Amazon.com to Acquire Audible.com

Amazon.com, Inc. just announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Audible Inc.

Audible.com is the leading online provider of premium digital spoken word audio content, specializing in digital audio editions of books, newspapers and magazines, television and radio programs and original programming. Through its web sites in the US and UK and alliances in Germany and France, Audible.com offers over 80,000 programs, including audiobooks from well-known authors such as Stephen King, Thomas Friedman, and Jane Austen, and spoken word audio content from sources including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Fresh Air and Charlie Rose.

“Audible.com offers the best customer experience, the widest content selection and the broadest device compatibility in the industry,” said Steve Kessel, Amazon.com’s senior vice president for worldwide digital media. “Working together, we can introduce more innovations and bring this format to an even wider audience.”

“This deal brings together two pioneering companies that share a long history of ceaseless focus on improving the customer experience,” said Donald Katz, founder and chief executive of Audible.com. “We are very excited to be joining a company as innovative as Amazon.com.”

Dell Focuses on Direct and Retail Business, Closes Kiosks in U.S.

As Dell’s Global Consumer business continues to evolve, the company today announced that it will close its 140 kiosks in the United States.

The Dell Direct Store model, which began in 2002, enabled customers to touch and feel Dell products before purchasing systems direct from the company. In the past six months the company has adopted a retail strategy that enables Dell to connect with customers it has not necessarily reached in the past. Dell is applying the advantages of its direct business model into retail where customers can purchase laptop and desktop computers in more than 10,000 retail outlets worldwide.

“Moving into retail is a prime example of Dell listening to its customers,” said Tony Weiss, vice president for Dell’s Global Consumer business. “Ever since we began our journey into retail, we wanted to give customers the opportunity to call, click, or visit Dell and have access to our award-winning products. This move fits in with how our broad global retail strategy is evolving.”

In addition to its global retail business, Dell is committed to its direct business, where a majority of customers choose to shop on the phone and via the Internet to buy laptops, desktops and associated products. The kiosks outside the U.S. are not affected with the changes the company is making today.

Its official Amazon to Begin International Rollout of Amazon MP3 in 2008

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced that in 2008 the company will begin an international rollout of Amazon MP3, Amazon’s DRM-free MP3 digital music store where every song is playable on virtually any digital music-capable device, including the PC, Mac(R), iPod(R), Zune(R), Zen(R), iPhone(TM), RAZR(TM), and BlackBerry(R). Amazon MP3 is the only retailer to offer customers DRM-free MP3s from all four major music labels as well as over 33,000 independent labels.

“We have received thousands of e-mails from Amazon customers around the world asking us when we will make Amazon MP3 available outside of the U.S. They can’t wait to choose from the biggest selection of high-quality, low-priced DRM-free MP3 music downloads which play on virtually any music device they own today or will own in the future,” said Bill Carr, Amazon.com Vice President of Digital Music. “We are excited to tell those customers today that Amazon MP3 is going international this year.”

Launched on Amazon.com in September 2007, Amazon MP3 offers Earth’s Biggest Selection of a la carte DRM-free MP3 music downloads, which now includes over 3.3 million songs from more than 270,000 artists. Every song and album in the Amazon MP3 music download store is available exclusively in the MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM) software and is encoded at 256 kbps to deliver high audio quality. Amazon MP3 customers are free to enjoy their music downloads using any hardware device; organize their music using any music management application, such as iTunes(R) or Windows Media Player(TM); and burn songs to CDs for personal use.

Most songs available on Amazon MP3 are priced from 89 cents to 99 cents, with more than 1 million of the over 3.3 million songs priced at 89 cents. The top 100 bestselling songs are 89 cents, unless marked otherwise. Most albums are priced from $5.99 to $9.99. The top 100 bestselling albums are $8.99 or less, unless marked otherwise. Buying and downloading MP3s from Amazon MP3 is easy. Customers can purchase downloads using Amazon 1-Click shopping, and with the Amazon MP3 Downloader, seamlessly add their MP3s to their iTunes(R) or Windows Media Player(TM) libraries.

The company is not disclosing a specific launch timeline for individual Amazon international websites.

Golden Apple makes another record in revenue and profit

Best Quarterly Revenue & Earnings in Apple History

Mac, iPod & iPhone Sales Break Previous Records

Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2008 first quarter ended December 29, 2007. The Company posted revenue of $9.6 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.58 billion, or $1.76 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $7.1 billion and net quarterly profit of $1 billion, or $1.14 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 34.7 percent, up from 31.2 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 45 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Apple shipped 2,319,000 Macintosh® computers, representing 44 percent unit growth and 47 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 22,121,000 iPods during the quarter, representing five percent unit growth and 17 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone™ sales were 2,315,000.

“We’re thrilled to report our best quarter ever, with the highest revenue and earnings in Apple’s history,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We have an incredibly strong new product pipeline for 2008, starting with MacBook Air, Mac Pro and iTunes Movie Rentals in the first two weeks.”

“Apple’s revenue grew 35 percent year-over-year to $9.6 billion, an increase of almost $2.5 billion over the previous December quarter’s record-breaking results,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Our strong results produced cash flow from operations of over $2.7 billion during the quarter, yielding an ending cash balance of over $18.4 billion. Looking ahead to the second quarter of fiscal 2008, we expect revenue of about $6.8 billion and earnings per diluted share of about $.94.”

Cisco invests $1.59 Billion in Dubai

Cisco Announces AED 5.8 Billion Five-Year ICT Investment Plan for the United Arab Emirates

Cisco Networking Academy to expand across the emirates

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - January 22, 2008 - At a meeting held today with Mohammad Al Gergawi, minister of state for Cabinet Affairs, Ahmad Bin Bayat, chairman of Tecom, and Osman Sultan, chief executive officer of du, John Chambers, Cisco® chairman and chief executive officer, announced a plan to invest up to AED 5.8 billion (USD $1.59 billion) on information and communications technology (ICT) in the United Arab Emirates over the next five years. The investment intends to support the 2015 vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice-president and prime minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, to fuel the nation’s growth and development plans.

Paul Mountford, president, Emerging Markets, Cisco said: “This investment demonstrates our continued, long-term commitment to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The vision of the country’s leadership has allowed it to transition quickly to a ‘connected’ world. We look forward to continued collaboration working closely with the government to help support and realize the nation’s ambitious development and growth vision.”

As part of this investment, which is expected to create up to 650 new jobs at Cisco by December 2010, Cisco will open a new regional headquarters office in Dubai in April 2008. The regional office will host one of Cisco’s most advanced customer briefing centers allowing Cisco to showcase the latest innovations in Internet Protocol (IP) networking technology, such as Cisco TelePresence. The company will also open an office in Abu Dhabi in June 2008 to serve the growing customer base in the capital.

The new regional headquarters will continue to deliver Cisco connected real estate solutions serving customers across Emerging Markets. Conceived and developed out of Cisco’s Dubai office, the operations will draw on customer experiences in the region to help support continued solutions developed collaboratively at a global level.

Mountford concluded: “Unburdened by legacy technology, the UAE is able to deploy the most advanced IP solutions, placing the country at the forefront of the Internet economy. This investment plan builds on Cisco’s 15-year history in the region and demonstrates our commitment to the future of the country. It also firmly establishes the UAE as a center for innovation and not just a user of technology.”

Other investments include:

• Expansion of Cisco Networking Academies to further develop an educated local pool of talent that can build and manage sustained networks in the future. Cisco currently operates 39 Academies in the UAE.
• Cisco’s sponsorship of the Dubai School of Government research
• Cisco Systems Capital Corporation intends to fund up to $400 million in the UAE over a five-year period through third-party banking partners and through the potential establishment of a financial services company in Dubai. The funding may include inventory financing for Cisco’s channel partners in the UAE as well as potentially financing the acquisition of Cisco equipment, software and services by Cisco’s end-user customers.

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