Intel Gains Almost $11B in “Best Quarter Ever”

Intel’s earnings this quarter — with revenues of $10.8 billion and net income of $2.9 billion — are the best the company has ever reported in its 42-year history, according to a release posted today on Intel Corporation’s website.
Apparently, Intel’s most powerful microprocessors are selling like hotcakes, global recession be damned.
“The PC and server segments are healthy and the demand for leading-edge technology will continue to increase for the foreseeable future,” said CEO Paul Otellini.
Year-over-year, revenue was up 34% and net income a staggering 175% as compared to Q2 2009. One of the highlights of the company’s quarterly report was the Intel Atom microprocessor and chipset revenue of $413 million, a 16% increase sequentially.
In Q2, the company spent $3.25 billion on research and development (R&D) and mergers and acquisitions (M&A). The company saw a net gain from equity investments of $204 million, around $25 million more than expected.
Intel’s finance team forecasts a Q3 revenue of $11.6 billion.
While all this is great news for Intel, it shouldn’t be looked upon as a signal of an industry-wide recovery — particularly for those web and social startups so dear to Mashable’s () heart. What we can infer is that the gadget sector is seeing a boom; mobile devices and laptops in particular have had a terrific year of launches and the resultant hype cycles, and many consumers are refreshing their hardware arsenals right now.
Notably, the refreshed MacBook Pro features Intel Core i5 and i7 processors; the new entry-level MacBook also has Intel’s 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU. And of course, non-Apple, Intel-chipped products that didn’t necessarily make headlines also did their part in boosting Intel’s bottom line.

Gerd Leonhard: The Future of Content - Protection is in the business model!

Many people ask me how content can be monetized when the copies are available 'for free' i.e. distribution (downloading) or access (streaming) is uncontrollable. This question - and how we answer it - is a key issue across the board, whether it's in music, eBooks, news, publishing, TV or films and video. In my view, the thinking that the distribution of content must be controlled - at all cost - to achieve any kind of reasonable payment is fundamentally flawed because of this not-so-futuristic realization: in an open, digitally networked economy, content publishers need to offer their goods in a way that no longer centers on mere distribution being the key factor. It should not (only) be the content that is sold (i.e. the mere 0s and 1s) but the context, the community, the added values and the many other valuable items around the content. Sell what can't be copied - if copies are ubiquitous sell what is scarce: attention, packaging, timing. Look for those New Generatives.
The irrefutable trend is that the window of opportunity of 'selling digital copies' (e.g. iTunes, Kindle etc) is rapidly closing, at least in most developed countries. The next, and very much already-present opportunity is to sell access to the 'cloud of content' and to provide added-value services i.e. content-related experiences.

Once we embrace that the users - the people formerly known as consumers - can no longer be relegated to just being passive 'buyers of copies' we can investigate how they may want to pay for everything else, as well. For example, when buying an eBook users shouldn't merely pay for the authorized distribution i.e. the legitimate 'copy of the words' but they could also gain access to highly curated commentary, their peers and friends that may also read this book, ratings, explanations, slide-shows, images, links, videos, cross-references, direct connections with the author or the publisher and so on. Yes, indeed: Connect with Fans + Give Reasons to Buy (as Mike Masnick of Techdirt has succinctly summarized before).

50+ iPad Resources You Might Have Missed

Apple’s iPad is the little device that could. Any scepticism about Apple’s tablet technology was largely erased as the iPad took touchscreen technology to a larger, more robust high.
We’ve tracked the iPad through its first months in public hands with a slew of features and resources. We’ve here collected some of our best — sometimes bizarre — resources for you to get all caught up.
Whether you’re looking for the best business apps, need some decals to trick out your device, or just want to see if your iPad works in space — this collection of more than 50 iPad resources is sure to suit your needs.