By John Murrell Intel announced today that its $7.7 billion acquisition of McAfee , announced in August, is now complete . McAfee will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary and continue to sell security products and services under its own brand. Meanwhile, the companies are working on “a fundamentally new approach [to security] involving software, hardware and services,” the first fruits of which should be ripe later this year.
Read MoreFilm News: Pic is "Buried" writer Chris Sparling's directoral debut; Rodrigo Santoro attached -- Mandy Moore and Rodrigo Santoro will star in "Falling Slowly," the directoral debut of "Buried" writer Chris Sparling.
Read MoreTV News: Reality series to premiere April 26 -- Grammy Award winners Cee Lo Green and Adam Levine will form half of the foursome of musical coaches on upcoming NBC series "The Voice."
Read MoreDriven by steep adoption rates and a proliferation of new devices, tablets will evolve into a $35 billion market by 2012, posting 171.8 percent year-over-year growth this year and 66.2 percent the next. That’s according to J.P. Morgan, which sees the tablet as a meaningful revenue opportunity for PC makers and an emerging threat, as well. In 2010, the research outfit estimates, tablet-related cannibalization of PCs was about 18.9 percent. And in the next two years it will nearly double. “We expect tablets to have an increasingly negative impact on PC shipments,” analyst Mark Moskowitz wrote. “We are modeling more than 35 percent of tablets sold in 2012 to cannibalize PCs. More specifically, we expect that tablets will have the largest impact on the netbook market, which had represented about 20 percent of the notebook PC market prior to the tablet’s arrival. As a result of our assumptions, we estimate that the cannibalization rate of PCs gradually will trend close to 10 percent of notebook PC units (including standard notebooks and netbooks).” Lousy news for PC makers without a strong tablet offering, and great news for the company with the strongest tablet offering of them all: Apple. Moskowitz expects the iPad to sustain the company’s competitive advantage in the tablet market for at least the next few years. In 2011, for example, he sees Apple shipping 29.1million tablets–about 60.8 percent of the tablet market. The following year, however, that percentage will decline. Apple will account for 44.6 percent of tablet unit shipments, a sizable decline in share from the prior year, but one tempered by the unit sales and the great margins the company so often claims. Moskowitz believes about 60.5 percent of tablet market revenues in 2012 will go to Apple.
Read MoreIvi TV, a provocative experiment in online TV, may be a trailblazer. But for now, it’s going down in flames.
Read MoreIn returning to the media colossus that controls the U.S.’s No. 2 broadcast network and one of the most successful cable entertainment outlets, 42-year-old Elisabeth Murdoch—whose company Shine was acquired last week by order of the colossus’ chairman, her father—has set a place for herself at the table with the likes of
Read MoreInternational News: Opponents fear law change will lead to media grab -- Italo TV broadcasters will be able to buy newspaper publishers from the April 1 under new proposals -- re-igniting fears that mogul and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi might extend his domination of the country's media.
Read MoreThe second quarter is typically one of Apple’s weakest for Mac sales. Not this year, though. According to the latest data from NPD, Mac sales are already up more than 20 percent year-over-year this quarter, and they’re likely to rise higher still thanks to Apple’s recent refresh of its MacBook Pro line . Traditionally, Apple launches its new MacBook Pros in April, well into its third quarter. This year, it didn’t. It launched them in the second, and that’s where the resulting spike in sales will be reflected. And if the company sells enough of them, we could see a nice little bump in its earnings-per-share for the period, says UBS analyst Maynard Um. “The refresh comes with about 6 weeks remaining in what is typically Apple’s seasonally weakest Mac quarter of the year,” Um said in a note to clients. “However, AAPL’s last three MacBook Pro refreshes came in FYQ3, so the accelerated cycle could provide upside to our estimates for this quarter. Every incremental 100,000 portable Mac units would add ~$0.02 to EPS in FYQ2 assuming slightly lower gross margins.”
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