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Five months into his tenure as CEO of Unity Software, Matt Bromberg is overseeing his first big product launch as he tries to push the company past an extended stretch of challenges.

On Friday, the video game software company announced the sixth version of its flagship product, Unity Engine, a set of tools developers can use to produce games across a number of devices, including iPhones and Android phones.

Unity 6 is emphasizing stability, predictable updates and the ability to support hundreds of players in the same virtual world at the same time, Bromberg told CNBC. The company is seeking to rebound from a dark period that’s included layoffs, significant losses, a troubled relationship with many customers and a shakeup at the top.

“With the release of Unity 6, we’re interested in reconnecting with customers and help them understand that it’s our commitment to deliver what matters to them, and that we’re going to be a fundamentally different company in that regard,” Bromberg said.

Bromberg, a veteran of the gaming industry, was appointed CEO on May 1. He previously spent almost six years as COO of mobile game company Zynga, which was acquired by Take-Two Interactive in 2022, and more than four years at Electronic Arts.

Bromberg’s predecessor, John Riccitiello, announced his retirement last October following a controversial pricing change that frustrated numerous developers. James Whitehurst, former CEO of Red Hat, was serving as interim CEO until Bromberg joined.

The new CEO’s first big challenge was unwinding Riccitiello’s decision to implement what became known as the “Unity Runtime Fee.”

Unity Software ex-CEO John Riccitiello speaks onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018 in San Francisco on Sept. 5, 2018.

Steve Jennings | TechCrunch | Getty Images

Traditionally, Unity sold its software by the seat, so companies paid an annual fee per user for the engine. In September of last year, the company said customers would have to start paying a flat fee any time an app or game using Unity was downloaded. Game developers rebelled and threatened to find alternative game engines.

Last month, Unity scrapped its runtime fee. Unity Engine 6 will cost about $2,200 per user per year for companies with revenue of more than $200,000. Negotiable pricing will be available for the largest customers. Unity says it will raise its prices on a predictable annual schedule.

“We’re saying to our customers, hey, this is something you can build your multi-billion dollar game business on,” Bromberg said.

Unity is used to build the majority of mobile games, including Monopoly Go, which has grossed an estimated $3 billion, according to one estimate.

Slumping stock price, steady market share

Unity’s problems go beyond the shifting business model. The stock is down 23% over the past year and has lost 90% of its value since peaking in November 2021, which was a little over a year after the company’s IPO.

For the second quarter, Unity reported a net loss of over $125 million. In January, the company said it was cutting about a quarter of its workforce, or roughly 1,800 jobs, in order to improve long-term profitability.

Even after a tumultuous stretch, the company has maintained its strength with game developers. Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in September that Unity’s game engine still has 70% of the mobile market, proving “how deep its moats truly are, as competitors have been unable to gain share at Unity’s expense.”

Bromberg told CNBC that Unity is staying away from the generative artificial intelligence hype. Game developers tend to be skeptical of generative AI, as many say it rips off work from other artists and represents lower-cost competition.

“We’re less excited about making investments in generative AI,” Bromberg said. Instead, Unity will support using AI-created artwork and character designs, and will use AI behind the scenes to speed up the release of a game.

Another area of focus for Bromberg has been simplifying the company’s push into the enterprise. In previous years, Unity has said that its game engine can be used for all kinds of 3D simulations, including “digital twins,” a buzzword that describes creating a full digital simulation of a complicated operation, such as a factory.

Now it’s more about games, which can include plenty of 3D elements.

“Our strategy going forward is going to be to be focused a little bit more narrowly on the organic uses of our engine in industry,” Bromberg said. “That comes down to 3D visualization.”

Bromberg said he remains optimistic about virtual reality and augmented reality, including Apple’s Vision Pro headset, which is supported by Unity 6.

“The real strength of Unity is we take really big, immersive experiences that are created in our engine, and then you can distribute them on any device, no matter how light it is — the world’s worst phone, a set of glasses, a headset,” Bromberg said.

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Intuit shares drop as quarterly forecast misses estimates due to delayed revenue

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Intuit shares drop as quarterly forecast misses estimates due to delayed revenue

Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi speaks at the opening night of the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles on Aug. 15, 2024.

Rodin Eckenroth | Filmmagic | Getty Images

Intuit shares fell 6% in extended trading Thursday after the finance software maker issued a revenue forecast for the current quarter that trailed analysts’ estimates due to some sales being delayed.

Here’s how the company performed in comparison with LSEG consensus:

  • Earnings per share: $2.50 adjusted vs. $2.35 expected
  • Revenue: $3.28 billion vs. $3.14 billion

Revenue increased 10% year over year in the quarter, which ended Oct. 31, according to a statement. Net income fell to $197 million, or 70 cents per share, from $241 million, or 85 cents per share, a year ago.

While results for the fiscal first quarter topped estimates, second-quarter guidance was light. Intuit said it anticipates a single-digit decline in revenue from the consumer segment because of promotional changes for the TurboTax desktop software in retail environments. While that will affect revenue timing, it won’t have any impact on the full 2025 fiscal year.

Intuit called for second-quarter earnings of $2.55 to $2.61 per share, with $3.81 billion to $3.85 billion in revenue. The consensus from LSEG was $3.20 per share and $3.87 billion in revenue.

For the full year, Intuit expects $19.16 to $19.36 in adjusted earnings per share on $18.16 billion to $18.35 billion in revenue. That implies revenue growth of between 12% and 13%. Analysts polled by LSEG were looking for $19.33 in adjusted earnings per share and $18.26 billion in revenue.

Revenue from Intuit’s global business solutions group came in at $2.5 billion in the first quarter. The figure was up 9% and in line with estimates, according to StreetAccount. Formerly known as the small business and self-employed segment, the group includes Mailchimp, QuickBooks, small business financing and merchant payment processing.

“We are seeing good progress serving mid-market customers in MailChimp, but are seeing higher churn from smaller customers,” Sandeep Aujla, Intuit’s finance chief, said on a conference call with analysts. “We are addressing this by making product enhancements and driving feature discoverability and adoption to improve first-time use and customer retention.”

Better outcomes are a few quarters away, Aujla said.

CreditKarma revenue came in at $524 million, above StreetAccount’s $430 million consensus.

At Thursday’s close, Intuit shares were up about 9% so far in 2024, while the S&P 500 has gained almost 25% in the same period.

On Tuesday Intuit shares slipped 5% after The Washington Post said President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed “Department of Government Efficiency” had discussed developing a mobile app for federal income tax filing. But a mobile app for submitting returns from Intuit is “already available to all Americans,” CEO Sasan Goodarzi told CNBC’s Jon Fortt.

Goodarzi said on CNBC that he’s personally communicating with leaders of the incoming presidential administration.

On the earnings call, Goodarzi sounded optimistic about the economy.

“Our belief, which is not baked into our guidance, is that we will see an improved environment as we look ahead in 2025, particularly just with some of the things that I mentioned earlier around just interest rates, jobs, the regulatory environment,” he said. “These things have a real burden on businesses. And we believe that a better future is to come.”

WATCH: H&R Block, Intuit shares fall after report Trump administration is considering a free tax-filing app

H&R Block, Intuit shares fall after report Trump admin considering a free tax-filing app

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Bluesky CEO Jay Graber says X rival is ‘billionaire proof’

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Bluesky CEO Jay Graber says X rival is 'billionaire proof'

Bluesky has surged in popularity since the presidential election earlier this month, suddenly becoming a competitor to Elon Musk’s X and Meta’s Threads. But CEO Jay Graber has some cautionary words for potential acquirers: Bluesky is “billionaire proof.”

In an interview on Thursday with CNBC’s “Money Movers,” Graber said Bluesky’s open design is intended to give users the option of leaving the service with all of their followers, which could thwart potential acquisition efforts.

“The billionaire proof is in the way everything is designed, and so if someone bought or if the Bluesky company went down, everything is open source,” Graber said. “What happened to Twitter couldn’t happen to us in the same ways, because you would always have the option to immediately move without having to start over.”

Graber was referring to the way millions of users left Twitter, now X, after Musk purchased the company in 2022. Bluesky now has over 21 million users, still dwarfed by X and Threads, which Facebook’s parent debuted in July 2023.

X and Meta didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Threads has roughly 275 million monthly users, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in October. Although Musk said in May that X has 600 million monthly users, market intelligence firm Sensor Tower estimates 318 million monthly users as of October.

Bluesky was created in 2019 as an internal Twitter project during Jack Dorsey’s second stint as CEO, and became an independent public benefit corporation in 2022. In May of this year, Dorsey said he is no longer a member of Bluesky’s board.

“In 2019, Jack had a vision for something better for social media, and so that’s why he chose me to build this, and we’re really thankful for him for setting this up, and we’ve continued to carry this out,” said Graber, who previously founded Happening, a social network focused on events. “We’re building an open-source social network that anyone can take into their own hands and build on, and it’s something that is radically different from anything that’s been done in social media before. Nobody’s been this open, this transparent and put this much control in the users hands.”

Part of Bluesky’s business plan involves offering subscriptions that would let users access special features, Graber noted. She also said that Bluesky will add more services for third-party coders as part of the startup’s “developer ecosystem.”

Graber said Bluesky has ruled out the possibility of letting advertisers send algorithmically recommended ads to users.

“There’s a lot on the road map, and I’ll tell you what we’re not going to do for monetization,” Graber said. “We’re not going to build an algorithm that just shoves ads at you, locking users in. That’s not our model.”

Bluesky has previously experienced major growth spurts. In September, it added 2 million users following X’s suspension in Brazil over content moderation policy violations in the country and related legal matters.

In October, Bluesky announced that it raised $15 million in a funding round led by Blockchain Capital. The company has raised a total of $36 million, according to Pitchbook.

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Alphabet shares slide 6% following DOJ push for Google to divest Chrome

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Alphabet shares slide 6% following DOJ push for Google to divest Chrome

Jaque Silva | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Alphabet shares slid 6% Thursday, following news that the Department of Justice is calling for Google to divest its Chrome browser to put an end to its search monopoly.

The proposed break-up would, according to the DOJ in its Wednesday filing, “permanently stop Google’s control of this critical search access point and allow rival search engines the ability to access the browser that for many users is a gateway to the internet.”

This development is the latest in a years-long, bipartisan antitrust case that found in an August ruling that the search giant held an illegal monopoly in both search and text advertising, violating Section 2 of the Sherman Act.

The potential break-up would include preventing Google from entering into exclusionary agreements with competitors like Apple and Samsung, part of a set of remedies that would last 10 years.

CNBC’s Jennifer Elias contributed to this report.

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