Items tagged with BU
As with any takeover or bailout, there's always the question of which, if any, members of management will be left standing by the new powers that be. SCO's bailout offer appears to be no different, and there are no real surprises as to who the mysterious buyer wants out of the picture.The deal, in which an unnamed Middle East partner...
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It was mildly interesting to watch the board of Yahoo indulge in a bit of "Microsoft is teh evil" posturing when presented with an unsolicited $44.6 billion bid for their prominent but listless business. There was a lot of discussion predicting anti-trust problems, but that's silly; Microsoft/Yahoo would be better competition for Google, not...
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Microsoft isn't the only party interested in acquiring Yahoo, and that shouldn't come as a surprise. What might be surprising is that CNet has allegedly already starting discussing the possibilities of a takeover.“The talks, according to the Journal are an attempt to fend off Microsoft's offer, which was initially valued at $44.6 billion.“It...
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It appears that Yahoo has other things on their agenda besides the potential takeover from Microsoft. What could be more important than billions of dollars? A new video service to help Yahoo catch up to arch rival Google's YouTube.Yahoo completed the takeover of Maven Networks on Tuesday for a tidy sum of $160 million.“The deal...
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Don't get your hopes up; it's not Universal Music or even EMI. It's a small label from Germany, and it's already folded. Nonetheless, a few days ago Dependent records’ CEO Stefan Herwig decided to upload all the albums from his label -which mainly features aggrotech, electro-industrial and futurepop artists- onto The Pirate Bay.In...
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I remember the good old days when banks would offer new customers gifts like toasters or other housewares when you opened up an account. Of course, the good old days weren't really very good, because you had to stand in line at the bank fairly often instead of using direct deposit, internet banking, credit and debit cards, and ATMs to manage...
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Starting in May, sellers will no longer be able to give buyers negative, or even neutral feedback.EBay said problems were occurring, and slowing down trade, when buyers left negative comments about sellers who then retaliated with their own views.From May, those selling on eBay will not be able to leave unfavourable or neutral messages about...
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Don't you hate those buts? Besides the fact that it won't release to download or Windows Update for six weeks, that old bugaboo for Vista strikes again. Yep, device drivers.As we update our customers to SP1, we want everyone to have a great install experience. We are going to stage our rollout of SP1 for current Windows Vista...
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The dreaded "R" word is being whispered on Wall Street again, and the boom and bust nature of the Tech sector makes it especially vulnerable to a downturn. Is there a corner of the tech universe where you can hide from a replay of Pets.com this time? According to Forbes, software-as-a service (SaaS) companies, providers of Internet based process...
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It appears that Sun Microsystems has shelled out a hefty $1B to aquire MySQL and now adds the leading open source database management software to its product stack."The Santa Clara, California-based systems vendor has been involved in the community-based development process for many years, of course, through Java and has been offering...
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Everyone keeps telling me how smart Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook is, but I'm beginning to have my doubts. Fresh on the heels of his disastrous foray into datamining with Facebook's Beacon service, he seems to be unclear on the concept of copyright infringement. Hasbro and Mattel, owners of the copyright for the Scrabble word game,...
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Not deterred by bad press, it seems that the RIAA is content to continue their latest campaign against piracy.Their latest group of lawsuits has included numerous institutes of higher education:“The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), on behalf of the major record companies, this week sent a new wave of 407 pre-litigation settlement...
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Lost in the news at CES about another Sony product (Blu-ray) was the announcement of a deal between Sony and DivX which will allow onlnie retailers to serve up DivX files (legally) and also for those files to be played on DivX-Certified devices. The timing, of course, couldn't be better as PS3 Firmware 2.10 was just released with DivX support....
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Selling Macs at a limited number of Best Buy locations seems to have turned out to be a good idea for both companies. That's why Best Buy executives have leaked word of a new plan that would test the waters in other markets.“The plan would effectively double the number of Best Buy stores carrying Apple's computer line at the end of 2007,...
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Apple has inked a deal with 20th Century Fox to offer an on-demand video rental service through their iTunes interface. Perhaps as interesting as that tidbit, Apple is also offering their Digital Rights Management system to Fox for their DVD releases.Apart from letting people rent online, Apple will also for the first time extend its...
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This holiday season has been very generous to e-tailers, with record breaking numbers left and right. This begs a few questions such as: what changed from last year? Well, one of the largest changes appears to be what consumers were shopping for:“According to early online shopping statistics, sales of holiday stalwarts like jewelry,...
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Apple computers are generally more expensive than their competitors. Apple enthusiasts have long accustomed themselves to shelling out a premium for Cupertino bling. But Dave Winer was surprised to find out that not only does Apple charge a hefty $160 to replace a 80GB hard drive, they refuse to hand over your defective disk after you've paid...
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From the wild rumor and speculation department comes a tale of two future AMD platforms aimed at corporate customers. Like any great love triangle, there's a(n alleged) problem: lack of resources to properly develop both at once.In this case, we're talking about AMD's upcoming Bulldozer architecture, which will follow likely follow the...
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Got 113,000 Japanese yen burning a hole in your pocket? That's 495 British Pounds. The money pound, not the weight pound. At any rate, if you've got about $1000 American, you can now afford 100 GB of flash storage, courtesy of Buffalo Japan. Awesome.The company's new SHD-UHRS series of SSDs goes on sale at the end of this month, starting with...
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In late November, the Justice Department announced that they'd lived our dream: they got their hands on eight people that had infected unsuspecting computer users with Trojan Horse applications. InfoWorld profiled each of the perps, and it's fascinating to see the various ways they committed their crimes -- and the reasons they said...
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A lot of people, businesses included, have more or less decided to skip upgrading their OS to Microsoft Vista. Windows XP works for them, is well supported for foreseeable future, and many feel they can skip a generation and wait for Vista's successor, dubbed "Windows 7" to come along. Gartner Research VP Michael Silver thinks that might be...
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After years of online-only sales, Dell earlier this year started working with brick-and-mortar retailers, as part of its "recovery plan." First was Wal-Mart, then Sam's Club, then Staples, and now they are going to sell through Best Buy stores.Several models of XPS and Inspiron PCs will be available at 900 Best Buy locations, including the...
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