Business Tech

Sun Microsystems last week launched its second major restructuring for the year--with good reason.

The company posted a sizable $1.68 billion net loss in its fiscal first quarter last month, amid a 7 percent decline in revenue, as its traditional business of high- to midrange servers running on Sparc processors took a hit. Add to that a steep sell-off of its stock over the past 12 months, falling from about $25 a share earlier in the year to close at $3.02 a share on Friday.

For the embattled tech titan that's lost its allure over the years, … Read more

Discontent with Intel graphics goes back a few years. But the unsealing of 3-year-old e-mail exchanges between Intel and Microsoft reveals something about the present, too.

First some background. Intel makes integrated graphics silicon--that is, graphics functionality that is built into its chipsets. Performance is not the name of the game for Intel. Delivering power-efficient, adequate graphics that can handle everyday tasks and do basic gaming is the goal. Anything beyond this is left to the high-octane discrete chips from ATI and Nvidia.

"We've always been consistent that high-end gamers should use discrete graphics," said Intel spokesman … Read more

The biggest search Yahoo is working on involves finding a new CEO.

Eighteen months after returning to the helm of the company he co-founded in 1994, Jerry Yang will step down as chief executive when a replacement is found, the company said. Yang will resume his position as chief Yahoo, the role he had before taking over in 2007 after former CEO Terry Semel departed.

Yahoo has been struggling for months to improve its financial performance, but things have gone from bad to worse for the company this year, and its stock has sunk to less than $10. First, the … Read more

Upstart Boston-Power is within months of having its long-lasting batteries shipped in notebook PCs, as it eyes expansion into portable power packs and electric cars.

The three-year-old company says its Sonata batteries are able to recharge to 80 percent capacity in 30 minutes, versus two hours to get to a 90 percent charge in conventional notebook batteries. And Boston-Power's batteries can be recharged 1,000 times before their performance starts to wane, versus 150 times in today's laptops, according to founder and CEO Christina Lampe-Onnerud. Typically, the amount of computing time that a laptop battery supplies goes down … Read more

The Consumer Electronics Show has become a mammoth event every January in Las Vegas, but the down economy is paring it back as Cisco Systems, Yahoo, and other companies scale back their presence.

CES remains a useful way for technology companies to meet with retailers, press, and the media. But for some in the current economic climate, it's not useful enough to pay $35 per square foot for a sprawling booth on the Las Vegas Convention Center's cavernous interior.

"This was to have been Cisco's first time as a formal exhibitor," said spokesman Jim Brady. "Given (Cisco's) focus on reducing costs, the company has decided to scale down its participation in CES in Las Vegas in January 2009." Instead, the networking giant is sticking with a more modest space rented at the Venetian Hotel supplemented with videoconferencing technology.

Cisco isn't the only one to scale back. Also on the list are Yahoo, Seagate, Logitech, and Belkin, company representatives confirmed. Philips won't have a space on the CES show floor, either, though Funai, which has taken over manufacturing and selling TVs under the Philips brand in the United States, will pick up some of the slack.

The Consumer Electronics Association, which runs the show, said the show will be the third largest in terms of floor space, shrinking from its size the peak years of 2007 and 2008.

"The economy is causing some companies that may have had booths to say, 'Maybe we want to be in a meeting room instead,'" said association spokeswoman Tara Dunion. Despite it, the total number of exhibitors is level from 2008's show at about 2,700. "We're also seeing companies on the show floor for first time," including Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, Iomega, and Mattel, she said.

And there's a silver lining, too. "Vegas hotel rates are coming down because tourism travel to Vegas is slower than it's been in years. That provides an opportunity for business professionals," she said.

Incentives to show But the organizers are working hard to keep the show as lively as possible. One promotion is aimed at technology buyers--the middlemen who buy all those TVs, gadgets, cameras, and other devices before selling them to ordinary folks.

… Read more

Salesforce.com announced Thursday a 43 percent increase in third-quarter revenue, beating Wall Street's expectations.

Shares of Salesforce.com rose about 11 percent in after-hours trading to $25.30 a share. It closed the regular trading session at $22.83 a share, up nearly 4 percent.

In the period ending October 31, revenue reached $276 million, fueled by growth in the company's subscription and support business. Wall Street had been expecting Salesforce.com to generate $273.5 million, according to analysts' estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters.

The online customer relationship management (CRM) software developer posted net income of $… Read more

Updated at 1:37 p.m. PT with comments from earnings call.

Dell on Thursday reported third-quarter profit of $727 million, or 37 cents per share, and revenue of $15.16 billion.

Profits were down 5 percent from the same quarter a year ago, though earnings per share improved 9 percent. Revenue was down 3 percent.

Most analysts had been anticipating earnings of 32 cents per share and $16.3 billion in sales.

A year ago, Dell earned $766 million, or 34 cents per share, on $15.65 billion in sales.

Chief Financial Officer Brian Gladden said on a call … Read more

There's not a lot of good news about the PC industry lately.

Gartner is predicting that IT spending will be down, and Intel says it sees significantly lower demand for its chips. Now add to that iSuppli's doom-and-gloom prediction that PC shipments will rise only 4.3 percent in 2009, and 7.1 percent in 2010.

It's a pretty dramatic change from what the industry analyst company had previously forecast: shipments rising 11.9 percent next year, and 9.4 percent in 2010.

The PC market has been growing at rates of at least 10 percent per … Read more

Akamai Technologies announced Wednesday that it's cutting 7 percent of its workforce, as the Web content delivery company pares back its costs.

Cambridge, Mass.-based Akamai expects to cut 110 positions in the fourth quarter, a move that is anticipated to result in a $4 million restructuring charge.

"We have not changed our business outlook," J.D. Sherman, Akamai CEO, said in a statement. "However, we want to ensure that we can keep investing for growth even in the current economic climate."

The Web content delivery company also expects to lose approximately $2.5 million … Read more