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20 May 2013 | 11:35 pm
LONDON (Reuters) - Vodafone posted its largest ever quarterly fall in key organic service revenue on Tuesday, prompting it to keep hold of a 2.1 billion pound dividend from its U.S. arm rather than return it to shareholders.
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20 May 2013 | 10:41 pm
SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc will buy blogging service Tumblr for $1.1 billion cash, giving the Internet pioneer a much-needed social media platform to reach a younger generation of users and breathe new life into its ailing brand.
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20 May 2013 | 10:00 pm
Estimates continue to sink despite the potential from this social network platform play.
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20 May 2013 | 9:19 pm
By Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc Chief Executive Marissa Mayer's $1.1 billion acquisition of blogging service Tumblr will be a test of her ability to revive the aging Web portal. ...
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20 May 2013 | 9:16 pm
TOKYO (Reuters) - Sprint Nextel Corp said its Japanese suitor SoftBank Corp granted it a waiver allowing it to consider a $25.5 billion rival bid by Dish Network Corp, as pressure mounts on SoftBank to sweeten its offer for the No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier.
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20 May 2013 | 9:09 pm
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc has been given a security clearance by the U.S. government that will make it easier for federal agencies to use its cloud computing services.
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20 May 2013 | 9:00 pm
MUMBAI (Reuters) - Outsourcing company iGate Corp said it had sacked its Chief Executive Phaneesh Murthy for not disclosing a relationship with a subordinate after investigating one of India's best-known IT executives for sexual harassment.
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20 May 2013 | 7:33 pm
(Reuters) - Charlie Ergen, the chairman of U.S. satellite company Dish Network Corp , has offered to buy bankrupt broadband company LightSquared Inc's wireless airwaves, a source close to Ergen told Reuters.
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20 May 2013 | 5:13 pm
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday told Google's Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and other business leaders that he expected their companies to pay their taxes in exchange for benefiting from low tax rates.
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20 May 2013 | 5:10 pm
After falling woefully out of fashion, Yahoo wants to be cool again while catering to the capitalistic demands of its shareholders. That goal led CEO Marissa Mayer to make a $1.1 billion bet on online ...
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20 May 2013 | 4:55 pm
SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc will buy blogging service Tumblr for $1.1 billion cash, giving the Internet pioneer a much-needed social media platform to reach a younger generation of users and breathe new life into its ailing brand.
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20 May 2013 | 4:27 pm
(Reuters) - U.S. satellite company Dish Network Corp has offered to buy bankrupt broadband company LightSquared Inc's radio frequencies for $2 billion, Bloomberg said, quoting people familiar with the bid.
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20 May 2013 | 4:09 pm
Por Patrick Temple-West y Poornima Gupta SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc solicitará el martes una reforma impositiva integral para empresas cuando se presente ante un subcomité del Senado, sumándose a la lista de compañías tecnológicas que enfrenta cuestionamientos por sus prácticas fiscales en el extranjero. ...
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20 May 2013 | 3:58 pm
All Business Briefs
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20 May 2013 | 3:55 pm
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp is expanding its services for hosting and processing online data in Australia with the establishment of two new "cloud" computing data centers in the country.
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20 May 2013 | 3:43 pm
Yahoo Inc. lured Marissa Mayer from Google in July to become its fifth CEO in as many years. Her task: Help the Internet pioneer regain its stature after years in a financial funk. In her 10 months leading ...
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20 May 2013 | 3:40 pm
Qihoo 360 Technology jumped to a new high Monday as the Beijing company gained more ground in Q1 in its search battle vs. Baidu and predicted that revenue this quarter will nearly double on strong mobile sales. Q2 revenue should jump to $142 million to $144 million, up 97% at the midpoint. Mobile gaming will lead the way, co-CFO Zuoli Xu told analysts on a conference call. Wall Street had expected $125.5 million. "The game-hosting
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20 May 2013 | 3:38 pm
Yahoo said it is buying blogging service Tumblr for $1.1 billion cash, giving the struggling Internet pioneer a much-needed platform in social ...
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20 May 2013 | 3:13 pm
The near-term future of software-defined networking is in hardware, and Cisco Systems is best positioned to cash in, says a new, independent study. That's an ironic conclusion for a technology nicknamed the "Cisco killer" when it started emerging a couple years ago. In theory, SDN will reduce hardware needs for data centers and computer networks ... eventually. That's not certain, but for the near term, SDN actually will lift hardware needs, says
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20 May 2013 | 3:07 pm
Yahoo, gaming to be cool again, will pay $1.1 billion to acquire the hip blog site Tumblr. That Yahoo (YHOO) will strive to keep the site cool for its rising numbers of mostly younger users was the message Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer stressed in announcing the deal Monday, promising to let Tumblr be Tumblr. The message started with the unusual tack taken in the headline of the company's press release: "Yahoo to Acquire Tumblr, Promises not to screw it
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20 May 2013 | 2:05 pm
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc will argue for a comprehensive corporate tax reform that will levy a "reasonable tax" on foreign earnings and is not dependent on a company's revenue when it goes before a Senate panel on Tuesday to explain its offshore tax practices.
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20 May 2013 | 11:34 am
Retail chain Target (TGT) is taking aim at Amazon.com (AMZN), Netflix (NFLX), Wal-Mart (WMT) and others, looking to claim a piece of the fast-growing online video market. The retail giant has launched a test of its own video streaming service, according to a report Monday from Multichannel News. The beta test of the service, called Target Ticket, is limited to Target employees. The service provides access to 15,000 titles including new movies,
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20 May 2013 | 11:25 am
Priceline shares were up 3.3% in afternoon trading Monday, at 14-year highs, after Deutsche Bank analyst Ross Sandler upgraded the stock to buy from hold and raised his price target to 900 from 715. The stock was trading near 840.50 in the stock market today. Sandler said in an investor note Monday that online travel agency Priceline "is the clear global secular winner in the OTA space, owing to its unique supply footprint, industry-high growth
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20 May 2013 | 11:08 am
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday told Google's Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and other business leaders that he expected their companies to pay their taxes in exchange for benefiting from low tax rates.
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20 May 2013 | 10:45 am
JA Solar ignited volatile solar stocks, as the company beat its prior guidance in posting its first-quarter earnings results early Monday. With JA Solar (JASO) reporting high shipments, its shares were up 49% in afternoon trading in the stock market today, at a nearly one-year high. With the solar sector riding high, there's also been a lot of short interest in solar stocks. China-based JA Solar said it shipped 442.7 megawatts of solar equipment,
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20 May 2013 | 10:43 am
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Two of the nation's biggest online food delivery businesses said they are merging in a deal that they hope will drive more orders, in more cities, through their platforms.
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20 May 2013 | 9:33 am
Amid intensifying competition in the prepaid wireless market, Deutsche Telekom (DTEGY)-owned T-Mobile USA's (TMUS) prospects look better than those of Leap Wireless (LEAP), says Deutsche Bank. Deutsche Bank analyst Brett Feldman downgraded Leap to sell from neutral, and upgraded T-Mobile USA to buy. Deutsche Telekom on May 1 completed its merger with MetroPCS Communications, as IBD reported. Shares of Leap were down 2.2% in midday trading Monday,
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20 May 2013 | 8:40 am
Shares of Websense (WBSN) soared 29% Monday, to near 24.75, after the troubled data security company said it's agreed to be acquired by a private equity group for $1 billion. Under the terms, private equity firm Vista Equity Partners will buy Websense for 24.75 a share. The stock closed Friday at 19.23. It hasn't traded above 24.75 since July 2011. The deal is expected to close before the end of the third quarter. A buyout had been expected, as
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20 May 2013 | 8:32 am
HELSINKI (Reuters) - A group of ex-Nokia software developers unveiled its first smartphone on Monday, aiming to prove their former employer wrong by making a success of a technology dropped by the Finnish mobile phone maker.
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20 May 2013 | 8:23 am
TORONTO (Reuters) - A new app launched on Monday aims to bring William Shakespeare's sonnets to the masses with the help of short films starring stage actors performing them in front of New York landmarks.
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20 May 2013 | 8:18 am
Generic drugmaker Actavis (ACT) said Monday it's buying specialty drugmaker Warner Chilcott (WCRX) in an $8.5 billion deal, sending both stocks up in the stock market today. Actavis explained in its press release that the all-stock transaction will create a company with $11 billion in annual revenue. Actavis already had a small portfolio of branded drugs, but the deal will increase that business to 25% of total revenue from 7%. "We have set as our
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20 May 2013 | 7:18 am
Shares of Yahoo (YHOO) were flat early Monday as the market digested the Web portal's confirmation that is acquiring Tumblr, a much-used social media service, for $1.1 billion in cash. In its press release, Yahoo said that in a "promise not to screw it up" it will maintain Tumblr as an independent business, and David Karp would remain CEO. Founded in 2007, Tumblr is a blog media network that lets users post videos and other content. The service
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20 May 2013 | 6:12 am
Qihoo 360 Technology (QIHU) rose sharply early Monday after reporting that its China search engine
market share rose in Q1, beating revenue forecasts and guiding Q2
revenue estimates higher. That offset an expected decline in earnings,
reflecting heavy spending to boost long-term growth.
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20 May 2013 | 4:49 am
(Reuters) - Dell Inc said in a letter to suitors Carl Icahn and Southeastern Asset Management that the company would not provide more information about itself unless the board determined that their proposal was "superior" to founder Michael Dell's.
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20 May 2013 | 4:30 am
SAN FRANCISCO/SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp is set to make a splash this week with the eagerly awaited unveiling of its new Xbox game console, eight years after the last version, as it seeks a larger share of the $65 billion a year global computer gaming industry.
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20 May 2013 | 4:29 am
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Internet is brimming with disclosures of officials collecting bribes, homes and luxury accessories as casually as they do mistresses.
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19 May 2013 | 9:47 pm
BANGALORE (Reuters) - Infosys Ltd, India's No. 2 software services exporter, said on Monday it would challenge a 5.77 billion rupees ($105.3 million) income tax demand raised by Indian authorities earlier this month.
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19 May 2013 | 1:36 pm
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc's board has approved a deal to buy blogging and social networking site Tumblr for $1.1 billion in cash, the Wall Street Journal cited people familiar with the matter as saying on Sunday.
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18 May 2013 | 8:17 am
SAN FRANCISCO/SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp is set to make a splash this week with the eagerly awaited unveiling of its new Xbox game console, eight years after the last version, as it seeks a larger share of the $65 billion a year global computer gaming industry.
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18 May 2013 | 8:16 am
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google staged four discussions expounding on the finer points of its "Glass" wearable computer during this week's developer conference. Missing from the agenda, however, was a session on etiquette when using the recording-capable gadget, which some attendees faithfully wore everywhere - including to the crowded bathrooms.
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18 May 2013 | 5:05 am
The market is in an uptrend, but it's important to search among the best-performing stocks for prospective winners. The IBD 50 list of leading stocks. Celgene got positive analyst comments earlier this month after reporting data from a late-stage trial of its psoriatic arthritis drug apremilast. Apremilast could help the 1 million arthritis sufferers in the U.S. and Europe, and be a winner for Celgene. Shares were down 2% for the week in stock
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18 May 2013 | 5:02 am
China's Qihoo 360 Technology (QIHU) is expected early Monday to post its first year-over-year profit decline in three years, as the security company continues its charge against China search leader Baidu (BIDU). Wall Street expects Qihoo to post Q1 earnings per share of 14 cents, down 33% from 21 cents in the year-earlier period, according to Thomson Reuters. Sales are expected to jump 53% to $106.3 million. That would mark the slowest quarterly
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18 May 2013 | 12:25 am
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Europe's top trade official for the first time late on Friday officially cited Chinese mobile telecommunications equipment makers Huawei and ZTE Corp for violating anti-dumping and anti-subsidy guidelines.
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17 May 2013 | 6:09 pm
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc's board will meet on Sunday to vote on whether to offer $1.1 billion in cash for New York-based blogging service Tumblr, tech blog AllThingsD cited sources close to the situation as saying on Friday.
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17 May 2013 | 3:58 pm
Superheroes ruled the video game sales chart in April, but even their powers could not stop the industry from slumping for a 17th straight month year over year.
Sales of new video game products at U.S. retail dipped 25% to $495 million last month, from $658 million in April 2012, the NPD Group reported late Thursday. Sales this year through April are down 13% to $3.13 billion vs. the same period in 2012.
"These sales figures represent new physical retail sales of hardware, software and accessories, which account for roughly 50% of the total consumer spend on games," NPD analyst[…]
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17 May 2013 | 3:30 pm
Big Data and cloud computing IPOs soared Friday as investor appetite for new issues -- particularly potential highflying techs -- seems to have fortified. Tableau Software (DATA), which helps companies mine and make sense of the massive silos of data they collect, surged 63.7% to 50.75 in its first day. Marketo (MKTO), a cloud-based software marketing firm, spiked 78% to 23.10. The two come a full year after Facebook's (FB) famous
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17 May 2013 | 2:10 pm
Washington wants to get its mitts on corporate America's offshore profits and Apple CEO Tim Cook plans to tell Congress what it'll need to do to get a share of it.
Cook is scheduled to testify Tuesday at the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The hearing is set to start at 9:30 a.m. ET. Cook and two lieutenants, CFO Peter Oppenheimer and Phillip Bullock, head of tax operations, are on the second of three panels called as witnesses.
The hearing will examine "the structures and methods employed by multinational corporations to shift profits[…]
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17 May 2013 | 2:08 pm
(Reuters) - The largest U.S. satellite video provider, DirecTV, is one of the companies considering a bid for online video website Hulu, according to a source familiar with the situation.
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17 May 2013 | 1:55 pm
The second half of the year is apt to be better for software and other enterprise tech companies, FBR & Co. analyst Daniel Ives says in a research note released Friday. So far, soft U.S. service provider and federal spending, general weakness out of Europe and company-specific issues are all playing a role in March- and April-quarter reports below expectations, his research shows. Companies missing the mark in the recent quarter ran a gamut from
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17 May 2013 | 1:35 pm
June is a time for gift giving for Father's Day and school graduations. But shirts and ties just don't cut it anymore. Whether your recipient is a father or grandfather, or a graduate of middle school, high school, or college, a tech gift works. We'll venture a few suggestions: If your dad or grad is someone who has to have the latest technology, the I'm Watch, designed by Italy's I'm SpA, might be the ticker. The $299 watch connects to your phone
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17 May 2013 | 12:37 pm
SolarCity (SCTY) stock took off Friday, up 26% in afternoon trading at a new high, following word Thursday that Goldman Sachs (GS) will finance more than $500 million in solar panel system installations for SolarCity residential and business customers. It's finance city right now for SolarCity and cousin company Tesla Motors (TSLA), the electric car maker, which is working with Goldman to finalize a secondary Tesla stock offering. SolarCity is
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17 May 2013 | 11:53 am
Shares of Brocade Communications Systems (BRCD), a maker of data center storage and networking gear, fell nearly 5% in afternoon trading Friday, after the company's revenue guidance late Thursday disappointed. Its fiscal Q2 results also lagged, in part because of weak business and government tech spending that was cited in the recent results of a number of tech companies, including IBM (IBM) and Oracle (ORCL), as IBD reported. Only three of 25
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17 May 2013 | 11:46 am
DirecTV Group has a big call to make on NFL Sunday Ticket, its popular programming package. About 2 million of the satellite TV broadcaster's subscribers, 10% of its customers, pay to get NFL Sunday Ticket. If DirecTV (DTV) wants to renew its exclusive deal to broadcast National Football League games on Sundays, it'll have to pay more than the $1 billion it now antes up each year, analysts say. The satellite TV broadcaster's $4 billion, four-year
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17 May 2013 | 11:40 am
Dell has a love-hate relationship with the personal computer business.
After trying to distance itself from the low-margin PC business, Dell has chased corporate PC contracts with aggressive pricing the past two quarters. That move hurt the company's bottom line in its fiscal first-quarter results, released late Thursday.
Dell Chief Financial Officer Brian Gladden denied any change in business strategy during a conference call with analysts.
Raymond James analyst Brian Alexander asked why Dell (DELL) had embraced such "an abrupt change" in its PC pricing strategy in the last two quarters.
"I wouldn't say this has been an abrupt change,"[…]
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17 May 2013 | 10:13 am
Shares of Sina (SINA) were up a fraction in midday trading Friday, after earlier rising as much as 5%, after the China Web portal late Thursday topped Wall Street's Q1 expectations, swinging to a profit and guiding for higher-than-expected revenue in the current quarter. The company reported earnings per share of 2 cents minus items, better than the 4-cent loss Wall Street had been predicting, according to Thomson Reuters. Sina lost 21 cents per
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17 May 2013 | 9:59 am
Autodesk (ADSK), the 3D design and engineering software maker, drew itself into a corner in Q1. The stock was down 7% in midday trading Friday, after earlier falling as much as 13.5%, after Autodesk missed analysts' first-quarter expectations and guided the year down. "Over the past several quarters, we have been experiencing uneven economic activity around the world," Autodesk CEO Carl Bass said on the earnings conference call late Thursday. "So,
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17 May 2013 | 9:56 am
Shares of data-visualization company Tableau Software (DATA) vaulted 54% on the stock market Friday afternoon, after the company's upsized IPO priced above its expected range. Late Thursday, Tableau priced its 8.2 million shares at $31 apiece, raising $254 million. It had originally planned to offer 7.2 million shares at $23 to $26, but excitement was evidently building for a company associated with the Big Data trend. Its software helps companies
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17 May 2013 | 7:29 am
It was the third largest initial public offering ever, in terms of money raised, and far above any previous tech IPO -- and it's called a flop, the Facebook (FB) flop. Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of the much-hyped Facebook IPO. Whereas investors had visions of a soaring stock, the shares from day one have never gotten off the ground. Facebook continues to be by far the most popular social network, but user growth has slowed and, like
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17 May 2013 | 6:49 am
Hurricane Cisco hit wireless gear maker Aruba Networks (ARUN) last quarter. That's the moniker Jefferies analyst George Notter gives the tech giant in a research report that speculates other corporate suppliers of data center and networking equipment -- such as Juniper Networks (JNPR), F5 Networks (FFIV) and Riverbed Technology (RVBD) -- might also be affected by Cisco Systems ' (CSCO) more aggressive marketing. Shares of Aruba were down 28% in
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16 May 2013 | 4:10 pm
Computer maker Dell late Thursday badly missed Wall Street's earnings target for its fiscal first quarter, but reported sales ahead of estimates. It's unclear if the report will have much impact on CEO Michael Dell's efforts to take the company private. Michael Dell and partners have offered $13.65 a share, or $24.4 billion, for the company. Some big investors say that's too low, but Dell (DELL) shares were flat in after-hours trading, after it
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