Bill Gates has gone, what's his legacy?

From hippy to hanger on

This week marks another first in the 33-year history of Microsoft - life without Billg. The company and the man who co-founded it and rose to become the world's richest geek have parted ways. Bill Gates is no longer chief software architect and will be checking in only as company chairman.

Gates is hailed as the visionary who changed our lives by delivering on the vision of a PC in every home. Certainly, Gates and Microsoft came along at the right time. Ken Olson, former chairman and president of computing pioneer Digital Equipment Corp (DEC), is famed for saying in 1977 he saw no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home. It was also IBM's lack of interest in building software for PCs that gave Microsoft its first break.

Had it been left to companies like DEC and IBM, computing today would likely be a different, analogue, green-screen world.

The challenge of Gates, though, is to put him - and Microsoft - into context. The dictionary defines a visionary as someone “given to fanciful speculations and enthusiasms with little regard for what is actually possible” or “a person with unusual powers of foresight”.

Gates turned computing into a mass market by his focus on “experience” on a low-priced Intel box. He had the “vision” to see what Olson couldn’t when it came to PCs: that given the accessible and affordable tools ordinary people - not just those individuals staffing corporations or the engineering and scientific communities served by IBM and DEC - could do great things with computers. His success, though, turned him into another Olson, a man whose beliefs became contained and defined by the market his company had carved out.

OK, so we all know Gates was fascinated with the idea of the computer from an early age. Before there was Microsoft, there was Trafo-data, which he started with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen at high school to monitor traffic patterns across a roadway. The system used an Intel 8008 chip priced $360. The love affair with Intel, software and the power of what could be achieved was born.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/30/farewell_gates/

Yahoo reorg centralizes power

Yipes! Yahoo, under intense pressure, reorganized its upper management Thursday in a plan designed to improve its products, underlying technology, and operational execution, the company said.

The new structure leaves Chief Executive Jerry Yang and President Susan Decker at the top of the org chart. As expected, Ash Patel and Hilary Schneider will report to Decker, with Patel leading a new audience products division, and Schneider in charge of go-to-market operations for the United States region.

In addition, a third, as-yet-undetermined executive will report to Decker. That executive will run an "insights strategy team," with responsibilities for centralizing and running a Yahoo-wide strategy regarding use of data and analysis. The new executive will be named in coming weeks, Yahoo said Thursday.

The company also is forming some new groups. One, an audience technology group, will be led by Venkat Panchapakesan. Another group will focus on cloud computing and data infrastructure.

Yahoo underwent an executive exodus in the last two weeks, losing three executive vice presidents, two senior vice presidents, and others. It's not clear to what extent those departures were the cause or the result of the reorganization plan, but Decker indicated in a statement that the reorganization has been under way for months.

"The changes we're making today will help deliver superior global products for users and enable faster and better decision-making," Decker said. "This is a logical next step in light of our success last year in moving to a more centralized approach to developing world-class marketing products.

"We have planned these changes deliberately over the past several months to clarify responsibilities and to capitalize on the scale advantages while allowing for fine tuning to meet local market needs."

Yeah, but will this do it? Don't hold your breath, sports fans.....

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9978152-7.html

Major Internet Shakeup: New top-level internet addresses come with $100,000-plus price tag

Q&A: What do the new domains mean for me?

A new land grab for internet addresses has been sparked by the governing body for domain names — but with a minimum price tag of $100,000 (£50,000) it may not be a free-for-all.

The massive shake-up in the way that web addresses are assigned, approved this evening in Paris, will mean that people can now apply for a website that ends in any collection of letters — not just the .com-type domains that have dominated the web to date.

Alphabets other than the Latin — Chinese, Arabic and Cyrillic — will also be more widely represented in websites. But the new "top-level domains" , as .com and .co.uk are known, will have a hefty price tag.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) , which oversees the way internet addresses are assigned, said that the new domains would cost upwards of $100,000 to register, and will require significant resources to run.

"We are opening up new 'land' which people will be able to go out and claim — like the United States in the 19th century," Paul Twomey, the chief executive of Icann, said. "It's a massive increase in the real estate of the internet."

Internet experts said that the main beneficiaries would be city authorities (.nyc and .berlin are among the first expected to be sold); large companies who want to protect their brands; entrepreneurs who buy and sell domains, and millionaires.

The new system is the most significant overhaul of the underlying structure of the internet in many years. Websites will now be able to be written in full in 15 languages. Foreign scripts have been permitted in parts of an internet address, but the section after the final dot — where you would typically see .com, .org., or .gov — has been able to comprise only 37 characters — a-z, the digits 0-9, and the hyphen.

The relaxation of the rules is expected to inspire a new internet land grab, as companies, organisations and wealthy individuals muscle in on territory that was previously restricted to several generic domains, such as .com and .biz, as well as country codes, such as .fr (France) and .it (Italy).

Would-be applicants are advised that the process is different from registering a regular website. Top-level domains require significant equipment — including servers, routers, and databases — to run. "These new names are not going to be for mom-and-pop businesses," Dr Twomey said.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4218629.ece

Deal or No Deal? Oops, No Deal!

Look, a Yahoo-Microsoft deal could happen anytime. Just not yesterday, as it turns out.

It’s easy to be taken in by so-called “sources,” chatting up a new series of talks between Microsoft and Yahoo, either to do a deal to revisit the partial search-outsourcing partnership or to try to one-up that by claiming rather grandly that there is yet another effort to buy the company whole.

But with Yahoo’s stock dropping like a knife and hovering near the dangerous $20-a-share mark yesterday, anyone reporting on the situation should have been deeply cautious about floating rumors about renewed deal-making between the star-crossed pair.

As it is often said, there’s one born every minute, and like clockwork, Yahoo’s stock got an undeserved boost due to those unconfirmed stories.

You did not hear it here first, because BoomTown suddenly got the exact same calls too yesterday–coincidence? I think not!–from “sources” touting Microsoft-Yahoo as “back on.”

But I simply could not confirm it to our site’s standards of reporting. Which is to say, aiming for trying to report with full accuracy versus repeating errant chatter that is so typical now in this deal.

Thus, I declined to crunch on that tasty, but non-nutritious, morsel and opted instead to try to get confirmation from sources who actually knew what is going on.

And those sources at both Yahoo and Microsoft, who certainly can spin like dervishes when need be, emphatically went out of their way yesterday–which is not so typical–to deny any talks were going on or that anything had changed since Microsoft had walked away from a bid for the whole of Yahoo in May or since it had lost out on another effort to do a partial deal.

http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080625/deal-or-no-deal-oops-no-deal/

The High-Tech Job Capital Is Silicon Valley? Not. …It's The Big Apple?

According to a report released today from AeA, a tech industry trade group, New York and its surrounding metropolitan area leads the nation when it comes to the number of high-tech jobs. Rounding out the top five in order were Washington, D.C.; San Jose/Silicon Valley, Boston, and Dallas-Fort Worth.

New York had 316,500 high-tech jobs, while Silicon Valley had 225,300, according to the AeA.

The study looked at employment throughout 2006; it was the first city-level report created by the AeA since 2000, before the tech bubble burst.

Silicon Valley does have the highest density of high-tech workers, with 28.6% of private sector jobs in the high-tech field. As a much larger metro area with a more diverse set of industries, New York does not even make the top five. (The AeA defines a “high-tech” job as being in one of 49 categories culled from the standardized North American Industrial Classification System that involve creating high-tech products or services.)

If it’s money you’re after, the Valley is the best place to find the highest-paying high-tech jobs, with salaries averaging $144,800. Seattle, number five on the salary list, pays an average of $96,197, while New York–not exactly the cheapest place to live–pays its high-tech workers $91,451.

Coming in at the bottom of the tech-salary scale is San Juan, Puerto Rico. High-tech workers there make just $38,422 on average.

Not every city has the same types of high-tech jobs. Silicon Valley leads in semiconductor manufacturing, while Seattle is the software publishing capital. Computer system design is Washington, D.C.’s purview. And New York has the highest concentration of Internet services jobs.

But all is not rosy in high-tech land. The report warns that the U.S. is in danger of losing its high-tech edge due to the federal government’s policy not to grant visas or green cards to many foreign students studying here, resulting in a “tremendous number of unfilled jobs,” said Christopher Hansen, AeA’s president and chief executive officer, in an interview Monday.

At the same time, the U.S. educational system is not producing a sufficient number of graduates to fill those slots. “Our public schools are not generating the kinds of people who can go into engineering and math and compete,” Mr. Hansen said.

The result is that many high-tech companies are forced to relocate their operations abroad, where they can find the skilled help they need. Mr. Hansen said that allowing foreigners to work in the high-tech industry here would only generate more jobs. His proof: eBay, Google, Intel, Sun, and Yahoo have either a founder or co-founder who was not American-born.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/the-high-tech-job-capital-isthe-big-apple
/index.html?ref=technology

Gates: Thanks for the memories

Co-founder shares surprises, letdowns, morsels from early Microsoft days

If you ask Bill Gates what life will be like when he stops working full time at Microsoft, he'll have to get back to you. That's because, a week away from the transition, he still hasn't slowed down his pace. If anything, things have picked up as he tries to have one last meeting with all the leaders and projects that are important to him.

Gates, who dropped out of school more than 30 years ago to run Microsoft, steps down from full-time work on Friday. He'll remain chairman and a part-time Microsoft employee.

The Microsoft co-founder did take some time out of his schedule recently to sit down with CNET News.com's Ina Fried and offer some reflections on the early days of the PC market as well as thoughts on where Microsoft is now and what technologies he will need in his new role, working full time for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

In the interview, Gates shared some little-known stories from the company's early days, including the fact that Microsoft seriously entertained combining with Lotus, but talks ended when that company's chief executive pulled out. Gates also noted that Microsoft was invited and then uninvited to the launch event for the first IBM PC.

"We'd been invited, and then they decided not to invite us," Gates said. "Well, we had been working night and day. I had told people, yeah, we had this invitation that said, yeah, we're going to go, there's going to be a big deal. And then they decided, nah, we don't want you to come to the thing. That was a little bit of a downer."

Q: As you've been thinking about the transition, what are the kinds of things that have been on your mind the most?

Gates: Well, for 33 years I've worked at Microsoft and come in every day, and thought about what are the new things we need to do, and what's my personal role in that, a lot of e-mail, lot of meetings, lot of product reviews. So, in a sense it's hard for me to project what it's going to be like for me or Microsoft when I'm not here.

As long as I'm here, I'm still sending a lot of e-mail and in a lot of meetings, and so the real change in terms of people having an opportunity to step up and do things, to some degree it's after July 1 when my involvement is only a very specific involvement on particular projects as opposed to the overall strategy thing.

Everybody likes to pick the current competitive battles that we're in, and kind of think, OK, those are the big things. For me, I'd pick like tablet or interactive TV that are, according to me--but I've been over-optimistic before--on the verge of big, big impact. So, I've been sending a lot of mail to the tablet and interactive TV team, sort of sending the mail I would have sent three months from now, now, just giving them encouragement. Because, you know, all the big successes, whether it's Office integration or Windows, it takes a long time for those things to get established.

We thought it would be a good idea for me to go to the Windows 7 group and go see the work, and I was thrilled. Steven Sinofsky took me around, showed me what they're doing.

So, you're going to product group by product group?

Gates: Well, in terms of big meetings, that's pretty much done. Like the Windows group had a meeting, and the Surface group had a meeting, but this is more just sitting down with the top executives, so Stephen Elop, Craig Mundie, Kevin Turner.

The timing is actually pretty good. We just did our business reviews. We do the business planning, which is for the next fiscal year, which starts July 1. So, we have the plans in place, and I sat through that last set of reviews, but it's a perfect example of something that as just a board member working on projects I won't sit in those business plan reviews in the future. I mean, Steve (Ballmer) may ask me to sit in on one that touches directly on something I'm doing, but the default is that I'm not there at all.

I hear search is one you're still pretty enthused about.

Gates: Yeah, that doesn't mean I'd necessarily go to their business plan review, but I've developed a relationship with them where brainstorming and thinking about what things we'd pick and how we do it.

You know, it's another good example of something that breakthrough work is not--doesn't happen in a day; it happens in many years. Now, many of those years fortunately are the years we've already put into it, but to really help that keep on track, and just to give them the positive feedback as they're going through it, that group, that's actually the only one that's truly concrete at this point where literally we've scheduled out a bit this summer and even some into the fall when and how I'm going to look at various aspects of their work.

http://news.cnet.com/Gates-big-send-off/2009-1014_3-6242276.html

Yahoo!'s Decker! defends! Goo-Hoo!

Yahoo! president Susan Decker has criticised the company’s naysayers, many of whom have protested against the fraught firm’s recent web search ad deal with Google.

In an interview with Reuters on Friday, she insisted that the new Goo-Hoo! agreement would not nullify Yahoo!’s position in the internet search market where it is second-placed behind, er, Google.

Decker said Yahoo!’s Panama search advertising system would not be hampered by the deal. Instead she reckoned the agreement would help bring in more cash off of less popular search terms.

“It’s really a back-fill in places where we’re not doing much business,” she said. “It’s our choice every day whether and how we might serve ads from Yahoo! or Google, or a third party if we opened it up further.”

But she refused to be drawn on the inner turmoil that has engulfed Yahoo! over the past week, which has seen a number of key executives scurry for the exit door.

Shares, which are currently trading at $21.99 on Wall Street, have tumbled 16 per cent since the Sunnyvale, California-based firm walked away from buyout talks with Microsoft.

Decker, did however acknowledge why many gobsmacked investors have grumbled about the company’s surprising Google tie-in.

“This is a unique deal. The market and participants are still getting their arms around what this means,” she said.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/23/yahoo_susan_decker_defends_goohoo/

Facebook now bigger than MySpace

Facebook has overtaken MySpace in terms of global visitors and page views, according to the latest comScore figures. Facebook has long been more popular in the UK, having moved past MySpace in September 2007.

According to independent web-traffic analyst comScore, Facebook globally attracted 123.9 million unique visitors and 50.6 billion page views in May. MySpace, formerly the number one social-networking site, managed only 114.6 million unique visitors and 45.4 billion page views.

News Corp's MySpace was recently redesigned in a bid to attract new users. It remains more popular in the US than Facebook, notching up 73.7 million unique visitors in May versus Facebook's 35.6 million.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=13489

Jobs' 91% approval rating from employees misleading

A fledgling company going by the name of glassdoor.com is coming up with some interesting numbers for CEO approval ratings across all industries. The CEO ratings, only a portion of what the site offers, are based upon anonymous reviews submitted by current and former employees. The site also collects salary information for companies and posts it so that employees can see whether their level of compensation is on par with the rest of the industry. The catch? You have to post a review to get more then precursory information regarding the company you're interested in.

Fortunately for us, the site is sharing some of that data with the masses. Glassdoor has received some 40,000 reviews on 9,800 companies since launch, one of which is, of course, Apple. The pertinent information here is the approval rating of one Steve Jobs, CEO of the Cupertino-based company. According to SeekingAlpha's coverage, Jobs' approval rating among former and current employees is currently a robust 91 percent. While the company claims that two out of every ten reviews is rejected based on the posting criteria, we have to wonder whether 91 percent is an accurate number.

This is, of course, the same Steve Jobs who is infamous for firing employees on the same elevator as him in the past, and who, in recent years, has been seen throwing digital cameras across the stage at Macworld. I'm not doubting that the majority of Apple employees are satisfied with their CEO's performance and resurrection of the company, but I'm doubting the sample that the number is taken from.

According to the sample information given on glassdoor.com, five of the sample ten reviews are provided by Apple Store employees in retail locations throughout the country, and only one of the ten actually works in Cupertino. While there are 176 reviews total regarding the company, one has to wonder just how many are from people that have no experience actually coming into contact with the CEO.

http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/06/23/jobs-91-approval-rating-
from-employees-somewhat-misleading

Microsoft to Yahoo Shareholders: Fire Jerry And We Might Bid Again*

UPDATE: Microsoft says this story is the result of a translation issue and that nothing has changed (i.e., per Microsoft, Kevin Johnson didn't say what Bloomberg is saying he said.)

EARLIER: A long game of press telephone is reporting that Microsoft honcho Kevin Johnson said Microsoft may consider making another bid for Yahoo if Yahoo's management changes. Translation: "Hey, Yahoo shareholders, Fire Jerry and the board at the shareholder meeting, and we might ease your pain."

Important to note that this is:

* Not a direct quote

* A Bloomberg write-up of a Financial Times Deutschland story

* Kevin Johnson comments may have been made in English and translated into German and back into English, leaving all kinds of room for interpretation. In the second paragraph of the Bloomberg write-up, for example (see below), Johnson is said to have said that Microsoft intends to be No. 1 in search. If he actually said this, he has not only significantly increased Microsoft's search ambitions, he's delusional.

We're requesting further info. But in the meantime...

By Andreas Hippin

June 23 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. may make a new bid
for Yahoo! Inc. if Yahoo's management changes, Financial Times
Deutschland reported, citing Kevin Johnson, head of the
software maker's Platform & Services unit.

Microsoft plans to strengthen its online advertising
business with smaller targeted acquisitions, the newspaper
quoted Johnson as saying. In the long run Microsoft wants to be
number one in search-engine advertising, FTD reported, citing
Johnson.

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/microsoft_to_yahoo_shareholders_
fire_jerry_and_we_might_bid_again

Yahoo’s Executive Structure Crumbles

It’s only been a few hours since we posted the ex-Yahoo Exec tracking spreadsheet, but it’s already seriously outdated. Three more execs will be leaving, say sources close to the company: EVP Qi Lu, SVP Brad Garlinghouse and SVP Vish Makhijani.

As an aside, Jeremy Zawodny, Yahoo’s technology evangelist who announced his departure last week, has announced he’ll be joining Craigslist next month.

Vish Makhijani

Vish Makhijani, the SVP and General Manager of Search, is leaving, say our sources, to become CEO of Yandex, the “Google of Russia.” Yandex dominates the search market in Russia and is rumored to be going public later this year. Makhijani is a long time Yahoo exec, joining the company when it acquired Inktomi in 2002. Vish reported to EVP Jeff Weiner, who resigned earlier this week.

Brad Garlinghouse

Brad Garlinghouse is the Communications & Communities at Yahoo and controls huge properties like Mail (260 million users), Messenger (100 million users), Groups (110 million users), Flickr (47 million users) and Zimbra. Around 600 people report to Garlinghouse, who has been vocal over the last two years in calling for a significant overhaul of how the company does business. Prior to joining Yahoo, Brad served as CEO of Dialpad Communications. Earlier in his career, Brad led VC investments in communications and Internet businesses at @Ventures. He also spent time in leadership roles at @Home Network and SBC Communications.

It’s not clear where Garlinghouse is headed next, the rumor is multiple private equity firms are vying for his attention. Frankly, given his operating experience (he grew most of the properties under his control to no. 1 in their market, even as Yahoo search fell apart over the years), it’s too bad he isn’t ending up in a CEO role somewhere.

Qi Lu

This rumor has been floating around for months, but EVP Qi Lu, the EVP engineering for Search and Advertising Technology Group, will be leaving Yahoo shortly. Lu reports to CTO Aristotle Balogh. He is the chief architect of Yahoo’s Panama search marketing platform (which means his job became significantly less interesting since the Yahoo/Google deal).

Brad Garlinghouse and Vish Makhijani were considered serious contenders to take over departing EVP Jeff Weiner’s role - obviously they’re both off the table now. But a bigger concern is that there just isn’t much executive talent left at Yahoo at this point, other than CEO Jerry Yang and President Sue Decker, who are increasingly isolated and seem to have lost the trust of all but the Yahoo board.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/19/yahoos-executive-structure-crumbles
-lu-garlinghouse-and-makhijani-to-leave/

Steve Jobs and Apple's $19 billion sneeze

LA Notebook: The incredible plunging share price

For most of us, the flu costs nothing more than the price of a box of Lemsip and a couple of days off work. For Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, the illness has turned out to be a bit more expensive than that.

Like $19 billion more expensive. Which, when you think about it, probably works out at a couple of hundred million dollars per sneeze.

It took me until Friday last week to realise what was going on. Every time I looked at my iPhone's home page, I saw something unusual- Apple's share price symbol was in red, followed by a negative number.

All this was made more baffling by the presentation given last week by Mr Jobs on the new, cheaper, souped-up iPhone at a conference in San Francisco. I've been to these events before, and they are like rock concerts. Music blares. Huge video screens loom. And then on comes Mr Jobs, in black turtleneck, frameless John Lennon glasses, jeans and trainers. He always looks slightly extraterrestrial - as though he is still readjusting to such novel concepts as gravity and an oxygen-based atmosphere. Predictably, the analysts loved every minute. The new iPhone prices could have a short-term impact on profitability, they said, but on account of Apple's imminent world domination, they would upgrade their long-term forecasts.

So what happened? The problem, it turned out, was the video of Mr Jobs's presentation that circulated on YouTube. Bloggers noticed that the Apple chief looked a bit thinner than usual, which - naturally - led to speculation about his imminent death. I say naturally, because Mr Jobs recovered from pancreatic cancer a few years back, but didn't announce it publicly until he was in the clear. This time, Apple went on the offensive, announcing that Mr Jobs had a “common bug”. Alas, that wasn't enough to stop $19 billion vanishing from the company's stock market value.

Which proves, I think, that the description of Mr Jobs as a “rock star” is no longer accurate. After all, dying is usually a good career move for a rock star. No, he is a deity - a messiah in Apple's corporate theocracy. And when God catches flu, people get worried.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/chris_ayres/article4152295.ece

Microsoft Gets Into Interactive TV Ads; Buys Navic Networks For An Estimated $200 to $300 Million

Microsoft is going after the $70 billion spent on TV ads every year. This morning it announced that it will acquire Navic Networks, a company based in Waltham, Massachusetts that delivers interactive ads across cable TV networks.

The price was not disclosed, but a source close to the company pegs it at between $200 million and $300 million. Navic raised about $43 million between 1999 and 2001 from Himalaya Capital, Highland Capital Partners, Pequot (now FirstMark Capital), Pilot House Ventures, and Gary Lauder.

Navic’s ads are interactive overlays similar to what some advertisers are trying with online video. Except that they are targeted by zipcode to each cable subscriber. As you are watching a regular TV commercial, for instance, you could click on an overlay that opens up a window with more information on the screen, or ask for a brochure to be sent to you via e-mail or regular mail (since the cable company has your address, that’s easy).

TV still represents the majority of advertising spending, and Microsoft needs to be a player there if it wants advertising to become a significant portion of its revenues. While Navic brings interactivity to TV advertising, it does not yet tie back into online advertising campaigns. Microsoft could bridge that gap.

Google is already experimenting with TV ads that can be bought through AdWords and measured on Google Analytics. But Google is confined to Echostar satellite TV subscribers, because the cable companies don’t want to give it access to their subscribers (and have their own effort, the Project Canoe, to crack this nut). Spot Runner is also moving towards integrating online and TV ad campaigns. Although, it runs regular video ads on TV, not interactive ones.

As I’ve argued before, what we need is the interactivity and targeting ability of Web video ads on TV. Perhaps this is a step in that direction.

http://www.techcrunch.com/

Curse me, Beat Me, Make Me Write Bad Cheques: Lehman chief accepts blame

Dickie Fuld, Lehman Brothers’ CEO and BSD, took personal responsibility on Monday for the investment bank’s embarrassing $2.8bn second-quarter loss, the first in its 14-year history as a public company, and said he remained confident in its future prospects as an independent entity.

“This is my responsibility,” Fuld said during a rare appearance on a conference call to discuss quarterly earnings. “We made active decisions to deploy our capital, some of which in hindsight were poor choices because we really didn’t act quickly enough to the eroding environment.”

Fuld also rejected arguments that Lehman’s earnings power had been permanently eroded by the evaporation of significant fixed-income revenues, especially in mortgage-related products, and by the bank’s decision to reduce dramatically its reliance on borrowed money to boost profits.

“Our core business and our strategy are sound,” Fuld said. He added that Lehman had made enough inroads in equities, merger advisory, asset management and other areas, as well as broadened its reach in Asia and Europe, to make up for much of the fixed-income declines.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/50a84d4c-3b99-11dd-9cb2-0000779fd2ac.html

Goldman to the Rescue

Goldman Sachs is close to finalizing a plan to restructure a $7bn investment vehicle formerly run by London-based hedge fund Cheyne Capital, in a move that could potentially usher in a crucial new phase in the credit turmoil.

The US bank’s proposed reorganisation of the so-called structured investment vehicle is set to be just the first of a number of deals that could see about $18bn worth of SIV assets restructured in the coming months.

The deal, which could be signed as early as Tuesday, is likely to be closely watched by the financial industry, since Cheyne is one of the largest independent SIVs – and the deal marks the first time that any collapsed SIV has been restructured in this way.

Deloitte & Touche, which was brought in as receiver for the SIV formerly known as Cheyne Finance, was on Monday close to signing off on the plan. The SIV went into receivership last autumn when the value of its credit assets, such as mortgage-linked securities, plunged.

The Cheyne restructuring, which has been brokered after nearly 10 months of negotiations, will require the receivers to organise an auction of the Cheyne assets in the coming weeks, to establish a transparent price for these instruments. This is important because in recent months it has often proved impossible to value these murky assets.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/db9ed2e0-3bd5-11dd-9cb2-0000779fd2ac.html

Goldman and Morgan Stanley make money the old-fashioned way…

On Wall Street, where just about everyone has lost confidence in financial assets, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley are making money the old-fashioned way: Buying and selling commodities.

Goldman and Morgan Stanley are expected by analysts to report the best second-quarter earnings of the world's biggest securities firms this week, having limited their losses from the collapsing credit market. They also lead Wall Street in commodities trading, where crude oil futures doubled in the past year and the price of products from gold to corn soared to record highs.

Surging prices are attracting investors, as well as companies hedging their positions by buying derivatives. That's played to the strength of Goldman and Morgan Stanley, which dominate the market for commodity derivatives. The two New York-based companies accounted for about half of the $15 billion of revenue that the world's 10 largest investment banks generated from commodities last year, said Ethan Ravage, a financial-services industry consultant in San Francisco.

Commodity trading ``is very large for them, and that is even more important now given what's happening with the rest of the businesses,'' said Frank Feenstra, a consultant at Greenwich Associates, the Greenwich, Connecticut-based research firm whose survey last month found Goldman and Morgan Stanley were the preferred dealers of corporate users of commodity derivatives. ``There are more commodities used, more hedging by companies, and the investor population has increased significantly as well.''

Goldman probably will report a 32 percent drop in second- quarter profit today, and Morgan Stanley may say on June 18 that net income fell 59 percent from a year earlier, according to the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Tch, tch…

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aboqiSz1AZm4&refer=exclusive

Don’t worry. Be Happy! Baba Ramdev has a cure for everything, including economic woe

Baba Ramdev is all you could wish for in a guru. An aggressively luxuriant beard frames his almost manically lopsided smile. Clad entirely in orange, he is fantastically charismatic, occasionally enigmatic and belches with authoritative ease while waxing lyrical on the wonders of yoga.

So far, so cranky. But those under the illusion that swamis such as Baba Ramdev belong to a bygone era - to an India of maharajahs and rope tricks, if one ever really existed - should think again. Baba Ramdev will pull in revenues of at least £20 million this year. He represents a new generation of superstar lifestyle leaders, one that is gaining ever-greater traction both commercially and ideologically among the sub-continent's newly affluent middle classes.

It is an intriguing sales pitch. “I foresee nobody suffering from pain,” Baba Ramdev tells The Times at his 500-acre headquarters in Haridwar, a pilgrimage town built on an especially propitious spot where the Ganges emerges from the Himalayas.

Vegetarianism, breathing exercises and ayurvedic medicinal treatments (which range from having warm oil drizzled over one's body to the less-pleasant-sounding induced vomiting) are central to this vision - but so are population control, compulsory voting, an end to corruption and swadesi (a kind of economic nationalism). “With this, perhaps India will be a superpower in 15 or 20 years,” he says. Hmmm. I wonder what the Kamasutra has to say about that…..

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/health/article4132763.ece

More speculation on Jerry Yang's fate

Kara Swisher puts Sue Decker at the top of her list to succeed Jerry Yang as Yahoo CEO if he returns to his former position of founder and Chief Yahoo. She acknowledges that Decker has been part of the team that put Yahoo in its current position, but that she "might blossom if she had full control" over the company. It seems that she already has a lot of control over the company, based on her performance at the D6 conference and analyst calls over the last few months.

Kara also listed former eBay CEO Meg Whitman (who is busy as co-chair of the McCain presidential campaign), former Yahoo COO Dan Rosensweig and even Mark Cuban. Check out Kara's complete list.

Whatever transpires, it would be very difficult for Yang to give up the CEO seat. He wants to prove that he can turn around the company, but he may not be given a chance given all the tumult. Since Microsoft pounced on February 1st, Yang's purple blood has been in the water, drawing a number of detractors, such as Carl Icahn, who would like to see him and the board gone.

Replacing Yang and appointing Decker as CEO or bringing in an outsider to run the company isn't going to dramatically alter the course of Yahoo history. The company needs to to focus on products--getting its Yahoo Open Strategy and AMP! advertising platform released. With a number of key people leaving and the ongoing drama around Yahoo's future, Yang's to-do list is not getting any less challenging

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13953_3-9970395-80.html?tag=nefd.riv

Yahoo `Damaged Goods' After Yang Fails to Revive Deal

Yahoo! Inc. CEO Jerry Yang's five-month conflict with Microsoft Corp. ended yesterday. The outcome may not be good for him or the Internet company's investors.

Yahoo said yesterday it scrapped talks after Microsoft refused to pay the $47.5 billion it offered last month. Instead Yang unveiled a partnership with Google Inc. While that deal may add $800 million to annual sales, it may not be enough to push the stock above $30, Canaccord Adams's Colin Gillis said.

``When Microsoft walked, it was a real walk,'' the analyst said. The New York-based analyst recommends selling Yahoo shares. ``This deal has the perception of damaged goods.''

The Google accord may make Yang more vulnerable in a proxy fight against billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who says Yang botched the Microsoft negotiations. Even if shareholders opt to replace the company's directors with Icahn's candidates, Microsoft is no longer showing an interest in buying Yahoo, owner of the second most popular online search engine.

Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. and Citigroup Inc. cut their estimates on Yahoo's stock price, saying advertisers probably will shift more spending to Google. Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, California, dropped 85 cents, or 3.6 percent, to $22.67 at 9:38 a.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market after falling 10 percent yesterday.

Microsoft rose 53 cents, or 1.9 percent, to $28.77. The world's biggest software maker doesn't want to buy all of Yahoo, even at the $33-a-share price it bid before the end of talks May 3. While Microsoft proposed buying just Yahoo's search business, its directors declined.

Co-founded more than a decade ago by Yang and David Filo, Yahoo had reported eight straight quarters of profit declines before Microsoft's bid and is now relying on its biggest rival for growth.

``This just reaffirms the view that Yahoo, and particularly Jerry Yang and David Filo, blew it,'' said Mark May, an analyst at Needham & Co. in New York. ``It's hard to see how this management team is going to be able to extract or create value anywhere near 33 bucks a share anytime soon.''

Yahoo will allow Google to sell advertising for some of its users' searches in exchange for a portion of the revenue from that advertising. The agreement, which covers sites in the U.S. and Canada, may add as much as $450 million in operating cash flow in the first 12 months, Yahoo said. The agreement isn't exclusive, meaning that other companies besides Yahoo and Google will be able to sell ads that appear on Yahoo's pages.

The accord has a four-year initial term, and two three-year renewals if Yahoo requests them. Advertisers will pay Yahoo directly for ad clicks through its Panama advertising system and pay Google when that company's ads appear on Yahoo's pages. Google will share a percentage of the revenue with Yahoo.

Yahoo spokeswoman Diana Wong didn't return a phone message seeking comment.

The Google agreement ``will strengthen our company's position,'' Yang, 39, said yesterday in a conference call. ``We believe that an open market is critical.''

Google was charging advertisers as much as 70 percent more per search as of late last year, according to Yahoo. The sales boost may add $3 to $5 to Yahoo's stock, depending on how the deal is implemented, said Jeff Lindsay, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York. U.S. government regulatory scrutiny of the agreement could siphon away some of that value, he said.

The U.S. Senate Antitrust Subcommittee will ``closely examine'' the arrangement, said Chairman Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat. Microsoft has said a Yahoo-Google deal would put more than 90 percent of the search ad market in Mountain View, California-based Google's hands.

Yahoo and Google are waiting up to three and a half months to give the U.S. Justice Department time to review the program before they adopt it.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aPGENllz_g44&refer=us

Is the iPhone, the next great operating system for the 21st Century?

Jobs should only be so lucky. Whatever...Jobs always tries to save the best for last. Today, at the end of his keynote speech at the Apple Worldwide Developer's Conference, he unleashed a kicker that he knew would make some headlines. Everybody knew that the big product announcement was going to be a souped-up version of the iPhone that exchanged the molasses of AT&T's EDGE data network (barely better than dial-up) for the greasy lighting of 3G broadband (more like Wi-Fi). No one was surprised that Apple would catch up with competitors by building GPS location technology into the phone. And it was a foregone conclusion that Jobs would demonstrate a number of new applications that took advantage of a software development kit (SDK) released to apps creators earlier this year.

What was hidden up the sleeve of Jobs's black cotton turtleneck was the price: the 3G iPhone, which goes on sale July 11, will sell for $199. (If you want 16 gigs of memory instead of the standard 8, you'll pay $100 more.) An iPhone vastly improved over the $600 (then cut to $400) original—for 200 bucks. Did you see that coming?

The monthly fees for unlimited data will be increased—from EDGE's $20 to a $30 charge for 3G—but that seems a reasonable bump considering that the speed will be doubled. An AT&T spokesperson explained to me that the deal with Apple is not a revenue-sharing plan but something more akin to a standard arrangement with a headset manufacturer where a carrier subsidizes part of the price in exchange for revenue for data and voice services in the months to come. In any case, those who have been griping about the high cost or low speed of an iPhone will now have to find something else to gripe about. And those moaning about the $400 or $600 they spent for an original iPhone will have to console themselves that the upgrade won't cost too much (though the aftermarket for original iPhones is now deader than that for Hillary Clinton campaign buttons).

But though the low price will dominate iPhone chatter between now and July 11, there is actually a much bigger iPhone story to tell. Today marked the official transformation of Jobs's original vision of the iPhone—from a world-beating product to a contender for the first big operating system of the 21st century. Much of Jobs's keynote consisted of demos of some of the hundreds of applications that either will ship with the new iPhone or will be available in the new iPhone App Store (which sells apps in the same manner that the iTunes store sells songs and videos).

Jobs took pains to trumpet, before this audience of software developers, how easy it was to create applications for the iPhone that take advantage of its built-in features like motion sensors, multitouch control, maps, and voice technology (since this is a phone, too). He even unveiled a scheme whereby people could distribute miniapplications to small groups (like a teacher creating an app for his or her classes).

All of this represents a drastic shift from Jobs's original contention that the iPhone would be a fairly closed system, even though it used the same operating system as the Macintosh. In an interview after the January 2007 announcement of the iPhone, Jobs said that we shouldn't think of the device as a general-purpose computer, but more like an iPod, which runs very few applications mostly written by Apple.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/140786

Apple may have murdered the BlackBerry

During the first hour of Steve Jobs' keynote at WWDC, I was wondering why I was wasting my afternoon listening to his stooges drone on about software. But then, in a moment of pure triumph, Steve walked onto the stage and unveiled the new 3G iPhone.

Sure, it was exactly what we expected (minus the MMS), but it also was a call to arms. Instead of maintaining its status as the consumer's cell phone, the iPhone is now the every-person's cell phone and has RIM firmly centered in its sights.

RIM may be the leader in the enterprise market right now and companies like Microsoft will constantly claim that they can hold their own, but rest assured that this is a two horse race. And although the BlackBerry has led the way, Steve Jobs just dealt a decisive blow that will not only force RIM to capitulate, but could see the end of the BlackBerry line altogether.

It may sound extreme at first glance, but trust me, Apple has pushed all the right buttons and played its match perfectly. And as long as the company can get through July without any hiccups, RIM will be left out in the cold.

So why do I have such high praise for the new 3G iPhone? Isn't it just an updated version of the same old thing we've been using for the past year? Isn't it just the logical evolution of a product that seemed all too overwhelming last year and so underwhelming today?

No.

The 3G iPhone is the first real salvo Apple has fired at RIM. RIM has told the world that it believes that it has the best horse in the race. Sure, it may right now. But on July 11, I just don't see how the company could even hint that it still does.

First and foremost, the 3G iPhone will be quicker. And while RIM already has some delightfully fast BlackBerrys on the market, none are the iPhone.

Secondly, the iPhone will soon allow companies and individuals alike, to create and install applications from third-parties. And while RIM already has some third-party applications for the BlackBerry and a similar, albeit less sophisticated, program, it's not the iPhone.

Thirdly, the iPhone will offer the kind of business functionality enterprises have been waiting for. And although RIM is easily the most business-friendly company in the space right now and its BlackBerry is the product of choice for many professionals, it's not the iPhone.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-9963839-17.html

EC' snubs Microsoft Office

Choose life, choose open standards

European anti-trust commissioner Neelie Kroes today strongly rebuffed Microsoft by urging businesses and governments to use software based on open standards.

“I know a smart business decision when I see one – choosing open standards is a very smart business decision indeed,” said Kroes. “No citizen or company should be forced or encouraged to choose a closed technology over an open one.”

“Steelie” Neelie issued the scathing statement at a conference in Brussels this morning, reports the New York Times.

The European Commission, when making decisions on what technology to use, should choose to adopt open, well-documented standards over propriety ones, said Kroes.

EU agencies “must not rely on one vendor” and “must refuse to become locked into a particular technology – jeopardising maintenance of full control over the information in its possession,” she said.

In February Kroes slapped a record-breaking €1.35bn fine on Redmond for violating European competition rules. The EC jacked up the fine after the firm failed to comply with the original anti-trust ruling that found Microsoft was charging competitors too much for interoperability information for its servers.

Microsoft refused to cough up the initial penalty of €497m handed down by Kroes in 2004.

Kroes had said that she hoped the decision to issue two periodic penalty payments would close “a dark chapter in Microsoft's record of non-compliance."

However, at the start of this year the EC began two fresh investigations into Microsoft’s business practices following complaints about the software giant’s Internet Explorer browser and interoperability issues with its Office apps.

The Commission is also probing how the International Standards Organisation (ISO) ratified Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) as a second standard alongside Open Document Format (ODF) in March this year.

Microsoft secured enough votes despite a wide range of complaints against the firm’s highly controversial document format which is perhaps years away from being compatible even with its own Office products.

Late last week the ISO confirmed that four national standards body members – Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela – had issued formal appeals against the approval of OOXML as an international standard.

Officials at the ISO and the International Electrotechnical Commission will consider the appeals with an outcome expected to be announced by the end of June.

If the two management boards agree to carry the appeals forward, a panel will be established and the process to resolve the dispute could take several months, thereby delaying the official blessing of OOXML as an international standard.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/10/neelie_kroes_snubs_microsoft_office/

Microprocessors are the new funny cigarettes

JP Morgan urges chip CEOs to inhale

Chip companies need to start acting their age, according to a sage analyst.

Chris Danely, director of semiconductor research at JP Morgan, thinks the major semiconductor players should behave more like old-line companies in the tobacco, food and oil games. He'd like to see the chip firms manage their cash better and reward shareholders with larger dividends. He'd also like them to slash the hell out of their research and development budgets and stop acting like super fancy innovators when they're really just stodgy manufacturing machines.

"Think more like Phillip Morris and less like Google," Danely said. "I know it is very hard to talk like this."

Danely's line is especially hard to swallow out here in Silicon Valley where besting the competitive turmoil that stems from Moore's Law through innovation is meant to be the goal. But that didn't stop Danely from cramming his pitch right down the gullets of Valleyites during last night's annual "Semiconductor Forecast" event held by the Churchill Club.

Other speakers at the event echoed some of Danely's underlying sentiments. The rather mature chip industry looks much less volatile nowadays as compared to even just 10 years ago when boom and bust cycles were the natural companions of silicon. Now, we find an industry that grows revenue at about 10 per cent per year or twice the US GDP.

"There are tons of industries out there that would love to have 10 per cent growth," Danely said. "Now that we are out of this hyper-growth phase, it is time to run semiconductor businesses more like a normal company."

Danely seemed quite taken with Mark Hurd's approach at HP, celebrating the decision to "cut some unnecessary R&D projects" and to manage cash "very efficiently."

Speaking about the chip industry in this way certainly removes a bit of its luster. But Sangeeth Peruri, another panelist and managing director at big money house J. & W. Seligman & Co., said that the chip industry's maturation and stabilization opens up some new opportunities for investors.

Investors now have the time to take closer looks at companies' fundamentals and management. So, you can buy into a company after careful study, worrying less about whether you're timing the purchase for the right cycle, since the cycles are less dramatic these days.

"You used to get killed if you got the cycles wrong," Peruri said.

A number of the analysts expressed concerns over the US tax rebate handed out this year. They expect the boost to fade in the coming months and wonder how that dwindling cash will combine with still struggling banks and a still grim housing market.

"I think we are going to have a recession," Peruri said. "I don't know when it will hit."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/06/churchill_club_chip/

Google Gmail turns some new tricks, with new bigger and better tools

OMFG, those old rticks were so-o-o tired. It’s about time!

Google will invite users to try new features the company is considering adding to its Gmail service, the company said Thursday.

At 6 p.m. PDT Thursday, users will be able to select from 13 new features in a "labs" tab in the Gmail settings page, said Keith Coleman, a Gmail product manager, in a meeting with reporters here.

The 'labs' tab in Gmail settings now has experimental options for users.

The 'labs' tab in Gmail settings now has experimental options for users.

"The idea is you can do whatever you want, get it out to tens of millions of people, and get feedback," Coleman said. And popular features will be incorporated into Gmail proper.

Among the new features that are possible:

• A quick-link tool that lets people bookmark specific Gmail messages.

• Superstars, which lets people select custom stars to label mail.

• The "e-mail addict" tool that lets people lock themselves out of their e-mail account for 15 minutes.

• A fixed-width font option to view a message within a font whose characters are the same width--handy for some formatting challenges.

• Mouse gestures that let users take actions based on mouse movements.

• Custom keyboard shortcuts.

http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9961185-2.html

Wikipedia kills Greatest Show On Earth

It was better than Cats

The curtain has dropped on the web's longest running farce. Or so it seems.

Back in December, we told you the tale of an epic online spat pitting the cult of Wikipedia against the quixotic CEO of Overstock.com. It had everything from conspiracy theories to tabloid UFOs. There was sockpuppeting, spyware, and a cover up of laughable proportions. There was even a SlimVirgin.

And now it's over. Last week, after years of bickering, Wikipedia finally banished the anonymous editor at the heart this bizarre kerfuffle. Mantanmoreland is no more.

Since early 2005, Overstock boss Patrick Byrne has waged an outrageously public battle against a Wall Street sleight-of-hand known as naked short selling - a trick that may or may not break the law. In February last year, Byrne actually slapped a suit on 12 New York brokerage firms, alleging a "massive, illegal stock market manipulation scheme." But that's just the back story for the Wikimadness to end all Wikimadness.

Byrne and his spyware-wielding henchman Judd Bagley accuse a well-known financial journalist named Gary Weiss of spending the past two-and-a-half years gaming the "encyclopedia anyone can edit," using certain pages as a convenient means of discrediting Byrne and his views on naked shorting. Somehow, Byrne and Bagley say, the Fortune.com columnist and one-time BusinessWeek reporter made all the right friends inside the Wikipedia elite.

During multiple phone conversations and email exchanges with The Reg, Weiss always denied these charges. In fact, he says he's never even edited Wikipedia. But Byrne and Bagley insist he's behind multiple Wikipedia accounts, including one called Mantanmoreland.

When Bagley attempted to out Mantanmoreland, accusing the account of sockpuppeting and conflict of interest, he was less than successful. Wikipedia promptly banned Bagley from editing entries on the site. Then it banned his entire Utah neighborhood. And all of Overstock.com. Sockpuppeting and conflict of interest are against the rules, but so is outing people. Yes, that's a paradox. But this is Wikiland.

Then, in the wake of our story, the Wikipedia elite seemed to lose a little eliteness. In April, after a mini-revolt from the rank-and-file, Mantanmoreland was barred from editing the articles in question - though he was free to edit elsewhere. He'd been caught editing those hot-bed articles from at least two different accounts, and the no-outing rule went by the wayside. Almost.

"There was significant evidence that tied these accounts to a real-life identity," says David Yellope, the longtime admin who led the Wikinvestigation. "When a well-known financial writer was in India for his wedding, two accounts in question started editing on India time."

Yes, there was an Wikinvestigation. And a Wikicourtcase. Like we said, Wikimadness. But Mantanmoreland lived on.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/06/wikipedia_and_overstock_revisited/

Microsoft, Apple Fight Over Safari Security Threat

Microsoft has warned Web surfers about a Safari vulnerability that could put Windows users at risk. The flaw was one of three first found by researcher Nitesh Dhanjani. One of the bugs Dhanjani found was serious enough to be kept secret until a fix is found. However, Apple said it does not consider the problem Microsoft has drawn attention to a security issue.

The software maker has released an advisory for Windows XP and Windows Vista users running Safari, informing them that Microsoft has begun investigating a vulnerability discovered two weeks earlier by Nitesh Dhanjani, a security researcher.

One of three bugs Dhanjani found in connection with Safari, the flaw exposes PC users to a "carpet bomb" attack, allowing potentially malicious files to be downloaded to and run on a PC without the owners' consent.

Apple, according to a post on Dhanjani's blog, does not consider this issue to be "security related" despite evidence that the vulnerability also affects Mac OS X users.

"Please note that we are not treating this as a security issue, but a further measure to raise the bar against unwanted downloads," Apple said in a response quoted on Dhanjani's site.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Microsoft-Apple-Spar-Over-Safari-Security-Threat-63259.html?welcome=1212596447

Icahn Wants Yang's Head On A Platter

The wrath of Icahn! Carl Icahn is stepping up his rhetoric against Yahoo Inc., saying he will seek to remove Chief Executive Jerry Yang if the activist investor's bid for board control is successful.

Meanwhile, members of Yahoo's board met Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the matter. Yahoo is discussing possible partnerships with Microsoft Corp., which formally withdrew its offer to acquire the company on May 3, and is also in talks with Google Inc. about a possible search-outsourcing deal, people familiar with the talks have said.

Mr. Icahn in an interview accused Mr. Yang and the company's board of being disingenuous ...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121251736489942015.html?mod=2_1359_topbox

Yahoo! bitchslapped Ballmer's $40 a share offer

Surprise, surprise! Yahoo! did its best to stymie a takeover by Microsoft, even when it offered $40 a share, because chief executive Jerry Yang let his heart rule his head.

According to documents released by Delaware's Chancery court this took two forms - adding poison pill clauses to contracts which would reward staff for leaving the company in the event of a takeover. Secondly pursuing an advertising deal with Google which would leave Microsoft with an expensive extraction job to avoid anti-trust charges if it wanted to conclude any deal with Yahoo!

Documents accuse Yahoo!'s chief executive Jerry Yang of "deep hostility toward Microsoft" and blamed the board for not protecting shareholders from damage caused by that bias. It is also claimed that Yang had previously rejected an advertising and search deal with Google because both areas were too central to Yahoo!'s future business. He restarted talks with Google only in reaction to the Microsoft offer.

The papers also reveal the length of time Microsoft has been pursuing Yahoo!

The company first endured Ballmer's seduction techniques in mid-2006. Further "overtures" were made to the board in August and October 2006 and in January and October 2007 before the first public offer in January 2008.

The document states: "Yahoo!'s reaction has been consistent, giving the back of the hand to Microsoft's efforts towards a consensual deal, including a January 2007 acquisition proposal offering about $40 per share."

In October 2007 Yang and the board agreed to write a standby press release all but rejecting any future Microsoft offer.

The documents accuse Yang and Filo of letting their hearts rule their heads by letting their emotional connection to the company they started over-rule the best interests of shareholders.

"Yang's ego drove him to strongly desire a future for Yahoo that could diverge from the best interests of shareholders - preserving independence from industry giant Microsoft."

The poison pill measures would have given all 14,000 Yahoo! staffers the right to walk out, and pick up generous termination payments, for two years following any takeover if there was "substantial adverse alteration" in their jobs. Yang is also accused of keeping secret Microsoft's own retention plans for staff. These actions were likely to hinder any smooth integration of the two companies.

The case is being brought by Yahoo! shareholders including Detroit's Police and Fire Department Retirement and the city's General Retirement System.

The papers were filed under seal with the court but Judge William B Chandler III ordered them released. The documents are available as pdfs from here.

More immediately for Yahoo! it must face shareholders, including Carl Icahn, at its general meeting in July. Shareholders will vote to back the existing board or select new directors more likely to approve the takeover.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/03/yahoo_rejected_earlier_ms_offer/

Can The Steve Set Me Free?

Enough about my iPhone; let’s talk about Me.

It’s exactly one week until the Jerk takes the stage the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference to present another basket of fetish objects to his many worshipers and bootlickers. The diviners have fully examined the pigeon entrails and shipping manifests to prophesize the rebirth of the iPhone: It is said to surf faster, know its location better, and take pictures with more pixels. And it might even be cheaper.

Now there is a flurry of speculation about improvements to a minor icon an the Apple Pantheon: the .Mac online service. For six years, .Mac has been a $100 a year bundle of handy Internet services, now including e-mail, online hosting, backup, photo sharing, and tools to synchronize calendars and address books. Industry reports say Apple has between 1 million and 2 million subscribers.

Those diving into the latest update to Apple’s operating system found that it no longer contains the text “.Mac” but uses a variable “%@” so the name can be updated on the fly by Apple. Indeed, hidden in the software is the phrase “%@ is the new name of Apple’s online service (was .Mac).”

Saturday, John Gruber at Daring Fireball found that “Me.Com” appears to be owned by Apple. “Me” has been on Apple’s mind since 2005, when it registered “Mobile Me” as a trademark for “telecommunication services for the dissemination of information by mobile telephone, namely the transmission of data to mobile telephones” along with “music players,” “digital video players,” “MP3 players,” and “software related thereto,” according to Ars Technica.

And Macworld discovered that Apple has filed for a number of domains in the new “.Me” top level domain that is about to be begin ostensibly for the former Yugoslavian republic of Montenegro. These include apple.me, ipod.me and itunes.me. (This may mean nothing as companies often register their trademarks in new top level domains.)

Now is certainly a great time to expand and rename .Mac. Much of the energy in software development is around online applications, which would be a logical evolution for Apple’s iLife and iWork software. Moreover, the iPhone and iPod Touch are particularly suited to services that blend small local applications with storage and other processing handled on an Internet server.

But the .Mac brand needs a change. If you chat on your iPhone, jog with your iPod Shuffle but still grind out your spreadsheets on a PC, you might find using an online service called “.Mac” a bit jarring.

While Apple no doubt will stay abreast of technology and create artful marketing, I wonder whether it will also keep up with the realities of online economics: Google has decreed that most online services are supported by advertising not fees.

Amid all the superlatives thrown about at a Steve keynote, “free” is rarely heard amid the barrage of “unique” and “amazing.” Jobs has been very content to position Apple products as offering superior technology and design for premium prices. Moreover, Apple has not yet come to terms with how to fit advertising into its music and video businesses.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/02/will-steve-jobs-set-me-free/?ref=technology

Whoops! Yahoo's jig is up!

Judge orders Yahoo investor lawsuit made public

An investor lawsuit against Yahoo Inc's board over its rebuff of Microsoft Corp's $47.5 billion buyout bid was made public by a judge on Monday who said that Yahoo had not shown good reason to keep it confidential.

A copy of the unsealed complaint, and a letter from Delaware Chancery Court Judge William Chandler explaining his decision, were posted on the Web site of law firm Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP, which represents investors in the case.

"I conclude that defendants have not satisfied their burden to show good cause for the continued filing of the portions of the complaint under seal," the judge wrote.

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUKN0229271420080602