A fine week for MS, Intel and Vonage
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A look at the stocks that saw serious volatility last week.
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Plus: Alltel profit, revenue rise...SanDisk earnings top estimates...SAP revenues solid, outlook moderate...Phone sales boost Nokia profits past forecasts.
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Blog: Bad: AMD lost $600 million this quarter. Good: Chip shipments surged.
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A look back at an eventful week in the investment banking world.
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Plus: IBM, Yahoo post high...AMD posts loss...Sony TV unit struggling...Nokia on upswing...Apple beats expectations.
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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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A plan to help network various consumer devices is getting a boost this week thanks to a newly formed group of consumer electronics companies and chipmakers.
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Intel allies Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft have some good and bad news for the chipmaker's Itanium 2 processor family.
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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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Macs, movies, and motorcycles will make news next week. Really.
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Intel Developer Forum this week will zero in on upcoming chips. Areas for longer-term growth aren't quite so clear.
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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 meets expectations...Storage, servers bruise HP earnings...Healthy sales lift Cisco's profit.
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Here are CNET Reviews' 10 favorite items from the past week, including Apple's Tiger OS, Office 2007 and a cordless mouse for lefties.
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The market ends the week in the red.Plus: Dell's Q4 profits fumble.... IBM answers phones.... and more.
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