Apple now worth more than Google and Microsoft combined

Apple's stock soared to new heights on Thursday, pushing the company's market capitalization to $456 billion, a number that is greater than the values of rivals Google and Microsoft combined.

As of Thursday morning, Microsoft's market cap was around $256.7 billion, while Google was valued at around $198.9 billion. With Apple's stock up more than 3 percent in morning trading, the company surpassed the combined totals of both Google and Microsoft.

The milestone comes soon after Apple reported its best quarter ever, earning $13.06 billion on sales of 37 million iPhones, 15 million iPads and 5.2 million Macs. Total revenue for Apple's holiday quarter was $46.33 billion.

But Google's shares fell more than 9 percent last month after the company missed expectations on Wall Street for both earnings and revenue. And while Microsoft met Wall Street expectations, revenue from its Windows operating system fell 6 percent to $4.74 billion.

Apple's market capitalization passed Microsoft alone in May of 2010 when the iPhone maker's value hit around $222 billion. And last August was the first time that Apple passed Exxon to become the world's largest company by market cap, then with a value of $346.74 billion.

As of Thursday morning, Apple was well ahead of Exxon Mobil, which had a market cap of around $402 billion. That put Apple at a value of more than $50 billion more than the oil giant.

With AAPL stock north of $490, some Wall Street analysts on Thursday began increasing their price targets for the iPhone maker. Charlie Wolf with Needham & Company upped his estimate from $540 to $620, while Mike Walkley with Canaccord Genuity raised his target on AAPL shares even higher, to $665.
Source : http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/02/09/apple_now_worth_more_than_google_and_microsoft_combined.html 

Alibaba's Ma faces big Yahoo test

If anyone can pull off the labyrinthine deal between Alibaba Group and Yahoo Inc, it's Jack Ma, who founded the e-commerce group and within a decade unlocked China's huge online shopping potential.

The former tour guide and English teacher, who is now worth around $1.6 billion according to Forbes and has dubbed himself 'China's Forrest Gump', built his e-commerce empire from scratch and has steered it through numerous bumps.

Ma is now said to be contemplating taking his flagship listed unit, Alibaba.com, private as part of an asset-swap deal with Yahoo, which holds 40 percent of Alibaba Group.

Founded in 1999, Alibaba has grown into an enterprise spanning business-to-consumer (B2C) and consumer-to-consumer (C2C) trade, logistics, search and e-payment. Some analysts value the group at up to $32 billion.

Ma, 47, lean and down-to-earth, founded the group on the principle of championing small businesses in the battle against industry giants.

But battling giants has become increasingly unavoidable.

Alibaba Group has long sought to buy back its shares owned by Yahoo since 2005. With new leadership at the U.S. Internet pioneer, that plan is picking up speed.

Yahoo's stake in Alibaba Group is worth an estimated $13-$14 billion. Under plans being discussed, sources have told Reuters, Alibaba wants to buy back a stake of around 25 percent for around $9 billion - with around $6 billion in cash and a third via a stake in one of its operating assets.

"He has been a strong leader in the Alibaba business. In the negotiations with Yahoo, he's always been clear about his interest to buy his stake back," said Dick Wei, a Hong Kong-based analyst with J.P. Morgan, who noted that while the wheels are finally turning on a Yahoo deal, it may take some time before an agreement is reached.

Last year, Alibaba broke up its crown jewel Taobao, estimated by Goldman Sachs to be worth around $7 billion, into three parts to better compete with rivals Dangdang and 360buy.

More recently, Taobao Mall changed its Chinese name to rebrand itself, and said it would raise fees to improve its service, prompting protests by some sellers on the platform.

CATCHING SHRIMP

Ma has often said his vision is to serve small and medium enterprises (SME).

"My inspiration came from the American movie Forrest Gump," Ma told an American audience in 2009. "Because Forrest Gump said 'shrimp,' we decided to help SMEs. We wanted to catch the shrimp instead of catching the whales."

Catching shrimps in China's booming online market has proved hugely lucrative for Ma.

Taobao, a late entrant to the C2C market, beat off eBay in China in the late-2000s by offering free listing services for its sellers.

"EBay may be a shark in the ocean, but I'm a crocodile in the Yangtze River. If we fight in the ocean, we lose, but if we fight in the river, we win," Ma told Forbes magazine in 2005.

Ma's blend of gumption and brash hopefulness has made him a cult figure among local entrepreneurs, taxi drivers and other ordinary Chinese. Hundreds of small business owners turn up in Alibaba shirts to hear him speak at the annual AliFest , an annual gathering of e-commerce fans and celebrity speakers.

Ma, who loves dogs and tea, is known to put on fake multi-colored Mohawk wigs and kung-fu outfits at company parties.

But, behind the fun-loving and savvy media figure, is a more Machiavellian Ma, willing to do battle with the international likes of eBay and Yahoo.

"I always remind myself that I can't pretend. I'm not as good as other people say I am. Nor am I as bad as other people say I am," Ma said in a text message to Hu Shuli, editor of prominent magazine Caixin Weekly.

BRUISING

As with other folk heroes, Ma's business style is not without its detractors. Some say his business decisions can be clumsy and unnecessarily gutsy.

In 2005 and 2006, Ma targeted eBay with a media campaign including soundbites such as "In China, they are gone" and taunted the U.S. firm to follow Taobao's free-listings model.

Ultimately, Taobao's free listings and eBay's own poor customer service saw eBay exit China in late-2006. Four years later, with Taobao's dominance assured, the companies' units signed a cooperation agreement, although that ended about a year later.

Ma's run-in with Yahoo and Japan's Softbank over his transfer of Alipay last year hinted at that battle, but with a difference - Ma's reputation among his local loyalists took a very public hit.

Yahoo informed shareholders last year that Alibaba had transferred its e-payment unit, Alipay, to a company owned by Ma. Alibaba said the move was to comply with Chinese regulations and had been discussed at board level, where Yahoo and Softbank hold seats, since 2009.

Yahoo, however, denied any prior knowledge, and some observers criticized Ma for a lack of transparency in handling the issue.

"The Alipay deal really hit his reputation," said Elinor Leung, a CLSA analyst in Hong Kong.

Other analysts said Ma's ruthlessness may have deterred investors from backing Alibaba Group.

"The Alipay issue will dog them forever. How do you convince your board that after you invest, that won't happen again?" Leung said.

Yet that kind of opportunism is what Ma may need to get a deal done with Yahoo this time around.

"Forrest Gump is not a smart guy, but he is focused. He's not talented, but he is very, very hard working, and he's very simple and opportunistic," Ma said in 2009.

"The thing I told my wife, my parents, and my friends, is the sentence Forrest Gump said: "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/10/us-alibaba-ma-idUSTRE8190EY20120210 

Rdio app undergoes a facelift, Android 4.0 support included

Those of you who were Rdio users prior to purchasing a Samsung Galaxy Nexus were probably wondering when it would be updated to Android 4.0. It is now perfectly compatible, and even underwent a much welcomed UI transformation. Like other music streaming apps, Rdio offers an great collection of over 12 million songs that can be instantly streamed to any Android device.

Just like Spotify and Grooveshark, songs can be cached for offline playback. It’s hard to decide which one to subscribe to – as all offer access to so many songs. But more likely than not, you’ve already taken a liking to one prior to reading this. And there, you’ve made your playlists and populated your music library through your personal account.

So why would you jump services if all offer the same features? You wouldn’t. And that’s why survival and growth completely depends on future device compatibility. As long as Rdio, Spotify, Grooveshark, and many others continue to support the latest firmware and devices – they’ll be able to retain there subscribers.

Source: http://androidcommunity.com/rdio-app-undergoes-a-facelift-android-4-0-support-included-20120206/  

Google Pulls Some Content in India

NEW DELHI—Google Inc. removed some controversial content from its Indian services to comply with a court order in a civil lawsuit, the latest twist in the legal drama over Web censorship in the world's largest democracy.

A person familiar with the matter said Google removed content from its search service, YouTube video site and Blogger after receiving an order to do so from Judge Mukesh Kumar of a New Delhi district court.

The material, which includes images of religious figures, has been removed only on Google's localized India Web domain—it is still accessible elsewhere.

In a written statement, Google said: "This step is in accordance with Google's longstanding policy of responding to court orders." The company didn't say which specific items it removed.

Enlarge Image

Pankaj Nangia/Bloomberg News

A student uses a tablet computer to search Google during a conference in New Delhi, Oct. 5, 2011.

The court also issued directions to Yahoo Inc. and Facebook Inc. to take down offensive content from their sites. Facebook and Yahoo declined to comment.

The district court judge's orders stem from a civil suit filed against several Internet companies by Ajiaz Arshad Qasmi, a private citizen.

The suit alleges that the companies hosted content that is intolerant of religious communities and that could spark communal unrest in India.

That isn't the only challenge Web companies are facing in India. A separate criminal lawsuit brought by journalist Vinay Rai makes a similar set of allegations against Google, Facebook and others. A trial in that case is set to begin next month, but a Delhi High Court judge will hear the companies' appeal to quash the case Feb. 14.

Controversy over edgy Web content is growing as Internet use increases in India. Free-speech advocates have expressed concern that the lawsuits and recent actions by the government amount to censorship and muzzling of open debate.

Google's general policy is to monitor content flagged as offensive by users and check whether it violates the company's terms of usage or the laws of the countries in which it operates. In India, government officials often invoke laws against inciting enmity between communities as reasons for wanting to censor politically or religiously sensitive content.

Between January and June 2011, Google received government requests in India to remove 358 items of content and complied a little more than half the time, according to the company's Google Transparency Report. One local law-enforcement agency asked the company to remove 236 social-networking communities and profiles that were critical of a local politician, but Google denied the request on the grounds that the material didn't violate its terms of usage or local law.

Indian regulations put in place last year require Internet companies to remove within 36 hours of being notified offensive material, including content that is "grossly harmful" or "ethnically objectionable."

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204369404577206283023008726.html?mod=googlenews_wsj 

How Apple cuts costs in building its gadgets

Workers labor on a production line at Foxconn's Longhua plant, which employs 300,000 people and makes products for Apple.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The parts and manufacturing for Apple products mostly happens overseas
• It's common for consumer electronics to be built in Asian factories
• Apple has more than 150 suppliers and manufacturers for its products

(CNN) -- On the backs of iPods, iPhones and iPads, and on the bottom of Mac laptops, an inscription reads: "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China."

The parts themselves come from more than 150 companies from various parts of the world. The majority of those antennas, glass, metal, sensors and silicon are manufactured overseas.

How Apple finds parts and manufactures its products, almost entirely abroad, is standard protocol in the technology industry. Electronics companies say Asian manufacturing plants are more affordable and more versatile than those found anywhere else in the world.

But as the most valuable tech company in the world, Apple is seen by many as a role model in business. And its reliance on cheap overseas labor -- most notably at factories in China run by manufacturer Foxconn -- has come under increased scrutiny in recent media coverage by CNN, The New York Times and other outlets.

Foxconn, owned by Hon Hai Precision Industry, counts Apple among its business clients, which also include Amazon.com, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and many other tech giants. Apple has reported violations at its facilities, and Foxconn has come under fire for a slew of worker suicides in 2010 and conditions that workers-rights groups say are inhumane.

A look at Apple supplier's China factory

Apple: Made in China

Workers at Foxconn and other plants in Asia must stay busy to keep up with the world's seemingly insatiable demand for Apple products.

During the last three months of 2011, Apple sold 37 million iPhones, 15.4 million iPads, 15.4 million iPods and 5.2 million Mac computers, according to the company's financial report. That netted Apple $46.3 billion in revenue and $13.1 billion in profit, which is double what Apple made during the same period a year before.

Where does all that profit come from?

Take the iPhone, for example. The iPhone 4S sells for $199 if the customer signs a two-year cellular contract. But AT&T, Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless pay Apple much more for the phones in order to sell them at a lower price, a process called subsidizing. To get a so-called "unlocked" or contract-free iPhone, expect to pay at least $649 to Apple.

The costs of parts and manufacturing for Apple's iPhone 4S is estimated to be $196, according to industry research firm IHS iSuppli. That's $453 less than Apple charges for a contract-free phone. Marketing and research can add up, but no matter which way you cut it, Apple is making a sizable profit on each phone it sells, said iSuppli analyst Tom Dinges.

Apple has more than 60,000 employees, most of whom work in its retail stores. To build parts and assemble products, Apple has a long list of partners. That's partly done to avoid being dependent on any one manufacturer and to get favorable deals on each part from the many competing companies.

Still, Apple tries to minimize the number of companies with which it signs deals, Dinges said. That way, Apple wields more influence because it's among the biggest-spending clients, he said.

"They'd rather be a mile deep in a supplier than divide the business up amongst five," Dinges said. "You're going to take care of your biggest customers first."

In its supplier report, Apple says 156 companies account for 97% of the money spent on materials, manufacturing and assembly for its coveted gadgets. When the client is a powerhouse like Apple, winning a contract to be one of those 156 is a major event. In Wall Street parlance, it moves stock.

Being anointed by Apple boosts a supplier's credibility, but Apple is a shrewd negotiator, from how it develops an iPad to how it leases or builds the retail store it's sold in. This reportedly forces Apple's partners to push workers and cut corners in order to wring profits.

Apple told CNN in a statement that its expectations for suppliers to operate responsibly increase each year. Apple says it conducted 229 audits of suppliers last year and reported its findings publicly online.

"We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain," Apple said in the statement. "We insist that our suppliers provide safe working conditions, treat workers with dignity and respect, and use environmentally responsible manufacturing processes wherever Apple products are made. Our suppliers must live up to these requirements if they want to keep doing business with Apple."

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/06/tech/gaming-gadgets/apple-supply-chain/index.html