Tech earnings continue to give us some interesting data points, and possible contradictions, in the overall tech space and in the networking space. We also had some M&A, so let’s get to it. Intel beat Street estimates in both revenue and profit, largely on the strength of business purchases of PCs and servers. It’s Atom…
Apple reported truly astounding numbers for the quarter, with revenues up 82% and profits effectively doubling. The numbers beat the Street handily and sent Apple stocks trading after hours at over $400 per share. Apple’s upside was almost totally due to its iPhone/iPad products, with the Mac and iPod both underperforming estimates. Given the economic…
A tale of two companies, and possibly an example of unfortunate timing as well. Cisco yesterday announced it was laying off 6,500 workers, and IBM announced it was raising its guidance after having beat the revenue numbers expected by the Street. Both companies ended the session yesterday off slightly, but the contrast here is interesting….
Google+ continues to make news, with an admitted ten million subscribers in what’s still a closed trial and with buzz that’s enough to drown out competing reactions to the service. There’s no question that Google+ is a true competitor to Facebook, and while Facebook is far from irrelevant we can at least see a path…
Google reported its numbers, and by any measure it had a stellar quarter. Revenues were up 32% and they beat Street estimates across the board. While the dark side of success will likely be greater anti-trust scrutiny for Google, it’s better than turning in bad numbers and seeing shares fall. But for me, two non-financial…
In yet another price change that angers customers, VMware announced a new pricing strategy for its vSphere 5 and the new pricing could create significant increases in license costs for some customers—as much as nearly 4x. Our model suggests that the typical user will pay less than 20% more, but it’s pretty likely that the…
Netflix may be showing us something about the streaming video market with its decision to raise the prices for “combination packages” of mail and streamed video services. The new policy is to price the two independently rather than to discount the combination, a move that raises the monthly price by about 50% and impacts nearly…
The EU is a focus of a lot of things these days, and we can now add net neutrality to the list. The EC hearings on the issue, launched late in June, produced the predictable results—people are alarmed at the risk of loss of innovation and privacy and competitiveness, but they have no practical contributions…
As some things change, others stay the same. That’s about how I see things fresh from two weeks in Brazil, a place on which I’ll also comment here. We’re seeing changes in the networking business space as Google vies anew with Facebook and Twitter, and yet the moves raise the same issues we’ve faced all…
Alcatel-Lucent did its own ballyhoo this week, with the announcement that the company had promised would make the Internet faster. I’m not big on ballyhoo, and I have to admit that I have mixed feelings on the Alcatel-Lucent announcement. I want to be fair, and so I want to start with the perspective I bring…