Intel’s profits have plummeted by about 1/2 in value, but did manage to beat market expectations by a wide margin.  Experts predicted a $0.03 per share in earnings, Intel managed to hit $0.11 per share.  That number might be awful in a normal year, but at this particular time it places them very highly in the market.  The Atom processor that was heralded as the savour of Intel had sales drop by about 1/4, so it seems that it may not be enough to pull Intel through the downturn unscathed.  More at Ars Technica.

“The downturn continues to take a heavy toll on the computing industry, as Intel kicks off earnings season (which is now kind of a “tallest pygmy contest”) with a 55 percent sequential decline in net income and earnings of 11¢ per share. Note that the latter number came in well above analysts’ expectations of just 3¢ per share, a profitability boost that was apparently the result of cost-cutting, less-than-expected losses and writedowns, and a very low (1 percent) effective tax rate.”

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