After it spins off from eBay in 2015, PayPal will face a brace of challenges, three of which go by the names Apple, Alibaba and Google. Apple (AAPL) has entered mobile transactions with Apple Pay, a payment app that piggybacks on existing credit card and bank networks. China e-commerce leader Alibaba Group’s (BABA) affiliated payments business Alipay plans to expand outside China and increasingly threatens PayPal in world markets. Google Wallet,
Graphic design and media software company Adobe Systems floated above Wall Street’s fiscal fourth-quarter targets late Thursday, reporting better-than-expected sales and earnings thanks to its Internet cloud businesses. San Jose, Calif.-based Adobe Systems (ADBE) earned 36 cents a share excluding items on sales of $1.07 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting 30 cents and $1.06 billion. On a year-over-year basis, EPS rose 13%
Eye-catching prices paid by wireless phone companies for radio spectrum in the AWS-3 government auction give TV broadcasters more reason to sell their airwaves, an anticipated upcoming auction that could happen later than regulators hope. The Advanced Wireless Service No. 3 spectrum auction, the first major sale of airwaves since 2008, has blown past forecasts, raising more than $43 billion. The AWS-3 auction handily surpassed the $19.8 billion