Smartphones And Consumer Electronics Boost Semiconductor Market

Chipmakers Texas Instruments (NYSE:TXN) (TI), Atheros (NASDAQ:ATHR), and STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM) recently reported quarterly results that reflect the recovery in the semiconductor market. STM has swung to a profit after two years of losses while TI and Atheros are expanding. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

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HP’s Next Acquisition: Polycom?

Polycom and F5, leaders in their respective niche areas of video conferencing and application delivery controllers (ADC), recently reported their quarterly results. Cisco recently acquired Tandberg, which is neck-in-neck with Polycom in the video conferencing market. On the other hand, F5 has a comfortable lead over Cisco in the ADC market. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

Microsoft Grows, But Future Looks Foggy

According to IDC’s recently released report, the global PC market grew 22.4% over the year to 81.5 million units. However, PC sales in the United States failed to meet the researchers’ target of 18% and grew just 12.6% over the year. PC sales in EMEA “met expectations” and Japan too saw double-digit PC shipment growth. Shipments in Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) grew 35% over the year compared with 20% growth a quarter ago. >>>

Yahoo! Continues Aimlessly On

Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) continued its struggle to grow during the second quarter. While earnings managed to exceed market projections, the fact that revenue is not growing as strongly as it should remains a cause for concern. Q2 revenues of $1.13 billion fell short of the market’s projected $1.16 billion. EPS of $0.15 grew a whopping 50% over previous year’s $0.10 and also managed to exceed the market’s target of $0.14. >>>

Apple Gains Share Across Markets

Apple reported yet another strong quarter this week driven by the success of its new products, the iPad and the iPhone 4. Despite the criticism of the newest iPhone’s antenna design, Apple reports that there has not been any decline in the demand for the phone and issued a strong forecast. Apple has cannibalized the gadget industry with its products: Macs, iPods, iPhones, and now iPads. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

IBM’s Acquisition Strategy

This week, IBM (NYSE:IBM) reported a mixed second quarter by beating bottom-line estimates but missing the top-line sales estimate. Earlier this month, Big Blue announced its plans to acquire BigFix, a network management and security specialist. In the recent quarter, IBM announced two more acquisitions: Cast Iron, a cloud computing integration company, and Coremetrics, a developer of business analytics software. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

Google Acknowledges Need To Enhance Search

After years of ignoring context-sensitive search in major vertical categories, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) finally entered vertical search within the travel domain earlier this month with a bang. It acquired ITA Software, the Boston-based specialist in organizing airline data, flight times, seat availability, and pricing, for $700 million. While the move is sure to be subject to scrutiny by antitrust enforcers, it was long overdue. >>>

Intel In The Price War Era

Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) just reported the best quarter in its history with a record profit of $2.9 billion driven by the boost in corporate PC buying. Intel has been eyeing the smartphone microprocessor market, which is dominated by ARM. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

Red Hat And NetApp Reap Cloud Computing Momentum

According to Gartner, 2010 IT spending on cloud computing is expected to increase 17% over the year to $68.3 billion. By 2014, that number is expected to grow to $148.8 billion. The open source leader Red Hat (NASDAQ:RHT) is already benefiting from the addition of a virtualization layer to its software products with giants such as IBM and Google using Linux for their cloud computing products and online software applications. >>>

Apple Showers Riches On Component Vendors

The iSuppli teardown analysis of the iPhone 4 is out. It estimates the bill of materials (BOM) on a $600 16GB iPhone 4 to be $187.51. That is a fat profit margin of more than 60% for Apple. Samsung, Infineon, Broadcom, and LG Display are the major beneficiaries in the supply chain. This estimate does not include manufacturing, software, and royalty expenses. But according to David Barboza of the New York Times, manufacturing and assembly costs account for just 7% of the overall cost. Let’s take a closer look. >>>