Activision
$15M profit for Q3
It’s been a rough year for the video game industry. But Activision Blizzard reported a profit for its third quarter because of a good response for games such as “Guitar Hero 5” and “World of Warcraft.” The video game company said Thursday that its net income grew to $15 million. In the same period of 2008 it lost $108 million, though the results are not completely comparable because Activision Blizzard was formed 10 days into the year-ago quarter. Revenue slid slightly. The company says the launch of games such as “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2” will help it hit this year’s goal of $4.5 billion in adjusted revenue. That is roughly in line with expectations.
— Associated Press
Skype
Lawsuit settled
The founders of Skype have agreed to join the investor group buying the Internet calling service from eBay, according to people familiar with the matter. Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who sold Skype to eBay in 2005, will take a stake in the company alongside a group led by private-equity firm Silver Lake, said the people, who declined to be identified because the matter isn’t public. They also will drop lawsuits filed against Skype and the investor group in London, California and Delaware, the people said. The settlement ends a legal fight that spanned two continents and threatened to shut down Skype. The founders, who own the underlying software code to the Web-calling service, had accused eBay of breaking a licensing deal and sued the investor group in September, claiming damages were growing by $75 million a day.
— Bloomberg News
Microsoft
W7 sales ‘fantastic’
Microsoft’s sales of its Windows 7 operating system were “fantastic,” exceeding revenue from any of its previous operating software releases in the first 10 days, CEO Steve Ballmer said. “Windows 7 is an example of the kind of innovations that I think are important in the technology marketplace,” Ballmer said at a news briefing in Tokyo Thursday. Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., began selling Windows 7 on Oct. 22 and said the next day that it sold more copies of Windows last quarter than in any previous period.
— Bloomberg News
