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Sony drastically cut its financial forecast, with analysts noting that its profit for the fiscal year ending in March 2009 could plunge 59% from the year before. Sony expects to post a $215.2 million profit for July-September, down 72% from the previous year. Like many others, Sony is blaming the drop in revenue on lack of sales of flat-panel TV’s due to the global economic crisis.
Samsung’s net profit fell 44% during the third-quarter. The worlds largest TV manufacturer by revenue earned $924 million during the third-quarter, while revenue was up 15% over last year. Samsung expects the fourth quarter, usually the most lucrative for electronics companies, to be “an even more challenging period.”
Microsoft posted a 2% increase in net income and 9% increase in revenue for the last quarter. While the software manufacturer surpassed expectations, Redmond, much like other tech companies, lowered its forecasts for the rest of the year, with CFO Chris Liddell noting “I think everyone has a high degree of uncertainty about their forecasts.”
Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is now out of beta. Amazon will now also offer Microsoft Office Suite through EC2. The inclusion of Windows software gives Amazon an even greater lead over Rackspace in the cloud computing game.
Plus, today’s consulting question, “Did Google Really Buy A Fighter Jet?” Shelly has the answer on today’s MediaBytes.