SOFTWARE
HP to license out webOS
Hewlett-Packard (HP) CEO Leo Apotheker said on Wednesday the US computer giant was prepared to license the webOS operating system of newly acquired Palm to other companies. WebOS was designed by Palm for smartphones, but HP, which bought Palm for US$1.2 billion last year, plans on using it in computers, an upcoming HP tablet computer, printers and other HP devices. Apotheker also suggested that webOS could eventually replace Microsoft’s Windows as the operating system on its computers — a move that would deal a serious blow to the US software giant.
INTERNET
Twitter adds photo feature
Twitter said on Wednesday that it was adding a photo-sharing option for its users, a move that could deal a blow to existing services such as Twitpic and yfrog. Twitter CEO Dick Costolo also announced at the All Things Digital technology conference in Ranchos Palos Verdes, California, that the San Francisco-based service was upgrading its search function. Twitter will begin allowing users to upload pictures and attach them to “tweets” directly from Twitter.com, Costolo said.
VIDEO SERVICE
Netflix looking to expand
US video giant Netflix, which has more than 23 million subscribers in the US and Canada, plans to expand to another country this year, founder Reed Hastings said on Wednesday. The Netflix chief executive said Asia would be “very important” as the company looks to grow internationally. “China’s very tough for US companies,’ he said, “but outside of China, I think [South] Korea’s a great market, Indonesia’s going to be a great market, Japan’s a great market, India’s going to be a great market.”
FINANCE
Greek bonds downgraded
Credit rating agency Moody’s has downgraded Greece’s bond ratings deeper into junk status, a further blow to the struggling country, which has been wrapping up negotiations for a vital fifth installment of international bailout loans. Moody’s downgraded Greece by three notches from a B1 rating to Caa1 with a negative outlook on Wednesday, citing increased risk that the financially stricken country would be unable to handle its debt problems without an eventual restructuring — paying creditors less than the full amount, or later than originally planned.
TRAVEL
April global travel up 16.5%
International air travel jumped the most in 10 months in April after a volcanic eruption disrupted flights in Europe a year earlier, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said. International passenger demand climbed 16.5 percent in April from a year earlier, IATA said in a statement in Singapore yesterday. Air travel in Europe gained 29 percent after it was severely affected by the volcano eruption in Iceland last year. Air travel is growing at 3 percent to 4 percent this year after eliminating all distortions, IATA chief executive Giovanni Bisignani said.
FINANCE
Citigroup shuts hedge fund
Citigroup Inc shut a US$400 million hedge fund that used the firm’s money and mathematical models to bet on stocks, a person familiar with the matter said. The company closed the Quantitative Strategies fund after announcing in April that Shakil Ahmed, the fund manager, would become head of electronic market-making for New York-based Citigroup, the person said. Ahmed also is co-head of electronic trading.
EXTRATERRITORIAL REACH: China extended its legal jurisdiction to ban some dual-use goods of Chinese origin from being sold to the US, even by third countries Beijing has set out to extend its domestic laws across international borders with a ban on selling some goods to the US that applies to companies both inside and outside China. The new export control rules are China’s first attempt to replicate the extraterritorial reach of US and European sanctions by covering Chinese products or goods with Chinese parts in them. In an announcement this week, China declared it is banning the sale of dual-use items to the US military and also the export to the US of materials such as gallium and germanium. Companies and people overseas would be subject to
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) yesterday said that Intel Corp would find itself in the same predicament as it did four years ago if its board does not come up with a core business strategy. Chang made the remarks in response to reporters’ questions about the ailing US chipmaker, once an archrival of TSMC, during a news conference in Taipei for the launch of the second volume of his autobiography. Intel unexpectedly announced the immediate retirement of former chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger last week, ending his nearly four-year tenure and ending his attempts to revive the
WORLD DOMINATION: TSMC’s lead over second-placed Samsung has grown as the latter faces increased Chinese competition and the end of clients’ product life cycles Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) retained the No. 1 title in the global pure-play wafer foundry business in the third quarter of this year, seeing its market share growing to 64.9 percent to leave South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co, the No. 2 supplier, further behind, Taipei-based TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report. TSMC posted US$23.53 billion in sales in the July-September period, up 13.0 percent from a quarter earlier, which boosted its market share to 64.9 percent, up from 62.3 percent in the second quarter, the report issued on Monday last week showed. TSMC benefited from the debut of flagship
TENSE TIMES: Formosa Plastics sees uncertainty surrounding the incoming Trump administration in the US, geopolitical tensions and China’s faltering economy Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), Taiwan’s largest industrial conglomerate, yesterday posted overall revenue of NT$118.61 billion (US$3.66 billion) for last month, marking a 7.2 percent rise from October, but a 2.5 percent fall from one year earlier. The group has mixed views about its business outlook for the current quarter and beyond, as uncertainty builds over the US power transition and geopolitical tensions. Formosa Plastics Corp (台灣塑膠), a vertically integrated supplier of plastic resins and petrochemicals, reported a monthly uptick of 15.3 percent in its revenue to NT$18.15 billion, as Typhoon Kong-rey postponed partial shipments slated for October and last month, it said. The
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