Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 229

I'm based in Australia and I'm completely against mandatory filtering by my ISP - sure, they probably already do it (I could place bets on this), but the Australian government have stepped up and announced they're dropping their plans of a mandatory ISP filter:

The Federal Government has formally abandoned plans to introduce legislation for mandatory ISP filtering, closing a dark chapter in politics concerning Australia's internet.

But - come on, you knew there'd be a but - they still want Australian Net feeds to be filtered:

With Samsung and Apple taking up most profits in the mobile sector, it leaves just scraps to the rest of the market, thus most companies are struggling right now. One of these companies is Sharp, and it looks like Apple analyst Horace Dediu may have discovered something quite worthy of a RumorTT post.

The analyst looked into Apple's 2012 capital expenditures and found some spending which was much higher than Apple previously disclosed. Dediu noticed that Apple had spent $2.3 billion more than it had forecast on "product tooling, manufacturing process equipment and infrastructure".

Dediu believes that the Cupertino-based iDevice maker bailed Sharp out, who were in serious financial issues earlier this year:

With other companies like THQ having serious issues, competitor and much bigger juggernaut Activision have posted record revenue for Q3. The company has reported $841 million, up from $754 million in the same period last year.

Activision also delivered record earnings per share of 20 cents, compared to the third quarter of 2011. Their results beat the company's outlook, which saw them hoping to achieve around 6 cents per share over a revenue of $740 million. These results also blew away analysts' expectation, which are better to compare against the company's non-GAAP earnings.

These calculations, excluding some results, saw Activision reporting 15 cents per share in profit on revenue of $751 million. This kills analyst expectations which were projecting just 8 cents per share in profit over revenues of $708 million.

I wrote an editorial regarding Apple a month ago now, and it seems that my words are ringing more and more true every day that passes. Apple's stock prices hit a peak of just over $700, where virtually every news outlet was covering it.

Now that Apple stock prices are tanking, we're not hearing about it. We're not a biased news site, so you won't just get news when tech companies are doing glowingly well, as it's when they're doing bad that we should really stand up and pay attention. Think about it, in the last month, we've seen some of the biggest releases from Apple, and I would dare say the most amount of releases of top-end products from a company, ever.

We've seen the iPhone 5, fourth-generation new new iPad, the iPad mini, new Retina-based iMacs, the 13-inch MacBook Pro, and new iPods. On top of this we've seen the launch of iOS 6, and OS X Mountain Lion. With all of these releases, one would think that Apple would be hitting the high notes and seeing their stock prices climb, considerably.

Ferrari and Apple, what do they have in common? Sleek looks, performance, something else? Well, while they might not have much in common right now, they now have a shared employee. Apple's Senior Vice President, Eddy Cue, has joined Ferrari's Board of Directors, probably to aid in adding electronic technology to the vehicles.

Cue said:

I am pleased and proud to become a member of the board. I have personally dreamed of owning a Ferrari since I was 8 years old and have been lucky to be an owner for the past 5 years. I continue to be awed by the world-class design and engineering that only Ferrari can do.

Apple has been hit with a judgement requiring them to pay $368.2 million for infringing on VirnetX Holding Corp's patents regarding virtual-private-network technology. VirnetX's stock has, of course, jumped on the news of the jury's ruling, and went up at least 23 percent to $32.44.

VirnetX has previously sued Microsoft--and won--regarding the exact same technology that they have just successfully sued Apple form. Microsoft decided to hand over $200 million in a settlement, which took place in 2010. The jury ruled that Apple's FaceTime on iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and Macs infringe upon four of VirnetX's patents.

"This victory further establishes the importance of our patent portfolio," VirnetX Chief Executive Officer Kendall Larsen said in a statement.

THQ's stock has dropped 50%, and as a big publisher in the gaming industry, they've been experiencing a very dismal 2012. THQ have been firing staff in both external and internal studios, with a lawsuit from Adidas over the incompletion of its micoach app not helping, or their stock prices.

THQ were close to being delisted from NASDAQ fror dropping below the $1.00 prerequisite that allows you on the exchange, but in July they were able to claw themselves back from that threshold, just. They've grown since then, but the latest drop has seen them slide to $1.74 per share, a 42% drop.

On top of this, the company has announced delays for three of their upcoming games: South Park: The Stick of Truth, Company of Heroes 2 and Metro: Last Light. Metro: Last Light was poised for a 2012 release, but has now been pushed back to March 2013. THQ have said that South Park: The Stick of Truth will be released, at the earliest, in April 2013. THQ president, Jason Rubin, has said:

Here I am thinking Apple were really only targeting the use of 'rounded corners' and the 'style' of the iPhone compared to competitors' devices. But, it looks like Samsung's pen-toting Galaxy Note 10.1 has just been added to Apple's on-going lawsuit against Samsung.

But, we haven't even gotten to the best part yet - the Cupertino-based iPhone maker has sought to add Google's Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS to the lawsuit. Apple told US Magistrate Judge, Paul S. Grewal in a federal court in San Jose.

Apple attorney, Andrew Liao, told Judge Grewal that the Galaxy Nexus is the only phone with Jelly Bean that Apple wants to add to the patent complaint. Liao also said that Apple seeks to add 17 devices that could use a stylus, even if the products don't ship with a stylus. Grewal hasn't issued a ruling today, saying he was concerned that if he denied both sides their requests, the companies would file a new round of lawsuits.

HTC have been having a very rough year, where their last quarter results pretty bad, and back in August I reported that Taiwan Central Bank proposed a bailout of the struggling phone maker. Now we're looking at October's sales numbers and for the second month in a row now, revenues have dropped in double digits.

Revenue for HTC is down around 19% from September, with year-over-year figures even worse. We're talking 61% since October of 2011, which is a huge drop, even after last month's drop of 53%. The phone maker could possibly soon reach the point where they would struggle to even meet their very conservative earnings goals.

I really don't expect HTC to be here twelve months from now, and this is going to be the case for most other Android phone makers in the near future. With Google selling subsidised Nexus 4 handsets for $399, why would you buy a smartphone for double the price with the phone maker's UI splashed on top and slow updates of Android? I know I wouldn't.

The IDC's latest numbers are here and it is reporting that tablet numbers have increased by 6.7% in the quarter just gone, and 49.5% year-over-year. Apple enjoying shipping just over half of the 27.8 million slates across the world, but they lost a considerable amount of market share.

The iPad maker had 65.5% of the market in Q2, but dropped down to just 50.4% of the market in Q3 - a huge drop. IDC says that this is because people were holding off for the iPad mini - but I don't agree with that. There can't be that many people in the market knowing three months out that there was definitely going to be a new iPad on the market.

Samsung were number two, increasing their market share to 18.4% thanks to their Galaxy Tab and Note 10.1 products, with Amazon and ASUS having a great quarter also. Kindle Fires and Nexus 7's helped them ship around 2.5 million of each.