What We’re Reading

by CC May 12, 2011 8:57 am • Commentary

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Last Updated: 08:47:52 AM

  • Cisco Systems (CSCO), following a better-than-expected fiscal Q3 report but a disappointing Q4 outlook, this afternoon told analysts it will make changes in its business to “align our people and investments” as the company tries to move out of a period of “weakness” in parts of its business, including switching products and its public-sector business. (Barrons)
  • “Investors will continue to put their money with capable institutions, regardless of their history or morality,” (Bloomberg)
  • Commodities have “become a bubble, with a lot of non- specialist investors,” said Ken Welby, a salesman at KNG Securities LLP in London and a poll participant. “Demand cannot cope with the price rises that we have seen.” (Bloomberg)
  • Syria. At least 24 protesters have been killed in the last two days, including 13 who died when the village of Hara outside the southern city of Daraa was shelled. (Bloomberg)

Bonus Fun:

For the past few days, a mystery has been unfolding in Silicon Valley. Somebody, it seems, hired Burson-Marsteller, a top public-relations firm, to pitch anti-Google stories to newspapers, urging them to investigate claims that Google was invading people’s privacy. Burson even offered to help an influential blogger write a Google-bashing op-ed, which it promised it could place in outlets like The Washington Post, Politico, and The Huffington Post. (Daily Beast)

This begs two questions. Who thought that ‘Google Violates Privacy of Users’ would be a bigger story for a blogger than ‘Facebook is Trying to Get me to Smear Google, I have Emails to Prove it’ Second question, is there any business that Burson-Marsteller would ever turn down?