Tech news from around the web:
Microsoft is planning an iPad version of its popular Office software suite, The Daily reports.The product is set to cost around $10 – about the same price Apple charges for its Pages, Numbers and Keynote products. Read more
Sony, Microsoft report Black Friday boom
The Black Friday glad tidings from consumer electronics makers continued on Tuesday, with Sony announcing a big rise in US sales and Microsoft reporting a record week for its Xbox 360 console and Kinect controller.
The news followed Nintendo’s announcement on Monday of record sales of its Wii and 3DS gaming machines. Read more
Tech news from around the web:
Research In Motion, the company behind the BlackBerry smartphone, is rolling out a new system that aims to help its corporate customers maintain and manage the security of their employees’ BlackBerrys as well as rival devices such as the iPhone, according to The Wall Street Journal. The new system, the first from RIM to incorporate competitors’ products, is seen as a tacit acknowledgment that an increasing number of employees are calling on their employers to allow work e-mails to be pushed to smartphones other than the Blackberry. Read more
Seagate ups hybrid drive speeds
Solid-state drives are all the rage with laptops like the Macbook Air and its Ultrabook rivals utilising them for their speed and battery-saving features. But capacities are still limited and prices much higher than slower traditional hard drives.
Seagate offers a middle way with its Momentus XT hybrid drive – mixing solid-state memory with the traditional spinning platter – and has sold 1m of the drives since it came up with the new category last year (the company says its 2007 Momentus PSD drive doesn’t really count). Read more
Facebook may IPO in Q2. Or then again, it may not…
Until now, it has been advisable to take rumours of an imminent Facebook IPO with a large pinch of salt.
Yet according to one person familiar with the company’s planning, all the pieces are now in place for a Wall Street debut that could come in the second quarter of next year – even if that timing has yet to be finalised. Read more
Nintendo Wii, 3DS set sales records
Nintendo has received a Black Friday boost after a black year for sales – shifting more than 500,000 Wii consoles on the biggest shopping day of the year in the US.
Sales of the 3DS handheld console have also been booming, due to a new Mario game, bundling offers and a precipitous price cut. Read more
Let them eat data
The UK government does not have a lot of money to pump into the technology sector so it is trying to be generous with something it does have in plentiful supply – data.
On Tuesday, as part of the government’s Autumn Statement George Osborne, the chancellor, is expected to announce plans to open up access to more government data, including transport data, health records, house prices and Met Office weather information. Read more
There are not many chief executives who would volunteer the results of their personal psychological tests. But Scott McGregor, the boss of chipmaker Broadcom, is clearly into brutal honesty. “My personality tests show my conflict-avoidance score is zero,” he confesses. “I have to be careful about it; I will upset people and I will cause unneeded friction.”
The comments say a lot about the 55-year-old as well as the company he heads. He relishes directness. While his manner comes across as amiable – perhaps partly a result of the effort he says he has made to pay more attention to “the human aspect of things” – there is a precise and carefully controlled edge to his delivery.
Tech news from around the web:
Black Friday – the day after Thanksgiving – saw $816m spent online sales, according to research and monitoring group Comscore, making it the heaviest online spending day so far in 2011 and representing a 26% increase against Black Friday 2010. Thanksgiving Day, achieved a 18% increase to $479m, Comscore reports. Read more
Three and a half years after its unsolicited takeover bid for Yahoo collapsed in shambles, Microsoft has edged back for a second look.
The software company’s revived interest in the fate of one of the internet’s best-known brands marks the beginning of what all sides expect will be an intense few weeks of negotiations, as Yahoo races to come up with a deal that will appease unhappy shareholders before a potential fight for boardroom control breaks out early in the new year.
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
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