Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 243

The Apple vs. Samsung trial is underway at the moment, and it looks like Samsung's legal team have made a pretty bad move, with the team in trouble with Southern District Court Judge Lucy Koh. Samsung have been going on about the 'Sony-style' design mockups this week, and this is what has landed them in trouble.

There were some mockups from Apple designer Shin Nishibori that were designed in order to show how Sony's design sensibilities could be melded with Apple's, in order to create a phone. The design was said by Samsung to exemplify that Apple were working from another company's designs when they were creating the iPhone, which is exactly what Apple are accusing Samsung of.

Apple then pulled out a prototype predating Nishibori's design that dated back to 2005, where they argued that Sony designs were just a riff on what it had done before. At this point, it had negated Samsung's point, in the eyes of Judge Koh. Koh then ruled that Samsung could not present evidence related to these 'Sony-style' designs, or another prototype design that Samsung says it was working on in 2006.

Yahoo have been in the news quite a lot lately, for all the right reasons, with ex-Google exec Marissa Mayer appointed the new CEO and president of the company. But, interim CEO, Ross Levinsohn has confirmed that he's leaving the company after not being named for the permanent position.

Levinsohn had allegedly been telling candidates for senior positions that he would be the next CEO, and according to reports, Yahoo employees were hoping that he would stay on with the company in some capacity, as well as help guide the company itself. But, over the weekend, Levinsohn e-mailed, saying:

I wanted to let you know that my time at Yahoo has come to an end. It has been an incredible journey for me and I could not be prouder of what we accomplished over the past few years helping define Yahoo as a leader in digital media and advertising. Yahoo is an amazing brand and company, and I leave knowing we did all we could to help inform and entertain more than 700 million users each month. Leading this company has been one of the best experiences of my career, but it is time for me to look for the next challenge.

Research firm Strategy Analytics has some new numbers for everyone to peer at, with the US Android handset sales dropping in Q2, but iOS sales went up. Overall, smartphone shipments for all manufacturers fell a little, by 5-percent to 23.8 million, compared to 25.2 million from the same quarter last year.

These changes in numbers are attributed to a combination of things, such as a volatile economy, and changes in upgrade policies by major carriers. Android sales in Q2 2011 were 15.3 million, taking up 60.6-percent of the market. This year, with the launch of flagship models such as Samsung's Galaxy S III, Android-based phones managed just 13.4 million sales, with 56.3-percent of the market, representing a drop of almost two million handsets over the period.

iOS was the only platform to not lose its footing, where it rose by nearly two million units, the same number Android lost, to reach 7.9 million units sold. It also increased Apple's marketshare from 23.2- to 33.2-percent, even with rumors of a new iPhone coming in the next few months. BlackBerry OS lost a million sales or so, and shrank to 1.6 million, or just 6.5-percent of the current market. This is believed to be the lowest market share RIM has ever had in recent history.

Seagate have been rumored to be looking at scooping up an SSD maker, where it piled up into a RumorTT post regarding Seagate acquiring OCZ. The news flared up again this week with tech blog side the Bright Side of News reporting that the deal between the companies was "done". But, it appears that it is not actually done and that Seagate might not acquire OCZ at all, at least, not right now.

Since the BSN post, OCZ shares jumped up 30-percent on Friday, and up 66-percent since mid-July all based on speculation that Seagate were to acquire the company. But, it looks like those highs are over, and OCZ's share prices are falling back down to more reasonable levels. OCZ shares topped at $7.60, and have now dropped to $6.36. On Thursday, the prices were hovering at around $5.40 a share.

Then we have a Reuters article who quoted Seagate CFO Pat O'Malley, who said that the company would be interested in acquiring an SSD maker that has a "significant" share of the enterprise market, where he adds:

Apple acquired Authentic, who is a leading provider of mobile and network security for the tidy sum of $356 million last week. Under the deal, Authentic are set to become a wholly owned subsidiary of Apple.

Shares of Authentic closed at $5.07 on the 27th of July, with Apple paying a 58-percent premium on this valuation at $8 per share. This means that share holders of Authentic would've had a nice surprise for the weekend just gone. Authentic are best known for producing fingerprint sensors, NFC chips and security software for mobiles.

Authentic has some big customers in their pockets, such as Samsung, HP, Fujitsu, Dell and Lenovo. Apple seem to have secured a firm which deals in security, after the many many stories of their OS being not as secure as they're previously stated. We should hopefully see the effects of Apple's latest acquisition in the coming years.

AOL reported their Q2 earnings report, seeing revenues of $531 million. This makes it AOL's lowest total revenue decline in seven years, with a 2-percent year-on-year decrease.

AOL's legacy income, such as mobile carrier revenues and subscriptions continued to fall, but it was offset by growth in international display advertising and third-party network revenues. Operating income was boosted by the $96 million AOL made from licensing patents to Microsoft.

But, AOL have insisted that its EIBDA grew regardless of this deal with Microsoft, saying that "excluding those items, the remaining Q2 2012 Adjusted OIBDA of $94.6 million reflects an increase of $18 million year-over-year." AOL chairman and CEO, Tim Armstrong said:

Zynga didn't have high estimates from analysts, but the company didn't even meet those. The company releases their Q2 earnings report, which showed revenue of $332 million, and lost $22.8 million, or 3 cents per share. Analysts predicted Zynga would pull in 5 cents per share on revenue of $344 million.

Zynga have said they have 72 million daily active users, up from 59 million in the previous quarter, and 306 million monthly active users, up from 228 million. Bookings on the other hand, were $302 million, up 12-percent from the same time last year, but a sequential decline of around 9-percent from the previous quarter.

The company has now lowered its outlook going into the rest of 2012 based on delays in launching new games, a faster decline in existing web games due in part to a more challenging environment on the Facebook web platform, and reduced expectations for Draw Something." Zynga are projecting $1.15 billion to $1.225 billion in bookings for the remainder of 2012.

Birmingham City University students, get ready. Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has once again teamed up with that university to offer the chance to students to win a scholarship. The scholarship, if won, will see the student having half of the fees paid to attend the Gamer Camp Pro, which is a master's degree program with a gaming focus.

Furthermore, the students will then get a six-month placement in one of Sony's UK development studios. They'll even be paid for that, too! In order to have a chance to win, students must be signed up for Gamer Camp by August 9 and be automatically entered. The cheaper Nano version will work. Winners will be selected by interview from the initial pool of perspective candidates.

"We are delighted to offer PlayStation Academic Scholarships in partnership with Gamer Camp: Pro for the second year running." said SCEE's Dr. Maria Stukoff. "It's a great opportunity for the next generation of British videogame talent to acquire professional development skills before they embark into a competitive industry."

ARM Holdings, who supplies microchips to Apple for their iPhone and iPads, Samsung's Galaxy line of smart devices, and now Microsoft's Windows 8 devices, has reported strong earnings for Q2.

The company had reported $213 million in earnings, which beat analysts' estimates of $206 million. Net profits was up 48-percent to $61.2 million, compared to $41.3 million this time last year. Next quarter's profits should be even better, as the company has said they have a "record order backlog", but have warned that macroeconomic uncertainties may impact what happens in Q4.

ARM noted in a statement that "Macroeconomic uncertainty may impact consumer confidence, and some analysts have become less confident in the semiconductor industry outlook in the second half". ARM did note that they expect overall revenues for 2012 to be in line with market expectations. They are heading for full-year revenues of $860 million.

Apple has reported its third quarter earnings and sales numbers and they are pretty darn promising. In the last three months, Apple managed to push a large number of iDevices. The iPad fared the best with 17 million units sold, up from 11.8 million last quarter. The iPhone didn't do as well, but still managed an impressive 26 million.

The iPhone's 26 million was down from last quarters 35.1 million, but was up 28% from last year's Q3 numbers. These numbers confirm analysts expectations that the iPhone would see a decline while the iPad would see significant growth. The decrease in iPhone sales is a bit troublesome for the company as that is where the majority of their revenue and profit are.

The iPad managed an impressive 83% increase year-over-year and a 44% increase over the second quarter. iPod sales were down again and it appears to be quickly becoming a niche product as more and more users snap up smartphones and use them as an MP3 player. With 6.8 million sales, it most likely is still the most popular MP3/MP4 player on the market.