Corporate News

In a statement on Tuesday afternoon, NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA) said it plans to expand its business model by licensing it GPU technology.

"The IT world is being upended," said NVIDIA EVP David Shannon. "PC sales are declining with the rise of smartphones and tablets. High-definition screens are proliferating, showing up on most every machine. Android is increasingly pervasive. Yesterday's PC industry, which produced several hundred million units a year, will soon become a computing-devices industry that produces many billions of units a year. And visual computing is at the epicenter of it all.

The consequences of these changes are apparent everywhere. New industry leaders are emerging. Companies differentiate not only on products but on business models. Some create systems from industry-standard chips. Others are vertically integrated and build their own chips, systems, software and even services. Some do both.

For chip-makers like NVIDIA that invent fundamental advances, this disruption provides an opening to expand our business model. Not so long ago, we only made and sold GPU chips, albeit the world's fastest ones. Five years ago, we introduced Tegra, a system on a chip. More recently, GRID – a complete system that streams cloud games and other graphics-rich content – as well as the SHIELD gaming portable have been unveiled.

But it's not practical to build silicon or systems to address every part of the expanding market. Adopting a new business approach will allow us to address the universe of devices.

So, our next step is to license our GPU cores and visual computing patent portfolio to device manufacturers to serve the needs of a large piece of the market.

The reality is that we've done this in the past. We licensed an earlier GPU core to Sony for the Playstation 3. And we receive more than $250 million a year from Intel as a license fee for our visual computing patents.

Now, the explosion of Android devices presents an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate this effort.

We'll start by licensing the GPU core based on the NVIDIA Kepler architecture, the world’s most advanced, most efficient GPU. Its DX11, OpenGL 4.3, and GPGPU capabilities, along with vastly superior performance and efficiency, create a new class of licensable GPU cores. Through our efforts designing Tegra into mobile devices, we’ve gained valuable experience designing for the smallest power envelopes. As a result, Kepler can operate in a half-watt power envelope, making it scalable from smartphones to supercomputers.

Kepler is the basis for currently shipping GeForce, Quadro and Tesla GPUs, as well as our next-generation Tegra mobile processor codenamed Logan. Licensees will receive all necessary designs, collateral and support to integrate NVIDIA’s powerful graphics cores into their devices.

We’ll also offer licensing rights to our visual computing portfolio. This will enable licensees to develop their own GPU functionality while enjoying design freedom under the best visual computing patent portfolio in the world.

This opportunity simply didn't exist several years ago because there was really just one computing device – the PC. But the swirling universe of new computing devices provides new opportunities to license our GPU core or visual computing portfolio.

As the world leader in visual computing technology, we believe we're uniquely positioned to benefit. We invest more in R&D in this area than any other company in the world – over $1 billion annually and more than $6 billion since our founding. The vast majority of our 8,500 employees are engaged in these efforts, and we have more than 5,500 patents issued and pending – the industry’s best visual computing patent portfolio.

But more importantly, more devices will have the potential to take advantage of our investments. That means more of the planet's users will be able to enjoy our advanced graphics technologies. And that's what really gets us excited here at NVIDIA."

The Special Committee of the Board of Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) issued the following statement in response to a letter to shareholders released today by Carl Icahn:

“The Special Committee and its advisors are reviewing the latest concept put forth by Carl Icahn, which is that Dell pursue a self-tender for its shares of approximately $16 billion. This is a further deviation from Mr. Icahn’s original proposal of a buyout at $15.00 per share and, assuming all shareholders other than Mr. Icahn and Southeastern Asset Management tender, appears to equate to a dividend of approximately $10.00 per share rather than the $12.00 per share promised by Mr. Icahn in his letter of May 9. Furthermore, as in the May 9 letter, Mr. Icahn’s current concept would likely force shareholders to continue to own shares in the highly leveraged company that would result.

Mr. Icahn’s concept is not, in its present state, a transaction that the Special Committee could endorse and execute – there is neither financing, nor any commitment from any party to participate, nor any remedy for the company and its shareholders if the transaction is not consummated. In addition, the concept does not adequately address the liquidity issues and other risks the Committee previously highlighted.

More than a month ago, the Committee requested financial and other information from Mr. Icahn and Southeastern in connection with their previous recapitalization idea. Those requests remain outstanding and are equally relevant to this latest concept. The Committee will consider any and all such information provided by Mr. Icahn. However, in the absence of an actionable proposal that would create more value for shareholders, the Special Committee continues to recommend the pending, fully financed $13.65 per share cash sale transaction.”

Fulton Financial Corporation (Nasdaq: FULT) announced that its board of directors has extended the timeframe for its current stock repurchase program announced in January 2013.

When the current program was announced, the Corporation planned to repurchase up to eight million shares of its own stock through June 30, 2013. To date, the company has repurchased 6,420,936 of these shares, leaving 1,579,064 still available for repurchase. Today's action by the board of directors extends the current program through September 30, 2013.

The Corporation currently has approximately 193.6 million shares of stock outstanding. As permitted by securities laws and other legal requirements and subject to market conditions and other factors, purchases may be made from time to time in the open market at prevailing prices. The repurchase program may be discontinued at any time.

Flextronics (Nasdaq: FLEX) will expand its existing design, manufacturing, logistics and service solutions relationship with Citrix (Nasdaq: CTXS) to include Zalaegerszeg, Hungary. Flextronics has provided design, manufacturing, logistics and service solutions to Citrix for more than eight years.

"As our cloud networking business accelerates, we are expanding our global supply chain capability," said Fred Tiso, vice president supply chain operations at Citrix. "Flextronics Hungary was the first step in our globalization strategy and will serve our growing Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) customer base. Over the next several quarters, we will continue to take advantage of Flextronics' global footprint by expanding our supply chain presence in Asia and Latin America."

"We are happy to expand our successful and long-standing relationship with Citrix and honored to have them as a partner," said Caroline Dowling, president of Integrated Network Solutions at Flextronics. "Expanding our service offering with Citrix into Hungary is a great example of the value that we can provide customers that leverage our strong supply chain solutions and broad global presence," she added.

Flextronics provides services to Citrix Systems globally through its locations in California, Canada, the Netherlands, Singapore, Taiwan and now Hungary.

Felcor Lodging Trust, Inc. (NYSE: FCH) announced that it has agreed to sell the 277-room Sheraton Suites Galleria - Atlanta for $21 million. The purchaser has paid an $840,000 non-refundable deposit toward the purchase price. FelCor expects the sale to close in July and to use all of the proceeds to repay outstanding debt.