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Watching businesses at times is like sitting through a comedy. You see people doing something so obviously stupid, so clearly set to blow up in their faces, that you want to bury your face and say, "No, stop now!" But they don't and it does. This seems to have popped up in high tech with a ferocious...
EU tells Microsoft to decouple Internet Explorer from Windows; Dell settles with 34 states; Nortel files for bankruptcy, but some analysts think that it ultimately won't help; RealNetworks gets Friskit patents tossed; Global Crossing gives up and licenses Katz Technology patents; USPTO to reexamine TiVo patent; and Xpoint sues Microsoft, HP, and Intel.
The news that Steve Jobs will be taking an unexpected extended medical leave from his position as Apple's CEO is continuing the speculation of whether he'll be able to run the company again and what might happen to Apple as a result. The fascination in the technology world is understandable from one view, as Jobs is one of the personal computer's historic figures and great characters. But from another point, it's an unhealthy obsession and shows that industry maturity has a long way to go.
Century-old Nortel Networks, once a networking behemoth with a whopping market cap of over $300 billion, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Nortel never recovered from dot-com bust. The aftermath included a devastating accounting scandal that resulted in the firing of CEO Frank Dunn an...
It's been clear that Google's focus on ad revenue is a potential weak point for the company and that it rightly continues trying to diversify its business. And the announcement that it will allow "technology solution providers" to resell Google Apps to businesses is just another example. But Google is about to find that working with a reseller channel is far more complicated, painful, and expensive than they have thought.
Seagate Technology, the world's leading disk drive maker, shocked the markets yesterday by announcing the immediate departure of CEO Bill Watkins and president and COO David Wickersham. Chairman and former CEO Stephen Luczo has assumed the president and CEO functions. What made this announcemen...
Yasni, a big name in people search in such countries as Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, got its start in 2007. When the company saw that roughly 100,000 of its users were from the U.S., it decided to make a push, starting last November, into this country and the U.K. with targeted English-language versions. We chatted with founder and CEO Steffen Rühl back in December about the experience of expanding a web-based business outward from Europe.
Judge tosses Rambus suit against Micron; Apple faces yet another potential customer class action suit; Google wins Chinese trademark case; fashion model sues Google to find out who anonymously called her a "skank" in a blog; someone sues Oprah Winfrey's company for patent infringement; at least one patent suit in the Eastern District of Texas gets transferred to Ohio; and a small firm is suing 22 software and security companies for patent infringement.
On December 31, Dell announced that it was reorganizing around major customer segments and that CMO Mark Jarvis and Mike Cannon, president of global operations would be replaced. But don't feel too badly for them; even in a down economy, they are leaving with some green lining their pockets.
Google is facing some "challenges," as the corporate set says when wanting to avoid the word "problem." Only in this case, the real concept may be "quicksand pit." As the tech industry has seen throughout its history â€" including the likes of Wang, Netscape, AOL, and Packard Bell -- companies can ride high one day and wind up in a ditch the next. And, as some recent developments are showing, online advertising isn't the first industry where success is guaranteed to be everlasting.
There's an intriguing rumor floating about. SDTimes.com is reporting that according to multiple sources, "including one at Cisco," Google is working on its own router. When I contacted Google, the answer was the now-standard "It's our policy not to comment on rumor or speculation," which, if memory serves, is the same answer that used to be in play when asked if Google was developing a browser. Absent any other confirmation yet (and if you know and are willing to chat, please use the link to email me), there's significant circumstantial evidence that, if not true, the concept is credible.
At its last MacWorld, Apple announced new lower pricing on some music in its iTunes store â€" and an end to digital rights management (DRM) on all tracks. Forget about the state of Steve Jobs or who gave the keynote address. This is real news, as it is yet another bit of information suggesting that perhaps the recording industry has finally come to grips with the new market realities.
Microsoft makes an estimated $1.5 billion off XP licensing on "Vista Capable" machines, and sees a Chinese court sentence 11 software pirates; RIAA won't get to appeal mistrial on suit against Minnesota woman and drops MediaSentry, which used to get the evidence for its lawsuits against consumers; Facebook sues Power.com for copyright and trademark infringement; and Cree and Bridgelux kiss and make up.
For some time, China has been pushing to create its own telecommunications standards, for a number of reasonably obvious reasons. But now the country has decided to award a number of 3G mobile licenses, based not only on the Beijing-created TD-SCDMA standard, but on CDMA and WCDMA as well. From a purely practical consideration, this is a story so big that it will be hard to find something of greater relevance to the industry for some time.
Many music lovers may be using language considerably stronger than the Elizabethan term "zounds" if they own the 30GB models of the Microsoft Zune -- because at the start of today (midnight Pacific time), many of these units (no way to know the total yet) began failing.
