Friday, August 14. 2009

Autodesk Beats the Street; Q2 Profit Down 88%

Reuters look at the cup half full: "...Autodesk posted a profit of 24 cents per share, compared with 56 cents per share a year ago, and ahead of analysts' consensus forecast of 19 cents according to Reuters Estimates."

The reasons given by the company for the drop in profits: lower sales and margins as well as restructuring charges.

The numbers look like this per Dow Jones: "For the quarter ended July 31, Autodesk reported a profit of $10.5 million, or 5 cents a share, down from $89.8 million, or 39 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding items such as restructuring and stock-compensation costs, earnings fell to 24 cents from 56 cents.

Revenue dropped 33% to $414.9 million."

Autodesk's Geospatial group has been virtually silent since the launch of AutoCAD 2010 via a webcast earlier this year (Directions Media coverage.

- Dow Jones
- Reuters
- Earnings call transcript - press release

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Autodesk at 08:49 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Judges Invalidates Encyclopedia Britannica Patent on Interactive Maps

This case has been brewing for some years. Encyclopedia Britannica filed suit against a seven GPS vendors (TomTom and Toyota among them) alleging patent infringement on an old patent about providing data on interactive maps. The case was tossed out by US district judge Lee Yeakel in Austin, Texas since the patent was determined to be invalid.

The patent related to displaying information about locations, something EB did in its electronic encyclopedias. The company felt that invention was being used in navigation devices and began filing suit against GPS and in-car navigation device makers in 2006 and 2007.

- Business Mirror

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Patents, Satellite Navigation at 07:43 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |