“Inappropriate downloads”? A teenager making a free copy of the latest Fall Out Boy single – instead of buying it for 99 cent on iTunes? Or a major software maker acquiring computer code from its biggest rival?
In this instance, German business-software behemoth SAP acknowledged “inappropriate downloads” of code owned by Redwood City business-software behemoth Oracle. However, SAP said it didn’t have access to any intellectual property owned by its archrival.
“Even a single inappropriate download is unacceptable from my perspective,” SAP Chief Executive Henning Kagermann said, according to an Associated Press report. “We regret very much that this occurred.”
SAP’s acknowledgment was part of a response to a lawsuit filed by Oracle in federal court in San Francisco. In the suit, Oracle contends that SAP used its customer-support subsidiary, TomorrowNow, to steal data owned by Oracle. That suit is continuing.
Oracle shares closed today at $20.07, up 15 cents, or 0.8 percent. SAP closed at $50.98, down 80 cents, or 1.5 percent.
Apple shares were sharply higher today after a technology research firm tore apart the Cupertino company’s top-of-the-line iPhone and concluded the gross profit margin for the device was 50 percent or more.
Yes, that’s the same iPhone you’d have a hard time finding after its release over the weekend. As far as we’re able to tell, Apple and AT&T retail stores in the Bay Area are pretty much sold out of both the $499 four-gigabyte model and the $599 8GB version. If you try to order an iPhone at Apple’s online store, the company is estimating availability in two to four weeks. An AT&T spokesman told Bloomberg News the iPhone is available only in a handful of its stores nationwide.
According to a “tear down” analysis by research firm iSuppli, the cost of manufacturing and the components in Apple’s top-of-the-line iPhone is $265.83, which would give Apple a gross profit margin of about 55 percent. Taking into account software and other royalties, iSuppli put Apple’s gross profit at about 50 percent.
The iPhone “had a very good start,” Jefferies analyst Bill Choi told Bloomberg. “They’re selling it for a lot of money. On a gross margin basis, it is very profitable.”
Apple shares closed today at $127.17, up $5.91, or 4.9 percent.
Silicon Valley tech stocks: Up: Cisco Systems, Google, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Apple, Yahoo, Gilead Sciences and Applied Materials. Down: eBay and Gilead Sciences.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index: Up 12.65, or 0.5 percent, to 2,644.95.
The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average: Up 41.87, or 0.3 percent, to 13,577.30.
And the always popular Standard & Poor’s 500 index: Up 5.44, or 0.4 percent, to 1,524.87.