Microsoft

Apple overtakes Exxon Mobil to become world’s biggest company

by Kenny Hemphill on 11 August 2011 in News

Apple has passed oil giant, Exxon Mobil, to become the largest company in the world by market capitalisation. Having come close several times this week, Apple’s market capitalisation — it’s share price multiplied by the number of shares in circulation – closed at $337bn yesterday, $7bn more than that of Exxon Mobil.

Google accuses Apple of ‘hostile, organised campaign against Android’

by Kenny Hemphill on 4 August 2011 in News

Google has attacked Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle for imposing what it calls a patent ‘tax’ on Android customers.

In a post on the Official Google Blog, David Drummond, the company’s senior vice president and chief legal officer, said that Android’s success had ‘yielded something else: a hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents.’

Microsoft to buy Skype for $8.5billion

by Kenny Hemphill on 10 May 2011 in News

Microsoft will announce later today that it has bought IP telephony business, Skype, for $8.5 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The deal means that Skype will cost Microsoft more than three times the valuation its current owners placed on it after they acquired a 70% stake in the company from eBay in 2009. eBay bought Skype in 2005 for $2.6 billion with the intention of using its VoIP technology to help buyers and sellers talk to each other.

Death knell for the Wintel PC

by Kenny Hemphill on 10 February 2011 in Last Word

The breathlessly exciting, seemingly endless stream of announcements from the Consumer Electronics Show in January, detailing the latest in 3D TVs, me-too tablets and televisions that will run apps, may have caused you to miss the most significant development of all: the death of the Wintel PC.