Business, Financial & Legal - Page 294

Well, AMD's Bulldozer launched last week to much of the publics dismay. It did not really cause the ruckus that AMD probably expected, unable to trip up the current CPU champion, Intel's Core i7. AMD's shares have since seen quite the dip, with Friday, October 14 seeing their share price hovering at $4.90 per share, and now they've experienced a sharp decline of 5-percent down to the $4.70 or so per share mark.

Thought that was bad? Well, I clicked on the 12-month period for AMD's shares and on Feb 25th, 2011 they peaked (for the 12-month period) at $9.29 per share... quite the slump they've seen. The point of this complete decline in shares saw it starting on Sep 16th, 2011 where it was sitting at $7.20, and has declined virtually everyday until Bulldozer's lacklustre launch. Did the industry know what was going to happen?

We can see that the shares over the past 6 or so months, have dropped by nearly 50-percent. This is not good, not good at all.

"We had a great quarter" says Larry Page, CEO of Google. Google has made $9.72 billion in revenue, an increase of 33-percent from Q3 2010. GAAP net income is $2.73 billion versus $2.17 during the same period last year. Google also reported $9.02 billion in revenue last quarter, with $2.51 billion in net income. Not bad, Google.

Analysts were expecting Google to earn $8.74 per share this quarter on a revenue of $7.21 billion, representing a more than 30-percent growth from last year. With these estimates, Google have blown away those expectations on both revenue and EPS, as non-GAAP EPS this quarter weer $9.72. Google has had a very active quarter, the acquisition of Motorola, and the public launch of Google's social networking site, Google+.

Google presently employs 31,353 full-time employees and has $42.6 billion in cash. Google's sales and marketing costs doubled from $661 million in Q3 2010 to $1.2 billion this quarter. Research and development costs went from $994 million to $1.4 billion. One of the more interesting items on the ledger... a $500 million charge from the Justice Department regarding pharmaceutical ads. Wow, spare change considering they have $42.6 billion in cash - hey Google, can I have a loan?

A U.S. Judge has said that Samsung's Galaxy tablets infringe on Apple's iPad patents, but also that Apple might have a problem establishing the validity of its patents. These comments are from U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh, which came on Thursday in a court hearing on Apple's request to bar some Galaxy products from being sold in the US. Apple and Samsung are currently duking it out in 10 countries with more than 20 cases currently on-going.

Just yesterday, an Australian court barred the Galaxy Tab 10.1 from being sold in Australia. In April of this year, Apple sued Samsung in the US, saying that the South Korean-based company's Galaxy range of smartphones and tablets "slavishly" copies the iPhone and iPad. Fast-forward to July and Apple filed a request to bar some Samsung-branded products from sale in the US, including the Galaxy S 4G smartphone and Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA have both opposed Apple's request, saying that a ban on Samsung Galaxy products would hurt their holiday sales. Apple must now show that Samsung infringed on its patents and that its patents are valid under the law. Judge Koh also stated that she would deny Apple's request for an injunction based on one of Apple's so-called "utility" patents. She did not say whether she would grant the injunction based on three other Apple "design" patents.

Sony have released a statement revealing they have been hacked again, with 93,000 accounts globally being accessed. Sony have temporarily locked these accounts and only a "small fraction" of these 93,000 accounts showed additional activity prior to being locked. Sony are currently reviewing the accounts for unauthorised accessed and will provide more updates as they have them. Sony have also used some number play to seemingly down play the event by saying "less than one tenth of one percent (0.1%) of their PSN, SEN and SOE audience may have been affected".

Sony have used this as an opportunity to remind people of the importance of a strong password and having a username/password combination that is not associated with other online services or sites. They suggest you use a hard-to-guess password and always look out for unusual activity in your account. I've provided the full press release below:

We want to let you know that we have detected attempts on Sony Entertainment Network, PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment ("Networks") services to test a massive set of sign-in IDs and passwords against our network database. These attempts appear to include a large amount of data obtained from one or more compromised lists from other companies, sites or other sources. In this case, given that the data tested against our network consisted of sign-in ID-password pairs, and that the overwhelming majority of the pairs resulted in failed matching attempts, it is likely the data came from another source and not from our Networks. We have taken steps to mitigate the activity.

Following the passing of Steve Jobs last week we've seen an absolute mass of news come out about the man who undeniably changed the face of one of the largest industries in the world. But if I asked the majority of you what brand/model of car he drove, I'd be surprised if 5% of you knew (prior to a frantic google search for the answer, that is). Don't worry, I was in the 95% that didn't until today as well.

One thing I can now say, while he might not have always had good taste in the way he went about running the show at Apple, he certainly did when it came to cars :-

While I hear many of you shouting out "But I really couldn't give a rats bum what he drove", there is something else in the picture above that is the main point of interest here. Notice anything that stands out? (Or perhaps I should say, doesn't in this case).

A few days ago, Microsoft signed a major licensing agreement with Samsung over the use of some its patents on Android-based smartphones and tablets. The deal is similar to what other manufacturers have agreed to, which avoid a court battle. But, there's a requirement of a fixed fee to be paid to Microsoft for every Android device sold. Goldman Sach's tech analyst team think that this number is around $444 million per year.

Goldman estimates that Microsoft receives roughly $3 - $6 per Android device, and calculated the multi-million dollar figure based on the number of Android devices expected to be sold by Microsoft's licensees between July 1, 2011 and June 30, 2012. The companies that Microsoft receive the (virtually free) dollars from are HTC, Acer, U.S. defense contractor General Dynamics Itronix, Onkyo, Velocity Micro, ViewSonic and Wistron, and Samsung, which yesterday became the latest licensee.

Microsoft claims that certain Android features contain technologies over which it owns patents. Considering that two of the largest Android device makers have agreed to pay royalties which puts some concrete into this claim. The only one in the US without a license from Microsoft is Motorola Mobility, in which the two are in court battling it out.

Intel and IBM have announced a $4.4 billion investment which is being put into a manufacturing plant to create the next-generation of cutting-edge computer chip technology. It's all being done in New York, with a five-year investment expected to generated and retain 6,900 jobs paying an average of $100,000. Gov. Cuomo who was previously suing Intel, where he filed an anti-trust lawsuit against them, has done a 180-degree turn and has now called this new move "a really, really big deal" and part of his effort to "create a more confident environment for doing business in New York".

The aforementioned lawsuit included Cuomo - as attorney general - trying to sue Intel for trying to monopolize the computer chip industry. He charged Intel with violated state and federal anti-trust laws by trying to keep a monopoly over the market for microprocessors, which as most people know are the heart of computers and servers alike. The suit charged Intel with paying computer makers billions of dollars in exchange for using the company's microprocessors instead of competing products from AMD.

The suit is currently pending with Intel back in May filing three motions seeking to have the suit dismissed.

AMD, the second largest PC chip manufacturer, has lowered their third quarter revenue projections citing issues with the 32nm chip production at its German Foundry. AMD now expects its revenue to increase by 4 - 6% on top of their second quarter earnings, down from the 10% that they originally forecasted earlier in the year. In response to this news, AMD shares fell by 7.8% to $5.88 during extended trading yesterday.

AMD have not only been having issues with their 32nm chips, but they have also commented that its 45nm chip supply was also experiencing issues as the two processes share some common toold in manufacturing. The Dresden-based manufacturing firm, GlobalFoundries, which AMD have an 11% stake in, is uses for their manufacturing operations. Poor yields of chips due to production problems seem to be AMD's biggest issue right now.

GlobalFoundries is "throwing substantial resources at improving yields" says Drew Prairie, a spokesperson for AMD. AMD have also said that they're seeing progress, but how much is yet to be reported. Llano has experienced the brunt of the shortage, leading AMD to have supply issues for mainstream computers and it has also caused shipping delays for the new server-grade 16-core Opteron "Interlagos" CPUs, which will affect sales margins even more.

Were HP lurking eBay looking for a new CEO? It could be a possibility. Former eBay CEO, Meg Whitman, is now the CEO and President of Hewlett-Packard. Current non-executive, Ray Lane, will become executive chairman. Whitman is a well-known executive, will replace HP's current Leo Apotheker, who was prodded out of the company just recently. Whitman is an experienced digital executive, has a large task ahead of her.

HP wants to re-direct itself after numerous strategic gaffes, disappointing financial results and probably the biggest issue, stock that has dropped 47-percent in 11 months since Apotheker was head of the ship. The board of HP is hoping Whitman can turn this all around, with ever-increasing pressure from the competition.

Check out the official press release from HP.

Dedicated Android partner, Motorola Mobility, have been acquired by Google today in an announcement that was music to my ears. Google Inc. and Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc have entered into a definitive agreement under which Google will acquire Motorola Mobility for $40.00 per share in cash, or a total of about $12.5 billion, a premium of 63% to the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares on Friday, August 12, 2011.

Google CEO, Larry Page has a few things to say about the acquisition:

Motorola Mobility's total commitment to Android has created a natural fit for our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers. I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers.