Can Windows Phone 7 Change The Smartphone Game?

IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly PC tracker released for Q3 saw 10.5% growth in PC sales compared with the 14% projected for the quarter. Weaker-than-expected growth was driven by weak consumer spending in the United States, where PC shipments grew a mere 3.8% over the year compared with the 11% projected. Only Apple saw better-than-expected sales in the U.S., primarily on account of its iPad. Over the year, Apple recorded 24% growth in PC shipments, and the company moved to the third position in the U.S market. But despite Apple’s continued growth, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) does not seem to be worried about their Windows division and claims to be confident that tablets “will expand the PC market” and will “bring Windows to additional form factors and new usage scenario.” >>>

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SAP Just Gained Strong Allies Against Oracle

SAP (NYSE:SAP) this week reported strong sales in its third quarter, but the upcoming trial for the Oracle lawsuit and drama that will likely ensue is a dampener. Oracle recently accused former CEO of SAP, Leo Apotheker, of overseeing an espionage scheme. Leo Apotheker has recently been hired as the new CEO of HP, while Mark Hurd has been hired by Oracle as one of its presidents. Apotheker’s appointment has led to the speculation that HP may acquire SAP. Let’s take a closer look.

Will The iPad Save The New York Times And McClatchy?

A study by the Audit Bureau of Circulations showed that average daily circulation of newspapers in the country fell 5% over the year in the six months ending September, and Sunday circulation fell 4.5% in the period. Another reason to worry for the newspaper industry is Moody’s downgrading of the industry; Moody’s projects a 5%–6% decline in the industry’s revenues this year, followed by a mid-single-digit decline in 2011. A bright spot for newspapers is their growing reach in the online community. According to a comScore report for September, newspaper websites are accessed by over 102.8 million unique visitors in the United States – that accounts for nearly 61% of Internet users aged 18 and above. Further, newspaper website users generated nearly 4.1 billion page views and spent more than 3.3 billion minutes browsing news sites. >>>

Weakness In Consumer Chip Markets

Chipmakers Texas Instruments (NYSE:TXN) and Atheros (NASDAQ:ATHR) in their recent earnings results reported some weakness in the semiconductor markets due to slowing consumer demand. Market research firm iSuppli has also trimmed its 2010 semiconductor revenue forecast to 32%, down from its previous outlook of 35.1%. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

CEO Switch Coming At Yahoo?

The online search market may be recording good growth, as was reported by Efficient Frontier’s estimates that Q3 paid search ad spending grew 19% over the year, making it the third consecutive quarter of double digit growth. But Yahoo! is still struggling to find the key to tapping this growth. >>>

Nokia Hopes To Reinvent Itself With New CEO

Last month, Nokia (NYSE:NOK) hired its new CEO, Stephen Elop. Former president of Microsoft’s Business Division, Elop is Nokia’s first non-Finnish and North American CEO. Last week Nokia, under the leadership of its new CEO, reported a higher than expected profit and announced plans to restructure its smartphone business by cutting 1,800 jobs. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

VMWare Making Acquisitions; Parent EMC Target For Oracle

Earlier this year, IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Server Virtualization Tracker reported that virtualized servers constitute 18.2% of all new servers shipped during Q4 of 2009, compared with 15.2% a year ago. Further, IDC expects the number of deployed virtual servers to outnumber physical servers for the first time ever in 2010. Riding high on this virtualization wave, both VMWare (NASDAQ:VMW) and parent EMC (NASDAQ:EMC) are having a good run. >>>

IBM’s Next Steps In Acquisitions

IBM (NYSE:IBM) this week reported strong results that beat estimates, and it raised its full-year outlook. IBM continued its acquisition spree and in the recent quarter closed 11 acquisitions for a total of about $3 billion. IBM has said it will spend $20 billion on acquisitions through 2015. What should it acquire next? Let’s take a closer look.

What Will Apple Do With Its $51 Billion In Cash?

Apple reported record revenue and profit in its latest fourth quarter results. However, decline in its gross margin and its weaker-than-expected earnings forecast sent its shares sliding. But the highlight in its earnings is the company’s $51 billion cash balance. Let’s take a closer look.

Google Matures Into A More Diverse Business

Search engine marketing firm Efficient Frontier estimates that Q3 paid search ad spending grew 19% over the year, making this the third consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. While search remains Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) core business, the recent quarterly results shows that its non-search businesses are also doing well. >>>