Blackberry shares soared after the company beat analysts earnings forecasts. John Chen, CEO of Blackberry, joined us to break down the results.
Blackberry's results were boosted by an increase in business software sales and licensing revenue. Chen says Blackberry has 2 major focuses. The first is the enterprise software business and the other is the auto sector. Blackberry has been in the auto business for 8-10 years, but made a bigger push about 4 years ago, he points out.
Chen says there are 60 million cars on the roads using blackberry software. Looking forward, the company is working on designing new components such as lane-changing and communication capabilities with other cars and infrastructure. He sees a huge opportunity in the space, emphasizing that about 100 million cars are made every year.
Food pickup app Ritual has big expansion plans. But its founder says the company's rapid growth can actually be traced back to a slower start. "Ritual's about your neighborhood, and I think what a lot of other companies did differently was they tried to go too broad too quickly, and they just lack the depth and coverage that Ritual has," Ray Reddy, co-founder and CEO of Ritual, told Cheddar Wednesday. "And we still approach the world neighborhood by neighborhood, and ensure that it's actually compelling."
Step aside, Siri and Alexa. VR studio Fable is relaunching as a "virtual beings" company to bring the public its first A.I.-powered character with whom users can have a two-way relationship. According to co-founders Edward Saatchi and Pete Billington, the rebranding ー which the two announced at the 2019 Sundance Festival ー is partly an effort to educate consumers about machine learning.
Microsoft shares dropped in extended trading on Wednesday despite reporting better-than-expected quarterly earnings due to investor concerns about its crucial cloud business.
Tesla shares sank in extended trading on Wednesday after reporting mixed earnings and revenue. The electric carmaker reported earnings per share of $1.93 cents on revenue of $7.23 billion, just missing expectations on earnings, but beating on revenue. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters anticipated earnings of $2.20 per share on $7.08 billion in revenue.
Facebook soared in extended trading on Wednesday after reporting fourth-quarter earnings and revenue that beat Wall Street forecasts. Facebook reported earnings per share of $2.38 on revenue of $16.91 billion. That topped analysts' expectations for $2.19 earnings per share on $16.4 billion in revenue, according to Thomson Reuters.
Visible wants to make signing up for a phone service as easy as calling a Lyft. The digital-only wireless carrier backed by Verizon offers unlimited text, talk, data, and hot-spot for $40 a month. CEO Miguel Quiroga, a telecom industry veteran, says that this is the phone service that consumers want.
As digital advertising is increasingly beholden to the Google/Facebook duopoly, Glamour is experimenting with what it sees as the future of the industry: a multi-faceted revenue model that uses a combination of traditional ads, metered or niche paywalls, events, audio and e-commerce, even as it kills off its one-time moneymaker, the monthly print edition. Samantha Barry, Glamour's editor-in-chief, told Cheddar in an interview Wednesday that she sees the 80-year-old iconic brand as a "service for women."
The ongoing feud between Apple and Facebook just heated up. Apple said on Wednesday that it revoked Facebook’s access to its Developer Enterprise Program, a move that kneecaps the social network and marks a steep escalation of tensions between the two tech giants.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019.
Waze is rolling out its beacon technology in New York City to improve tunnel navigation and help drivers commute in and out of the Big Apple. "This allows us to basically locate the users inside the tunnels," said head of Waze Beacons Gil Disatnik in an interview on Cheddar Tuesday.
