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Groupon pops corks: Happy CEO, sales and shares up, profit... oh
Groupon has named co-founder Eric Lefkofsky as the next chief exec at the same time as announcing better-than-expected revenues in this year's second quarter, sending shares shooting up 25 per cent.
This is despite making a $7.6m loss during those three months, whereas it made a profit of $28.4m the same period last year.
The …
CSC enslaves Infochimps to create army of big data monkeymen
In an announcement so garbled that our Big Data Translator had to be coated in Hadoop-based lubricant to spew out some sense, analytics company Infochimps has been acquired by outsourcer-extraordinaire CSC.
The data-analytics company announced it had been acquired on Tuesday alongside CSC's earnings, during which CSC reported a …
Super Micro closes out record year, eager to cross Ivy Bridge
Motherboard and whitebox server maker Super Micro Computer has just closed out a bumper fiscal 2013, despite issues from hard-drive shortages, an uncertain European economy, and having to ramp up its factories in the Netherlands and Taiwan.
Having outgrown the server market by a factor of three in the prior twelve months, …
Icahn sues Dell's board over Big Mike's buyout bid
Activist investor Carl Icahn and his affiliates have filed a legal complaint against Dell and its board members in his latest attempt to thwart Big Mike's efforts to regain control of the PC behemoth.
Icahn filed in Delaware's Court of Chancery on a number of counts. One of these is a request for the court to to stop Michael …
Imation posts FOURTEENTH loss-making quarter
Scalable-storage biz Imation's revenue slump continues while management continues to talk the talk about recovery, which – worryingly, for Imation – depends mainly upon storage array product developments in a brutally competitive market.
The firm's revenues – and profitability – crashed as tape and optical disk media sales …
Cray posts modest loss, awaits Q4 revenue wave
Supercomputer maker Cray turned in a slightly better than expected second quarter, with a modest bump in revenues and a slight loss.
This is a win in the ever-choppy supercomputer racket – and particularly for Cray in a second quarter. For the past three years, Cray has been cramming a large portion of its sales in the final …
People really liked our Xperia. Throw in a weak yen and KERCHING - Sony
The weak yen and strong sales of its smartphones in Japan combined to help Sony report a better-than-expected operating profit in its fiscal first quarter.
Things were looking good for the one-time electronics giant at home, where foreign exchange rates were helping its bank balances and its flagship Xperia smartphone was well- …
Steady as she goes at Three, no unseemly dash to be Four
Hutchison's Three network in the UK has seen a ten per cent increase in active users over the past year, it says, with a 14.4 per cent increase in contract punters. The six months to the end of June saw 3 with 9.2m users (7.5m active) of which 5.5m were on contract (5.37m active) - the rest being on prepay.
The network lost 109, …
Dell committee says 'no way' on takeover vote change
The special committee of Dell board members that is reviewing the two proposals that will decide the fate of their company have told the Michael Dell/Silver Lake Partners consortium that they are not willing to change the voting rules, as the consortium had requested.
And so the ongoing saga of Michael Dell's attempt to take the …
HTC warns of likely loss next quarter
Taiwanese mobile-maker HTC has warned that it may have its first ever operating loss in the third quarter, sending its shares sliding nearly seven per cent.
HTC said in a statement announcing its Q2 results that its margins had been hit by "the relatively higher cost structure, lack of economy of scale and certain provisions …
Wall St 'Likes' Facebook again: Shares edge up to pre-IPOcalypse price
It's been 14 months since Facebook debuted on Wall Street and the company has finally rebounded to its initial public offering share price of $38.
On Tuesday, the free content ad network's stock rose 7 per cent to $37.96 - just a whisker away from its 18 May 2012 IPO price tag.
Facebook saw its shares hit repeated snags: first …
Red ink not as deep as expected for Fujitsu in Q1
Japanese IT conglomerate Fujitsu may have been been hit hard by the decline in PC and smartphone sales and seen its server business slump as well, but the weakening of the yen by the Japanese government to boost the indigenous economy has helped inflate overseas sales revenues, and an uptick in the systems integration business …
Dragon's Den Jones' etail biz Expansys back in the red
If mobility etailer Expansys were to be put in front of majority shareholder and Dragon's Den badboy Peter Jones in its current guise, his response may be something along the lines of "I'm out".
Dragged down by its online retail shop, sales at the AIM-listed outfit fell 14 per cent to £93.2m, as profits before tax of £1.5m were …
Bank of Thailand bans Bitcoin
Bitcoin suffered a major blow to its international reputation on Monday after Thailand became the first country to outlaw the virtual currency outright.
The online-only currency biz had been trying to operate lawfully in the Southeast Asian country, requesting guidance from the Bank of Thailand about which licenses it needed to …
Siemens to throw CEO overboard after profits slashed a FIFTH time
German tech firm Siemens looks set to show chief exec Peter Loescher the door on Wednesday after the company was forced to issue a fifth profit warning.
"At its meeting on July 31, 2013, the Supervisory Board of Siemens AG will decide on the early departure of the President and CEO. In addition, it will decide on the appointment …
Samsung: The cash blizzard continues, but may not last forever
Samsung reported another record quarterly profit today, up nearly 50 per cent from the same time last year, but warned that its heady growth in smartphones could be slowing up.
The mighty Korean electronics firm saw net profit hit 7.77 trillion won ($7bn), as expected, but profits at its mobile division dipped by 3.5 per cent …
Amazon's profit-eating machine revs into overdrive
Shares in e-retailer Amazon inched down over 2 per cent in after-hours trading after the company reported a net loss in its second quarter and forecast problems in its third quarter, currently underway.
Amazon's great profit-eating machine was on full display on Wednesday, when the mega e-tailer's vast revenues failed to stop it …
Sales deflate and Mellanox swings to a small loss in Q2
InfiniBand and Ethernet chip, adapter, and switch maker Mellanox Technologies sure could have used a massive server bump in its second quarter like it got last year thanks to the rollout of Intel's "Sandy Bridge" Xeon E5 processors. But instead Mellanox swung to a loss on a pretty significant revenue hit in the quarter ended in …
Zuck on THIS: Mobile users propel Facebook to RECORD earnings
Facebook posted strong results for the second quarter of its fiscal 2013 on Wednesday, showing impressive growth in its advertising and payments businesses and earnings that soundly beat analysts' expectations.
Revenue for the quarter was $1.81bn, a 53 per cent increase over the year-ago quarter. Of that total, 88 per cent (or $ …
Juniper Networks CEO throws in towel as firm swims in cash
It is always best to bow out at the top, but Juniper Networks' CEO has decided to stand down well before the company is close to peaking. At least, that's what investors will be hoping.
Kevin Johnson revealed last night that the network gear firm has created a Search Committee of independent directors to locate and appoint his …
Cloud rains cash for EMC: VMWare win means Tucci's team can take it easy
EMC did the business in its second calendar 2013 quarter, notching up solid gains in revenues and profits. Revenue was propped up by brisk trade in cloud virtualisation services from VMware and sales of scale-out NAS storage from its Isilon unit. The RSA and Information Intelligences groups slowed EMC down a smidge, however. …
Dell shareholders head in for second vote on Big Mike's plan
Dell shareholders are set to meet in Texas again today to see whether they can agree to go with Big Mike's plan to take the firm private or prefer to wait for a better offer.
Investors are still pretty dubious about their founder's $24.4bn buyout offer for the firm, sources whispered to Reuters, with many feeling that the $13.65 …
VMware squeezes customers for stellar quarter
Despite a wave of executive departures, questions over its ability to make money arming cloud vendors, and a dismal economy at home and abroad, VMware has reported a solid set of financial results, though slow growth in software licensing points to storms ahead.
The virtualization company reported combined revenues of $1.24bn on …
Apple earnings slip, but numbers beat Wall Street estimates
Apple – unlike its tech-industry compatriots Microsoft, Google, Intel, BlackBerry, and über-rival Samsung – surprised most Wall Street moneymen by turning in slightly better than expected numbers for its third fiscal quarter of 2013, reporting revenues of $35.3bn, net income of $6.9bn, and the all-important earnings per share ( …
Yahoooo! - Activist! investor! leaps! overboard! jingling! with! cash!
Activist investor Daniel Loeb is stepping down from Yahoo!'s board and giving up a chunk of his outfit Third Point's stake in exchange for a healthy payoff now that shares have risen.
Loeb took credit for the uplift in Yahoo!'s fortunes in a statement, hinting that agitating his way onto the board along with two of his chosen …
Recession-battered Europeans still squeezing Vodafone's pips
Mobile operator Vodafone is still feeling the recession's squeeze in Europe as it posted another drop in revenues for the quarter ending last month.
The British group said its service revenue, including joint ventures, for the quarter was £10.155bn, down 3.5 per cent year on year following a 4.2 per cent slip in the previous …
Microsoft's earnings down on slow Windows sales, Surface RT bust
Just how off were Microsoft's sales projections for its ARM-powered Surface RT fondleslabs? Try $900m off.
That's how much Redmond wrote down in inventory adjustments in its disappointing fourth quarter and fiscal 2013 earnings report on Thursday, which saw the software giant miss analyst estimates by a significant margin. …
Google exhales another $14bn revenue figure
Google reported hefty earnings of $14.11bn on Monday for the second quarter of its fiscal year, up 19 per cent on the same quarter a year ago.
The growth was even ahead of last quarter's $13.97bn, though that had been down on Q4 2012's $14.42bn and Q3's $14.10bn.
Net income was $3.23bn, down slightly on quarter one's $3.35bn, …
AMD fools Wall Street, posts smaller loss than expected
A day after its competitor Intel posted financial results for its most recent quarter that came in slightly below analyst's estimates, AMD bucked that disappointing trend – but it's not quite out of the woods yet.
AMD reported its second quarter results on Thursday after markets closed, and reported a loss of $0.09 per share ( …
Sales at IBM decline 3.3 per cent in Q2, profits hit by layoffs
IBM chairman and CEO Ginni Rometty needs the company to turn in much better quarters for the remainder of 2103 than Big Blue did in the first quarter, when it missed its numbers by more than $400m.
In the second quarter, IBM did a little better in its systems and services segments and the core business faired alright if you …
Intel reports growth in PC sales and makes mobile top priority
Intel's latest quarterly results came in slightly below analysts' expectations but carry promising news for Chipzilla's PC business, and new CEO Brian Krzanich says things are looking promising for the firm.
"In the second quarter, we delivered on our quarterly outlook and made several key product announcements," he said. "In my …
Yahoo!'s Mayer turns in another stable quarter, yet sales disappoint
Yahoo!'s earnings for the its second quarter of 2013 roughly matched analysts' expectations, and CEO Marissa Meyer says she's "encouraged" by the company's performance. Revenue, however, continues to be a problem for the troubled firm.
It's been one year since Mayer was tapped for the top spot at Yahoo!, and to her credit a lot …
Icahn suggests pumping Mikey Dell for dollars hard over a court bench
Activist investor Carl Icahn has urged his fellow Dell shareholders to join him in trying to get a higher price for their stockholdings in court.
Icahn has written a letter to investors telling them they should reject the $24.4bn buyout offer to take the firm private lodged by company founder Mike Dell and Silver Lake Partners, …
Not so fast with the bubbly, RM: IT biz faces £40m schools-sized hole
Just when education supplier RM is getting itself back on track, it has revealed that a £40m black hole will emerge in its accounts when Blighty's Building Schools for the Future programme is finally shuttered.
The UK firm stumbled in fiscal 2011 as it posted steep losses, managed to recover somewhat in fiscal 2012 and is back …
PEAK SAMSUNG? Shares slide ahead of BEELLLIONS in profit
Shares in Samsung Electronics continued to slide today after the chaebol's latest estimated earnings failed to impress investors on Friday.
Although Sammy's flagship subsidiary - which makes tellies, chips, phones and more - is once again expecting record-breaking quarterly results, its projected £5.4bn ($8bn) operating profit …
Samsung isn't alone: HTC profits take a huge dive
Troubled smartphone vendor HTC has released its latest unaudited quarterly results, and they're not good – profits are down 83 per cent when compared with the same period last year.
HTC stock price for the last two years The last two years haven't been kind to HTC shareholders
In the second quarter of 2013, HTC reported …
Zynga lures Microsoft's gaming chief with bulging package
Shiny new Zynga chief Don Mattrick will get a hefty package when he joins the firm next week, with around $50m hitting his bank account in the next few years.
The firm said in a regulatory filing that Mattrick, who's leaving his job as head of Microsoft's Xbox business to join the mobile gaming biz, will get a base salary of $1m …
Report: IPCom gets rich off Deutsche Telekom patent payment
Patent warehouse IPCom may have scored a massive royalty payout from Deutsche Telekom, with Reuters reporting the settlement to be worth hundreds of millions of euros.
"It is their biggest settlement so far," said one anonymous source with knowledge of the deal.
IPCom, which is backed by US asset managers Fortress Investment …
Olympus trio escape jail but firm fined £4.6 MEEELION
Three former Olympus execs have been found guilty of massive accounting fraud and the camera-maker fined ¥700m (£4.6m), although the disgraced trio escaped prison sentences.
Tokyo District Court on Wednesday sentenced former chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, auditor Hideo Yamada, and ex-VP Hisashi Mori to suspended prison terms after …
Samsung slurps set-top streamer
Samsung has moved to extend its in-TV recording and streaming capabilities with the acquisition of Israel-based set-top-box-based broadcast aggregation outfit Boxee.
While neither party has disclosed terms of the sale, VentureBeat believes the price tag was $US30 million.
Boxee had fought battles with Comcast and Hulu over its …
Xobni! heads! to! Yahoo! elephant! graveyard!
For somewhere between $US30 million and $US60 million, depending on which insider you prefer, Yahoo! has continued its acquisition spree, picking up e-mail management startup Xobni.
Since Xobni had total raisings of $US42 million since being founded in 2006, the sale price is important, at least to its investors: they either …
Show us the money: Big Mike told to up his game if he wants Dell
Big Mike has been advised to up his offer for Dell after activist investor Carl Icahn finally managed to scrape together the cash to back his refinancing proposal.
The eponymous chief was sitting pretty a short time ago when it was rumoured that Icahn was having trouble raising the $5.2bn in funding needed to revamp the firm and …
