Case-Mate offers $0.99 iPhone recession case... a day after recession ends
[Thanks, Andy]
economy posts
See that image there on the right? Yeah, it's a pretty drastic departure from the Sad Moto™ face that had become all too common when talking about the company's financials. Just a quarter after posting a dreadful $291 million loss, the outfit responsible for creating the RAZR and then doing nothing for half a decade is finally showing a profit once more. The Q2 numbers show an "unexpected" $26 million profit on sales of $5.5 billion, $1.8 billion of which came from the handset division. Of course, that very division managed to lose $253 million and see its global market share slip to 5.5 percent, but with a big bang from Android reportedly just months away, CEO Sanjay Jha ain't taking time to frown. 

As you know, Rackable Systems was originally hoping to acquire the one-time king of the 3D set for $25 million (with some speculating that even that was a bit much), but it looks like the bankruptcy judges had other plans. Now that the dust has settled (and a check has been cut for almost twice the original asking price) it looks like the two companies will finally merge, forming an outfit called... SGI. The newly minted Silicon Graphics International hopes to combine the strong server business of Rackable with the original Silicon Graphics Inc. name (and overseas service contracts), inspiring the same sort of technological alchemy that once brought the iconic brand to the silver screen by way of such fine cinematic fare as First Kid. In addition, SGI plans continued development and support for the existing Silicon Graphics and Rackable product lines. Quite frankly, we really don't care what they do, as long as they bring back the Indigo -- back in the day we would have killed for one of those bad boys.
Hmm, now isn't this interesting? Just months after Liberty Media reached out at the eleventh hour and rescued Sirius XM from imminent bankruptcy, it's now spinning off its entertainment division (Liberty Entertainment) and combining it with DirecTV (which Liberty already controls). We're told that the new Liberty Entertainment will hold 54 percent of DirecTV Group shares and 65 percent interest in the Game Show Network, not to mention three regional sports networks and a few other things not worth mentioning. The move is being made as the "John Malone-controlled vehicle looks to simplify its capital structure," and if all goes well, the paperwork should be completed by the end of the year. Oh, and so far as we can tell, DirecTV consumers won't even notice the shuffling going on behind the scenes.









