InternetSun's Near Term Outlook is not too Bright
Heavily reliant on the ailing U.S. economy for sales, the company gives weak guidance for its upcoming fiscal year.
Sun Microsystems tried to put the best spin it could on a 73 percent drop in profit for the most recent quarter, but investors and analysts aren't buying it as the company's stock was hammered throughout the day. The server and storage vendor took the unusual task of announcing its fourth quarter and year-end numbers before the open of the market, and held the conference call at 5 am Pacific time. Sun (NASDAQ: JAVA) earned $88 million, or 11 cents per share, in the fourth quarter of its fiscal year ended June 30, 2008. That's quite a drop from the $329 million, or 36 cents per share, it reported in the June 30, 2007 quarter. Analysts had been expecting 25 cents per share of profit. Sales were $3.78 billion, a one percent decline from $3.84 billion last year. That was in line with analyst estimates. For the full 2008 fiscal year, Sun earned $403 million on $13.9 billion in sales. RELATED ARTICLES Sun Stock Dims on Weak Fiscal Q3 Sun Announces Niagara 2 Servers For more stories on this topic: Like he did last quarter, CEO Jonathan Schwartz said the problem was due to weakness in the U.S. offsetting growth around the world. Around 40 percent of Sun's business is in the U.S., compared with around 20 percent for Intel and IBM. Sun's U.S. sales were off by eight percent year-over-year. "There's no question the challenging U.S. macroeconomic environment has hindered our ability to grow the top line, and... [ Read more on www.internetnews.com ]
InternetU.S. lawmakers query Internet firms on ad targeting (Reuters)
Reuters - U.S. lawmakers are questioning the biggest U.S. Internet companies about whether they track their customers' visits online and use the information to tailor Internet advertisements for them.
InternetYahoo Board Faces Down Critics
UPDATED: While some shareholders took issue with Yahoo's recent decisions, its leaders stood fast -- though they said they're still puzzled why Microsoft walked away.