by Jason Wilk on July 13, 2009
- Netflix stock surged today on news that it may be acquired by Amazon. The stock is currently up over 5% in trading today, at an 11-week high. Both Amazon and Netflix are in the midst of a full-on push to get digital video content into the living room. Amazon via its On Demand service, and Netflix through its streaming service(TC). The two are battling the likes of Apple (with the Apple TV) and to some extent Microsoft (though Netflix also works on the Xbox 360 — and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is actually on Microsoft’s board).
- NetFlix may have struck gold with their $1 million challenge to developers who could come up with a reccomendation algorithm that beats theirs by 10%. The contest has been running since 2006, and supposedly there is a winner. Amazon is the king of consumer reccomendations, and this offering from NetFlix paired with their movie rental market share, could make a killer addition to the Jeff Bezoz empire. NetFlix’ (NFLX) current market share is $2.43B.
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by Jason Wilk on March 18, 2009
- Talks began swirling today about IBM attempting to walk away with Sun for $6.5B. Sun, a company that is still rich with talent, CASH, technology and engineers, may be talking to the wrong successor. With increased entry into server market by Cisco and HP, IBM would be buying its way into an industry that is seeing shrinking margins on top of inheriting a gigantic workforce. Most likely, IBM sees an opportunity to buy it’s way into a burgeoning market that they don’t want to be left out of. Furthermore, many of Suns assets can be individually sold immediately to other buyers like Fujitsu who are prime to buy the hardware side of Sun’s business.
- I agree with Om that no one is better equipped to buy and manage Sun than Cisco Systems. Om says
Despite its bold entry into “unified computing” with the launch of a new line of blade servers, Cisco is a newbie in the field and its product line so far is limited. Sun has a vast array of products, not to mention significant software resources (MySQL) for Cisco’s vision of unified and cloud computing and the sales channels and existing customers to help execute it. (IBM has all those things already, and it can pick up new customers via Sun.) More importantly, it has engineers — the very people Cisco values most and historically a strong factor in the networking giant’s acquisition decisions.
- IBM does not “need” Sun, it just gives them a power play. Cisco is the real one that could use a boost buy pushing to make this deal theirs. It could save them a decade of time in catching up with the rest of the data center moguls. IBM buying Sun only pushes the further away.
by Jason Wilk on January 13, 2009
- According to BoomTown and several sources familiar with Yahoo (YHOO), Carol Bartz (Now Confirmed) is hot on the radar to replace Co-founder Jerry Yang. Bartz is a longtime and high-profile Silicon Valley executive who presided over huge success at design technology giant, Autodesk (ADSK), until stepping down in April of 2006 to sit as a chairman. During her time there, net revenues increased from $285 million to more than $534 million.
- Other notches on her Resume include 10 years as vice president at Sun Microsystems(JAVA). She has also held product line and sales management positions at other high-tech companies; she is also an expert in computer science.
- Here’s how the dots connect. Bartz currently sits on the boards of Intel (INTC), Cisco Systems (CSCO), NetApp (NTAP), and the Foundation for the National Medals of Science and Technology. Jerry Yang is also on the board of Cisco, and Yahoo President Sue Decker is on Intel’s.
- Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock promised investors a new leader would be in place soon and that they are on finally decisions to go with an internal or external for the head position. Who’s in the running? John Chapple, former Nextel CEO, Maggie Wilderotter, a former Microsoft exec, Jonathan Miller, former AOL CEO.
- One of my 7 predications of 2009 was that a new Yahoo CEO would get an offer back from Microsoft closer to the original $33 deal. I wouldn’t mind seeing Bartz in charge of this goal: she is a seasoned CEO of successfully running public companies, understands computer technology from the ground up, and has dealt with mergers and acquisitions before.
- In any event, the new Yahoo CEO will have a big task at large, restoring company morale after Jerry.
by Jason Wilk on December 1, 2008
- College Tonight (CBEGE) is the social network for college students, which took itself public in a reverse merger, raising $1,639,500 in November 2007.
- The company which came out of the gates hoping to take on Facebook is standing on some thin sticks.
- Since it’s inception, the company has burnt through over $1 million dollars trying to do so.
- In a recent gasp for air, the founder, Zachary Suchin tried to launch another social product for college students called TheQuad.com.
- The founders went on a road trip and hired Lauren Conrad of The Hills (barf), to promote TheQuad brand and tell students nationwide that they finally have a place online to go hangout.
- Maybe they were trying to reach out to the students who hadn’t heard of Facebook, which seems about right according to their traffic numbers. Both properties combined have not been able to pass 15K views a month (according to Comscore reports)
- To make legitimate ad dollars in this town (which is what they are relying on driving revenue with), a site must get to at least 100,000 views a month to even have a chance at making a tiny bit of money.
- The most important thing to check out is their market cap, which is at $5.5M right now. A site with traffic and revenue like they have is not even worth the legal costs of transferring the company into your name.
- This company has no hope in site. Anyone who owns some of the 34 million outstanding shares, it’s time to sell.
M, T
by glu on October 6, 2008
- Yahoo is in fresh merger talks with AOL to acquire their content, services, and advertising but not their subscription dial up service.
- Combined totals:
- Email accounts worldwide: 48% (AOL-YAHOO), 42% (MSFT)
- Instant messaging worldwide market share: 55% (MSFT), 39% (AOL-Yahoo)
The deal would certainly give Yahoo a leg up on content and portal dominance but can they survive without effective search advertising?
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