The head of RIM fired a shot at rival Apple, slamming the notion that smartphones need "apps." "You don't need an app for the Web," chief executive Jim Balsillie said during an on-stage interview at a Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

"There are people who want something other than the iPhone, and Softbank is not short-changing those customers," said Softbank CEO. He stressed that all of the seven smartphone models the company is launching carry the latest 2.2 version of Android, which is "far superior" to the previous 2.1 version.

IT department at Western Union had a strict policy of issuing and supporting only BlackBerry. Then new CEO Hikmet Ersek took command of the 6,000-employee company and demanded that he be allowed to use his iPhone for work.

Singapore-based chip packager STATS ChipPAC has posted revenues of US$432.2 million in the third quarter of 2010, down by marginal 0.7% sequentially but up 10.9% on year. "We expect net revenues in the fourth quarter of 2010 to decline by single-digit level from prior quarter..."

"New Product sales were led by particularly strong growth from the Virtex-6 and Spartan-6 FPGA families," said Moshe Gavrielov, Xilinx President and CEO. "Combined sales from these families more than doubled sequentially in the September quarter..."

RIM retaliates on Steve Job's recent knock on the Blackberry maker."For those of us who live outside of Apple's distortion field, we know that 7-inch tablets will be a big portion of the market and we know that Adobe Flash support matters to customers who want a real web experience," said RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie.

A Glass Lewis release said: "Micron Technology's performance has steadily deteriorated during the past three years, culminating in a US$1.8 billion loss in 2009 and a return on equity of negative 33.9%, one of the lowest among the companies appearing on our Overpaid 25 list." Micron has not had a good return from its investment in Appleton based on these figures.

"We booked EUR 1,297 million worth of systems in the third quarter of 2010 and expect bookings in the fourth quarter to exceed the Q3 level, confirming our potential for 2011 sales growth," said Eric Meurice, president and CEO of ASML.

"Memory chip prices are expected to continue their downtrend even through the first half of next year, but they will likely bounce back from the middle of the second quarter," said Kwon Oh-hyun, president of Samsung's semiconductor division. Hynix CEO Kwon Oh-chul echoed his view, but said a price rebound may not start until the second half of 2011.

Revenue in the company's core SSD product line totaled US$20.2 million, an increase of 81% from the US$11.1 million posted in the second quarter of fiscal 2010. "The discontinuance of our commodity memory products has allowed us to aggressively reallocate resources towards SSD growth," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology.

"Silicon shipments reflect the tremendous recovery experienced by the semiconductor industry this year," said Stanley Myers, president and CEO of SEMI. "While current data suggest that growth rates are moderating, we expect that the industry will continue to be positive for the next two years."

MOtorola today announced the Droid Pro, which is clearly going after the BlackBerry segment and will be on sale in the first week of November on Verizon Wireless. Motorola Mobility's CEO Sanjay Jha, said: "34% of BlackBerry users are ready to switch to Android if it supports what the IT department wants."

"Although discussions are ongoing with Sony and Renesas Electronics to secure their continued access to our semiconductor packaging technology through a licensing relationship with us, these discussions have not sufficiently advanced, thus necessitating this lawsuit," said Henry Nothhaft, chairman and CEO of Tessera.

Elpida Memory president and CEO Yukio Sakamoto said in an interview that the company is delaying plans to boost production capacity at its Taiwanese unit. "Through the summer, demand for PC memory didn't rise as much I had expected," Sakamoto said. "If there's no demand, there's no point in adding capacity."

Software giant Oracle is keen to make more acquisitions to bolster its technology and a microchip company could be a good fit, according to company CEO Larry Ellison.

Koo Bon-joon, the head of trading firm LG International, will take over from Nam Yong, who resigned from the top job to take responsibility for poor management, LG said on Friday.

The executive also said the outlook for chip demand remains solid for the remainder of this year, but cautioned another cyclical downturn could be in store next year as industry capacity continues to increase.

Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo will step down on September 20, and be succeeded by Microsoft Corp.'s Stephen Elop.

"It's difficult to set a clear plan for the coming year 2011, but we're considering around 30 trillion won [in investments]," Samsung Electronics CEO Choi Gee-sung told reporters on the sidelines of consumer-electronics show IFA on September 3.

CEO Nordberg said that Sony Ericsson is unlikely to create its own tablet-style personal computer. Sony is likely to produce any tablet that Sony Ericsson sells in the future, he added.

A "lost decade" in US employment reflects a change in the structure of the nation's labor market, according to Mohamed El-Erian, CEO at Pacific Investment Management Co.

Electronics distributor Avnet has reported record sales of US$5.21 billion for the quarter ended July 3, 2010, besting consensus analyst expectations. "The demand for electronic components remained strong across all three regions as better-than-normal sequential growth resulted in year-over-year revenue growth of 47% this quarter," said company CEO Roy Vallee.

Despite losses at ST-Ericsson, STMicroelectronics' revenues for the second quarter of 2010 totaled US$2.531 billion, up 8.9% sequentially and 27% on year. ST reported net profits of US$356 million for the quarter, compared to profits of US$57 million in the prior quarter and losses of US$318 million in the year-ago period.

Eli Harari, founder, chairman and CEO of SanDisk, will retire from his current positions on December 31, 2010. Sanjay Mehrotra, currently SanDisk's president and COO, will succeed Harari.

Nokia, which is losing market share in high-end smartphones as it struggles to finish the flagship N8 device, has seen two-thirds of its market value wiped out since Apple's 2007 introduction of the iPhone. The company may name a new CEO to replace Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo as early as this month, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.

Sprint's CEO, Dan Hesse, got the rumor mill churning yesterday when he spoke to the Financial Times about another possible merger between his company and T-Mobile.

KLA-Tencor has increased its regular quarterly dividend to US$0.25 a share from US$0.15. "KLA-Tencor's strong cash flows and solid balance sheet provide us the financial flexibility to return significant cash to our shareholders while also providing the capacity to fuel our growth initiatives," said CEO Rick Wallace.