This was a strange earnings season. But it has been a remarkably strange economy. But when you look at the big names in tech, including Intel, IBM, Apple, Google, Yahoo, eBay, Microsoft, and the big names on Wall Street, there was a bizarre disconnect over what was expected, and what was realized.
Allen & Co.’s Sun Valley, Idaho, media fest got off to a gloomy start Wednesday, with downbeat panel discussions on the economy (getting worse) and the digital future (looking murky).
Does Liberty Media want to own AOL?
CNBC’s David Faber raised the question this morning at the tail end of a long interview with Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei.
Here’s Sony’s Jack Tretton, speaking to Chris Morris at CNBC, on leaks:
Everyone else is in the phone business, so why not Microsoft? Several reports suggest that this may actually be in the works–one has the phone sporting an Nvidia processor and launching at the 3GSM conference, another that it is code-named “Pink,” will be Zune-based and will launch at CES in January. No word on what the code name may allude to.
Just last week, J.D. Power made headlines when it released a study showing that Apple’s iPhone was the top mobile device among business users. Now I’m getting word from the folks at Citrix Systems that the company is designing virtualization software specifically for the iPhone and it will be coming soon to the Apple App Store.
Google, one of the nation’s great growth engines for employment, has essentially stopped hiring for the last month, according to several executives at the company.
If Electronic Arts’ unsolicited bid for Take-Two Interactive sounds a lot like Microsoft’s unsolicited play for Yahoo–complete with both EA and Microsoft ultimately walking away–think again.
It’s only a little bit surprising that EA walked, mostly because Take-Two was in a far stronger negotiating position than Yahoo.
Michael Phelps who? In what is probably the greatest moment in this Olympics, Usain Bolt of Jamaica won gold in the 100m dash in 9.69 seconds, a new world record–and he didn’t even have to try after the first half of the race.
Hard to know what to get excited about regarding David Faber’s report on CNBC this morning, alleging that Sprint Nextel (S) is in talks with various parties that are “not informal”–in Faber’s words–to sell its struggling Nextel unit.
A funny thing has been happening to Google lately. Have you noticed? It’s going up!
And I’m not talking about the one-day pop it got from those surprisingly good earnings, which shocked just about everyone on Wall Street and sent Google shares soaring.
I’m skeptical. Let me just say that right out of the gate. I’m skeptical that Apple Inc. and Apple Corps have signed a deal to put the Beatles’ 255 song catalogue on iTunes. Don’t get me wrong, I see the economies here and I know that everyone involved sees $$$ in their eyes. And believe me, every fan I’ve talked to, including Steve Jobs himself, wants to see a deal get done.
I’m just skeptical that one is imminent.
Investors lined up two hours before the Apple shareholder meeting began here in Cupertino, Calif. It’s a little unusual for them to be here so early, and I thought it might be related to the company’s 40% plunge since the beginning of the year. Instead, I found that euphoria had given way to cautious optimism, but optimism nonetheless, that Apple would continue to rely on innovation to recapture its stock market magic.
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