Posts for 'Biotechnological' Category

Bill Gates said a teary goodbye on Friday to Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research), the software maker he built into the world's most valuable technology company based on the ambitious goal of placing a computer on every desk and in every home.

He leaves his full-time executive role at Microsoft, which he co-founded with childhood friend Paul Allen in 1975, to focus on his philanthropic organization, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest charity, funded in part by his vast fortune.

At an event at Microsoft's headquarters campus here, Gates, who will become a non-executive chairman and work part-time, joined Chief Executive Steve Ballmer on stage to deliver a short speech and field questions from employees.

"There won't be a day in my life that I'm not thinking about Microsoft and the great things that it's doing and wanting to help," said Gates, who wiped away tears as the group of employees rose to give him a standing ovation.

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Dell Inc. finally gave investors something to cheer about, as its first-quarter results showed that its cost-cutting efforts may be beginning to pay off, and strong notebook sales helped push profit and revenue above Wall Street's expectations.

Round Rock, Texas-based Dell's shares rose $1.25, or 5.7 percent, to $23.06 Friday. In the past 52 weeks, the stock has traded between $18.13 and $30.77.

Dell, once the world's largest computer maker, fell behind rival Hewlett-Packard Co. in 2006, though it still leads U.S. PC sales. But it was strength in Asia and other parts of the world that helped the company make up for the slumping U.S. market during the first quarter.

Still, analysts were cautious.

"Dell's next phase of cost cutting, i.e. move to products with lower design costs, carries significantly higher execution risk than recent headcount reductions," wrote Thomas Weisel Partners analyst Doug Reid in a note to investors.

The company cut about 7,000 jobs last year, though it added 2,700 through acquisitions. It is planning to cut costs by $3 billion by 2011.

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Microsoft Corp., the world's largest softwaremaker, asked a court to overturn or reduce a record $1.4 billion European Union fine for failing to comply with an antitrust ruling.

The appeal was filed at the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg, Microsoft spokesman Jesse Verstraete said. The company is attempting to seek clarity from the court, he said.

"There's a fairly good record of the court lowering fines the commission has made upon appeal," said Philip Marsden, a competition lawyer and senior research fellow at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, who isn't involved in the case. "It's the company's legal right to appeal such fines, particularly with respect to orders regarding compliance with such a controversial and vague set of requirements."

The European Commission, the EU's antitrust authority, fined the company Feb. 27 for failing to comply with a 2004 antitrust order. Under that decision, the EU ordered the softwaremaker to provide data to rivals to allow servers to connect to the Windows platform.

Carphone Warehouse will put its European and U.S. retail business, which operates from more than 2,400 stores, into the joint venture, in return for a cash payment of GBP1.1 billion from Best Buy.

The two companies said the deal aims to accelerate the development of Carphone Warehouse's retail business and to introduce Best Buy stores across Europe.

Carphone Warehouse is Europe's largest independent mobile-phone retailer by sales, while Best Buy is the largest electronics retailer in the U.S.

The pair already have a partnership whereby Carphone Warehouse operates out of Best Buy stores in the U.S.

Carphone Warehouse said it will use the proceeds of the deal to repay existing debt, invest in broadband customer growth and infrastructure and to invest in new areas of growth. Carphone Warehouse Chief Financial Officer Roger Taylor said the deal will be 10% to 15% earnings dilutive initially but despite the short-term hit to earnings will deliver long-term value for shareholders.

Analysts said the deal was a positive move which will reduce debt and free up capital to invest in the telecoms business. Landsbanki analyst Dan Gardiner said that based on earnings dilution of 10% to 15%, Carphone Warehouse's shares trade at 14 times estimated 2009 earnings which "still represents a significant premium to both the general retail and telecoms sector."

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Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, traveling through Asia, met Tuesday with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and championed his vision of the future of high tech and the Internet.

"We're approaching the second decade of (the) digital age," Gates told Lee at the start of their meeting at the presidential Blue House, according to a media pool report.

South Korean automakers Hyundai Motor Inc. and affiliate Kia Motors Corp. announced with Microsoft Tuesday that they will use Microsoft's in-car software for controlling personal music players and telephones with voice commands.

"We're doing some very interesting work on automobile software," Gates said after dining with Lee. "That's a really wide open area."

The three companies also plan to set up an automobile innovation center. Hyundai and Kia form the world's sixth-largest automotive group.

Separately, Microsoft also said Tuesday that it will invest $280 million in a new research and development center in Beijing and will double its full-time research staff in China to 3,000 people in three to five years.

Lee, a conservative former construction CEO, swept into office in February with a vow to boost economic growth through deregulation and increased foreign investment.

He named Gates to his global advisory committee on Tuesday.

The joint projects in South Korea announced during Gates' visit could trigger $6.9 billion in economic impact over the next five years, the Blue House statement quoted Gates as saying.

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Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer is weighing a fight to oust Yahoo! Inc.'s board and pave the way for a takeover, after the Internet company let his deadline pass without agreeing to a deal.

Ballmer gave Yahoo an ultimatum to accept a $44.6 billion bid by last weekend. Now he is left to decide whether to walk away or begin the company's first hostile takeover battle. If he fights, he has to consider if he should continue to hold firm on the price or offer a better deal to win over shareholders.

Microsoft, the world's biggest software maker, can't afford to let Yahoo go, said Sachin Shah, an analyst for ICAP Securities in Jersey City, New Jersey. To crack Google Inc.'s dominance of the Internet advertising market, Microsoft is looking to handle more Web searches, sell advertisements with more graphics and videos, and be able to target campaigns and track their success.

Microsoft does need Yahoo,'' said Shah, a merger-arbitrage analyst, in an interview with Bloomberg Television last week. ``If they didn't, they would have walked away a long time ago.''

Microsoft rose 20 cents to the equivalent of $30.03 at 9:45 a.m. in German trading, from the close of $29.83 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading April 25, a day after reporting sales of its Windows personal-computer software that missed analyst estimates.

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Complaints about Lasik eye surgery using lasers made by companies including Advanced Medical Optics Inc. and Alcon Inc. are a priority for U.S. regulators, a government official said today.

The Food and Drug Administration, working with doctors' groups and the National Eye Institute, plans to study how Lasik affects patients' quality of life no later than next year, Daniel Schultz, head of the agency's medical devices center, said today. Identifying why complications occur will help those considering Lasik make more educated choices, he said.

More than 12 million people in the U.S. have had Lasik to improve their vision since the procedure was approved in 1995, and 5 percent say they aren't satisfied with the results, according to the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery. Complications after surgery can include dry eye, blurriness and even loss of vision. The FDA got 140 reports of side effects with Lasik from 1998 to 2006.

``Clearly there is a group that aren't satisfied and don't get the results that they expect,'' Schultz told reporters on a conference call. Studying these patients ``is very, very high on the agency's priority list.''

Advanced Medical, of Santa Ana, California, fell 11 cents to $20.05 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading at 4:15 p.m. Alcon, the Hunenberg, Switzerland-based company selling a majority stake to Novartis AG, gained $1.62, or 1.1 percent, to $154.99.

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Google Inc. surged as much as 18 percent in European trading after profit trounced analysts' estimates, spurred by overseas growth and a bigger-than-predicted jump in the number of users clicking on text advertisements.

Google, owner of the most popular search engine, climbed as much as $80.48 to the equivalent of $530.02 in Germany, from the close of $449.54 in the U.S. yesterday. If the stock makes similar gains in regular U.S. trading today, it would be the biggest advance since the Mountain View, California-based company's initial public offering in August 2004.

International sales soared 55 percent, outpacing total growth and allaying concerns that Google is suffering from a U.S. economic slump. Excluding some costs, profit topped the average Wall Street estimate by 32 cents a share and beat predictions of all but one of the 26 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

``They have a very resilient model in any type of economy,'' said Steve Weinstein, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities in Portland, Oregon, who recommends buying the shares. ``They have strong exposure in the U.K., which had a strong first quarter. A lot of other parts of the world are early in their adoption of Internet advertising.''

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Yahoo Inc YHOO.O is looking to turn over Web search advertising to Google Inc GOOG.O following a successful test using Google's service to deliver ads alongside its Web search results, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed sources.

Spokesmen for Google and Yahoo declined to comment.

The possible partnership with Google would be part of an a bid by Yahoo to forge a three-way deal where Yahoo would merge with Time Warner Inc TWX.N AOL in return for Time Warner taking a stake in Yahoo, sources had told Reuters last week.

The move by Yahoo to outsource Web search advertising to market leader Google would allow Yahoo to focus on its online brand advertising business where it has a stronger position. Yahoo and Google announced the limited ad test a week ago.

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(Business Wire) Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE:PHG, AEX:PHI) and Funai Electric Co Ltd (TSE/OSE: 6839) of Japan today announced their intention to enter into a brand licensing agreement under which Funai will assume responsibility for the sourcing, distribution, marketing and sales of all Philips’ consumer television activities in the United States and Canada. The five-year minimum agreement takes effect September 1, 2008 and stipulates Philips will receive royalty payments in exchange for Funai’s right to exclusively use the Philips and Magnavox brand names for its consumer television offerings in North America during this period. This agreement secures continued presence of Philips and Magnavox branded TV’s in North America in a model that safeguards Philips profitability in this highly competitive market.

Philips today also announced that it will continue to take steps to improve the financial performance of its television operations by further optimizing its existing global supply base and focusing its TV business on its strongest markets, especially in Europe and in key emerging countries. To cover for the costs associated with these additional steps, and the costs associated with the transfer of the company’s North American TV activities to Funai, Philips will take total charges of up to EUR 125 million during 2008.

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