Treeduck

Boom box designs typically go to masculine extremes. Products like the Sony Xplod or Altec Lansing iM7 look like they belong on Vin Diesel's shoulder launching rockets at enemy helicopters. Even classically styled boom boxes like the Lasonic i931 are purposely designed to be unwieldy, oversized contraptions that require a gym membership and an unhealthy appetite for punishment.

The iLive iB109 strikes a retaliating blow against the male-centric design of these beat-blasting behemoths by mimicking one of the most emasculating objects ever devised--the purse. With its flexible strap, glossy finish, and iPod-matching color schemes, this portable speaker system is just a Hannah Montana sticker away from repelling men like kryptonite.

Aside from looking adorable, the iLive iB109 will only set you back $29, and includes an AM/FM radio, universal iPod dock, and aux input. You also get the added assurance that men will never ask to borrow it.

(Via Chip Chick)

Oracle has reported quarterly earnings above expectations as the number-three software maker's profit margin hit a record, thanks to robust growth in its maintenance business, sending shares up 2.7 percent.

The company run by billionaire Larry Ellison also reported a smaller-than-expected drop in new software sales and said that it grabbed market share from SAP in certain segments — signs that Oracle may be weathering the downturn better than rivals.

"We've been able to push through the economic situation rather well and I have to tell you that I still see the pipeline growing rather significantly," Oracle President Safra Catz said in a conference call.

Oracle's quarterly results and outlook beat expectations it set in March, when executives warned that the recession and strong dollar would take a substantial bite out of profits. Since then, the economy has stabilised and the currency has weakened, setting Oracle up to beat those conservative estimates.

Oracle executives were more optimistic on Tuesday, saying customers are telling the company they need to move forward in implementing new projects to keep their businesses running.

Ellison cited customers as saying they want to spend more in the second half of 2009, but he added that remained to be seen.

Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Holt believed Oracle was taking customers away from German rival SAP in the market for business management software as well as boosting share in its database business, where it competes with IBM and Microsoft.

"If they are able to gain share through the downturn then they will have stronger customer relationships as the economy improves," Holt said.

New software sales, a closely watched revenue measure, fell 13 percent to $2.7 billion. Analysts had been expecting them to slide about 18 percent.

Great expectations
Oracle reported profit, excluding items, of 46 cents per share in the fourth quarter, which ended May 31, beating analysts' average forecast of 44 cents, according to Reuters Estimates.

"It's all about expectations. Everything looks good across the board," said Goldman Sachs analyst Sarah Friar.

Oracle said its adjusted operating margin was 51 percent, up 2.4 percentage points from a year ago.

Catz said much of the increase was due to growth in revenue from its highly profitable software maintenance business, which rose 8 percent from a year earlier to $3.05 billion.

Customers buy annual maintenance subscriptions that entitle them to upgrades, bug fixes and technical support for about 22 percent of the original software cost.

"We are not a cost-cutting story for the margins. We really are a profitability story for having such a large install base of customers," Catz said.

She forecast that new software sales will fall between 4 and 14 percent this quarter, assuming current exchange rates.

Catz also projected the company will post a profit, excluding items, of 29 to 31 cents per share this quarter, assuming current exchange rates, in line with analysts' average forecast of 30 cents.

Analysts said Oracle's costs also benefited from the decline in new software sales because the company paid less in commissions to its sales staff, whose bonus targets were set a year ago when the economy was in better shape.

Oracle reported net income fell 7 percent to $1.9 billion, or 38 cents a share, from $2 billion or 39 cents a year ago.

Ellison said that his development team has completed writing code for the biggest revision of its business management software in the company's 32-year history. The product, dubbed Fusion Apps, will be released next year.

It will be sold as traditional software, but is also designed to allow customers to access a wide range of programs as services over the internet, hosted at Oracle datacentres.

Although Ellison only briefly described the offering in the company's earnings conference call, his comments suggest that Oracle will soon have the widest range of programs delivered over the web as a service.

The company currently offers a limited selection of software in that area, where it competes primarily with Salesforce.com and Microsoft.

Oracle's shares rose to $20.41 in extended trading. They had fallen 0.5 percent to $19.87 on the Nasdaq.

China's Internet users have surpassed the U.S. population in number, and more Chinese than ever are using e-commerce and accessing the Web through mobile phones, according to official statistics.

China had 338 million Internet users at the end of last month, the most in any country, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) said late Thursday.

Chatting on message boards, cruising around social networking sites and pursuing other entertainment were among the most popular activities for Web users, the center said in a report posted on its Web site. The number of Internet users who watched videos online rose 10 percent from six months ago. More than one-fourth now shop online.

China also led the world in the number of registered Web sites, nearly 13 million, using its .cn top-level domain, the report said.

Almost all of the reported figures rose substantially this year. Nearly all of the Internet users had broadband, which China is working to link to more remote areas

But the report gave mixed signals on the prospects for mobile broadband, which China is also pushing. The number of Chinese who used mobile phones to access some online services rose to 155 million, but just one in four of those people said they would use 3G to surf the Web in the future, the report said.

High prices and limited coverage so far have kept down 3G take-up despite aggressive marketing by China's three mobile carriers.

The report also showed the severity of malware and other security problems in China. Over 100 million Chinese had passwords or account numbers stolen in the first of this year, and almost twice as many experienced virus or trojan attacks, it said.

Despite the huge numbers, only one in four Chinese is already an Internet user, the report said.