With Bartz out, Yahoo must refocus or die
With Yahoo languishing in the face of competition from the likes of Google and Facebook, the ouster of CEO Carol Bartz gives the company a chance to refocus and reinvigorate itself.
With Yahoo languishing in the face of competition from the likes of Google and Facebook, the ouster of CEO Carol Bartz gives the company a chance to refocus and reinvigorate itself.
Name: Ron Gill
With the resignation of Steve Jobs as CEO on Wednesday, Tim Cook, long seen as "the operations guy" at Apple, must prove he is capable of taking full charge of the company.
Internet calling company Skype said Sunday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire GroupMe, a startup that offers a free group text messaging and conference call service on mobile phones.
If you've been watching the stock market this month, you know that, economically speaking, things are going the wrong way. We seemed to be in a period of economic recovery, but now, whatever recovery we might have been having seems to have fallen right through, like piping-hot coffee melting the bottom of a cheap cup. Whether or not you consider stock market activity as a representation of the overall economy, I can tell you that my company seems to be falling on hard times as well.
Some retailers sold out remaining Hewlett-Packard TouchPad tablets in just a few hours on Saturday after heavily discounted prices attracted buyers to the last remaining units of the soon-to-be defunct tablet.
Hewlett-Packard may struggle to attract buyers for its Personal Systems Group (PSG), which might carry too high a price tag in a PC market struggling under the onslaught of tablets, analysts said.
Against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, acquisitions and earnings news from the world's top PC makers (Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Lenovo), the biggest Internet business (Google), and a major handset maker (Motorola Mobility) marked major realignments in tech this week.
The acknowledgement yesterday by Hewlett-Packard (HP), the world's largest PC maker, that it is considering spinning off its massive PC manufacturing business means "they see the writing on the wall," as one analyst put it.
After half a day of frenzied speculation from the IT industry, Hewlett-Packard has confirmed that it is acquiring information management software vendor Autonomy, for $US42.11 per share, or about $10.3 billion.
Hewlett-Packard will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad tablets and smartphones. It also confirmed that it is exploring the possible spin-off or sale of its Personal Systems Group (PSG), which dominates the global PC market.
Hewlett-Packard is reportedly set to announce that it will spin off its PC business and purchase analytics software vendor Autonomy for $US10 billion -- moves that will allow it to focus on the higher-margin enterprise business revolving around software, services and servers.
Zynga has acquired mobile games start-up Astro Ape, according to Business Insider, which notes that Astro Ape employees are changing their place of employment on LinkedIn.
Chances are Microsoft will not retaliate against Google's 12.5 billion purchase of Motorola by acquiring a phone maker of its own, say industry analysts, mainly because of the company's rich history developing and licensing software and building an ecosystem of hardware partners.
Google's bid to acquire Motorola Mobility is a brilliant move that will stave off Android's patent attackers. Or it's act of desperation that will force Android phone makers to adopt rival platforms. Or it was simply something that Google had to do, for better or worse.