TechEye |
- SAP loses Versata appeal
- Facebook posts Q1 results
- Lehman Brothers sues Intel
- HTC posts another horrible quarter
- Google dragged back to Parliament
- Intel talks up Iris 5xxx series integrated graphics
Posted: 02 May 2013 05:28 AM PDT The maker of expensive business software, which no one quite knows what it does, has lost a patent infringement case against Versata Software. A judge awarded Versata Software $345 million after it heard how it developed and sold software that companies use to determine the prices of their offerings based on customer size, geographic location and other factors. According to Computerworld, Versata’s product was called Pricer, and the software was used by SAP customers as a "bolt-on" to its core ERP system. SAP released its own pricing software and bundled it into its full enterprise software to kill Pricer. Sales suffered and Versata sued SAP in 2007, alleging its pricing software infringed a number of its patents. In August 2009, Versata won a $139 million but a judge later set that award aside and ordered a new trial to determine damages. Before the second trial, SAP applied a software patch to its pricing software that was meant to eliminate "any basis for future infringement" on Versata's patents. However a jury said that SAP's software still infringed Versata's intellectual property, even with the patch, and it awarded Versata $345 million in May 2011. SAP was also barred from continuing to sell the pricing functionality. SAP appealed on the basis of that the injunction was too broad because it also prohibited SAP from selling additional seats and maintenance services to existing customers. The appeals court agreed with SAP on this point and asked the trial court to modify the wording of the injunction slightly. But really this made no difference to the payments. |
Posted: 02 May 2013 05:22 AM PDT Worldwide data harvesting operation, Facebook, has reported a decent 38 percent boost in first quarter revenue thanks in part to improving its performance in mobile ads. Profit was $219 million, up slightly from $205 million the same time last year. Mobile advertising carved up roughly 30 percent of total income, an increase from 23 percent on the previous quarter. Advertising revenue sat at $1.25 billion and represented an enormous 85 percent of total revenue, up 43 percent year on year. Payments and other fees revenue for the quarter was $213 million. In its earnings report, it listed the company's purchase of Instagram under recent business highlights, pointing out that the photo-sharing app reached 100 million monthly active users for the first quarter. The appointment of the University of California, San Francisco chancellor Susan D Desmond-Hellman was also listed as a highlight. Daily active users were 665 million on average for March 2013, up 26 percent year on year, while monthly active users were 1.11 billion as of 31 March 2013, up 23 percent from the same time last year. With the proliferation of smart devices, monthly active mobile users grew 751 million - or a boost of 54 percent compared to the same time last year. |
Posted: 02 May 2013 04:50 AM PDT The bankrupt Lehman Brothers is suing Intel, claiming that the chip company violated the terms of a collateral swap agreement. Days before Lehman filed for bankruptcy in 2008, Intel gave $1 billion to a derivatives unit of Lehman Brothers in exchange for 50.5 million Intel shares. According to Reuters, this was supposed to be delivered on 29 September, 2008. Lehman Brothers OTC Derivatives posted $1 billion in cash collateral to Intel as part of the agreement. The agreement said that Chipzilla would be compensated for losses in case of early termination of the deal. It gets complicated, but Intel claimed that Lehman was to deliver "$1 billion in Intel common stock," but Lehman said that the agreement was to deliver 50.5 million of Intel shares and it didn't matter how much they cost. The value of 50,552,943 shares of Intel common stock on 29 September, 2008 was about $873 million, not a billion bucks. Chipzilla then scrapped the agreement two weeks after the company's bankruptcy filing and took the entire $1 billion in collateral and has not bought it back. Lehman said "Intel breached the swap agreement". Needless to say Lehman is short of a bob or two and wants Intel to get cash back - and is seeking an unspecified amount. |
HTC posts another horrible quarter Posted: 02 May 2013 03:37 AM PDT HTC has released its Q1 earnings and they are as bleak as ever. Revenues were down 37 percent to $1.45 billion, while profits dropped to just $2.8 million. However, things are expected to get better, fast. HTC thinks it will rake in $2.4 billion in the current quarter, thanks to strong demand for its new flagship, the HTC One. That is 63 percent more than in Q1 based solely on the success of a single handset. Additionally, HTC is expected to introduce new low-end and mid-range devices over the next few months, including the M4, which is practically a mini version of the HTC One, sporting a 4.3-inch 720p screen and a dual-core processor. It should be noted that HTC missed its forecasts in the past on several occasions. This time around the positive vibe is backed by actual products. Sadly though, the HTC One was already delayed by several weeks due to component shortages and other problems. Now that it is on sale, it seems to be doing rather well, and many reviewers believe it has an edge over the Samsung Galaxy S4, its main competitor. HTC has also made it clear that it will ramp up marketing to fend off the onslaught of Samsung ads. Its new strategy seems to be working, creating plenty of buzz among geeks and average consumers alike. Besides, everybody likes to root for the underdog. |
Google dragged back to Parliament Posted: 02 May 2013 03:30 AM PDT British Parliament appears to be a little concerned that the search engine Google might not have been telling the whole truth the last time it showed up. The tech giant told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that it made sales to UK customers from offices based in the Dublin so that it did not have to pay much tax in the UK. At the November hearing, Google's European chief Matt Brittin told the committee that nobody in the UK sold anything, adding that the company employs "a couple of hundred" staff at its Europe headquarters in Dublin, who oversee sales to the UK. However, the outfit was discovered by Reuters journalists to have hired sales staff in London. Descriptions of jobs within the company, such as a role as sales search lead for Google subsidiary DoubleClick, outline responsibilities including "meeting or exceeding aggressive quarterly and annual sales targets". Job postings which include "closing strategic and revenue deals" and reaching "quarterly sales quotas" in their description were also uncovered. Director for external relations Peter Barron said Matt Brittin denied lying to the PAC. He pointed out that Google did comply with all the tax rules in the UK. But it did admit that the wording of some job adverts may have been confusing. His excuse was that staff in the UK were there to market the company as an advertising channel rather than to finalise any deals with customers. But Simon Andrews, founder of ad agency Addictive, which arranges advertisement campaigns for clients, told the International Business Times that his company always works with Google employees based in London. In fact, it appears that Google is a Dublin based operation only when it comes to the invoice. Needless to say, parliament is not happy that Google might have told porkies and wants to clear the matter up. Margaret Hodge, head of the PAC, said that it was about time the committee looked at Google's accounting practices again. She said that the committee will call back the Google executives to give them a chance to explain themselves and to ensure that what they said the first time around is not being economical with the truth. Google's accountants Ernst & Young will also be quizzed again. This is because John Dixon, head of tax policy at the auditor, told the committee that his staff toured its client offices to ensure they were complying with UK tax laws. Hodge said Dixon's evidence had been clear and unambiguous. Now Ernst & Young have questions to answer about whether they were being completely open with the committee. |
Intel talks up Iris 5xxx series integrated graphics Posted: 02 May 2013 02:43 AM PDT Intel is starting to talk up its next generation GPUs, dubbed Iris. The new GPU is set to debut in Haswell later this year and it seems to be quite a performer. In the mobile segment, the Iris 5100 GPU will replace the HD 4000, used in select Ivy Bridge chips. It is said to offer a twofold performance boost over the HD 4000, all in a notebook friendly thermal envelope with a 28W TDP. The 5000 core is reserved for Ultrabooks and it should appear in sub-15W parts. It is no slouch though - Intel says it is 1.5 times faster than the HD 4000.The 5200 is the fastest of the bunch. It is 2.5 times faster than the HD 4000, but it is reserved for high-TDP parts, north of 47W. However, it has an even faster sibling, reserved for desktops. The Iris Pro 5200 is about 3 times faster than the HD 4000.Iris is not the end of the road for HD Graphics parts, as they will still be used with low end Pentium and Celeron chips. At a glance, the performance gains are quite impressive and if Intel keeps it up, we’ll have to think of new Intel IGP jokes pretty soon. By offering twofold and threefold performance gains with each new generation, Intel is on track to catch up with AMD APU graphics within a couple of generations, if not less. In addition, the fast pace of Intel’s IGP development will put further pressure on Nvidia and AMD in the low end discrete graphics segment. |
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