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| | | April 18, 2004
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Sunday, April 18, 2004 |
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Techs point to a bumpy recovery
Clearly, the U.S. economy is on the recovery track. Companies from both sides of the Atlantic are reporting cautious, yet positive outlooks. And once again the technology companies are the powerful driving forces as corporations from around the globe are trying to squeeze maximum productivity from their employees. At the same time, technology companies are trying to get the most from the recession leftovers before the expected full-blown economic upsurge gets under way. Some of the earnings were dented by opportunistic legal settlements and further industry consolidation.
 AMD was once again a shining star. The California-based chipmaker reported four times the earnings Wall Street expected. Profit rose to $45 million, or 12 cents a share, on record revenue of $1.26 billion. The company reported strong sales for all of its products and offered a positive outlook for the future.
More from: CNET News.com | Computerworld | CRN | eWeek | Reuters
Not so good news for AMD's giant rival, Intel. The world's biggest chipmaker reported strong results, but missed analysts' expectation by a penny, and prompted a sell-off that seemed more like a profit taking than anything else. For the quarter, Intel's revenue grew to $8.1 billion and returned a profit of $1.76 billion, or 26 cents a share. Intel met its own expectations and blamed a legal settlement with Intergraph worth $162 million for missing analysts' predictions.
More from: AP (via The Washington Post) | CNET News.com | CRN | InternetNews.com | The Register | USA Today
The fortunes at Sun Microsystems were in dismal shape was once more. The company posted a huge loss of $760 million, or 23 cents a share, for its fiscal 2004 third quarter. The company also announced a management shakeup as key executives left. In a news conference, Sun said it will use the influx of cash from Microsoft's landmark cooperation and settlement agreement to stabilize the its finances.
More from: AP (via The Washington Post) | CNET News.com | CRN | InternetNews.com | The Mercury News
Computing giant IBM met analysts' expectations, posting a solid profit of 93 cents per share on revenue of $22.2 billion. The company said it continues to believe worldwide technology spending is improving and unveiled a strong growth of its Global Services division, which accounted for $11.1 billion of its sales. IBM's results further reaffirmed the growing interest in IT outsourcing deals that cut costs for enterprises and increase employee productivity.
More from: CNET News.com | CRN | InformationWeek | eWeek | InternetNews.com
The PC market also showed signs of recovery. Dell was victorious again as the computer maker reclaimed the No. 1 PC maker crown, shipping 7.7 million units, or 1.3 million more than its closest rival, Hewlett-Packard.
More from: CNET News.com | Computerworld | E-Commerce Times | eWeek
Real tackles reality
RealNetworks, the pioneer of Internet-based digital multimedia services, is showing signs of realization of the market's harsh realities. Rob Glaser, the company's chief executive, put an offer on Apple's table to form a "tactical alliance" against software giant Microsoft. But the e-mail appeal included a threat to bolster Real's arguments. Glaser warned Apple that if his offer is turned down RealNetworks would seek a partnership with rival Microsoft, a major shift in his company's policy of bitter rivalry with the ubiquitous software maker.
The threat component of Rob Glaser's e-mail, however, achieved nothing but a dramatic backfire. Contentedly, Apple leaked the e-mail to The New York Times, slapping Real in the face with its own inept move. The media company has consistently reported solid growth of its subscription services, but Real is tackling the difficult reality of being a marginal player in a clash of the titans: Apple and Microsoft.
More from: CNET News.com 1 2 3 | InternetNews.com | The New York Times | NewsFactor | The Register | Reuters
Microsoft turns another hostility into partnership
Microsoft has not made a full swing debut into the online music market yet, but the world's biggest software maker is certainly in full swing preparation for that. The company settled a three-year-old patent infringement lawsuit with InterTrust Technologies for $440 million. Under the agreement, Microsoft would license InterTrust's digital rights management tools -- the very technology at the center of the suit. The agreement would let the software maker use InterTrust's tools for protecting digital media content from piracy in its Windows operating system, and more specifically in Windows Media Player. The settlement is the latest from a string of landmark out-of-court agreements as the giant tries to clear its corporate name from legal distractions.
More from: CNET News.com | Computerworld | eWeek | InternetNews.com | The Register | VNUNET.com
Another security mayhem
Microsoft released its monthly security patches fixing a score of vulnerabilities across its most popular software products. At least 20 flaws were fixed in the latest batch of patches, securing products ranging from the Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 operating systems to files widely used by Internet Explorer, Outlook and Outlook Express. Users from all over the world flocked to the company's Windows Update service which for a couple of hours was unable to serve the nearly 4 million Microsoft customers who attempted to download the critically-rated fixes.
More from: CNET News.com 1 2 | Computerworld | The Register 1 2 | TechWeb | VNUNET.com
Security company iDefense warned of widespread security vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel, spanning versions 2.4.x through 2.6.x. Exploitation of the flaws could reportedly lead to execution of arbitrary code and elevation of privileges. Updated versions of the kernel fixing the newly discovered security holes have been released.
More from: InternetNews.com
In Other News...
BayStar Capital, an investment firm that injected $20 million in The SCO Group last year, is demanding that the software company return its money, citing the expensive and highly controversial legal assault on the Linux operating system. The Royal Bank of Canada, which invested another $30 million, is reportedly weighing its options too, but has not taken a decision to withdraw its investment.
Google announced it will start letting advertisers bid on trademarked keywords. Within a few days, the Internet search company will enable U.S. and Canadian businesses advertise on keywords that may be others' trademarks. Google's vice president of global online sales and operations, Sheryl Sandberg, defended the controversial policy, saying "users will decide what's useful." A number of lawsuits trying to cease the activity are underway in the United States and other countries.
The Public Patent Foundation has asked the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to rescind Microsoft's patent for the FAT file system commonly used by its Windows operating system. The group is claiming that Microsoft's decision to request a royalty fee for licensing the technology to open-source software makers is inconsistent with the nature of the open-source community.
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