MicroStrategy Inc. reported net income of $11.6 million for the second quarter, compared to $10 million a year ago.
Revenues for the quarter increased 23 percent to $107.5 million from $87.8 million in the same quarter last year.
The McLean-based business software company (NASDAQ: MSTR) product licenses revenue for the second quarter was $28.9 million versus $20.5 million for the second quarter of 2009, a 41 percent increase. Product support and other services revenue for MicroStrategy's core business intelligence business in the second quarter was $74.5 million versus $64.1 million for the second quarter of 2009, a 16 percent increase.
MicroStrategy saw gains in both software licensing sales and product support and services, which now accounts for the majority of its revenue.
Operating expenses for the second quarter were $68.8 million versus $55.3 million for the second quarter of 2009, a 24 percent increase. During the second quarter, MicroStrategy capitalized $2.2 million in research and development costs associated with the development of its MicroStrategy Mobile software, while no software development costs were capitalized during the second quarter of 2009.
MicroStrategy Mobile, a platform that extends business intelligence apps to the iPhone and iPad, was made generally available on June 30, and introduced at MicroStrategy's user conference in Cannes, France, on July 6.
In a statement MicroStrategy President and CEO Michael Saylor said: "The mobile Internet is the next wave of information technology. Many people prefer to consume business intelligence on their mobile devices rather than on their desktop computers, since mobile devices are more portable, always on, and always connected."
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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.
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A team of reporters from the Post-Dispatch has won a Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism for a series of stories last year about the after-market auto service-contract industry in the St. Louis area.
Matthew Hathaway, Elizabethe Holland and Jim Gallagher won in the personal finance category, presented Tuesday evening by the Anderson School of Management at the University of California-Los Angeles, at a reception in New York City.
The reporters won for three stories each had a hand in writing and reporting in 2009:
— "From Prison to the Pinnacle," documenting the rise of auto service-contract marketer US Fidelis and cofounder Darain Atkinson, who went from federal prison to extraordinary wealth in fewer than 20 years.
— "Pressure Tactics Used at US Fidelis," which explained in detail the tactics used to sell the service contracts.
— "Warranty Sales Skim Top Profit," which explained how the extended auto service-contract industry works — from marketing, to financing, to refunds cash advance now.
Hathaway in particular has reported extensively on the industry, which is largely centered in the St. Louis area, where more than 30 companies are based. The companies market contracts promising to cover the cost of car repairs in exchange for a low monthly payment.
But they have come increasingly under fire from consumer advocates, regulators and attorneys general nationwide for what they have called fraudulent practices and deceptive marketing tactics.
US Fidelis, which had been the No. 1 marketer of the contracts, dropped from a 1,100-employee company to fewer than 200 in 2009 and ultimately declared bankruptcy on March 1. The company cited a precipitous drop in new business and public pressure for the decline.
The three stories that won represented a broad view of the industry, from the individuals who buy and sell the contracts, to the finance companies that cover the costs.
The official in charge of the $20 billion fund to compensate individuals and businesses hurt by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico pledged Friday to quickly create a system for processing claims.
"We will have a very transparent methodology in place," said Kenneth Feinberg, who was appointed earlier this week by President Obama to manage the compensation fund. "We’ll set up a protocol very quickly so that everybody can examine what’s expected."
BP agreed to establish the $20 billion fund Wednesday after company executives met with Obama in Washington. The company has said repeatedly that it will pay all legitimate claims related to the spill, which has become the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.
Feinberg, an attorney who served as special master of the 9/11 victims fund and advises Obama on Wall Street pay issues, asserted that the fund will be independently managed. He emphasized that he is not aligned with the government or BP.
"I will be running an independent claims facility," he said. "It is my program as an independent force."
Feinberg made the comments after meeting with Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour in Jackson. He plans to meet with Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana later Friday.
He stressed that time is of the essence, saying that properly completed claims could be paid within 30 to 60 days of filing, once a protocol for processing them is complete.
But he acknowledged that there are challenges involved in verifying that damages are legitimately due to the spill. Larger claims may require more time for evaluation.
"Long-term payments will require sufficient corroboration so we can validate the claim," he said. Short-term, emergency payments will continue to be paid promptly.
BP deserves some credit for the steps it has already taken to process claims, Feinberg said, though it’s his job to improve the process.
The company has opened about 25 claims offices, and said this week that it has issued about 25,000 claims checks totaling $63 million.
Feinberg said the protocol for handling claims is still being hammered out and that critical decisions need to be made about where to draw the line as the damage from the spill ripples across the Gulf economy.
Another issue that has yet to be decided is whether to exempt BP from lawsuits once full payment of a claim has been made, he said.
Business First rated 287 public and private elementary schools that participate in the statewide testing program for fourth graders.
Each school’s rating was based on four years of data from the New York State Education Department, covering the period from 2006 through 2009. The greatest weight was given to results from the most recent academic year.
Fifty percent of each school’s rating was determined by its students’ scores on the statewide English test for fourth graders. The other 50 percent was based on the statewide math test for fourth graders.
Each test from each year was analyzed twice. The formula considered the percentage of students who demonstrated superior skills, as well as the percentage with basic skills.
Superior is defined as a Level 4 score on either test. Basic is defined as a Level 3 or Level 4 score.
A total of 16 statistical indicators were analyzed for each school — two results per test, two tests per year, for four years.
Three types of schools were not rated:
1. Elementary schools that don’t extend to fourth grade.
2. Schools that have been open for less than two years, or that have not generated at least two years of test data.
3. Private schools that don’t participate in the statewide testing program.
The Federal Reserve has a more optimistic outlook for the U.S. economy, according to meeting minutes released Wednesday, but the central bank is still debating how to shrink its massive balance sheet.
The Fed now expects U.S. gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, to increase at an annual rate of between 3.2% and 3.7% in 2010. That’s up from the Fed’s previous estimate of between 2.8% and 3.5% in January.
GDP rose at a 3.2% annual rate in the first three months of this year, the government said last month.
At the same time, the Fed reduced its forecast for the nation’s unemployment rate to a range between 9.1% and 9.5% this year, versus 9.5% to 9.7% in January. The unemployment rate currently stands at 9.9%.
The minutes were from the Fed’s most recent Open Market Committee meeting, which took place last month. That meeting happened before the financial markets were rocked by an escalation of fears about the economic crisis in Europe.
Still, Fed members also acknowledged the growing turmoil in Europe leading up to its last meeting, noting that "fiscal strains in Greece intensified during the intermeeting period."
The Fed subsequently announced plans to expand currency swaps with the European Central Bank and other central banks in the region to help contain the crisis.
When will the Fed raise rates? Despite the improved outlook, the Fed cautioned that the U.S. economy remains vulnerable enough to maintain an "accommodative stance of monetary policy."
In addition, committee members discussed ways to reduce the central bank’s balance sheet, which swelled during the financial crisis as the Fed bought billions worth of government and corporate bonds.
In March, the Fed completed a $1.25 trillion program to buy mortgage bonds backed by government-sponsored lenders. It also purchased about $175 billion of agency debt.
Last year, the Fed bought $300 billion of long-term U faxless payday loans.S. Treasury bonds to help keep mortgage rates down.
"Meeting participants agreed broadly on key objectives of a longer-run strategy for asset sales and redemptions," according to the minutes. "Reducing the size of the balance sheet would decrease the associated reserve balances to amounts consistent with more normal operations of money markets and monetary policy."
But the minutes showed that Fed bankers had a variety of opinions on how and when to begin selling the securities. Most members wanted to delay asset sales "for some time," but a few members preferred to begin sales "relatively soon."
A majority of members were in favor of selling assets gradually over a period of five years — but not until after the Fed begins increasing interest rates since that would mean the economic recovery is firmly established.
If that’s the case, the Fed may not wind up selling any of these assets anytime soon. The Fed also lowered its outlook for inflation, suggesting the central bank will be able to maintain the low interest rate policy it has had in place for over two years.
In April, the FOMC voted to hold the federal funds rate, its key overnight lending rate, near 0%. At that time, the Fed said it expects to keep rates "exceptionally low" for an "extended period" — which has been the central bank’s mantra for months.
However, one member of the committee voted against holding rates low indefinitely.
Thomas Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, indicated that rates should be increased toward 1% this summer, at which time the Fed could "further assess the economic outlook," according to the minutes.
Apache Corp. is in final discussions to buy Devon Energy Corp.'s assets in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico for some $750 million, Dow Jones is reporting, citing people familiar with the deal.
According to the report, another Houston company, privately held Dynamic Offshore Resources LLC was also interested in the assets and could still try to bid on them at the last minute.
Last fall, Oklahoma City-based Devon (NYSE: DVN) announced an assets sale program, saying it would sell its international and Gulf of Mexico assets to focus on its onshore oil and gas fields in North America.
In March, Houston-based Apache (NYSE: APA) Chief Executive Officer Steven Farris said that the exploration and production firm has $2 billion to spend on projects and acquisitions and was seeking to buy assets internationally and in North America.
Retail gasoline prices are expected to steadily increase into the summer, thanks to a rise in the price of crude oil as more data indicated the U.S. economy may be on the rebound.
The price of crude oil jumped to $84.87 on Thursday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Meanwhile, a pickup in manufacturing jobs and production was reported in the U.S., China, Japan and Europe, and is viewed as evidence of a rebound in international trade. In addition, U.S. companies added 162,000 jobs in March, with fewer Americans filing for unemployment, according to the U.S. Labor Department.
“We will most likely see crude oil stay above $80 a barrel for quite some time, causing retail gasoline prices to steadily increase into the summer,” said Jessica Brady, manager of public relations at AAA.
The national average price of regular retail gasoline is $2.82, a 2-cent increase from last week. Florida’s average price is $2.84, a 1-cent increase from last week, while Orlando’s average is $2.78, also up 1 cent from a week ago.
A proposal in the Arizona House of Representatives could restore some lost funding to the Arizona Office of Tourism.
As legislators look to close a $3.5 billion state budget deficit, they have cut the budgets of a number of departments, including the Arizona Office of Tourism.
As part of the state budget just approved by legislators, the transaction privilege tax formula funding for the Tourism Office was removed. TPT money comes from bed, restaurant and amusement taxes collected from businesses across the state. Those funds totaled about $14.6 million in fiscal 2010, and legislators appropriated $10.7 million of it to the Tourism Office through the TPT formula.
But the fiscal 2011 budget removed that funding from the Tourism Office completely, eliminating the formula and earmarking all TPT funds for the General Fund instead.
Under the new state budget, the department’s funding will come only from a portion of Indian gaming fees and revenue collected under Proposition 302, a voter-approved 1 percent bed and 3.25 percent car rental tax in Maricopa County — money the office has received in prior years. While the amount fluctuates based on sales receipts, it is estimated at about $12.6 million for fiscal 2011, according to state budget documents.
By comparison, the fiscal 2010 budget totaled $22 million including the TPT funding.
The bill now being considered by state lawmakers would reinstate the TPT formula. The measure, House Bill 2243, is sponsored by Rep. Michele Reagan, R-Scottsdale. Reagan was not available for comment.
The bill would set the stage for legislators to revive the Tourism Office budget with those TPT monies at a later date, said House Republican Majority spokesman Paul Boyer.
“Even though AZOT won’t be funded (through TPT), this will put that formula back into Arizona statute,” he said.
Kristen Jarnagin, spokeswoman for the Arizona Hotel and Lodging Association, said the bill is important because the TPT formula is “the foundation of tourism funding. If the state needs to do other things with that money during tough times, we understand. We want to be supportive, but the Arizona Office of Tourism needs to have that funding renewed — and the sooner, the better,” she said.
The bill is making its way through the state House of Representatives and has passed the Appropriations and Rules committees. Still, the measure must make it through the caucus and be approved formally by the House of Representatives, then move on to the Senate for consideration. If it passes all of those steps, it would go to Gov. Jan Brewer for signature.
The Arizona Office of Tourism declined to comment.
Design Within Reach will soon require a lot more effort, as the chain closes its midtown store at 16th and J streets.
The company confirmed it would close the 2,700-square-foot store at 1020 16th St. — in the ground-floor of the Loftwork’s o1 Lofts development, which includes Bistro 33 Midtown and P.F. Chang’s China Bistro. Design Within Reach will close March 15, with a 30 percent-off sale until then, a company spokeswoman said paydayloans.
The San Francisco-based company, which has about 60 of the boutique stores featuring cool and trendy furniture nationwide, is the latest to close its local outlet during the recession. Two employees work at the store.
The company has a Berkeley and three San Francisco stores, the soon-to-be closest outlets to Sacramento.
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