What’s Important in the Financial World (10/18/2012)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Apple vs. Samsung

The intellectual property lawsuits between Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Samsung continue to go back and forth. The latest court decision hurts Apple. A U.K. court said that the Samsung Galaxy tablet did not infringe on any Apple patents. According to Reuters:

The Court of Appeal upheld its judgment that despite some similarities, Samsung did not infringe Apple’s design, in part because its products were “not as cool” as the iPad.

The U.S. company was instructed to run ads saying the Korean company did not copy the iPad, both on its website and in selected newspapers.

Tablet Wars Heat Up

The tablet wars will continue to heat up if rumors are right that Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) will release a $99 machine. Although it may not be as feature rich as current products from Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) — the Surface — and Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) — the Kindle — as well as the iPad, the price alone will cause some consumers to reevaluate what features they need and what they should pay for them. CNET reports:

The company is currently working with Taiwan-based Quanta Computer to produce a $99 Nexus tablet boasting a single-core processor that will launch by the end of this year, Digitimes is reporting today, citing sources. According to the tech-news blog’s sources, the tablet isn’t being developed in partnership with Asus, the company that helped Google build its Nexus 7. The cheaper tablet is, at least right now, separate from the Nexus 7 lineup.

Digitimes reported on the possibility of a new Nexus tablet last month, saying that Google was prepping a version that would cost $99, as well as another that would retail for $199. At that time, the blog indicated that the device would be called the Nexus 7 and would be developed in partnership with Asus. Its sources seem to indicate now that neither of those are claims are true.

Soon, to get market share and sell ancillary products, these companies will give the devices away for free.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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