Q42009
Latest
TiVo posts $10.2m loss, remains on deathwatch
We've had TiVo firmly on deathwatch since 2005, and although the company's shares have recently surged with the launch of the TiVo Premiere and another legal victory over Echostar, things are still looking somewhat bleak: the Q4 numbers are in, and everyone's favorite DVR company just posted a $10.2m loss. Why? For the same reason that's plagued the company for five damn years now: it's hard to sign up new subscribers when the cable company offers a similar good-enough product for less money, especially when TiVo can't access cable VOD. And let's be brutally honest here: we love TiVo and we're more than excited to get our Premiere review units, but we don't think a revised interface is going to stem the tide -- almost every feature of the Premiere is available on the TiVo HD, after all. We've offered up our suggestions on how to re-energize the company in the past -- that new QWERTY remote is a great start -- but until TiVo stops playing ball with the same cable companies that actively try and cut it off at the knees and starts going for the jugular with features and pricing, we don't think things are going to get any better.
HP increases lead over Acer in worldwide laptop shipments
Acer pulled closer to HP than ever in the third quarter of 2009, when it shipped 8.86 million laptops compared to HP's 9.91 million, but it looks like things swung well back in the other direction during the fourth quarter. According to DigiTimes, HP shipped a whopping 11.38 million laptops worldwide in Q4, while Acer moved 9.5 million units during the same time period -- an sizable increase in itself, but likely not enough to cause too much celebration at Acer HQ. As you might suspect, the holiday shopping season was largely responsible for the jump in sales from both companies, with strong sales in North America in particular said to be the main reason behind HP's widening lead.
Intel profits recover to $2.3 billion in Q4 2009, company describes it as 875 percent jump
Yo Intel, when your 2008 fourth quarter was one of the worst you ever recorded, it's slightly, just slightly, facetious to go trumpeting an 875 percent improvement in your 2009 fortunes. The self-appointed chipmaking rock star has clocked up $10.6 billion in revenues for the last quarter, which filters down to $2.3 billion in pure, unadulterated, mother-loving profit. That's good and indeed technically nearly nine times what the company achieved in the same period the previous year -- we'd just appreciate this to be represented as the recovery it is, rather than some major leap forward in the face of a global financial meltdown. Either way, the Santa Clara checkbook is now well and truly balanced, even if it would've looked fatter still but for the small matter of a $1.25 billion settlement reflected in last quarter's results.
Microsoft sees first annual sales decline in its history for fiscal 2009
Microsoft's fiscal year 2009 just came to a close, and the new milestones for the company aren't too boast worthy. Year-over-year, the company saw a 3.2 percent decline in sales, its first drop in the company's history -- guess that third quarter report was a pretty good indication of things to come. Net profit, too, fell 17 percent to $14.57 billion. Looking at just the fourth quarter, sales fell 17 percent to $13.1 billion, and profits saw a pretty massive 29 percent drop, to $3.05 billion. Attributing to the decline were legal charges and severance claims from laid off employees, a referral of revenue from the Windows 7 Upgrade program, and of course overall drop in PC and server sales across the industry. So far the stock market has acted as you'd expect, and shares have dropped a notable eight percent. Despite all this gloom, let's not forget that the boys in Redmond are still pulling a profit -- and hey, cheer up Steve, you've got one helluva bright light for fiscal 2010.
Palm says licensing webOS "not a religious issue"
Palm had its quarterly results conference call yesterday and although CEO Jon Rubinstein and CFO Doug Jeffries kept a pretty tight lid on the future product talk, they did say that licensing webOS to third parties isn't "a religious issue for us." That's pretty vague, sure, but we can't help but immediately think back to the golden age of Palm OS, when licensees like Sony put out amazing devices like the Clie PEG-NZ90 that we've lovingly mocked up with a webOS screenshot above -- we're sure Palm's upcoming handsets will be interesting in their own right, but we'd love to see a manufacturer like HTC riff on webOS the way it's tweaking Android. Of course, Jeffries also said Palm has "no plans at this time to even talk about" licensing, so this is all just a pipe dream for now, but let's not ruin the moment, okay? Hit the read link for the full call transcript.[Via GearLog]
