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The Motorola Droid 2 and the BlackBerry Torch went on sale Thursday — and the demand for the two new top-of-the-line smartphones was decidedly un-iPhone like.

When the iPhone 4 launched in late June, it was the single biggest consumer electronics product launch in history, according to the research firm Yankee Group, with nearly 2 million customers lining up at stores across the country to snap one up. Retailers like Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500), Best Buy (BBY, Fortune 500) and RadioShack (RSH, Fortune 500) quickly blew through their inventories, with Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) stores following suit soon after. AT&T’s preorders for the device were so massive that it didn’t even offer iPhone 4s in its stores for walk-in customers until a week after launch.

There were no lines to speak of for the Droid 2 and Torch. Calls to a handful of Best Buy locations, Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) stores and AT&T stores showed that stock of the new devices was generally plentiful.

"We’ve got lots of them, come on by," said a Verizon store employee of the Droid 2 supply at the Atlantic Terminal location in Brooklyn.

The Droid 2, which is available exclusively on Verizon’s network, and the Torch, only on AT&T, are high-end smartphones with a lot to prove.

The Droid 2 is replacing the original Droid — a phone that quickly became a sensation when it went on sale in November 2009. The first 74 days of Droid sales outpaced that of the original iPhone, according to analytics firm Flurry.

But the Droid 2 isn’t just competing with the iPhone and other networks’ top devices, like the HTC EVO 4G on Sprint. It’s also going toe-to-toe with its Verizon Droid counterparts, the Motorola (MOT, Fortune 500) Droid X and the HTC Droid Incredible — both of which sell at the same $199 price point (with a new two-year contract). The original Droid was slower and had a far worse keyboard than the new Droid 2, but otherwise it was the same phone — and it had sold for $150 since the Droid X was unveiled in June.

The Droid 2 has a physical keyboard and ships with the latest version of Android, which will attract some users, but it’s heavier and clunkier than its peers, and it lacks their screen size, camera quality and video capturing capabilities.

The BlackBerry Torch is a different story. It’s clearly the best BlackBerry that Research In Motion (RIMM) has ever made, with a touch screen/slide-out keyboard combo and a new operating system that will make BlackBerry lovers go ga-ga.

But non-committed smartphone customers who wander into an AT&T (T, Fortune 500) store will be faced with the dilemma of paying $199 for a Torch or $199 for an iPhone 4 — with the same data plan and same [insert adjective describing your opinion of AT&T] network.

That brings us back to the issue of availability. One key thing that both the Torch and the Droid 2 have going for them is that they’re actually available for purchase. Many stores are backordered on the iPhone 4 and other Droids, and Sprint’s (S, Fortune 500) EVO can’t be found anywhere.

Online, it’s even worse: The iPhone 4 takes three weeks to ship, the Droids take one to two weeks to ship, and the EVO is completely sold out with no mention of when it will be available.

But the Droid 2 and the BlackBerry Torch ship today.  

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Hewlett-Packard chief executive officer Mark Hurd, one of the highest-profile CEOs in America, resigned Friday following a sexual harassment claim against him and the company.

HP said an investigation found Hurd didn’t violate its sexual harassment policy. But he did violate its standards of conduct policy, the company said.

HP (HPQ, Fortune 500) shares were down more than 9% in after-hours trading following a slight decline in regular action.

Executives said Hurd, who is married, failed to tell the board about a personal relationship with a female marketing contractor who was hired by his office. He repeatedly filed inaccurate expense account reports in a bid to keep the relationship secret, HP said.

"It was about integrity and honesty," general counsel Michael Holston said on a conference call with analysts and investors.

Hurd conceded in the HP press release that "there were instances in which I did not live up to the standards and principles of trust, respect and integrity that I have espoused at HP," Hurd said.

The Palo Alto, Calif., company said its chief financial officer, Cathie Lesjak, will take over as CEO on an interim basis.

HP will search for a new CEO and will consider candidates from within the company as well as outsiders, the company said. It didn’t give a timeline, but said Lesjak wouldn’t take the full-time CEO job.

Hurd has been credited with reviving Hewlett-Packard since joining the company in 2005 following the tumultuous tenure of his predecessor, Carly Fiorina. Hewlett-Packard shares have more than doubled since he took the reins in April 2005.

Hurd has been held in high regard on Wall Street Payday advance. He has been extremely successful in helping to boost the company’s profit margins.

To allay fears that his departure was financially driven, HP also said in the release announcing Hurd’s resignation that it expected to exceed analysts’ earnings expectations for the fiscal year.

Asked about the timing of that statement, Lesjak said on a conference call with reporters said it was "important for people to fully appreciate the announcement today has nothing to do with the operational performance of the company." She added that the resignation was "all about Mark’s behavior and judgment."

HP said the investigation started June 30, a day after the company received a letter from a lawyer representing a marketing contractor employed by the company. The company said the investigation found a "pattern" of expense account improprieties by Hurd, but wouldn’t offer more detail except to say the amounts weren’t material.

That’s not surprising, given that HP bills itself as the world’s biggest information technology company, with fiscal 2009 revenue of $115 billion.

HP said it entered a legal agreement with Hurd "related to his exit." It didn’t say whether this agreement would preclude litigation with him.

Hurd, who has been making upwards of $30 million annually, could collect $53 million in severance pay, stock and restricted units under his separation plan with the company, HP said in its most recent proxy filing. 

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Brown & Brown Inc. acquired the assets of Synergy Benefits Inc., an employee benefits firm in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area

The purchase price was not disclosed.

Synergy Benefits has revenue of about $1.2 million, a statement said. Bernard Dombrowski and Robert Hayward, principals of Synergy, and their staff will join Brown & Brown Insurance Agency of Virginia’s existing office in Manassas, Va.

Brown & Brown (NYSE: BRO), headquartered in Tampa and in Daytona Beach, offers a broad range of insurance and reinsurance products.

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San Antonio Federal Credit Union has been awarded an A+ rating by the Better Business Bureau.

To be rated and accredited by the BBB, a business must adhere to a comprehensive set of policies, procedures and best practices representing trustworthiness in the marketplace. The standards call for building trust, embodying integrity, advertising honestly and telling the truth, being transparent, honoring promises, being responsive and safeguarding privacy.

This marks the 14th year that SACU has been accredited by the BBB serving Central, Coastal and Southwest Texas.

“Accreditation through BBB is another way to measure our commitment to building trust with our members,” says Sharon Spring, SACU director of branches and member services. “Our employees are committed to being trusted advisors to our members and strive to maintain high ethical standards of conduct and member satisfaction.”

SACU is a $2.8 billion credit union with 19 locations in San Antonio and one in Houston. The credit union provides a full range of products and services through competitive yields on savings, lower loan rates, and reasonably priced financial services.

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Amazon shares plunged 13% in after-hours trading Thursday after the company’s second-quarter earnings came up far short of analyst expectations.

Amazon’s sales are still growing fast: The company had revenue of $6.6 billion in the quarter ended June 30, up 41% from a year ago. Amazon’s profit also rose, increasing 45% to $207 million.

But analysts hoped for better, and are keeping a close eye on Amazon’s bottom line to see if intensifying competitive pressures knock the e-commerce giant off its game.

Forced by Barnes & Noble (BN) into an e-reader price war, Amazon.com slashed the price of its flagship Kindle to $189 last month. It later cut its high-end Kindle DX price tag by more than $100, to $379. Meanwile, Apple’s (AAPL, Fortune 500) popular iPad — which can store thousands of e-books — could obliterate the entire stand-alone e-reader market within the next year or two No teletrack payday loans.

Amazon tried earlier this week to draw attention to its bright spots. The company announced that sales of e-books for its popular Kindle reader now outnumber Amazon’s sales of hardcover books. The company also said Kindle sales have picked up since last month’s price cut, though it once again refused to disclose how many Kindles it has actually sold.

Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500) said it expects third-quarter revenue to come in between $6.9 billion and $7.63 billion in revenue this quarter, in line with analyst estimates. 

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Advanced Inquiry Systems Inc., a company developing a semiconductor testing technology, has raised $10 million in a Series C round from a group of investors, according to a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The money will be used to help bring a product to market.

The Hillsboro company closed a $11 million Series B round last year, bringing its funding up to $33 million at the time.

The company has developed a proprietary silicon-based testing platform to enable lower cost testing of memory devices pay day advance.

The company’s previous investors include OVP Venture Partners, TL Ventures, Intel Capital, Applied Ventures, KT Ventures and Northwest Technology Ventures. The Series C round included a new undiscloved investor.

The company was founded in 2002. It declined to disclose revenue on its most recent SEC filing.

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Hawaii Biotech, a company that has been struggling to reorganize in bankruptcy court, will go up for auction next month.

A request to convert the company’s Chapter 11 filing to a Chapter 11 363(b) asset sale provision, which is what GM and Chrysler used for their recent reorganizations, was accepted by bankruptcy court Judge Robert Faris on Monday.

The auction is scheduled for July 19, and bidding interest and notification is due to the company by July 12.

“We currently have a stalking horse bid in for the company,” said CEO Elliot Parks. “Our goal is to keep the company intact and keep trials going easy payday loans.”

Hawaii Biotech filed for bankruptcy protection on Dec. 11, at which time it claimed between $1 million and $10 million in assets and liabilities. The company listed nearly 400 unsecured creditors, with its largest being its landlord, Redico. Its claim was for $500,929 in unpaid rent, according to PBN research.

Hawaii Biotech, which has 23 full-time employees, entered into human clinical trials for West Nile and dengue fever vaccines within the past two years.

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With mortgage delinquencies at an all-time high, there are lots of desperate homeowners seeking to avoid foreclosure — and tons of scam artists trying to take advantage of that.

The fraudsters promise the moon but rarely deliver any help.

In Times Square on Friday, the non-profit community development organization NeighborWorks launched a campaign to heighten awareness of foreclosure prevention scams.

"[For scam artists,] the all time high foreclosure rate is an opportunity in the same way that pushing toxic subprime loans was during the housing boom," said Bernell Grier, CEO of Neighborhood Housing Services of New York (NHS), a NeighborWorks affiliate.

From October through the end of April, community development groups handled more than 10,000 reports of foreclosure-prevention scams, according to Susan Jouard, a spokeswoman for NHS.

Grier said alert consumers can identify fraud from legitimate help if they’re aware of these three tell-tale signs.

Avoid anyone who:

Asks for a fee in advance. If you pay them these fees, which can range from $1,000 to as much as $5,000, that’s probably the last you’ll ever hear from them. Most never even go through the motions of talking to lenders and trying to work out modifications.

Tells you they can guarantee foreclosure will stop. Nobody can do that, especially before they find out more about your individual circumstances.

Urges you to stop paying your mortgage and pay them instead. They’re trying to add to the money they already bilked you out of by keeping up the pretense of trying for a modification.

Many community groups, including those affiliated with NeighborWorks, offer expert, free help for homeowners, but they often don’t have the funds to advertise their services. It’s easier for the scammers to invest in fliers, mailers, even Internet and TV advertising to get their message out.

"Call us if you’re having a problem with your property," said Grier. "You shouldn’t have to pay for these services." 

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Decades of booming personal computer sales helped Intel become a chipmaking behemoth, but consumers’ rapid shift away from PCs may leave the tech giant out in the cold.

As Intel’s old marketing campaign proclaimed, the company’s chips are "inside" practically every kind of computer, from PCs to Macintoshes to netbooks. But PCs are yesterday’s news. Mobile Internet devices like smart phones and tablets are where all of the growth is but Intel (INTC, Fortune 500) hasn’t been able to gain much traction.

Where Intel has so far failed, a little-known British company called ARM has had roaring success. ARM is to mobile devices what Intel is to computers — the company develops and licenses the basic chip designs for practically all of the world’s cell phones, smart phones and Apple’s (AAPL, Fortune 500) iPad.

Tech analysts left and right are proclaiming that the mobile device market will outpace or perhaps even replace the PC market in the next five years. In fact, the market grew 56.7% during the first quarter, according to IDC.

Could a tiny British company that took in just less than $500 million in sales last year really be in a better position to take advantage of that forecasted growth than Intel, which had over $35 billion in revenue during the same period?

"Few companies have championed and invested in the shift to wireless computers and PC-like devices like Intel has," said Intel spokesman Bill Kircoss.

Analysts also say it’s premature to dismiss Intel. "ARM is ahead right now, but I’ve become smart enough to know that Intel can’t be counted out," said John Bruggeman, CMO of Cadence Design Systems. "Intel will figure it out, or it’ll spend its way out."

How we got here

Next to Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500), Intel has perhaps been the greatest benefactor of the PC boom of the past three decades. Intel’s patent on the x86 processor, which is required to run Windows, helped it become the biggest chipmaker in the world. Intel designed its chips for performance and power, making PCs lightning-fast and able to perform multiple complex tasks simultaneously.

ARM, meanwhile targeted a different, smaller market. By designing chips that use as little power as possible, ARM made its way into practically every cell phone on the market (about 20 billion mobile devices over the past 19 years, according to the company). Unlike Intel, ARM doesn’t actually make chips, but licenses designs to 220 companies around the world, including giants like Qualcomm (QCOM, Fortune 500), Texas Instruments (TXN, Fortune 500), Nvidia (NVDA), Samsung and Apple.

Both companies were humming along until Apple introduced the iPhone in the summer of 2007. The iPhone was years ahead of any other phone on the market at the time, allowing users to carry a device in their pockets that performed PC tasks.

"There was a huge technological disruption that took place at the launch of the iPhone," said Bruggeman. "Now, mobile is the high volume category and it’s the only one that matters. The only question is will it be Intel-based or ARM-based?"

Because of its vast experience in the mobile sector, ARM won the contract to design the iPhone’s processor and has since appeared in a large number of smart phones. Apple’s iPad also uses an ARM-licensed chip.

Atom bomb

The Intel vs. ARM battle is far from over. Mobile devices are rapidly improving, but none yet offer the same deep, rich Internet experience of a PC or run all of the complex tasks of a computer.

Next year, Intel plans to unveil a new "Atom" mobile device processor (code named "Moorestown"), which Intel thinks can outperform competitors and help it give ARM a run for its money.

First-generation Atom chips can be found in just about every netbook on the market. Though Intel offers the chips for smart phones, most devices with Intel inside only run the unsuccessful MeeGo platform. Intel so far has not been able to tap into the rampant success of Apple’s iPhone OS or Google’s (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android platform.

But the Atom 2 might change that. Though experts say Atom chips won’t soon be found in an iPhone, Intel recently demonstrated its Moorestown chip seamlessly running Android 2.1 at the Computex technology expo in Taipei.

"In just the past 30 days alone, we’ve expanded this chip line to cars, TVs, tablets and smartphones and plan to keep bringing new, and even more power-sipping Atoms to market," said Intel’s Kircoss.

Even ARM admits that its market dominance doesn’t mean that it has won.

"People don’t care what’s underneath, they just want to buy stuff that they think is cool," said Bob Morris, director of mobile computing at ARM. "Intel eventually will be successful in this area, though they’ll be one of many."

But there’s one potential hang up for Intel: Compared to its traditional PC chips, the profit margins for the Atom chip are atrocious. A small number of analysts even suggested that Intel would like the mobile market to go away.

"Maybe Intel doesn’t care who wins the mobile space," said Phani Saripella, analyst at Primary Global Research and a former Intel manager. "It might be better off defending its turf [on the higher end devices]."

Stay tuned. 

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Bank of America Corp. is switching from Fidelity Investments to Hewitt Associates Inc. and Plateau Systems as the Charlotte-based bank’s human-resource service providers, beginning in 2011.

Charlotte-based BofA is currently under contract with Fidelity, which has most of its 2,400 North Carolina employees in the Raleigh-Durham area, for such services. The bank, which ranks No. 5 in Raleigh-Durham market share, says the move will bring cost and operational efficiencies while also providing market-leading technologies to BofA managers and employees.

Under the new agreements, Hewitt will offer human-resources administration, payroll services and health-management administration, as well as information technology. Plateau Systems will provide employee training across BofA’s departments.

Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

Last year, Fidelity cut its investment in its large-client, human-resources administration and payroll-outsourcing business to focus on small and midsized markets. BofA says it evaluated options to continue with its contract with Fidelity but decided to request bids for a new human-resources provider.

Fidelity will continue to administer retirement services for BofA (NYSE:BAC).

Boston-based Fidelity is one of the world’s largest providers of financial services. It offers investment management, retirement planning, brokerage, and human resources and benefits outsourcing services.

Illinois-based Hewitt (NYSE:HEW) markets human-resources consulting and outsourcing services. The company has 23,000 workers in more than 30 countries. Last week, it announced plans to add 463 jobs in Charlotte during the next three years. Hewitt has 534 workers in North Carolina. The vast majority of them are in Charlotte.

The new jobs, primarily in HR and information technology, will be added to the company’s leased operations at University Research Park in north Charlotte.

Virginia-based Plateau Systems is a provider of work-force management technologies.

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