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From the Apple shareholders' meeting: Approvals, 'new categories' and another campus delay
The Apple shareholders' meeting was held in Cupertino earlier today, and CNBC has a full liveblog of all of the proceedings. There wasn't a lot of hard news out of the meeting, as most of it was taken up with bureaucratic goings-on, including the approval of a certain accounting firm, a few votes on executive payments and the defeat of a proposal to create a Human Rights board committee at the company. All of Apple's directors were re-elected, and Tim Cook got a 99.1 percent approval rating from investors there. After the meeting, Cook took some questions from shareholders and answered them. He agreed that Apple is just as disappointed as investors in "where the stock trades now versus a few months ago -- but we're focused on the long term." Cook crowed about Apple's huge growth so far, and promised that "obviously we're looking at new categories -- we don't talk about them, but we're looking at them." Finally, Cook gave an update on Apple's new campus, saying that the work is ongoing, but it's proving to be a much bigger project than expected. Last we heard, the project was set to be all done in 2015, but Cook now says that, "I project that we will move in, in 2016." You can read through all of the notes of the meeting on CNBC's site. [via MacRumors]
RIM aims to launch seven smartphones with BlackBerry OS 7 in 'the coming months'
It may look like it's losing the ongoing smartphone war, but Research in Motion is at least preparing for the next battle with reinforcements. Co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis announced at this week's annual shareholder meeting that seven new OS 7-powered BlackBerry smartphones are set to be launched in the near future. As the company struggles to meet its financial goals due to delays, it's confident that releasing a large number of smartphones will make up for a miserable Q1 and get RIM back on track by the end of the year. This seems to be a bitter contrast to earlier rumors suggesting the company scrapped other projects to make room for its QNX "superphone." No word was given by either executive as to which phones we can expect, nor the precise dates when these devices will become available. We also haven't heard if the Bold Touch series is included as part of that count since its launch looks to have been pushed back. Lazaridis mentioned the delays are a result of his company trying to meet (read: not exceed) consumer expectations, and that RIM will "come out ahead" in the smartphone race. Now that's extraordinary confidence; unless the execs had a heart-to-heart with the anonymous letter-writer, however, it's a hard pill to swallow. [Image courtesy of CrackBerry]
Microsoft CEO Ballmer says Windows 7 sales are double its predecessors'
Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer was on hand for the company's annual shareholder's meeting in Washington, and news of Windows 7 sales came up right away. While delivering the opening remarks, Ballmer said that Microsoft has sold twice as many copies of Win 7 as any previous Microsoft OS in a comparable time frame. That's including both OEM sales and boxed retail copies, of course, and though no specific numbers were mentioned, the good news isn't completely unexpected as pre-orders were through the roof. High five, Microsoft.
