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A roundup of the latest high-tech news “Hot Off the Wire” from The Associated Press:
• Google decides Nexus One won’t work with Verizon
SAN FRANCISCO – Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) has scrapped its plan to sell a phone that works on Verizon Wireless’ network, the most widely used in the U.S.
The about-face announced Tuesday shrinks the potential market for the Nexus One, a mobile phone that Google unveiled to much fanfare in early January.
At that time, Google said a Nexus One compatible with Verizon’s network would be coming in the spring.
Now Google is advising Verizon customers who wanted a Nexus One to buy a mobile phone called Incredible that’s scheduled to go on sale Thursday. The Incredible is made by HTC and relies on Google’s Android operating system, just like the Nexus One.
Google sells versions of the Nexus One that work on the U.S. wireless networks of T-Mobile and AT&T.
• Improvement in chip divisions boosts profit at TI
SAN FRANCISCO — Texas Instruments Inc.’s (NYSE: TXN) first-quarter profit leaped, reflecting the chip maker’s improved results in all its product lines, and the company offered an outlook better than what industry analysts were expecting.
The strong quarterly results partly come from greater demand for cell phone chips. That benefits TI because Internet-connected "smart" phones need more powerful — and more profitable — chips. TI’s numbers also show the company benefiting from an overall rise in technology spending. Its chips are used in a range of electronics, from cars to manufacturing equipment to communications gear.
TI said after the market closed Monday that its net income was $658 million, or 52 cents per share, for the quarter ended March 31. That was a penny per share better than analyst estimates, according to Thomson Reuters.
In the same period last year, when all of TI’s businesses suffered declines, TI earned $17 million, or a penny per share.
TI’s revenue jumped 54 percent to $3.21 billion in the latest quarter, with all of TI’s major divisions showing gains. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected $3.14 billion.
TI’s profitability also increased because its factories were more fully utilized than last year, when its customers weren’t buying as many chips, and because its $10 million in restructuring charges were significantly less than the $105 million from the year-ago period.
The Dallas company cut about 3,900 jobs in 2008 and 2009 over two rounds of restructuring, leaving the company with 26,584 employees at the end of last year.
For the current quarter, TI predicted better numbers than Wall Street was expecting. The company forecast profit of 56 cents to 64 cents per share. Analysts were expecting 53 cents. Revenue should be $3.31 billion to $3.59 billion, TI said. Analysts expected $3.22 billion.
• China’s Alibaba to offer PayPal on wholesale site
SAN FRANCISCO — Chinese e-commerce site operator Alibaba.com Ltd. said Monday that it will start offering PayPal, the online payment system owned by competitor eBay Inc., for use on its new wholesale site, AliExpress.
Alibaba.com said the deal will help customers by making it speedy, safe and simple to make payments on AliExpress. The AliExpress site was rolled out in a "beta" testing mode in September and was officially launched Sunday.
Alibaba.com is part of Alibaba Group, 39 percent of which is owned by Yahoo Inc. The search company shuttered its own offices in China several years ago when it sold much of its business there to the company.
Alibaba’s deal with PayPal comes shortly after the payment service said it planned to double its staff in Asia by 2,000 by the end of this year. The region is its fastest-growing market.
PayPal announced another deal in Asia in March, partnering with China UnionPay — which operates interbank transaction settlement for bankcards in China and the region — and Singapore’s DBS bank to offer online payment services to aid the growing Internet shopping market there.
