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There's plenty of speculation about Apple turning down Google Voice for its app store and whether the real instigator is AT&T wanting to protect its traffic. That might be, except that Google Voice still depends on either having existing phone service or paying the data charges to run a VoIP lin...
Over on ZDNet, David Morgenstern claimed that I was a Chicken LIttle because I pointed to the margin imbalance between the iPhone and Mac and dared wonder if, given Apple's historic fondness for high-margin business, whether there might be a future for the company without making a computer.
Contrary to popular preconceptions, cloud computing isn't the stuff of start-ups and fringe companies â€" it's really big business run by very public companies (and I don't just mean Salesforce.com and VMware). My colleague Erik Sherman has an interesting take on the cloud computing business model, ...
As I've mentioned before, there's been a steadily decreasing average net sale for Apple's Mac units over at least the last seven quarters. But an analysis by Turley Muller at the Financial Alchemist blog (via AppleInsider) might explain why: iPhones margins are so high that Apple can afford to drop prices elsewhere and still keep their overall results looking good.
Back in January, LG Electronics essentially went into competition with broadcast, cable, and satellite video providers with its NetCast Entertainment Access. Certain of its HDTV offerings provided built-in streaming from both YouTube and Netflix, as well as news, weather, and photos from Yahoo. Now it's expanding the service by integrating access to titles from Vudu, adding an extra 2,000 HD videos for purchase or rental with no monthly fees and no additional set-top box. This is just the latest indication of a fundamental shift in the media-technology partnership.
Yahoo's search deal with Microsoft is the Internet's version of Sunset Boulevard, with Yahoo as the downtrodden young writer and Microsoft as the aging actress with whom he hooks up, giving him access to her wealth and Bing (I mean bling), but confining him to a hopeless future. In case you haven...
Salesforce.com has been one of the leading SaaS "success" stories, and the company has been trying to ride that into a secure spot in future cloud computing. But it's facing the twin demons of slowing bookings and a time to customer profitability that makes you wonder whether the company can survive without at least a mid-term acquisition.
My colleague Michael Hickins was right when he said that IBM's acquisition of SPSS helped it get its hands on a rapidly growing market. But the real upside is not in depriving SAP of an area of business intelligence that it might have been smart in wanting. The big win is that IBM gets to integrate what SPSS can do into what Big Blue knows best: infrastructure. In fact, you might say that IBM is creating a new category, smart infrastructure.
So the two gladiators, Microsoft and Yahoo, have finally stopped slugging it out and announced a ten-year search deal. And while the structure is interesting, with Microsoft providing the search back-end and Yahoo becoming the sales agent for the combined effort, you have to wonder if this is too little, too late.
IBM's planned acquisition of data analysis software specialist SPSS for $1.2 billion in cash adds an important element to its array of applications intended to help companies run more efficiently, while depriving rival applications vendor SAP of a key partner in a market segment that IBM claims is g...
Qualcomm has identified at least one significant difference between its proposed smartbook and the netbooks offered or announced by the likes of HP, Acer, Gateway and others. Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs told Kara Swisher during the Fortune Brainstorm conference that the company's smartbooks will resemb...
The Wall Street Journal found something interesting in the Amazon acquisition of Zappos -- a consideration that all tech companies should keep in mind when doing acquisitions. When the topic of money comes up, people often lie, and even more often stretch the truth. And that explanation is good to remember when considering the numeric dance that Zappos execs are currently undertaking.
Dell to pay $9.1 million to settle gender discrimination class action suit by former employees; Intel appeals EU $1.5 billion antitrust fine; Microsoft offers browser choice in Europe to avoid more antitrust action; Apple backs off wiki suit; and video game trade group sues Chicago Transit Authority over ad ban.
The tech industry has been good at making money when there was an air of mystery about technology and availability was almost considered a privilege. But now we're seeing evidence that almost everything is dropping away in price to nothing. Is it time to start finding "day jobs?" Look at some of the evidence:
There's an old saying that IBM never enters a market if it doesn't see a billion dollar opportunity. The company's CTO for telecommunications research, Paul Bloom, corrected me during a phone call. It's a billion dollars at the low end. And that's why IBM announced last month that it was putting $100 million over the next five years into "direct research in the mobile space." But don't expect a new mobile device or apps. IBM's strategy is to let partners create the end user software and electronics. It just wants to make money from being in the middle of everything. The company's strategy sits on top of three major market assumptions and a few of its own realities
