WSJ reports the co, aiming to rev up sales as its mainstay personal computer business struggles in the recession, is preparing a move into cellphones as early as next month, said people familiar with the matter. The co has had a group of engineers working on the phones for more than a year from an office in the Chicago area, these people said.
They produced prototypes built on Google's Android operating system and Microsoft's Windows Mobile software, these people said. Dell is focusing on so-called smartphones, higher-end devices that include features like Web browsing and email. One model includes a touchscreen but no physical keyboard, like Apple Inc.'s iPhone.
Another is a slider-style phone with a keypad and that slides from beneath the screen, one person familiar with the devices said. Dell hasn't finalized its plans and may still abandon the effort, which would pit it against such powerhouses as Apple and Research In Motion.
A Dell spokesman said the company hasn't disclosed plans to offer phones, adding: "We haven't committed to anything."
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Reuters reports JP Morgan (JPM) has "plenty of capital" nd wants governments to stop talking about nationalizing banks, its CEO said on Thursday. "JPMorgan would be fine if we stopped talking about (the) damn nationalization of banks ... we've got plenty of capital," Jamie Dimon said at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Underlining the bank's confidence, Dimon said JP Morgan had lent $150 bln in the last 90 days including $50 bln in the interbank market, also to European and British banks, but added: "It's scary because at the end of the day you have to survive." "I'm hoping by the end of the year we're coming out of the crisis," he told journalists.
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Co discloses that the general decline in the drybulk carrier charter market has resulted in lower charter rates for some of its vessels exposed to the spot market and its time charters and bareboat charter linked to the BDI. Specifically, co has 12 vessels trading in the spot market that are currently exposed to the downturn in the drybulk charter rates, five newbuilding drybulk carriers that co expects will operate on spot charters when delivered in 2009 to 2010, as well as two vessels on time charter and one vessel on bareboat charter at rates that adjust with the BDI. The duration of spot charters is between 60 and 90 days. Eleven spot charters expire in the period January 28, 2009 through February 28, 2009. Should drybulk charter rates continue to decline or remain at their current low level, our charter revenue with respect to these vessels will remain low or decline even further.
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NY Times reports Morgan Stanley's chief global and United States equity strategist, Abhijit Chakrabortti, resigned Tuesday "to pursue opportunities outside the firm," according to an internal memo. His departure, reported Tuesday on Dealbreaker, came after just 17 months on the job as the firm's top equity strategist. Mr. Chakrabortti was among the most bearish forecasters on Wall Street and had predicted a drop in the S&P 500 in 2008. Bloomberg News said his 2008 prediction for the index was the most accurate on the Street, but still off by some 46 percent, as the extent of the global meltdown took most economists by surprise. A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman confirmed to Dealbook that Mr. Chakrabortti has left the firm, but gave no further details about his departure or who would replace him. In the two years before arriving at Morgan Stanley, Mr. Chakrabortti was at JPMorgan Chase (JPM), where he also made bearish forecasts. He predicted the S&P 500 would drop 9.9 percent in 2006 and gain 1.5 percent in 2007. He was off by a lot: the index climbed 14 percent in 2006 and 3.5 percent in 2007. "I very much suspect that there will be a time when a 1,440 valuation looks good," Mr. Chakrabortti told the New York Times in January 2007. The S&P closed Tuesday at 837.
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Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said that its ratings on General Electric Co. (GE; AAA/Negative/A-1+) and General Electric Capital Corp. (GECC; AAA/Negative/A-1+) were not immediately affected by the company's fourth-quarter earnings. Industrial cash from operating activities of $16.7 billion and cash balances at the industrial parent of $12 billion at the end of 2008 were both at the higher end of our expectations. Still, for GECC there are signs that 2009 will be even more difficult than we assumed when we revised the outlook on both companies to negative on Dec. 18, 2008. GECC would have reported a significant net loss for the quarter, were it not for a substantial tax credit. This disappointing result reflects higher credit costs across a number of its businesses, as well as write-downs and impairment charges. Management has increased its guidance for full-year 2009 credit losses to $10 billion, compared with $9 billion previously, and has also indicated that there is presently a $4 billion unrealized loss in its real estate portfolio, compared with the $2 billion unrealized gain previously disclosed. With intensifying pressures from the credit cycle, we believe it will be increasingly challenging for GECC to realize management's current guidance of a $5 billion net income in 2009."
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