The Great Debate UK
Why we are not witnessing a tech boom
By Kathleen Brooks. The opinions expressed are her own.
The words ‘tech bubble’ have been bandied about since the Apple share price really started to climb at the end of 2011. Earlier this month, its market capitalisation hit $600 billion dollars, only the second company to see its market cap get that high. So it appears like everyone wants a bite out of the proverbial apple.
There is a dangerous precedent for markets’ believing that tech stocks can only go in one direction. The dotcom bubble back in 2000 caused havoc in the equity markets and also contributed to the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates incredibly low, one of the contributing factors to the housing crisis in 2007.
Added to this, the only other company to have registered a $600 billion market cap was Microsoft at the height of the tech boom. Today Microsoft is worth about a third of that value. So does Apple need to watch out?
We have seen the Apple share price fall quite sharply in recent days, it is down 7 percent since last week. However, it has followed the overall market lower and thus the decline may not be people getting nervous about holding Apple stock, but rather some profit-taking and a normal correction. While we certainly don’t expect Apple to continue to appreciate at the pace it has of late, good profit growth, surging sales and plenty of opportunity to expand its retail operation across the developed and developing world could help prop up the share price even at these levels.
from Breakingviews:
Microsoft ought to kick off search for Bing buyer
By Robert Cyran
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
NEW YORK -- Microsoft needs to concentrate on a different kind of search: finding a buyer for Bing, its online search business. The industry's distant number two is a distraction for the software giant -- and one that costs shareholders dearly. The division that houses Bing lost $2.6 billion in the latest fiscal year. Facebook, or even Apple, might make a better home for Bing. And a sale would be a boon for Microsoft's investors.
from Breakingviews:
Google’s innovation engine sputtering big time
By Rob Cox and Robert Cyran
The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions expressed are their own.
NEW YORK -- With an optimistic spreadsheet and a lot of creativity there just might be a way to rationalize the $6 billion or so that Google is expected to shell out on Groupon. Yet making the numbers work on the search giant's purchase of the coupon website may not matter over the longer term. The bigger lesson to draw from what would be Google's biggest-ever deal is that the company's reign as the Internet's innovation king is ending.
from Reuters Investigates:
Sleepy in Seattle — the future of Microsoft
The world's biggest software maker once inspired fear in tech land. Today it's mostly yawns. Is Microsoft no longer a growth company? Should Google be nervous, too? And are Steve Ballmer's days at the helm numbered?
Seattle correspondent Bill Rigby's special report has some answers.
from The Great Debate:
Microsoft learns to love leverage
If you thought the era of better living through financial engineering died with Lehman Brothers, have a look at Microsoft.
The ubiquitous computer software company has decided to borrow as much as $6 billion at the same time as it is increasing its dividend by 23 percent, despite sitting on a $36.8 billion cash hoard and generating more every day.
Thinking outside the budget-shaped box
- Dave Coplin is national technology editor at Microsoft UK. The opinions expressed are his own.-
The emergency budget was announced recently as a means to tackle the country’s deficit and Britain’s current economic situation.
Is a hybrid model an answer for British businesses?
-Dave Coplin is national technology officer at Microsoft. Any opinions expressed are his own.-
The British economy may technically be out of recession, but it is still not creating the jobs and growth needed to turn back the clock to the upbeat days of the past. And with a looming fiscal crisis, it’s not hard to see why some commentators are predicting the terminal decline of the British economy. I don’t think the situation for Britain is dire — yet. But if businesses want to regenerate economic engines in the future they do need to change.
Microsoft bets on Windows 7 heaven
-Matthew Bath is technology editor at Which? The opinions expressed are his own.-
Microsoft’s Windows operating system has been frustrating and delighting computer users in almost equal measure since it was first debuted by the software giant first in 1985. Fast forward through nearly a quarter of a century of powering the majority of the world’s personal computers, and Windows is about to hit another milestone.
from The Great Debate:
Forget Microsoft, Yahoo’s value is overseas
-- Eric Auchard is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own --
The fate of Yahoo Inc has become intertwined in the public's imagination with the success or failure of its dealings with Microsoft Corp in recent years.
That's despite the fact that as much as 70 percent of the value investors put on Yahoo's depressed shares are tied up in its international assets or cash holdings -- factors that have nothing to do with Microsoft.
from Commentaries:
Apple-Google learn Corporate Governance 1.0
LONDON, Aug 3 (Reuters) - The resignation of Google CEO Eric Schmidt from Apple's board should come as no surprise to anyone with an inkling of what corporate governance means.
But then Silicon Valley's idea of corporate boards has long consisted of cozy, interlocking directorships which would be considered collusion in most other industries.
