“ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss industrial group ABB is to buy U.S. solar energy company Power-One Incfor about $1 billion, betting that growth in emerging markets will revive a sector ravaged by overcapacity and weakening demand in recession-hit Europe.

The world’s biggest supplier of industrial motors and power grids said on Monday it had agreed to pay $6.35 per share in cash for Power-One, the second-largest maker of solar inverters that allow solar power to be fed into grids.

The offer price is 57 percent above Power-One’s closing price on Friday, boosted by $266 million in net cash held by debt-free Power-One. Stripping out its cash pile, Power-One’s enterprise value stands at $762 million, valuing the bid at a more modest 6.4 times 2012 core earnings.

As solar power gets closer to competing with conventional forms of energy such as gas and coal, demand for solar panels that harness the sun’s energy is rising.

The same goes for solar inverters, which are needed to feed that power into large electricity grids from commercial solar panel installations and smaller units on factories and homes.

“We consider the acquisition of Power-One as a smart strategic move for ABB to broaden its solar product portfolio at the right time,” Vontobel analysts said.

The solar inverters business is one of the last profitable parts of the solar value chain – mainly due to its relatively complex technology – while makers of cells and panels have suffered massively from the fact that their products are easy to replicate.

Peers like Germany’s Siemens and Bosch recently ended ventures in the solar industry after oversupply, weak economies and a cut in government subsidies triggered a collapse in demand for solar panels and prices slumped, leading to a wave of insolvencies in the industry.

Even makers of the solar inverters have suffered….”

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Some 500k plus surgeries have been performed with robotic technologies from Intuitive Surgical. Unfortunately, there is a growing number of cases where routine surgeries are resulting in complications and even death. Lawsuits are beginning to mount…..

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“(Reuters) – McDonald’s Corp on Friday threw cold water on hopes that its restaurant sales would accelerate, warning that global sales at established restaurants would be slightly lower in April.

The forecast sent shares of the world’s biggest fast-food chain down 1.8 percent to $100.10 in morning trading.

The shares recently hit a record high above $103 on expectations that results would improve in the second half of 2013, when the chain will no longer be up against year-earlier U.S. results that were bolstered by unseasonably warm winter weather.

Results were expected to improve in April because the company would only have to top 3.3 percent growth in global restaurant sales in April 2012. By comparison, sales were up a whopping 7.7 percent in March 2012.

The McDonald’s forecast for April “does put a little bit of a damper on the theory that as soon as comparisons got easier, comps were going to take off,” Bernstein Research analyst Sara Senatoresaid.

While investors and analysts are giving McDonald’s new chief executive, Don Thompson, and his management team time to revive restaurant sales, they could get impatient as the year wears on.

“There will be some pressure on the guys to pick up the pace,” Edward Jones analyst Jack Russo said.

McDonald’s reported first-quarter profit that fell short of Wall Street expectations as global comparable sales fell 1 percent – slightly less than the 1.1 percent decline forecast by analysts polled by Consensus Metrix…..”

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“(Reuters) – Boeing Co said it would cut the production rate for the latest version of the 747 jumbo jetfrom 2 aircraft per month to 1.75 aircraft citing lower demand for large passenger and cargo planes.

The first delivery of the 747-8 aircraft at the new production rate is expected in early 2014, the company said, adding that the change was not expected to have a significant financial impact.

“Boeing has noted soft demand in the freighter market for some time, and if there is no pick up in orders we could see further cuts to the 747-8 production rate,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Robert Stallard said in a flash note to clients.

Boeing has a backlog of 64 747-8s, with just 7 orders in 2012 and 3 orders year-to-date in 2013, he said.

Stallard added that the revenue impact of any further cut is likely to be modest, though he expects the company may have to take accounting charges related to a significant step down in production rate.

The aircraft maker has been struggling with the grounding of its 787 Dreamliner jets worldwide since January after lithium-ion batteries burned on two of the planes.

The grounding has cost the company an estimated $600 million, but Reuters reported earlier this week that regulators are close to approving a key document that could start the process of returning the grounded planes to service within weeks….”

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“Google has been experiencing service disruptions that are affecting some of its applications, including its popular Gmail app and its Google Drive service, for almost two hours.

According to Google’s apps status webpage, the outage is affecting less than .007 percent of Gmail users. However, the outage is big enough to cause Gmail to to be trending topic in the U.S. on Twitter.

Affected Google Drive users are getting the following message:

“Google Drive encountered an error. If reloading the page doesn’t help, please report the error. We’re sorry, a server error occurred. Please wait a bit and try reloading your spreadsheet. To learn more about Google Drive, please visit our help center.” …”

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“In March, Yahoo made a big splash in its already dazzling list of acquisitions when it acquired Summly, a UK-based mobile startup led by 17-year-old founder Nick D’Aloisio that summarizes long texts to make them easier to read on mobile screens. Today, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer unveiled the first official fruit of that acquisition:

A 160-word summary of her hour-long, 2013 Q1 earnings presentation (original length, 2,000+ words).

So for those of you who don’t have the time or inclination to read the whole results transcript, or one of the many reports covering the earnings, but are still interested in what’s going on at Yahoo, here it is:

I’m pleased with the continued execution I see every day — our teams have been working very hard, especially in Q1. As a result of these initiatives and many others, the talent is undeniable — today, more applicants want to work at Yahoo, and more employees are staying. These teams bring an incredible mix of engineering and technical talent, which will help us accelerate our efforts in mobile development and contentpersonalization.The teams are already moving quickly to amplify the entrepreneurial spirit that’s so prevalent at Yahoo right now.
Designed to be more intuitive and personal, the new Yahoo experience is all about users’ interests and preferences. Yahoo is a consumer Internet company, and the consumer Internet is a growth industry. We’re on course to do what we said we would do — stabilize, and grow with the market…..”

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“Amazon today took a big step forward in its strategy to take its app distribution business — and its Kindle Fire hardware business — global: it announced that its Android-based Appstore will expand to cover “nearly 200″ countries, including adding Australia, Latin American countries like Brazil and Mexico, Canada, South Africa and South Korea. Up to now, the only countries where the Appstore was available were the U.S., UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan.

Developers interested in distributing their apps to these new international users can start submitting their apps today, Amazon said. The storefronts themselves will be coming “in the coming months” when Amazon officially launches its Amazon Appstore for Android internationally.

Last quarter, Amazon missed on almost all analyst estimates but its stock soared anyway, partly because, as the WSJ points out, it was showing improvements in its operating income — a sign that its business of selling online on a grand scale continues to progress.

Amazon is due to announce its next quarterly results on April 25. Putting the news out today that it’s growing the scale of its digital content business even further helps them continue to sell that message in the lead-up to that.

It’s also an important message to lure more developers to its platform.

“Amazon’s platform is a complete end-to-end solution for developers wanting to build, market and monetize their apps and games on Kindle Fire and Android devices,” said Mike George, VP of Apps and Games at Amazon, in a statement. “Allowing developers to target distribution of their apps and games in even more international countries is yet another important milestone as we strive to serve consumers and developers globally. Many of our existing developers have localized their apps and games for international consumers, and we look forward to working with new developers that have been waiting to bring their apps to more Amazon customers across the globe.”

Amazon, as we have all come to expect by now, doesn’t give out specific numbers on how well apps (or its devices) are selling. (However, Flurry a year ago estimated that the Appstore generated nearly as much as Apple’s App Store, at 89% of Apple’s app revenues, with Google Play significantly behind them, making only 23% as much as Apple…..”

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“Microsoft just scored a coup on the patent royalty front, with a new deal with Taiwanese phone maker, Hon Hai, which owns Foxconn.

Under the terms of the deal, Microsoft will get paid a flat fee per Android and Chrome-based device that Foxconn makes. And there are a lot of those. A whopping 40 percent of the world’s phones come from the firm’s China-based factories. Foxconn is an ODM, or “original design manufacturer”, and makes Android devices for clients like Acer and Amazon (it makes the Kindle Fire).

It’s famous for making iPhones and iPads as well.

The exact patents licensed were not revealed, but Microsoft has been famously litigious on the patent scene. With regard to the Android OS, legal documents filed in 2010 against Motorola and against Barnes & Noble in 2011 give some clues.

One of its patent claims is against a way that long and short file names are implemented, and is linked to the FAT16 file system used by older Microsoft OSes like MS-DOS and Windows.

Other patents include data management, across flash drives and another in contact databases. Microsoft’s user interface patents are also involved.

Microsoft said that over 50 percent of the world’s Android phones come from manufacturers that already have patent agreements in place with it…..”

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“ASML Holding NV (ASML), Europe’s largest semiconductor-equipment supplier, named finance director Peter Wennink chief executive officer as it announced a 1 billion-euro buyback and first-quarter profit that beat estimates.

Eric Meurice, 56, whose contract as CEO was set to end next year, will give up that job July 1 and become chairman, the Veldhoven, Netherlands-based company said today….”

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“Standard & Poor’s, found liable in November for misleading Australian towns with investment ratings, faces more lawsuits from councils and charities seeking to recoup their losses.

The city of Swan and Moree Plains Shire Council today sued S&P and its parent companyMcGraw-Hill Cos. (MHP) in Sydney federal court claiming the AAA, AA+, AA and AA- ratings given to synthetic collateralized debt obligations were misleading. The two municipalites are representative plaintiffs for about 90 councils, religous organizations and funds who aren’t named in the statement of claim.

“This filing in Australia will pave the way for further filings in Europe,” John Walker, executive director of IMF (Australia) Ltd., the litigation funder, said in a statement. “Rating agencies played a pivotal role in the misallocation of billions of dollars worldwide from 2005 to 2008 and it is important they be held accountable.”….”

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stock is down on the news flash, story developing….

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“Federal aviation regulators on Monday will order special inspections and, if needed, replacement of improperly manufactured parts on more than 1,000 Boeing Co.BA +0.41% 737 jets that could cause pilots to lose control.

Industry officials said the directive is unusual because it applies to factory defects potentially affecting such a large number of planes, particularly relatively new versions of the most widely used jetliner flown by carriers world-wide.

The Federal Aviation Administration’s safety mandate covers certain corrosion-prone pins used to attach movable tail panels to the jetliner’s fuselage.

The order was prompted by “reports of an incorrect procedure used to apply the wear and corrosion protection surface coating” to the affected parts, which the agency determined could result “in premature failure” of the attachments and potentially “loss of control of the airplane,” the directive says.

The suspect parts, which haven’t caused any accidents, help secure so-called horizontal stabilizers that control the up-and- down movement of the nose.

The directive takes effect in late May and gives airlines various compliance times based on the age of aircraft and other factors. The compliance deadlines are far enough ahead that they aren’t expected to have an impact on airline schedules…..”

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“Last fall, a source close to Yahoo told us that Facebook was working on an advertising product that “kills us.”

He said:

“There’s a story brewing about a next very big business it’s building—one that competes with one of Yahoo’s flagship ad products and would kill us.”

That product is finally here.

It’s called “partner categories.”

It allows Facebook advertisers to show ads to people who have purchased, or have shown interest in purchasing, specific categories of products offline – from consumer packaged goods to cars and more.

Facebook can do this thanks to a partnership with a firm called Datalogix.

Datalogix tracks usage of loyalty cards in offline retail stores.

Facebook can, in an privacy-sensitive way, tell who purchased about 50% of all consumer-packaged goods sold in the US.

Datalogix can also track people who have given over identifying information to merchants, asking for more information about their products.

So, for example, Facebook knows which of its users have asked Chevy for brochures on its new Camero.

The implications of this capability are obviously huge.

Imagine how valuable it will be for Gillette to put ads in front of men who bought new razors, or for Ford to stick a Mustang ad in front of those Camero shoppers.

That kind of targeting – based on a consumer’s signalled intent – is nearly as valuable as Google search targeting, where a consumer has told Google exactly what he or she is looking to buy.

No wonder our Yahoo source was so nervous.

Here’s Facebook’s blog post announcing the feature…”

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