gardner
Latest
Is Trump serious about legalizing weed?
No matter how many handy gadgets we recommend, the 4/20 holiday is legally tenuous for tokers in the 21 (mostly red) states that don't allow for recreational or medical marijuana use. But that could change with a word from the president. A week after promising Colorado's Republican senator that the feds would keep their hands off state-sanctioned marijuana operations, Trump has the opportunity to make good on his word. Will he?
Citi reiterates AAPL 'buy' rating, cuts price target
Citi analyst Richard Gardner repeated the firm's "buy" recommendation for Apple stock, but reduced his estimate through 2011 to "reflect a more conservative view of consumer spending," according to the Associated Press. Gardner reduced his 12-month price target to $132 from $153. He noted "soft" iPhone shipments in the last quarter of 2008 and conservative guidance for the first quarter of 2009 as reasons behind the cut. "We view weakness as a buying opportunity," Gardner said. If Apple's stock were to drop by $7 or $8 before the company's Q1 2009 conference call on January 21, "[Citi] would be aggressive buyers." He expects the company will announce a profit of $1.42 per share for Q4 2008 during the call. AAPL was down by about $1.45 in afternoon trading. [Via Mac Observer.]
Atari outlines more of its extreme makeover
Atari's reinvention continues as CEO David Gardner and President Phil Harrison delve into the company's strategy to fully embrace an online business model. Speaking to Develop, the pair expresses the company's necessary geographic expansion outside of France (home of Atari parent, Infogrames), which we're starting to see in the establishment of a UK studio and the hiring of SingStar guru Paulina Bozek.Atari also plans to produce a variety of games for PSN, iTunes, Facebook, Xbox Live Arcade, and to stay, as Harrison puts it, "broadly online distribution agnostic." Gardner quips that he has no programming skills and Harrison says he's not a good graphic artist, so they expect to hire more top talent who believe the future of the industry lies online.
New CFO at Infogrames (Atari v2.0)
Infogrames has added another new executive, with Fabrice Hamaide having just been appointed Chief Financial Officer. GameDaily has Hamaide's full resume, but that's not as important as pointing out that this is just another change in the new Infogrames/Atari that CEO David Gardner and Directeur Général Délégué Phil Harrison are building.The installation of a new CFO comes only days after Infogrames announced it would be buying Atari outright for $11 million dollars. We now wait to see if Infogrames changes its name to Atari and whatever else Gardner et al. have in store for Atari v2.0.
Infogrames buying Atari outright for $11 million
Infogrames announced that it will buy the remaining stock of Atari in an $11 million merger and will immediately lend $20 million to the company before the deal closes. Although it's been hard to distinguish the two companies, Infogrames only had a 51.4% controlling interest in Atari, which will now become a wholly owned subsidiary of Infogrames by the third (calendar) quarter.Former Sony executive Phil Harrison, who is now Directeur Général Délégué at Infogrames, said a little while ago that we should think of Atari/Infogrames as a start-up ... and we're slowly getting there. With this merger opening up the full-on name change, along with the slew of new executives the company is collecting, the Atari/Infogrames we know now doesn't seem to be the Atari we'll know in a year. Whether any of this fixes the grim financial situation of the publisher, however? That's a story for another time.
Infogrames could change name to Atari
Infogrames CEO, David Gardner, tells GI.biz that the company may drop its name (which rocks our world) completely for the Atari marquee brand. He wants the company thought of as a "start-up" and the name change to represent the "final mark" of transformation. Directeur Général Délégué Phil Harrison chimes in that the company, as it stands now with a new management team less than a year old, is "absolutely a start-up" -- it's just a start-up with 25 years of history (and some serious financial drama).Harrison and Gardner had apparently been talking about doing their own company for a long time. Harrison explains that the two had made significant plans and then the Atari opportunity came along. It was a company that had global infrastructure, offices, branding and was exactly the type of company the two were looking for. It'll probably become much easier to think of Atari as a "new" company once it announces some new IPs and gets the "old" company's games out the door, like the oft-delayed Alone in the Dark.
Infogrames CEO: Alone in the Dark will sell 2-3 million units this fiscal year
Infogrames CEO, David Gardner, tells Reuters he believes Alone in the Dark will sell two to three million copies this fiscal year. That means that, between its June 24 release and next March, the title needs to perform better than a game like BioShock. Given the fact that the title is being released on Wii, PS2, Xbox 360 and PC (PS3 is "sometime in 2008"), it just may hit that projection when combining all the systems ... maybe.Gardner's currently focused on getting Infogrames / Atari to stop hemorrhaging money, and has Directeur Général Délégué Phil Harrison and friends looking to "get a business plan together that gets [Atari] to a break-even level." Unsurprisingly, Gardner couldn't give specifics on when he expects that to happen.[Via GameDaily] %Gallery-14429%
Phil Harrison is new president of Infogrames ... wow
The rumors of a "Phil eye for the Atari guy" are true. Former Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios president Phil Harrison has joined Atari's parent company Infogrames with the title of Directeur Général Délégué (President). Harrison will report directly to Infogrames CEO David Gardner, who plans to announce tomorrow how he's going to turn the beleaguered company around -- and we're guessing Harrison will have a huge role in doing that.Harrison's fancy French title (which we're sure to use every chance we can) isn't going to protect him from the hard road ahead. The plan is apparently for Harrison and Gardner to turn Atari into "a leading online game company." Despite Gardner's belief that Infogrames has a "strong financial foundation," its going to take a lot of "show us" over the next few years before Atari gets off the D-list. But damn, is getting Harrison on the team a good start.[Via PS3 Fanboy]
Atari looks to online space for salvation
Infogrames' new CEO, David Gardner, believes subsidiary Atari's recovery lies in the online gaming space. GI.biz reports Gardner would like to move the financially pummeled company to secure server-based and free-to-play gaming. He believes the way people will want to play and buy their games is "networks centric."Gardner would like to leverage the brands Atari holds and states that the future for the company in gaming is creating high quality games playing on servers where customers don't have to worry about configurations and performance issues. Pro tip: Something like that exists and it's called console gaming. GI.biz will publish its full interview with Gardner tomorrow where he'll discuss his plans (after the board obviously didn't like the last CEO's) on turning Atari's misfortunes around.
Former EA exec. David Gardner becomes CEO of Infogrames
Former EA executive David Gardner has been appointed the CEO of Atari parent company Infogrames, effective ... now. This means former CEO Patrick Leleu, who just recently outlined plans regarding Infogrames/Atari's recovery, has been given his golden watch parachute and shown the door. Gardner is now captain of a ship sailing through a financial minefield of debt and drama.Gardner was at EA for nearly 25 years and was one of its first employees in 1983. Early on he was in sales and marketing and in '92 became Managing Director of Europe, where he had a strong role in European acquisitions for EA and integrating those companies into the beast. Before leaving EA last August he held the title of COO of Worldwide Studios and helped establish EA in Asia. Best of luck to Gardner, who's got a lot of work ahead of him.
