Intel Corp. has agreed to buy Infineon Technologies AG's wireless unit for approximately $1.4 billion in cash, the companies said Monday.
The unit will operate as a stand-alone business of Santa Clara-based Intel (NASDAQ: INTC). Infineon's chips are used in smart phones including Apple Inc.'s iPhone 4.
The technology will expand Intel's Wi-Fi and 4G WiMAX offerings and be used in Intel Core processor-based laptops and Atom processor devices, including smart phones, netbooks, tablets and embedded computers.
"The global demand for wireless solutions continues to grow at an extraordinary rate," Paul Otellini, Intel's president and CEO, said in the announcement. "The acquisition of Infineon's WLS business strengthens the second pillar of our computing strategy — Internet connectivity — and enables us to offer a portfolio of products that covers the full range of wireless options from Wi-Fi and 3G to WiMAX and LTE business card design.
The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2011, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.
It is the second major acquisition for Intel in recent weeks. The company on Aug. 19 announced it had agreed to acquire the security software maker McAfee Inc. (NYSE: MFE) for approximately $7.68 billion.
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The Republican race for Arizona Attorney General is razor thin and could run beyond election night.
As of 11 p.m. Tuesday night, Andrew Thomas had 2,000-vote lead on Tom Horne in their bitter primary fight. Some Phoenix-area media outlets said late Tuesday the margin was down to 1,000 votes.
Thomas had 50 percent of the vote versus Horne's 49 easy to get unsecured personal loans.5 percent. The race could go down to early ballots dropped off at polling places Tuesday.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is backing Thomas, while more moderate Republicans side with Horne.
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The Texas Tribune picked up two more leadership staff Monday, including a former Texas Monthly publisher.
April Hinkle spent 21 years as publisher of Austin-based Texas Monthly magazine, working her way up through various director, manager and executive roles. She will now act as business development director for the nonprofit news website, working to secure more corporate sponsorships.
At the same time, former Deloitte Consulting senior consultant Shadi Afshar was hired to lead audience development. The recent McCombs School of Business graduate is charged with increasing Web traffic, recruiting new members and publicizing editorial projects and events.
In January, the Tribune picked board member and former AOL and Examiner.com executive Michael Sherrod as its first publisher. Two months previous, it removed its general manager position close after hiring Austin Technology Council President Alisha Ring.
A tepid gain in consumer spending last month could fuel a debate over whether the U.S. and other governments should further stimulate their economies to sustain the recovery.
A report that Americans spent cautiously in May came after world leaders meeting in Toronto over the weekend pledged to reduce government deficits by cutting spending and raising taxes. They did so despite warnings from President Barack Obama that scaling back spending too fast could derail the global recovery.
U.S. lawmakers are wary of approving more stimulus spending in light of record deficits. As a result, millions of Americans could lose unemployment benefits and states could be forced to lay off tens of thousands of workers.
"In our view, it is way too early to apply the fiscal brakes," said Zach Pandl, an economist at Nomura Securities. Cutting off unemployment benefits "is a dangerous way to cut deficits when the economy is still fragile."
Economic growth, which leads to higher tax receipts and less spending on social programs, is the best way to reduce the deficit, Pandl said.
Other economists note that wages and salaries rose 0.5 percent in May, a second consecutive month of strong gains. That is a sign that the recovery can survive without government propping it up lowest fee payday loans.
If the trend in income growth continues, "consumers’ spending power will be bolstered, which will in turn drive economic growth, necessitating less government support," said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak.
One thing is certain: Americans are being careful with their money. Consumer spending rose 0.2 percent last month after no change in April, the Commerce Department said Monday.
Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of economic activity. But the consumer hasn’t been driving this recovery. Instead, it has depended more on business and government spending, along with exports. In the four quarters following the steep 1981-82 downturn, consumer spending rose by an average of 6.5 percent per quarter. By contrast, even as the economy has grown for the last three quarters, consumer spending rose an average of only 2.5 percent per quarter.
If consumption remains sluggish, the economy may not grow fast enough to generate jobs and quickly bring down the 9.7 percent unemployment rate.
The FBI is investigating a security breach of AT&T’s website that allowed hackers to access the e-mail addresses of iPad owners.
"The FBI is aware of these possible computer intrusions," an FBI spokesman said in an e-mailed statement. "We have opened an investigation to address the potential cyber threat." The Bureau did not comment on the scope of its investigation.
A hacker group called Goatse Security exploited a vulnerability on AT&T’s website to harvest the e-mail addresses that iPad 3G buyers provided to activate their devices. The group sent the information to tech and gossip blog Gawker, which reported that 114,000 e-mail addresses were exposed.
Without commenting on the vast scope of the alleged hack, AT&T (T, Fortune 500) acknowledged taking action to fix a security hole online payday advance.
The exposure connected subscribers’ e-mail addresses with their iPad ICC IDs, a unique identification number used to link devices with their owners. AT&T linked them so that users of Apple’s (AAPL, Fortune 500) 3G version of the iPad would not have to type in their e-mail addresses every time they wanted to access or change their AT&T account and billing settings.
AT&T said e-mail addresses were the only information that could have been exposed as a result of the glitch, and that it will inform all customers who may have been affected. The company would not comment on the FBI investigation.
Attorney General Bill McCollum announced a settlement with Certegy Check Services Inc. over allegations the company did not provide adequate data security for consumer records.
Under the settlement, Certegy will ensure that safeguards are in place to protect consumer data, a release said. The company will maintain a comprehensive “Information Security Program” that assess internal and external risks to consumers’ personal information, implements safeguards to protect that information, and regularly monitors and tests the effectiveness of those safeguards.
Certegy also will contribute $125,000 to the Attorney General’s Seniors vs. Crime Program and will pay $850,000 for the state’s investigative costs and attorney’s fees, the release said.
Certegy reported in July 2007 that a former company employee had stolen customer data. Certegy notified authorities and consumers, the release said. The former employee, William Sullivan, subsequently was convicted of fraud and is serving a 57-month sentence in federal prison.
Certegy, based in St. Petersburg, is a subsidiary of Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (NYSE: FIS), headquartered in Jacksonville.
Tax day is Thursday and if you’ve waited until the last minute to file your return, that makes you a prime target for tax preparers.
The days leading up to April 15 are like Black Friday for companies like H&R Block and TurboTax. And they’re all looking for an edge that will get you "in the door."
As more and more taxpayers spend time e-filing and scouring the Internet for tax help, finding ways to optimize online ads is invaluable for tax preparers. And that’s where Google comes in. The search giant’s analytics tools can narrow down when most people are searching for tax help, making it prime time for advertising those services.
Unsurprisingly, Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) says the volume of searches for terms like "tax," "taxes," and "IRS" doubles between February and mid-April. But by using advanced tools like Google Insights, tax preparers can find a much more revealing trend: The majority of people really only care about taxes for about six or seven days a year.
Search traffic for "taxes" surges an average 150% right after W2s are distributed during the first week of February. Those searches quickly die down and stay low until the days leading up to April 15. During the last three- to four-day stretch of tax season, tax-related searches rise an average of 270%. That’s nearly quadruple the amount that occurs during a typical week in the "off-season."
TurboTax, which is a Google Analytics customer, calls the trend "Batman ears": Two exceedingly short periods of time to get it right or pay the price.
"Google is really important to our business because it helps us understand consumers’ behavioral intent so we can serve up the right types of ads in the right places to the right people," said Seth Greenberg, director of national media and digital marketing at TurboTax. "There’s such a small window of time, and the margin of error is so tight."
TurboTax, which is owned by Intuit (INTU), took in just under $1 billion of revenue from its tax products last year, and $780 million of that came during tax season.
"The two peaks make or break tax companies’ years," said Jon Kaplan, head of Google’s financial services industry team faxless pay day loans. "They have to have a sound, focused marketing strategy that takes advantage of those three- to four-day peaks, and they can’t really have a bad day."
Cutting through the noise
As more people file online, competition is growing more intense: A search query for "taxes" on Tuesday returned sponsored ads from 11 of Google’s advertising partners, including TurboTax, H&R Block (HRB), and Jackson Hewitt, all promoting their free online e-file systems. Google said its partners spend tens of millions of search advertising dollars during tax season.
To cut through the noise, TurboTax said Google helps it offer its most relevant taxpayer ads at the most relevant time.
Some of the solutions have little to do with analytics. For instance, Google allows TurboTax to display two different types of ads: one for existing TurboTax customers and one for potential new customers. It also lets TurboTax do "remarketing." That is, showing ads specifically for customers who visited the site but ultimately didn’t use TurboTax’s products.
Other solutions are a little more involved. For example, Google’s data show that searches for "tax refund" soar in early February, when W2s go out, and then taper off. TurboTax says it found a correlation between early filers and those getting refunds, allowing the company to adjust its ads accordingly.
Google also found that most people clicking on TurboTax ads were from a younger demographic, which the company chalks up to the fact that it runs its tax business exclusively on the computer. As a result, TurboTax has turned to social networking to attract customers. It also had a "Tax Rap" competition this year, the winner of which is currently displayed on YouTube’s homepage.
In addition to the usual "taxes," "how to file," and "tax refund" searches, this year is bringing hot searches for "unemployment and taxes," as well as ones related to first-time homebuyer tax credit, new car purchase credit and Energy Star tax credits.
And the top tax-related search this week? "Tax extension."
Buyers lusting after one of the most lucrative domain names in the world, sex.com, will have to wait for their chance to bid on the coveted Internet property.
The rights to sex.com were scheduled to be auctioned off Thursday, with bidders required to put up $1 million just to get in the door, after the previous owner, Escom, went into foreclosure for unpaid debts.
But the auction was postponed after Escom was forced into bankruptcy court late Wednesday by a group of creditors, according to Scott Matthews, a lawyer for DOM Partners, one of Escom’s main creditors.
"The auction has been postponed based upon an involuntary bankruptcy filing in California that was filed after 5 p.m. yesterday," Matthews said, adding that a sale will eventually happen, though he could not say when.
Matthews said there had been "significant interest" in the domain name, but he declined to say how many bidders were scheduled to take part in the auction.
Escom reportedly paid $14 million for sex.com when it bought the site in 2006. DOM Partners helped finance the deal and acquired the rights when Escom failed to make payments earlier this year.
DOM announced plans last week to sell the site to the highest bidder in the equivalent of a foreclosure sale. But the auction was scratched after three of Escom’s creditors filed an involuntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition against Escom in the U payday loan lenders.S. Bankruptcy Court in California’s Central District.
The creditors — Washington Technology Associates, iEntertainment Inc. and AccountingMatters.com — claim Escom owes them more than $10 million.
The dispute marks the latest twist in the storied history of sex.com, which is potentially one of the most profitable internet properties.
Gary Kremen, founder of Match.com, first registered sex.com in 1994. He spent several years in court battling with Stephen Cohen, an adult entertainment mogul with a checkered past, over the site’s ownership.
In 1995, Kremen accused Cohen of stealing sex.com from him in a scheme that involved forged letters and falsified e-mails. In 2000, a court handed control of the domain name back to Kremen and ordered Cohen to pay $65 million to Kremen. Cohen subsequently appealed and the case was rejected by the Supreme Court in 2003.
Two years later, Cohen was arrested in Tijuana for failing to appear in court. He was released in 2007, according to published reports.
U.S. stocks looked ready for a strong start Monday, as investors continue to be upbeat about the economic recovery following a key report on retail sales and ahead of comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
The S&P 500, Nasdaq-100 and Dow Jones industrial average futures were higher.
Futures measure current index values against their perceived future performance and offer an indication of how markets may open when trading begins.
Wall Street has rallied for the past two weeks as investors have gained confidence in the pace of the economic recovery.
"There really just doesn’t seem to be anything holding this market back," said Manus Cranny, senior market commentator of MF Global Spreads in London.
Cranny said the markets are being driven by "a tsunami of positive sentiment."
Economy: Retail sales jumped 1.4% in October from the prior month, according to the Census Bureau, exceeding the increase of 0.9% expected by a consensus of economists surveyed by Briefing.com. Sales without automobiles rose 0.2%, falling short of the 0.4% gain that was forecast by Briefing.com consensus.
That’s compared to an overall decline of 1.5%, or an increase of 0.5% without auto sales, the prior month.
A survey on manufacturing in New York state also comes out at 8:30 a payday loan companies.m. ET. That’s followed by a report on September business inventories at 10 a.m. ET.
The Fed: Bernanke will offer an outlook of the U.S. economy at a speech in New York City, starting at 12:15 p.m. ET.
Autos: General Motors, releasing its first financial results since emerging from bankruptcy in July, said it lost $1.2 billion in the third quarter. It also said it would begin repaying government loans in December. The U.S. government will received $1 billion, with nearly $200 million going to the Canadian and Ontario governments.
World markets: Stocks worldwide were lifted amid optimism that governments would keep up stimulus efforts. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei added 0.2%. European shares jumped in midday trading.
Money, oil and gold: The anemic dollar was lower versus major international currencies.
Commodities continued to benefit from the weaker greenback. Oil for December delivery jumped 68 cents to $77.03 a barrel.
And gold prices, which have been on a tear this month, reached a new record of $1,133.50 a troy ounce before retreating slightly. The precious metal was still up $11.90 per troy ounce to $1,128.60 in electronic trading.
Oil fell more than 2% Wednesday on worries about demand in the world’s largest fuel consumer after data showed a surprise build in U.S. gasoline inventories and weak U.S. new home sales.
U.S. crude oil inventories rose less than expected last week as imports increased, but gasoline stockpiles logged an unexpected gain of 1.7 million barrels, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
"Crude stocks were only up 800,000 but the surprise was gasoline stocks. I think that’s what is keeping the market down," said Dan Flynn, analyst at PFGBEST Research in Chicago.
U.S. crude fell $2.09, or 2.63%, and settled at $77.46 a barrel.
Oil prices came under pressure after data showed sales of new U companies making payday loans.S. homes tumbled unexpectedly in September, the first drop in six months, feeding doubt about an economic recovery.
Oil markets have been watching equities and economic data for signs of a rebound that could lift flagging fuel demand.
U.S. and European equity markets fell after the housing sales data. The U.S. dollar rose on safe-haven demand.
Weaker crude oil prices and slumping margins at refineries knocked quarterly earnings lower at ConocoPhillips (COP, Fortune 500), PetroChina (PCCYF) and Hess Corp., (HES, Fortune 500) all of which reported earnings on Wednesday.
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