NewsFactor Business

Apple Chief Operating Officer Gets $5 Million Bonus

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:48:25 -0500

Apple Inc. is giving its chief operating officer a $5 million bonus for "outstanding performance" running the company while CEO Steve Jobs was on medical leave.

Timothy Cook, 49, will also receive 75,000 restricted stock units scheduled to vest in 2011 and 2012, Apple said in a regulatory filing Friday.

Jobs, 55, famously limits his salary to $1 per year, which leaves Cook the company's highest-paid executive. In 2009, Cook received an $800,400 salary; $800,000 in nonstock incentive compensation; and about $40,900 in company matches to his retirement account, life insurance premiums and cash for unused vacation days.

The COO also holds 13,741 shares of Apple stock and 500,000 additional restricted stock options that have not yet vested, according to a January filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Cook took the company reins when Jobs, a pancreatic cancer survivor, went on medical leave from January through June 2009.

It was Cook's second stint leading Apple. Cook, who joined Apple in 1998, ran the Cupertino, Calif.-based company for two months in 2004 while Jobs recovered from surgery for pancreatic cancer. His performance then won him the promotion to chief operating officer in 2005.

Analysts credit Cook with solving problems that Apple was having with inventory management. That has been key to Apple's ability to amass $25 billion in cash and short-term investments. Many people consider Cook as Jobs' logical successor.

In the months leading up to Jobs' medical leave, rumors about his health could send Apple's stock soaring and sinking as investors worried that Apple would be lost without his vision.

But under Cook's direction in 2009, the company kept cranking out well-received products including updated laptops with lower entry-level prices and a faster iPhone with many longed-for features. Apple sold more than a million of the new iPhone 3GS during its first three days on the market.

Investors...

Coverity Offers Software Safety Audits

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:34:26 -0500

SAN FRANCISCO, LONDON � March 15, 2010 �- Coverity, Inc., the software integrity market leader, today announced that it will provide software integrity audits to qualified Global 2000 companies with safety-critical software concerns. The Coverity Software Integrity Audit can expose software defects that could change the behavior, freeze the operation or impair the performance of safety-critical devices or products. Coverity will also extend this offer to select suppliers to participating Global 2000 companies to help expose software integrity supply chain problems in third-party components, devices and products. Program details can be found at www.coverity.com.

The Coverity Software Integrity Audit can help Global 2000 executives answer two critical questions:

� "Are there safety-critical software defects in my supplier's products?"

"Software complexity is creating an entirely new class of business risk for Global 2000 companies with safety-critical products across their entire software supply chain," said Seth Hallem, Coverity CEO. "Now companies are accountable for both the software shipping in their products and the software from their third-party providers. Coverity is providing this offer to help Global 2000 companies who have safety concerns get the visibility they need to assess whether they are shipping safe software to their customers."

The result of the Coverity Software Integrity Audit will provide executives and development teams with critical software integrity information such as:

� The potential impact those software defects can have on the behavior, operation or performance of their products; and

� The overall Coverity Integrity Rating of their audited product or code base, comparing their software integrity against industry averages.

Why Software Complexity Creates Business Risk

Coverity has deep history in mitigating the risk of software defects with consumers and in business. Since 2003, Coverity has helped more than 750 commercial...

Android Battles iPhone for Hearts of Blackberry Users

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:15:51 -0500

Silicon Valley, California �- Nearly 40% of BlackBerry users continue to prefer Appleʼs iPhone as their next smartphone purchase, but a third of them would also switch to the Android operating system, according to the second smartphone brand loyalty survey conducted semi-annually via Crowd Scienceʼs (www.crowdscience.com) advanced research for online audience measurement. The Crowd Scientists also found Android users rivaling iPhone users in loyalty, with about 90% of each user group planning to stick with their current brand when buying their next phone.

Asked specifically if theyʼd swap their present phone for Googleʼs new Android-based Nexus One, 32% of BlackBerry users said "yes," compared with just 9% of iPhone users. This figure zoomed to 60% for users of smartphones not made by BlackBerry or Apple.

"These results show that the restlessness of BlackBerry users with their current brand hasnʼt just been driven by the allure of iPhone," said John Martin, CEO of Crowd Science. "Rather, BlackBerry as a brand just isnʼt garnering the loyalty seen with other mobile operating systems."

Crowd Scienceʼs methodology applies rigorous sampling and research techniques to online populations, allowing for real-time results. Indeed, a significant event affecting the research �- the debut of Nexus One on January 5 -� occurred midway through the Dec. 24. 2009 to Jan. 21, 2010 study period. Rather than being a disruptive factor, however, the Crowd Scientists were able to measure how the launch affected the attitudes of respondents. For example, awareness of the Android operating system jumped six points -� to 66% from 60%. Moving from awareness to familiarity, however, results were stable throughout the research period �- at about 10% for all smartphone users excluding Android owners.

Awareness of the Google Nexus One phone itself following launch was found to be 91% amongst iPhone users, 75% amongst BlackBerry users, and 73% amongst users...

Customer Loyalty Drives Subaru's Success

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 07:08:01 -0500

When Russell Levine's lease on his 2006 Subaru Forester was coming to an end, his car hunt was quick.

Levine picked out another Forester SUV, his fourth.

Levine, 48, of Huntington Woods, Mich., was not tempted to try another brand.

"The data speaks for itself. It's highly rated by independent agencies. The mileage is good," said Levine, an information technology architect who recently started commuting to a new job at General Electric's technology center.

Subaru's message of high safety ratings, fuel economy and resale value is resonating with more drivers, especially highly educated ones that automakers like to capture.

Last year, Subaru's sales rose 15.4 percent even as U.S. auto industry sales fell 21%, the best performance of any automaker. That helped the Japanese automaker's U.S. market share grow from 1.4 percent to 2.1 percent. That 50 percent market-share gain is a huge jump for a niche automotive brand.

Subaru is seen as a quirky company that appeals as much to drivers who need their cars to haul skis as it does to engineers and professors looking for a practical vehicle.

"We always like to refer to ourselves as the best-kept secret in the auto industry," said Tom Doll, chief operating officer of Subaru of America.

James Bell, Kelley Blue Book executive market analyst, calls Subaru one of the most well-placed companies in the industry. "They seem to be limber enough and flexible enough to find a way to make themselves successful no matter what the rest of the market tends to do."

Model Updates, Reviews Boost Sales

Falling auto sales and the credit crisis that pushed Chrysler and General Motors into bankruptcy reorganization didn't touch Subaru.

"The stars kind of aligned for us," said Tom Doll, COO of Subaru of America.

Since mid-2008 -- as U.S. auto sales started to dive -- Subaru has updated its lineup. It also has received...

Geolocation Stars at South by Southwest

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:58:43 -0500

What's likely to be the hottest tech trend at this weekend's trendy South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, the powwow that has become a launch pad for the coolest, hippest new technology? Location, location, location.

The conference is shaping up to be a coming-out party for Foursquare, an application that lets people flag where they are -- and for the entire category of fledgling geo-location services. A bumper crop of services, notably Gowalla, Brightkite, Loopt and Where.com, are being embraced by smartphone owners to socialize and play games.

Venture capitalists are pouring in money. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has invested $9.5 million in Booyah, maker of a location-based social-gaming iPhone app.

"This is the year of location (at the show)," says Booyah CEO Keith Lee. Last week, Twitter said it would supply developers with richer geo-location data. In January, review site Yelp added a check-in option to its iPhone app. About 5 percent of iPhone apps have location services. Facebook officials won't comment, but independent tech analyst Greg Sterling and others expect it to soon add location-sharing features.

The service with the most buzz is the year-old Foursquare, with just 500,000 users.

Foursquare players earn points by visiting restaurants, bars or museums in major cities. The payoffs range from special deals to Boy Scout-like badges and "mayorships," essentially bragging rights for hanging out at certain locations. "This isn't mainstream, but it's the talk of tech insiders," says Sterling.

To build buzz as Twitter did a few years ago, the services are using the show to reach the general public. Last year, Foursquare benefited from a marketing blitz in which it doled out special badges, digital mayorships and other goodies. This year, rival Gowalla is throwing a big party with Lance Armstrong's LiveStrong foundation, and it has a partnership with Chevrolet.

"All the early...

VeriSign Plans $300 Million Tech Overhaul

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 07:06:10 -0500

VeriSign Inc., whose technology is key to allowing Internet users to access Web sites with names ending in ".com" and ".net," plans to spend more than $300 million over the next decade to upgrade its systems.

The upgrades will allow VeriSign's machines to handle up to 4 quadrillion requests per day from computers trying to reach those sites. That's a thousand times more lookups than the 4 trillion per day that the company can currently handle.

Ken Silva, the company's chief technology officer, said Thursday that the latest changes are needed to keep up with ballooning Internet traffic and with spikes in usage caused by major news events and computer attacks.

Traffic volume is expected to soar along with the expansion of technologies such as Internet-connected televisions, navigation systems and video streaming.

VeriSign is in two big businesses that are critical to the functioning of the Internet but both remain largely out of the public's view.

The most recognizable business involves selling "certificates" that Web sites can use to tell Web browsers that they are using encryption to protect data passing between a user's computer and the Web site's servers. That's important for banking and e-commerce sites in protecting customers' data. VeriSign is one of several large vendors of such Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates.

VeriSign also operates the registry of all ".com" and ".net" domain names. That means it's responsible for ensuring that Internet users can reach sites registered with those names.

When someone enters a Web address into a browser, the traffic doesn't go directly to servers operated by that Web site. It often has to go through servers operated by VeriSign and other companies to translate the written name, such as verisign.com, into a numeric Internet Protocol, or IP, address that computers can understand.

The last major infrastructure upgrade VeriSign announced was in 2007, when...

February Video-Game Sales Drop 15 Percent

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 07:07:15 -0500

U.S. retail sales of video games declined 15 percent in February, hurt in part by an ongoing decline in sales of music games and lower sales of the Wii system.

Americans spent $1.26 billion on video game systems, software and accessories during the month, down from $1.48 billion a year ago, market researcher NPD Group said Thursday.

February isn't generally a big month for the video game industry, which still makes much of its money during the holiday season. Even so, several high-profile titles launched during the month, including "BioShock 2," the follow-up to Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.'s popular sci-fi shooter, and "Dante's Inferno" from Electronic-Arts Inc., both appealing to hardcore video game fans.

"I had expected the industry to perform somewhat better this month," said NPD Group analyst Anita Frazier in a statement.

Sales of individual games have declined for more than a year, hurt by a combination of the economic downturn and fewer launches of hit games.

Even with "BioShock 2" at the top of the best-seller list, game software sales fell 15 percent from the same month a year earlier to $624.4 million. "Dante's Inferno" editions for Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 snagged the No. 8 and No. 9 spots.

Analysts say faltering demand for the once blazingly popular casual games like "Guitar Hero" and "Wii Fit" have also dragged down game sales. Jesse Divnich, an analyst at Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, said that's to be expected.

"These are volatile categories," Divnich said. "Once you own a 'Wii Fit,' you don't need another 'Wii Fit.'"

The amount of money people spent on gaming systems sank 20 percent to $426.4 million, in part because the number of Nintendo Wii systems sold in the quarter plunged 47 percent. Nintendo said last month it was facing a shortage of consoles after the holidays.

Competitors...

New Google Feature Will Hunt for Products Nearby

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:01:43 -0500

You're standing on a street corner and remember that you need to pick up a video game for your sister's birthday. On your smartphone, you search Google and tap on the "in stock nearby" link next to the blue dots that show up for some of the search results. Google then shows you which local retailers have the game in stock.

That buying omniscience, where your mobile device can tell you whether what you want is nearby, was announced Thursday by the search giant.

iPhone, Palm, Android

The blue dots in the search results link to participating retailers, which currently include Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and West Elm. The "in stock nearby" link connects to the seller's page, where the retailer near you notes whether the given item is "in stock" or has "limited availability." The distance from your current location is also indicated if you have enabled My Location or manually specified your location.

Google also has forms online so other retailers can become part of the program.

The U.S.-based functionality is available for an iPhone, a Palm webOS phone, or any device using the Android mobile operating system. After going to Google.com, the user clicks on the "more" link, and then "shopping," or, alternatively, looks for "shopping results" in the search results. Mobile product search with local inventory was first shown in December by Vic Gundotra, Google's vice president of engineering.

Andrew Frank, a research director at Gartner, noted that local-inventory product search is "part of a trend" where new functionality is coming about because the technical feasibility of various pieces have come together.

In this case, GPS, inventory feeds, and powerful mobile devices are combining with cloud-based search services to allow a user to find the nearest product in stock.

'Lot More Pressure' on Retailers

This kind of...

Palm Teeters in Crowded Smartphone Market

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:40:34 -0500

Last year, Palm thought it had all the pieces for a turnaround in the market it pioneered: A new CEO known for making the iPod a household name, a sleek new smart phone called the Pre and fresh, intuitive operating software.

Instead, the company is in danger of going the way of its 1990s Palm Pilot, making it the latest innovator to learn that great technology and an accomplished leader don't guarantee success.

Several analysts say Palm Inc. might not remain an independent phone maker for more than a year or two. It just could be too late to stop the momentum enjoyed by Apple Inc.'s iPhone and Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerrys -- not to mention a growing crop of phones running Google Inc.'s Android software.

Palm spokesman Derick Mains said the company had no comment.

Consumers have gravitated toward smart phones for their versatile features, such as Internet access and applications that can be downloaded. One out of six U.S. adults had a smart phone last year, according to Forrester Research.

But Palm -- a leader in the early days of handheld computing -- was slow to adapt. It began fighting back in earnest in January 2009 at the International Consumer Electronics Show. It unveiled the stylish touch-screen Pre and webOS, software that allows Palm phones to do something the iPhone can't -- run multiple apps simultaneously.

Ed Colligan, who was then Palm's CEO, said at the time that the new products somewhat marked a relaunching of Palm itself. But it hasn't gone as smoothly as Palm hoped.

Palm released the Pre last June, for use on Sprint Nextel Corp.'s wireless network, and followed it in November with a cheaper model, the Pixi. Verizon Wireless started selling upgraded models of these phones in January, and AT&T Inc. plans to offer webOS phones later this year.

Despite...

Unhappy Customers: Complaints To BBB Up 10 Percent

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 07:08:28 -0500

Complaints to the Better Business Bureau were up nearly 10 percent last year, with the banking industry seeing the biggest jump in unhappy customers.

Complaints about banks spiked 42 percent to 29,920 in 2009, according to the annual report released Monday by the BBB. That made banks the third most complained about industry, after cell phones and cable- and satellite-TV providers.

It was the second year in a row that the banking industry saw a big jump in complaints. Complaints about banks rose 15 percent in 2008.

"Trust in the financial sector is already extremely low and the dramatic increase in BBB complaints against banks reflects the growing discord between consumers and the industry," Stephen Cox, president and CEO of the nonprofit group, said in a release.

The BBB said it hasn't yet examined the specific nature of the complaints against banks.

Overall, complaints by consumers to the BBB rose 9.7 percent to 1 million. Complaints rose by 7 percent in 2008, and dropped by 3 percent in 2007.

The broader spike in complaints last year reflects the pressure consumers are feeling amid high unemployment and the downturn, Cox said.

Consumers can file complaints with their local Better Business Bureau online, via phone, or mail. The group then presents the complaint to the business, and asks if a resolution will be made.

Cell phone providers got the most complaints with 37,477, a 2.1 percent increase over 2008. The cable- and satellite-TV industry got 32,616 complaints, up 8.7 percent.

However, both industries also resolved a greater portion of the complaints against them. Cell phone companies resolved 97.4 percent of complaints, while the cable and satellite TV industry resolved 97.2 percent.

The resolution rate by banks dipped slightly to 95.2 percent.