One more Washington agency drops BlackBerry

 

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is the latest federal agency to drop BlackBerry smart phones for its employees, adding to the woes of maker Research in Motion.

BlackBerry still remains the smart phone of choice for Capitol Hill, but cracks are appearing in RIM's stronghold among federal agencies.

The federal immigrations agency said last week it had bought $2.1 million Apple iPhones for its 17,676 users, saying that RIM's technology "can no longer meet" its needs.

Facebook stock pops 21% as ad sales surge

 

Facebook's second earnings report as a public company came in just above Wall Street estimates, but that was enough for investors to give shares a nice boost.

The social network late Tuesday reported sales of nearly $1.3 billion for its third quarter, up 24% from the same period last year.

Facebook's shares fell 3% just after the announcement, but quickly boomeranged to rise more than 21% in early trading Wednesday.

AT&T's 1.3 million iPhone 5s double Verizon's tally

NEW YORK -- AT&T activated about 1.3 million iPhone 5s last quarter, doubleVerizon's totals.Both companies cited supply constraints for the surprisingly low number of iPhone 5s sold in their first week on store shelves. While Verizon's iPhone 5 sales fell short of Wall Street's expectations

Google's stock falls 8% after grim earnings come out early

Google released an official report about three hours after the trigger-finger one, filling in the blank quote with a bland statement from CEO Larry Page. Its financial information was unchanged.

In their forecasts, Wall Street analysts exclude the advertising revenue that Google shares with partners, a figure known as traffic acquisition costs. Without those sales, the company reported revenue of $11.3 billion, which missed the $11.8 billion median forecast from analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.

Earnings per share came in at $9.03, sharply missing the $10.65 that analysts expected.

Among the banner bad news: The amount that Google's advertising partners pay per click continued to drop dramatically, falling 15% over the year.

Page still termed the quarter "strong" in Google's press release, noting that sales rose 45% over the year.

Why Windows 8 will be slow?

The industry doesn't expect Windows 8 to jump-start PC demand. Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa thinks it will have "no effect" on sales.

New Windows releases sometimes motivate consumers with aging PCs to upgrade, but that's unlikely this time around. Those with older machines running Windows XP, Vista or 7 are still expected to wait on the sidelines, despite Microsoft's ultra-low, $40 Windows 8 upgrade offer.