Arthur Levinson
Google has announced that Arthur Levinson, the former CEO of Genentech has resigned, effective immediately, from Google’s Board of Directors. Levinson had been on the Google Board of Directors since 2004, and on the Apple Board of Directors since 2000, where he still remains.
Google CEO and Chairman Eric Schmidt described Levinson as a good friend and valued colleague. “Art has been a key part of Google’s success these past five years, offering unvarnished advice and vital counsel on every big issue and opportunity Google has faced,” Schmidt said. “Though he leaves as a member of our Board, Art will always have a special place at Google.”
“Working with Eric, Larry, Sergey and the whole Google team has been a remarkable experience for me. I greatly admire what they’ve built and have no doubt that Google has a terrific future,” said Levinson.
Levinson’s position on both companies’ Board had helped fuel the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) investigation, looking into the increasing competition between the companies. Google CEO Eric Schmidt resigned in August for the same reason: Mounting competition between the two companies.
Now that both men have resigned the FTC has agreed to drop the investigation, as now the the two companies have no high profile internal ties to each other.
NYTimes:
Jon Leibowitz, the chairman of the trade commission, praised the decision by Mr. Levinson and the companies. “Google, Apple, and Mr. Levinson should be commended for recognizing that overlapping board members between competing companies raise serious antitrust issues and for their willingness to resolve our concerns without the need for litigation,” Mr. Leibowitz said in a statement. “Beyond this matter, we will continue to monitor companies that share board members and take enforcement actions where appropriate.”
Both Apple and Skype have issued statements in the wake of AT&T’s announcement, that the company would begin allowing VoIP to be used on the iPhone via their 3G network.
The AP is reporting that Apple will be working quickly as to allow iPhone customers to take advantage of this new feature.
Apple welcomed the announcement. “We are very happy that AT&T is now supporting VOIP applications,” said Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris. “We will be amending our developer agreements to get VOIP apps on the App Store and in customers’ hands as soon as possible.”
On the other side of this story, Skype president Josh Silverman was equally excited about the announcement, now Skype’s iPhone application can now support the 3G network, and not just WIFI as it does now.
All of us at Skype applaud today’s announcement by AT&T (in an FCC filing to be published shortly – update, it’s here in PDF format) that it’ll open up its 3G network to Internet calling applications such as Skype. It’s the right step for AT&T, Apple, millions of mobile Skype users and the Internet itself.
Excellent. I don’t know why AT&T didn’t allow this in the first place, users still have to have a cellular data plan to use this away from a WIFI hotspot, and that means you have to pay AT&T for that. The only thing I can guess, is that AT&T was afraid this feature would bog down the network even more than it already is, and that is something they can’t afford right now.
The Washington Post is reporting that Apple has resigned its membership from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The stated reason for Apple’s departure is the Chamber’s existing stance on climate legislation. Better yet, Apple Vice President of Worldwide Government Affairs, Catherine A. Novelli, sent Apple’s letter of resignation to Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas J. Donohue.
Apple is committeed to protecting the environment and the communities in which we operate around the world. We strongly object to the Chamber’s recent comments opposing the EPA’s effort to limit greenhouse gases.
Apple supports regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and it is frustrating to find the Chamber at odds with us in this effort. We would prefer that the Chamber take a more progressive stance on this critical issue and play a construtive role in addressing the climate crisis. However, because the Chamber’s position differs so sharply with Apple’s, we have decided to resign our membership effective immediately.
You can find the Chamber of Commerce’s stance on climate legeslation here and in a press release here.
Not shockingly, Apple is not the first company to resign from the Chamber, others such as California’s Pacific Gas and Electric Co. have similarly resigned. This announcement comes only days after Apple publicly released it’s environmental initiative documentation.
All Things Digital is reporting that Apple has 32% share of the Cellphone industry’s operating profits for the first half of 2009. This information comes from Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi. Mr. Sacconaghi goes on to state that this spectacular profit share is due to the fact that the iPhone has a high margins, and average selling price. The iPhone only accounts for 8% of industry revenue and less than 2% of industry wide unit sales.
“Our analysis indicates that Apple’s iPhone accounted for only 8% of handset industry revenues but 32% of industry operating profits in 1H09,” Sacconaghi wrote in a note to clients today. “Even if we exclude the operating losses generated by Motorola and Sony Ericsson, Apple still accounted for 25% of industry profits. iPhone’s success is akin to Apple?s position in the PC industry?where the company enjoys an estimated 25% of industry profits, despite capturing only 6% of industry revenues.”
What a ride. The Wall Street Journal has since issued a “Clarification” on their previous report that Apple is planning on attending CES 2010.
WSJ:
“Clarification: Apple has not made any plans to attend CES 2010.
Correction: It is not clear whether Apple will attend the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show. This post previously stated that Apple would attend.”
Back on earth this mean that Apple probably isn’t going to show up at CES 2010. Engadget goes the extra mile:
Unfortunately, it’s also specious and flatly wrong. I was seated directly across from Gary, and present for the entire conversation, wherein a dozen or so other journos chatted with him and one another. […] At no point did Gary even remotely imply that Apple would be present at a future CES — let alone state flatly that Apple “will be there” in 2010. In fact, at one point, someone asked if, hypothetically, Apple did want to attend CES, whether the CEA could accommodate them. Gary said flatly that if pressed, they might be able to come up with a small 2,000 square foot booth, but they couldn’t do anything, say, Microsoft-sized on such short notice.
The Gary mentioned in the above quote is Gary Shapiro, the CEO of the CEA, the trade group that puts on CES.
With all of this said and done, the only nugget of truth in this whole story is that Steve Jobs was asked to speak at CES, but has yet to respond.
So someone jumped the gun at The Wall Street Journal and got everyone all excited. Did no one learn from the last time?
AppleInsider is reporting that Apple is wrapping up development on the rumored tablet device, which they are expecting to ship in early 2010. The report tells of some of the development issues the device experienced, and how Apple redesigned the device multiple times until it met the companies high standards.
The 10-inch, 3G-enabled tablet, akin to a jumbo iPod touch, is the latest brainchild of chief executive Steve Jobs. That distinction, as insiders will tell you, carries its share of baggage. Under the critical eye of Jobs, contours must be precise, each pixel of the interface has to match a particular vision, and there can be no fault — no matter how slight — or it’s back to the drawing board.
As such, AppleInsider has observed silently as the project was reset at least a half-dozen times over the past 24 months. Each time, development was frozen and key aspects of the device rethought, retooled and repositioned. At times, those close to the Apple co-founder had their doubts that it would ever see the light of day, just like a smaller PDA device he canned a few years after returning to the company.
This report also suggests that the main reason for the delays were decisions on the device’s processor. Apple was initially going to use Intel’s ATOM chips in the device, but quickly found that these chips wouldn’t give Apple the battery life they wanted. According to sources, this was ultimately why Apple bought P.A. Semi in early 2008. This allowed Apple to use their own ARM based chip designs in the device, bringing performance up to standards.
Mockup courtesy of AppleInsider.
Scott Moritz of The Street is reporting that Apple is planning to release the long-rumored “Tablet” later this year “in time for the holidays”. Apple is still working on a sales model for the device, but it is believed that the device will be subsidized by Verizon. This partnership would lock customers into a multi-year data plan while lowering the upfront cost of the device to customers, which is expected to be pricy.
An initial version of the long-anticipated Apple tablet will be subsidized by Verizon, but Apple and Verizon “won’t be as tightly integrated” as Apple’s iPhone exclusivity deal with AT&T, says one source familiar with the companies, who asked not to be named.
The notion that this device would require a subsidy would certainly fall in line with Apple’s statements that they can’t provide a quality product for $399-$499. That said, the subsidy from Verizon wouldn’t be as much as it would for smartphones, because a data-only plan doesn’t demand the same amount of money from customers each month as a data/cell plan does.
Now, as for my opinion (you know you want it). I don’t buy this for a second. Moritz has an OK reputation for correctly guessing Apple’s next move, but the problem I have with this story is the Verizon bit. Apple has said at one of their previous financial conference calls, that they liked the job AT&T was doing, besides they have a contract with them until 2010 tying the iPhone to AT&T at least that long, with rumors of extending it. So, if I were a betting man, I would wager Apple goes with AT&T if this device requires a data plan.
As for the device itself, I don’t expect it before 2010. That is what most of the rumors are pointing to. That said, a holiday release would be a very logical move for Apple. I do now believe this mythical device exists, somewhere at Apple.
Lastly TheStreet.com is a rag. The site’s owner, Jim Cramer, uses it and his Mad Money TV show to manipulate stock prices through deception. So, anything that comes from here has a strong possibility of being bunk.
Apple has announced profits of $1.23 Billion for Q3 2009. Apple stated they had $8.34 billion in revenue and net quarterly profit of $1.23 billion, or $1.35 per diluted share. Compare this to the year-ago quarter results of $7.46 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.07 billion, or $1.19 per diluted share, and you see a substantial jump.
All of this money was generated from Apple shipping 2.6 million Macintosh computers (a 4% increase over the year-ago quarter), 10.2 million iPods (7% decline from year-ago quarter), and 5.2 million iPhones (a massive 626% increase over last year).
“We’re making our most innovative products ever and our customers are responding,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’re thrilled to have sold over 5.2 million iPhones during the quarter and users have downloaded more than 1.5 billion applications from our App Store in its first year.”
Apple expects total revenue of $8.7 billion to $8.9 billion and earnings per diluted share of $1.18 to $1.23, for fiscal quarter 4 of 2009.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting (redirected to get around the pay wall) research from Deutsche Bank analyst Brian Modoff is showing that Apple along with Research in Motion (RIM) jointly accounted for about 35% of the entire cellphone industry’s total operating profit in 2008 while only garnering 3% of worldwide unit sales. Apple grabbed 20% of the profit, while holding little more than 1% of unit market share.
Modoff goes on to estimate that Apple and RIM will garner 5% unit market share in 2009 while sharing 58% of the total industry profit.
I think John Gruber summed up Apple’s approach to any market they enter rather nicely on Daring Fireball.
This is the same route Apple has chosen with the Mac: an emphasis on profit share rather than unit sale share.
These are simply amazing numbers for both companies, and I think we’ll see these numbers continue to as more and more people decide they want a more sophisticated phone.
Image courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
CNBC is reporting that Steve Jobs is back to work at Apple. The report is backed by several sightings of Jobs by Apple employees. Here’s an excerpt:
“Meantime, we still await official word from Apple, but employees are confirming this. The news is solid. Jobs is back in the house, at least for today.”
This falls right in line with Jobs’ statement that he would return at the end of June. Although, he may only be returning part-time.
I would suspect an Apple press release any day now. That is, if he has actually returned, and wasn’t there for some other reason.
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