Amazon and Apple’s historic paths collide 28 Sep 2011 The online retailer’s cheap new Kindle Fire tablet reflects the company’s roots - it’s a tool for the sale of content. Apple, by contrast, used music and movies to hook customers into buying its gadgets. The two currents are now clashing, and survival requires strength in both.
Patent spats getting pricier for tech shareholders 23 Sep 2011 The likes of Apple and Samsung are spending millions to sue each other. But new research shows it’s the trolls that own little more than legal rights to inventions levying the heftier toll on investors and innovation. It’s more evidence of why patent law needs to change.
UBS, Yahoo and HP have made failure traditional 23 Sep 2011 The Swiss bank’s $2 bln rogue trading loss echoes its U.S. mortgage misadventures while persistent strategic drift led the two tech companies to chuck out their bosses. All three have self-images that are badly out of date. Few companies can recover from this cognitive disorder.
Meg Whitman is unjustifiable choice for HP CEO 22 Sep 2011 The former eBay boss only joined the tech company’s board this year. The feckless body has ousted three previous outsiders, damaging HP each time. Whitman’s experience in hardware and business software is limited. Her powers of persuasion will take HP only so far.
Palm reading could tell BlackBerry maker’s fate 17 Jun 2011 Research In Motion is melting down as consumers switch to rival devices made by Apple or powered by Google. Yet the top brass remains optimistic. Palm's trajectory provides a more sobering possibility. When its cult gadget lost its technological edge, the firm never recovered.
Apple throws music industry another life vest 6 Jun 2011 Its new iTunes Match service lets users listen to music on any device for $25 a year. Significantly, it also works as an amnesty of sorts for customers with illgotten songs in their hard drives. It looks a concession to piracy but it at least offers a way to more revenue.
Apple readies latest version of the halo effect 3 Jun 2011 The tech dynamo cleverly uses each introduction of a new device, like the iPad, to trigger virtuous circles where purchasers tend to buy other Apple products. Expanding its cloud offerings, where data and programs are stored remotely, could set off more favorable feedback loops.
IBM looks set to sustain march on tech rivals 24 May 2011 Big Blue's pitiful state 20 years ago forced it to shift from hardware to corporate software and services. After taking different paths, rivals like HP, Cisco and Microsoft are trying to find their way. IBM's market value now tops them all and shows no signs of relenting.
Microsoft’s $8.5 bln Skype price is in the cloud 10 May 2011 In theory, the WindowstoOffice giant could integrate Skype's voice and video calling to its advantage. In practice, Microsoft's M&A track record is poor. Combine that with a valuation at 10 times 2010 sales and this is one call that is unlikely ever to connect for shareholders.
Skype schmuck insurance pays off richly for eBay 10 May 2011 The online auctioneer can now claim to have made money on the Internet telephony group. Though eBay wrote down its original 2005 $3.1 bln purchase, and then sold it for less to Silver Lake and friends, keeping a stake allowed it to save face and show a return well over 30 pct.
Apple’s $150 bln brand value typifies tech motion 9 May 2011 The iPad maker's distinct label accounts for about half its market cap, a new survey finds. It's also 10 times what it was in 2006. Measuring brand worth is an imprecise art, but there are good reasons why technology companies dominate and are prone to big swings in value.
Smaller chips are driving bigger announcements 4 May 2011 Applied Materials and Intel have grown huge through their mastery of making semiconductors smaller and more complex. Applied's $4.9 bln purchase of Varian, and Intel's most significant technology announcement of the year are all part of staying on the right side of Moore's Law.
Cisco takes first small step to focusing on core 12 Apr 2011 The networking giant's boss, John Chambers, acknowledged last week Cisco had lost its way. Now he's putting his money where his mouth is and shutting parts of its cashdraining consumer unit. That's sensible, but more will be needed to simplify the sprawl and improve returns.
Texas Instruments makes smart $6.5 bln bet 5 Apr 2011 The chip company is paying an eyebrowraising 78 pct premium for rival National Semiconductor. But the target is solidly profitable even with its factories running at a slow tempo. Speed them up as this deal should and TI should generate a nice return on its investment.
HP’s boss must present repair bill to investors 11 Mar 2011 Leo Apotheker's first presentation to shareholders next week won't be pleasant. His predecessor's dealmaking and costcutting spiked up profits. Spending more on R&D, boosting quality and gluing HP's parts together is a necessary task unlikely to generate quick returns.
Freescale’s mega-LBO does not compute 24 Feb 2011 The chipmaker started to quake under its hulking debt soon after it was bought for $17.6 billion in 2006. A restructuring and a sales rebound have helped. But even if Freescale's IPO fetches the same valuation as rival NXP, the buyout foursome's investment would be halved.
Cisco’s growth quest may be giving it sclerosis 10 Feb 2011 In its last quarter, the networking group had to extend favorable terms to customers just to get a 6 pct sales lift half its longterm target and hammering margins. It's setting up a working group to study what happened. It's not too hard to diagnose: Cisco needs a diet.
Qualcomm makes $3.1 bln push for tablet gold 5 Jan 2011 The wireless technology giant hasn t had much success beyond cellphones. Yet other devices, such as Apple s iPad and its rivals, are starting to take the technological lead from smartphones. Buying Atheros gives Qualcomm the chance to get more mobile.
Companies hold off eating R&D seed corn 16 Dec 2010 Hard times hurt. One danger of a sharp recession is that companies cut back spending on innovation, as they did during the Great Depression. Luckily, only truly hard up industries did so during the last crisis. That's good news for future growth.
Google’s innovation engine sputtering big time 1 Dec 2010 The search giant's willingness to spend $6 bln on a startup in a business with almost no barriers to entry is the most damning evidence yet. In the past, Google would've tried to create a Groupon of its own. But these initiatives rarely panned out. It now has to buy innovation.