DigitMemo.com

AMD reached its lowest share price for more than four years last week and, as a result, its market value dropped to around US$5 billion – that’s $400 million less than it paid for ATI in July 2006.

Intel, AMD’s major competitor in the CPU business, has been on a roll for the past 18 months and is now worth around US$162 billion, which makes the chip giant more than 32 times the size of AMD in monetary terms.

Even worse for AMD is that its partner-cum-archrival, Nvidia, has a market cap of around $19 billion, which makes it almost four times as valuable as the struggling platform company.

Click for more on AMD now worth less than it paid for ATi »

The chain’s 103 retail stores will remain open and staffed during the holiday season, offering discounts on computer and electronics.

CompUSA, the computer and gadget retailer controlled by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, has been sold to a restructuring and investment firm that will close stores and sell some company assets.

The new owner is Boston-based Gordon Brothers Group, which recently helped CompUSA sell under-performing stores. The terms of the deal were not not disclosed.

Click for more on CompUSA Sold, Stores To Close »

Google Plans to Bid 4.6 Billion on 700MHz Band

Google Inc was set to announce on Friday it will bid on coveted airwaves to launch a U.S. wireless network, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The Silicon Valley-based company had said several months ago it was considering bidding in the auction of 700-megahertz wireless spectrum due to begin January 24. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission deadline for companies to declare their interest in joining the airwaves bidding is December 3.

Click for more on Google ready to bid on mobile airwaves »

Google leads the way in search yet again, but Ask.com gains ground.

Google once again was the giant among search sites, as it took a 58. 5 percent share of the search market in October in the United States.

According to Internet ranking site ComScore, Google gained 1.5 share points versus the previous month. Yahoo sites ranked second with 22.9 percent, followed by Microsoft sites (9.7 percent), Ask Network (4.7 percent) and Time Warner Network (4.2 percent).

Click for more on Google Wins Again »

See what sort of tone a company’s acquisitions set

The LibraryHouse blog has a nice summary of recent acquisitions (July 2006 through June 2007) by Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, roughly color coded by category:

Click for more on Microsoft, Google and Yahoo Acquisitions Compared »

Make games less expensive

EA’s John Riccitiello has been shaking things up at EA lately, with everything from layoffs to the purchase of BioWare. Now he’s suggesting the company take some really drastic measures: make their games less expensive.

The $31 billion gaming industry will suffer if it doesn’t start to reevaluate its business model. Game executives at Sony, Microsoft and Activision must answer some tough questions in the coming years, like how long they can expect consumers to pay $59 for a video game. The model will be obsolete in the next decade. ‘In the next five years, we’re all going to have to deal with this. In China, they’re giving games away for free,’ he says. ‘People who benefit from the current model will need to embrace a new revenue model, or wait for others to disrupt.’ As more publishers transition to making games for online distribution, EA will experiment with different pricing models

Despite underwhelming consumers and being snubbed by enterprises, Windows Vista’s numbers keep growing

Despite underwhelming consumers and being snubbed by enterprises, Windows Vista’s numbers keep growing, with Microsoft Corp. saying Thursday that it has now shipped 88 million copies of the operating system, almost double the number of copies of XP in the same amount of time at its launch.

In late July, Microsoft said it had hit the 60 million shipment mark with Vista.

Click for more on Microsoft: 88 Million Copies of Vista Shipped »

Microsoft has announced a revenue of $13.76 billion for the quarter ending on September 30, 2007, a 27% increase over the same period of the prior year.

Microsoft’s businesses of Client, Microsoft Business Division, and Server and Tools grew combined revenue in excess of 20%, and experienced robust demand for Windows Vista, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, Windows Server, and SQL Server. “Customer demand for Windows Vista this quarter continued to build with double-digit growth in multi-year agreements by businesses and with the vast majority of consumers purchasing premium editions,” said Kevin Johnson, president of the Platform and Services Division at Microsoft.

Interesting Quarter Notes:

• The fastest revenue growth of any first quarter since 1999
• Operating income = $5.92 billion, net income = $4.29 billion, diluted earnings per share = $0.45
• Microsoft’s largest acquisition occured, aQuantive was purchased for $6 billion
• Halo 3 achieved the biggest entertainment launch day in history

Microsoft beat out Google on Wednesday in a battle to invest in socializing Web site Facebook, agreeing to pay $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in the Web phenomenon.

Microsoft also clinched exclusive rights to sell ads on Facebook outside of the United States as part of the investment that valued Facebook at $15 billion — on par with the market capitalizations of retailer Gap Inc and hotel chain Marriott International Inc.

Analysts said Microsoft paid a steep price on a bet that the three-year-old company would be able to transform itself into a hub for all sorts of Web activity.

Click for more on Microsoft beats Google to Facebook stake »

Mozilla, the group behind the open-source Firefox Web browser, disclosed its 2006 revenue Monday night: $66,840,850.

That’s a 26 percent bump up from the $52.9 million that Mozilla garnered in 2005. And with 2006 expenses slicing off only $19.8 million, Mozilla has a tidy sum left at its disposal, even if it’s no Microsoft.

“The highlight is that Mozilla remains financially healthy: we’re able to hire more people, build more products, help other projects, and bring more possibilities for participation in the Internet to millions of people,” foundation Chairman Mitchell Baker said in a blog posting. The foundation released the results in conjunction with its 2006 tax form.

Click for more on Mozilla’s 2006 revenue: $66.8 million »