now vowed to use all of WikiLeaks' efforts to fight "corrupt financial institutions".

Microsoft have had a very first... er.. first quarter ending Sept. 30, 2011. Microsoft posted a quarter revenue of $17.37 billion, a 7-percent increase over the same period of last year and a tad higher than the expected $17.26 billion.

Office was the standout, though; Office accounted for $5.62 of that income, with Windows staying flat and actually falling below expectations. Microsoft's net income of $5.74 billion was a decent jump of 6-percent over the same time last year.

Peter Klein, chief financial officer at Microsoft says: