Topic: General

Posted by : Anonymous on Wednesday, August 09, 2006 - 07:03 AM

News Corp's Fox Interactive Media has selected Google as MySpace.com's search system in a multiyear search and advertising deal that also covers some of Fox's other properties.
The deal ends months of speculation about which big search company, also including Yahoo and Microsoft, would serve MySpace's popular online teen hangout.
As part of the deal, Google is expected to pay Fox at least $US900 million ($A1.18 billion) in revenue share payments based on certain traffic and other commitments promised by Fox. These payments are expected to be made from the first quarter of 2007 to the second quarter of 2010. One media analyst applauded the deal.
"It's a small amount of revenue in News Corp over the last nine months," said Richard Greenfield, an analyst at Pali Capital.
"However, the organic growth in MySpace, combined with today's deal, sets MySpace up to be an important driver for earnings growth for next several years."
Peter Chernin, Chief Operating Officer of News Corp, said in a statement: "Our partnership with Google underscores News Corp's continued evolution to become a powerful force in the digital media marketplace."

Posted by : Anonymous on Friday, July 07, 2006 - 07:24 PM

Apple Computer Inc.'s latest laptop looks sleek, runs fast and should give makers of Windows-based notebooks considerable cause for concern.
The MacBook, which replaces Apple's iBook consumer notebooks, is the last of the mobile Macs to make the switch to Intel Corp. chips that have powered Windows PCs for years. With extra software, the newer Macs can run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows as well as Apple's Mac OS X. This could spell trouble for notebook makers who can't offer the best of both worlds, particularly in light of the MacBook's starting price of $1,099.
I tested a black, 2-gigahertz MacBook, which with no customization retails for $1,499. My loaner had a $100 upgrade that doubled the amount of memory to 1 gigabyte.
Apple claims the new laptops are up to five times faster than the previous PowerPC-based iBooks. While I can't confirm it performed as fast as claimed, the MacBook felt significantly speedier than the PowerPC-based system it replaced.
Running Windows XP via Apple's free Boot Camp program, the system felt as fast as any generic laptop PC. (To run Windows, however, you need to buy a copy of the operating system. Prices start at $199.)
Programs designed for the new Macs in OS X were just as zippy.
Older software designed for PowerPC Macs, however, runs in a slower emulation environment. Some of the most popular Mac programs, like Microsoft Office and Adobe Systems Inc.'s Photoshop, are still being converted to run natively on Intel-based Macs.

Posted by : Anonymous on Friday, July 07, 2006 - 07:23 PM

AOL wants to drop subscription fees for most of its users, completing its transformation to a free service similar to chief rivals Yahoo and Google, say top executives at AOL and its parent, Time Warner.
Dial-up customers who rely on AOL as their Internet service provider would still have to pay the $25.90 monthly fee. But anyone using AOL on broadband would get the service free, including e-mail and use of the AOL software. A year ago, AOL put much of its content -- including news stories, music videos and travel information -- on the AOL.com website for free.
AOL and Time Warner executives confirmed AOL's plans, though they asked not to be identified. The switch has not gotten final approval.
The move is in line with strategies stated by AOL CEO Jonathan Miller and other AOL executives in the past year. AOL's subscription business has been waning anyway -- about 850,000 users canceled in the first quarter of 2006. So the company has been trying to flip to a new model based on using free content and services to gather a mass audience, and then selling advertising.
It's a gamble. Only 16% of AOL's 2005 revenue came from ads; the rest, from subscriptions and other fees. Still, "Everybody else in the top 10 is free," says John Battelle, who runs Searchblog. "So this sounds like a reasonable move." AOL is No. 3 on the Web in ad revenue.

Posted by : Anonymous on Friday, July 07, 2006 - 07:22 PM

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Hewlett-Packard Co. plans to close an undisclosed number of offices worldwide over the next four years to cut real estate costs.The Palo Alto-based company, which has already disclosed plans to cut jobs and reduce the number of sites used to store crucial computer data, is still deciding which locations to close, spokesman Ryan Donovan said. Sites that remain open will be those likely to be occupied by employees over a number of years, house large numbers of employees or groups that generate high amounts of revenue, Donovan said. Others will be kept open for legal reasons or if they have another special purpose, he said.
He declined to say how much HP expected to save by the move but said some of the savings would be poured into updating offices that are kept open.
Many of the "core" sites that remain open will be upgraded to include desks and other equipment designed specifically for employees who work only occasionally at HP offices, Donovan said. The outfitting will include small glass-encased rooms where workers can make private phone calls and workstations that are available on a first-come-first-served basis.
Last year, the computer and printer maker disclosed plans to cut 15,300 jobs. As of April 30, the company had shed 8,100 positions. As of the fiscal year that ended in October, its headcount was 150,000.

Posted by : Anonymous on Friday, June 30, 2006 - 10:43 AM

SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc. will unveil a much-anticipated payment service today that aims to make online shopping more convenient and give advertisers another reason to pour more money into the Internet search leader.
As Google attempts to boost its already lofty profits and become an even more prominent player in e-commerce, the Mountain View, Calif., company risks alienating one of its biggest advertisers - online auctioneer eBay Inc., which runs the Internet's leading payment service, PayPal. Although Google doesn't view its service as a PayPal competitor, there is no question it poses a long-term threat to eBay, said Internet market analyst Greg Sterling.
"Any time Google does something like this, it has the potential of turning into a big deal," Sterling said.
At least two merchants, Starbucks Corp. and Buy.com, that have signed up for Google's new service also accept PayPal, which eBay bought for $1.3-billion in 2002.
EBay spokeswoman Amanda Pires declined to comment on Google's entrance into online payments, but the San Jose, Calif., company signaled its concerns about the search engine's expansion last month when it formed an alliance with Yahoo Inc. that will make PayPal the preferred payment provider on the Internet's most-trafficked Web site.

Posted by : Jonathan Thaw on Saturday, June 03, 2006 - 11:49 PM

Google Inc., the most-used Internet search engine, is introducing a feature that lets people instantly post videos to the Web in a bid to topple market leader YouTube Inc.
The Google site will let users submit clips and then provide a Web link for the video that they can share with friends, said Hunter Walk, 32, a Google product manager.
Watching user-generated videos on the Web is becoming more popular as more people buy high-speed connections and sites such as YouTube and Google Video make it easier to post video clips.
Google, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., will also host a page with clips from Universal Pictures' movie "The Break-Up" and allow users to add clips about their own experiences, said Walk.
"Consumer-generated video is rapidly evolving," said Allen Weiner, an analyst at Gartner Inc., which is based in Stamford, Conn. YouTube and Google are looking for more content to attract users as well as advertisers, Weiner said.
YouTube had 12.5 million users in April, compared with 9.5 million at Microsoft Corp.'s MSN Video, 9 million at News Corp.'s MySpace video site and 7.3 million at Google Video, according to researcher Nielsen//NetRatings.

Posted by : Anonymous on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 - 05:48 AM

SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc. will begin distributing online video ads for the first time later this week, continuing the Internet search engine leader's effort to diversify beyond the static written messages that generate most of its profits.
The video expansion, announced late Monday, will affect thousands of Web sites that rely on Google to post ads related to the surrounding material on a page. For instance, a news story about housing might prompt Google to display an ad for real estate agents.
Google isn't allowing the video ads to appear on its own Web site - a heavily trafficked destination that produced 58 percent of its $2.25 billion in revenue during the first three months of this year.
Despite that restriction, Google's push into online video advertising represents a significant step for the Mountain View, Calif.-based company as it explores new ways to propel its rapid earnings growth. Google began distributing graphical ads two years ago and during the past year has been dabbling in print and radio marketing.
None of the new initiatives so far have paid off like the austere blurbs that Google has been distributing across the Web since 2001. Those commercial snippets, usually consisting of a sentence or two, have accounted for the bulk of the $13.6 billion in revenue that has poured into Google during the past 4 1/4 years.
Bolstered by Google's success so far, the company's stock price has more than quadrupled to create $90 billion in shareholder wealth since its August 2004 initial public offering.

Posted by : Therese Poletti on Monday, April 10, 2006 - 05:41 PM

In 2000, investors led by Silver Lake Partners stunned Wall Street and Silicon Valley with an unusual deal for the technology industry: They spent $2 billion to buy Seagate Technology and took the disk drive company private.
Tech companies traditionally hadn't been candidates to go private in a buyout. That's because such deals typically involve taking an undervalued company private with borrowed money and selling off assets to repay the debt. But tech companies, often relatively young, were seen as too risky for deals that depend upon reliable revenue streams to pay down a lot of debt.That's no longer true.
In another sign of Silicon Valley's maturation, more tech companies than ever are now going private through buyouts led by private equity firms.
The Seagate deal was the first by Silver Lake Partners of Menlo Park, which was formed in 1999 and has become one of the biggest private equity firms focusing on tech deals.
"The reason Silver Lake exists is that as the technology industry matured, we saw there would be a role for private equity in technology, just as there is in other fields," said Jim Davidson, co-founder and managing director. "When we started Silver Lake, we challenged the notion that tech was too volatile, too young, too unstable, to support private equity investment."
At least seven Bay Area tech companies and divisions went private or were spun off to private equity investors in 2005, according to the 451 Group, a technology mergers analysis firm in New York. The value of the local deals surged to more than $4 billion, up from about $432 million in 2004. Last year featured two mega-deals locally: the buyout of Agilent's chip business for $2.7 billion and of Serena Software for $1.1 billion.

Posted by : Chris O'Brien on Monday, April 10, 2006 - 05:41 PM

Yahoo's Sunnyvale campus is feeling so 1999 these days. The company hired more than 3,000 workers last year -- about the same number it had in all just three years ago. Perks are in vogue again, with the addition of free coffee bars, haircuts and car washing. Employees must park so far away that the company started a valet parking service.
And Yahoo's not the only Silicon Valley company hanging out the "Help Wanted" sign and complaining about a talent shortage. "We have about 500 openings," said Heidi Burgett, a Yahoo spokeswoman. "We're definitely still hiring. Especially algorithmic search. If you know anyone looking, tell them we're hiring."
The hiring is being fueled by the second straight year of record revenue and profits at Silicon Valley companies. The latest Silicon Valley 150 annual report reveals that profits grew 18 percent to $37.1 billion in 2005 and revenue rose 10.8 percent to $372.6 billion among the valley's 150 largest public companies.
So, is it boom time again or is it still the bust?
The answer is a little of both. When it comes to high-tech jobs, Silicon Valley has developed a split personality. For the minority of people with the right skills and right experience, life is good again as they field multiple offers that result in escalating salaries. But for many others, the job market remains firmly shut, forcing them to accept jobs well below their experience or to consider a career change.
That's why, despite all the openings, Carl Trautman of Sunnyvale can't find a job.
The former fiber-optic technician was laid off from Agilent in August 2003. Since then, Trautman, 62, has done some contracting work, filled in as a maintenance worker and tried unsuccessfully to land a job. "I keep reading about how things are looking up," Trautman said. "But it's really deceptive. It's not true."

Posted by : Jay Greene on Sunday, April 02, 2006 - 11:15 AM

The delay of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Vista operating system until next year makes the software giant look like a dinosaur stuck in the tar, but that's not the whole picture. Its efforts to match the Googles of the world with fast online innovations seem to be paying off. In the five months since Microsoft (MSFT) announced its Windows Live strategy, it has released no fewer than 20 new services that are attracting millions of consumers. "They now gain some of that agility that Google (GOOG) has enjoyed," says analyst Van Baker of researcher Gartner Inc.
What exactly is Live? It's a set of technologies designed to blend the programs people run on their computers, such as Windows or e-mail, with the things they do out on the Web. Live.com, for instance, is a next-gen Web portal loaded with services such as Windows Live Expo, where people can search classified ads on the Web and compare notes on bargains with people on their instant messenger buddy lists. Live "makes it feel like the Web isn't a place where you go to. It's linked [to desktop computing].... And it's very personal," says Microsoft Vice-President Blake Irving. That combination of PC and Web services is already drawing regulatory scrutiny. European Union Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes wrote to Microsoft Mar. 29, expressing concerns that Vista could limit consumer choice by giving Microsoft's own programs advantages over the alternatives. The letter raises the specter of an EU investigation prior to Vista's launch in Europe. Microsoft's reply: Consumers will continue to be able to choose whatever programs they like.AD CRAZY.