Of all the tech stocks to watch, perhaps none have been more interesting to follow than those of Microsoft, Google and Apple in recent days.
With so much news emanating from the trio, their shares have been gyrating and twisting on each and every piece of information, so here are some numbers to take a gander at.
Carl Icahn, the activist billionaire investor who made such a noisy fuss in his quest to force management and other changes at Yahoo, is taking a much quieter leave from the Internet giant’s board.
He said “there was not a need at this time for an activist investor” on Yahoo’s board.
That’s true, of course, but here’s BoomTown’s quickie analysis: Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz completely ignores him.
Uh-oh, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz was expected to appear on the Internet giant’s third-quarter earnings call, but she apparently “came down with something,” according to CFO Tim Morse.
BoomTown is sending over chicken soup right now, but let’s hope she gets her vaccinations tout de suite!
Thus, no sassy quotes or cursing, but a very earnest Morse, who sounded like he was once a Boy Scout.
It’s not likely the announcement of Yahoo’s third-quarter earnings later today will be quite as exciting as its Open Hack Day in Taiwan this past weekend, but BoomTown will try to make those numbers and the conference call afterward with CEO Carol Bartz as entertaining as possible.
Bartz is certain to be so, especially if she lobs some good quotes, as she did in a recent interview about her management style: “I have the puppy theory. When the puppy pees on the carpet, you say something right then because you don’t say six months later, ‘Remember that day, January 12th, when you peed on the carpet?’ That doesn’t make any sense.”
How much does BoomTown pray for more zingers like that? Muchly!
When Apple reports its fourth-quarter earnings today, investors are hoping–actually, expecting–that the iconic computer company will look a lot now as it always has.
In other words, don’t go changing and it will please us.
In fact, Wall Street is anticipating, as it has throughout the econalypse, another estimate-beating performance.
In one week, Yahoo will report its third-quarter earnings, after the market closes.
And so far, its stock is showing signs that investors are hoping for better days ahead for the Internet giant.
Other good news: A pair of bullish analyst reports yesterday.
But, a spate of executive departures, with chances of more to come, are worrisome.
As is the excessive yodeling Yahoo is once again encouraging.
Considering the ongoing skirmishes going on right now between Amazon and Google over digital book publishing, it’s more than ironic that Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos was one of only a few initial investors in the search giant.
But–in one of the many interesting details in New Yorker author Ken Auletta’s new book, “Googled: The End Of The World As We Know It”–it was indeed Bezos who invested $250,000 in the start-up in 1998 at four cents a share.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
There’s a great excerpt in the New Yorker this week.
Since the beginning of the year, Apple shares have more than doubled from $90.75 on Jan. 2 to almost $186 today.
Google has done about half that performance, while Microsoft has done one-third.
But that’s apparently not enough, according to Thomas Weisel analyst Doug Reid, who has raised his price target on Apple to $210 from $180.
BoomTown is getting dizzy.
Champagne wishes and caviar dreams are now but a memory for billionaire shareholder-activist Carl Icahn, who lost about $125 million today by selling off 16 percent of his ever-losing stake in Yahoo.
The sale of 12.7 million shares at just under $15 a piece is a far cry from the hopes that the famously prickly Icahn had when he started his quest to bring about change and riches for himself by investing in stock of the turmoil-plagued Internet giant in 2008.
As it turned out, he came to Silicon Valley, he saw, he did not conquer.
It’s certainly acquisition fever in Silicon Valley today. After it was announced that Facebook had bought FriendFeed, now comes the news that VMware has purchased SpringSource, a privately held enterprise and Web application development and management cloud computing start-up.
The price? That would be $420 million in cash and stock.
With the purchase of Spring Source, Palo Alto-based VMware–which is a top player in the virtualization space–is adding to its cloud-computing application-management strength and also its ties to the open-source community.
Facebook said today it is acquiring FriendFeed, the online content sharing site.
It is a logical fit for the social networking site, which has lagged behind microblogging kingpin, Twitter, in the real-time search and status game of perception in Silicon Valley. FriendFeed has also trailed well behind Twitter.
Terms were not disclosed, but it is likely be well under the $500 million Facebook once offered Twitter. In fact, sources estimate to me that the price was about $50 million in cash and stock.
One of the reasons Wall Street investors have gone sour on Yahoo’s stock since its online advertising and search partnership was struck with Microsoft was a comment that CEO Carol Bartz made at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference in late May.
In an onstage interview with me, I asked Bartz about what it would take to do a deal.
She answered quite emphatically that “if there’s boatloads of money, and there’s the right technology and there’s the right information we’d have, sure.”
Here’s the video of that, as well details about how the deal talks went bad at D7 too.
What’s next for AOL?
Reviving the “You’ve Got Mail!” motto?
Or: “The Future. Now Available.”–set to music from “The Jetsons”?
What about: “So easy to use, no wonder it’s #1!”
Or maybe, it should just use a nice loooooooong busy signal as its calling card again?
Well, it could happen, now that new CEO Tim Armstrong has fallen prey to the siren call of the AOL brand name, after years of seeing the company wander in the anything-but-the-AOL wilderness.
Thus, he’s decided to try to welcome the prodigal brand back home, even as he prepares to spin it off in November from Time Warner.
Uh-oh.
How low can Microsoft go?
Very low, it seems, in announcing really bad fourth-quarter earnings, missing Wall Street revenue estimates by an astonishing $1 billion.
Talk about a game of extreme limbo.
No surprise–Microsoft shares have been taking a beating in after-hours trading.
BoomTown liveblogged the earnings call.
Yahoo and Microsoft are still seriously talking about a search and partnership deal, never-ending discussions that might or might not come to fruition. But most investors will be focused on real results this week, as both tech giants report quarterly earnings.
Yahoo reports tomorrow, while Microsoft clocks in Thursday.
But, after a ho-hum performance last week from Google, Wall Street is not expecting much from either, as the econalypse continues to take its toll on financial performance.
Kara Swisher started covering digital issues for The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau in 1997 and also wrote the BoomTown column about the sector. With Walt Mossberg, she co-produces and co-hosts D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech and media conference.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
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