Archive for the ‘Web’ Category

Yahoo’s Bartz getting reading to go on a 2010 spending spree

Carol Bartz Believe it or not, Yahoo has a market cap of about $22 billion, and the company intends to put some of that money to good use in the near future.  Carol Bartz stated at the Transformation 2010 conference that she intends to acquire more stuff this year.

In response to what could have been a "yes" or "no" question concerning acquisitions in 2010, Bartz answered "absolutely," pretty much guaranteeing that at least one purchase will take place.  Bartz then explained to Abbey Klaassen, "This year it’s about what technologies: Do we need to fill in the blanks, what analytics, what tools?"

Bartz also said, "Well just imagine whether it’s acquiring an audience – a group of female bloggers, or whether it’s acquiring some better analytics tools that help us guide campaigns with our partners, or whether it’s technology.  Last year we bought at company called Zoobut, which is better photo technology, so it let us do very modern photos in our mail.  It’s that sort of thing – audience, technology and tools."

The next few months should be interesting time for Yahoo, given that Microsoft will soon begin to exert a huge influence over the search side of its operations.  Whatever purchases Bartz is considering could provide a good clue about what area(s) Yahoo will focus on moving forward.

One last note: For the record, Yahoo’s stock is moving up in early morning trading, perhaps giving the company a bigger shopping budget.

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Chart of the day: Yahoos falling behind GOOGLERS

Despite making serious reductions in headcount last year, Yahoo’s revenue per employee is still well below Google’s.

Yahoo employees generated an average $124,000 each in revenue during Q4 ‘09, down from $132,823 in Q4 ‘08. Google, which also had its own small headcount reduction, saw revenue per employee hit $336,467 in the fourth quarter, which is way up from $281,916 during the year-ago quarter.

It sure is nice to have that Google search advertising cash machine at its disposal, even as the company entertains dozens of new projects.

 

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Chart: The rise and fall of Palm

Palm shares dropped 20% today after the company warned that its smartphones aren’t selling as well as expected. The announcement follows a few downgrades of its stock, on the premise that RIM, Apple, and Google Android are running away with the smartphone industry, while Palm will be an also-ran.

Palm’s day-low of $6.30 is in the same range as Palm stock traded in mid-January 2009, just after the company unveiled the Pre smartphone and WebOS platform that represented the future of the company. Since then, shares have been all the way up to $18.09 — and all the way back down.

Palm rise and fall

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No Flash on the iPhone and iPad hurts Adobe more than Apple

Flash is on it's way to the grave thanks to Apple

While the iPhone is many things to many people, the lack of Flash support has been criticized wildly since day one. Now, with the dawn of the iPad only weeks away, these criticisms are one again coming to the forefront. The team at Apple Insider have recently dissected this argument from every angle and produced a lengthy text of their findings. Much to our surprise, they felt the lack of Flash support didn’t hurt the iPhone and iPad nearly as much as it hurts Flash.

    “The iPhone’s lack of support for Flash does not appear to have had any impact on its popularity, but clearly has played a significant role in devaluing the importance of Flash in mobile devices, even if other platforms are enthusiastically embracing Flash. At the same time, if developers on other platforms use Flash to reach those mobile audiences, they’ll being doing that instead of creating native software for Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile, and so on. That will also benefit Apple, because it will keep its iPhone App Store well ahead of rivals.”


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Xerox sues Google, Yahoo & YouTube

Image courtesy of www.techticker.co.uk

Xerox Corp. spent $840 million last year on research, development and engineering expenses, while R&D cost Eastman Kodak Co. $361 million.

Having made such sizable investments, the two technology-driven companies are showing particular aggressiveness in backing up their discoveries with lawsuits.

Xerox is going after three online giants, claiming in a federal lawsuit filed last week in Delaware that Google Inc., YouTube Inc. and Yahoo Inc. are infringing on its patents.

Kodak last month initiated legal actions against iPhone maker Apple Inc. and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion in federal court and before the U.S. International Trade Commission, arguing those companies’ devices are using technology to which Kodak has the rights.

A company’s intellectual property can represent big bucks. Kodak is waiting for the International Trade Commission to sign off on a $550 million settlement by Samsung Electronics Co. that would settle an imaging technology fight between the two companies.

Any company based in part on proprietary information is going to try to protect that information — particularly now, when business conditions remain tight, said Daniel Tessoni, assistant professor of accounting at Rochester Institute of Technology who specializes in business finance issues.

Egregious violations of protected technology typically get settled before they ever reach court, Tessoni said. The challenge for courts, he said, is to untangle conflicts when a competitor may have a product similar — but not identical — to patented technology and makes an argument that its product is distinctly different.

The Xerox legal brawl revolves around a pair of patents for methods used for generating searches related to a document and for methods of integrating information from various data sources.

According to Xerox, Google uses Xerox technology in its AdSense and AdWords software and its Google Maps and Google Video applications, while Yahoo uses it in its Yahoo Shopping, Yahoo Search Marketing and YQ Contextual Search offerings.

YouTube’s very existence, meanwhile, "embodies" one of the two patents, Xerox alleges in the suit.

In a statement, Yahoo said it "does not believe we infringe and plans to fight this case."

Echoed Google senior litigation counsel Catherine Lacavera: "These claims are entirely without merit, and we’ll defend against them vigorously."

YouTube did not respond to a message seeking comment.


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