Cisco pays $2.7 million for network security software and hardware developer Sourcefire, with the aim to combine technologies into "continuous and pervasive advanced threat protection across the entire attack continuum."

Sourcefire offers advanced protection against sophisticated network malware, advanced persistent threats and targeted attacks, and counts the US government as a customer. 

"The notion of the "perimeter" no longer exists and today's sophisticated threats are able to circumvent traditional, disparate security products," Cisco says. "Organizations require continuous and pervasive advanced threat protection that addresses each phase of the attack continuum." Read more...

AMD Q2 2013 losses total $74 million from revenues reaching $1.16 billion with 7% Q-o-Q growth (or -18% Y-o-Y decline) as it sees falling graphics product shipments and a sequential increase in computing products.

However the company says it is still on the way to growth, and should become profitable in Q3 2013.

"Our focus on restructuring and transforming AMD resulted in improved financial results," AMD CEO Rory Read says. "Our performance in Q2 2013 was driven by opportunities in our new high-growth and traditional PC businesses. Looking ahead, we will continue to deliver a strong value proposition to our established customers and also reach new customers as we diversify our business"

Reveues from the AMD Computing Solutions (CS) segment (covering CPUs, APUs, chipsets, embedded processors and server chips) total $841 million with 12% Q-o-Q growth (and Y-o-Y declines of -20%), with by higher notebook, server and desktop unit shipments driving sequential growth.

Intel Q2 2013 profits drop by -29% Y-o-Y to $2 billion while revenues fall by -5% to $12.8bn as a declining PC market continues to affect the biggest chip maker in the world. 

Revenues however do see slight (2%) growth if taken on a Q-o-Q basis.

The Intel PC Client group sees Y-o-Y revenue declines of -7.5% (or Q-o-Q growth of 1.4%) to $8.1bn, the Data Centre group remains flat Y-o-Y and Other Architecture revenues fall by -15% Y-o-Y to $942 million. 

"In the second quarter, we delivered on our quarterly outlook and made several key product announcements," recently installed CEO Brian Krzanich says. "In my first 2 months as CEO, I have listened to a wide variety of views about Intel and our industry from customers, employees and my leadership team and I am more confident than ever about our opportunity as a company." Read more...

IBM beats analyst expectations in Q2 2013, even if net income drops by -17.% Y-o-Y (from $3.9 billion in Q2 2012 to $3.2bn) due to a "workforce rebalancing" charge (read "layoffs") worth $1bn. 

Big Blue sales reach $24.92bn with a -3.3~% Y-o-Y decline, an improvement over the -5.1% drop seen in Q1 2013. 

“The workforce restructuring had significant impact on our year-to-year profits,” IBM CFO Mark Loughridge says. The so-called "restructuring" involved the firing of over 3000 employees according to IBM employee organisation Alliance@IBM. 

IBM EMEA sales remain flat at $7.8bn, if with growth in the UK and Spain. 

The company hints at a "larger divestiture project" getting pushed to 2014. Maybe Lenovo is going to buy the IBM x86 server business after all? Read more...