Marc Ferranti

IDG News Service

Ferranti is a reporter for the IDG News Service.

marc_ferranti@idg.com

Recent articles by Ferranti

Wall Street Beat: Red Hat, Oracle cheer IT investors
Jun. 25, 2009
As the first half of 2009 comes to a close, the big question for tech companies is whether the recession will ease up enough to spur spending increases for IT by the end of the year.

Wall Street Beat: Mixed signals amid hope for IT recovery
Jun. 19, 2009
Though some industry watchers are looking for a recovery in the second half of the year, IT vendors this week gave out mixed signals about prospects for sales, as Research In Motion (RIM) issued a tepid quarterly ...

Wall Street Beat: TI, Qualcomm, handsets cheer investors
Jun. 11, 2009
Revised forecasts from Qualcomm and Texas Instruments and excitement around the Palm Pre and Apple's iPhone 3GS this week helped raise some hopes for the second half of the year in the wake of a somber report on first- ...

Intel to acquire Wind River for $884 Million
Jun. 04, 2009
Intel said Thursday that it has agreed to acquire Wind River Systems for a total of about $884 million in cash, in an effort to bolster its offerings in the market for processors for embedded systems and mobile devices.

Wall Street Beat: Hardware, IT M&A in spotlight
May. 28, 2009
With vendors maneuvering for an edge in a down market, the tech mergers-and-acquisitions arena is staying hot this week while the hardware sector comes under scrutiny as server and chip sales founder.

Wall Street Beat: HP, Lenovo disappoint but IPOs rock
May. 21, 2009
Successful initial public offerings this week from network management company SolarWinds and Web-based restaurant reservation company OpenTable were offset by disappointing results from Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo, which ...

Wall Street Beat: IT vendors feed investor optimism
May. 15, 2009
Though virtually all IT vendors say they'll face a tough sales environment over the next few quarters, a range of companies including IBM, Intel, CA and even financially beleaguered Nortel offered some hopeful words ...

Wall Street Beat: IT sales down but analysts hike estimates
May. 07, 2009
IT and communications bellwethers Sprint, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco and Symantec this week reported sagging quarterly sales, but analysts, impressed by cost controls and hopeful that a bottom to the tech market has been ...

Wall Street Beat: Tech gains despite near-term outlook
Apr. 09, 2009
Though the IT sales outlook for the next few quarters remains poor, news from Juniper, Qwest, Nokia, Nortel and Cisco this week highlights market consolidation trends that may allow some companies to come out of the ...

Acer's AspireRevo nettop taps Ion platform
Apr. 08, 2009
Along with more than 20 new netbooks, notebooks, all-in-one PCs, Acer on Tuesday launched what it called the first small form factor PC to offer Nvidia's Ion platform, combining Intel's Atom chip and the Ion graphics ...

Acer pushes multibrand strategy with product barrage
Apr. 08, 2009
Acer took a big step forward with its multibrand strategy Tuesday, aiming at increasingly smaller demographic slices of the PC market with the launch of two dozen products ranging from wide-screen, all-in-one PCs to ...

Comcast e-mail outage sparks Twitter updates galore
Apr. 05, 2009
Comcast.net e-mail went down for potentially millions of subscribers the better part of the day Saturday as users and observers got running commentary on the service provider's efforts to manage the situation via ...

Wall Street Beat: Tech shares jump, but forecasts slashed
Apr. 02, 2009
A March rally on the markets brought shares in tech companies back into positive territory for the year after hitting seven-year lows, and Research In Motion got the quarterly earnings season off to a strong start, but ...

Wall Street Beat: Glimmers of confidence buoy tech
Mar. 26, 2009
Questions about the Obama administration's plans to shore up the financial sector and worries about declining technology sales continue, but technology investors are showing signs that they are looking ahead to the end ...

Wall Street Beat: M&A, Oracle stress the positive
Mar. 19, 2009
Some positive macroeconomic news, Oracle's plan to pay out a dividend, and mergers and acquisition news from Cisco, IBM and Sun this week stoked hopes for a sustained recovery in tech vendor shares even though companies ...

Cisco launches unified computing system
Mar. 16, 2009
In a much-anticipated announcement, Cisco Monday launched its Unified Computing System, comprising virtualization technology, services and blade servers aimed at helping enterprises develop and manage what it calls " ...

Wall Street Beat: Tech shares hit 7-year low, bounce back
Mar. 12, 2009
Shares of technology vendors are bouncing back after hitting a seven-year low Monday, but bad news including dour reports on the mobile and components sectors are a reminder that the continuing recession makes the ...

Wall Street Beat: Tech forecasts down amid market tumult
Feb. 26, 2009
Market analysts this week drastically cut estimates for global hardware and component revenue as concerns about the U.S.'s handling of the recession took a toll on investor confidence in vendors throughout the whole IT ...

Wall Street Beat: Economy hits HP, Apple, Sprint Nextel
Feb. 19, 2009
Earnings reports and market surveys this week show that the recession is hurting even tech highflyers like Hewlett-Packard and Apple, while sectors that were once thought to provide growth potential, such as mobile ...

Wall Street Beat: Tech investor mood stays dark
Feb. 12, 2009
A compromise on the U.S. stimulus package, an upbeat subscriber forecast from Research In Motion and news of a big investment plan by Intel this week did little to cheer IT investors about prospects for the tech sector, ...

Wall Street Beat: Downturn continues to slam IT bellwethers
Feb. 05, 2009
Earnings season is winding down, but tech companies of all stripes including Cisco, Lenovo, AOL, Panasonic, Motorola, Hynix and Applied Materials continue to report fourth-quarter sales declines, curb forecasts and, in ...

Wall Street Beat: No letup in IT earnings mayhem
Jan. 30, 2009
Anyone daring to hope for better financial news from IT vendors this week has been sorely disappointed, as the financial report season continues with layoff announcements by SAP, IBM, Sprint, AOL, Citrix, Texas ...

Wall Street beat: Recession whacks IT earnings
Jan. 23, 2009
Though Google, IBM and Apple offered scraps of good news this week, for the most part earnings reports from companies including Nokia, Sony, AMD and Ericsson were grim, illustrating the extent of the global economic ...

Wall Street Beat: IT faces global decline for 2009
Jan. 15, 2009
With market observers further slashing forecasts this week, Nortel Networks declaring bankruptcy and a range of vendors including Intel, Nvidia, and Motorola issuing dour financial reports or cutting staff, it appears ...

Microsoft makes Windows 7 beta available
Jan. 10, 2009
Microsoft made the Windows 7 beta available for download Saturday after its servers were overwhelmed with users trying to download the operating system.