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IBM reports that its third quarter net income is up 20% over this time last year. International Business Machine’s took in $2.8 billion in the third quarter, proving that its market of large corporations and government agencies is intact while other sectors suffer. IBM expects to achieve 22% earnings growth in 2008.
SYMANTEC will acquire MESSAGELABS, an anti-spam software company, for $695 million in cash. MessageLabs is Symantecs sixth announced acquisition of 2008, part of its plan to use half of its cash reserves to acquire new companies and technologies. While the Street didn’t praise Symantec for its deal, the company, whose stock is down 30% from this time last year, is taking advantage of the weak economy in order to acquire smaller companies at lucrative prices.
A University of Tennesee economics student has been charged with hacking Sarah Palin’s email account. David Kernell, 20, son of Tennessee state legislator Mike Kernell, is charged with “intentionally accessing” Palin’s Yahoo email account without authorization and publishing several messages, as well as a slew of contacts from her address book, on the Internet. Kernell turned himself in when he found out about the charges and entered a plea of not guilty. If you remember, all Kernell had to do to access Palin’s email was file a request to “reset her password.”
ANDREW CUOMO announced that the State of New York will sue ARBITRON for not adequately representing minorities in its ratings. Cuomo claims that Arbitrons new rating system, which posted its first new ratings on Monday and relies on hand-held portable people meters, does not properly represent young African-Americans and Hispanics, as well as cellphone-only households. Since testing of PPM’s began a year ago, many minority broadcasters, and Spanish language stations, have seen significant decreases in ratings.
Today’s consulting question comes from Kevin L., an Internet Exec from New York. Kevin asks, “Is EMI really launching their own music portal?” Shelly has the answer on today’s MediaBytes.