Earnings, Earnings, And More Earnings

Tis the season for earnings and there’s a lot to choose from. Let’s start with today’s big news. Facebook had it’s first report since their rather craptastic IPO. The results were less than stunning:

Facebook posted a net loss of $157-million, or 8 cents a share in the second quarter, due to hefty stock compensation charges related to its IPO, compared to net income of $240-million, or 11 cents, in the year-ago quarter.

Excluding the charges, Facebook said it earned 12 cents a share.

In its first report to Wall Street since the IPO, the world’s No.1 social networking company said that revenue in the three months ended June 30 was $1.18-billion, compared to $895-million in the year-ago quarter.

This was enough to send the stock sharply downwards in after hours trading. Not good if you’ve invested in the social networking giant.

Next was Apple earlier this week. The good news is that they beat their guidance and made an obscene amount of money:

The Company posted quarterly revenue of $35.0 billion and quarterly net profit of $8.8 billion, or $9.32 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $28.6 billion and net profit of $7.3 billion, or $7.79 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 42.8 percent compared to 41.7 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 62 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Here’s the bad news. The street expected more:

But analysts had expected profits of $9.8 billion, or $10.38 a share, on $37.35 billion in revenues.

After the announcement, Apple’s shares were trading down more than $29 at under $572.

It’s a weird world when you make money and still get punished for it.

Finally, there’s Symantec. First they announced their earnings:

GAAP operating margin for the first quarter of fiscal year 2013 was 16.1 percent compared with 18.3 percent for the same quarter last year. GAAP net income for the fiscal first quarter was $172 million compared with net income of $191 million for the year-ago period. GAAP diluted earnings per share were $0.24 compared with $0.25 for the year ago quarter. Variation in year-over-year GAAP results were as expected due to increases in restructuring costs and IT infrastructure investments.

GAAP deferred revenue as of June 29, 2012, was $3.745 billion compared with $3.689 billion as of July 1, 2011, up 2 percent year-over-year and up 5 percent after adjusting for currency. Cash flow from operating activities for the first quarter of fiscal year 2013 was $340 million compared with $503 million for the year ago period.

Those are solid numbers. But the news doesn’t end there:

Symantec today announced that Enrique Salem, president and chief executive officer (CEO), has stepped down effective immediately and Symantec’s board of directors has appointed Steve Bennett president and chief executive officer, in addition to his continued role as chairman of the board.

Unlike the first two tech companies, this news didn’t affect the stock. That’s great for them.

Expect more releases to come next week.

Fido Rolling Out LTE In Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and St. John’s

For the last year or so, Rogers customers have been getting all the LTE lover. But now Fido customers can get some of that love too:

“We are thrilled to offer the benefits of LTE network technology to Fido customers this year,” said Steven Sarfin, senior director of marketing, Fido Solutions. “Our focus at Fido has always been on providing the best value to our customers. With data plans starting from $10/month, affordable LTE service is a perfect complement to the exclusive FidoADVANTAGE programs like FidoTRADE™, Fido LiveANSWERS™ and FidoDOLLARS™ our customers already enjoy.” Sarfin added.

But having LTE requires having devices that leverage that as well. Fido has that covered:

Coming this summer, the Fido Mobile Hotspot will be the first LTE-enabled device available from Fido. This device creates a Wi-Fi hotspot wherever, and whenever customers need it, and wirelessly connects up to 10 Wi-Fi capable devices simultaneously. LTE-enabled smartphones will be available at Fido later this year, and all of the Fido LTE-enabled devices are capable of running across Fido’s 4G HSPA+ network which covers 96 per cent of the population of Canada.

So. if you’re a Fido user it sounds like you’re going to get all the LTE love that you can handle this summer.

Review: OS X Mountian Lion – Part 1: The Install

Normally, I don’t install any new OS the second it comes out. I usually wait until the first few bug fixes or service pack in the case of Windows comes out before diving in. That changed last night when I dropped $19.99 to get OS X Mountain Lion onto my MacBook Pro. It’s only available from the App Store and once you pay your money it starts a download of 4.3 GB. Make sure you’ve got a fast connection or that will take a while. Once that’s done it will start an installer that will do three minutes or work and then reboots your computer. The install then continues for the next 40 minutes or so and then there’s another reboot. At that point you’ve got Mountain Lion. Sound familiar? It’s basically the way you got OS X Lion last year. It’s clean and and simple. Anyone can do it.

Now, having had the OS installed for 24 hours I can say that I have not had any problems thus far. All my apps work and I haven’t had to re-learn anything the way I did with Lion. That’s a good thing. I can also say that it fixed a few annoyances that I had with Lion. More on that later.

The next part of this review will cover the new features that are part of this OS.