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TECH SPACE
iPhone sales drive record quarter for Apple
by Staff Writers
San Francisco (AFP) Jan 24, 2012


HP to make webOS software public by September
San Francisco (AFP) Jan 25, 2012 - Hewlett-Packard said Wednesday it will make its webOS mobile operating system available to the open source community by September.

HP announced in December that it was planning to make webOS open source, meaning that developers anywhere can tinker with it as they wish and it will be available for anyone to use free of charge.

The Palo Alto, California-based HP acquired the webOS software as part of its $1.2 billion purchase of Palm in 2010 but later abandoned plans to make smartphones and tablet computers using the platform.

"By contributing webOS to the open source community, HP unleashes the creativity of hardware and software developers to build a new generation of applications and devices," HP said in a statement.

The computer maker said it would make the webOS source code available under an open source license "in its entirety by September."

"This is a decisive step toward meeting our goal of accelerating the platform's development and ensuring that its benefits will be delivered to the entire ecosystem of Web applications," said Bill Veghte, HP executive vice president and chief strategy officer.

HP also said it is releasing version 2.0 of webOS developer tool Enyo, which allows developers to write a single application that works across mobile devices and desktop Web browsers.

Citing disappointing sales, HP announced on August 18 it was discontinuing the TouchPad, a tablet computer powered by webOS, just seven weeks after it hit the market.

Google's open source Android mobile software is widely used by handset makers but it has been pounded with patent lawsuits from rivals Apple and Microsoft.

Apple blew past forecasts and reported record quarterly net profit and revenue on Tuesday in the first quarter since the death of founder Steve Jobs, driven by strong sales of the new iPhone.

Apple said its net profit more than doubled in the first quarter of fiscal 2012 to a record $13.06 billion while revenue soared to an all-time high of $46.33 billion from $26.74 billion a year ago.

Earnings per share of $13.87 easily surpassed the $10.08 per share expected by Wall Street analysts.

Apple said it sold 37.04 million iPhones in the quarter which ended on December 31, up 128 percent from a year ago, and 15.43 million iPads, a 111 percent increase.

The California-based gadget-maker sold 5.2 million Macintosh computers in the quarter, up 26 percent, and 15.4 million iPods, a 21 percent decline from a year ago.

"We're thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs," Apple chief executive Tim Cook said in a statement.

"Apple's momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline," Cook said.

Apple's previous quarterly highs for iPhone, iPad and Macintosh sales were 20.34 million, 11.12 million and 4.89 million respectively.

Investors applauded the blockbuster quarter, sending Apple shares up 7.5 percent to $452.00 in after-hours trading.

It was the company's first full quarter without its visionary co-founder and chief executive Steve Jobs, who died of cancer a day after the October 4 launch of the iPhone 4S.

Jobs's widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, was a guest in the box of First Lady Michelle Obama as US President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

The hot-selling iPhone 4S was the "fastest iPhone rollout" in the company's history, Cook said in a conference call with financial analysts.

"We made a very bold bet on demand" but the company was "still short" in some markets due to pent-up demand, he said.

"As it turned out we didn't bet high enough," said Cook, who took over as CEO from Jobs in August.

Growth in iPhone sales in the United States and Japan was "great," he said. "We could not be happier."

The fiscal 2012 first-quarter included a 14th week, the important holiday shopping week between Christmas and New Year's.

Apple said it ended the quarter with a cash pile of $97.6 billion, compared with $81.6 billion for the September quarter.

"We are actively discussing the best use of our cash balance," Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's chief financial officer, said in the conference call.

"We don't have anything to announce specifically today," he added.

Cook indicated the priority for iPhone expansion was China.

"We have a ton more energy in the China market today," he said.

The iPhone was sort of a "catalyst" in spurring sales of other Apple products, much like the iPod's "halo" effect on the Macintosh in 2003-2004, he said.

The iPad, which runs on Apple's operating software, is benefiting from competition among other tablets and there is even some "cannibalization" of Windows personal computers by the Apple tablet computer, Cook said.

"We're just going to innovate like crazy in this area," he said.

More than 55 million iPads have been sold since its launch in April 2010.

Apple's forecasts for the current quarter leaped over Wall Street expectations: $32.5 billion in revenue and earnings of $8.50 per share. The market had penciled in $32 billion and $8.03, respectively.

Apple's iCloud, launched a few months ago, now has more than 85 million subscribers.

That was an "incredible" response from customers that marked a fundamental shift in recognition of the need to have numerous devices integrated online, Cook said.

He said iCloud is "not a product, it is a strategy for the next decade."

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