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Qualcomm Q3 2012 earnings show revenue ($4.63b) and profit ($1.21b) up sharply over last year
Qualcomm is reporting its financial numbers for the last quarter and has been the trend, it's a good time to be everywhere in the wireless business. Continued strong demand for 3G and 4G-connected hardware is keeping sales high, driving "strong year-over-year growth" according to CEO Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, contributing to a bottom line of $4.63 billion in revenue and net income of $1.21 billion. The company's MSM (mobile station modem) chipsets continue to be the main contributor with 141 million units sold, also up yearly by 18 percent but down 7 percent from Q2, with reported device sales following the same pattern at $47.8 billion. About that slight drop from last quarter, the Doctor continues by saying the company expects demand to be back-loaded as "new devices" are launched for the holiday season. With that in mind, it's ramping up production for 28nm Snapdragon S4 chipsets, a move that reportedly has required help from Samsung and UMC. With the next iPhone, new Android Jelly Bean hardware, Windows Phone 8 / Windows 8 devices and much more expected to arrive soon, we'll keep the old money-flying-at-Qualcomm's-HQ graphic close by. For more details, hit the source link for the PDF or read the press release after the break.
Qualcomm announces Q4 earnings: rakes in $4.12 billion in revenue
The Qualcomm juggernaut just keeps on rolling. As the company's financial year comes to a close it's celebrating yet another stellar quarter, reporting $4.12 billion in revenue -- up 39-percent from the same time last year and a dramatic 14-percent higher than its Q3 earnings. Of that incoming green, $1.06 was profit. For the year as a whole, Qualcomm saw profits rise 31-percent over 2010 to $4.26 billion while revenues were 36-percent higher than last year, reaching $14.96 billion. Qualcomm exceed expectations not only for earnings but also sales -- moving 127 million MSM chips in Q4, when analysts were estimating between 120 and 125 million units sold. You'll find some PR after the break but, for all the pretty financial charts you'll have to hit up the source.
Mag+ digital magazine concept makes e-readers cower with envy (video!)
As the decade comes to a close, we're seeing a bevy of real and mythical devices bent on saving main stream media through the execution of a variety of proposed content partnerships. Unfortunately, it's still hard to imagine how all this will play out in reality. That's where slickly produced concepts can be of benefit. Like this one from the R&D wing of Bonnier, the publisher of Popular Science magazine among others. While the concept still treats electronic magazines as periodic issues, the interaction is entirely new and immersive compared to their printed forms. Interestingly enough, our future is ad free if the video (and not Google) is to be believed. Compelling stuff and a possible glimpse at our not too distant future.%Gallery-80485%
Just say no to HDTV?
Need a good laugh on a slow Saturday afternoon? Hit the read link and check out this informative hilarious piece on one individual's decision to apply Nancy Reagan's favorite anti-drug policy to HDTV. Not that the HDTV=Drugs comparison hasn't been made before (this time it's meth instead of heroin), but this goes hand in hand with the demon of the "hyper-real", suggesting that more can be seen in 1080p than even real life. Keep reading however, and you'll notice more nuggets, like the suggestion that Lost might hide information in widescreen corners out of the reach of SDTV, a keen observation unfortunately beaten to the punch by more than two years. According to the author, we should thank SDTV for filtering out the unnecessary for all of these years, kept safe from HD's "commodified realness", that we (and likely you, unfortunate reader of this blog) are so sadly hooked on.
The Bastard Machine gets a dig in at both Second Life and Fox News
Tim Goodman, television critic of the San Francisco Chronicle, is one of the few critics of any stripe that I enjoy reading. It's not so much that I agree or disagree with whatever he's saying; it's more that I love his style. On a recent post for sfgate.com, he makes a slight poke at Second Life when talking about CNN's announcement that they'd be opening an island there. Calling residents 'sexless losers who can't cope with reality' first, then retracting it impishly immediately thereafter is enough to win points from me.And then he makes a joke about Fox news being more influential than CNN which is so true it holds up in SL as well. I'd like Mr. Goodman to do a whole piece on SL, except there's no connection with television there ... oh wait, he must've said something about that CSI: NY episode. Or Law and Order? The Office? No? Anyone? Bueller?[Via sfgate.com]
Qualcomm unveils EV-DO Rev B roadmap
While most folks are just getting over the Rev A novelty, it looks like Qualcomm is already prepared to take things to the next level, as it has developed a new chipset that reportedly delivers "9.3Mbps data transfers in field testing." The MSM7850 is being touted as the "industry's first device solution for EV-DO Rev B," hopefully enabling more of those mobile streaming niceties that we all adore. Additionally, Qualcomm stated that there wouldn't be a need for "infrastructure hardware changes" in order to take advantage of the Rev B sweetness, and the chipset itself would be "fully backwards compatible." As for the firm's CSM6800, a "software solution" will purportedly be available by the month's end which will enable "multi-carrier EV-DO Rev B support." Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of detail surrounding hard dates beyond that, but we can expect the outfit's Rev B-capable MSM7850 to hit testing / sampling later this year, after which the countdown to EV-DO Rev C can officially begin.
USA Today calls out Sony: 'from top dog to underdog in record time'
USA Today, who purports to have the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, published a story today discussing Sony's fall from an almost monopolistic first place with the PlayStation 2 to less-than-stellar sales with the PlayStation 3.Drawing from the February NPD figures, writer Mike Snider places Sony in third place with 127,000 in PS3 unit sales, behind home consoles Xbox 360 (228,000) and Nintendo Wii (335,000). This is in addition to anecdotal evidence that the PlayStation 3 is easily available in stores while the Wii is still hard to find. Total Wii sales in the U.S. are estimated to 1.9 million while Sony has 1.1 million.Newsweek's N'Gai Croal chimes in on reasons for Sony's ranking, including price, software lineup and negative press. Of course, early runnings mean nothing long-term, and the PlayStation 3 could easily pick up steam following release of heavy-hitting games, PS Home and a possible price drop. Still, when you got one of the biggest newspapers giving less-than-complimentary status reports it can't be good for business.
The MSM responds to Microsoft's HD announcement
The mainstream media (or MSM for those of you down with the Web 2.0 lingo) doesn't cover every video game story out there, so when they dom, we always perk up and take notice. Following Microsoft's big HDTV announcement Monday night, several major mainstream outlets covered the news. Let's see what they had to say: Time Magazine considers the downloadable space as a whole, where "many companies including Microsoft competitors Apple, Amazon.com and Google are getting into the video distribution business. Microsoft's ace is that the Xbox 360 is already connected to the TV, a hurdle others try to overcome by marketing multimedia set-top boxes or creating unwieldy hardware partnerships." The New York Times compares Apple and Microsoft's similar, but oh so different, strategies, writing, "Microsoft will go into the video business with a different business model. Apple, most analysts believe, does not make much money selling iTunes content, but makes up for it by selling more iPods, which are extremely profitable. Microsoft, which analysts say loses money on each Xbox 360 it sells, expects to make up for that shortfall by selling games -- and now video. Reuters looks to the more obvious competitor. "Sony Corp., which ships its PlayStation 3 on November 17 with its own digital-distribution network, PlayStation Network, also will look to movies, TV content and music down the line but has not yet announced specific deals. Games will be the first focal point, as they have been for Microsoft during the past year with its Xbox Arcade service." So, Microsoft got there first (or, rather, they will when the service launches on November 22nd): A high-definition video download service connected to a set-top box already installed in millions of living rooms (and counting). But there's still more questions than answers in this shady, poorly-lit basement cockfight for living room supremacy. Like: what about the borderline impossibility of future cooperation with Sony Pictures? That would make it hard to be a comprehensive service. What about iTV?
NYTimes: games industry is taking a beating
The New York Times is running a doom and gloom piece on the current economic state of the big four publicly traded game publishers: Activision, Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive, and THQ. It's nothing we haven't heard before; higher next-gen development costs coupled with a console transition which have not only historically proven to be difficult, but the current one especially so. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick "acknowledged that there were challenges, including a growing need to produce games more efficiently. He said the industry would probably also focus more narrowly on games with hit potential (selling several million copies) as opposed to a scattershot approach of creating numerous games that sell one million copies or less." This blockbuster approach runs contrary to the XBLA success story, or quirky DS hits like Pheonix Wright. So basically, Activision doesn't subscribe to the long tail.Pretty damning evidence of this trend: following E3 in May, "Electronic Arts' shares have fallen to $42.30, from $56.80; Activision to $11.58, from $14.19; THQ to $21.49, from $25.63; and Take-Two to $13.10, from $17.05." Ouch! Well, that's my cue to go grab some TTWO and ATVI shares![Thanks, laserboyjc]
Wright rocks out with the mainstream media
Will Wright has had a very busy month thanks to his upcoming game, Spore. Everyone that saw the gameplay video from GDC '05 knew that the real highlight of this May's E3 would be Wright's presentation. Although his presentation at E3 didn't reveal too much that we didn't already know about Spore, the slightly more mainstream appeal of E3 has resulted in some well deserved coverage from the mainstream media. The positive endorsement by Robin "Sniper" Williams can't have hurt either.The two most notable examples of MSM picking up this story are featured in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) and the BBC. The Beeb covered Spore and Wright from an angle of user generated content, comparing it to current and past titles that have popularized the concept (e.g. Second Life, The Sims and the popularity of mods like Counter-Strike). The quirky video interview with Wright that runs alongside the article also gives a good idea of how much Wright values user generated content (i.e. a lot). The WSJ picked up the story from a more general "profile of Wright" viewpoint, although it was displayed very prominently. If you picked up last Saturday's edition of the paper it's possibly the first article you would have seen, it being on the front page and all. One of the world's most recognizable and respected business publications profiling a game developer on the front page: they've finally wised up!Read - BBC video interview with WrightRead - Wall Street Journal Spore article
NYTimes examines Sony's worldwide appeal
Though not directly about the PlayStation 3, this profile of Sony's worldwide appeal in Sunday's New York Times dovetails nicely with my look at the lead up to "the price." Titled "Cutting Sony, a Corporate Octopus, Back to a Rational Size," writer Martin Fackler examines the marginalization of Sony in the international marketplace. The company's name was once synonymous with not only portable music, but electronics in general; now, faced with increased competition, they're looking to "restore" their image "to prevent the problems in Japan from spreading overseas."A Merrill Lynch analyst said, "What is Sony? We don't even know anymore. Consumers used to pay more because the brand meant something special." Another echoed that sentiment, saying, "Sony has to trim its premium ... The brand equity, although still high, is clearly on the decline in consumers' minds."One way to improve that brand image: trim the premium (sorry little buddy) and focus on "champion products." CEO Howard Stringer says "[they] need to rebuild the brand seriously in terms of energy and perception around the world" and the PS3 and Blu-ray are a serious part of that strategy.[Thanks, Stephen](Update: Merril is spelled Merrill)
WSJ: Xbox 360 is home of hacker hoedown
The illustrious Wall Street Journal sullied its white gloves while getting down and dirty with the Xbox 360 hacking scene yesterday. They profiled superstar hacker Bunnie Huang (he wrote Hacking the Xbox: An Introduction to Reverse Engineering) and his desire to duplicate his earlier success on the 360.When Microsoft bragged about how hack-proof their console was, we wrote, "Going out of your way to boast about how hack-proof your next product is going to be is probably the only surefire way to get an army of hackers on your ass." Turns out we were right. Huang says of his motivation, "It's about overcoming the challenge Microsoft has set out there ... They've bragged about the security for the Xbox 360, so now it's like: Well, let's see."While Huang hasn't had many successes himself, another 360 hacker (who goes by the hacker alias "Acid Burn" "The Specialist") has had a couple, exploiting the console's DVD-drive's firmware. Huang rightfully doesn't consider it a full decoding of the system, but acknowledges he might not be the one to do it either. "Things are different from a few years ago ... The stakes are higher for Microsoft and the hacking community has intensified its efforts."
A world without high definition DVDs...
...is not one in which I would want to live. But that's the sort of world David Pogue seems to be suggesting today in the New York Times. A careful read of the article reveals that deep down, he's one of us. Despite the cynicism about consumer electronics companies and their motives he came away impressed by the visual quality of HD DVD movies and the improvements provided by the interactive menus. Of course as Ben pointed out, he mentions the debut Toshiba HD-A1 player has some warts, long initial load times being one of them. Add on DRM concerns, a brewing format war with Blu-ray and you have plenty of reasons to sit on the fence. How long consumers stay there remains to be seen.Does that mean both formats could go the way of the Dodo, Laserdisc and other dearly departed items as he suggests they might? Severely doubt it, everyone has too much invested for that to happen. Companies on both the hardware and software (content) side have too much to lose for the formats to just fade away. What appears to be most likely, is an extended format battle in which choosing a side means potentially giving up some feature or movie you want that is only available on the other. The life of an early adopter is fraught with peril but maybe, just maybe the 1080i/p rewards for your HDTV are worth it.Note: Even I haven't decided which -- if either -- format to purchase yet.
MSM & HDTV: So close but yet so far
As we've noted, sometimes the media can be a bit shaky when it comes to talking about HDTV accurately. This time it's Cleveland's News Channel 5 reporting to make sure you don't buy an EDTV plasma assuming it's HDTV, a worthy cause and one we've mentioned before.The article is good, with enough warning and not too much hysteria, until they mention HDTV becoming standard in three years. Awww man. Everybody listen to Engadget, DTV ≠ HDTV. Thank you and please remember to tip your waitresses.
