CIT: After a difficult landing, CIT slid into a well-foamed runway on Sunday. It fought hard to have its pre-packaged bankruptcy plan approved by creditors, including dissident bondholder Carl Icahn.

Now the hard part

Business Standard

Skype IPO: Skype looks like Silicon Valley&rsquo;s best hope for a blockbuster initial stock offering in 2010. With Facebook determined to stay private until next year, the former eBay orphan could steal the scene with a quick flip. Moreover, as a result of clarifying copyright issues and rewriting its code to attack the business market, the company may be worth twice its $2.75 billion price tag when eBay sold all but 30 percent of its stake last year.

Skype on deck

Facebook: Facebook may at last become a real, rather than virtual, money spinner in 2011. The social network doesn't need capital to grow, but expectations from backers and employees for an IPO are too high for founder Mark Zuckerberg to ignore. There&rsquo;s just one challenge: trading in Facebook&rsquo;s unlisted shares values the website at more than $40 billion. Getting to that number requires some astonishing growth assumptions.

Abstract expressionism

Investors unimpressed by Hewlett-Packard&rsquo;s dysfunctional governance have sold off its shares, leaving the tech company vulnerable to a bid. And Larry Ellison&rsquo;s acquisitive Oracle is a credible potential suitor. At least financially, a deal would stack up. A Breakingviews analysis suggests that even paying a 40 per cent premium, Oracle could reap a hefty return.

Oracular returns

Steve Jobs has died at 56. He was no ordinary chief executive, and he leaves no ordinary company. The force behind the iPod, iPhone and iPad not only co-founded and then rescued Apple, building it into the most valuable tech company on the planet, worth some $350 billion. He also changed the way people live. It&rsquo;s a rare entrepreneur who leaves that legacy &mdash; and a company that can thrive without him.

Job's worth

Google has found the expectations of new technology hard to meet. The Internet giant&rsquo;s revenue rocketed 25 per cent in the fourth quarter, but its shares still plunged 9 per cent after hours on Thursday. Google failed to match Wall Street&rsquo;s hopes, whereas Microsoft and IBM&rsquo;s more pedestrian results - and Intel&rsquo;s closer fit with analysts&rsquo; forecasts - reassured. In uncertain times, the tech sector old guard&rsquo;s predictability can trump edgier possibilities.

Managing expectations

Research In Motion has shied away from a chance for a reboot. The troubled BlackBerry maker&rsquo;s architects, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, are finally giving up their shared CEO job. And, the company has appointed a new board chair. But, Thorsten Heins, the new boss, is an insider who sees no need for drastic change, and the two ex-CEOs will stay on the board.

Lords of the RIM

The Apple juggernaut has regained warp speed with its new pilot, Tim Cook. The tech giant&rsquo;s quarter ending in December blew away the previous rare let-down: Around $30 billion of market cap added after hours on Tuesday proves it. The latest iPhone fuelled a 73 per cent surge in sales from last year. With cash rolling in, the destiny of nearly $100 bn in Apple&rsquo;s piggybank is looming large.

Don't get in the way

Apple, on Friday, again overtook Exxon Mobil as the world&rsquo;s most valuable publicly-traded company. But, investors seem to think its roughly $420-billion market cap is some kind of limit. The company doesn&rsquo;t get full credit for its nearly $100-billion cash hoard or growth. Apple&rsquo;s cash could be the key to unlocking suppressed value.

iVault

Facebook&rsquo;s $5 billion-plus initial public offering (IPO) won&rsquo;t bring a major status update. Listing on a exchange typically brings lots of changes. But, tick through the list and it&rsquo;s clear the social network, which filed for its long-awaited US IPO on Wednesday evening, is already largely there.

Privately public

What&rsquo;s the biggest risk facing Facebook? Hint: it may be in the palm of your hand. Half of the social network&rsquo;s 845 million users now access the site through their cellphones, and that number is surging. The problem is, Facebook currently receives virtually no display advertising revenue from small screens. The rapid shift to mobile Internet usage could be Mark Zuckerberg&rsquo;s biggest threat &mdash; and he knows it.

Virtual Hormuz?

Congratulations Google, you&rsquo;re now a conglomerate. US and EU antitrust authorities have cleared the search firm&rsquo;s $12.5-billion buy of Motorola. Its foray into manufacturing phones and tablets might open new markets &mdash; or simply amount to a vital means of defending its core advertising business. Whatever the case, on Wall Street, diversification like this usually merits a valuation discount.

Googlomerate

Apple&rsquo;s market capitalisation is poised to ring the $500 billion bell. But even for the most valuable company in the world, that could just be a pit stop on the way to $1 trillion. A quick tour of Apple&rsquo;s other eye-watering numbers explains why.

iWatering

Zynga&rsquo;s investors worry about the company&rsquo;s dependence on Facebook. So, it&rsquo;s no wonder they warmly greeted the company&rsquo;s plans to diversify away from the social network, currently the source of more than 90 per cent of Zynga&rsquo;s revenue. But one trend affecting its giant symbiotic partner shouldn&rsquo;t worry them much &mdash; the shift to mobile devices. Ad-dependent firms like Facebook, Pandora and Yelp could lose out, if only temporarily, but Zynga&rsquo;s revenue model is different.

Robert Cyran