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Why Investors Should Keep Their Eyes on the Cloud
Analysts say cloud computing will revolutionize the way we use technology
Former Google CEO to Appear Before Senate for Anti-Trust Law Investigation
Former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt will appear before the Senate Judiciary anti-trust committee which is investigating the search engine firms for alleged abuse of power
Green Technology Stocks Take Their Licks But Keep on Ticking
Taking advantage of greatly reduced stock prices is a tricky business. One strategy is to find an investment area so certain to grow that it will be around long after market traumas subside. Green investing, which offers the added potential of innovative companies getting snapped up by bigger firms, could be one of those areas
Steve Jobs Steps Down as Apple CEO
Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs announced his resignation from his post in the company he built as the world's biggest technology firm. Jobs recommended Tim Cook, the company's chief operating officer, to replace him
HTC Files Another Lawsuit Against Apple
HTC has initiated a lawsuit against Apple again, this time in a Delaware district court for infringing on several patents that cover Apple's entire product line
United-Continental to Deploy 11,000 iPads to Pilots
United-Continental, the world's largest airline, will replace the flight manuals of pilots with iPads, around 11,000 units of the Apple tablet computer. The rollout is an investment estimated at $5 million, but the move is expected to save about $1 million in costs annually
Google Will Pay $500 Million to Settle Illegal Canadian Pharmacy Ads
Google will pay a $500 million fine to settle government charges the company displayed illegal ads online in the United States for products for Canadian pharmacies
Google Acquires Motorola Mobility in $12.5bn Deal
Google Inc. has inked a deal that would have the Internet technology giant acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. for nearly $12.5 billion in cash. The acquisition would make valuable intellectual property maker Google more competitive in the mobile-computing market
Should You Switch to Google+ ?
Just because everyone's going to Google+ (or are they?) doesn't mean you should too. Here's when it's really time to leave your social networks
HP Unveils New Desktop, Vows Continued PC Support
HP unveiled a new business desktop, five days after it announced that it will end its PC unit and focus on enterprise software, services and hardware
IBM Unveils Cognitive Thinking Chips
It's been a recurrent theme in science fiction. Now, IBM researchers have unveiled a new generation of experimental computer chips designed to emulate the brain's abilities for perception, action and cognition.
Investors Have Their Heads in Cloud Computing
The global cloud-computing market is expected to reach $241 billion in 2020, up from $41 billion in 2010, according to Forrester Research. That long-term potential is reflected in the high-flying stocks of companies actively involved in the concept
Google Launches New Social Networking Service in Already Crowded Market
Search engine company Google will launch a new social networking service in an apparent bid to compete with Facebook
Nokia and Apple Settle Patent Lawsuit
The two-year patent dispute between technology giants Nokia and Apple was settled on Tuesday. The two companies agreed to a settlement with Nokia getting a one-time payment and royalties.
High-priced Stocks Worth the Money?
How much would you pay for the services of Warren Buffett, Larry Page, Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos? Quite a bit, apparently. Those CEOs of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Google Inc., Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. lead companies that command some of the highest individual stock prices
Adobe Overcomes Obstacles to Continue Its Rise
Coming off a lackluster year, this pioneering software company that is famous for its Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat products should have a better 2011.
Tech Stocks Volatile But Undeniably Strong
Why do tech stocks build us up just to let us down? Technology's track record is one of dramatic peaks and valleys for its investors. However, its most recent run-up seems to have more fundamentals behind it than many of the past periods of hype
eBay: Competition and Changing Trends Cloud Online Marketplace's Future
There is reason to have mixed emotions about eBay -- a profitable e-commerce brand with a global presence in more than 30 countries. While its online payment service PayPal continues to be a hot performer, competitors and changing Internet trends are pressuring its mature eBay online auction business
Computer Giant HP Weathering the Drama
In fine financial condition with plenty of cash and manageable debt, Hewlett-Packard also has considerable management depth. Facing fierce competition with a need to adapt to changing times, it intends to concentrate on the four key areas of enterprise software, printers, personal computers and services.
Cisco Systems Charging Hard Against Competitors
In its quest for revenue growth, cash-rich giant Cisco has been making acquisitions and launching product lines. The question is whether Cisco's aggressiveness may lead to future mistakes, such as paying too much for firms or rushing products to market before their time
Tech Trauma Should Ease in 2010 As Demand Climbs
Tech trauma is a modern investor ailment. While the patient is aware that technology stocks are symbolic of the near- and long-term promise of the economy, their erratic movement can spike blood pressure beyond normal limits. The prescription for 2010 therefore requires tech stocks compatible with needs of a recovering business world
Google continues to innovate and invest in new businesses as it battles strong competitors. Its powerful brand name and top-notch technical staff help keep it ahead of the curve. Having loads of cash doesn't hurt either.
Strength of Technology Stocks Surprises
Technology is the surprise investment leader this year.
Science and technology stock funds are up 13 percent this year, versus the 2 percent decline of the average diversified stock fund, according to Lipper Inc. Among the tech-firm royalty, Apple Inc. (AAPL) stock is up 40 percent this year, IBM Corp. (IBM) up 22 percent and Google Inc. (GOOG) up 21 percent.
Technology Jobs, Job Listings, Job Postings & Technology Careers Search
Find your next job in Technology. Search Technology jobs from thousands of job and career search sites. A search engine for jobs with a different approach to job and career searches. In one simple search, job seekers get free access to millions of employment opportunities from thousands of websites. Find your next job in Technology today.
Telecommunications Jobs, Job Listings, Job Postings & Telecommunications Careers Search
Find your next job in Telecommunications. Search Telecommunications jobs from thousands of job and career search sites. A search engine for jobs with a different approach to job and career searches. In one simple search, job seekers get free access to millions of employment opportunities from thousands of websites. Find your next job in Telecommunications today.
Reported Facebook/Baidu Deal Puts Pressure on Sina
The hit to Sina seems wrong for a few reasons - first there are already a handful of very significant social networking sites in China, 2 of which are expected to go public in the U.S. this year - and whose IPOs I expect to rocket. (in fact, the first ... Kaixin001.com has already secured the investment bankers) Second, Sina's platform is a peer of Twitter, not Facebook. That said, Baidu is a powerhouse in the country (in search) so this means more competition for everyone in the 'social communication' space. Baidu's stock is reacting favorably to the news, although off highs
Trader Mark submits:
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Music Streaming: A Skirmish in the Battle to Dominate Cloud-Based Computing
By David Zeiler
Cloud-based computing is shaping up to be a major battleground in the U.S. high-tech sector for the rest of this year, as companies compete to deliver such services as music streaming to consumer-based mobile devices. And it figures to be a true clash of titans, with such high-tech heavyweights as Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN), Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL), Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) serving among the major combatants. And music is just the beginning. Video streaming will follow quickly, joining such already-common "cloud" applications as file storage and sharing and online photo albums. For instance, Amazon made an aggressive move right near the end of the first quarter, when it launched its Cloud Drive service. Users can store 5 gigabytes of music and files for free, with additional storage available for a fee - $20 a year
Money Morning submits:
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AT&T Rolls Out Digby-Powered Mobile Commerce Software
By Leena Rao
AT&T (T) has suddenly realized the power of mobile commerce, most recently partnering with with Placecast to deliver special offers and discounts to consumers via their mobile phones when they are near a participating store or brand. Today, the telecommunications company is announcing a new service, powered by mobile commerce software platform Digby, which helps retailers design, deploy and manage mobile commerce web sites and rich applications optimized for smartphones. Digby Mobile Commerce from AT&T helps retailers create mobile websites that display rich product images and live catalogs, expands the ways they can buy from merchants and more. Digby also allows retailer to create native applications, and tap into both its mobile barcode service and the ShopAlerts service to
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Baidu vs. Yahoo: Sell the Bubble, Buy the Bargain
BIDU is on one gargantuan roll. Its stock has soared over 11 fold in less than two years, and its earnings are expected to grow 64% in 2011 (from $1.53 to $2.51) (forward P/E of 57) and 47% in 2012 (from $2.51 to $3.69). Obviously, its growth rate has to slow (it is slated to decrease 1700 basis points in 2012) due to the law of larger numbers, but has this fact been accurately discounted in the current share price? Probably not, because if you calculate BIDU’s PEG (price earnings to growth) it computes to a lackluster 1.57, using its current trailing P/E of 92 and a very optimistic five year growth rate of 58.47%. Does this growth rate consider the possibilities of Google (GOOG) getting back into the Chinese search fight, an “earth shaking” political event in China, or even something as basic as a misstep in execution? A
Mark Krieger submits:
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Netflix: Expecting Higher Near-Term Volatility Into Earnings
Although I don’t have a position in Netflix (NFLX), I have been watching how the options have been trading in advance of the company’s next earnings announcement on April 25. First, here’s a look at the implied volatility (IV) for options on NFLX just before previous earnings announcements based on data from ivolatility.com. The pink lines show IV for the options closest to expiration with the other lines representing IV for longer-term options. The blue arrows correspond to the earnings announcement date. As you can see, volatility for options with around 30 days to expiration began to carry a much higher relative premium than options with a longer shelf life as the announcement date grew closer and closer. After earnings, IV generally fell – especially for those shorter-term options. This is not an unusual pattern, but it can offer opportunities to use options to establish a position while limiting risk.
Richard Bloch submits:
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Google May Be the Next Big Player in the Online Reservations Space
"There are no limits under this agreement as to what the company can do in travel search" -- Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich. On Friday, the U.S. Dept of Injustice “allowed” Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) to proceed with their $700 million purchase of ITA Software for its travel reservation capability. This event marks a key turning point for companies competing in the online reservations niche.
With Google’s vast resources, the competitive forces it unleashes in the online reservation sector should ultimately help decrease the cost of online reservations -- not increase them -- as is often the concern among those fond of wielding the antitrust laws.
Why is it that the entrenched incumbents including Expedia, Kayak, and Microsoft are the first to complain that the Google/ITA hookup will result in less competition, when, in fact, a Google entrance into the niche adds competition for them? Could it be they simply don’t want
Fund Manager submits:
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Is Yahoo a Hidden Gem?
Yahoo (YHOO), once a leading internet search engine, has lost a lot of luster to competitor Google (GOOG). Another competitor, Microsoft (MSFT), considered buying YHOO for $44.6 billion (approximately $31 a share) back in 2008, but founder Jerry Yang fought off a hostile takeover bid. Since then, the stock has spiraled downward, currently selling for a market cap of $21.96 billion.
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As shown from the chart, the stock has been hovering in a trading range of $14 to $17 for the last two years. Volume has stayed about the same over the two years. But is YHOO undervalued? Microsoft wouldn’t have proposed a buyout twice if it didn’t see potential for YHOO, which remains second to GOOG in the advertising and search space, but is near #1 in unique online visitors. The company is more than just a search site, providing everything from news, sports, finance,
Michael Bryant submits:
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Fidelity Dumps Netflix Shares: What's Next?
"Someday we'll look back on this and it will all seem funny..."
-Bruce Springsteen,
Rosalita
We're not only living through a paradigm shift vis-a-vis how we consume and share "content," we're observing strange days indeed at Netflix (NFLX). Walk through a brief overview of recent developments before we get to the latest news. Given Netflix's less-than-stellar history of communicating with investors, it comes as no surprise that we have yet to
Rocco Pendola submits:
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Air Travel Bookings Add Little to Priceline
Though Priceline (NASDAQ:PCLN) is one of the few names people think for online travel services along with competitors Expedia (NASDAQ;EXPE), Travelocity, and Orbitz (NASDAQ:OWW), air travel bookings make up less than 2% of our $479 Trefis price estimate of Priceline’s stock. The real gem here is hotel bookings which constitutes a dominant 91% of its value.
Priceline is the second largest online travel agency in the world after Expedia in terms of booking volumes. Through its online travel portals such as Priceline.com, booking.com, agoda.com, rentalcars.com, breezenet.com and lowestfares.com, Priceline provides consumers with travel services that include bookings for hotel stays, airline tickets, vacation packages, car rentals and cruises. Priceline makes money by charging a percentage of the dollar value for bookings. Hence, the factors that drive this division are average airfares (value of bookings), Priceline’s commission (%) on air ticket bookings and the expected future air ticket bookings. Overall air
Trefis submits:
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House Votes Against FCC Net Neutrality Regulation
By Alexia Tsotsis
photo © 2007 Francisco Daum | more info (via: Wylio) Last December the FCC approved its “Preserving the Open Internet” regulation to entirely ban blocking of websites or web services by broadband providers, while being vague about what the new restrictions held for mobile carriers like Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T). As we wrote in December, Republicans had vowed to give the loophole-filled rules hell when the Congress turned more Republican in January, first voting to deny the Commission federal funding in February. Today we see the fruits of their efforts again, namely the voting through of House Joint Resolution 37, a regulation that would prohibit the FCC from having any authority over ISPs and broadband, thus overturning December’s regulations. One-half of the government wanting to revoke your power isn’t cool and I don’t want to necessarily down play the impact of a house vote but, as
TechCrunch submits:
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Expedia Moves to Spin Off TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor, which will include the domestic and international operations associated with the TripAdvisor(R) Media Group, which includes its flagship brand as well as 18 other travel media and advertising brands.
New Finance submits:
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YouTube Gets Into Live Streaming, Albeit Carefully
By Robin Wauters
Google’s (GOOG) online video giant YouTube this morning announced that it is getting into the live streaming business, a move that has long been rumored but hasn’t become a reality up until today.
In a blog post, the company says it is currently registering 2 billion views on a daily basis, and that they’re looking to complement the offering with live videos. On
TechCrunch submits:
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Internet Stocks Trade: Long China, Short U.S.
In 2009, many of my most successful trades as well as my top pick from the stock picks competition were Chinese tech stocks and after a difficult 2010 year for most of the Chinese market, I think it might be a good time to consider opening a new trade. What would that be? Quite simply betting on China’s Internet leaders and going short on the U.S. ones. The reality is that I do think U.S. tech stocks like Google (GOOG) will do very well over time but I do expect Chinese competitors to do even better.
Why Chinese stocks?
As I’ve said, this is not so much about being negative about U.S. stocks, very far from it but rather about these companies being in a very specific and favorable climate. Here are the main reasons.…
Internet population
No doubt, as the largest population in the world with over 1 billion
Intelligent Speculator submits:
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To Figure Out Google's Priorities, Just Look at Team Larry
When Larry Page accepted the resignation of senior VP of product Jonathan Rosenberg on Monday, that was just the beginning of a shakeup in the top ranks of Google (GOOG). Page is ending his first week back as CEO by naming the senior team who each will run a different part of Google and report directly to him. If you want to know what Page’s priorities will be for Google, just look at this team and the products they run: search, ads, YouTube, mobile, Chrome and social. Team Larry consists of six key people at Google: Andy Rubin (Senior Vice President of Mobile), Salar Kamangar (Senior Vice President of YouTube and Video), Vic Gundotra (Senior Vice President of Social), Sundar Pichai (Senior Vice President of Chrome) Alan Eustace (Senior Vice President of Search), and Susan Wojcicki (Senior Vice President of Ads). Each will run their respective parts of Google independently,
Erick Schonfeld submits:
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Epiq's Expensive E-Discovery Deal
By Brenon Daly
Announcing the largest e-discovery deal in some three-and-a-half years, Epiq Systems (EPIQ) said earlier this week that it will borrow $100m to acquire Encore Discovery Solutions, a service provider for law firms. (My colleague Nick Patience has the full details on the acquisition.) The rationale is fairly straightforward: Epiq wanted to shore up its presence in the western US, so it reached for Phoenix-based Encore. That sort of geographic consolidation happens all the time – but it rarely happens at the kind of valuation that Epiq is paying in its services play. Encore
The 451 Group: Inorganic Growth submits:
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Expedia to Spin Off TripAdvisor in Q3
By Leena Rao
Travel search and booking giant Expedia (EXPE) is spinning off trip reviews site TripAdvisor as a public company. In a release, Expedia said that its Board of Directors has preliminarily approved the plan to separate Expedia into two publicly traded companies.
Expedia/IAC (IACI) must feel that spinning off TripAdvisor as a public company could be a financially lucrative move. TripAdvisor, which was founded in 2000, was originally bought by IAC for $212 million in 2004. IAC spun off Expedia, which included TripAdvisor
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Yahoo Making Moves With Local Marketing
Although Yahoo (YHOO) has not been able to catch up with the overall online advertising growth, this has not deterred the company from experimenting with growth areas. In the online advertising market, local marketing is one of the upcoming trends and has attracted players like Google (GOOG), AOL (AOL) and Facebook in addition to Yahoo. Here we will analyze the growth prospects of this trend and how it could benefit Yahoo in particular. We currently maintain $17.88 price estimate for Yahoo stock, which is about 6% above market price.
Local Marketing Trend Heating Up
Local marketing allows users look for the best local deals, news and events in their area. Yahoo announced the launch of Local Offers program recently and is partnering with websites like Groupon, LivingSocial, Gilt City, and others to provide a wide selection of local deals and coupons from nearby restaurants and other local retailers. This is
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Acme Packet: The Ghost in the Machine
To call Acme Packet's (APKT) 25 fold rise the last two years parabolic would be an understatement. It's been more like a vertical lift-off starting at $3/share in early 2009 and hitting $77 on 3/4/11. The stock ricocheted off the top of its all time high last month, and you could have scooped it up for $67 on April 1st, but it has since bounced back to the $75 range. The digerati like this company and it comes as advertised. Its signature technology is the science of our time. Back in the late 1990s George Gilder used to evangelize about the telecosm (infinite bandwidth) and how increased use of broadband would engulf us and dictate consumer and business behavior. Well that time has come. Acme Packet is serving notice that it is an elite class of technology company and is building a global franchise. The company seemed to be locked
Ted Stamas submits:
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Pandora Cranks Up the Growth Machine, But Is It Sustainable?
The updated numbers Pandora provided this week in its latest SEC filing should impress even the Internet radio leader's most ardent naysayers. While Pandora's financial position will likely trigger even greater interest in its upcoming IPO, I wonder how sustainable this growth is, particularly in the face of formidable competition from satellite radio provider Sirius/XM (SIRI), emerging streaming threat Clear Channel (CCMO.PK), the force of Apple (AAPL), and other players. Before getting into how I expect Pandora's main competitors to position themselves, I review key data from the latest S-1: The
Rocco Pendola submits:
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Netflix Is Spending Itself Into a Future It Can't Afford
Now judge judge I had debts no honest man could pay In a previous article about new and old media, I reintroduced the world (or an incredibly tiny sliver of it) to George Costanza's worlds theory. It appears that Netflix (NFLX) executives don't feel the need to pay attention. While I don't have a large enough ego to think that a man of Reed Hasting's stature should pay attention to me (or Larry David's theory), I do hope he realizes that worlds are about to collide.
Rocco Pendola submits:
The bank was holdin' my mortgage and they was takin' my house away
Now I ain't sayin' that makes me an innocent man
But it was more 'n all this that put that gun in my hand
-Bruce Springsteen, Johnny 99
There's a perfect storm brewing. As I discussed in another article, when spending-spree Netflix further encroaches on revenue-generating Netflix's territory, things will get
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