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mythbusting
Why Facebook borrowed $100 million for servers
Technologists are instinctively averse to debt. The cycles are too swift and mistakes too punishing, the conventional wisdom says, to subject a startup to the burden of debt; cash is better spent on growth opportunities than interest. But Facebook has never followed the usual script for a startup, and its CFO, Gideon Yu, is no herd-follower, either. No wonder that the news that Facebook is leasing $100 million worth of servers, after raising a $360 million round of venture capital from Microsoft and Li Ka-Shing, is causing such a ruckus — and some misconceptions. Here are the instant myths that have arisen: More »
the official filthy rich handbook
"The Technocrat"
He made his fortune — about $18 billion worth — "fundamentally altering the course of human existence." His patron saints are Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen and Apple cofounder Steve Jobs. And like his fellow geek, "the Nerdling," he's featured in Christopher Tennant's Official Filthy Rich Handbook, deliverable in June. An excerpt, below. More »
deals
Google moves to quash Wall Street's hopes for Microsoft-Yahoo deal -- and with it, Yahoo's stock price
Yahoo shares are hovering around $25 because investors hope major Yahoo shareholders can still force a deal with Microsoft at $33 per share or more. But at Google's annual shareholder meeting yesterday, cofounder Sergey Brin and CEO Eric Schmidt tried their best to destroy those hopes, amping up talk of a deal that would outsource Yahoo's search advertising to Google and make Yahoo unattractive to Microsoft. Brin said the deal is designed to keep Microsoft at bay. "[Yahoo was] under a hostile attack and we wanted to make sure they had as many options as possible," Brin said. More »
acquisitions
Microsoft chief strategy officer leaves the door open for Yahoo
Microsoft's chief strategy officer Craig Munde told reporters yesterday that the Yahoo merger is off for good — he "assumed", before putting the ball back in Yahoo's court:The market may wish that the Yahoo deal may come back together, but Microsoft at least at this point assumes it's over. Yahoo could always come back again and say please buy us for $33 (a share) and I'm sure we might reconsider it but we're not assuming that's going to happen
Microsoft dashes hostile Yahoo takeover hopes
In a letter from software giant Microsoft's lawyers at Sullivan & Cromwell to proxy board members, the company rescinded the agreements it had struck in case of a hostile take-over bid for Web search pioneer Yahoo. But hey, with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang now begging for deal with tail tucked and head down, the companies may still agree to a friendly take-over bid. [WSJ]
In a letter from software giant Microsoft's lawyers at Sullivan & Cromwell to proxy board members, the company rescinded the agreements it had struck in case of a hostile take-over bid for Web search pioneer Yahoo. But hey, with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang now begging for deal with tail tucked and head down, the companies may still agree to a friendly take-over bid. [WSJ]
cubicle culture
We've toured the top 10 workspaces in tech. Now, we've gone back to Office Snapshots to find the 10 worst. What makes them so bad? Some offend with exposed fluorescent lights, gray cubicles and a dystopian corporate sheen. But others, with their pseudo-hip graffiti, kindergarten toys and plastic decorations — all in a desperate attempt to seem "Internet-y" — come off even worse. We'll start with Yahoo's New York digs.
More »
The 10 worst workspaces in tech
We've toured the top 10 workspaces in tech. Now, we've gone back to Office Snapshots to find the 10 worst. What makes them so bad? Some offend with exposed fluorescent lights, gray cubicles and a dystopian corporate sheen. But others, with their pseudo-hip graffiti, kindergarten toys and plastic decorations — all in a desperate attempt to seem "Internet-y" — come off even worse. We'll start with Yahoo's New York digs.
More »
antitrust
Microsoft officially hiring "Google killers"
After more than a decade of trans-Atlantic antitrust scrutiny, one would think Microsoft would be, oh, I don't know, subtle about its ambitions to destroy a competitor. Someone in Microsoft's European HR offices didn't get the message. A poster advertising jobs at Microsoft Europe lists, among other qualities it's looking for in candidates, the ability to be a "Google killer."
online advertising
Yahoo's $1 billion Google search dreams dissolve
Yahoo's stock has stayed well above its premerger level of $19, suggesting that its post-Microsoft-bid performance isn't just a matter of shorts covering their positions. Perhaps ever-optimistic Wall Street arbitrageurs believe Steve Ballmer will come back with another offer. Or perhaps buy-and-hold types believe Yahoo will outsource search advertising to Google, increasing its cash flow by $1 billion. Well, bad news, Yahoo shareholders. Ballmer and Microsoft have moved on, to Facebook and other prospects. And Google? With Microsoft out of the picture, its executives are suddenly, conveniently worried about what a search deal would look like to Washington regulators. More »
design
A good place for a Yahoo-less Microsoft to start: Pick a brand and stick to it
If buying Facebook doesn't work out, Microsoft plans to compete on the Web by growing "organically." Bill Gates said that means search advancements, more marketing and lots of meetings. Lots of meetings. But here's what those meetings ought to be about: unifying Microsoft's online branding. Check out the screenshots of Microsoft's Web designs below. Nabbed by LiveSide, ReadWriteWeb's Josh Catone points out they contain "four different search boxes, two different Live.com "orb" logos (in four different sizes), and six different header backgrounds." More »
10 worst workspaces
Microsoft's world headquarters in Redmond, Washington go the other way. Welcome to the Borg cube. No talking. (Photos by taguri and ilikeyesterday)
Next: LinkedIn
Microsoft
MicrosoftMicrosoft's world headquarters in Redmond, Washington go the other way. Welcome to the Borg cube. No talking. (Photos by taguri and ilikeyesterday)
Next: LinkedIn
deals
Chernin and Murdoch protest talks with Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL too much
How badly does News Corp. want to move MySpace out the door? During yesterday's quarterly earnings call with analysts, News Corp. president and COO Pete Chernin and chairman Rupert Murdoch said they haven't discussed a merging properties with Microsoft, AOL or Yahoo in quite some time. Like maybe 14 days. Chernin: "I have not had a conversation with Microsoft or AOL in a couple of weeks." Rupert Murdoch "Nor have I." Silicon Alley Insider doesn't believe the disclaimers, reminding us that at the end of the last quarter, Murdoch denied interest in Yahoo even as he'd ordered a team to make the deal happen.
copyfight
Thanks, Rob Glaser -- now my mom cares about DRM
Intellectual property is, in many ways, my family's business. And over the years my mother Mary Deaton and I have had more than a few heated arguments about copyright reform. That said, my mom has been using Microsoft Windows since before Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg shed his diapers, and was ripping CDs to MP3 since I bought her a Rio MP3 player for Christmas with my dot-boom winnings. Since then, she bought into the system and signed up with MTV's now defunct Urge digital music service. But thanks to digital rights management, or DRM, RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser is punishing her for such law-abiding ways — and charging her $14.99 a month for these "feature." Seems that in being migrated, like other Urge users, to Real's Rhapsody service, my mom lost the ability to transfer her music to her MP3 player or burn it to CD as promised. What ensued is a case study in bad customer service and the consumer-punishing idiocy that is DRM, and it's all after the jump. More »
copyfight
Microsoft's antipiracy protection may doom video Zune
Part of the deal between NBC and Microsoft to sell television shows to Zune owners is that Microsoft will attempt to build in antipiracy technology that keeps anything you might have downloaded through less than legitimate means off the device. In other words, you can say goodbye to trading MP3 files or videos with your friends on the Zune — instead, you'll have to use officially authorized sources to charge it up with content. How will the Zune know if the video you're trying to download to the device was downloaded illegally or, say, created by you? Until digital watermarking technology improves significantly, it won't, and even then, who knows. So for you lonely Zune owners, prepare to get even lonelier, because the second the company implements this "feature," it can kiss goodbye to what little market share it now enjoys. (Photo by AP/Ted S. Warren)
project granola
Microsoft's plan for Web growth, minus Yahoo and Facebook
Sure, Microsoft would buy Facebook, but management knows Zuckerberg's not going to sell — and unlike Yang, he controls his company's board. As for Yahoo, well, "Yahoo can twist," one source told BoomTown. "Microsoft has lots and lots of other options." Redmond's favorite? Granola. Microsoft's internal plans for a post-Yahoo reality are code-named "Project Granola" because the company now wants to grow its online properties "organically," like every hippy's favorite breakfast food. But to us, the name seems utterly fitting in its blandness: Microsoft chairman Bill Gates told the WSJ that Microsoft's big plans include more "advances" in search, more marketing and more meetings in Redmond, Washington. That kind of bureaucratic strategy sounds like management needs a high colonic, not just more dietary fiber. (Photo by Adry Long)
yahoo
Humbled Yang disavows high-fives, says he was "very happy" to deal with Microsoft
Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang has not been replaced by chairman Roy Bostock, Kara Swisher reports. Yang's reputation, however, has taken a severe tarnishing. How far has his reputation fallen? More »
acquisition
Microsoft bankers approach Facebook for acquisition
Sources close to Microsoft say the company's bankers have begun signaling to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg interest in acquiring his company. "We just want to gauge their interest, more than any real effort," one source told Kara Swisher, who first reported the news. These bankers figure there's little chance Zuckerberg will agree to sell to anyone but the public in the next few years, but that "putting out subtle signals," as Swisher reports the bankers call them, is worth the effort if they pay off. Last fall, Microsoft purchased 1.6 percent of Facebook for $240 million. Unsolicited advice for Zuckerberg: Be careful with the high-fives.
microsoft
