Business Tech

During a whirlwind visit to Sydney, Australia, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer this week said he has confidence in President-elect Barack Obama's leadership.

Obama's decisive victory this week over Republican rival John McCain in the U.S. presidential elections has been broadly hailed by technology leaders as potentially beneficial to the country's technology and communications industries.

"I have a lot of faith in our system and our electoral process, and I think President-elect Obama understands that there's a deep set of economic issues, and I have confidence in his leadership," Ballmer said on the … Read more

Updated at 5:20 p.m. throughout. Also, correction made for earnings per share.

In the third quarter of its fiscal year, Nvidia's profit dropped sharply from last year's levels, but revenue came in above forecasts.

For the three months that ended October 26, profit sank 74 percent to $61.7 million, or 11 cents a share, from $235.7 million a year earlier. Excluding costs from stock compensation and other expenses, earnings were 20 cents a share. This exceeded the average estimate of 11 cents projected by First Call.

Revenue for the world's largest graphics chip … Read more

LOS ANGELES--At the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference here, Microsoft talked about the future of USB 3.0 and how delays have hampered rollout of the specification.

Microsoft's talk Thursday was predicated on the expected finalization of the specification later this month. On Wednesday, Jeff Ravencraft of Intel said that he expects the final specification to be announced in San Jose, Calif., on November 17. Ravencraft is also the chairman and president of the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) industry trade association.

Microsoft expressed caution about USB 3.0--which is expected to offer 10 times the performance of USB 2.0--because … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--There is a light at the end of the dark financial tunnel, Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini said onstage at the Web 2.0 Summit on Thursday morning. And he brought out a shiny new toy to prove it.

"All the smart people I've talked to in this area suggest that the U.S. is in a two- to three-quarter recession," Otellini said, though he added that the current economic slowdown is "the deepest one I've seen in my lifetime" and predicted that morale may stay low for longer because unemployment may … Read more

Advanced Micro Devices announced Wednesday it had cut 500 employees, or about 3 percent of its workforce, in an effort to reduce expenses.

This is the second round of job cuts this year at the troubled chipmaker. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD announced in April that it would cut 10 percent of its workforce, or about 1,650 jobs at the time.

The current round of job cuts comes on the heels of a management and structural upheaval at the company. AMD CEO Hector Ruiz announced in July that he would step down from the helm of the company, and that … Read more

Technology bellwether Cisco Systems gave a glum outlook Wednesday as the company sharply felt the effects of the financial crisis and weakening economy during its first fiscal quarter 2009.

Cisco's CEO John Chambers told analysts and investors on a conference call after it announced its earnings that the company saw a dramatic drop in enterprise sales during the last two months of the quarter, as its customers reigned back spending in light of the financial crisis and uncertain economy.

Chambers said the downturn, which the company first saw among U.S. customers, has now spread to customers in Western … Read more

The next-generation USB specification is slated to be introduced later this month.

On November 17 the SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) Developers Conference, hosted by the USB Implementers Forum in San Jose, Calif., will unveil the USB 3.0 specification to the industry, according to a statement Wednesday from the Implementers Forum.

The USB 3.0 specification, a next-generation high-speed connection standard due in 2009, is significant because all future PCs and devices will use connectors based on it. The spec is also expected to offer 10 times the speed of USB 2.0--used in virtually all PCs introduced in … Read more

Intel is reducing its stake in virtualization software maker VMware by half, putting millions of shares on the open market and selling 1 million shares to Cisco and EMC.

The company disclosed in a regulatory filing that, beginning Tuesday, it would place 3.75 million of its VMware shares on the market, although it said the exact timing was subject to change.

In addition, Intel Capital, the company's investments arm, sold 500,000 VMware shares to Cisco and another 500,000 to EMC on October 30, according to the filing. With a price of $26.52 per share, each … Read more

Now that the election is behind us, we tech industry insiders can refocus on IT investment. Will the recession lead to massive budget cuts or simply slow IT spending growth?

The situation is dynamic, but some recent data from my company, Enterprise Strategy Group, may point to a relatively soft landing.

In a survey of more than 500 midsize organization, or those with 100 to 999 employees, more than half the respondents said they expect modest growth (i.e. more than 4 percent) in their IT budgets in 2009. The survey was completed in the summer, and certainly things have … Read more