Morning roundup of all the tech news and views from around the world. Its earnings season!
Apples latest quarter would have never happened under Steve Jobs, argues M G Siegler on Techcrunch. Apple’s Q4 2012 results were mixed. As usual, reading Twitter, you’d think this was the end of the world. Nevermind that Amazon managed to post a loss on $13.8 billion in sales today — Apple only made $8.2 billion in profit. “Ahhhh!!!!! What is wrong with Apple?!!!” “This would have never have happened under Steve!” writes Siegler. Read more here. It would be fun if more earnings stories were written this way than the usual drab “FYQ4 revenue up by blah %” In the fourth quarter of 2012, Apple’s revenues were $ 36 billion compared to $ 35 billion last quarter. The company made $ 8.2 billion in profits compared to $ 8.8 billion in the previous quarter and $ 6.6 billion in the same quarter last year.
– Yahoo Acquires Stamped for big mobile play: Yahoo has bought Stamped, the New York City-based startup that built an iPhone app to let people record and share recommendations of their favorite things. The company is said to be in double digit millions. Read more here. This is being hailed as Maryssa Mayers‘ big move. Whatever it is, it better work. Yahoo Investors don’t have a lot of confidence left in the Internet company which has been left behind by rivals. And by the way, Stamped is backed by celebrity investors like Ryan Seacrest and Justin Bieber?
-Microsoft sees a new Image of itself in Windows8, writes Ashlee Vance on Bloomberg Businessweek. In the runup to its official unveiling of Windows 8 on Oct. 26, Microsoft (MSFT) has flooded the airwaves with a catchy TV commercial for its homegrown Surface tablet…That’s the real message Microsoft wants to convey—that it’s not just rolling out another Windows upgrade but an entirely remade vision of the company. Read more here.
– Amazon lost more money in the third quarter. But investors are still happy. David Streitfeld writes in The New York Times that if Amazon were an ordinary company, investors would long ago have strapped its management to a rocket ship and sent it far, far away. Read more here. Amazon missed third quarter estimates and posted $ 13.81 billion revenues (up 27 % year on year) but made a loss of $ 274 million, or 60 cents a share.
– WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange tells CNN that he could leave Ecuadorean compound in London if ‘immoral investigation’ is dropped. Assange has been sheltering in the embassy since June as part of his attempt to avoid extradition to Sweden to face rape allegations. He fears he will ultimately be sent to the United States to face interrogation over the whistleblowing website, which he founded. Read more here.