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| | | April 11, 2004
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Sunday, April 11, 2004 |
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Investors yahoo as earnings soar
Leading Internet portal Yahoo! rushed past Wall Street's expectations once again and reported its strongest quarterly results in the company's 9-year history. For the first three months of 2004, the web giant reported profit of $101 million, or 14 cents per diluted share, on revenue of $550 million. Analysts had expected a profit of 11 cents a share.
A slew of investors and industry pundits were quick to point to Yahoo!'s earnings scorecard as a blast from the past, a corporate example of the times prior to the dot-com era. After the earnings report was released, the company's stock soared to three-year highs in an obvious show of satisfaction from Wall Street. Many pointed to Yahoo!, among others, as an example of an economic recovery, slowly, but surely perfusing sector after sector, with technology companies once again in the lead.
Yahoo!'s stellar performance, however, combined with the recent spike in stock prices and the brewing excitement around other tech stars such as Google, should have communicated another message to Wall Street.
First, although many positive changes have taken effect since the late 90s, the investors should not stray from their primary job -- evaluate substance and real potential. IT companies by definition are prone to stirring specious excitement.
Secondly, Yahoo!'s revenue breakdown for the three months that ended March 31 evinced the depth of the fundamental changes that have not only transformed Yahoo! as a company, but the Internet as a medium. Just a couple of years ago, Yahoo! made the bulk of its earnings from general banner advertising. Today, the web portal derives money from keyword-based advertising, paid listings and a fraction from subscription-based services. More and more marketers are seeing the Internet as a powerful media with unprecedented proportions and unparalleled opportunities.
Yahoo!'s revenues did not demonstrate an indisputable economic rebound, neither served as evidence for promise in Yahoo! itself. The figures showed that the Internet has swerved away from the dot-com excitement and has matured to new, unwitnessed levels of sophistication.
More from: AP (via InformationWeek) | ClickZ | CNET News.com 1 2 | Computerworld | InternetNews.com | The Mercury News | Reuters 1 2 | The Washington Post 1 2
Longhorn in 2006
Despite its regular taciturn behavior, rough information has emerged about Microsoft's plans for the next major Windows release, codenamed 'Longhorn'. The software giant will reportedly release the client version of the long-awaited operating system in 2006, but some features will be left for further development in future Windows versions. Microsoft executives have decided they might be ready to give up "minor" features originally set for Longhorn in order for the development process to continue on track with a launch date sometime in 2006.
More from: CNET News.com | Computerworld | InfoWorld | InternetNews.com | Microsoft Watch
In Other News...
 Macintosh security and privacy company Intego said it has discovered the first Trojan horse developed to attack computers running Apple's operating system. The code of the virus is encapsulated in the ID tags of MP3 files and is run when the files are played. Internet security software maker Symantec said that the Trojan has not been in the wild.
Web hosting company Spymac announced it has begun offering 1 gigabytes of free e-mail storage to its subscribers. The company mimicked a move last week by web search leader Google that sent shockwaves through the industry with its announcement of Gmail, an upcoming e-mail service with a gigabyte of free storage.
London-based The Market Age claimed ownership of the "Gmail" trademark. Internet search company Google announced last week it will launch a free e-mail service by the name of Gmail.
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