downgrades

The bad news keeps piling on for Best Buy.

As if the resignation of CEO Brian Dunn and a rough quarterly report weren't enough, investment bank Canaccord Genuity said today that Best Buy may have actually lost market share for the first time in a decade.

This would marks a reversal share gains that Best Buy has made over the past years as other big-box retailers crumbled and faded away. While its advances haven't been as strong in recent years, Best Buy had continued to take business away from its competitors.

But the rise in online retailers such … Read more

AT&T and Verizon Communications face billions of dollars in unfunded pension liabilities, which could significantly weigh on their bottom lines, according to one Wall Street analyst.

If the market closed today, AT&T could be on the hook for $41.6 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, while Verizon could see $31.6 billion in liabilities, Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett said in a research note issued today. Moffett downgraded AT&T's stock rating and maintained his already low rating on Verizon.

The pension liabilities could be costly to the companies and shareholders. Moffett estimates … Read more

A week after downgrading Google's stock, Standard & Poor's reversed course, saying the stock price had fallen so much that it was now a more attractive buy.

Scott Kessler, head of technology sector equity research at S&P, wrote in a research note released today and cited by the Associated Press that he was upgrading the Web search giant's rating to "hold" from the "sell" rating he bestowed on the company's shares last week following Google's gutsy move to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. The acquisition will give … Read more

Google stock and the federal government now have something in common: they've both been downgraded by Standard & Poor's.

Of course, being downgraded by the ratings agency that famously whiffed on highly questionable real estate bonds might be considered a badge of honor in some circles. But the move by S&P does point to considerable market fears about Google's gutsy decision to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. Shares of Google were down more than 3 percent today to $539.

S&P equity researchers downgraded Google stock today to a "sell" … Read more

While the iOS 4 update brings a number of enhancements to the iPhone 3G as well as the iPhone 4, a few iPhone 3G owners have had enough problems that they want to restore the phones to their original states. There are ways to try resetting and restoring the new operating system to get it working, but sometimes the easiest solution is to downgrade.

Unfortunately Apple does not provide a supported way to downgrade its operating systems; however, with the iPhone 3G specifically there is a utility that enables this when coupled with the iTunes "Restore" function.

Here'… Read more

Facebook 3.0 was heralded as a long-awaited, must-have upgrade on the iPhone, but the initial 3.0 release left many of our readers with a bad feeling. CNET users sent in numerous complaints about the app frequently crashing and wanted to know how to downgrade to the previous version.

Facebook quickly released updates and the app has since stabilized, but you should know that regardless of how big or popular an app is, you can usually roll it back following this tutorial.

Difficulty level: Medium

What you need: >Mac OS X 10.5 or later; Windows XP or … Read more

Steve Ballmer needs to brush up on Roman history. Otherwise he seems doomed to repeat it, as two recent Microsoft campaigns suggest.

Microsoft has been dominant for so long that it has grown soft. As Edward Gibbon wrote in his exceptional "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," it is not outside enemies that crushed Rome so much as its own effete greatness:

The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and as soon as time … Read more

Microsoft will allow only limited rights for those who buy a Windows 7 PC to go back to Windows XP, according to an analyst who said he has been briefed on Microsoft's plans.

According to Gartner analyst Michael Silver, Microsoft plans to only allow the downgrade option to those who buy PCs during the first six months that Windows 7 is on the market (see update below). After that, Microsoft's proposed licensing terms would allow buyers of Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate only to go back to the comparable Windows Vista edition.

That could put users, … Read more

With Windows 7, Microsoft is hoping to have an operating system that people won't want to downgrade from. That said, it does plan on offering users that option.

Downgrade rights have long been a part of the Windows license for certain versions, particularly for businesses. That said, the option gained notoriety with Windows Vista. With Vista, the downgrade right was not only marketed by computer makers, but, once Microsoft stopped selling XP, some PC makers sold Vista machines that were "pre-downgraded" to Windows XP.

Microsoft is actually expanding that Vista downgrade rights program slightly, the company confirmed … Read more