By Gabriel Madway
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc has awarded its chief operating officer a bonus valued at $22 million for leading the company while Chief Executive Steve Jobs was on 6-months’ medical leave last year.
The cash-and-stock award came at Jobs’ recommendation, and was made in recognition of Tim Cook’s “outstanding performance in assuming the day-to-day operations” at Apple while Jobs was out, the company said in a filing on Friday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Many analysts and investors believe Cook could one day succeed Jobs as CEO at Apple, although the company has never disclosed any succession plan.
Cook received a $5 million bonus plus restricted stock award worth roughly $17 million, based on Apple’s closing share price of $226.60 Friday. Half of the stock is scheduled to vest on March 10, 2011, and the other half on March 10, 2012, as long as Cook stays with Apple through those dates.
“The bonus is a reward and is also to stay competitive,” said Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu.
“Cook has been targeted by other companies, and he’s proven to be very adept and capable at leading Apple. I think they need to keep the conversation competitive to keep him from getting lured away,” he said.
An Apple spokesman declined to comment beyond the regulatory filing.
Jobs stepped away from his duties in January 2009 for health reasons, although he remained involved in major strategic decisions. Cook took over day-to-day operations.
Jobs, a pancreatic cancer survivor, underwent a liver transplant while on leave, returning to the company in late June.
While Jobs was on leave, Apple’s shares surged roughly 70 percent.
Cook was named COO in 2005. He is responsible for managing Apple’s supply chain, sales, service and support. He also leads the company’s Mac computer division.
He joined Apple in 1998 as senior vice president of operations. Prior to that he held executive positions at Compaq and International Business Machines Corp.
According to Apple’s proxy statement, Cook received total compensation of roughly $14 million in 2009.
Shares of Cupertino, California-based Apple closed up 0.5 percent at $226.60 on Nasdaq.
(Reporting by Gabriel Madway; Editing by Robert MacMillan and Richard Chang)
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Reported losses from Internet fraud more than doubled in 2009, with scams that falsely used the FBI’s name generating the most complaints, the law enforcement agency said on Friday.
The total dollar loss rose to $559.7 million last year from $264.6 million in 2008, based on amounts reported to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center.
The number of complaints received increased 22 percent to 336,655 from 275,284.
Schemes in which scammers pretended to be affiliated with the FBI to gain information from victims accounted for 16.6 percent of all complaints received.
Frauds in which sellers failed to ship or buyers failed to pay for merchandise accounted for 11.9 percent of complaints, while frauds where victims paid money upfront, typically for rewards that never materialize, made up 9.8 percent.
About 65.4 percent of the alleged fraudsters were in the United States, while 9.9 percent were in Great Britain, 8 percent in Nigeria and 2.6 percent in Canada.
Cyberfraud has been a growing problem for many years, and the reported losses may be only a fraction of the total losses that victims incur.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel. Editing by Robert MacMillan)
A test version of Nokia's Ovi Store is seen in a picture taken in Helsinki May 14, 2009. REUTERS/Tarmo Virki
Nokia said on Friday the cellphone market totaled 1.26 billion phones last year, above its earlier forecast of 1.14 billion, and reduced its share of sales to 34 percent from an earlier forecast of 38 percent.
Research group Gartner said the grey market — mostly in China, India and Latin America — totaled 145 million phones last year.
Nokia said new measurement tools enable it to better estimate the number of handsets being sold by some new players.
“These include vendors of legitimate, as well as unlicensed and counterfeit, products with manufacturing facilities primarily centered around certain locations in Asia and other emerging markets,” Nokia said.
Nokia repeated it expected the overall 2010 phone market to grow 10 percent while its market share would be unchanged at 34 percent.
The comments boosted Nokia shares, which trimmed an earlier high of 10.91 euros to settle at 10.80, up 2 percent, by 1539 GMT.
“This is a good thing for Nokia because it is really showing that they want to measure the real market and grey market has been a big driver in 2009,” said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi.
“It is an opportunity for them to go after and try and actually win over users in that segment as well,” he said.
(Reporting by Tarmo Virki and Terhi Kinnunen; Editing by David Cowell)
A woman uses her mobile telephone as she passes a Nokia advert in London July 20, 2009. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor
HELSINKI (Reuters) – Top phone makers Nokia and Apple will seek a U.S. court hearing in a key patent battle in mid-2012, a court filing showed, raising the specter of a prolonged legal struggle.
Handset leader Nokia sued iPhone maker Apple last October, accusing the U.S. firm of using its patented technologies without paying for them.
Nokia is seeking payment of up to 1 billion euros ($1.36 billion), analysts say.
Apple filed a countersuit in Delaware on December 11 accusing Nokia of infringing 13 Apple patents. It later removed four patents from the list.
Legal battles are increasingly common in the mobile industry as players vie for a piece of the fast-growing smartphone market.
Last week Apple sued Taiwan’s HTC Corp, which makes touchscreen smartphones using Google software, accusing it of infringing 20 hardware and software patents related to the iPhone.
The U.S. International Trade Commission has agreed to investigate both companies based on each other’s complaints.
($1=.7369 euros)
(Editing by Sonya Dowsett)
A man walks past a logo of Google China in front of its headquarters in Beijing January 22, 2010. REUTERS/Jason Lee
The chief executive of Google, Eric Schmidt, said this week he hoped to announce soon a result to talks with Chinese authorities on offering an uncensored search engine in China.
“Google has made its case, both publicly and privately,” China’s Minister of Industry and Information Technology, Li Yizhong, said, but did not confirm directly that his ministry was in talks with Google.
Google in January threatened to pull out of China if it could not offer an unfiltered Chinese search engine, after cyber attacks originating from China on it and about 30 other firms.
“If you don’t respect Chinese laws, you are unfriendly and irresponsible, and the consequences will be on you,” Li told reporters, in answer to a question on what China would do if Google.cn simply stopped filtering search results.
Li complimented Google on having reached about 30 percent market share in the Chinese market since it launched google.cn about three years ago, and said it was welcome to expand market share further if it abided by Chinese law.
It was up to Google whether to stay in China’s market or not, he added.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Thursday launched a broadband test service to help consumers clock the speed of their Internet.
Located at the site www.broadband.gov, the test is aimed at allowing consumers to compare their actual speeds with the speeds advertised by their providers.
The FCC release follows an FCC meeting in September where officials said that actual speeds were estimated to lag by as much as 50 percent during busy hours.
“The FCC’s new digital tools will arm users with real-time information about their broadband connection and the agency with useful data about service across the country,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement.
The FCC is also collecting information about where broadband is not available. Consumers can email the FCC at fccinfo@fcc.gov or call the FCC.
(Reporting by John Poirier; Editing by Bernard Orr)
By Kylie MacLellan
LONDON (Reuters) – Investing in a high-speed Internet network would open up a new global trade route for Britain, boosting economic recovery and creating thousands of jobs, the opposition Conservative party said on Thursday.
The party, ahead in the polls weeks before a general election, plans to stimulate 29 billion pounds ($43.27 billion) of private investment in the broadband network by opening up access to infrastructure currently dominated by BT and providing loans to encourage firms to improve high-speed broadband in rural areas.
“For Britain the Internet presents an opportunity that it doesn’t present for any other country in Europe,” said Conservative culture spokesman Jeremy Hunt. “We are one of the best countries in the world at the creation of digital content … the Internet effectively opens up a new global trade route.”
He added: “If we want to be a hub for the digital and creative industries … we have to say don’t bet against the need for higher speeds on the Internet because there will be lots and lots of applications that demand that.”
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LONDON (Reuters) – British cable operator Virgin Media is testing a new technology to deliver ultrafast broadband over telegraph poles which could allow it to extend its reach to another 1 million homes.
Virgin, which is looking to cement its advantage in delivering faster broadband over slower copper-based rivals, said it was launching a trial in a Berkshire village to deliver 50 Mb broadband along with its television service.
Virgin Media has already announced plans to extend its fiber optic network by 500,000 new homes. It currently passes 12.6 million homes with an underground network and said it had identified more than 1 million homes in parts of Britain which could benefit from deployment over telegraph poles.
“This unique trial will allow us to understand the possibilities of aerial deployment and may provide an exciting new way to extend next generation broadband services,” Chief Executive Neil Berkett said.
Virgin said the government was considering a change in planning guidelines which would be needed to enable large scale overhead deployment.
It believes the combination of overhead poles and underground ducts could enable Virgin to roll-out next-generation digital services to rural communities, a key demand by the government.
(Reporting by Kate Holton; editing by Paul Sandle)
HELSINKI (Reuters) – Opera Software unveiled on Thursday a version of its Mini mobile browser for use on cellphones running on Google’s Android software.
Opera Mini is the world’s most widely used browser on cellphones, ahead of Apple’s iPhone browser, as Opera benefits from its wide offering across all key platforms, according to web statistics firm Statcounter.
Google’s Android, introduced only in late 2008, won 4-5 percent of the smartphone market last year, and several top handset vendors like LG Electronics and Motorola are increasingly focusing on using it.
(Reporting by Tarmo Virki)
Sony Computer Entertainment America President and CEO Jack Tretton watches video from the new Gran Turismo 5 game for the PS3, at the Sony E3 2009 media briefing in Los Angeles in this June 2, 2009 fo;e [jptp. REUTERS/Fred Prouser
LIVERPOOL, England (Reuters) – Blatant disregard for oncoming traffic and speed limits will get you into serious trouble on the road, but drivers seeking similar thrills can indulge in a fleet of new racing video games due out soon.
Sony Computer Entertainment’s (Sony) “Gran Turismo 5″ from Polyphony Digital, Activision Blizzard’s “Blur” and Disney Interactive Studios’ “Split/Second” are heading to stores from game-makers around the globe, boosting a genre that inevitably has players coming back for more.
John Taylor, videogame analyst, Arcadia Research, said that in 2004 racing games accounted for approximately 9 percent of U.S. videogame sales, a figure which has now more than doubled.
He said the racing genre still has strong franchises such as Nintendo’s “Mario Kart Wii,” Microsoft’s “FORZA Motorsport” and Sony’s “Gran Turismo,” with this year’s offerings set to add to a niche that, according to analyst Anita Frazier, netted sales worth $548 million in 2009.
“Today, more than 20 percent of U.S. gamers play action or sports racing games with the demographics skewing to younger males,” said Michael Cai, vice president of research at media and technology research firm Interpret.
Liverpool-based game studio Bizarre Creations has made the jump to action racing with “Blur.” The studio’s last racing franchise, Microsoft’s “Project Gotham Racing,” has sold over 7 million copies on Xbox 360, including 2.9 million units in the United States, according to The NPD Group.
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