Comcast said it will provide “special” $1,000 bonuses to more than 100,000 of its “eligible frontline and non-executive” U.S. employees in response to Congress' passage of tax cut legislation and the FCC's vote earlier this month to rescind its 2015 net neutrality rules (see 1712140039 and 1712200030). Comcast's Wednesday announcement followed AT&T's announcement that it will provide $1,000 bonuses to more than 200,000 U.S. employees and increase its spending by $1 billion in 2018 in response to the tax cut. Comcast said it also plans to “spend well in excess of $50 billion over the next five years investing in infrastructure to radically improve and extend our broadband plant and capacity.”

Touch-feedback technology licensor Immersion will cut about 41 percent of its global workforce in a restructuring that will include reducing its presence in China to focus mainly on mobile OEM licensing, said the company Wednesday. Immersion also will focus its development efforts to boost its patent licensing model for the gaming and virtual reality markets and cease its involvement in mobile advertising, it said. Streamlining will save about $10 million a year, it said. This follows Immersion’s Nov. 30 announcement installing Chairman Carl Schlachte as interim CEO after the board asked Vic Viegas to quit his CEO post and resign as a director (see personals section of the Dec. 1 issue of this publication). Immersion incurred a $33 million net loss for the nine months through Sept. 30 on a 41 percent decline in revenue to $28.1 million, it reported Nov. 2. Immersion shares closed 1.75 percent higher Wednesday at $6.99.

Broadcom will follow through with its decision, announced last month at the White House (see 1711020069), to move co-headquarters to Delaware from Singapore “whether or not there is corporate tax reform” enacted in the U.S., said Chief Financial Officer Tom Krause on a Wednesday earnings call. Broadcom wants to make the move "in a manner intended to be tax-free to shareholders," said Krause. “We are confident that our shareholders will support this move,” but the "final form and timing" of the "re-domiciliation" and the shareholder vote to approve it “will depend in part on tax reform efforts” in Congress, he said. Broadcom also remains determined to buy Qualcomm for $70 a share, despite the target board’s rejection of the offer last month (see 1711130031), said Krause. Broadcom told Qualcomm earlier this week of its plan to nominate a “highly qualified” slate of 11 directors to run for seats on the Qualcomm board at Qualcomm’s next annual meeting in March (see the personals section of the Dec. 6 issue of this publication), he said. Packing the board with directors friendly toward approving Broadcom’s buy would be a big step toward a hostile Qualcomm takeover, but Krause said “it remains our strong preference to engage in a constructive dialogue with Qualcomm." Broadcom is confident it could complete a Qualcomm buy within a year after signing a “definitive agreement” on the acquisition and that the combined company would become “a global communications leader,” he said.

In what some analysts saw as an abrupt change of course, Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman is stepping down as CEO effective Jan. 31, she announced on the company’s Q4 earnings call Tuesday. Antonio Neri, HP Enterprise president, was named CEO, effective Feb. 1, and Whitman will remain a director. Neri began his 22-year HP career as a customer service engineer in a company call center in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. Responding in Q&A to an analyst who expressed surprise at Whitman’s decision to step down, after comments she made as recently as September about having no plans to leave (see 1709060002), Whitman said there was no change in sentiment. She cited her own accomplishments in creating shareholder value, restructuring financial units and pushing innovation, and said the next HP CEO needs to be a “deeper technologist, and that’s exactly what Antonio is.” Neri has worked in nearly every business unit in the company, she said. Whitman said in Q&A that Hurricane Harvey disrupted HP’s supply chain in “reasonably dramatic fashion” at a cost of $93 million that led to “some weakness” in Q4. The company announced several weeks ago it was moving manufacturing out of the Houston area to a location in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. HPE Revenue was up 11 percent year over year to $13.9 billion in HP’s Q4 FY 2017, said the company in a Tuesday earnings release. Personal Systems net revenue grew 13 percent year over year, with consumer revenue jumping 18 percent over the year-ago quarter, led by an 8 percent rise in notebook sales. Desktop sales rose 2 percent and consumer printer sales grew 3 percent, said the company.

Xfinity TV customers can access their cable service via the Xfinity TV Partner app on Sony Android TVs next year, Comcast and Sony announced Tuesday. Xfinity TV customers will be able to watch, via app, live and on-demand programming, including local broadcasts and public, educational and government channels, plus cloud DVR recordings, they said. Comcast launched the Xfinity TV Partner Program, based on open-standard HTML5 technology, last year to expand the field of retail devices Xfinity TV customers can use to access programming.

Amazon linked its devices and Whole Foods for "test driving" in time for the holiday season, said the company Thursday. Customers in 100 Whole Foods stores can shop and try out Echo family devices, Kindle e-readers and Fire tablets, Amazon said. It also said pop-up stores with trained staffers will open in Whole Foods stores in Chicago and Rochester Hills, Michigan, on Nov. 13; in Davie, Florida, and Pasadena, California, Nov. 14, and the Union Station store in Denver on Nov. 15.

Tech firm Xperi is “working through some short-term challenges in our business” that prompted the company to downgrade its full-year revenue forecast to $330 million-$385 million from $370 million-$445 million, said CEO Jon Kirchner on a Thursday earnings call. The disclosure sent Xperi shares tumbling 21 percent Friday to close at $17.75. Though several “customer, market-specific and timing factors” are hurting Xperi’s results in the near term, “we believe the fundamentals and industry trends supporting our business and opportunities set remains strong over the long term,” said Kirchner. Xperi is unsure about the timing and terms of the settlement of its patent licensing dispute with Broadcom, “though we believe that a strong catalyst exists on our Broadcom discussions before year-end,” he said. Other challenges facing Xperi “stem from specific customer issues, market competition on the low-end of the mobile market,” and “time shifts and expected execution of certain new licenses,” said Kirchner. “We believe all of these matters can ultimately be resolved and that the fundamentals of our business remain sound.” Xperi is particularly high on the rising market penetration of HD Radio, which drove a 21 percent revenue increase in the company’s automotive licensing business for 2017's first nine months, and a 14 percent Q3 increase from the same year-earlier quarter, said Kirchner. “The road map for this business has never been stronger and we think the technology we have today and the innovation we're focused on for the car will continue to drive future growth.” In Q3, Xperi “rolled out” multiple automotive HD Radio debuts in the U.S., including on the Tesla Model 3, Jeep Wrangler, Infiniti QX80, GMC Terrain, Mitsubishi Mirage and Nissan Rogue, he said. In Mexico, the Jeep Compass, Chrysler Pacifica and Mercedes E Class, A Class and GLA models also started shipping with HD Radio, he said. Mexican regulatory authorities also awarded new FM frequencies in the quarter “that will result in 50 new HD Radio stations throughout Mexico over the next 18 months,” he said.

As a company, TiVo, since its $1.1 billion acquisition by Rovi in September 2016 (see 1609080007), “has moved well beyond” being a supplier of consumer hardware “and is now an innovative entertainment technology company,” said CEO Tom Carson on a Thursday earnings call. “To that point,” 95 percent of TiVo’s Q3 revenue “came from software, services, advertising and licensing,” Carson said. For example, TiVo “processes TV viewership data” for more than 25 million U.S. homes, he said. “We have obtained rights to millions of TV households for anonymous, de-identified third-party use and we’re seeing strong demand for our TV data platform offering,” he said. “We expect this offering to continue to grow” as the company adds more households, he said. TiVo soon will also roll out “an innovative new interactive advertising service,” he said. “This solution will be available to customers that use the TiVo user experience or our search and recommendation product to allow more targeted and personalized promotions. Our continued advancements in data, advertising and search and recommendations are key areas of innovation, which we believe will drive future growth for our software and services business.”

Broadcom CEO Hock Tan announced Thursday he's moving co-headquarters to Delaware from Singapore. Broadcom already operates co-headquarters in San Jose but also operated in Singapore after its 2016 purchase of Avago Technologies. President Donald Trump joined Tan in making the White House announcement, which Tan said came because “business conditions have steadily improved.” Broadcom “will invest more than $3 billion in R&D and $6 billion in manufacturing, creating many high-paying jobs,” Tan said. “More than $20 billion in annual revenue will come back to our cities, towns, and the American workers,” Trump said.

Barnes & Noble has a new Nook reader in time for the holidays, it said Wednesday. The Nook GlowLight 3 is the first with front-light technology that can be switched for optimal reading at night or during the day, said the company. Auto night mode has a warmer tone designed for bedtime reading, it said. B&N is taking preorders for the $119 e-reader, which is due in stores Nov. 8. BN.com also still lists Nook tablets under the Samsung Galaxy brand -- $139 for the 7-inch Galaxy Tab A Nook, $169 for the 9.6-inch Tab E Nook and $349 for the 8-inch Tab S2 -- along with the non-Samsung entry-level tablet it launched last year for $49.