A rough start for RIM's new CEOResearch In Motion Ltd.'s Thorsten Heins got off to a rocky start to his tenure as the BlackBerry maker's chief executive officer. Investors clamoring for a strategic shakeup were instead told by Heins on a conference call Monday morning that no "drastic change" is needed. The comments sent the stock sliding. It closed at $15.56, off 8.5 percent. RIM, which helped pioneer the U.S. smartphone market more than a decade ago, is betting on the management overhaul to stem falling sales and market-share gains by Google Inc.'s Android and Apple Inc.'s iPhone and iPad. Heins, a 54-year-old German native who spent more than 20 years at engineering giant Siemens AG, is replacing co-Chief Executive Officers Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridi.
News Corp. to help launch Latino networkNews Corp.'s Fox International Channels and RCN Television Group, a Colombian broadcaster, are teaming up to launch a Latino broadcast network in the United States. The new channel, dubbed MundoFox, will launch this fall. The Spanish-language channel will look to compete against Univision and the Telemundo network. News Corp. already owns Fox Deportes, a cable sports channel that caters to Spanish-speaking viewers.
Hotel chains' site aims to bypass PricelineThe love-hate relationship between hotel operators and online travel sites took a turn this month with the launch of a Dallas-based search engine called Roomkey.com. Founded by six major hotel chains, including Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels and Wyndham Hotel Group, the site channels consumers to the chains' own websites to book rooms, bypassing third parties such as Priceline.com and Travelocity.com. The launch is seen by some industry insiders as an attempt to recapture revenue lost to the online travel giants.
Buffett: Blame tax policy rather than RomneyBillionaire investor Warren Buffett said he doesn't blame Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for paying only about 15 percent of his income in taxes, saying it was misguided federal law that allowed very wealthy people who make a living "shoving around money" to pay a lower rate than average Americans. "It's the wrong policy to have," Buffett told Bloomberg TV Monday. "There's nothing wrong about him paying that. He's not going to pay more than the law requires. And I don't fault him for that in the least. But I do fault a law that allows him and me, earning enormous sums, to pay overall federal taxes at a rate that's about half what the average person in my office pays."
Digital music sales top $5 billion last yearSales of music on CDs may be in free fall, but digital music revenue has been climbing steadily, jumping 8 percent last year, according to a report released by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Digital music sales totaled $5.2 billion in 2011, up from $4.8 billion in 2010, according to the IFPI, a trade group that represents 1,400 music companies worldwide. Although 32 percent of the music industry's global revenue came from digital sources, such as downloads and subscriptions to music services, some markets derived a far greater share from digital sales. In the U.S., digital music sales in 2011 surpassed sales of music in physical formats such as CDs, vinyl records and cassettes tapes, making up 52 percent of the industry's revenue.
Disney gives go-ahead to beards, goateesThe Walt Disney Co. announced that it would let employees at its two U.S. theme-park resorts -- including its more than 60,000 workers at Walt Disney World -- grow beards or goatees. The new policy, which takes effect Feb. 3, eliminates a facial-hair ban that has long been a source of grumbling among some of the company's male theme-park workers. The company had demanded an all-American, clean-cut appearance for theme-park employees from the day that the original Disneyland opened in 1955. The rigid code was instituted by Walt Disney himself, who wanted to distinguish his theme park from sleazy carnivals of the time. The company began inching back from its ban on facial hair in 2000, when it finally decided to allow mustaches.
FROM NEWS SERVICES
