Hewlett-Packard Corporation
Posted on July 30, 2008
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Hewlett-Packard Corporation is currently the biggest technology company in the world, just recently surpassing IBM in 2007. It was established in 1939 with David Packard and William Hewlett, both Stanford graduates, as its founder. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP is ranked as 14th in the Fortune 500 released in 2008.
Hewlett-Packard or HP has three core business categories. The first is the personal Systems Group which deals with PCs for business and personal use, devices for mobile computing, and technology for workstations. A third of HP’s revenues come from the sales of PCs.
The second is the Imaging and Printing group. This particular division markest with inkjet, LaserJet printers, printing supplies, and others belong to this group. About 27 percent of profit of HP comes from this category, mostly from ink cartridges for replacement.
The third business group is for technology solutions where HP provides it customers and clients with products specifically for business such as servers, software, and managed services. A third of their income comes from this category.
HP is known for its innovative and creative culture. It puts a premium on new ideas. $3.6 billion of its finance budget is allotted every year for research and development to look for new technology, and new solutions.
HP common stock is publicly traded through New York Stock Exchange. For the third week of July 2008, the stock price has risen in the market, although for the past three months, it had achieved its peak in May, but the trend continued downward from June and to July.
Barr Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Posted on July 25, 2008
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Barr Pharmaceuticals, Inc. was previously named as Barr Laboratories, Inc. This company was founded in 1970 in New York as has been considered as one of the first ever generic pharmaceutical producers in the United States. It was in 1972 that the Barr Pharmaceuticals, Inc. introduced its first ever generic product as well as generic antibiotic but the growth of this company would only begin ten years later.
It was through the 1984 Drug Price Competition and Patent Restoration Act or more widely known as the Hatch-Waxman Act that would start the current U.S. Generic Pharmaceutical Industry. Not only did this new Act started the business of generic medicines this also opened the way for competition among generic pharmaceutical products that made the generic pharmaceutical industry of today. It was also the Hatch-Waxman that created the criteria which will become the foundation or basis of generic product approval.
After the approval of the Hatch-Waxman Act, several pharmaceutical companies engaged in production of generic medicines rapidly expanded specifically in the quantity of the product as well as the market share. By 1995, Barr management concentrated on the development, production and selling of distinctive products that were classified in five different categories namely: cancer treatments, heart disease treatment, female healthcare therapies, psychotherapeutics and lastly, anti-infectives.
At this point, Barr Pharmaceutical is manufacturing and marketing both branded and generic medications. This company is also thought of as one of the leaders in the production of oral contraceptives particularly in the U.S.
Lowe’s profit falls nearly 18 pct, lowers view
Posted on May 19, 2008
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If you are looking for a sign the economy is still in need of repair, you can find it at Lowe’s Cos.A struggling economy and continued turmoil in the housing market drove the nation’s second-biggest home improvement retailer to report a nearly 18 percent drop in first-quarter earnings from a year earlier and lower its guidance for the year on Monday.
Its shares fell more than 2 percent in afternoon trading.
Investors may see similar results from larger rival Home Depot Inc., who is expected to post lower first-quarter profit on Tuesday, pressured by declining sales and costs tied to store closures and a scale-back of future openings.
“It’s been a challenging sales environment,” said Lowe’s Chairman and Chief Executive Robert A. Niblock in an interview with The Associated Press. “As we continue on in a tough environment, with rising other costs for the consumer, be it food or fuel or whatever, what happens on the employment front has yet to be seen and can certainly be more tough on more consumers.”
Mooresville, N.C.-based Lowe’s said net profit in the period ended May 2 fell 17.9 percent to $607 million, or 41 cents per share, from a year earlier. Sales slipped to $12.0 billion from $12.2 billion a year ago.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial had been looking for net income of 40 cents a share on revenue of $12.4 billion. Estimates usually exclude one-time items.
“These results should not prove terribly surprising,” wrote Goldman Sachs analyst Matthew J. Fassler in a client note.
The home improvement sector has been hurt as consumers pulled back on renovation spending in the face of falling home values, tighter credit requirements and higher prices for basic items such as food and gasoline.
Lowe’s shares fell 60 cents, or 2.4 percent, to $24.29 in afternoon trading Monday. Shares of Home Depot rose 10 cents to $29.20.
Lowe’s said comparable store sales — a closely watched gauge of retail health that measures sales at stores open at least a year — declined 8.4 percent. The company predicted that number would drop at least 6 percent in the current quarter and the year.
Nearly 80 percent of the company’s comparable stores are located in markets experiencing housing price declines, Niblock said. As a result, many consumers remain hesitant to begin big ticket projects, he said.
In March, company officials said they plan to delay the opening of about 20 new stores this year in several hard-hit markets, including California and Florida. The company remains on track to open 120 stores in this year, Lowe’s President Larry Stone said Monday.
The company expects second-quarter total sales to rise about 1 percent on earnings of about 54 cents to 59 cents a share. Analysts have forecast earnings of 56 cents per share.
Lowe’s said it now expects full-year profit per share of $1.45 to $1.55, down from its forecast of $1.50 to $1.58 a share in February. Total annual sales are now expected to rise about 1 percent, down from a previous forecast of a rise of about 3 percent.
“While not a terrible report, we do not necessarily see this result as a positive catalyst,” wrote Deutsche Bank analyst Mike Baker in a client note. “We do not believe investors were looking for much improvement, but we have yet to see trends get less worse.”
Lowe’s and Home Depot have seen profits slide over the past year as a slump in the housing industry continues.
But the sentiment on Wall Street has been positive recently, and many expect home improvement retailers to benefit from an eventual recovery in the housing market.
Niblock said he was hopeful to see some dollars from consumers using their economic stimulus checks to do minor repairs and improvements to their homes.
“We don’t know what the full impact of the economic stimulus will be,” Niblock said. “It will be a benefit. How much is hard to determine.”
AOL seeks growth in shift from mass site to niches
Posted on May 17, 2008
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A company rooted in bringing the Internet to the masses, AOL is shifting its focus toward serving niche audiences with the launch of dozens of specialty Web sites.The latest — ParentDish for parents — formally launched Friday, with The Boot for country music and The Boom Box for hip hop and R&B to follow on Tuesday.
Time Warner Inc.’s AOL, branching out in hopes of doing a better job attracting crucial advertising revenue to offset its rapidly declining Internet access business, calls the niche sites “passion points.”
The sites reflect a growing sophistication of Internet users, who are spending less time at portals like AOL.com and Yahoo.com. and directly seeking specialized content at more focused sites. Examples outside AOL include Boing Boing, which keeps tabs on technology and the Internet; The Sartorialist, on street style; or Mom Logic, on parenting and being a mom.
“The consumer market is clearly fragmenting,” said Bill Wilson, AOL’s executive vice president for vertical programming. “We wanted to give people many front doors, not just one front door to come in.”
In a fourth-floor corner office at AOL’s new headquarters, once home to the grand Wanamaker department store in New York’s Greenwich Village, Wilson was passionate, even hurried, as he zipped through AOL’s plans to diversify its offerings.
Over the past several months, AOL has launched or revamped dozens of Web sites — from general portals such as Music and Sports to specialty sites like Spinner for indie music and StyleList for fashion. AOL plans to offer about two dozen more by year’s end, including BigDownload for downloadable video games.
AOL isn’t alone: Yahoo Inc. recently launched Shine for women ages 25 to 54. But, as the No. 4 Internet property behind Google Inc., Yahoo and Microsoft Corp., AOL has been more ambitious.
“The current problem with an awful lot of the mega sites is the fact that they aren’t well targeted,” said Rob Enderle, an industry analyst with the Enderle Group. “The material is written and designed for a general audience, and the reality is we are all individuals.”
AOL reigned over the Internet when it was known as America Online. It gave millions of Americans their first taste of the Net and had 26.7 million U.S. subscribers at its peak in 2002. But its mostly dial-up base quickly eroded as Americans adopted high-speed broadband services through cable and phone companies.
That forced AOL to change its mission. Instead of locking its news, music videos and other features behind a manicured wall for paying subscribers, AOL began giving away almost everything free through ad-supported sites.
Initially, it tried luring current and former paying subscribers to its free sites. But with ad revenue stagnant, the company is seeking new ways to boost traffic.
“If all you’re doing is keeping the people you have, that’s not a growing audience,” Wilson said.
There are some early signs of success.
According to traffic measurements by comScore Inc., AOL has had seven consecutive months of year-over-year growth in both unique visitors and page views.
For the entire first quarter, page views for AOL’s content-focused sites, which exclude e-mail, instant messaging and the general AOL.com portal, grew 22 percent to 9.5 billion compared with the same period in 2007. The content sites had 55 million visitors in April, up 12 percent.
Jack Flanagan, an executive vice president at comScore, said niche sites aren’t solely responsible for AOL’s growth but have quickly attracted sizable audiences.
The traffic growth, however, hasn’t translated to ad dollars, which were flat in the first quarter. In fact, non-search ads on AOL sites declined 18 percent compared with the same period in 2007. The big growth has been in ads that AOL brokers for third-party sites — such as the blogs vying for the same eyeballs as AOL’s new niche sites.
Executives have been blunt: AOL made key mistakes integrating $1 billion worth of corporate acquisitions into a single “Platform-A” advertising unit. Its sales forces weren’t aligned, and in some cases they were effectively undercutting one another on prices.
With new management, reorganized sales teams and new self-service tools for advertisers, AOL hopes to grow ad revenues on its sites again. The niche sites will be an important part of the mix, said Lynda Clarizio, president of Platform-A.
AOL already has behavioral-targeting technologies meant to let advertisers reach audience segments wherever they are on the Internet, but Clarizio said nothing can match reaching them when they are already engaged in a subject. The niche sites should help AOL attract sponsorship deals and other coordinated ad placements.
“That generally is the most valuable advertising inventory, the most expensive,” Clarizio said.
Wilson said launch decisions are primarily based on whether AOL can offer consumers an experience unmatched elsewhere. Advertising potential is also crucial — Wilson likens it to broadcast networks canceling shows that cannot draw ad revenue.
The individual sites are being given unprecedented freedom — in many cases even shedding the AOL brand — to best appeal to a particular community.
ParentDish, tapping into parental desires to connect, hopes to let visitors to share photos and ask one another questions. In a twist, ParentDish will use Yahoo’s Flickr rather than AOL’s own photo services.
The Asylum site for young men takes an irreverent tone — and devotion to the pursuit of women. The lead item recently: “How to Make Searches for Hot Babes Even Hotter.”
With the new site on country music, AOL is adopting a homier feel. The Boot plans to go beyond the better-known artists who have crossed into the mainstream, something that might not appeal to a broader audience.
Such genre-focused sites allow writers to make assumptions about the visitor’s knowledge, even posting jokes that would fly over the heads of a mainstream audience, said Bill Crandall, editor in chief for AOL’s music sites.
Most are adopting a blog-like format to engage its visitors, a formula that has worked extremely well with TMZ.com, the celebrity-gossip site jointly run by AOL and Time Warner sister company Telepictures Productions.
In a departure, the new sites routinely link to articles found elsewhere. AOL would rather have visitors start at one of its sites than bypass them completely for the blogs.
“A few years ago, if we didn’t have it, we didn’t want people to know we didn’t have it,” Wilson conceded.
Stand-alone sites also can be tailored to appear higher in search rankings. And executives believe that some bloggers would be more willing to link back to an item on, say, Asylum than on the AOL.com portal.
AOL’s plans also include integrating its popular AIM instant-messaging platform so users can see other AIM members currently on a particular site.
But Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester Research, warned that all of AOL’s niche offerings may not attract the total numbers they’re seeking.
“There’s no way they can possibly anticipate all the ways consumers will want to bend and shape their own content,” Epps said. But she credited AOL for trying.
“They need to do something different. They need to keep innovating and experimenting and sometimes fail (in order to) find things that do work.
Testing 123
Posted on January 15, 2008
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Hello world!
Posted on January 13, 2008
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