Q&A with Technology Crossover Ventures General Partner Woody Marshall

When HomeAway announced that it had raised $250 million in private financing led by Technology Crossover Ventures, the eyebrows raised. First, the company has been around for about ten years and is already profitable. Second, many in the tech industry had been assuming that venture funding would be tight. Third -- $250 million? So we chatted with General Partner Woody Marshall about this investment and his view on where VCs are going in the financial crisis.

• Nov 17, 2008

Tech Offshoring Is Exaggerated, But the Labor Shortage Is Real

The fastest way to raise the hackles of most U.S. IT professionals is to mention offshore outsourcing. Among them, there is a common perception that U.S. corporations are cutting IT budgets by laying off lots of IT professionals and shipping their IT jobs overseas, and generally wrecking a lot of IT...

• Nov 17, 2008

AMD Is Actually Targeting the Netbook Market After All

AMD is targeting what Intel calls the netbook market, but not completely. Here's a tale of semantic fun on Friday night. When I read Brooke Crothers report on how AMD wasn't entering the netbook market I was shocked. After all, I was one of those people that interpreted AMD's musings Thursd...

• Nov 17, 2008

Tech Roundup: Killings Over Firing, Consumer Credit Slashed, Ubuntu for ARM, More

Fired employee allegedly kills three at fomer employer SiPort; consumers face slashed credit card limits; Microsoft tries to position Xbox 360 as social network gateway; people start tiring of standalone instant messaging apps; and Canonical plans on ARM version of Ubuntu.

• Nov 17, 2008

Telecom Roundup: Google Voice Search, Telcos and Internet, More

Google creates voice recognition search front end for iPhone users; open networks may pull consumers away from control of telephone carriers; experts say that telcos have bad consumer interfaces to the Internet; and Nortel and Alcatel-Lucent look at the profit that carrying video might offer.

• Nov 14, 2008

Tech Roundup: Microsoft Web Store, Games Are Green, Students Consider Engineering, More

Microsoft sells software at its own web store and probably gives heart failure to resellers; game companies continue raking in the bucks; HomeAway got big funding, partly to buy stock back from employees and early investors; students turn from finance to engineering; AMD bets on Shanghai; and Mark Papermaster countersues IBM, which must put up $3 million bond to keep an injunction that prevents the exec from starting work at Apple.

• Nov 14, 2008

Tech Layoffs and Bad Management

It's official: Sun Microsystems is laying off 15 to 18 percent of its workforce. Such announcements from tech companies offer as little surprise as a single-day multi-hundred-point movement in the Dow. The tactic has become a management truism, with Wall Street often rewarding the "courageous" decision with an uptick in share price. The rationale is that companies will save beaucoup bucks; Sun hopes to see $700 million to $800 million in annual savings. Unfortunately, layoffs are too often proof of bad management by executives in mortal fear for their own hides. At best they generally provide no net benefit and long-term disaster at worst.

• Nov 14, 2008

Telecom Roundup: 4G Patents, Android Phone Costs $144, TV Needs Low Price, More

ADC Telecommunications owns key 4G patents; HTC Android-based phone costs an estimated $144 in parts and materials; DoCoMo bets heavily in India; people want cheap TV; and BT Group will cut an additional 6,000 jobs.

• Nov 14, 2008

Tech Roundup: Microsoft 0% financing, Retail Bad, IBM Power Line IP, More

Microsoft offers zero percent financing on ERP and CRM software licenses; retail for computers is really, really bad; IBM partners on Internet over power lines in rural areas; Classmates.com sued for misleading advertising; and Gawker Media closes Valleywag.

• Nov 14, 2008

LG, Sharp, Other Accused Price Fixers Need Courage, not Nerve

It's been an interesting time for accusations of price fixing. Late in August, a class action was filed in California claiming that AMD and Nvidia were fixing prices of GPU processors and graphics cards -- just before Nvidia settled a lawsuit on the same topic. And just yesterday, LG Display Co. Ltd., Sharp Corp., and Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd. agreed to pay a total of $585 million in fines as the result of a U.S. Department of Justice antitrust investigation into two separate incidents of LCD display price fixing â€" and that doesn't include some other unidentified LCD makers that were involved.

• Nov 13, 2008

Citrix Makes the iPhone More of a Business Tool

Business-critical applications continue their push into the mobile world and, increasingly, that world includes the iPhone - giving the popular device more respect as a business tool, instead of just a toy, and giving IT administrators one less reason to insist on the Blackberry as a preferred hands...

• Nov 12, 2008

Microsoft May Edge Out Google In Verizon Search Deal

Microsoft is reportedly close to landing Verizon Wireless in a search deal at the expense of Google. Why? Money. The Wall Street Journal reports Verizon Wireless is now favoring Microsoft over Google. The money paragraph (literally): Under the terms now being considered, Microsoft would share re...

• Nov 12, 2008

Telecom Roundup: AT&T into Video, VMWare Goes Mobile, More

AT&T starts video aggregation site; VMWare creates virtualization products for enterprise market mobile phones; Virgin Mobile numbers beat market expectations; and FCC tries workaround for digital TV broadcast signals that fall short and lose viewers.

• Nov 12, 2008

Tech Roundup: IBM Opens Foundry, Sun Partners Microsoft, Server Energy Ratings, More

IBM to open foundry to chip design firms; Blu-ray prices keep tumbling; Dell slow on new products; Energy Star server ratings coming;and Sun and Microsoft in a marketing deal

• Nov 12, 2008

Ad Targeter NebuAd, Already Tottering, Hit With Class Action

NebuAd, the controversial company that was trying to sell deep-packet inspection technology as a means of delivering more relevant ads, has already had most of the life sucked out of it. Now, a class action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco today, could put the final nail in the ...

• Nov 12, 2008

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