Google to Report After Market Close Today

Shawshank, VA 10/13/2011 (PennyPayDay) – Analysts expect Google to deliver solid financial results in the recently ended quarter, with revenue up more than 30 percent year-on-year at $7.21 billion.

But the darkening economic picture is raising concerns that advertisers could pull back on spending in the months ahead, cutting into revenue and profit margins at Google, which derived 96 percent of its revenue last year from advertising.

"We'll see some of those concerns if we start to see pricing come down a little bit," said Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Herman Leung, referring to the cost per click that Google charges advertisers.

Still, he noted that Google's online search advertising should fare better than other types of ad businesses in a slowing economy.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S expect Google to post earnings of $8.74 per share, excluding certain items, during the third quarter.

Google has been on a spending spree for the past year, boosting its headcount and acquiring dozens of companies as it seeks to counter competitive pressure from the likes of Facebook and Apple Inc.

In August, Google announced plans to acquire mobile phone vendor Motorola Mobility Holdings for $12.5 billion. The deal, which Google expects to close late this year or early 2012, will give it one of the wireless industry's largest patent libraries, as well as hardware manufacturing operations that will allow Google to develop its own line of smartphones.

But analysts and investors worry that Google is entering a low-margin business in which it has no experience. A move to build its own phones could also jeopardize support for Google's free Android mobile software from other phone manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics and HTC Corp.

Google's stock is down 2.7 percent since mid-August when it announced plans to acquire Motorola, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up roughly 2.2 percent during that time.

Investors are eager for more details about Google's mobile strategy, as well as for an update on the health of its mobile advertising and its online display advertising.

Google does not disclose results for either of those businesses, although it provided investors with a peek in the third quarter of 2010. The company said at the time that its mobile business was generating revenue at a $1 billion annual run rate and that its display business was generating revenue at a $2.5 billion run rate.

Google's recently launched social networking service, Google+, is also on investor radars. Its effort to challenge Facebook's dominance in the red-hot social networking market got off to a fast start in June, collecting 10 million users in the first two weeks.

But Google has not provided an update on the service since then, and some media reports have suggested that user interest in the service is flagging.

Google will report its third-quarter results after the market closes on Thursday.

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LargeCap Stocks to Keep an Eye on Today

Tomahawk, WI 8/15/2011 (PennyPayDay) – Internet search giant Google has reached a deal to buy Motorola Mobility for $40 a share, or about $12.5 billion.

Google shares were tumbling 2.5% to $549.50 and Motorola Mobility shares were surging 60.2% to $39.21 in premarket trading Monday.

Lowe's said second-quarter earnings "fell short" of its expectations.

Lowe's, the No. 2 home-improvement retailer behind Home Depot, earned $830 million, or 64 cents a share, including a charge of 4 cents a share for store closings in the second quarter, compared with $832 million, or 58 cents a share, a year earlier.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected Lowe's to earn 66 cents a share.

For the fiscal year ending February 2012, the company expects earnings of $1.48 to $1.54 a share, including about 6 cents a share from impairment and store closing costs. Analysts expect fiscal-year earnings of $1.61 a share.

Shares were slumping 3.9% to $18.75.

National Oilwell Varco signed contracts valued at about $1.5 billion to supply drilling equipment packages for seven drillships to Brazil's Estaleiro Atlantico Sul.

Shares were popping 2.2% to $68.27.

Time Warner Cable is in advanced talks to buy Insight Communications for about $3 billion, Bloomberg reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

Shares were up 0.7% to $65.98.

Wal-Mart is expected to report second-quarter profit of $1.08 a share Tuesday vs. 97 cents a share a year ago.

The discount giant, which prides itself on its motto of "Save Money, Live Better," appears to have lost its price perception among consumers. According to a survey conducted by WSL Strategic Retail, 86% of Wal-Mart shoppers no longer believe that the retailer has the lowest prices.

Shares were up 0.4% to $49.95.

Offshore contract drilling services company Transocean reached a deal to buy Aker Drilling, a Norwegian drilling contractor, for $1.43 billion.

Shares were flat at $55.63.

ConAgra has implied it could accelerate its pursuit of Ralcorp, after the U.S. food group suffered a third rejection by its quarry of its proposal -- improved to $5.2 billion -- to buy the company.

Investment management firm Relational Investors increased its stake in life insurer MetLife by about 9.4 million shares to11.6 million shares.

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iPad2 versus Xoom

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled iPad's new avatar, the iPad 2, an evolution rather than a revolution -- slimmer, lighter and faster. In pre-market trading, Apple was up 1 percent at $355.70 per share on volume of more than 115,000 shares.

CNET reported that Jobs made no bones about the success of its tablet strategy and with much chutzpah claimed: "We sold almost 15 million iPads in 2010. And remember that's just nine months. That's April through September. That's more than every tablet PC ever sold. The tablet PC crashed and burned. The modern tablet PC is the iPad."

Motorola had a brief period of glory. While the Android 3.0 enthusiasts were still waxing eloquent about the powerful tablet Xoom, Apple is here to put an end to it. Does Apple iPad 2 have all features it takes to the Android champion? In pre-market trading,

iPad 2 runs on the latest version of Apple's OS iOS 4.3 while Motorola Xoom runs on the latest edition of Android the Gingerbread or Android 3.0 specifically crafted for tablets. The iOS 4.3 brings a faster Safari browser experience, enhancements to AirPlay and new iTunes Home Sharing feature which Engadet reported enables users to play content stored in desktop over WiFi. While the Android 3.0 core strength is that it offers great multi-tasking for apps.

Apple has maintained the same display size as its earlier iPad at 9.7-inch which Apple CEO Steve Jobs has often called the optimum form factor for a tablet. iPad 2 has a screen resolution of 1024x768. On this front, Xoom beats iPad 2, with a 10.1-inch screen and 1280x800 screen resolution.

Apple has dramatically reduced the weight of the iPad 2 and is touted to be 33 percent thinner and 15 percent lighter than the older iPad. It weighs 1.3 pounds and is 0.34 inches thin while the Xoom with its 10.1-inch frame weighs 1.6 pounds and is 0.5 inch thin. iPad 2 scores on this front making it a much more suitable option in the eReader category. By shedding pounds it can now offer stiff competition to Kindle and Nook as well.

iPad 2 sports a new A5 dual-core 1GHz processor which is capable of taking on the Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core chip that Xoom sports. In fact Engadget described its experience with iPad 2 as being "insanely fast".

iPad 2 comes in three memory variants 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB while Motorola Xoom comes in only 32GB format. Xoom sports 1 GB in RAM and while Apple has not revealed its RAM specification but it is "blazingly fast."

Apple has added two cameras in iPad 2 to take on Xoom's rear-facing 5 MP cameras and 2MP front-facing camera. Apple has not revealed the specifications of the camera but has confirmed that the front-facing camera is a VGA camera which will bring FaceTime and PhotoBooth features for users. Also both iPad 2 and Motorola Xoom offer 720p video capture and 720p native video playback support.

iPad 2 offers Accelerometer, Gyroscope and Ambient light sensors for developers while Xoom is loaded with sensor as it sports an Accelerometer, Magnetometer, Ambient light sensor, Gyroscope and Barometer.

Apple iPad 2 may have just scored over Motorola Xoom with its new slim and light form. However, it also scores with its pricing as it starts with $499 for a 16GB WiFi model and goes all the way to $829 for a 64GB WiFi +3G model. Motorola Xoom comes at $799 without a contract and at $599 with a two-year contract. The closest model to Xoom, the iPad 2 with 32 GB internal memory and Wi-Fi and 3G costs $729.

iPad 2 will be available from March 11 and its newly introduced apps for iPad 2, iMovie and GarageBand will be available on March 11 for $4.99 each.

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Google Unveils Its Own iPad

Google Mobile Platform vice president Andy Rubin literally arrived with a bag full of tricks at the D: Get Into Mobile Conference, showing publicly for the very first time an Android "Honeycomb" tablet.

The roughly 10-inch Motorola device was sleek, black, thin, and sported an Android interface unlike any we've seen before. There was a very clean homepage, but the app page looked almost Apple iPad-like. Plus, when Rubin brought up the Gmail app, it looked almost exactly like Gmail on the iPad.

Rubin didn't offer my many spec details on the tablet, which he joked would cost $10,000, but he did say it was running an Nvidia dual core CPU (presumably a Tegra).

Mostly, Rubin showed off an upcoming version of Google Maps for Android (which should release "within days"). It adds a new vector-based map drawing system, which appeared to improve speed and map flexibility. As Rubin manipulated the map with his fingers, it changed from a flat map to a three-dimensional outline of the roads and buildings.

In general, Rubin said he believes tablets "represent a fundamental change in the way computing works." By allowing users to interact with them physically, tablets have, Rubin explained, "removed a degree of abstraction."

Honeycomb should release sometime next year and most major OEMs planning on building Android tablets have expressed interest in using this version of the Android platform—which Rubin said is built for tablets. He did, however, say that Honeycomb adds APIs called fragments that allow one app to hold multiple views for different platforms (phones and tablets).

Rubin also showed off the recently unveiled Google Nexus S. Like the Nexus One, the S is a "pure Android, pure Google phone." It's available at Best Buy for $199 with a T-Mobile contract and $529 unlocked. Google is not trying to sell the Nexus S on its own. Rubin admitted that with the Nexus One and Google online retail store, the company "bit off more than it could chew," and realized that instead of trying to negotiate deals with every carrier in every language, their resources could be better used elsewhere.

Rubin literally waved around the small black phone to show off its new gyroscope. He also demonstrated the Nexus S's new Near Field Communication capabilities. Built on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), this is the first Android phone to natively support NFC. Since NFC support is actually part of Gingerbread, Rubin expects to see many more phones offering the technology. To demonstrate how it works, Rubin held the back of the phone (which has an NFC antenna embedded in the back of its case) against a special card. It read the code in the card, which led the phone to a URL and a video, which then played on the phone's large screen.

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Lawsuits Galour Between Big Tech Stocks

Motorola Inc. said Wednesday that its subsidiary Motorola Mobility Inc. has sued Microsoft Corp. for alleged patent infringement, in the latest legal volley over intellectual property fired between technology giants.

Motorola said in a statement that it has sued in federal court in Wisconsin and Florida, alleging the infringement of sixteen patents by Microsoft’s personal-computer, server, mobile phone and video game console software.

Motorola’s lawsuits come shortly after Microsoft filed its own lawsuits against the Schaumburg, Ill.-based mobile handset maker, for alleged patent infringement related to mobile phone software, and for alleged unreasonable royalty demands for intellectual property used by Microsoft in its Xbox video game console.

“It is unfortunate... that Microsoft has chosen the litigation path rather than entering into comprehensive licensing negotiations,” Motorola Mobility corporate vice president of intellectual property Kirk Dailey said in a statement.

“Motorola’s R&D and intellectual property are of great importance to the Company and are renowned worldwide. We are committed to protecting the interests of our shareholders, customers and other stakeholders and are bringing this action against Microsoft,” Dailey said.

Motorola’s lawsuits are only the latest in a string of intellectual property-related litigation in the technology industry.

Motorola has also sued Apple Inc. for allegedly infringing on its patents in Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices.

Meanwhile Oracle Corp. has sued Google Inc. for alleged patent infringement in Google’s Android mobile phone software.

And earlier this year, Apple sued mobile phone maker HTC Corp., alleging that it has infringed on several patents related to touch-screen control and other phone functions