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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 …
Surface Pro for enterprise: We name the dates and the lucky partners
The clock is ticking for Microsoft to get its house in order before Surface Pro launches in the UK business distribution channel in the middle of next month, say our people on the inside.
As revealed by El Chan this week, five resellers are talking to Microsoft execs in Redmond about stocking the slab: Misco, Insight, Kelway, …
Facebook's Winklevoss Bros file to launch Bitcoin Trust for investors
The Facebook-famous Winklevoss twins are set to become the first investors to launch an official Bitcoin-related IPO, with a new trust.
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, notorious for their battle with social network impresario Mark Zuckerberg over the creation of Facebook, said in April that they had hoovered up around one per cent …
Zynga zinger: Xbox chief bagged as new CEO
Zynga, the online gaming company that recently laid off 500 employees, has just hired one: a new CEO, Don Mattrick, who moves to the game developer from his job as president of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, where he shepherded the Xbox 360.
"Don is unique in the game business," said Zynga's founder, chairman, …
Apple dodged all UK corporation tax in 2012
Apple didn't pay any corporation tax in the UK last year, according to its latest filings in the country, adding to controversy at home about its imaginative tax planning.
The fruity firm's main British subsidiaries Apple (UK), Apple Europe and Apple Retail UK reported pre-tax profits between them of £68m in the year to …
Canadian pension fund buys into Leighton Telecomms
The Nextgen brand is now the umbrella for all the operations of the former Leightons Telecommunications, with the Australian company announcing that the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (OTPP) has acquired 70 per cent of the operation.
Construction company Leighton Holdings first announced that it was seeking a buyer for its …
BlackBerry BB10 devices refuse to leap off shelves
So you’re an ageing push-email legend finally selling phones with a shiny modern new operating system, relieving years of pent-up demand. Wouldn’t you want to SHOUT about how many people want them?
BlackBerry spurned the opportunity to do just that in its earnings releases today, covering the first full quarter selling BB10 …
UK sitting on top of at least 50 years of shale gas – report
The UK is sitting on a cheap energy economic revolution comparable to the heyday of North Sea Oil, the British Geological Survey suggests.
The Survey’s estimate of the potential gas reserves of the Bowland–Hodder shale formation - finally published today – indicate that using today’s technology, the rocks should yield 1,329 TCF …
Ex-Yahoo! Hadoopers hoover up $50m into trunks
Hadoop Summit Wars take money, and the battle between the several distributors that package up Hadoop stacks just got a whole lot more interesting now that Hortonworks, one of two teams that have been built by ex-employees that came out of former search engine giant Yahoo!, has just landed $50m in its second round of funding.
Rob Bearden, CEO …
IBM axes nearly THREE THOUSAND staffers in North America - union
IBM has axed nearly three thousand workers in Canada and the US, according to employee union Alliance@IBM, as its cost-cutting drive begins to bite.
Big Blue has been laying off swathes of staff worldwide in the last few years as it attempts to drastically reduce its outgoings, periodically announcing "workforce rebalancing", " …
Bitcoin now accepted in London pub. In Hack-ney, of course
A pub in East London has become the first in Britain to accept Bitcoin in lieu of real money.
The Pembury Tavern, in Hackney, is within easy reach of Shoreditch by fixed-speed bike and is a favourite haunt of the area's many varieties of hipster (as opposed to the area's equally numerous drug-dealing community, another group who …
Apple's Tim Cook: I'm risking my own MEELLLIONS if we sink
Apple CEO Tim Cook has tied his future pay packet to the fruity firm's performance, in a move which could end up costing him over $100m.
In a bid to stave off concerns that his company is on the verge of catastrophic decline, Steve Jobs' heir has put his own neck on the line by promising to sacrifice almost 40 per cent of the …
Vodafone coughs up £6.5bn for Kabel Deutschland
Vodafone has snapped up Germany’s largest cable operator, creating a brand capable of offering Germans bundles of broadband, TV, and both fixed-line and mobile telephony - and preventing competitor Liberty Global from doing the same.
Liberty, flush from acquiring Virgin Media, had been seen sniffing around Kabel Deutschland …
Dished! Clearwire hops into bed with Sprint
Sprint has upped its offer for Clearwire, outbidding Dish and signing a deal which requires Clearwire to cough up $115m if the acquisition fails for any reason – outmanoeuvring Dish yet again.
The Clearwire board had voted in favour of the Dish offer, which at $4.40 per share was a dollar up on Sprint's original bid.
But this …
Apple's $17bn bond sale not such a good deal for investors
Investors in Apple's record $17bn bond offering who didn't hedge their bets have seen millions in value wiped off their investment.
Apple 30-year Corporate Bond Price Apple 30-year Corporate Bond Price. Credit: Business Insider/Steven Perlberg, data from Bloomberg
The fruity firm sold off the huge amount of debt back in April …
3D printers now emitting merged manufacturers
The 3D printer market is starting to carve itself into a new shape after Stratasys, purveyor of the consumer-friendly Mojo and the industry-focussed devices like the bar-fridge-sized uPrint will hand over $US403m worth of stock to acquire MakerBot and its rather more prosumer-friendly Replicator range.
Stratasys will operate …
Oracle posts flat revenues on slow software sales
Oracle execs were quick to talk up the company's cloud efforts during its Q4 2013 earnings call on Thursday, but slow software sales disappointed investors and sent Oracle's shares tumbling in after-hours trading.
Total revenues for the fourth quarter of Oracle's fiscal 2013 were flat at $10.9bn when compared to the same period …
Micron posts first quarterly profit for two YEARS
Hip hip hooray! Flash and memory fab operator Micron has made a quarterly profit, its first for eight quarters.
Micron saw revenues of $2.3bn in its third fiscal 2013 quarter, ended 30 May 2013. This was agreeably larger than the previous quarter's $2.1bn and also the year-ago quarter's $2.2bn.
Last quarter it made a loss of $ …
BlackBerry will 'under-perform' beneath the sheets, says Wall St bod
BlackBerry shares fell more than four per cent yesterday after its stock rating was cut by one analyst to “underperform” from "market perform".
The blow comes just a week before the mobile-maker's latest earnings report is due.
Bernstein Research analyst Pierre Ferragu said he expected to be disappointed by the ailing …
Quantum boffins and bread-heads form new VC fund
Most pundits put prime-time commercial-grade quantum computing at some distance in the future, with only a few notable exceptions. While D-Wave is selling computers it says use a process known as quantum annealing, and there exists a handful of companies selling kit for quantum key distribution, we're not even scratching the …
Stay away from the light, Kodak! Look, here's $406m to keep you alive
Eastman Kodak's creditors have backed its plan to sell 34 million shares worth $406m as it prepares to exit bankruptcy protection.
Key creditors of the fallen tech giant have agreed to backstop the rights offering, which means they will pick up any stock that Kodak doesn't manage to flog to investors. The firm said that the new …
Icahn scratching head over BEEELLLIONS needed for Dell deal
Carl Icahn could be ready to walk away from the Dell rescue deal after reports suggested he's finding stumping up the cash for the refinancing plan a little more difficult than he'd hoped.
Sources told CNBC and the New York Post that Icahn is having second thoughts about the billions needed to finance the offer for Dell put …
MPs demand UK rates revamp after Google's 'extraordinary tax mismatch'
British MPs have demanded that the government act to revamp the tax structure after damning revelations about Google's corporate payments structure in the country.
The Public Accounts Committee said in a report that Google had damaged both its own and HMRC's reputation with its "highly contrived" tax arrangements, which had seen …
Vodafone puts in multi-billion euro bid for German cable giant
Vodafone is in talks to acquire Kabel Deutschland, Germany's biggest cable TV operator, as it seeks to expand beyond mobile telephony.
The approach was confirmed by the company this morning, following overnight speculation prompted by Bloomberg.
The deal is at a very early stage, but Vodafone has confirmed preliminary talks are …
Tech giants' offshore cash-stashing is only ever a delaying tactic
Comment Do companies have a duty to their shareholders to dodge as much tax as possible? Are Google, Apple and Facebook simply following the law as they ought to by shovelling everything through Ireland and Bermuda?
Unsurprisingly, it depends on which law you think they're supposed to follow, for the law does, in fact, vary across …
QLogic brandishes axe over staff, seeks $20m cost savings
Some of the reasons for QLogic's ousting of its CEO have become clearer after the company issued a restructuring statement.
An undisclosed number of staff will be laid off; some engineering operations are going to be consolidated (presumably reducing overlap and costs); and the focus on product development is going to get " …
Another senior bod leaps overboard from foundering HTC
Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC is reeling after the departure of another senior executive.
Chief product officer Matthew Costello has left HTC after three years in post, following at least five of the firm's top dogs out of the door.
Other people to leave the smartmobe maker recently include Kouji Kodera, former chief …
Michael feels package shrink painfully as Dell freezes salary
Michael Dell may have to hold off on those gold taps for the bathtub in the corporate jet, or set his sights on a slightly less horizon-girdling Texan ranch after seeing his total compensation tumble at the company which bears his name.
The founder and CEO at Dell, the firm he plans to take private again, saw his package shrink …
Yahoo! ready! to! fling! $600m! at! Hulu!
Not content with splurging $1.1bn on cat'n'porn blogging site Tumblr and an undisclosed sum on gaming software firm PlayerScale, Yahoo! now has its wallet set on a bid for video service Hulu.
If the reports are true, Marissa Mayer comes from the "spend money to make money" school of business, having already snagged news …
Forget tax bills, here's how Google is really taking us all for a ride
Analysis Here are a few predictions: Google will shrug off last week's tax scrutiny with a flick of its robotic tail; politicians and campaigners will declare this a "success"; and the much greater toll Google and other multinationals take on the global economy will be ignored.
The protestors, upset about the tiny corporation tax bills …
HP's plunging storage revenues could yet be saved
The good ship HP is being held back by many things and storage ain't helping, yet. The one brightspot there - 3PAR - can't overcome plunging revenues elsewhere.
The company reported its second quarter of its financial 2013 revenues yesterday. Within the overall Enterprise Group, the storage segment declined 13 per cent year-on- …
Better Place electric car outfit goes titsup
Better Place, the battery-powered car company founded by spurned SAP CEO aspirant Shai Agassi, has filed to wind itself up.
Agassi was SAP's CEO-in-waiting until the company's board extended the contract of incumbent Henning Kagermann. Agassi quit and started Better Place, saying the combination of clever software and a startup …
HP: Hey, it could easily have been so much worse
If you were expecting HP to bring good news to the IT industry when it reported its financial results for the fiscal second quarter, you are no doubt sorely disappointed. Well, unless you consider that in terms of profit declines it could have been a lot worse.
In the quarter ended April 30, HP was down on all fronts, and CEO …
Sony's board debates breaking up with Spider-Man
Sony has said that it will consider a proposal from activist investor Daniel Loeb that the group should sell off parts of its music and movies business, which includes popular franchises Spider-Man and Resident Evil and the weepy ballads of Brit crooner Adele.
Chief exec Kazuo Hirai told reporters from the Financial Times, …
NetApp: We laid off 100s, profits dived - and it's all YOUR fault
Analysis Storage giant NetApp has reported unremarkable revenue growth and falling profit for its 2013 financial year. It signals that NetApp is now a mature company and not a high-growth stock.
But, behind the numbers, the firm has laid off hundreds of employees to help it stay in the black and keep investors at bay. The recently …
Irish deputy PM: You want more tax from Apple? Your problem, not ours
Ireland has denied its liberal tax laws helped Apple avoid dropping dollars into the American taxpayers' purse by funnelling billions through subsidiaries based in the country.
Eamon Gilmore, Ireland's Tánaiste (deputy prime minister), said that Apple's legal tax-dodging was down to rules in other countries.
A US Senate …
Private equity firm coughs £1bn for Websense
NASDAQ-listed web content filtering player Websense is going private again after the board approved a deal with venture capitalist Vista Equity Partners (VEP).
Under the terms of the transaction, VEP will cough $24.75 per share valuing the online security business at close to $1bn. This equates to a 29 per cent premium on the …
David Cameron asks UK biz to pay their low, low taxes
UK Prime Minister David Cameron has told a quarterly meeting of the government's business advisory group that in return for lower taxes, companies should really pay the tax they do owe, while business leaders have accused the government of "political point-scoring".
A government source whispered to Reuters that Cameron had told …
Vodafone revenues hit as customers in Europe hang onto their cash
The end of Vodafone's financial year saw the company writing down £7.7bn in assets, leaving it with a profit of only £673m based on annual revenue which declined 4.4 per cent to £44.4bn.
The revenue drop was the largest ever for the telecommunications giant, it said.
The bright spot in the Vodafone numbers was again Verizon, …
Infosys vows to fight Indian tax claim
It’s not just Western technology giants that are being targeted by the Indian government, now local IT services behemoth Infosys has been forced to challenge a Rs.5.77 billion (£68.7m) tax demand by the authorities.
India’s second biggest outsourcer was hit with the tax bill for the 2009-10 year last month.
The demand relates …
Hey, Teflon Ballmer. Look, isn't it time? You know, time to quit?
Analysis Those who upgraded to Windows 8 aren't the only ones unhappy with the new touch-driven operating system - Wall Street is too. Just don't expect any of the criticism hurled at Steve "Teflon" Ballmer, Microsoft's shy and retiring boss, to stick.
The chief executive is under fire from money men who responded to tech reporters …
Yahoo! May! Buy! Tumblr! For! One! BEELLION! Bucks!
Yahoo! has reportedly opened its chequebook, pencilled in nine zeroes with a one in front, and waved it around in the general direction of blogging site Tumblr.
Adweek says Yahoo! is willing to write the billion-dollar cheque because Tumblr is so cool it will excite advertisers.
The Wall Street Journal quotes Yahoo! officials …
