Portal:Companies

Mr. Lady Records (or Mr. Lady Records and Video) was a San Francisco-based lesbian-feminist independent record label and video art distributor. Artists on the label included Le Tigre and The Butchies. OutSmart magazine noted that Mr. Lady was "queercore's strongest label."

The label was founded in 1996 in Durham, North Carolina by musician Kaia Wilson and artist/UNC photography professor Tammy Rae Carland, aiming to redress what they saw as a lack of feminist record labels at the time. As well as a range of recording artists, the label was also heavily involved in other events that promoted feminist thinking and music, such as the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival – which led to some controversy in 1999 – and various art showcases. Mr. Lady closed down in June 2004. (Full article...)

The abbreviation S.A. or SA designates a type of public limited company in certain countries, most of which have a Romance language as their official language and operate a derivative of the 1804, Napoleonic, civil law. Originally, shareholders could be anonymous and collect dividends by surrendering coupons attached to their share certificates. Dividends were paid to whoever held the certificate. Since share certificates could be transferred privately, corporate management would not necessarily know who owned its shares – nor did anyone but the holders.

As with bearer bonds, anonymous unregistered share ownership and dividend collection enabled money laundering, tax evasion, and concealed business transactions in general, so governments passed laws to audit the practice. Nowadays, shareholders of S.A.s are not anonymous, though shares can still be held by a holding company to obscure the beneficiary. (Full article...)

Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and manufactures consumer electronics and software products. It was established in Cupertino, California, on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, and was incorporated on January 3, 1977. The company's hardware products include the Macintosh line of personal computers, the iPod line of portable media players, the iPad line of tablets, the iPhone line of smartphones, the Apple TV line of digital media players, and the Apple Watch line of smartwatches. Apple's software products include the macOS, iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and watchOS operating systems, the iTunes media player, the Safari web browser, and the iLife suite of multimedia and creativity software. As of December 2025, Apple is publicly known to have acquired more than 100 companies. The actual number of acquisitions is possibly larger as Apple does not reveal the majority of its acquisitions unless discovered by the press. Apple has cofounded two half-equity partnerships and purchased equity stakes in three preexisting companies, and has made three divestments. Apple has not released the financial details for the majority of its mergers and acquisitions.

Apple's business philosophy is to acquire small companies that can be easily integrated into existing company projects. For instance, Apple acquired Emagic and its professional music software, Logic Pro, in 2002. The acquisition was incorporated in the creation of the digital audio workstation software GarageBand, an integral part of the iLife software suite, and now one of the leading digital audio workstations on iOS and macOS. (Full article...)

Skype Technologies (also known as Skype Software, Skype Communications, Skype Inc., and Skype Limited) was a telecommunications company headquartered in Luxembourg City, whose chief business was the development and marketing of the video chat and instant messaging computer software program Skype, and various Internet telephony services associated with it. Microsoft purchased the company in 2011, and it had since then operated as their wholly owned subsidiary; as of 2016, it was operating as part of Microsoft's Office Product Group. The company was a société à responsabilité limitée, or SARL, equivalent to an American limited liability company.

Skype, a voice over IP (VoIP) service, was first released in 2003 as a way to make free computer-to-computer calls, or reduced-rate calls from a computer to telephones. Support for paid services such as calling landline/mobile phones from Skype (formerly called SkypeOut), allowing landlines and mobile phones to call Skype (formerly called SkypeIn and now Skype Number), and voice messaging generated the majority of Skype's revenue.

eBay acquired Skype Technologies S.A. in September 2005 and in April 2009 announced plans to spin it off in a 2010 initial public offering (IPO). In September 2009, Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board announced the acquisition of 65% of Skype for $1.9 billion from eBay, valuing the business at $2.75 billion. Skype was acquired by Microsoft in May 2011 for $8.5 billion (~$11.7 billion in 2024). (Full article...)

• ... that Gold Toe Brands produces more than half the men's dress socks sold in United States department stores?
• ... that Stanford Financial Group, whose assets were frozen in 2009 due to charges of investment fraud, was the lead financier of the 2007 film The Ultimate Gift?
• ... that the Emu Brewery in Perth, Western Australia, traced its history to the town's first standalone brewery, which was founded less than a decade after settlement?
• ... that the Versailles Cuban restaurant is part of actress Helen Mirren's ideal weekend in Los Angeles?
• ... that Armet & Davis was an architectural firm in California that designed buildings in the so-called Googie architecture style popular during the 1950s?
• ... that Kansas City Barbeque is a restaurant and bar in San Diego, California, made famous after scenes in Top Gun were filmed there?