AllThingsD » Compaq

Hewlett-Packard Offers Box on Some Business PCs

Arik Hesseldahl — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:59:38 +0000

Box.com is everywhere these days. The cloud storage and collaboration platform has been gaining new customers at an impressive clip — 7 million users at 100,000 companies at last count — and landing new investments.

In October, Box CEO Aaron Levie told AllThingsD that it was planning to eventually work with Hewlett-Packard to get the service installed on HP personal computers sold to businesses. Today the companies will announce that deal.

Depending on the machine, HP will offer a year of Box storage for free or for a reduced rate on certain Compaq-branded business PCs. Buy an HP Compaq 8200 Elite through the Smart Buy program and you get a Box.com account with unlimited storage for a year. Buy an HP Compaq 6200 or 6205 Pro series machine through Smart Buy, and you can get a free Box account with 10 gigabytes and the option to upgrade at a reduced rate.

It’s the second time that Box has announced a collaboration on HP hardware. The first was on the ill-fated TouchPad tablet that HP killed over the summer. Box has also recently announced collaborations with other cloud services like Yammer and Salesforce.com’s Heroku, among others.

Video: Former CEO Carly Fiorina Gives Tentative Thumbs-Up to HP Shake-Up

Arik Hesseldahl — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:00:51 +0000

It didn’t take long for commentators watching last week’s dramatic turn of events at Hewlett-Packard to hearken back to another equally dramatic shift at that company, under another controversial CEO: Carly Fiorina’s epic fight to acquire Compaq Computer in 2002.

Some critics have said that this deal was the beginning of the end for the old HP, and indeed, Fiorina had to fight off a proxy challenge from shareholders — and from the company’s own board of directors, which opposed it. It has been nine years and change since that deal closed, and Fiorina lasted less than three years from that date.

A lot has gone on at HP since then. Mark Hurd has come and gone as CEO, and HP acquired EDS to bolster its IT services business. It has endured a boardroom spying scandal. It acquired Palm, and now plans to shut down its webOS business, after dismal sales of the TouchPad at Best Buy. Fiorina went on to get involved in politics, working for John McCain’s presidential campaign; then ran for, but did not win, a seat in the U.S. Senate.

And now HP’s Personal Systems Group (PSG) — the $40 billion (2010 sales) unit that combined HP and Compaq into a business that was big enough to eclipse Dell — is on its way out of the tent. HP said it is exploring “strategic options” for that business, which could include a sale to another company or maybe a spinoff to a buyer like Samsung. In a way, you might say that by spinning off the PSG, HP is undoing a big piece of Fiorina’s legacy.

Naturally someone thought to put Fiorina in front of a TV camera and ask her what she thought about all this. The video below is from Fiorina’s appearance yesterday on Bloomberg West, the new West Coast tech-heavy afternoon show produced at Bloomberg’s studio in San Francisco.

In the clip, Fiorina shows some sympathy for CEO Léo Apotheker and the need to drastically remake HP into something different from what it is now. She would know. She talks about another change that occurred on her watch: The 1999 spinoff of Agilent Technologies, the former HP Test and Measurement unit, the legacy of which went all the way back to the company’s 1939 founding in a Palo Alto garage, and as such was controversial among the rank and file. Agilent is still around, and reported a $684 million profit on $5.4 billion in sales last year.

No matter. CEOs have to think about the future, not the past, Fiorina says during the interview. In 2001, when the Compaq takeover was first proposed, the PC market was on the rise, and Dell seemed an unstoppable juggernaut. Now that HP is the world’s biggest PC maker, and Apple’s iPad has done permanent damage to the prospects for long-term growth in that marketplace, it’s time to look to the future once again. “Every CEO and board has to make a judgement about the future, not the past,” she says.

Hewlett-Packard Says Goodbye to PCs, webOS

Arik Hesseldahl — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 19:25:27 +0000

Hewlett-Packard confirmed today that it is “exploring strategic alternatives for its personal systems group,” including a possible sale or spinoff of the unit as an independent company.

It also said that it is engaged in talks with the British software concern Autonomy. Bloomberg News reported earlier today that HP was in talks to acquire Autonomy for about $10 billion, which would make it HP’s third-largest acquisition ever, after Compaq in 2001 ($32 billion) and EDS in 2008 (about $16 billion).

In addition, HP said it would discontinue operations of the webOS unit that came with last year’s acquisition of Palm, the handheld computing company for which it paid nearly $2 billion. Ina Fried has more about that here, but obviously the revelation that the TouchPad tablet device isn’t selling at Best Buy was an important indication that the webOS business was not long for this world.

The news came along with quarterly results that missed the consensus expectations of analysts. Revenue was $31.2 billion versus a consensus of $31.19 billion. Per-share earnings were $1.10, a penny ~~short~~ better than the consensus of $1.09. While HP managed to squeak by expectations on the earnings front, its outlook isn’t getting any better. It reduced its revenue forecast for the year to a range of $127.2 billion to $127.6 billion, down from its previously guided range of $129 billion to $130 billion. It also cut its estimated per-share earnings for the full year to a range of $4.82 to $4.86, down from $5. HP shares set new 52-week lows today, finally settling at $29.51, down 6 percent. The shares have lost nearly 30 percent since the start of the year, and are down more than 40 percent from their 52-week high set in February.

Update: In the sudden onslaught of HP news I misread the press release and said that HP missed the consensus by a penny per share when in fact it beat the consensus by a penny per share. Sorry about that.

A second update: Now HP has confirmed the terms of the Autonomy acquisition. HP has reached a deal to pay $42.11 a share for Autonomy in cash. The deal represents a premium of about 64 percent from Autonomy’s closing price yesterday. The deal will close by the end of the year.

And if that weren’t enough HP news for you, the company named John Visentin as executive vice president of HP Enterprise Services, effective immediately. Visentin previously led HP Enterprise Services for the Americas. Prior to joining HP, Visentin held several senior executive positions at IBM and, all told, has 27 years in the information technology industry. He replaces Tom Iannotti, who announced his retirement earlier this year.

Here’s the announcement. I’ll have more as I go through everything.

HP Confirms Discussions with Autonomy Corporation plc Regarding Possible Business Combination; Makes Other Announcements

Press Release Source: HP On Thursday August 18, 2011, 3:02 pm

PALO ALTO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– HP (NYSE:HPQ – News) today commented on the recent announcement by Autonomy Corporation plc (LSE:AU.L.l – News). HP confirms that it is in discussions with Autonomy regarding a possible offer for the company.

HP also reported that it plans to announce that its board of directors has authorized the exploration of strategic alternatives for its Personal Systems Group (PSG). HP will consider a broad range of options that may include, among others, a full or partial separation of PSG from HP through a spin-off or other transaction.

In addition, HP reported that it plans to announce that it will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.

HP today announced preliminary results for the third fiscal quarter 2011, with revenue of $31.2 billion compared with $30.7 billion one year ago.

In the third quarter, preliminary GAAP diluted earnings per share (EPS) was $0.93 and non-GAAP diluted EPS was $1.10, compared with third quarter fiscal 2010 GAAP diluted EPS of $0.75 and non-GAAP diluted EPS of $1.08. Non-GAAP diluted EPS estimates exclude after-tax costs related primarily to the amortization of purchased intangible assets of approximately $0.17 per share and $0.33 per share in the third quarter of fiscal 2011 and fiscal 2010, respectively.

For the fourth fiscal quarter of 2011, HP estimates revenue of approximately $32.1 billion to $32.5 billion, GAAP diluted EPS in the range of $0.44 to $0.55, and non-GAAP diluted EPS in the range of $1.12 to $1.16. Non-GAAP diluted EPS guidance excludes after-tax costs of approximately $0.61 to $0.68 per share, related primarily to restructuring and shutdown costs associated with webOS devices, the amortization and impairment of purchased intangibles, restructuring charges and acquisition-related charges.

HP estimates full-year FY11 revenue will be approximately $127.2 billion to $127.6 billion, down from its previous estimate of $129 billion to $130 billion. FY11 GAAP diluted EPS is expected to be in the range of $3.59 to $3.70, down from its previous estimate of at least $4.27, and FY11 non-GAAP diluted EPS is expected to be in the range of $4.82 to $4.86, down from its previous estimate of at least $5.00. FY11 non-GAAP diluted EPS estimates exclude after-tax costs of approximately $1.16 to 1.23 per share, related primarily to restructuring and shutdown costs associated with webOS devices, the amortization and impairment of purchased intangibles, restructuring charges and acquisition-related charges.

HP will host a conference call with the financial community today at 2 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. ET to discuss these announcements well as HP’s third quarter 2011 financial results. The call is accessible via an audio webcast at www.hp.com/investor/2011q3webcast.

About HP

HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure at the convergence of the cloud and connectivity, creating seamless, secure, context-aware experiences for a connected world. More information about HP is available at http://www.hp.com.

Motoogle: BOOM! The Mobile Business Just Got Completely Blown Up

Kara Swisher — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 12:30:05 +0000

With the entry of Google into the handset-making market, the search giant has just declared a number of things, most especially that its own future is all about mobile.

With the $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility, the iconic but struggling maker of mobile devices, Google has put a huge stake in the ground in this highly competitive market and thereby shaken up the entire ecosystem.

A lot of this is about patents, as Google CEO Larry Page said in his blog post about the megadeal this morning, and about acquiring a bigger portfolio that Google has long sought for its Android mobile operating system and has been unsuccessful at getting for itself, despite onerous efforts. Since Motorola has been in the mobile arena for so long, it has a large trove of important ones.

But the dramatic acquisition by Google is also a declaration that mobile is more important to it than the skein of alliances it has built for Android with phone makers worldwide, as part of its objective of making it the dominant mobile platform for smartphones and tablets globally.

While Google has been reaching out to other hardware partners to assure them, and has said they all will remain the same in Android-land, the large mobile manufacturers who have placed their trust in Google — especially Samsung or HTC — have to be wondering what to do now.

Make no mistake — they already resent Google from time to time, the way Compaq or Dell has resented Microsoft in the PC business.

But, since Google already showed favoritism to Motorola by letting them do the first Honeycomb tablet, the Xoom (although it didn’t do any good), that discomfort will only increase now.

While Google managed to get them into lockstep on today’s announcement, with a whole Web page titled “Quotes From Android Partners,” each of them using the exact same phrase “defending Android” in their quotes feels a little like they are victims of Stockholm syndrome.

Yes, we concur with everything the Borg tells us to! Defending! Android! We’re Droids too! (Calling Patty Hearst, stat!)

The impact on everyone — from Microsoft and its partner Nokia to Apple to Research In Motion and, also, to all the wireless carriers — will be felt immediately.

And, of course, by government regulators, who have watched warily as Google has marched into business after adjacent business to its core search one.

This deal — which will require approval — is sure to even further put all of Google’s businesses in the crosshairs of rivals, who will agitate for fervent investigations.

While Android has been conceived at Google and has an “autonomous unit” with the company — run by longtime mobile vet Andy Rubin — it has now entered a new and perhaps dangerous phase for all involved, including Google.

Because while such a union is not uncommon in the mobile business — Apple and RIM do software and hardware together and Google has released its own Nexus phone (made by others) — no one has done it via acquisition and in such a definitive way.

And what an acquisition it is. Or, perhaps more accurately, could be.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

(Image courtesy of the United States Department of Energy)

AMD Struggles to Find New CEO

Don Clark and Joann S. Lublin — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 18:58:43 +0000

Millions of Americans are unemployed and looking for work, yet at least one well-paying job has gone unfilled this year.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc.’s search for a new chief executive has entered its seventh month, a delay seen as an indicator of the challenges facing the chip maker’s next leader.

A number of prominent executives—including Michael Capellas, the former chief of WorldCom Inc. and Compaq Computer Corp., and William Nuti, chief executive of computer maker NCR Corp.—have turned down approaches by AMD since the company’s board forced out its leader in January, people familiar with the situation said.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Counting Tablets, Apple Is Third in Global PC Sales

John Paczkowski — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 16:44:47 +0000

Apple is now the third-largest PC maker in the world, according to research firm Canalys, which has decided to include tablets like the iPad in its definition of a PC. Cupertino shipped 11.5 million Macs and iPads in the fourth quarter of 2010, vaulting it into third place in global shipments, ahead of Dell and Lenovo and behind Acer and HP. While the industry’s PC sales grew 19.2 percent from the same period in 2009, Apple’s PC sales grew a jaw-dropping 241 percent. The catalyst for that growth: The iPad.

“Each new product category typically causes a significant shift in market shares,” said Canalys senior analyst Daryl Chiam. “Apple is benefiting from pads, just as Acer, Samsung and Asus previously did with netbooks. The PC industry has always evolved this way, starting when Toshiba and Compaq rode high on the original notebook wave.”

And to those who contend that the iPad and similar devices shouldn’t be tallied in the same category as laptops and desktops?
“Any argument that a pad is not a PC is simply out of sync,” said Chiam.

[Image credit: Gizmodo commenter Ahubbuch]

Is This the HP Board That Will Allow Us to Stop Thinking About HP’s Board?

Arik Hesseldahl — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 23:45:53 +0000

On any other day, so significant a shake-up on the board of directors of a Silicon Valley company as eminent as Hewlett-Packard would easily have been the lead story. That it took a management shift at the top of Google to overshadow it seems somehow appropriate.

The various boardroom dramas that have roiled HP’s directors during the last decade have often overshadowed HP itself. Last August’s blowup involving the departure of CEO Mark Hurd following accusations of sexual harassment occurred against the backdrop of lingering memories of the 2006 scandal involving the use of illegal methods to spy on journalists that ended the tenures of three HP directors.

Before that there was a public fight against HP’s 2002 acquisition of Compaq, led by dissident director Walter Hewlett, who eventually lost his seat. The Compaq deal ultimately cost Carly Fiorina her job at HP after a boardroom confrontation in 2005.

The result of all this is that boardroom drama has become something of an HP specialty, along with printers, computers and IT services. Criticizing the board’s actions has become something of a sport, with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison serving as the most public practitioner.

Shareholders appeared to agree that a change was overdue. HP shares shot up right away as word of a shake-up began to leak right before markets closed yesterday. HP shares closed up one percent today, trading at levels not seen since before Hurd’s abrupt departure in August.

The four departing directors were deeply involved in the Hurd kerfuffle. Two were Hurd defenders, and the other two wanted him out. All four volunteered. Chairman Ray Lane, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, said the debate over Hurd’s status “took a lot out of this board.”

It’s highly unusual for a company to change its board so deeply and so suddenly. The five new additions became directors effective today without any input from shareholders, and will serve until a vote can be held to approve them for a full one-year term at the next shareholder meeting in March.

Shareholders in theory have the power to offer their own slate of directors, but there’s little time for that, and even if some group were to do so, its only option would be to do so at its own expense. SEC rules governing the access to the proxy nominating process are currently being challenged in court by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable, and so the rules that would allow shareholders to more easily submit their own list of names are on hold pending the outcome.

Absent a proxy challenge, HP shareholders will be put in the position of accepting a board on which seven of 13 directors are brand-new. That’s a lot of new blood and may turn out to be the kind of change HP’s board needs. And getting the change done all at once rather than gradually may prove the better option.

However, I can’t help but wonder: In seeking to close out a period in which HP’s board became known more for its drama than anything else, is more drama the right answer?

Replacing Dirk Meyer at AMD Will Be No Easy Task

Arik Hesseldahl — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 23:00:44 +0000

The sudden and unexpected resignation of Advanced Micro Devices CEO Dirk Meyer yesterday has left some issues in its wake.

First, the departure has jarred the confidence of investors who have pushed the value AMD stock up by more than 57 percent since September. Shares are down by more than 8 percent today.

Second there’s the problem of hiring a replacement for Meyer, who had been on the job only a little more than two years. I’ve been talking to people both inside AMD and longtime AMD watchers outside of the company and practically all of them have been having trouble coming up with a short list of potential candidates.

For one thing, I’m hearing from people familiar with the thinking of those involved in the hiring process that there’s a strong preference for an external candidate.

Among the criteria are someone with a proven record of running large technology companies, and one with some charisma who can get the marketplace excited about AMD again. While Meyer deserves credit for getting AMD back on relatively stable footing following the divestiture of its manufacturing operations–now GlobalFoundries — and his predecessor, Hector Ruiz, gets the credit for doing the heavy lifting of getting the complicated transaction related to that split, neither could be described as charismatic.

Historically, AMD knows what it’s like to have a charismatic CEO. Jerry Sanders who founded the company and ran it from 1969 until 2002, possessed plenty of it, and some of the more colorful anecdotes about Silicon Valley history concern him. The board wants someone who’s both capable and cool at the same time. Someone who can represent the company well to the outside world, bring an air of stability and competence and elaborate a vision that will move the company forward. That’s a tall order for a company like AMD, whose fundamental strategic problem can be summed up in a single phrase: Competing with Intel is brutal, no matter what you do.

The list of potential candidates isn’t obvious by any stretch. Still in my conversations today, a few names came up, some more idealistic than realistic. One internal candidate who will probably get courtesy consideration I’m told is Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager for AMD’s products group. He oversees both the graphics and microprocessor operations and came to AMD in 2006 as a senior executive at ATI, the graphics chip company that AMD acquired for $5.4 billion in 2006. His résumé includes time at Texas Instruments and IBM. He’s described by those who know him as hard-driven and competitive and a capable well-respected manager, though at the end of the day not likely to get the nod.

Another name that has come up is that of Pat Gelsinger, not necessarily because he’d be a candidate for the job, but more as an example of the kind of person AMD would like to hire. Gelsinger was Intel’s CTO from 2001 to 2005 and was senior corporate vice president for the Digital Enterprise Group until 2009, when he suddenly jumped to EMC as president, COO and apparent successor-in-waiting to CEO Joe Tucci.

Finally there’s Michael Capellas, whose name invariably comes up whenever a significant CEO slot comes open. He’s currently running Acadia, a private cloud computing joint venture between Cisco Systems and EMC with investments from Intel and VMWare. Capellas was the CEO of Compaq Computer when Hewlett-Packard acquired it in 2002, then went on to helm MCI and engineered its turnaround and sale to Verizon in 2006. His next stop was the payment giant First Data after it was taken private in a leveraged buyout by the private equity fund Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. He was considered for the CEO job at Hewlett-Packard, before Léo Apotheker was named, but was said not to be interested. He’s got the tech and management chops and has a proven record for getting troubled companies on solid footing. It’s unclear if he would be interested.

Whoever they pick, they may want to do it quickly. AMD has a tough road ahead of it, and uncertainty at the top certainly isn’t going to help.

Verizon Wireless Touts 4G Network, Shows Off Devices

Ina Fried — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 21:03:21 +0000

Well, we didn’t learn much new about Verizon Wireless’s new network or devices at the Ivan Seidenberg keynote on Thursday, but he did say that the company would have a preview of its LTE device lineup at this afternoon’s press conference.

Here’s hoping there are a few surprises here beyond the previously announced Motorola Atrix and Xoom.

The event is set to kick off shortly and Mobilized will have live coverage here.

1:05 pm: Well, despite timely warnings to get in our seats beginning at 12:45, it’s now five minutes after and the techno is still pumping.

1:11 pm: Okay. Getting started. Loud music gets louder. Cue video.

Tony Melone and Marni Walden take the stage and CEO Daniel Mead (at least I think it is Mead) is doing an intro.

1:15 pm: Another video now playing with partners. Since HTC CEO Peter Chou is in there, I think it is probably safe to say their oft-rumored LTE smartphone will make an appearance.

1:16 pm: Samsung and Ericsson execs also in the video.

1:17 pm: Verizon exec now touting the advantages of its 4G network including its spectrum, which it says will give it the best in-building coverage.

Also talking about how it is sharing its spectrum with rural service providers.

1:18 pm: Mead: “We’re very pleased to be part of bringing broadband to rural America.”

1:21 pm: Mead hands off to CTO Tony Melone to talk 4G and LTE.

Melone says that the company knows there is a lot of skepticism of the company’s move to go straight to LTE but that the bet is paying off with more networks and running faster than planned.

“The customer feedback we are getting is everything we had hoped for and then some,” Melone says.

Melone talks about 4G LTE plans.

Thirty-six months from now we will have the nation covered with LTE, Melone says. Two-thirds of the population will be covered in 2012. This year alone, he says, Verizon will add 140 new markets, including places like Little Rock, Detroit and Sioux Falls.

1:26 pm: On to devices.

Ten devices coming by mid-year being shown on stage: Four smartphones, two tablets, two notebooks and two mobile hotspots.

1:33 pm: LG CEO shows off the LG Revolution, what appears to be a slimmish smartphone.

Next up, Skype’s CEO talks about a new partnership that will allow for Skype to be always on and integrated into the address book of all of Verizon’s LTE smartphones,

1:34 pm: He’s followed by HTC CEO Peter Chou, who introduces the HTC Thunderbolt.

Chou says he’s been personally testing and using the Thunderbolt, which features the new Skype video chatting along with HTC’s Sense user interface.

“Let me tell you, it’s blazing fast,” Chou says.

Other features include a built-in 4G hotspot and a 4.3-inch Super LCD screen.

1:37 pm: He thanks Qualcomm and Google engineers that worked together to create the device, so guessing this one isn’t using Nvidia’s Tegra chip.

Next up is Electronic Arts VP Travis Boatman. EA’s mobile games lineup ranges from Monopoly and Tetris to Need for Speed and the FIFA 11 soccer game.

The new mobile version of Rock Band for Verizon’s LTE network lets people form a band and remotely jam over the network.

Samsung executive goes onstage to show off three devices for the LTE network, One is a mobile hotspot, one is a smartphone and the other is a 4G version of the Galaxy Tab.

Phone packs 4.3-inch Super Amoled Plus display, which is said to boost colors and offer improved display. It’s got an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with HD video and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video chat.

The tablet has a 1.2GHz processor developed by Samsung, while the hotspots provide connections to up to five users at a time.

Most impressive is the fact that the Samsung executive pulled all three devices out of various pockets.

Marni Walden shows off the remaining devices–a Novatel MiFi hotpot that works with both 3G and 4G networks.

There is also a Compaq Netbook, an HP notebook, as well as the previously announced Motorola Xoom and Motorola Droid Bionic.

1:47 pm: On to Q&A (hoping laptop No. 2 holds out through the end of question time.)

First question has to do with LTE speeds, which often exceed the 5- to 12-megabit speeds promised. Mead says that the company’s goal is to meet the promised speed range once the network is fully loaded, something that is not the case today.

Next question is on battery life. Melone says the company believes it will be able to meet customer expectations in that regard.

The company says it won’t announce pricing or rate plans for the 4G products, beyond noting its current prices for 4G laptop cards and service.

As for simultaneous voice and data, Walden says the company intends that at least some of its 4G launch devices will support talking and accessing data at the same time.

“It could be on some devices and not all,” Walden says.

Walden also confirms all the phones it showed Thursday are running Android.

1:55 pm: Asked about net neutrality, Mead says that what the industry needs is “unfettered development.”

“We think the free market system works very well, and we don’t need a lot of heavy intervention.”

ATD Welcomes Ina Fried as Our New Mobile Reporter

Kara Swisher — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 00:59:56 +0000

Here at All Things Digital, we’ve always prided ourselves on our journalism efforts, while also fully embracing the fast-paced new world of blogging.

So, we could not be more thrilled to announce the hiring of Ina Fried as our new reporter and blogger, covering the critically important mobile beat. She is pictured here.

Her new beat will range from wireless carriers like AT&T; to handset makers, such as Nokia and Research in Motion; to the smartphone kingpins, Google and Apple.

And if Facebook ever does make a phone, Ina will surely have the scoop.

Mobile is a beat that reaches across companies and is at the dead center of Web 3.0.

Ina is one of several new journalists we will be announcing over the next week, part of an expansion of the ATD universe. That includes a recently announced new conference series, beginning with D: Dive Into Mobile.

There is much more to come, but let’s focus on the stylings of Ina first.

As most people know, she has been at CNET for the past 10 years, most recently covering Microsoft as a senior writer.

And although she hasn’t been focused solely on mobile, Ina has been covering the area since 2000, when folks like Kyocera were trying to shove a Palm Pilot and a phone together, most recently doing a behind-the-scenes series for CNET on the birth of Windows Phone 7.

During her time at the tech news site, she also covered Apple for four years and led CNET’s coverage of the Hewlett-Packard-Compaq merger, as well as covering all manner of gadgets from the Palm Pilot to the Audrey (I have no idea what that is, but Walt Mossberg does).

Before that, she covered the chip industry for financial wire service Bridge News and also worked at the Orange Country Register and Orange County Business Journal.

She’s a graduate of Miami University (she reminds me that’s the one in Ohio not Florida, pointing out they are better at ice hockey than football.)

Beyond breaking all kinds of stories on the Microsoft beat, Ina has closely followed Bill Gates in his shift from software titan to global philanthropist, interviewing him frequently and tagging along on his college speaking tour earlier this year. (Last week she published separate interviews with Gates and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on the same day.)

Ina also traveled to Brazil and Colombia to explore the impact of computing in emerging markets.

She’s a former vice president of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and has won a number of journalism awards, including some that she says would be seriously dangerous during an earthquake.

For example, she was named three times as one of the top 30 financial journalists under 30 by TJFR and has also been honored by the Society of Professional Journalists and Western Publishers Association, among others.

A huge softball fanatic, part of the reason she won’t start at ATD until late November is that her women’s softball team is headed to the gay softball World Series in Las Vegas (I wonder if Audrey is going).

In the meantime, you can keep up to date with Ina by following her on Twitter at Twitter.com/inafried.

ATD Welcomes Ina Fried as Our New Mobile Reporter

Kara Swisher — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 01:59:42 +0000