Technology Markets News

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Lenovo Group, the world's fourth-largest PC maker, posted a 65 percent rise in quarterly earnings, the slowest growth in a year, as it copes with a U.S. slowdown and weaker Chinese demand after a devastating earthquake.

BEIJING - Lenovo Group Ltd., the world's No. 4 PC maker, said Thursday its quarterly profit rose 65 percent as strong sales in China and emerging economies offset weakness in the United States.

BROOKFIELD, Conn. - Photronics Inc., which makes photomasks used in manufacturing semiconductors and flat panel displays, lowered its guidance for the third quarter Wednesday on lower-than-expected revenues and a goodwill charge.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp plans to buy back as much as $20 billion of its stock to boost its flagging share price, Bloomberg News quoted a top-rated software analyst as saying.

Cisco Systems posted stronger-than-expected quarterly results and affirmed its long-term growth forecast, saying it expects the weak economic environment to be relatively short-term.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Cisco Systems Inc posted quarterly results that beat Wall Street forecasts and said it expected the weak economic environment to be relatively short term, sending its shares up 6 percent on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON - Synchronoss Technologies Inc. reported that its second-quarter earnings were cut in half due to a loss of revenue from its deal with AT&T Inc. to help support the Apple Inc. iPhone.

NEW YORK - Cisco Systems Inc. said Tuesday that sales would be weaker than analysts had forecast in the next few quarters, but investors who had expected worse were cheered.

FALLS CHURCH, Va. - Computer Sciences Corp. cashed in on rising demand for its technology consulting services to boost its fiscal first-quarter profit by 12 percent, topping analyst estimates.

NEW YORK - Cisco Systems Inc. expects revenue for its current quarter and the next one to fall below analyst estimates, due to the weak economy.

Intelligent Enterprise - Deal nets online profit optimization platform. New global practice will branch out from hotels to events, online advertising and other potential markets.

Update at 3:08 p.m. PDT, with Carl Icahn's appointment to the board and closing stock price.

SEOUL, South Korea - Hynix Semiconductor said Thursday it swung to a second-quarter net loss from the same period last year on costs to close a U.S. factory. Sales also fell.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Web content delivery company Akamai Technologies Inc. said Wednesday its second-quarter profit jumped 59 percent, but sales fell short of Wall Street's expectations, sending shares down sharply.

NEW YORK - Wall Street soared for the second straight day Wednesday, rallying in the last hour of trading after a rebound in financial stocks and optimism about private sector jobs.

SAN FRANCISCO - Thomson Reuters Corp. has overhauled its instant messaging service to avoid a communications breakdown that threatened to alienate brokerages and banks that rely on the system to complete stock trades and exchange other sensitive information.

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Influential US investor T. Boone Pickens told a major California newspaper that he has dumped millions of shares of Yahoo stock at a loss.

Two years after retiring from Microsoft, Peter Kurata decided to manage his own stock portfolio, dismayed by the performance of his financial adviser.

Dell announced its Studio Hybrid desktop Tuesday -- with an emphasis on small and stylish. The Round Rock, Texas, computer maker set a list price for the stock system at $499 with an Intel TZ390 dual-core processor.

TOKYO - Toshiba Corp. said Tuesday it swung to a net loss of $107.91 million (11.6 billion yen) in the April-June quarter due to a slump in semiconductor sales.

PLANO, Texas - Technology services company Electronic Data Systems Corp. said Monday its second-quarter profit and sales grew, boosted by robust contract signings that included centers for Medicare and Medicaid services.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Electronic Data Systems Corp , the second-largest technology outsourcing company, on Monday posted higher-than-expected quarterly earnings and said contract signings rose 27 percent from the year ago.

PERTH (Reuters) - Oil rose towards $124 a barrel on Monday, rebounding from a seven-week low, in what analysts said was technical buying and short-covering after recent declines left the market oversold.

Halfway through earnings season, banks are still a drag, tech firms are doing OK while the overall outlook remains cloudy.

InformationWeek - While instant messaging and e-mail are landing on more phones, text messaging will still garner 83% of all mobile messaging revenue in the next five years, ABI Research said.

Chartered Semiconductor expects to post a loss in the third quarter as falling average selling prices and high energy costs...

Southern California Edison is leading the way as utilities become the solar industry's largest customers, according to a report Wednesday by the Solar Electric Power Association, whose members include solar tech companies and more than 300 utilities.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Qualcomm Inc on Thursday raised its guidance for the full-year 2008 after announcing a legal settlement and a technology licensing agreement with Nokia (NOK1V.HE).

Microsoft has built its massive software business by watching other companies take the lead in emerging technology markets and...