The tech sector appears to be going about business as usual in the face of the U.S. federal government shutdown, but some industry insiders are nervous about a long-term stoppage or, even worse, the possibility of a debt default if a political compromise on the budget is not reached.
Several recent IPOs and eBay's US$800 million cash offer for payments startup BrainTree this week highlight what looks like a burgeoning market for tech initial public offerings and mergers and acquisitions.
Enterprise tech companies including Oracle this week started reporting financial results that cover at least part of the third calendar quarter, and so far, the trends look mildly promising compared to last quarter.
Even before Twitter's initial public offering announcement grabbed the spotlight Thursday, the market for tech IPOs had been heating up thanks to a general rise in stocks.
With the U.S. Labor Day holiday marking the unofficial end of summer on the markets, tech stocks got off to a fairly positive start in the new season as several major deals and the mobile phone market came under especially intense scrutiny.
Heading into the heart of hurricane season 10 months after Sandy slammed the New York metropolitan area, Wall Street has had time to reassess and revamp backup plans.
Though earnings from some tech vendors brightened up a week of tepid market reports, shares of IT companies broadly declined Friday along with the rest of the market.
A rebound for IBM failed to materialise in the second quarter, as profit and sales declined along with a slump in revenue from hardware and services.
Apple appears to face an uphill battle as it goes to trial Monday in New York on e-book price fixing charges brought by the U.S. government.
Hewlett-Packard is taking an $8.8 billion charge as a result of what it called serious accounting improprieties that occurred at U.K. software company Autonomy before it acquired the firm in 2011.
Google-owned Motorola Mobility has filed yet another claim against Apple with the U.S. International Trade Commission, this time asserting that devices including the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch infringe patents related to features such as email notifications, location reminders, and media players.
Apple and Motorola Mobility, now a subsidiary of Google, have separately appealed the June decision of a U.S. federal judge to throw out their patent infringement case, according to reports Saturday.
Crediting a strategy that exploits users' move to Cloud computing, Cisco Systems has reported record net sales of $US11.6 billion for the quarter ending April 28, up 6.6 per cent from the year-earlier period.
Repeating what has been a familiar pattern for the past six months, tech earnings and market forecasts this week show that while enterprise IT sales, especially for software, are booming, consumer demand for PCs is flagging.
The flood of financial reports, however, suggests that IT stands to be a major driver for the economy in the near term.
