Hasta La Gadget!

No huge surprise here, but the FCC just approved Comcast’s purchase of NBC Universal by a 4-1 vote. Details of the ruling aren’t out yet, but FCC chairman Julius Genachowski had been pushing for strong regulations forbidding Comcast from cutting itself sweetheart deals on NBC content or prioritizing its own video traffic on its pipes, so we’d assume that’s part of the agreement here. The only nay vote was from Commissioner Michael Copps, who said the deal “opens the door to the cable-ization of the open Internet.” Ouch. We’ll let you know when we find out exactly what the FCC’s actual conditions are — and keep in mind this deal won’t be wrapped until the Justice Department weighs in, which is expected to happen next week. Can we say it? Oh, we’re going to say it: stay tuned!

FCC approves Comcast’s purchase of NBC, Justice Department up next originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Jan 2011 14:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s been a year of Flash-related drama for Adobe, but otherwise it seems like things are humming along nicely: the company just posted its first-ever quarter with a billion dollars in revenue, which is good for a $268.9 million profit. Unfortunately there’s no granular data on how Flash is faring in the market — it’s lumped into the Creative Solutions group with the rest of the Creative Suite products, but with big wins on Android in the past year and a huge win on the Air-based BlackBerry Playbook coming next year, we’d say things are going well, no matter what Steve Jobs’ Thoughts are.

[Image credit: Ben Templesmith’s Flickr]

Adobe clocks first billion-dollar quarter ever, $268m profit originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 19:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For now, RIM’s looming mindshare problem is more theoretical than it is practical — as far as Wall Street’s concerned, at least — on today’s news that they’ve beaten the consensus estimates for fiscal Q3 revenue and income with $5.49 billion and $911.1 million, respectively. The company also shipped a record 14.2 million units in the three-month period, up a whopping 40 percent year-over-year, but subscriber additions fell a bit short — 5.1 million versus the 5.2 million that analysts had counted on. Interestingly, RIM has elected not to report adds anymore, which means they’re not offering guidance on adds for the next fiscal quarter, either — which certainly doesn’t seem like a good sign. Be that as it may, Waterloo’s confidence in its long-running leaders seems stronger than ever before, because co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis have just been made co-chairmen of the board… presumably just so they can crack jokes about running “dual-core” board meetings. Anyhow, they’re looking at revenue for the next quarter of $5.5 to $5.7 billion and earnings per share of $1.74 to $1.80, both of which outstrip estimates, on device sales of 14 million. Any PlayBooks in that figure, do you suppose?

RIM beats earnings estimates, falls just shy on subscriber growth; co-CEOs now co-chairmen, too originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 17:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Though it reported record growth in both revenue and subscriber count, Clearwire’s bad news outweighed the good as it announced its fourth quarter earnings today. Here’s the meat of it:

“The Company is actively pursuing a number of options to resolve its need for additional capital. The Company is in discussions with a number of its major shareholders and other third parties about a number of options, including potential strategic transactions, additional debt or equity financings and/or asset sales. While the Company is cautiously optimistic it will resolve its short-term funding needs in the near future, there can be no assurances. Thus, it is implementing a series of significant cash conservation measures to reduce costs, including: a substantial reduction in sales and marketing spending, a suspension of additional retail channel market launches of the CLEAR-branded operations in select markets including Denver and Miami, delays in the introduction of CLEAR-branded smartphones, a substantial reduction in the contractor workforce, a 15% reduction in the number of employees, and the discontinuation of development activities for sites not required for its current build plan. The Company currently has thousands of sites in various stages of planning and construction beyond its current build plan, and it intends to suspend zoning and permitting in a portion of those sites until such time as additional funding becomes available.”

Translation: they’re running low on cash, they’re looking for ways to raise more of it, and until they do, they aren’t launching those promised Clear-branded phones or opening any more retail locations. They’re also cutting staff by 15 percent, scaling back Clear marketing, and suspending network planning beyond stuff that’s already in the works — a pretty drastic step considering how much build-out Clearwire’s network still needs. Though Sprint depends heavily on Clearwire for its current WiMAX setup, it’s unclear whether Sprint would be willing to continue to dump cash into the partnership — particularly considering the recent rumors that they’re looking to reach out to other carriers — and Comcast has already gone on record saying they don’t see themselves turning into a Clearwire ATM.

Obviously, both Clearwire’s spectrum holdings and its infrastructure are extraordinarily valuable and we wouldn’t sound any alarms that Sprint’s WiMAX network is in any danger of disappearing, but we’re sure this is sounding some alarms at Sprint headquarters that it’s time to make some strategic moves. Should be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Clearwire reports Q4 earnings: staff, marketing, stores, and handset plans all scaled back originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Nov 2010 17:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As a whole, Motorola is no stranger to profit… thing is, Moto won’t be “whole” for much longer, and when the split happens, we’re sure it’d like all of its divisions to be profitable. The mobile unit, of course, has been the struggling one, trying to pull out of a multi-year post-RAZR nosedive under the leadership of CEO Sanjay Jha — and it looks like his all-in bet on Android is starting to pay off at the bank on today’s news that they’ve posted a non-GAAP operating profit of $3 million. Yes, sure, that’s razor-thin when you consider that they sold some $2 billion worth of phones — but these guys haven’t seen black ink in three years, so it’s definitely cause for celebration. Looking at the bigger picture, the entirety of Motorola posted non-GAAP earnings per share of 16 cents — handily beating the estimate of 10 to 12 cents — on sales of $5.8 billion. Not out of the woods yet, but certainly rolling toward the end of the year on a high note, we’d say.

Motorola’s mobile unit posts first operating profit in a long, long time originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Oct 2010 11:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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