q3

Intel earnings beat Wall Street predictions

Updated at 3:10 p.m. PDT: adding comments from CEO Paul Otellini and CFO Stacy Smith.

Intel's third-quarter revenue jumped $1.4 billion over the second quarter, though year-to-year revenue and profit comparisons were down.

The world's largest chipmaker is struggling to lead the PC industry out of a brutal downturn that saw demand collapse earlier in the year.

Revenue came in at $9.4 billion, beating Wall Street expectations, which hovered at just more than $9 billion. Revenue, however, was down from the $10.2 billion reported in the year-earlier period.

On a year over year … Read more

Graphics market on fire; AMD gains

The economy may be under water, but the graphics chip market is on fire.

The market for graphics processing units (GPUs) saw the biggest increase in third-quarter shipments in six years, according to Jon Peddie Research (JPR), as AMD gained in both the desktop and laptop segments.

In the third quarter of 2008, more than 111 million GPUs were shipped, the market researcher said. During the same quarter last year, 91 million GPUs shipped, and 94 million units shipped in the previous quarter. That's an annual increase of 22.5 percent and a quarter-to-quarter increase of almost 18 percent, … Read more

Nvidia can't shake MacBook, chipset unit rumors

Nvidia has become a Silicon Valley hot spot for rumors. One is tied to an analyst downgrade Monday, the other to the rumored Apple MacBook refresh.

An analyst rekindled speculation Monday that the world's largest graphics chip supplier would sell off its chipset business, while rumors persist that the company would play a larger role in an expected refresh of the Apple MacBook.

Nvidia shares fell Monday after a Pacific Crest analyst issued a negative report on the company's prospects. In the report, the analyst said "our checks confirm" that Nvidia will exit the chipset business … Read more

Intel bucks gloom with upgrade

Despite an economic crisis and volatile stock market, Intel copped an upgrade Tuesday.

Shares of the world's largest chipmaker rose 1.46 points, or 8.45 percent, Tuesday to $18.73.

At least some of this uptick can be attributed to investment bank Piper Jaffray, which raised its rating on Intel to "buy" from "neutral" on Tuesday. Piper Jaffray analyst Auguste Richard said in a research note reported widely on Tuesday that Intel should make its third-quarter earnings numbers and that checks show that Intel is running its factories nearly flat out, which should favorably … Read more

Bienvenido, Motorola Q2?

As some of you phone fanatics may know, the 3GSM World Congress is coming up soon in Barcelona, Spain (unfortunately, Crave won't be there in person sipping on Spanish wine along Las Ramblas, err, I mean, to cover the event). The annual conference brings together the cell phone industry to discuss and showcase the latest 3G technologies and developments, and in recent years, it has also served as backdrop to some pretty cool product announcements. Now, based on some blogosphere rumblings, it looks like this year won't be any different. According to Engadget Mobile, Motorola is prepping to … Read more