SiliconBeat

One of the most significant trends I’ve been watching over the past decade is the dramatic drop in public companies in Silicon Valley. Naturally, that number was artificially inflated during the dot-com bubble when it reached 417 in 2000. For our purposes, Silicon Valley includes San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, and the southern half of Alameda County.

But the number of public companies has dropped for nine straight years now. Even when IPOs briefly reappeared in 2006 and 2007, they weren’t enough to overcome the net loss of public companies through acquisitions or bankruptcy.

In 2008, the number had fallen to 261. We just updated our records and the latest figure is 241.

That’s not just less than the dot-com era, that’s well below the 315 public companies the valley had in 1994 when the Mercury News started keeping track.

Here’s why I think this is a big deal.

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Last fall, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) approved changes to the way many high-tech companies will recognize revenue. We saw the first of what will be many earnings reports affected by this when Apple reported on Monday results of its fiscal first-quarter earnings.

Other companies likely to be affected include such heavy weights as Cisco Systems and Tivo.

Often such changes take months for companies to adopt. And in this case, companies have until 2011 to adopt them. But this one is different because it will give companies a significant bump in short-term revenue. So many are racing ahead. As such, investors need to watch carefully to see if a company adopted the new standard, and if they reconciled old numbers to take the new standard into account.

On Monday, Apple disclosed the accounting change up front for this year, and also adopted it retrospectively for the past two years and reconciled past earnings in an amended annual filing. Companies are not required to do adopt it for past years. So good for Apple. Many companies may only make the change going forward, making comparisons harder.

This change is not trivial. To see the impact on revenue, look at the revised numbers from years past. The change bumped revenue for Q1 2009 (last year) from $10.2 billion (0ld) to $11.9 billion (new). As far as I can tell, the company didn’t disclose what the current quarter revenue would have been under the old standard.

Still, that didn’t stop the company, in a press release, from crowing about the big numbers:

“If you annualize our quarterly revenue, it’s surprising that Apple is now a $50+ billion company,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.”

That’s true. But under the old standard, Apple’s annualized revenue wouldn’t be quite as high. It would probably be four or five billion less, though still over $50 billion.

So what’s going on? For the details, read on. Read the rest of this entry »

Back on Sept. 17, Palm released its long-awaited earnings. They were eagerly anticipated because these would be the first full quarter that included the performance of the Palm Pre. Ever since, analysts and investors have been trying to figure out whether the numbers were good news, bad news, or something else entirely.

This head scratching was reflected in the news coverage of the earnings. The Mercury News had a first-day headline that said “Pre Sales Give Palm A Boost.” But within a couple of days, the consensus seemed to turn against Palm, with analysts and others questioning just how good the numbers were, and worrying about the company’s outlook. Four days later, the Motley Fool wrote: “Palm Discovers Its Limits.”

The confusion was largely due to a change in accounting methods. More on that in a second. But once we take a closer look at the numbers, it seems clear to me that Palm seems to be setting itself up to be sold. And that would likely need to happen sometime in the next six to 12 months.

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(l to r: Charney, Terman, Cerf)

Last week I spent an evening at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View attending the IEEE’s celebration of the 40th anniversary of ARPANET. The event featured a panel with three prominent names:

• Dr. Lew Terman, 2008 IEEE President and CEO
• Vint Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist, Google
• Howard Charney, Senior Vice President, Office of the President, Cisco

While delving into some of ARPANET’s history, the panel explored the future of the Internet. And I left with a few stray ideas worth noting:

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Cisco Systems, which hopes to grab a share of the sports industry business by providing network technology to stadiums, has signed up to be a sponsor of the 2012 Games.
London Olympic officials announced on today that the San Jose networking giant will replace bankrupt Canadian technology sponsor Nortel Networks. Nortel, as a “tier one” sponsor, had committed $65 million in cash and services. Cisco, on the other hand, will be a “tier two” provider, which means the company will kick in about $20 million less, according to organizers, the Associated Press reported.
“We continue on a path to deliver the most connected Games possible. We part with Nortel on good terms,” London 2012 CEO Paul Deighton said in a statement. “Nortel acknowledges our fixed deadlines and our desire to have a single supplier for our entire network infrastructure have been impacted by Nortel’s decision to move towards standalone businesses. This is in no way a reflection of their capabilities — this is all about meeting our fixed deadlines.“
Organizers hope to raise as much as $1.13 billion in sponsorships. So far, it has commitments of nearly $810 million.

Cisco Systems said it would be booking a one-time tax charge of about $130 million to $150 million in its current fiscal 2009 fourth quarter after a ruling Wednesday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in a case between Xilinx and the Internal Revenue Service related to stock-based compensation expense.

Although not named in the case decided, th Read the rest of this entry »

On Friday, ground will be broken on the Southwest Hall Lawn of the University of the Pacific’s Stockton campus to kick-off construction of the John T. Chambers Technology Center (artist rendering of the project pictured), a $12 million dollar facility that will serve as the new home to the university’s school of engineering and computer science.

The 24,000-square-foot center, which is to include Read the rest of this entry »

The server wars have been fully engaged.
Cisco System executives this morning talked up their move against erstwhile partners – Hewlett-Packard and IBM – with their new Unified Computing System. They doled out details about their virtualization and data center vision, memory capacity and processing power.
But the power of the purse – promises of slashing corporate costs over the long term – was at the top of the talking points. The bad economy was their friend.
Several executives spoke in a talk-show setting during a Web cast aimed at customers.
Cisco says its solution for a 320-blade server configuration is 30 percent cheaper than a similar legacy system — $2.5 million compared with $3.6 million.
Cisco, which has been called an Internet “plumber,” not an architect of data center systems by HP, is giving companies “the ability to embrace innovation while driving down costs,” said Soni Jiandani, Cisco’s vice president of marketing for its server access virtualization group.

It has come to this: No more free waters and sodas at Cisco Systems. And the company will no longer pick up the bill for home Internet access.
The unrelenting economic downturn has claimed jobs and now long-enjoyed perks at the San Jose networking company. Employees this week were told that drinks now will only be available through vending machines and in the cafeteria — for a price. The company is also axing its policy to cover the costs of employee home broadband service.
While the announcement was met with a collective groan, a Cisco spokesman said the company hopes that trimming here and there can help avoid further job cuts. After all, the tab for free juices and broadband adds up for a company with some 67,300 workers, about 18,700 of whom live in the Bay Area.
Last month, Cisco Chief Executive John Chambers said the company would reduce its head count by 1,500 to 2,000 positions. But Chambers said he hopes to avoid major layoffs, which he defined as 10 percent of his employees.
In the fall, Cisco said it would reduce expenses — including travel — for this fiscal year by more than $1 billion.
The company announced a 27 percent drop in profits for its most recently completed quarter. And it expects the current quarter to see a 15 to 20 percent drop in revenue.

It’s official: Cisco’s chief executive, John Chambers, is now a member of Silicon Valley’s jet set. In fact, it’s a requirement.

Last month, Cisco’s board “adopted a travel policy” under which Chambers “is generally required to utilize a private airplane for business travel because his responsibilities on behalf of Cisco entail substantial national and international travel.” (But that’s nothing new, right?)

To help Chambers comply with the new ruling, Cisco will Read the rest of this entry »