Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 222

Ever since its acquisition of IBM's personal computer business back in 2005, Lenovo have done quite well for themselves, but it looks like that's not enough. According to an internal e-mail from CEO Yang Yuanqing, who admitted that despite trying, the Lenovo brand is still only doing well in the mainstream and low-end markets.

The Think brand is the company's best performer in the high-end market, and is the only brand that can compete against Apple in the high-end market. Yang has announced in the same e-mail for the sake of better brand positioning and better efficiency that Lenovo will split into two new groups: Lenovo Business Group (LBG) and Think Business Group (TBG).

The fresh start will begin on April 1st, where LBG will be headed by Senior Vice President of Mobile Internet Digital Home, Liu Jun, who will put all of energies into mainstream consumer and business desktops, laptops and tablets, as well as smartphones and smart TVs. TBG will be have current Senior Vice President of Product Groups, Dr. Peter Hortensius at the helm.

After 36 years on the job, Mike Daniels has left IBM according to a spokesperson from the company. Erich Clementi who currently serves as Senior Vice President for Global Technology Services, and Bridget van Kralingen, who is the current Senior Vice President for Global Business Services will be filling in for Daniels' spot when he leaves.

Clementi and Kralingen will report directly to the CEO. Daniels was once the head of Global Services in the Asia Pacific region, and also acted as IBM's Sales and Distribution operations in the US, Canada and Latin America. Daniels' other positions included responsibility for sales in regards to IBM's IT products, marketing and services. He was also seen by most as an economizer in regards to saving money for IBM, and secondly as a trailblazer in regards to computer management services.

Daniels missed out on the CEO position, but was passed over for Ginni Rometty just over twelve months ago. Rometty ended up becoming IBM's first female in charge of operations.

The Megaupload saga continues, this time with Megaupload complaining that the US government lied in order to get a search warrant. According to the motion, a recently unsealed search warrant shows that the US Department of Justice asked Megaupload to keep 39 copies of copyrighted movies on its servers for an investigation.

The part they didn't mention? It was an investigation into Megaupload. They then used the fact that the files were still on Megaupload's servers as primary proof that the company knowingling harbored copyrighted content:

By all indications, the Government tapped Carpathia to convey the June 24, 2010 warrant to Megaupload, thereby planting what the Government would later claim, for purposes of this case, amounted to criminal knowledge that Megaupload was hosting infringing files, while simultaneously lulling Megaupload into thinking it was not a target of its ongoing investigation (which the Government dubbed its 'Mega Conspiracy' investigation) - and, what is worse, affirmatively leading Megaupload to understand from the warrant's sealing order and Carpathia's representations that Megaupload should take no action with respect to the infringing files lest it tip off the ostensible targets. In sum, the Government came to paint as criminal the very course of conduct by Megaupload that the Government had induced in requesting good-faith cooperation with an investigation that was to remain secret. Most incredibly of all, however, the Government then came before this Court, ex parte, with a selective, distorted account whereby the Government omitted mention of facts - well known to the Government - indicating that Megaupload was of an innocent state of mind in cooperating with what it was told was an ongoing, secret investigation of the infringing files at issue.

The on-going anti-trust investigation into Google has finally been completed with a 4-1 ruling that Google must stop excluding competitors from using standards essential patents owned by subsidiary Motorola. These patents are what the FTC call the "cornerstone of the interoperability standards that we have taken for granted."

Google is also making two voluntary changes to the way some of its products work:

"The changes Google has agreed to make will ensure that consumers continue to reap the benefits of competition in the online marketplace and in the market for innovative wireless devices they enjoy," said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz. "This was an incredibly thorough and careful investigation by the Commission, and the outcome is a strong and enforceable set of agreements."

AMD has picked a new CFO. The internal and external search turned up Devinder Kumar, who will now be a senior vice president and chief financial officer, effective today. Kumar is 57 and will report to AMD CEO Rory Reed. Kumar has served as the interim CFO since September 2012 and as senior vice president since 2006.

"Devinder has been with AMD for more than 28 years and is a talented finance veteran with deep industry knowledge," said Read. "As we accelerate our strategic growth initiatives, Devinder will play an integral role driving the new business model in the near term and strengthening AMD's long-term financial foundation."

Kumar is well equipped for the job: He holds a bachelor's degree from University of Malaya, Malaysia, a master's degree from University of California, Santa Barbara, and a master's degree in business administration from University of California, Los Angeles.

Apple sued Amazon over its use of the term "app store" to describe its online marketplace for Android apps. In a ruling today, a judge has dismissed part of the case, the part alleging that Amazon committed false advertising by using the term.

Judge Phyllis Hamilton said there was "no support for the proposition that Amazon has expressly or impliedly communicated that its Appstore for Android possesses the characteristics and qualities that the public has come to expect from the Apple App Store and/or Apple products."

Apple has also sued for trademark infringement, though Apple does not yet own the trademark to "App Store." It has applied for the trademark, though several companies have moved to block the trademark. Microsoft has said in a motion for summary judgement that "Any secondary meaning or fame Apple has in 'App Store' is de facto secondary meaning that cannot convert the generic term 'app store' into a protectable trademark."

Polaroid will be opening up 10 retails stores in 2013 that will be called FotoBars. These locations will allow you to edit and print pictures, applying filters if your picture isn't from Instagram. The pictures can then be printed on a variety of materials, framed if you want, and be shipped to you within a couple of days.

From the image, it looks like editing will be done on Apple computers, which are probably used to make the whole experience "hip." Material options will include wood, bamboo, metal, acrylic, and canvas. Users will also have the option to print out a normal photo. According to Polaroid, a "critical aspect of the customer experience" is the ability to see and feel examples of the materials, which sounds very Appleish.

The first location will be Delray Beach in Florida, which opens in February. Further locations will open throughout the year, including New York and Las Vegas.

The patent wars continue to move forward with the latest move being LG trying to ban the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 in South Korea. LG alleges that the Galaxy Note infringes upon three of LG's patents on LCD technology used by the display panel. "Through this action, LG Display seeks to completely stop the sale, manufacture and importation of the infringing Samsung product," LG Display said in a press release.

LG has said that they would request compensation of $933,000 per day of continued non-compliance. This patent dispute started back in September when LG Display sued Samsung for infringing upon seven organic light-emitting diode patents. LG alleges five of Samsung's devices infringe, including Samsung's Galaxy S-series of smartphones.

Samsung counter-sued LG alleging that the latter company lured senior Samsung OLED researchers away from the former company, even though they had contracts preventing the working for a rival firm.

Most of my Facebook feed used to be filled with game requests, until I began blocking all game requests - I'm looking at you, Nanna. But, it looks like Zynga CEO Mark Pincus has started his cost-reduction plan which was announced last month.

Zynga has either shut down or pulled from app stores, stopped accepting new players to eleven games with some of those games turning off today. Zynga will reallocate resources from the games gone or cut down to the titles that are actually doing well, or put them into creating new games.

The company have had a very rocky year after bursting out of the gate to be a huge success, where their share price is down from their IPO launch of $10 to just $2.33 now. Zynga have announced huge cost-cutting measure which will see over 100 employees cut, offices shutting their doors, ceasing to renew deals with contractors, shutting down 13 games, as well as reducing investments into The Sims-style game, The Ville.

Samsung has announced plans to build a 1.1 million square foot campus in San Jose, which is located in the heart of Silicon Valley. Global architecture firm NBBJ will be responsible for the new building, which will feature a 10-story tower, amenity pavilion and parking garage.

Samsung's R&D facility will be moving to a new campus that will feature two new 6-story class-A office buildings with about 385,000 square feet of space. This campus will feature two 5-6 story parking structures.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a global leader in digital media, digital convergence technologies and advanced semiconductor solutions, continues to expand its operations in Silicon Valley by investing more resources in its existing R&D centers and establishing new innovation centers.