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All News Analyses by this Author

Moving Ahead at the Speed of Light: Verizon's FiOS TV on the Horizon.

May 21, 2009

Analysis of:Is Verizon's $23 Billion Bet With Fios Paying Off? | adage.com

Verizon's FiOS project is one of the most ambitious examples of how telecoms operators around the world are moving into television services, in direct response to the march of cable operators into the voice market. The snag from the telecoms firms' point of view is that whereas it costs very little to provide voice services over an existing cable network, it is very expensive to upgrade telecoms networks to deliver television over broadband internet connections, a technology generally referred to as internet-protocol TV (IPTV). "FiOS has been an extraordinary hit with our first customers in other states," said Bone. "We are building the communications network of the future to provide customers unmatched network reliability, incredible speed and exciting new options for voice, data and video connections."

What's Next for Nintendo

May 21, 2009

Analysis of:Nintendo Loses Some of Its Luster | online.wsj.com

The things that need to be included in Nintendo's next console are all mostly obvious. Better graphics, HD output, backwards compatibility, more internal storage, better online features, etc; it's all pretty basic stuff. I don't expect Nintendo to make a powerhouse console like the competition is no doubt planning, but it still needs to be a major leap forward from the Wii, which is going to look very dated by the end of the console cycle. I'm sure that Nintendo will continue the motion control route with a more refined evolution of the current Wii controller. I would expect even fewer buttons (I can hear you all groan) and a more accurate motion and pointer system. Nintendo also needs to consider newer media choices, which would probably involve a proprietary high-capacity disc, since Nintendo is unlikely to ever embrace Blu-ray. I really expect to see an extension of the Wii concept overall, just with more refinement and power, all wrapped up in a slick little package.

The great online advertising divide widens

September 8, 2008

Analysis of:Gap Widens in Online Advertising | online.wsj.com

Online advertising, as a successful platform that facilitates the buying and selling of advertising space on websites; continues to grow rapidly as it attracts more and more web-surfers through the promotion of goods, services, and ideas. Like modern finance, this critical financial internet-component, which now accounts for almost a seventh of all advertising spending and contributes to the majority of revenues for most websites, relies systematically on advanced economic and statistical methods. Based on statistics, consumers are now spending more time online on their PCs, and participation-wise, the numbers are in upward trajectory as additional devices such as smartphones, and televisions are connected to the web.

Cable Plays Clearwire Card

May 16, 2008

Analysis of:Cable Plays Clearwire Card | www.lightreading.com

While several of its peers all but cemented their long-term wireless and mobile service plans last week, Charter Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: CHTR - message board) is still weighing a range of possible partnership options.Neil Smit, Charter's president and CEO, addressed the wireless question this morning during the company's first-quarter conference call. Wireless has become a hot topic in cable circles after three major MSOs entered a wide-ranging WiMax and 3G deal with the Clearwire LLC (Nasdaq: CLWR - message board) and Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S - message board) consortium, and Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE: CVC - message board) set its sights on deploying a WiFi mesh system in all systems over the next two years. Cox Communications Inc. , meanwhile, is expected to build out a wireless system of its own using spectrum won in the 700 MHz auctions. (See Cable Plays Clearwire Card, Cablevision High on WiFi, and The Great Cable Spectrum Speculation.)

ICAHN AIMS AT MOTOROLA

April 8, 2008

Analysis of:Motorola bows to Icahn demands | www.ft.com

Carl Icahn is tightening the noose on yet another corporate chief who won't bow down - this time Motorola's Ed Zander. The billionaire investor expanded his proxy war yesterday just three days after finally dumping his latest CEO victim, Blockbuster's John Antioco, who'll leave this year with a paltry $8 million bonus shrunken by two-thirds in a losing war with stockholder Icahn. Zander, Motorola's chairman and CEO, is publicly resisting Icahn's growing demands to use Motorola's $11 bilion cash hoard to make dividend payouts to shareholders.  Motorola  Inc. made peace with Carl Icahn  on Monday, heading off a proxy battle with the billionaire investor by agreeing to seat four of his nominees on its board of directors. While the mobile phone maker remains in steep descent, the move avoids a second annual meeting showdown with Icahn and silences - for now - his attacks in the media and in court on its managers and their decisions.

Yahoo says Microsoft offer undervalues company

April 8, 2008

Analysis of:Yahoo! rejects Microsoft's latest move | www.business-standard.com

Microsoft offered $31 per share on Feb. 1, which was a 62 percent premium over Yahoo's closing price the day before, and was thus characterized at the time as the proverbial "can't refuse" type. However, since then, Yahoo's stock has risen in value and was trading just above $29 on Monday morning. At the same time, Microsoft's stock has fallen since it made the offer, closing at $28.56 on Friday, down from a close of $32.60 on the day prior to the offer. Microsoft offered to pay $31 for half of Yahoo's outstanding shares and 0.9509 of a Microsoft share for the other half. Yahoo's executives were rumored to have been searching for a buyer other than Microsoft. However, no buyer has emerged. Yahoo's latest moves mean that Microsoft may have make a more generous offer, or pursue a hostile takeover. Yahoo reiterated Monday its rejection of a takeover offer from Microsoft, again calling the bid too low.

YAHOO! maps in INDIA

April 7, 2008

Analysis of:Yahoo! introduces maps in local languages with walking directions | www.business-standard.com

Internet media giant Yahoo has now improved their local maps for India by adding options for local languages. These maps are also now providing walking directions. The company said that the maps are now available in languages including Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Marathi, Gujarati, Telugu, Malayalam and Punjabi.  The users can search for directions across 179 cities, 4,767 towns, and 2,26,114 villages. The service is accessible via email, SMS and web. Besides providing key landmarks along the route (ATMs,hospitals, etc.), the walking direction also claims to provide clarity on every major turn, the company said in a statement.

Municipal Wi-Fi failing,earthlink pulls

March 27, 2008

Analysis of:Hopes for Wireless Cities Fade as Internet Providers Pull Out | www.nytimes.com

It was hailed as Internet for the masses when Philadelphia officials announced plans in 2005 to erect the largest municipal Wi-Fi grid in the country, stretching wireless access over 135 square miles with the hope of bringing free or low-cost service to all residents, especially the poor. Municipal officials in Chicago, Houston, San Francisco and 10 other major cities, as well as dozens of smaller towns, quickly said they would match Philadelphia’s plans. But the excited momentum has sputtered to a standstill, tripped up by unrealistic ambitions and technological glitches. The conclusion that such ventures would not be profitable led to sudden withdrawals by service providers like EarthLink, the Internet company that had effectively cornered the market on the efforts by the larger cities. Now, community organizations worry about their prospects for helping poor neighborhoods get online.

Broadband in rural area's

January 21, 2008

Analysis of:Search broadens in rural options for broadband | www.burlingtonfreepress.com

Rural households lag behind those in urban and suburban areas in their use of high-speed or broadband Internet service, creating concern about a “digital divide” and a perception that the nation is not a leader in broadband use. (Last year the International Telecommunication Union ranked the United States 15th in broadband subscribers per capita, behind Canada, Taiwan and several European countries.) This has prompted proposals to extend universal service to high-speed Internet access—cable modem, digital subscriber line (DSL), fixed wireless and other technologies that transmit information many times faster than a dial-up link.

redbox DVD rental. $1 a night with no late fees ever.

November 5, 2007

Analysis of:RED BOX AUTOMATED DVD RENTAL | www.giantfood.com

Redbox, the USA's leader in providing automated DVD rental services, announced an agreement choosing Solectron Corporation (NYSE:SLR) as the exclusive worldwide manufacturer of Redbox's fully automated DVD rental kiosks. The newly designed system manufactured by Solectron will immediately appear in markets. To rent a DVD, simply make your selection, follow the easy instructions and, with just a swipe of your credit or debit card, you're on your way in just minutes! And it's so inexpensive! There are no membership or late fees. You just pay $1 a night for every night you have the DVD.  

Titan expects to sell 10 million watches this fiscal year, nine million of them in India

October 4, 2007

Analysis of:Titan sees net profit up 50 pct in FY08 | in.reuters.com

Titan Industries Limited is an India-based manufacturer of watches and jewellery. The Company’s primary segments consist of Watch, Jewellery and Others. Others include eye wear, precision engineering, machine building and clocks. During the fiscal year ended March 31, 2007, Titan Industries Limited produced 90,59,059 watches and sold 86,47,138 watches; produced 1,49,012 clocks and sold 1,48,583 clocks, and produced 7,44,826 jewellery pieces and sold 7,20,241 jewellery pieces. As of March 31, 2007, it had 211 World of Titan Show rooms and 88 Tanishq boutiques. Its Xylys brand, is a Swiss-made watch from Titan. The Titan Design Studio focuses on design of watches, clocks, eyewear, trophies and a range of other products. The Design Studio also designs and fabricates trophies for a range of clients.

Belo Corp. plans to spin off its newspapers.

October 3, 2007

Analysis of:Belo, Listening to Investors, to Split TV, Newspaper Assets | online.wsj.com

Investors had pressed Belo to consider splitting up the company, arguing that the struggling newspaper business was a drag on the stock price. The TV stations accounted for half of Belo's revenue but two-thirds of its gross earnings. Chairman and Chief Executive Robert Decherd had resisted, however, saying the newspaper side of the company was too small to stand on its own. But the company had quietly explored a split since April, and on Monday, Decherd said the move recognized the "profound" changes in both businesses and was good for shareholders. The move underscored investor disdain for newspaper stocks. Shares of Belo, The New York Times Co., The Washington Post Co., Tribune Co., and Gannett Co., owner of USA Today, have lost about half their value since early 2004.  

Chicago's Decision to Drop Muni WiFi Symptomatic of a Troubled Sector

August 31, 2007

Analysis of:Chicago Scraps Muni Wi-Fi Plan | www.wirelessweek.com

The plan to blanket Chicago's 228 square miles with wireless Internet access was announced early last year when Chicago leaders said they hoped to become one of the largest cities to offer all-over access to the Web. The change in heart comes after the city found itself unable to reach an agreement with either EarthLink or AT&T, the two companies that had submitted proposals. One of the sticking points was apparently Chicago's unwillingness to commit to becoming an anchor tenant for the network. Both of the vendors wanted Chicago to pay to use the WiFi network for internal services, a model which has worked well in other cities like Philadelphia. The City of Brotherly Love, which was one of the first US cities to commit to building a WiFi network, is using its network to wean off of its reliance on external data services providers.

Siebel World

June 7, 2007

Analysis of:Siebel 2.0: The end of Salesforce.com | blogs.zdnet.com

It makes sense: Oracle gets more sophisticated CRM functionality and on-demand customers, and Siebel gets a strong position within an integrated suite of business applications. Customers get more integrated CRM and business application functionality as well as vertical expertise and functionality that should drive more rapid deployments and accelerated ROI.

Memory technology in mobile devices

June 7, 2007

Analysis of:Intel to sample PRAM this year | arstechnica.com

Intel's new phase-change memory technology, called PRAM by Intel and PCM by others who are working on the same type of memory, is set to sample in the first half of this year. Intel says they plan to ship the first PRAM modules as a straight-ahead NOR flash replacement so that they can work the kinks out of the design before trying to move it up the memory hierarchy. The company claims a much higher number of read-write cycles (100 million) than flash, as well as a potential 10 years' worth of data retention.

Startup Primed To Challenge Google CPC Ad Model

May 31, 2007

Analysis of:Microsoft to buy Aquantive for US$6 billion | www.zdnet.com.au

Google's bubble may be about to burst. Though search engines continue to make a tidy sum selling clicks, the advertisers buying those clicks have no choice but to gamble: Only a small portion of online ad click-throughs result in sales and about 14% of clicks on average aim to defraud the advertiser.

Nokia Siemens Networks wins Moscow, India deals

May 24, 2007

Analysis of:Nokia Siemens Wins in Russia | www.unstrung.com

Helsinki, May 18: Nokia Siemens Networks said on Friday it had won mobile network gear orders in Russia and India. The Nokia Siemens joint venture said it had won a $500 million order from Idea Cellular Ltd. , India's fifth-largest mobile telecom firm, to expand its GSM network. Nokia Siemens Networks had also won an order from Russia's Mobile Telesystems (MTS) for a 3G radio network in the Moscow region, the two companies said in a joint statement. The firms did not unveil the size of the deal. Nokia Siemens Networks has supplied 3G core network for Mobile Telesystems in Mosco.

Thomson-Reuters won't roll over Bloomberg

May 23, 2007

Analysis of:Reuters receives takeover bid, shares soar | news.zdnet.com

Marketwatch media columnist Jon Friedman writes Monday that the combined operations of Thomson Corp. and Reuters Group Plc will still have a difficult time defeating rival Bloomberg LP. Bloomberg is kind of the North Korea of journalism, an outpost with its own rules and quirks. Skeptics can say it has higher than average turnover, and I wouldn't argue. Meanwhile, supporters can add that Bloomberg has yet to enact major layoffs, unlike plenty of its competitors

Competetion between Skype and Wal-Mart

May 23, 2007

Analysis of:Skype Partners with Wal-Mart to Increase VoIP Adoption | www.asteriskvoipnews.com

The retail giant Monday put its considerable weight and consumer reach behind the IP communications market by adding Skype VoIP equipment and pre-paid Skype service cards to its shelves. The deal foists VoIP into the mainstream spotlight and has the potential to expose the Skype service to a huge crop of potential new users.

Cinema advertising growth

May 21, 2007

Analysis of:Cinema Advertising Reached $600 Million Mark in 2006 | www.digitalcinemareport.com

The cinema advertising industry grew by 20.6% to nearly $528 million in 2005 compared to nearly $438 million in 2004, according to a recent report by the Cinema Advertising Council (CAC). The CAC report, to be released today, includes revenue data from on screen advertising—commercials that air before movie previews and the movie—and off-screen revenue (audio programming, sampling, special events, concession-based and lobby-based promotions).

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