Apple Gains Share Across Markets

Apple reported yet another strong quarter this week driven by the success of its new products, the iPad and the iPhone 4. Despite the criticism of the newest iPhone’s antenna design, Apple reports that there has not been any decline in the demand for the phone and issued a strong forecast. Apple has cannibalized the gadget industry with its products: Macs, iPods, iPhones, and now iPads. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

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IBM’s Acquisition Strategy

This week, IBM (NYSE:IBM) reported a mixed second quarter by beating bottom-line estimates but missing the top-line sales estimate. Earlier this month, Big Blue announced its plans to acquire BigFix, a network management and security specialist. In the recent quarter, IBM announced two more acquisitions: Cast Iron, a cloud computing integration company, and Coremetrics, a developer of business analytics software. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

Google Acknowledges Need To Enhance Search

After years of ignoring context-sensitive search in major vertical categories, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) finally entered vertical search within the travel domain earlier this month with a bang. It acquired ITA Software, the Boston-based specialist in organizing airline data, flight times, seat availability, and pricing, for $700 million. While the move is sure to be subject to scrutiny by antitrust enforcers, it was long overdue. >>>

Intel In The Price War Era

Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) just reported the best quarter in its history with a record profit of $2.9 billion driven by the boost in corporate PC buying. Intel has been eyeing the smartphone microprocessor market, which is dominated by ARM. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

Red Hat And NetApp Reap Cloud Computing Momentum

According to Gartner, 2010 IT spending on cloud computing is expected to increase 17% over the year to $68.3 billion. By 2014, that number is expected to grow to $148.8 billion. The open source leader Red Hat (NASDAQ:RHT) is already benefiting from the addition of a virtualization layer to its software products with giants such as IBM and Google using Linux for their cloud computing products and online software applications. >>>

Apple Showers Riches On Component Vendors

The iSuppli teardown analysis of the iPhone 4 is out. It estimates the bill of materials (BOM) on a $600 16GB iPhone 4 to be $187.51. That is a fat profit margin of more than 60% for Apple. Samsung, Infineon, Broadcom, and LG Display are the major beneficiaries in the supply chain. This estimate does not include manufacturing, software, and royalty expenses. But according to David Barboza of the New York Times, manufacturing and assembly costs account for just 7% of the overall cost. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

Electronic Arts On Digital Gear

A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers report for 2010–14 predicts the global entertainment and media (E&M) market to grow 5% annually to $1.7 trillion by 2014, with the U.S. market to grow 3.8% annually to $517 billion in 2014 from $428 billion in 2009. Globally, the online and wireless video game market will grow 10.6%, compounded from $52.5 billion in 2009 to $86.8 billion in 2014, making it the second-fastest-growing segment of E&M behind wired/mobile Internet advertising. >>>

Online University Sector Booming

A recent study by the Lumina Foundation projects that the United States needs to add a million graduate students a year for the next 16 years if it wishes to remain a competitive nation. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that in the coming 10 years, jobs requiring higher education will be among the fastest growing jobs in the country. The need for higher education is also being supported by the Obama administration, which talks about three important education goals: first, to have every American receive at least one full year of a college education; second, to have the highest graduation rate among developed countries by 2020; and third, to encourage lifelong learning. Many Americans are in fact going back to school. Further, as 73% of the present student population is now “non-traditional,” according to the Department of Education, these students are juggling other responsibilities, suggesting that the demand for online education will continue to grow. >>>

Micron And NSM In Acquisition Mode

Chipmakers Micron (NYSE:MU) and National Semiconductor (NYSE:NSM) have been in acquisition mode. Micron acquired NOR flash maker Numonyx for $1.27 billion while National Semi recently acquired fabless chipmaker GTronix for an undisclosed sum. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

EDA Consolidation Continues

The EDA Consortium recently announced a second consecutive quarter of sequential revenue growth for overall electronic design automation (EDA) revenues. For Q4 2009, EDA industry revenues of $1.26 billion grew 8.1% over the quarter while declining 4.2% over the year. The consortium noted that the biggest upticks came in the categories of CAE, IC Physical Design, and semiconductor intellectual property (IP). >>>