Business

Count Microsoft among the tech companies that posted blah earnings for the three months ending Sept. 30 -- in Microsoft's case its first quarter for fiscal year 2013. It posted revenue of $16.01 billion for the quarter, down from $17.37 billion in the same quarter a year ago. Operating income, net i...

eBay will see annual growth rates of 10 percent to 15 percent over the next five years in both revenue and profit, according to projections by Covestor Model Manager Paul Franke.eBay turned in a better-than-expected profit for its third quarter -- bucking the tide of less-than-stellar financial repo...

Google did not have a good day on Thursday: Its stock plunged when its unexpectedly dismal third-quarter earnings became public. Then, there was the matter of how exactly they became public. Google's financial printer, R.R. Donnelley, reportedly posted the earnings report to the Securities and Excha...

IBM is often viewed as a bellwether stock for the tech industry. Its earnings points to how other companies are investing in tech -- or lately, how they are not. Earlier this week, the company announced slightly increased earnings for the third quarter but a decline in revenue. No one stock is truly...

Intel beat Wall Street analysts' earnings expectations but still reported sinking revenue in its quarterly report earlier this week, prompting a pessimistic outlook for the chip giant's fourth quarter. The company brought in earnings of $3.8 billion, or 58 cents per share, on revenue of $13.5 billio...

Small businesses in the United States are generally confident about their cybersecurity status, but they're wrong, according to a survey of 1,015 companies conducted for the National Cyber Security Alliance and Symantec. Apparently, SMBs aren't doing enough to keep their businesses safe and secure, ...

It appears Google is catching flak from regulators on both sides of the Atlantic. European privacy authorities have asked Google to modify its global privacy policy in order to give users a better understanding of what personal data is being collected. The move comes on the heels of rumors that the ...

One of the classic items on the agenda for all presidential candidates, including incumbent Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney, is to cut federal government waste. In fact, the Obama administration has been campaigning for nearly the past two years to reduce waste and improve the efficiency of ...

Amazon is reportedly in talks to buy the mobile chip division of Texas Instruments in a move that could push the online retailer further into the hardware business. The reports fit in with Texas Instruments' announcement last month that it would shift the focus of its chip business away from mobile ...

In the latest film installment of Ayn Rand's influential novel, Atlas Shrugged, the government has taken the drastic step of seizing all patents, as well as copyrights, for the public good, under the so-called Fair Share Act. Although the U.S. government has not officially taken such a drastic step,...

Softbank has agreed to pay $20.1 billion to acquire a 70 percent stake in Sprint Nextel, the companies announced Monday. The deal will be the largest outbound acquisition by a Japan-based company since at least 2000, assuming it goes through. It is seen as a way for Softbank to grow overseas as its...

The Federal Trade Commission is poised to launch an antitrust case against Google, according to anonymous sources. The alleged charge is straightforward: Google has been using its search engine dominance to hurt competing firms. The rest of the details are expected to unfold in the coming weeks. The...

It's official. Sprint Nextel and Softbank are getting together. If the deal is approved, Softbank will own 70 percent of Sprint Nextel. That means this is not really an acquisition. Rather it is an investment. However, as a majority owner you can expect Softbank to steer the Sprint ship. This is gre...

This week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned a preliminary injunction granted to Apple this summer in district court by Judge Lucy Koh. Apple had shown it would see a significant loss of sales and smartphone marketshare if a preliminary injunction were not granted, she fou...

Worldwide PC sales slid more than 8 percent in the third quarter of 2012, according to reports from research firms Gartner and IDC. The two reports had different leaders in global sales numbers -- Gartner had Lenovo taking a narrow lead over IDC's top-seller, HP -- but both agreed that PC sales are ...