Apple (AAPL) shells out a ton of money for advertising. In fiscal 2009 it spent $501 million, according to the 10-K form filed Tuesday. That’s up from $486 million in 2008 and $467 million in 2007.

Read the rest of this post at the original site

No one can accuse President Barack Obama of cozying up to corporate America.

From his denunciations of Wall Street greed to his critiques of the auto manufacturers, Obama and his team have done little to disguise their mistrust of big business–except when it comes to one very large, very influential technology company.

In Google (GOOG), the $22-billion-a-year online-advertising Goliath, Obama appears to have found a corporate kindred spirit.

Read the rest of this post at the original site.

If the world’s eighth-largest economy were a member of the proper religious order, it’d be time to call in a priest to administer last rites.

Name almost any serious malady and the state of California has it: the nation’s highest marginal tax rate coupled with an abysmal public education system; the most home foreclosures; a free-falling commercial real estate sector; lame-duck governor with no legislative support and a disdain for an annual budget process that he refers to as kabuki theater; unemployment somewhere between the official number of 12% and the whisper number of 18%; a 20% drop in year-over-year revenue; municipalities that have either declared bankruptcy (Vallejo) or are on the verge (Los Angeles); and a black-box permitting process that scares away business investment even while every week, 3,000 more taxpayers migrate to greener pastures.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

The perception is that operating systems are dying. In truth, they are evolving.

For years we’ve witnessed wars waged among major operating system vendors, with computer purchases hanging in the balance. Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows was a household name for people who didn’t know what an operating system was, its popularity growing from the use of well-known, everyday applications such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint that other operating systems didn’t have.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

If you have been an investor in technology IPOs in recent months you’ve done well. Starting in April, and really gathering momentum this summer, there has been a slew of tech companies that leapt through the public market window including Changyou (CYOU), Rosetta Stone (RST), OpenTable (OPEN), and most recently Emdeon (EM).

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Here’s a question the FCC neglected to ask Apple (AAPL) in its inquiry into why the company rejected–or as Apple prefers, declined to approve–Google (GOOG) Voice:

Why has a free app that does essentially the same thing–and would seem to raise the same red flags for Apple–been sitting on the App Store for nearly 10 months?

Read the rest of this post on the original site

For two Canadian guys who’ve spent the past 17 years together building one of the world’s most important tech companies, Research in Motion (RIMM) co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis have surprisingly little in common.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Apple’s (AAPL) control issues have been a key ingredient in its success. CEO Steve Jobs is fond of pointing out that Apple’s hands-on approach to crafting both hardware and software has led to such breakthrough products as the Mac, the iPod and the iPhone–and it’s fair to say the attention to detail hasn’t hurt Apple’s marketing, either.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Tuesday was not a good day for professional analysts as a class–and Merrill Lynch’s in particular. Not only were most caught off guard by the strength of Apple’s (AAPL) record third-quarter results but the men and women who track the company for banks and brokerage houses were bested once again by a bunch of bloggers, day traders and amateurs analysts.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

These days Howard Stringer makes his home in a hotel suite in an affluent Tokyo neighborhood not far from Sony (SNE) headquarters. It’s a comfortable but far from palatial space consisting of a bedroom, bathroom, and decent-size living-dining area with a small desk that he has outfitted with a PC and fax machine.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

At a table in Las Vegas, a town fueled by big bets, IBM (IBM) software chief Steve Mills outlined one he doesn’t want to make: Buying application provider SAP (SAP).

“We’re not changing our strategy,” said Mills, who guides Big Blue’s software strategy for CEO Sam Palmisano. “We have consistently shied away from going deep into the applications space,” he said last week at a series of business meetings.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Oracle (ORCL) pounced on Sun Microsystems (JAVA) a week ago, agreeing to buy the battered server maker for $5.6 billion, excluding Sun’s cash. On the surface, the tech world responded relatively quietly to Oracle’s bombshell by getting about the business of reporting earnings. Behind closed doors, however, the entire industry has been turned topsy-turvy.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Last summer, well after Twitter had become the buzz of the New York and San Francisco Web crowds but months before its current moment at the apogee of Internet hype, I visited the start-up at its hip South of Market offices and wrote a feature on the company in Fortune. Its title, “The true meaning of Twitter,” now feels like a quaint moment in time when the very definition of the company’s name, let alone how you use its product, needed explaining.

Read the rest of this post

Over the weekend, Microsoft (MSFT) unleashed the second TV ad in its “you find it, you keep it” series–this time swapping handsome, “technically savvy” Giampaolo for perky, red-headed Lauren De Long. Once again the camera follows a typical budget-constrained buyer on a laptop shopping spree using Steve Ballmer’s money.

Read the rest of this post

The government’s stimulus plan won’t work as planned if we don’t get consumers spending again. But in the nearly $800 billion package, there is one thing missing that would surely help accomplish this: advertising. To get people spending again, and the economy moving, the government needs to provide help for businesses in America to advertise their products and services.

Let me disclose that I do have a horse in this race: I’m an investor in advertising-supported businesses. I’ve spent a large percentage of my working career in businesses that sell advertising–including broadcast and cable TV, radio, magazines, Internet, newspapers and direct marketing. I’ve also led businesses that have used these media to advertise products and services.

Read the rest of this post