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POPSElemental extinction? With Intel churning out a billion transistors on a chip, it's no wonder that hafnium is becoming more scarce. Fascinating idea. Wonder if it will incite a lobbying effort? thx to Tim O'Reilly for original pointer.
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POPSDell's New CFO Dell was in need of a new CFO - the company's last one stepped down after an investigation of the company's bookkeeping practices. Don Carty, a board member, stepped into the gap -- but no one expected him to do the job forever. It's astonishing that Dell has gone from the top of the pack to a company with a market cap ($44 B) that's only 1/4 the size of Apple's ($164B).
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POPSIcahn After Yahoo? Icahn may be reworking the landscape of corporate America, one shareholder battle at a time. He pushed BEA into Oracles' arms; he got Motorola to agree to try to sell its handset division. And now Yahoo? It could wind up with the Redmond boys after all.
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POPSMicrosoft Still Lurking Expect more fireworks. Ballmer seems intent on trying to win over Yahoo! shareholders, independent of what the board has voted. We still are surprised that MSFT can't think of more ways to spend $40 billion......
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POPSGoogle Gets Go Ahead All signs indicate that the EU is feeling more favorably disposed towrd Google than toward MSFT. Big fines for Redmond; hand wave for Google. Or, it could simply mean that the EU is more interested in letting deals go thru--and vexed when companies don't live up the terms laid out for violations. If that's the case, then the EU would probably not play a huge role in whatever MSFT-Yhoo-Goog combination results from the current merger proposals.
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POPSWiMax Revival Intel has a big stake in making WiMax happen. It was one of the great beneficiaries of WiFi -- and CEO Paul Otellini would like to see a replay of those happy days with WiFi. But there's lots more competition these days -- not to mention all the jostling going on over the FCC spectrum auction. Is it worth $2 billion to Intel to try to jump start WiMax? Probably so.
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POPSYahoo! Code Yellow Rumors are running wild that the Yahoo! board is meeting to review the Microsoft bid. The directors have a fiduciary obligation to maximize shareholder value--otherwise they should brace themselves for a flood of class action lawsuits. Stay tuned.
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POPSBlodget's MicroHoo! Solution Former analyst turned blogger Henry Blodget has offers up his ideas about how MSFT & YHOO should combine forces. It's a pretty interesting strategic idea--but falls apart over issues such as leadership and execution. Steve Ballmer wants to make this deal happen. The idea that he'd delegate the whole thing to somebody in an organization where he has a mere 51% ownership sounds like a tough sell.
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POPSA Busy Weekend for Strategic Warriors It's a busy weekend for many. Some investors are certainly trying to ready a "white knight" bid for Yahoo!--but any deal that involves a lot of leverage is going to involve slicing and dicing alot more of Yahoo! than Microsoft has suggested. We've heard all the rumors too--but again, $44.6 or so billion is still a big chunk of change. Private equity investors have to see a way to significant upside in the deal in the not-so-distant future--that spells even more dismemberment than Microsoft would likely cause. News Corp? It's own market cap is a mere $60 billion--taking on Yahoo! would be more of a merger than an acquisition, and News Corp. investors might punish Murdock by taking his stock down another 10-20%. Can Yang wring more money out of Microsoft? Again, only likely at the expense of employees. Our prediction: Microsoft will take the prize home.
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POPSDirectly listening to customers Dell's idea of opening kiosks where it could display --but not sell--products always seemed kind of crazy. It was another example of how Dell was trying to herd consumers into a model that worked for it--rather than doing what they wanted. A Dell exec is quoted in this story saying how closing the kiosks is an example of Dell "listening" to customers. Too bad it didn't listen the first time.
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POPSCES: Bye, bye HD DVD Standards wars are brutal. Consumers really want a single standard, not warring ones. But that doesn't mean that the best technology always wins. This one seems to have really taken Toshiba off guard.
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POPSBanned substances More things that you can't have rattling around in your luggage. Go long on those video conferencing stocks.....
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POPSBlogging For Dollars Fascinating note about the economics of the web. But Scott Karp raises a great question when he says the web lacks a "content filter." Old school journalists would call such a system an "editor."
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POPSOnline Ads Make $ense Data that underscores instinct here: people are more engaged in online ads. Of course, that's true because the ads are making use of more data about the preferences of viewers. Now the question: when do consumers decide that their preferences are so valuable that they won't "give them away"? Or is it enough that content--like news stories and features--are free on the web, paid for by advertising? Seems like there's still a big difference between the value that advertisers give to personal data and what consumers think that information is worth.
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POPSFacebook v. Google? This excerpt is from a blog quoting Ami Vora of Facebook.... Decades ago, Bob Kahn, one of the true "fathers" of the Internet because he was running the Darpa program that paid for all the research, told me that the future was about all about standards. How right Bob was -- and how true that observation continues to be today. When so many applications developers are tiny teams it seems to make sense that they have to prioritize their work and make a bet on one set of standards or another. And so the "most open" standard wins--as it always has.
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POPSWho's the bloggiest of them all? It's a close race. Nielsen is reporting Austin as blogcentral (15% of Austinites either read or blog themselves), followed by Portland (14%) and then lowly San Francisco. Maybe the weather draws Bay Area folks outside more. Maybe the data is just flakey. What's Austin's most popular blog? Time to find out....
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POPSWho said you can't teach an old species new tricks? This is great: instead of stuck in an evolutionary sandtrap, humans are evolving--and doing it fast! Faster than ever before. Does make you wonder what your great grandchildren will look like. Perhaps their iPods will be implanted while they're still in the womb.....
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POPSA Wicked Wiki World? No question it's tough to run an encyclopedia based on the hard--but ultimately gratis--services of millions of people. And particularly tough on the people who work the hardest. Are they the guardian angels of the site and should use some discretion to boot people off? Or are they being petty and cliquish and just trying to get rid of people who don't share their views? Would love your thoughts.
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POPSTime for a change: Moto's CTO heads out, too This move makes sense. Padmasree Warrior had been closely aligned with Zander's program. Look for her to reappear, however. She's smart and experienced, particularly in chip technology. This wasn't her last act.
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POPSWhat are YOU doing today? Hmm, this means that almost half the people at work are really shopping. I guess that's one way to contribute to the country's economic vitality...
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POPSSuper Mario is baaack! Go Mario. Seems like just about everyone's childhood now has a little bit of Super Mario, doesn't it? Check out our story on other cool Wii games, too.
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POPSHappy Holidays For Steve Looks like it will be a jolly holiday in Cupertino as the court washes its hands of lawsuits about backdating and Steve Jobs. Fake Steve should be pleased, too.
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POPSSecret backdoors in encryption Fascinating piece by Bruce Schneier, who's no hack when it comes to encryption. In the mid 1990s, there were many legitimate concerns about the government building in "backdoors" to encryption systems. It shouldn't be a surprise to see this issue reemerge -- and it warrants some close scrutiny.
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POPSA Cool C-level job? This is either a cool job -- or the worst job on the planet. Matt Marshall snapped up news that Obama, if elected, would appoint a "chief technology officer" who would try to make sure that goverment meetings are open. Somehow, I suspect the most interesting meetings will still be behind closed doors. But other elements of the Obama tech program are sure to light up the eyes of many in silicon valley.
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POPSGoogle's Android look Here's a screenshot of a version of what somebody could build w/ Google's Android platform. Yeah, we know, it's not "a single phone." But this is (apparently) Google's version about what it could look like. Then again, looks can be deceiving....
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POPSNokia's Web Services We obsess so much about Google and Apple are doing in the phone space -- but Nokia bears close watching. Remember that Nokia has shied away from the Googe Handset Alliance, too. Let the battles begin!
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POPSGoogle goes everywhere! Talk about innovations that will help! Google and gas stations. Guys will never have to ask for directions again. Now, all they have to do is hook it up to real time traffic reports......
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POPSMark Cuban, Facebook and OpenSocial Tim O'Reilly is one of the smartest independent thinkers on the web. I really like his point here -- that what we should look for is not merely a proliferation of tiny apps across every web-based application, but how to make use of social data. The full post is worth the click.
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POPSNo Leaps Taken Here We covered MetroPCS's aggressive bid to acquire Leap Wireless. Now it looks like the big carriers have a bit more time to develop their plans for capitalizing on the younger crowd of mobile users. Keep watching next week to see who signs onto Google's plans, too. see http://www.forbes.com/technology/2007/09/04/leap-wireless-metropcs-tech-cx_bc_0904leap.html
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POPSThe price of privacy Om Malik makes a great point here -- that with all the enthusiasm for social networking there are important privacy questions that will soon become mainstream. Look out for ads so targeted that they are like heat-seeking missiles!
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