The greening of the football stadium

By Brian Dumaine, senior editor-at-large

A ring of solar-powered LEDs atop MetLife Stadium flashes New York Giants blue.

FORTUNE -- A new kind of NFL rivalry is forming, not on the gridiron but in the boardroom. Many NFL owners have suddenly gotten religion about the environmental impact of football: installing solar panels in their stadiums, recycling plastic cups, and even composting garbage. Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie wants to make his venue an environmental showcase. New York Giants co-owner Don Mara says he wants "to have the greenest stadium in the NFL." Jonathan Kraft, whose family owns the New England Patriots, says: "We hope to lead the way in sustainability."

MORE: Can the Navy really go green?

It's not just altruism that's driving these business titans. Their plans will help the bottom line. Take the solar systems the Patriots, Giants, Jets, Redskins, and others are installing. About a year and a half ago, David Crane, CEO of the New Jersey-based energy provider NRG (NRG), approached the NFL about converting to renewable energy. NRG, with $9 billion in revenue and a fleet of coal, gas, and nuclear power plants, says he believes that solar will be a disruptive technology. The problem, explains Crane, is that solar, which still counts for less than 1% of U.S. power production, wasn't gaining any traction. If he could get the NFL to embrace solar, he could use America's most popular sport to help spread the word. His pitch: At no capital expense to the NFL owners, NRG would install panels at their facilities. For the deal at Foxborough, Mass., one of seven NFL locales NRG is wiring, the Patriots get to hedge against rising electricity prices by locking into a long-term fixed-price contract. NRG profits from the cash flow. The utility has installed nearly a megawatt of solar panels, enough to supply 60% of the power for the stores and restaurants in the complex.

NFL games still consume lots of power and create lots of waste. But owners say solar is just a first step in a long drive toward sustainability. No word yet on harnessing the energy from the on-field tackles.

This story is from the September 24, 2012 issue of Fortune.

Fortune Editors 19 Sep, 2012

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Andy Zaky: Apple will cross $1,000 within 15 months

Zaky called that bottom in mid May

FORTUNE -- The last time Bullish Cross' Andy Zaky issued a public recommendation -- as opposed to the advice he administers daily to his paying clients -- was May 18.

That day Apple (AAPL) touched $522.18, which Zaky believed was a bottom, and he told anybody who would listen to buy at $530 to $550.

I mention this because Zaky, a former Fortune contributor who now runs the only Apple hedge fund I know of, has a pretty good track record on these things -- like four for four. (See here.)

In his May post he predicted that Apple would hit $750 sometime before the end of January. When the stock crossed $700 in after-market trading Monday -- up 32% since his last buy signal -- he followed up with another public posting -- this one laying out his Apple price targets for the next two years. He sees Apple going to

• $750 before the end of January 2013,
• $850 in late summer or early fall 2013,
• $1,000 in late December or early January 2014,
• $1,500 by the end of 2014, and
• $2,000 sometime in 2015

Mark your calendars.

You can read Zaky's reasoning here.

For a more mainstream view, see Analysts scramble to keep their targets ahead of Apple's price.

Philip Elmer-DeWitt 19 Sep, 2012

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Analysts scramble to keep their targets ahead of Apple's price

FORTUNE -- On Sunday BMO Capital's Keith Bachman, citing "earlier availability" of the iPhone 5, raised the price he expects Apple's (AAPL) shares to reach in the next 12 months from $680 to $750.

He was already three days too late.

The stock, which opened September at $665.76, smashed through $680 last Thursday, closed Friday above $691 and broke $700 in after-hours trading Monday.

[Apple opened Tuesday at $699.47.]

Bachman is not the only Wall Street analysts having trouble keeping up with Apple's share price. More than half of the analysts we track raised their 12-month price targets this summer into the 750-900 range ($770 is currently median target, according to Thomson First Call). We expect they'll have to do it again before January.

Meanwhile, we've got several analysts at exactly $700 and at least two -- Pacific Crest's Andy Hargreaves ($690) and Morningstar's Michael Holt ($670) -- well under water.

At the other end of the spectrum, Topeka's Brian White set a Street-high $1,111 target in April and seems to be sticking with it.

mvella1271 18 Sep, 2012

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Fear and loathing in Japan

By Michael Fitzpatrick, contributor

FORTUNE -- A much diminished electronics sector in Japan is buckling further still. How much more retrenchment and pain is needed to succor its once triumphant tech industry is the question now as Sharp Corp, one of Japan Inc.'s bigger beasts, faces ruin. Japan analysts are also pondering who could be next.

Mirroring Japan's post-war rise from tinkering electronics amateurs to masters of the transistor age, Japan's biggest TV maker Sharp might not even make it past the 100-year-mark it celebrates this month suggest some observers. Wages and jobs have all been slashed, but Sharp is still suffering massive losses while its share price has fallen dramatically. (This year it is down 73%.) Meanwhile, the woes of other giants -- Sony (SNE), Olympus, and others -- are making the industry's fall from grace as palatable at home as a plate of Made-in-China McSushi. "The good old days walked out the door and no one noticed," says Hideki Onda former distributor for Apple (AAPL) Japan, referring to the sector's sudden loss of competitiveness.

What happened? Japan's electronic makers just failed to keep up he says. Unlike competitors such as Apple, Japanese manufactures of late have not engaged the world, nor even their domestic customers, and are now paying the price. Once undisputed Titans of the consumer electronics with combined sales of $600 billion -- equal to the economy of the Netherlands -- now Japan's top electronics makers are shadowed by the likes of Samsung's $163 billion capitalization and Apple's $634 billion. In contrast Sony, Panasonic and Sharp combined are now worth only $54 billion at current market values.

MORE: At Olympus, a drama with plenty of twists

Amid weak demand and a painfully strong yen, Panasonic (PC), Sony and Sharp together lost billions last year, while Sharp alone owes $31 billion to the banks and other bond holders. Such figures underline the beating given Japan's electronics industry by foreign rivals led by South Korea's Samsung Electronics.

It is not that Japan is short of engineering ability, brains or innovation says Gerhard Fasol a technology consultant based in Tokyo. But in order to thrive the country's major firms need to restructure and move to new business models. "Japan has not failed to capitalize on the digital revolution, but the successes/failures are not according to expectations...so many of them are in trouble," he says.

The once lauded "kaizen" system, implementing constant refinements to improve quality by tweaking the production process, mimicked world-wide, is now discredited in one view. "The Japanese business model has reached a dead-end," writes Yasuyuki Maruyama senior researcher at the Yomiuri Research Institute in a recent report.

And yet Japan still has much to offer in terms of intellectual property and innovation. But like Sharp, NEC and Panasonic are all in the same trap says Tokyo-based technology analyst William H. Saito. "They have a culture that is not required at this level [of innovation]. They are not converting to new products or markets. Instead they create low hanging fruit for other Asian economies."

MORE: The agony of Japan Inc.

More agile rivals such as Samsung and even Chinese competitors make it difficult for Japanese manufactures to compete. As such, analysts forecast that the bloodletting is far from over yet. "Japanese corporations are unable to cope with falling prices and have no clue how to take advantage of their own strengths. Struggling to compete in overseas markets with nimbler rivals like South Korea's Samsung, their business results have collapsed," writes Maruyama.

Structural and systemic weaknesses aggravate the problems. Outmoded management practices and lack of leadership have led to an inability to form dynamic global teams, while they tend, in the sector, to put weak companies together to create mega-firms like Sharp that lead to bankruptcy explains Saito. "This means that companies like NEC are next on the hatchet," he adds ominously. Many agree. Years of decline at Japan's number three electronics business has led to 10,000 firings last January, withdrawal from Europe's PC market in 2009 and the selling of $235 million in shares of the surging Chinese computer-maker Lenovo Group to bolster plunging sales.

Terrie Lloyd an entrepreneur and business commentator living in Tokyo believes NEC will be next to fail. "I had some insider (board level) information 12 months ago that things were really serious," he says. "My guess is that the banks have given NEC one last chance to fix their problems -- they got a big loan several months ago after the markets baulked at a bond issuance -- before NEC is going to have to really bite the bullet and start firing thousands."

mvella1271 18 Sep, 2012

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Judge denies motion to lift Apple's ban on Samsung tablet

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Apple iPad

FORTUNE --When a Silicon Valley jury ordered Samsung to pay $1 billion in damages for infringing half a dozen Apple (AAPL) patents, it left one large piece of unfinished business: Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Before the trial began Apple had requested a preliminary injunction banning the sale of the iPad lookalike -- a request Judge Lucy Koh, declaring the two products "virtually indistinguable," had granted and an appeals court had affirmed.

"Samsung appears to have created a [tablet] design that is likely to deceive an ordinary observer," Koh wrote in her order, "inducing him to purchase one supposing it to be the other."

It seemed like a slam dunk for Apple, but due to some confusion about what it means for a patent to be unregistered (see Did the jury blow the Galaxy Tab verdict?), the Galaxy Tab managed to escape the sledgehammer: The jury found that it did not infringe Apple's design patent.

Samsung promptly filed a motion to have the sales ban lifted. A hearing was scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 20, and court watchers began taking bets about what Judge Koh was going to do about the one part of the jury's verdict that seemed to fly in the face of the facts.

In an order filed Monday, we got her answer. She denied Samsung's motion "without prejudice" and the kicked the decision up to the appeals court -- along with a note that the motion raises "a substantial issue" that must be addressed.

AppleInsider has Judge Koh's order. You can read it here.

Philip Elmer-DeWitt 18 Sep, 2012

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Today in Tech: Google+ hits 100 million monthly users

HP tries to go "sleek"; Jack Dorsey's Square worth $3.25 billion. 

Square finally closes $200 million round at a $3.25 billion valuation [ALLTHINGSD]

In an interview several weeks ago, Square COO Keith Rabois said that the company plans to start marketing itself aggressively. It already has commercials on TV, and a wide-ranging deal with Starbucks announced last month will also help. Starbucks said then that it would invest $25 million into the company, and start using the funds to process all of its debit and credit transactions in the U.S. Starbucks will also allow its customers to pay for their lattes using Square's consumer-facing app.

H-P tries on a sleeker look [THE WALL STREET JOURNAL]

Redesigning its devices is more than just a cosmetic project. Revamping the PC division, which is H-P's biggest business and accounts for about 30% of its revenue, is critical to the turnaround Ms. Whitman is trying to pull off at the Palo Alto, Calif., company. In H-P's most recent quarter, PC revenue fell 10% from a year earlier to $8.6 billion while the unit's operating income tumbled 27%. Overall, the company reported its biggest-ever quarterly loss.

Apple closes at a record $699.78, 22 cents shy of $700 [FORTUNE]

Although the stock is up nearly 75% over the past 12 months, the company is still relatively cheap by the standards of the S&P 500.

Apple is sitting on a bigger cash hoard ($117 billion) than any company in the world, and the 60% growth rate its earnings have racked up over the past 5 years can hardly be compared with the S&P 500's -1.66%.

AMD CFO Thomas Seifert calls it quits, Devinder Kumar takes his place on an interim basis [ENGADGET]

Advanced Micro Devices' Senior VP and Chief Financial Officer, Thomas Seifert, has decided to leave AMD three short years after joining the company. As you may recall, Seifert briefly took the reigns of AMD asinterim CEO in early 2011, until the firm found a permanent replacement in Rory Read later that year. No word on why Seifert has decided to depart the chip maker -- other than "to pursue other opportunities" -- but we do know that Devinder Kumar, AMD's current Senior VP and corporate controller will replace him on an interim basis. The full announcement awaits in the PR after the break.

As predicted, Google+ passes 400 million registered users, now has 100 million monthly active users [THE NEXT WEB]

Yet the real story here isn't the 400 million number, but the 100 million one. Google+'s main competitor Facebook doesn't even bother talking about registered users because it know the number is meaningless. The social networking giant only talks about monthly active users, of which it has 955 million as of June 30. Both Facebook and Google are talking about combined desktop and mobile users.

JP Mangalindan, Writer 18 Sep, 2012

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Apple closes at a record $699.78, 22¢ shy of $700

FORTUNE -- It seems the drumbeat of positive news for Apple (AAPL) -- the Samsung verdict, the iPhone 5, the 2 million pre-orders, the rumors of new products in the wings -- was finally too much for the Apple bears.

On Monday, the company's share price shot right up to and, in after-hours trading, finally broke through the psychological barrier of $700 a share.

Although the stock is up nearly 75% over the past 12 months, the company is still relatively cheap by the standards of the S&P 500.

Apple is sitting on a bigger cash hoard ($117 billion) than any company in the world, and the 60% growth rate its earnings have racked up over the past 5 years can hardly be compared with the S&P 500's -1.66%.

Yet even after the stock's recent run-up, Apple's trailing price-to-earnings ratio of 16.45 still hasn't caught up to the S&P 500's 16.50.

Go figure.

Philip Elmer-DeWitt 18 Sep, 2012

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The baffling claim against Facebook

FORTUNE -- Eolas Technologies and the University of California filed a lawsuit this week against Facebook (FB), Wal-Mart (WMT), and Disney (DIS), apparently based in part on a patent that a court had previously ruled Eolas could no longer use to claim infringement.

Eolas spent most of the 2000s suing Microsoft (MSFT) in an ultimately successful patent complaint. (Microsoft settled in 2007.) Then it sued a multitude of companies including Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), Amazon (AMZN), J.C. Penney (JCP), Perot Systems, Blockbuster, eBay (EBAY), Citigroup (C) and several others. Most settled, but Google, Yahoo, Amazon and J.C. Penney stayed firm and ultimately beat back the lawsuit.

The term "patent troll" might sound derogatory, but Eolas pretty much fits the commonly understood definition. It developed some technologies for interactive Web processes back in the early 90s and since then has spent most of its time and money filing patent lawsuits based on those technologies. The idea is to file lawsuits and hope companies will either agree to license the technologies or pay a settlement. Because of the time and money involved in defending lawsuits, many companies simply cave, whether or not they feel the claims have merit.

MORE: An audience with the King of the Patent Trolls

The new lawsuit claims that the three companies are infringing on four patents on technologies enabling interactivity and embedding of media. Eolas was founded to protect patents on technologies Doyle and others had developed at the University of California, San Francisco. The university issued a statement that it "should be paid a fair value when a third party exploits [a] university asset for profit." A Facebook spokesman told Reuters the lawsuit is without merit and the company "will right it vigorously." Eolas has not yet replied to a request for comment by Fortune.com.

A Texas jury in February declared two of the four patents invalid in February. That led TechDirt's Michael Masnick to proclaim: "The Web is saved." Not quite yet, apparently. It's unclear why Eolas and the University are nevertheless filing a lawsuit based in part on patents that have been ruled invalid.

Philip Elmer-DeWitt 18 Sep, 2012

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How Apple made the iPhone 5 the 'Rolex of smartphones'

FORTUNE -- It was Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster who compared the iPhone 5 to a Rolex -- and all other smartphones to Timexes.

But it was Apple (AAPL) design chief Jony Ive who showed the press how the company achieves what he likes to call the device's "extraordinary level of fit and finish."

No one can make an assembly line sound as sexy as Sir Jony, although he's demonstrating processes almost certainly developed by Bob Marshall, the company's under-appreciated senior vice president for manufacturing.

The 1:36 minute YouTube video above was excerpted from the 7-minute iPhone 5 film shown at the device's unveiling last week and now available here at Apple.com.

The excerpt was posted at the request of reader "apppletini," who says she almost passed out when Ive began talking about grinding the chamfers with diamond crystals.

Philip Elmer-DeWitt 18 Sep, 2012

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Today in Tech: Facebook's Winklevoss twins invest in another social network

How failure is a feature for Google; why you can expect smartphones to get even better.

iPhone 5: 1 million pre-orders in first 24 hours [WIRED]

Whether you find the iPhone 5 boring or exciting, it's certainly struck a chord with consumers. The iPhone 5 sold a whopping 2 million units in its first day of pre-order sales, according to a Sept. 17 press release issued by Apple.

That's double the pre-order sales of the iPhone 4S, which sold one million units in its first 24 hours, and more than three times as many as first-day sales for the iPhone 4 (600,000 units).

The return of Facebook's Winklevoss twins [THE WALL STREET JOURNAL]

Flush with at least $65 million from the settlement of a legal battle with Mr. Zuckerberg and Facebook, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are backing fellow Harvard alumnus Divya Narendra, their ally in the Facebook fight, in the investment website. The Winklevosses have put $1 million into SumZero, which was founded by Mr. Narendra and another Harvard alum Aalap Mahadevia, in 2008.

Failure is a feature: how Google stays sharp gobbling up startups [THE VERGE]

Since its early days, Google has looked outside itself for inspiration on new directions its business could take. The search giant's mergers and acquisitions team set new records in 2010 and 2011 for the sheer number of companies it acquired. Last year alone it bought up 25 companies, one every two weeks. If you count the firms acquired for patents and intellectual property, the total number is a whopping 79. Taking a look at Google's peers, it becomes clear just how astonishing these numbers are. Facebook bought just ten companies in 2011; Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft only three apiece.

Despite a slowdown, smartphone advances are still ahead [THE NEW YORK TIMES]

But big innovations in smartphones are not a thing of the past. Incremental improvements can add up over a span of years, providing the computing horsepower to enable big advances in software. Breakthroughs in smartphone materials, software and even batteries could lead to substantial changes in how smartphones look and function in the years ahead.

JP Mangalindan, Writer 18 Sep, 2012

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