Tech Business Recap: Spotify to Challenge Pandora, Oracle Fires People

Nintendo (NTDOY.PK) posts a full-year 2012 operating loss of ¥37.3 billion against a (-) ¥41.4 billion consensus, with net revenue of ¥820 billion. The company reports that it will cease the sales of the Nintendo 3DS at below cost, and also predicts that its operating profit of ¥35 billion in fiscal 2013 will miss consensus of ¥40 billion.

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Pandora (NYSE:P) is to get a challenge from Spotify. Spotify is said to be working on a personalized, ad-based, Internet radio service that could be introduced by the end of 2012. Spotify has only about 10 million registered users, which doesn’t really compare to Pandora’s 49 million, and it also doesn’t impact the larger company’s market share, but it has nonetheless been sen as a threat for quite some time. Meanwhile, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is reportedly developing a music service, code-named Woodstock, that would rival Spotify’s current offerings. Woodstock would supplant Zune, which is being phased out, and would feature Xbox and mobile app support.

Shares of Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX) strongly rally following the firm’s first quarter report that exceeded consensus, and its positive top-line guidance. A subsequent conference call enhanced Equinix’ increasing worldwide parameters, as revenue from its Asia-Pac jumped 7 percent quarter-to-quarter, and 59 percent of its monthly recurring revenue now comes from customers leveraging facilities in several countries. Shares of other data center owners, such as Dupont Fabros Technology (NYSE:DFT), InterExion Holding (NYSE:INXN), and Rackspace Hosting (NYSE:RAX) also gained in the process.

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Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) has laid off workers across-the-board in its hardware unit, according to a source, as sales in that division dropped 11 percent year-to-year in its fiscal third quarter. The firm is experiencing heavy demand for its pricey engineered systems, but its UNIX lines continue giving up sales to Windows and Linux hardware. In addition, an ex-employee said on Wednesday that ‘top Oracle hardware salesmen are leaving en masse, partly due to internal dysfunction’.

Shares of TSMC (NYSE:TSM), the world’s biggest chip foundry, pop following its first quarter statement, in which earnings per share beat estimates by 3 cents and revenue by $120 million. Also, the company released guidance for second quarter sales of between $4.3 billion and $4.4 billion (consensus $3.9 billion) and raised its capital expenditures projections, which is boosting chip suppliers such as Lam Research (NASDAQ:LRCX) and KLA-Tencor (NASDAQ:KLAC).

The premier BlackBerry 10 phone by Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) will be announced in August and launched in October, says N4BB.com. The phone will have no physical keyboard (like the Torch line), but will be operated via a touchscreen, but a similar phone with a keyboard is due from RIMM in the first quarter of next year.

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