Marc Andreessen, the Netscape co-founder who went on to use his considerable wealth to finance scores of Silicon Valley start-ups, is regarded as one of the smartest technology investors. His victories have been spectacular: Skype, LinkedIn, and, one day Twitter, if all goes well. The tale of his investment in Instagram, which was sold to Facebook for $1 billion, reveals a lot about how Silicon Valley works in a frothy [ Read More ]
Shares of chip maker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) are up 17 cents, or 2%, at $8.14 in late trading after the company reported Q1 revenue of $1.59 billion, and EPS of 12 cents a share, excluding some costs, trumping the consensus $1.56 billion and 9 cents. Revenue was down 1%, year over year, and down 6% from Q4′s level, but adjusted profit per share was 50% higher than the prior-year [ Read More ]
Verizon may be ready to cast its lot with Microsoft and its Windows Phone platform. Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo, speaking on a conference call today, said he was “fully supportive” of Microsoft and talked about the need for a third mobile ecosystem in the industry. That Verizon shifted from its previously lukewarm stance on Windows Phone to today’s comment underscores the increasing need for wireless carriers to wean [ Read More ]
Speaking today at a limited press event in Seattle, HTC creative director Claude Zellweger said that HTC is moving away from smartphones with QWERTY keyboards. “As a company, the QWERTY keyboard we’re moving away from in general.” Zellweger then went on to say that the future of QWERTY on smartphones will likely revolve from newer haptic technologies that are being worked into software based, on-screen keyboards. He also feels that [ Read More ]
Justin Knapp is probably the hardest working man on the internet after becoming the first person to pass the million-edit-mark on Wikipedia. Since 2005, he’s made around 385 amendments per day, each one taking him around four minutes [Citation Needed]. Founder Jimmy Wales congratulated the 30-year-old on his personal feed and Mr. Knapp’s been awarded the site’s Special Barnstar medal and Golden Wiki award for his achievement. Source: Engadget
Mark Shuttleworth has announced at the OpenStack conference that Canonical has received a ringing endorsement from HP in the form of certification for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS on the ProLiant server systems. Responding to customer demand, HP has decided to officially support the popular flavor of Linux giving sysadmins another flexible software option to leverage their current and future hardware. With Canonical claiming that Ubuntu is the “server of choice” for [ Read More ]
This just in: According to multiple sources close to the company, Facebook is eying IPO on May 17th — depending on whether the SEC agrees that all the reams of paperwork (including those concerning its recent acquisition of Instagram) are in order. This is in line with earlier reports that the company was going to hit NASDAQ during the third week of May. And also in line with what a [ Read More ]
IBM is a tale of two growth stories. Revenue is anemic, but earnings are robust. That has been the pattern for IBM in recent years, and its first-quarter results on Tuesday were an emphatic example. The company’s earnings easily surpassed Wall Street’s expectations, but sales were flat. The focus on earnings and not revenue growth reflects the company’s strategy of shifting into higher-margin businesses, while pruning less profitable operations, and [ Read More ]
Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM), the troubled maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, is in talks to hire a financial adviser to help it weigh strategic options, according to four people with knowledge of the matter. A decision to work with at least one bank could come in the next few days, said one of the people, who asked to remain anonymous because the deliberations are private. RIM would prefer an [ Read More ]
Looks like we may see another development today in Apple’s ongoing iPad/4G controversy in Australia. The country’s Competition and Consumer Commission is meeting with Apple in court again today to try to get Apple to officially change the name of the device when it is sold in Australia. Although many people know the tablet as “the new iPad” since launching the product in March, Apple has also been marketing the [ Read More ]
