TECH NEWS/MEDIA

27th Oct 2009

Internet Change For Non-English Addresses

The Internet is set to undergo one of the biggest changes in its four-decade history with the expected approval this week of international domain names - or addresses – that can be written in languages other than English, an official said on Monday.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN – the non-profit group that oversees domain names – is holding a meeting this week in Seoul. Domain names are the monikers behind every Web site, e-mail address and Twitter post, such as “.com” and other suffixes.

One of the key issues to be taken up by ICANN’s board at this week’s gathering is whether to allow for the first time entire Internet addresses to be in scripts that are not based on Latin letters. That could potentially open up the Web to more people around the world as addresses could be in characters as diverse as Arabic, Korean, Japanese, Greek, Hindi and Cyrillic – in which Russian is written.

“This is the biggest change technically to the Internet since it was invented 40 years ago,” Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of the ICANN board, told reporters, calling it a “fantastically complicated technical feature.” He said he expects the board to grant approval on Friday, the conference’s final day.

The Internet’s roots are traced to experiments at a US university in 1969 but it wasn’t until the early 1990s that its use began expanding beyond academia and research institutions to the public.

Rod Beckstrom, ICANN’s new president and CEO, said that if the change is approved, ICANN would begin accepting applications for non-English domain names and that the first entries into the system would likely come sometime in mid 2010.

Enabling the change, Thrush said, is the creation of a translation system that allows multiple scripts to be converted to the right address.

“We’re confident that it works because we’ve been testing it now for a couple of years,” he said. “And so we’re really ready to start rolling it out.” Of the 1.6 billion Internet users worldwide, Beckstrom – a former chief of U.S. cybersecurity – said that more than half use languages that have scripts based on alphabets other than Latin.

“So this change is very much necessary for not only half the world’s Internet users today, but more than half of probably the future users as the use of the Internet continues to spread,” he said. Beckstrom, in earlier remarks to conference participants, recalled that many people had said just three to five years ago that using non-Latin scripts for domain names would be impossible to achieve.

“But you the community and the policy groups and staff and board have worked through them, which is absolutely incredible,” he said.

www.economicstimes.com

26th Oct 2009

Internet Giants Joined Forces To Fight e-mail Scams

  Millions of internet users have received messages offering them a huge financial reward if they help to release money trapped in a foreign bank account. And, although the majority of these e-mails are deleted, the fraudsters still find a sufficient number of gullible Britons to cost the country millions a year.

Nigeria’s anti-corruption police have now joined forces with the world’s leading technology companies, including Microsoft, to create a system that will warn e-mail users when they are the target of a scam.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) says that the operation has already shut down 800 e-mail addresses used by the criminals to send messages and has uncovered 18 fraud gangs. Farida Waziri, head of the commission, said that it would have the capacity eventually to track down 5,000 e-mail addresses used by the criminals every month and be able to warn 250,000 potential victims at a time. Ms Waziri said the aim of Operation Eagle Claw was to take Nigeria out of the Top Ten list of countries with the highest incidence of fraudulent e-mails.

The so-called 419 advance-fee frauds, named after the relevant article in Nigeria’s penal code, involves fraudsters asking for money to pave the way for the release of a much greater sum.

Experts have estimated that the criminals receive just one reply from every 12.5 million e-mails they send. But the rewards can be massive.

Social networks such as Facebook have been hijacked recently by the fraudsters, who have taken over the accounts of users and then asked “friends” to send money to help them out of a crisis.

Microsoft said it was working with the EFCC on internet security and piracy and several Nigerian investigators have already had internet forensics training at the company’s headquarters in Washington State. The Nigerian Government is also working with Yahoo! and Google to monitor online traffic.The Nigerian Government is keen to counteract its image as the epicentre of 419 scams. Last month it banned the film District 9, which depicts Nigerians as gangsters and cannibals, and demanded an apology from Sony after a PlayStation advert implied they were fraudsters.

www.timesonline.co.uk

20th Oct 2009

RIM Lauching Blackberry Storm2

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion is launching a new version of its touchscreen Storm smartphone, marking its latest move in the fight with Apple’s iPhone.

The Storm2, as the device is known, is “a biggie for us,” RIM co-Chief Executive Jim Balsillie said in an interview.

The smartphone retains the original Storm’s clickable touchscreen interface, but improves upon it with faster typing and “multitouch” capabilities, which allow users to type on more than just one part of the screen at a time.

The phone is enabled for next-generation networks and also has Wi-Fi capability like some of the other devices in the BlackBerry lineup.

Mobile communications giant Vodafone announced on Thursday that the Storm2 will be available in time for the Christmas gift buying season in seven European countries and South Africa.

RIM’s announcement was not a complete surprise: Balsillie first said in May that a new version of the Storm was in the works, given the “huge success” of the original smartphone.

UBS Investment Research analyst Phillip Huang said he thinks the Vodafone announcement is already largely embedded in expectations. He expects U.S. carrier Verizon to announce the Storm2 for the holiday season as well.

“We expect launches for Bold2 by U.S. and Canadian operators in late October,” in addition to the Storm2, Huang wrote in a note to clients. The BlackBerry Bold is a high-end handset aimed at RIM’s base of professional users.

The Storm2 news comes as Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM finds itself in increased competition with the iPhone.

Apple is expanding its smartphone’s availability by offering it to a bigger number of wireless carriers. This means RIM has found itself forced to fight for previously uncontested territory.

Balsillie said the Storm2 will be key to maintaining RIM’s growth in the retail consumer market, which it is increasingly emphasizing as it expands from its core base of business, government and other professional users.

“Obviously, we want to maintain and extend our leadership, there’s no question,” he said.

Late last month, RIM reported results and an outlook that disappointed investors and sent its shares tumbling more than 15 percent.

Analysts said increased competition in North America from the likes of Apple, Palm and Motorola Inc was a top concern for RIM’s future.

New BlackBerry models are crucial if RIM is to succeed and Balsillie said the company is well prepared.

“We have a really rich (product) road map … and we aren’t slowing down,” he said.

www.ibtimes.com

17 June 2009

Digicel Revenues Hit $1.7B Up 11% Growth

Digicel, the largest telecommunications operator in the Caribbean and recent entrant to the Central American market, today (June 8th) announced that revenues for its fiscal year ended 31 March 2009 were $1.73bn, up 11% on the previous year. Subscribers rose 9% to 7.1 million.

Digicel’s full year EBITDA margin rose to 40%, indicating the maturing of its successful rollouts in markets including El Salvador and Trinidad & Tobago – and demonstrating Digicel’s track record of profitable expansion, combining strong revenue growth with tight control of costs.

These numbers relate to Digicel Group Limited which operates in 24 markets in the Caribbean and in El Salvador.

Successful launches in Central America
Recent launches in Honduras (November 2008) and Panama (December 2008) via its sister company, Digicel Holdings (Central America) Ltd., have achieved over 1.1 million subscribers in less than five months, bringing total subscribers across 26 markets in the Caribbean and Central America to 8.2 million.

Worldwide
Worldwide, Digicel operates in 31 markets across the Caribbean, Central America and the South Pacific. The subscriber base worldwide grew from 7.1 million to 9.2 million in total representing a growth rate of an impressive 34%.

Colm Delves, Digicel Group CEO, comments; “It’s been another great year for Digicel. We have again over delivered on our targets – and our brand is recognizable for providing best value, best service and the best network in 31 markets across the Caribbean, Central America and the South Pacific.

“Our focus continues to be on ensuring that our customers benefit from being with the Bigger, Better network and that – day in, day out – they can enjoy our innovative value offers and promotions, have access to the very best range of handsets available anywhere in the world and are supported by our award-winning customer service.”

Key achievements in the year include:

·    Successful market launches in British Virgin Islands (November 2008), Honduras (November 2008) and Panama (December 2008) with Honduras and Panama gaining 1.1 million subscribers in less than 5 months.

·    Achieving two million subscriber milestones in both Haiti and Jamaica. In the case of Haiti, this represents a market share of approximately 65% with mobile penetration in the country rocketing from 5% to over 30% largely due to the entrance of Digicel to the market. In Jamaica meanwhile, with its market share standing at approximately 75%, Digicel has continued to grow its customer base even in the face of increased competition.

·    Digicel is pioneering green technology through a number of initiatives including the introduction of the world’s first solar-powered mobile handsets, the provision of solar-powered chargers, the use of alternative energy to power base stations and the use of degradable retail bags across all markets.

·    Digicel raised US$350 million in a bond issue which provided funds to acquire a 38% stake in its sister company, Digicel Holdings (Central America) Ltd. This was the first corporate emerging market high yield offering successfully completed since July 2008 demonstrating investors’ continued faith in Digicel’s execution of its business plans.

Source: www.marketwire.com

June o9 2009

Apple Launches Faster 3G S iPhone

Apple Inc. introduced a faster model of the iPhone and cut the price of its current version, responding to competition from Research In Motion Ltd. and Palm Inc.’s Pre.

The new iPhone 3G S opens applications and Web pages up to twice as fast as the current version, Apple said yesterday at its developers’ conference in San Francisco.

A 16-gigabyte version of the new iPhone will cost $199, while the 32-gigabyte model costs $299. The device adds a compass and a 3-megapixel camera that can record video. It also provides controls for voice dialing.

The current 8-gigabyte model will now cost $99 – half its old price.The current 16-gigabyte model will now cost $149, down from $299, AT&T said. The iPhone 3G S will be available June 19.

Source: www.bostonglobe.com

Features/Improved Features 

Improved performance

3-megapixel autofocus camera

Video recording

Voice Control

Digital compass

Cut, Copy & Paste

MMS²³

Spotlight Search

Landscape keyboard

Voice Memos

Source: www.apple.com

 

Feb 6th 2009

Windows 7 To Ship In Six Flavours

Microsoft plans to release six versions of its new Windows 7 operating system, the company announced Tuesday.

Windows 7 screen shot
(click for larger image and for full photo gallery)

The software maker said it will ship Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Ultimate for the consumer markets. An Enterprise edition will be tailored for large companies, while Windows 7 Professional will be available for general business use. Windows 7 Home Basic will be released only in emerging markets, and Windows Starter Edition will be available for limited types of hardware, according to Microsoft.

“We have a customer base of over 1 billion along with many partners, so it’s important to make sure the right edition of Windows with the right features set is available for them,” said Mike Ybarra, Microsoft’s general manager for Windows, in a statement.

Microsoft is expected to ship Windows 7 in late 2009 or early 2010. The company recommends Windows 7 Home Premium for most consumers, and Windows 7 Professional for home-office workers and small-business employees. Windows 7 Professional contains many of the advanced security features found in Windows 7 Enterprise, Ybarra said.

“For those running Windows Vista Business, it will be a very logical move to Windows 7 Professional,” said Ybarra.

Microsoft has designed Windows 7 to be lighter and more resource-efficient than Vista, with an eye to capturing the nascent market for so-called netbook PCs. The netbook category includes low-powered notebooks designed mostly for Web surfing and e-mail use. Vista’s inability to fit on netbooks has hurt Microsoft’s revenue, with Windows sales down 8% in the most recent quarter.

“At beta we’ve had a lot of people running our most premium, full-featured offering on the small-notebook PCs with good experiences and good results,” said Ybarra.

Microsoft has yet to release pricing details for Windows 7.

Source: techweb

 

 

 Oct 16 2008

Aussie Couple Taking On  Computer Giants

A husband and wife team are preparing for all out war with the likes of Dell and HP in the burgeoning market for low-cost PCs.

John Nicholls, 52, and his wife Jeanne, 47, have developed a line of computers – dubbed Hot-E – small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.

Built around the “cloud computing” mantra that has surged in popularity in recent years, the $US100 computers contain the bare minimum horse power, with most processing and data storage handled by a remote server accessed over the internet. Their target markets are cost- and power-conscious small and medium businesses, schools and developing countries where fully-fledged PCs are prohibitively expensive, impractical or draw too much power.

In a telephone interview, Nicholls, a commercial pilot until the collapse of Ansett in 2001, said his company, ThinLinX, had just partnered with a “major, global company” that predominantly made software.

He would not give further details or comment on whether the company in question was Microsoft, saying he was bound by a non-disclosure agreement. The company would be making its own announcement within the next month. Formed in 2003 with money from an angel investor and two Commonwealth Government grants, ThinLinX has spent the past five years undertaking research and development and “perfecting the design”.

Nicholls released his first thin computers 2½ years ago and began selling them through the ThinLinX website for $250 each. He is now on the verge of launching a new, faster range, with the entry-level model selling for “just under $US100″.

“We just reached the break-even point recently … It’s been a very long, bumpy road to say the least, and a lot of money,” said Nicholls, who has been involved with IT since the early 1980s when he developed a modem for his Atari computer.

Cloud computing has become a hot topic this year as broadband connections improve and companies such as Google and Microsoft release software applications that live on the internet instead of locally on the user’s PC.

FULL STORY

 

Oct 8 2008

Iphone Newest Competiton The Blackberry Storm

Photo credit – blackberry.com

Research In Motion has announced today their newest smart phone. The Blackberry Storm.

The smartphones usually gear towards the corporate market has focus its target more so this time around on the consumer market as it gears up for direct competition against the iphone. With a touch screen display [first for its kind] a 3.2 megapixel camera and multimedia functions, the Storm fills in where the iphone fell down.

Features

• “Clickable” touch screen – responds like a physical keyboard
• 3.25 display screen
• 480 x 360 resolution
• mobile streaming capabilities enhanced
• 3.2 megapixel camera
• Preloaded custom built social networking applications like Facebook
• Microsoft Word, Excel & Microsoft Powerpoint editing
• 1GB memory - up to 16GB with micro SD cards
• 3G connectivity
• Stereo Bluetooth support
• Removable battery
• Cut & Paste

For specs click here

• Blackberry Storm Makes Landfall
• Research In Motion Introduces Blackberry Storm To Barbados

June 27th 2008

Bill Gates Exits Microsoft Today

The Microsoft co-founder and driving force in the company, spends his last day at the office on Friday.

However Gates, 52, remains chairman of the Microsoft board of directors and the company’s largest shareholder.

After decades devoted to Microsoft, Gates turns his attention full time to the philanthropic Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation he established with his wife.

Paul Allen, who teamed with Gates to start Microsoft in a garage in 1975, will be among those “roasting” his childhood friend at a gala dinner affair Friday night.

Gates leaves Microsoft to wrestle with a fast-changing computer era and growing challenges from Internetjuggernaut Google and longtime rival Apple, which makes Macintosh computers.

Three people will essentially fill the void Gates leaves behind at Microsoft.

Gate’s job as chief software architect is being handled by Ray Ozzie. Craig Mundie inherited Gate’s chief research and strategy officer duties, while former Harvard University classmate Steve Ballmer is chief executive officer at the software colossus based in Redmond, Washington.

Microsoft is losing Gates at a time when “cloud computing” is shaking the packaged software foundation on which the company’s fortune is built.

Cloud computing refers to a trend in which firms such as Google and Salesforce.com let people use programs on the Internet instead of having to install and maintain software on their own machines.

Microsoft competes in the “software as a service” arena, but tends to combine offerings with packaged products in a “software-plus” marketing model, according to analysts.

Adapted from Times Of India

June 13th

Google, Yahoo Strike Ad Deal

Just hours after saying it ended talks with Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. announced that it will start running advertising from Google Inc. alongside Yahoo search results.

The nonexclusive deal unites the online advertising businesses of Google and Yahoo and comes as a setback to Microsoft, which had been trying to acquire all or part of Yahoo to strengthen its own onlinebusiness and compete better with Google.

Yahoo said it expects the deal to generate $250 million to $450 million in operating cash flow during the first 12 months, and that it represents an annual revenue opportunity for Yahoo of $800 million. The deal is for an initial period of four years, with an option for Yahoo to extend it for a further six years.

The deal was announced after Yahoo said earlier Thursday that it had ended its talks with Microsoft over a possible investment by the software maker. Yahoo said it ended the talks because Microsoft was interested only in acquiring Yahoo’s search business, not the entire company.

“Clearly it is time to move on,” Yahoo CEO and cofounderJerry Yang said during a conference call. “We believe this agreement with Google helps us to do so by strengthening our competitive position and generating attractive financial benefits.”

Yang and Sue Decker, Yahoo’s president, said the deal will allow Yahoo to capitalize on growth in the online advertising market and “the convergence of search and display advertising.”

They emphasized the flexible terms of the deal for Yahoo. Yahoo will be able to choose the search term queries for which Google’sadvertisements will appear, and also the pages on which they appear. The deal applies to the U.S. and Canada only and is nonexclusive, so Yahoo could cut deals with other companies and can also keep selling ads from its own Panama advertising platform.

Advertisers will pay Google for its ads that appear by Yahoo searches, and Google will then pay a portion of the revenue to Yahoo, Decker said. “We improve our access to the paid search universe, but on terms that work for us,” she said.

Source – Computer World

June 9th 2008

Apple Unveiled New 3G iPhone

The next-generation iPhonewill be faster, sleeker, friendlier, larger, smaller, prettier, smoother, and shinier than anything we’ve come up withso far,” said Apple marketing specialist Kurt Chen. “Is it worth risking your life to own one? We think so.”

For those who aren’t aware of what is happening in the tech world of smartphones, Apple has introduced its new 2.0/3G iphone at World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco today.

So what does the new Apple media player-mobile phone have for us.           

  

 

 

Apple iphone 3G [Credit: Apple]

 

Features/Improved Features 

• Glossy black plastic back, metal buttons at side
• Screen – 3.5 inches 
• Camera 2.0 megapixels
• Higher speed 3G connection
• Satellite positing system – GPS
• 8GB Storage                                                                     
• 300 hrs standby time
• 5 hrs browsing – video 7 hrs – audio 24hrs
• Improved audio                                                               
• E-mail messages deleted  in bulk                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
• E-mail photos save to photo library                                                                         
• Scientific calculator buttons added
• News/ Business applications
• ebay Auctions

Retail price $US199 worldwide – 16GB $299 available in white

Launch date July 11 2008

For more check out - Here Comes The New iphone Apps

                                                              Apple Store

May 28th 2008

Multi-Touch Screens For Next Microsoft Windows Version

The next version of Windows will support multi-touch touch screens, Microsoft announced Tuesday night at the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital Conference. The inclusion of multi-touch capabilities in Windows marks the surest sign yet that touch will join the mouse and keyboard as a common interface in computing.

“Touch-enabled surfaces are popping up everywhere, including laptop touch pads, cell phones, remote controls, GPSdevices, and more,” Chris Flores, a director on Microsoft’s Windows client communications team, wrote in a blog post. “What becomes even more compelling is when this experience is delivered to the PC, on a wide variety of Windows notebooks, in all-in-one PC’s, as well as in external monitors.”

Microsoft has a number of touch technologies in development at Microsoft Research. Earlier this month, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates demonstrated a multi-touch office whiteboard called TouchWall.

Microsoft released an accompanying demonstration video that showed the capabilities being used on both a laptop and desktop PC.

Gestures like pulling fingers apart or closer together and moving fingers across the screen enlarge, shrink, rotate, or move images in a photo gallery application, play a piano in a music application, and paint a picture in a version of Microsoft Paint. Users will apparently be able to open applications with a simple touch of on-screen icons.

Another demonstration showed off a mapping application that used hand gestures to rotate a globe and zoom in and out on a map via touch gestures. That application has a ring-shaped taskbarthat allows the user to, for example, switch the map from a map view to a satellite view by touching an icon, rather than clicking on one with a mouse.

The unveiling of multi-touch features in Windows 7 is part of an orchestrated effort this week to begin detailing the upcoming operating system, which is due in late 2009 or early 2010.

Also on Tuesday, Microsoft announced that Windows 7 would support the same devices and applications supported by Windows Vista and run under the same hardware requirements.

Source – TechWeb

May 27th 2008

Solar-Powered iPhones & iPods A Possibility

Owners of Apple devices such as iPods and iPhones may soon be able to charge them up by leaving them out in the sun.

Applehas filed a patent for a technology which would enable a layer of solar cells to be inserted under a touch-sensitive screen of the sort used in the iPhone.

The patent, should it be awarded, has the potential to make the iPhone a truly portable device, dispensing with the need for it to be connected to a power supply by wires.

There is usually little room for solar panels on portable devices, once space taken up by the screen and keypad is taken into account – a fact which has plagued previous attempts to power MP3 players and mobile phones via the sun.

Apple’s patent would get round the problem by stacking the solar cells underneath both the touch-sensitive screen and the LCD, according to The New York Times. That would potentially allow the full 2.4 by 4.5 inch glass face of the iPhone to operate as a solar panel.

If the application, entitled ‘Solar cells on portable devices’, is successful, it has the potential to increase dramatically the battery life of iPhones and iPods. According to Apple, the existing iPhone battery gives about eight hours of talk time and seven hours of video, but once a faster, 3G version is released, the device will become even more power-hungry.

May 6th 2008

Yahoo Stock Plunges After Microsoft Withdraws Bid

After Microsoft withdrew its $33-a-share offer for Yahoo on Saturday, the question was how far Yahoo’s stock would drop. On Monday, the markets gave an initial answer: plenty.

Yahoo’s shares closed down 15 percent, or $4.30, at $24.37 after closing at $28.67 on Friday — a day when the companies were said to be escalating their talks on a merger. The shares recovered some ground after losing about 20 percent at the start of Monday’s trading.

Microsoft’s own shares edged down 16 cents to close at $29.08, from their Friday close of $29.24. And shares of Google— a rival of both companies but now a potential partner of Yahoo — were up $13.61, or 2.3 percent, at $594.90.

How long Yahoo’s stock will stay down will largely depend on the company’s next moves. And its successful resistance to Microsoft’s pursuit set up a clear challenge for Yahoo’s chief executive, Jerry Yang: prove to investors that the company is worth $37 a share, the price he was willing to sell it for.

People close to Yahoo said that Yang and his team greeted Microsoft’s decision as a victory. High-fives were exchanged Saturday afternoon when they learned Microsoft was backing down.

Yet some Yahoo shareholders, large and small, have indicated that they favoured a deal at around $34 to $35 a share. Even those who were holding out for a higher price said a merger with Microsoft made strategic sense.

“I don’t believe that Jerry Yang as a founder, as someone who is emotionally attached to the company, was really looking out for my interest as a shareholder,” said Darren Chervitz, co-manager of the Jacob Internet Fund, which owns about 150,000 shares of Yahoo. “I don’t think anything Yahoo puts out there is going to be comparable with what Microsoft was offering.”

The entire board backed Yang’s desire to reject Microsoft’s offer, said a person involved in the negotiations who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. But unhappiness with Yang could spread through the company’s ranks.

“If the stock drops as far as I think it will, a lot of employees are going to be angry and many key employees could leave,” said a Yahoo executive, who asked to remain anonymous to avoid upsetting his superiors.

Source – International Herald Tribune

May 4th 2008

Microsoft Withdraws Bid For Yahoo

Microsoft Corp.’s pursuit of Yahoo Inc. ended abruptly Saturday when the world’s largest software maker withdrew a sweetened $46 billion offer and said it would not make a hostile bid for the Internet company.

Microsoft said the breakdown came despite having raised the bid to $33 a share, or $5 billion above what it said was the current value of the offer and a 70% premium compared to its original offer.

The offer was valued at $31 a share when it was made in January. Yahoo stock closed Friday at $28.67 a share.

“After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) do not make sense for us,” said Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) CEO Steve Ballmer.

In a letter to Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang, Ballmer said that Yahoo wanted at least another $4 a share, or $5 billion in value, added to the deal, bringing it to at least $37 a share.

Read Ballmer’s letter to Yang

Ballmer also told Yang that taking the offer directly to shareholders would not be “sensible.”

“This approach would necessarily involve a protracted proxy contest and eventually an exchange offer,” Ballmerwrote. “Our discussions with you have led us to conclude that, in the interim, you would take steps that would make Yahoo undesirable as an acquisition for Microsoft.”

Ballmer said he was concerned that a further collaboration between Yahoo and Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) – which he called “the dominant search provider” – would make an acquisition undesirable for several reasons.

Yahoo officials indicated their pleasure with the end of the Microsoft bid.

“Our independent board and our management have been steadfast in our belief that Microsoft’s offer undervalued the company and we are pleased that so many of our shareholders in expressing that view,” Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock said.

Yang, in the same statement, called the Microsoft bid a “distraction” and said that Yahoo will now focus “on executing the most important transition in our history so that we can maximize our potential.”

Source – Fortune

April 28 2008

Deadline Up – Mircosoft’s Move

On April 6 we posted an article on Microsoft bid to acquire Yahoo. The software giant gave Yahoo a 3 week deadline to respond. Well the deadline expired at midnight Saturday and not a squeak from either side was heard.

So can we then expect a hostile takeover from Microsoft for Yahoo, the Internet service company.

Here’s what TechCrunch had to say on the issue.

“Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney says in an April 25 report there is a 45% chance of a merger at a price somewhat higher than the initial bid, a 40% chance that Microsoft will go hostile, a 10% chance that Microsoft walks away, and a 5% chance for deal at the original bid to be accepted. That means he thinks a deal in some form is 90% likely.

Marc Andreessen lays out the “go hostile” game plan in a blog post partially written by two merger and acquisition attorneys. If that’s the way this goes, Microsoft needs to announce their alternate board slate and finalize the lobbying of shareholders.

It’s Microsoft’s move. Expect something by mid week.”

April 6 2008

Microsoft to Yahoo – Three Weeks Deadline Or Face Hostile TakeOver

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in an April 5th letter addressed to Yahoo’s board of directors has given the internet search engine 3 weekes to accept its buyout bid. Failing that, “we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors for the Yahoo board.”

The letter also states ‘that action will have which an undesirable impact on the value of your company from our perpective which will be reflected in the terms of our proposal.” In short if Yahoo fails to accomodate the 3 week deadline, Microsoft can and may reduce their take over offer.

Microsoft’s offer of $31 a share {cash and stock} comes more than 2 months after the software giant made its unsolicited takeover offer for Yahoo.

During that time Yahoo had been in talks with Google and AOL/Time Warner, looking for deals and partnerships in an effort to sidestep Microsoft’s unsolicited takeover attempt.

As for now the offer value at $41b would make it the biggest ever takeover in the high tech industry.

Microsoft’s deadline is 26th April.

Yahoo shares fell from $26.90 to $28.36 after the close on Friday.

{Taken from International Press Reports}

March 21th 2008

Mozilla Says Firefox 3 Ready for Prime Time

A new version of Mozilla’s popular FirefoxWeb browser is ready for download with improved security and memory use as the tiny company takes a stab at Microsoft Corp’s dominant Internet Explorer.

The program’s creators told Reuters on Thursday that the privately-held company’s trial version of Firefox 3 browser is ready for the masses to use after months of development. Until now, the company has discouraged average Internet users from moving on from Firefox 2, which was launched in October 2006.

“In many ways it (Firefox 3) is much more stable than anything else out there,” Mozilla Corp Vice President of Engineering Mike Schroepfer said in an interview. Key rivals to Firefox are market leader Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Apple Inc’s Safari browser.

Engineers at Mozilla are still putting the finishing touches on the software and hope to release the final version of Firefox 3 by the end of June, Schroepfer said. Mozillais in a battle with Microsoft, which unveiled an experimental version of its Internet Explorer 8 in LasVegas earlier this month and is looking to expand its presence on the Web through its bid to acquire Yahoo Inc.

Additions boost security and allow users to run Web sites when they are not connected to the Internet. Mozilla also says Firefox 3 uses less computer memory than Firefox 2. Until now Mozilla has discouraged the typical computer user from exploring these new features. But its developers said on Thursday that the situation has changed and that they will be revising their Web site. As of Thursday afternoon, the Web site still stated: “We do not recommend that anyone other than developers and testers download the Firefox 3 beta 4 milestone release.

It is intended for testing purposes only.” But they said that as they concluded their fourth round of tweaking their software, they determined it was ready for prime time.

A fifth round of changes, due to begin within the next few weeks, will involve “tuning the visual look and feel of the program” and further improving its stability,” Schroepfer said.

{Taken from Reuters News}.