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Microsoft has hired former Yahoo executive Qi Lu to run its online services business. Lu will start on January 5 and report directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, according to a CNET report. The company also announced that Brian McAndrews, the former CEO of Aquantive and a Microsoft advertising...
Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Thursday said it will publish data sets such as the Human Genome, U.S. Census and labor statistics to its cloud to make the information easier to access for researchers. For starters, Amazon will publish various U.S. Census databases from the U.S. Census Bureau, 3-D c...
Online spending on Cyber Monday jumped by 15 percent over the previous year; Yahoo stock jumps on rumors of former AOL chief trying to raise $30 billion for a buyout; RIM's Blackberry Storm doesn't weather criticisms; Sprint concerned about raising enough money for WiMAX joint venture; and semiconductor equipment spending is down sharply this year and will be again next.
It's time for the U.S. to step up to the broadband plate. A coalition of companies that includes Google, Cisco, AT&T and Verizon, among others, has sent an open letter (PDF), asking President-elect Obama and Congress to make broadband deployment a high priority for 2009, according to a CNET re...
Can Apple, specifically its iPhone, save an entire industry? The iPhone - now ranked the second most popular smartphone - saw strong enough adoption in the quarter ending Sept. 30 to mask the sluggishness of the overall smartphone market this past summer, according to a report by Needham & Co...
Former AOL Chief Jonathan Miller is looking in the couch cushions to raise enough money to buy a partâ€"if not all of Yahoo. According to the Wall Street Journal, Miller has been talking to private equity folks and sovereign wealth funds to buy Yahoo for about $20 to $22 a share. Miller would hav...
Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry predicts Google's revenue will fall in the next two years and the company is about to hit its adolescent stage with board conflicts and layoffs. In a research note, Chowdhry lays out the case. The gist: The economy is putting pressure on Google ads...
Microsoft's Internet Explorer lost market share to Apple's Safari and Mozila's Firefox; the Consumer Electronics Show in January will be smaller than in 2008 or even 2007 and there are actually hotel discounts to be had; MySQL's creator calls the product's latest release from Sun highly buggy; Blockbuster tries catching up to Netflix; and someone ports the Linux kernel to the iPhone.
If Black Friday is supposed to be the stomping grounds -- unfortunately literal in some cases -- of the average consumer, then Cyber Monday should test the spending mettle of the more techno-savvy that head online. It actually doesn't, as the freewheeling spending online generally comes later in the year, but it's worthwhile continuing to see how things are shaping up, particularly as many of the sites are owned by traditional brick-and-mortar retail chains struggling with the economy.
Technology CEOs worth their paychecks are going to use this economic downturn to revamp business models and position for the so-called post recession era. It sounds rather obvious, but why don't all CEOs follow this playbook? We've heard the mantra repeatedly: Reload in a downturn. And a repo...
Yahoo considers a CEO without media or Internet experience as Carl Icahn increases his stake in the comapny and Microsoft says "no, thanks"; Dell's numbers only reached their poor state with cutting some new consumer electronic products and massive layoffs; orders for WiMAX equipment still rolling in to Taiwan manufacturers; and some VCs are feeling the cash crunch.
Reports on Black Friday sales have largely agreed on some basics. But the more you dig into the numbers, the more obvious it is that we're seeing some particularly ugly business conditions, because one figure out of context doesn't tell you everything you need to know.
Fred Wilson of Union Square ventures had an interesting post titled Trading Analog Dollars For Digital Pennies. He quoted Jeff Zucker, NBC Universal CEO, expressing concern "that we do not end up trading analog dollars for digital pennies." Wilson writes that the change is inevitable and based on marginal costs of content copies. I agree that it is inevitable, but think that the marginal costs are only one issue. Even more important is audience dilution.
Rambus gets a stock boost from patent case, but FTC asks Supreme Court to involve itself in an anti-competitive action against the company; EMG Technology is suing Apple for alleged patent infringement by its iPhone browser; the UK pulls Apple iPhone ad off the air; and Facebook spammer faces $873 million fine.
Nokia gives up on Japanese market; Gartner estimates that handset sales will actually decrease next year; gold could rise to $2000 an ounce if Citigroup is right; Google uses undocumented iPhone API calls; and Fujitsu Siemens offers laptops for life.
