A fine week for MS, Intel and Vonage
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Netsuite, Comcast, and Qwest issued strong earnings reports this week as economic worries continued to depress shares of Intel and many other IT companies.
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Following are some of the notable technology-related events scheduled for the week of Aug. 15. Apple Computer fans are dishing the scuttlebutt this week.
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(InfoWorld) - Heading toward the end of a better-than-expected year for IT, the good news this week was that there were no big surprises when Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, and Advanced Micro Devices laid out strategies at investor and analyst conferences. While IT product prices, especially in hardware sectors like chips and some types of networking equipment, have been under pressure, tech vendor sales have been strong generally. The Nasdaq Composite Index, home to a broad range of publicly traded IT companies, crossed 2400 in November and has remained at that level, after opening the year at 2244. Tuesday's U.S. Federal Reserve decision to leave rates unchanged, and a much better-than-expected report on retail sales Wednesday stoked markets overall. On Thursday the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a new intraday high of 12427.17, and the Nasdaq surged by 21.44 points to close at 2453.85. AMD gave assurancesÂ Thursday at an analyst meeting in New York that its $5.4 billion merger with graphics chip maker ATI will result in greater-than-expected cost savings in 2007, and $80 million to $160 million in incremental revenue. This caused AMD shares to jump by $2.54 to close at $22.71. The company also stressed that it expects a revenue boost from Microsoft's Vista OS release. The company in OctoberÂ announced fourth quarter resultsÂ that beat analyst estimates, but there were concerns about profit margins. The challenge for AMD is to keep a lid on costs and continue to successfully challenge Intel, especially with quad-core products in 2007. At HP's meeting in New York Tuesday, Chief Financial Officer Robert Wayman said thatÂ the company is forecastingÂ fiscal 2008 revenue between $101 billion and $103 billion. The high side of that is slightly higher than the consensus analyst forecast of $102 billion, according to Thomson First Call. It was reassuring but not exciting, at the tail end of a great year from HP (despite theÂ board spying scandalÂ that cost Chairman Patricia Dunn her job in September). The day of the analyst meeting, HP shares (HPQ) closed at $39.83, down by $0.18. But HP's announcement with MicrosoftÂ on WednesdayÂ helped spark investor interest. The deal calls for the companies to work on a range of business software products to the enterprise market, including business intelligence software. HP closed Thursday at $39.91, up $0.19 for the day. At Cisco's C-Scape conference for analysts this week in San Jose, California the company stressed themes that it had hit earlier this year. The company says it will sustain double-digit growth through the rest of the decade by incorporating data, voice, video and mobile capabilities -- its "quadruple play" -- across product lines. This week, the companyÂ focused on the consumer sideÂ of the equation, spotlighting itsÂ merger with set-top box maker Scientific-Atlanta, and also its Linksys consumer gear. Cisco plans to maintain its stronghold in the enterprise while continuing to grow in the consumer market. By the second day of the conference, Cisco shares (CSCO) were up $0.14 from its close Monday. In the current upbeat climate, reassurances from IT heavyweights about the next few quarters could be enough to boost IT investor confidence into the new year.
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Plus: Amazon margins a concern...AT&T profit rises...Samsung SDI swings to loss...Outstanding earnings for Apple.
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Plus: Dell delays...Novell profit climbs...Symbian spurt continues...HP profit surges. Check back for latest.
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Announcements by Vonage, Net2Phone, Boingo underscore collision course of Internet telephony and wireless broadband.
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Plus: AT&T profit rises...Samsung SDI swings to loss...Outstanding earnings for Apple...Xerox profits from color printers.
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Take a look at the top stories this week.
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The EU Commission could fine Microsoft up to 5 percent of its daily turnover if things don't change. Also: Ford recalls almost 800,000 cars that spontaneously burst into flames & hellip;.  The money is rolling in on cell sales & hellip;. and more.
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By JAMES DERK  There was a monumental announcement in the computing world last week that was barely noticed outside of the trade press.
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Though the macroeconomic picture remains cloudy, major IT vendors, such as Apple, Microsoft, and EMC, for the most part reported solid third-quarter earnings this week, giving technology investors hope for the rest of the year.Thursday was a busy day on Wall Street with Microsoft, EMC, and Motorola reporting.After the market closed,&#160;Microsoft reported a 23 percent quarterly jump in net income, which hit $4.29 billion as demand for Windows and Office software remained strong. Revenue was $13.76 billion, a 27 increase from one year earlier. The company said it was the fastest revenue growth spurt for their first fiscal quarter since 1999, around the height of the dot-com boom. That should help reassure some investors that despite concerns about the U.S. economy, at least certain areas of the IT sector are still managing to show strong growth.In after-hours trading right after the announcement, Microsoft shares rose by $1.98 to $33.98.EMC&#39;s profit jumped&#160;as the data-storage company made gains on the sale of part of its stake in virtualization software maker VMware. EMC reported that net income was $492.9 million, compared with a profit of $283.7 million last year. Revenue jumped to $3.3 billion from $2.8 billion a year earlier. Though much of the gains were from&#160;a one-time sale of part of VMware to Cisco, other parts of the business did well: Software rose 25 percent, storage business sales rose 9 percent, and service grew 25 percent. EMC shares rose $1.92 on the news, to close at $24.45.Motorola, meanwhile, reported an abrupt drop, of 94 percent, in quarterly profit, as it searched to find a follow-up to its Razr mobile phone. Net income was $60 million, while revenue fell 17 percent to $8.81 billion. Nevertheless investors apparently were heartened that the company saw small boosts in the average selling price for mobile devices -- something that even mighty Nokia did not experience last quarter.Motorola forecast earnings from continuing operations for the fourth quarter of $0.12 to $0.14 a share, while analysts had expected earnings of $0.10. So even though profit was way down, company shares managed to jump $0.75 to $19.30 Thursday.Apple kicked off the week on a high note, on Monday reporting solid earnings that were fueled by record Mac sales and shipments of 1.12 million iPhones. The company handily beat analyst estimates with income of $904 million, 67 percent higher than a year earlier. Earnings per share were $1.01. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial had forecast $760.45 million in net income and earnings of $0.84 per share. Apple jumped $11.80 to close at $186.16 the day after its earnings report. Even though Apple shares have been trading at all-time highs, the common wisdom on Wall Street is that things will get even better.Brokerages like Goldman Sachs and UBS reiterated &quot;buy&quot; ratings and Citi Investment Research headlined its report: &quot;The Best Is Yet To Come.&quot; With the new Mac OS, Leopard, going to market on Friday, sales are expected to do well through the holiday season.Still, concerns about the U.S. economy linger. With the price of oil skyrocketing and the housing-market crisis making headlines, investors remain worried that economic concerns will weigh on IT sales. But earnings from the major IT bellwethers over the last few weeks are showing that technology is proving to be resilient, so far.
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This week, we take a look at a pair of low-riding semiconductor companies.
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The chipmaker appears to have put its major problems in the rearview mirror. Plus: Intel's mobile Linux project.
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roundup Plus: The company also expects to meet or exceed analyst estimates...Salesforce.com reports subscriber surge...RealNetworks signs up Red Flag Linux.
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Payrolls rise just 112,000 in November. Intel spurs the chip sector with a strong revenue guidance boost. IBM may want to sell its PC business.