An appeals court decision upheld a $140 million jury verdict in favor of Sprint Corp. in a patent-infringement case against Time Warner Cable Inc. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said there is adequate evidence that suggests that Time Warner (now owned by Charter Communications Inc) infringed five Sprint patents concerning Voice over Internet Protocol services.In 2011, Sprint filed the lawsuit against Time Warner Cable and other cable television companies, alleging that they used, without permission, Sprint inventions related to packet-switched networks for transmitting phone calls over digital lines. Comcast Corp. agreed to pay $250 million to Sprint as settlement in 2017 .

Despite strong earnings results, the tepid rally in Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) wasn’t adequate enough to elevate the stock amid a barrage of market-wide selling pressure.Instead, we saw Microsoft stock tumble from an October high of $116 down to $100. READ MORE...

Dorsey also described Friar as “an amazing leader, partner, and friend”. Square’s stock plunge comes at a time of a broader tech sector decline.The company, however, has managed to gain +113% in stock price for the year so far.

Although Square Capital has been extending credit to Square (SQ) customers since 2014, some analysts think their newest loan product is might be moving the business in an overly risky direction. BTIG, the privately-held investment banking firm, has published a report suggesting that Square is becoming too dependent on their loan revenue, and estimates that their stock is currently overpriced by about 75%.The BTIG report cited past examples of online lenders who failed to properly gauge the risks of lending, and suggested that the current subjects of inquiry are making similar mistakes. Square’s new loan product, called Square Installments, is offering lower-than-average interest rates for business clients making significant purchases, which can be repaid over three, six, or twelve month installment periods.

Microsoft unveiled its lineup of new devices including a desktop computer, its first pair of smart headphones and new laptop models. The Surface Studio 2 PC will offer faster performance and improved graphics compared to the first Surface version.Starting at $899, it will come in black and platinum.  Microsoft also announced its Windows 10 October 2018 Update, which aims to enhance productivity, such as allowing the Your Phone App to pull up texts and photos from your Android phone onto your PC.

Now they have designs on integrating blockchain into other platforms and services as part of an ambitious data-mining effort – including Office 365 Outlook, SharePoint Online, Salesforce, Dynamics 365 CRM Online, SAP, and even Twitter, says Matt Kerner, the general manager of the cloud computing service. Microsoft believes that by allowing its customers to port their data from these platforms into the cloud, then onto the blockchain, they will be able to standardize massive amounts of data at scale, then mine it for insights – part of the evolution of Big Data, explained Kerner.“Blockchain empowers the next step [for collaboration] – enabling a single, authentic data set shared across counterparties,” Kerner told CoinDesk.

Let’s look at some statistics: Microsoft is trading at all time high (114.26 at the market close on September 21, 2018). On September 19th the company has raised its quarterly dividend from $0.42/share to $0.46/share. Microsoft is up almost 33% YTD. The company stock is up 98% for the past two years. Microsoft is up 243% for the past 5 years. This is rather amazing statistics for the company that many people thought was stalled in its development just a few years ago. A few more facts: Microsoft revenue has accelerated for six quarters and reached 17.5% in the fiscal fourth quarter. A little bit more than 75% of the shares float is held by institutions. The market capitalization of the company is approximately $875 billions – it is the third largest publicly traded company in the world. If you invested $1,000 in Microsoft 30 years ago, it would have grown to $317,000 by now.

GitLab Inc. raised $100 million in financing from Alphabet' Inc.'s GV, Iconiq Capital and Khosla Ventures among other investors.The funding valued the open-source code-sharing & collaborating platform at just over $1 billion. GitLab is apparently gearing up to compete with GitHub, which was acquired by Microsoft in June.

One of the most visible today is at Microsoft, where a petition signed by more than 30,000 was presented to CEO Satya Nadella asking him to cancel Microsoft's $19.4 million cloud contract with ICE (U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement).The petition comes in response to a controversial "zero tolerance" policy that separated families at the border, which the US government has since been ordered to reverse.  Similar protests within corporations have been more commonplace particularly in the technology sector, where other issues such as gender equality and immigration at-large have been central issues.  

In a recent financial filing, Microsoft listed Artificial Intelligence (AI) as one of its top business priorities.Microsoft scrapped "mobile-first" completely and replaced it with "intelligent edge infused with AI.” Part of this reset has to do with Microsoft’s disastrous $7 billion acquisition of Nokia in 2014, which it has since deemed basically worthless.