Google reported after the bell yesterday, and while the company reported a quarterly profit gain of 17% the numbers were below estimates because of higher costs. The Google results point out two issues that will not only haunt Google but also haunt the whole OTT or “Internet” sector; the limitations of advertising as a revenue…
Economic news is largely lacking today but the markets appear to be headed for another downturn, driven perhaps again by speculative short selling ahead of earnings season. Monetary and economic data worldwide isn’t suggesting any problem at this point, but it does seem to me that the stock market is trending a bit ahead of…
The cloud is in the news, in no small part because it’s earnings season and companies need to balance the need for publicity and the need to comply with SEC rules on “quiet periods”. Cloudiness is always a good way to get some positive ink. At any rate, we’re seeing three specific trends embodied in…
Cisco announced today that it would be “restructuring” its consumer business, dropping the Flip video line and focusing its home networking activities to gain better profits. The steps neither fix Cisco’s problems nor demonstrate with certainty that Cisco doesn’t know how to fix them, but they do seem to show that (dropping Flip notwithstanding) Cisco…
An industry consolidating is an industry commoditizing at the product/service level, and that’s obviously happening in telecom. The AT&T bid for T-Mobile has now been followed by a Level 3 bid for Global Crossing; both are subject to regulatory approval, of course. The simple reason for all of this is disintermediation, the fact that operators…
The FCC, continuing on a relatively rare activist track, has ordered wireless operators to establish reasonable data roaming agreements among themselves, something that is seen as increasing wireless competition and thus potentially reducing retail rates. It’s also ordering utilities to simplify access to utility poles and conduits and to price usage fairly. The problem is…
Lots of interesting and potentially pivotal happenings in tech, and perhaps the most interesting thing is that the real meanings of all of these happenings are more important than the surface topics! AT&T wants to buy T-Mobile, which is no surprise given that DT has been looking for years at selling its US property and…
The international tensions of the week haven’t been ended; far from them in fact. Japan has raised its nuclear incident to a “5” on the international scale, between Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. The UN, with both China and Russia abstaining, voted to approve any measures short of invasion in Libya, though at this point…
Yesterday wasn’t a happy day for global markets, but it’s already looking like sanity might prevail. Most on the Street realize that Japan isn’t a large enough chunk of the global economic pie to cause a major disruption even if we presumed that their economy was wrecked—which it’s not. There will be short-term dislocations as…
The world’s markets continue to oscillate as speculation, risk, and policy questions all collide to generate uncertainty. I don’t think that the fundamentals are at risk, but there’s enough perception of problem to invite attempts to exploit uncertainty for profit. The nuclear situation in Japan and the aftermath of the earthquake are creating risk, and…