Published in August 27th, 2007
TAIPEI: Acer said Monday that it planned to acquire the U.S. computer maker Gateway for $710 million, a move that would push the Taiwanese company past Lenovo of China as the world's third-largest vendor of personal computers.
Acer said it was offering to buy Gateway for $1.90 a share in a deal expected to close by December, pending regulatory approvals in Taiwan and the United States.
The offer price represents a premium of 57 percent to Gateway's Friday closing price of $1.21. Gateway traded at $81.50 in 1999. Gateway shares jumped nearly 49 percent, or 59 cents, to $1.80 Monday afternoon in New York.
The acquisition has been unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both Gateway and Acer and is subject to standard closing conditions, the companies said.
The deal will create a multibranded computer company with over $15 billion in revenue and shipments exceeding 20 million units per year, Acer said.
“This strategic transaction is an important milestone in Acer's long history,” said J.T. Wang, Acer's chairman, in a statement. “This will be an excellent addition to Acer's already strong positions in Europe and Asia.”
Ed Coleman, chief executive of Gateway, welcomed the buyout.
“Joining with Acer will enable us to bring even more value to the consumer segments we serve and capitalize on Acer's highly regarded supply chain operations and global reach,” he said.
In the second quarter, Acer was the world's fourth-largest PC maker behind Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Lenovo, according to the research company Gartner. Gateway, based in Irvine, California, is the third-largest PC vendor in the United States by market share after Hewlett-Packard and Dell.
Asustek plans low-cost laptop
Asustek Computer, a leading Taiwanese computer maker, announced Monday that it would begin offering a low-price computer next month, becoming one of the first companies marketing an ultramobile product for the developing world, The Associated Press reported.
Created in conjunction with Intel, the Asustek laptop with a 7-inch screen will also come in a more sophisticated model that will target the developed world, said Jonney Shih, the company chairman.
“It will be a laptop that's easy to learn, easy to play and easy to work with,” Shih said during an interview.
A basic model will have a retail price of $199, while one with more features will sell for $245 to $299, he said.
The laptop will use the Linux operating system and carry the ASUS brand.
Intel and the nonprofit organization One Laptop Per Child have been working to bring inexpensive laptops to the most remote corners of the developing world.
Some analysts expect the ASUS laptop to sell well in the developed world because of its mobility and ease of use.
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Published in August 27th, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO: The idea of micropayments - charging Web users tiny amounts of money for single pieces of online content - was essentially put to sleep toward the end of the dot-com boom.
In December 2000, Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor in New York University's interactive telecommunications program, wrote a manifesto that people still cite whenever someone suggests resurrecting the idea. Micropayments will never work, he wrote, mainly because “users hate them.”
But wait. Amid the disdain, and without many people noticing, micropayments have arrived - just not in the way they were originally envisioned. The 99 cents you pay for a song on iTunes is a micropayment. So are the tiny amounts that some operators of small Web sites earn whenever someone clicks on the ads on their pages. Some stock-photography companies sell pictures for as little as $1 each.
“Micropayments are here,” said Benjamin Compaine, a consultant and lecturer at Northeastern University in Boston who specializes in media economics. “They just have not evolved in the way that everybody expected.”
From the earliest days of the Web until around the time of Shirky's manifesto, the expectation was that a handful of companies would provide platforms - or perhaps a single ubiquitous platform - that would enable Web users to pay a penny, a dime or a dollar for a bit of content such as a newspaper article, a comic strip or a research report. Simply clicking a link would complete the transaction.
Sellers of content - at the time, newspaper companies - were among the most interested in the idea as they looked for revenue that did not depend on advertising. And the Web, rather than being a threat to their business, would allow them to expand their audience vastly.
But the problems proved insurmountable. Many micropayments companies have shut down, been acquired or changed their business models over the years. Among them: DigiCash, CyberCash, First Virtual Holdings and Peppercoin. They used various systems, but in general users paid into accounts with their credit cards and then drew from those accounts.
The economic and technical challenges were enormous. Consumers were reluctant to pay even a tenth of a cent for something they believed should be free.
“There is a certain amount of anxiety involved in any decision to buy, no matter how small,” Shirky wrote in 2000.
It turns out, however, that consumers are more than willing to pay for certain types of content in certain situations. Consumers “expect to pay for music and movies, but not so much for the printed word,” said George Peabody, an analyst with Mercator Advisory Group, which serves the payments industry.
“Closed loop” systems like iTunes are the most successful, Peabody said. That's where consumers have a continuing relationship with the merchant and usually pay with their credit cards. “Open loop” systems, where the consumer pays many merchants through a single payments processor - the way micropayments were originally envisioned - are much less successful.
“To date, the market has said there is insufficient demand for these services,” concluded a research report Mercator published in April.
But cost is still a problem of closed-loop systems. The fees for every transaction are too high to make tiny payments worthwhile for many online content sellers. For most merchants, according to the report, purchases of less than $1.50 aren't worth it.
One solution is to aggregate purchases, or group purchases over a period of time, and then process the payments in a single transaction. That's how iTunes works. But credit card networks like Visa and MasterCard, which charge fees for transactions, “aren't really happy with that idea,” said Peabody, because it means less money for them.
Visa and MasterCard have recently promoted their efforts to serve the “small payments” market - encouraging consumers to use cards for parking meters, for example. But so far, they have stopped short of widely supporting aggregated-payment systems.
There are “operational challenges,” said Pam Zuercher, Visa's vice president for product innovation. Visa is evaluating such systems, she added.
Merchants can aggregate payments through another company, but that adds to costs and “implementation has been tough,” Peabody said.
Programs like AdSense from Google, which allows even the smallest Web publishers to have relevant ads placed on their sites, make micropayments unnecessary. The program pays Web publishers what are often very small amounts each time a reader clicks on an ad.
Looked at another way, AdSense is based on micropayments. “All the criteria are there,” said Compaine, the Northeastern University lecturer, “but the money isn't coming from the end user; it's coming from the advertisers.”
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Published in August 27th, 2007
SEOUL, South Korea - Samsung Electronics Co. said Monday it will work with Sprint Nextel Corp. to bring fourth-generation high speed wireless Internet to New York City.
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Samsung said in a statement it was chosen by Sprint Nextel to provide infrastructure for New York, part of the Reston, Va.-based wireless provider’s plan to launch the network in several U.S. cities based on an emerging mobile wireless technology called WiMax.
Sprint Nextel had already picked Samsung to provide infrastructure and equipment for similar networks planned for Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Boston and other cities.
“New York is an important milestone for Samsung as we continue to expand the deployment of (WiMax) technology around the world,” Choi Gee-sung, president of Samsung’s telecommunication network business, said in the statement.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
Sprint will “go for a commercial launch of our service starting in Washington in April of next year,” said Barry West, president of the company’s WiMax business.
He added that service in other cities would follow “with New York probably in the fourth quarter of next year.”
Sprint Nextel said two weeks ago it would spend $5 billion through 2010 on the WiMax network, to be sold under the brand Xohm. It also said it expects the network, which promises fast wireless broadband connections and mobile roaming at high speeds, to generate between $2 billion and $2.5 billion in revenue by that time.
The costs could have been higher, but Sprint Nextel last month said it would team up with competing provider Clearwire Corp. to help build the WiMax network, reducing the company’s outlay by up to 70 percent.
Similar to the Wi-Fi technology used in airports and coffee shops, WiMax, short for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, can provide coverage to much larger areas.
Besides Samsung and Clearwire, U.S. companies Intel Corp. and Motorola Inc. are cooperating with Sprint Nextel, which has operational headquarters in Overland Park, Kan., to commercialize the technology in the United States.
Sprint Nextel and Clearwire said last month that 100 million people would have access to the service by the end of 2008.
Published in August 27th, 2007
NEW DELHI - Microsoft Corp. will distribute free software to nonprofit groups to boost charity in India, a company official said Monday.
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The software donation will be routed through a technology assistance program that India’s NASSCOM Foundation is offering in partnership with TechSoup, a San Francisco-based group that partners in charity work with companies like Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Symantec.
NASSCOM Foundation, the philanthropy arm of the trade body of technology companies operating in India, introduced the program Monday — titled BiG Tech.
BiG Tech is a Web-based program that allows nonprofits to apply for free software online. The foundation will charge a fee of up to 4 percent to the nonprofit groups.
Nearly 35,000 nonprofit groups in India will be eligible for such software donations.
Microsoft sees BiG Tech as another opportunity to push its India strategy that has often tied business moves with philanthropy.
“We think it is going to make a big impact in India,” said Neelam Dhawan, managing director at Microsoft India.
Microsoft is a major donor for TechSoup, which runs or partners similar technology assistance programs across 25 countries outside the United States.
In the fiscal year 2008, TechSoup aims to distribute $55 million worth of software. The group sees “an extraordinary opportunity in India,” said Mike Yeaton, its global director.
Yeaton said the BiG Tech program also offers an opportunity for Indian technology companies to channel their charity through TechSoup to countries in other parts of the world.
Published in August 27th, 2007
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Time Warner Inc's AOL unit has been given the go-ahead to buy Tacoda, an online advertising company, U.S. antitrust authorities said on Monday.
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The Federal Trade Commission said in a statement that officials had looked into the proposed merger and had no objections to it.
The merger, announced on July 24, is the latest acquisition by AOL as it seeks to move away from its Internet access business and instead offer consumers free services supported by ads.
Tacoda's technology allows advertisers to target specific audience segments based on the kinds of sites they have visited on the Web.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed by the companies. A person familiar with the situation said in July that AOL was paying $275 million for Tacoda.
Web media and technology companies have created a lively auction for online ad firms, including Google Inc's proposed purchase of DoubleClick and Microsoft Corp's planned acquisition of aQuantive Inc.
(Reporting by Diane Bartz)
Published in August 27th, 2007
On Monday, Yahoo officially released a new version of its free e-mail service that includes several new features, including two that connect the service to mobile phones and instant messaging. Many of the features in this release were previously shown in a long-term public beta.
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The new version of Yahoo Mail lets users send free text messages from their e-mail accounts to mobile phones with numbers based in the U.S., Canada, India, or the Philippines, and instant messages to Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger.
The new service includes several speed and productivity enhancements, including advanced search options and new color schemes. Users can right-click on links — such as keywords, dates, or names — and immediately be able to choose relevant shortcuts such as adding events to the calendar or friends to the contact list.
More Social E-Mail
John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo's e-mail service, said that the changes will help Yahoo Mail become "a more social" e-mail experience. In fact, the company is pointing out the Web 2.0 features of the application to emphasize not only its social aspects but also the fact that the service now works more like a desktop application.
The new features include tabbed navigation, a reading pane, an RSS reader, and a more functional calendar. For those users who prefer the old ways, a classic version of Yahoo Mail is still available. Both the new version and the classic version remain free.
The additions to Yahoo Mail are intended to shore up its position against its biggest competitors: Google's Gmail and Microsoft's Hotmail. Yahoo competes against those two companies on several fronts, including search, advertising, and various information services.
Yahoo said that as part of its positioning, its new e-mail version will be cobranded with various partners, resulting in Verizon Yahoo, AT&T Yahoo High Speed Internet, and Rogers Yahoo Hi-Speed Internet.
'Leveraging Presence'
Many people currently view e-mail as the main business communication tool for electronic media, said Chris Hazelton, an analyst with industry research firm IDC. But SMS is also a sort of mini-e-mail, he noted, and its integration into Yahoo Mail and other applications could lead people to see it as another form of mobile business communication.
Including IM-sending in an e-mail service without requiring a dedicated IM client is part of a larger trend toward "leveraging presence," Hazelton pointed out. Because IM shows who is online, it begins to give a new, "live" dimension to classic, static e-mail.
As it moves into its second decade, Yahoo Mail's real-time communication features could create new expectations for such services from other companies, as consumers and business users might expect to track or be tracked continually, by IM and other real-time communications.
Published in August 27th, 2007
San Francisco (IDGNS) - A Silicon Valley startup claims to boost computing security and reduce electric costs with a virtual desktop PC that uses no software or processor.
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The Pano device, a small silver cube announced by Pano Logic, a privately held company in Menlo Park, California, has no CPU, memory, software drivers or OS, the company said. Instead, the device connects a user's keyboard, mouse, display and other peripherals connected by USB (Universal Serial Bus) to a version of Microsoft Corp. Windows Vista or XP running on a remote server.
By reducing the amount of processing and data storage performed on each user's desktop, the approach is similar to thin-client PCs sold by Hewlett-Packard Co., Wyse Technology and Neoware Inc. and PC blades sold by ClearCube Technology Inc. Those vendors all say that users can increase IT security by storing crucial data on remote servers and save on PC management costs by allowing administrators to update software on a centralized server instead of multiple machines.
Pano Logic says its approach improves on the model by stripping even the most basic processors and local storage devices from the desktop hardware, relying on a virtualized server running software from VMWare Inc. and Pano's server application. Without software, the Pano device is immune to worms and viruses and without a processor it consumes only 5 watts of power, a fraction of the typical PC electric draw, the company said.
Pano Logic is likely to find an audience eager to hear about products that deal with those issues, one analyst said.
"The goal for a lot of companies using products from the virtualization and software-as-a-service sectors is to do more with less, to get greater functionality without burdening the customer and without having so much software to install and maintain," said Jeff Kaplan, managing director of ThinkStrategies Inc.
"There's no question that customers are becoming more aware and more willing to adopt these solutions, because they're seeing that products like can be more secure and more stable than their own in-house applications. So there's a good chance they could be safer and more productive."
Pano Logic could quickly see its market spread beyond traditional thin-client PC users in vertical segments like banking and health care, Kaplan said.
"We're seeing an evolution of the technology; it's been proven to work. And we're seeing an evolution in the way of thinking by customers, as they're willing to try the technology for its benefits in security and cost of management," he said.
Pano Logic will sell the Pano devices beginning in September for subscription prices beginning at US$20 per month.
Published in August 27th, 2007
Airlines body bids farewell to paper tickets
Reuters - 2 hours 10 minutes ago
GENEVA (Reuters) - The global airlines body IATA said on Monday it had placed its last order for paper tickets, clearing the way for air travel to be based entirely on electronic ticketing from June 1 next year.
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"In just 278 more days, the paper ticket will become a collector's item," said Giovanni Bisignani, director general of the International Air Transport Association.
The changeover from paper would not only cut airlines' costs by $9 for every traveller but would also mean the industry — criticised by environmentalists for its part in global warming — would save 50,000 mature trees a year, he added.
Bisignani did not say whether the $9 in cost savings would or should be passed on to passengers.
Based in Geneva, IATA represents more than 240 airlines which operate 94 percent of scheduled international flights.
Non-IATA airlines, mainly low-cost carriers like the Irish Ryanair and the British Easyjet, already have a paper-free ticket system where travellers are registered in computers and present only an identity document at check-in.
IATA launched its drive for so-called "e-ticketing" just over three years ago and now 84 percent of travellers on IATA carriers fly without paper tickets.
The airlines body says China, one of the fastest-growing markets for air travel and host to next year's Olympic Games, is heading to be the first country in the world to operate an entirely paper-free ticketing system by the end of this year.
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Published in August 27th, 2007
TAIPEI, Taiwan - Acer Inc. plans to acquire U.S. computer maker Gateway Inc. for $710 million in a deal that will push the Taiwanese company past China’s Lenovo Group as the world’s third largest vendor of personal computers.
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Acer said Monday it is offering to buy Gateway for $1.90 per share in a deal expected to close by December, pending regulatory approvals in Taiwan and the U.S.
The offer price amounts to a premium of 57 percent to Gateway’s Friday closing price of $1.21. Gateway traded at $81.50 in 1999.
Gateway shares jumped nearly 49 percent, or 59 cents, to $1.80 Monday.
The acquisition has been unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both Gateway and Acer and is subject to standard closing conditions, it said.
The deal will create a multi-branded computer company with over $15 billion in revenues and shipments in excess of 20 million units per year, Acer said in the statement.
“This strategic transaction is an important milestone in Acer’s long history,” said J.T. Wang, Acer’s chairman, in the statement. “This will be an excellent addition to Acer’s already strong positions in Europe and Asia.”
Acer President Gianfranco Lanci said the acquisition will allow Acer to implement an “effective multi-brand strategy and cover all the major market segments.”
The takeover will result in reductions in per unit procurement and component costs, and also create an opportunity for the cross-selling of product portfolios, he added.
Ed Coleman, chief executive of Gateway, welcomed the buyout.
“Joining with Acer will enable us to bring even more value to the consumer segments we serve and capitalize on Acer’s highly regarded supply chain operations and global reach,” he said in the statement.
In the second quarter, Acer was the world’s fourth-largest PC maker behind U.S.-based Hewlett-Packard, No. 2 Dell, and third-ranked Lenovo Group Ltd. of China, according to research company Gartner Inc. Irvine, California-based Gateway is the third-largest PC vendor in the U.S. by market share after Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc.
Bryan Ma, an analyst at U.S. market research firm IDC, told Dow Jones Newswires that Acer’s acquisition of Gateway is expected help the Taiwan company’s relatively weak presence in the U.S.
“Acer ranked sixth in the U.S. market, while Gateway ranked third as of the second quarter. Combined, they are expected to double their shipments,” he said.
Citigroup Inc. is the financial adviser for Acer, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is acting as the financial adviser for Gateway.
Published in August 27th, 2007
U.S. envoy says Middle East turmoil could cause world war
Reuters - 2 hours 50 minutes ago
VIENNA (Reuters) - Upheaval in the Middle East and Islamic civilisation could cause another world war, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations was quoted as saying in an Austrian newspaper interview published on Monday.
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Zalmay Khalilzad told the daily Die Presse the Middle East was now so disordered that it had the potential to inflame the world as Europe did during the first half of the 20th century.
"The (Middle East) is going through a very difficult transformation phase. That has strengthened extremism and creates a breeding ground for terrorism," he said in remarks translated by Reuters into English from the published German.
"Europe was just as dysfunctional for a while. And some of its wars became world wars. Now the problems of the Middle East and Islamic civilisation have the same potential to engulf the world," he was quoted as saying.
Khalilzad, interviewed by Die Presse while attending a foreign policy seminar in the Austrian Alps, said the Islamic world would eventually join the international mainstream but this would take some time.
"They started late. They don't have a consensus on their concept. Some believe they should return to the time (6th-7th century) of the Prophet Mohammad," he was quoted as saying.
"It may take decades before some understand that they can remain Muslims and simultaneously join the modern world."
Khalilzad was also quoted as saying Iraq would need foreign forces for security for a long time to come.
"Iraq will not be in a position to stand on its own feet for a longer period," he said in the interview.
Asked whether that could be 10-20 years, he said: "Yes, indeed, it could last that long. What form the help takes will depend a lot on the Iraqis. Up to now there is no accord between Iraq and the United States about a longer military presence."
Khalilzad said the chaos in Iraq since U.S.-led forces overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003 was not unavoidable but arose from mistakes in the initial period of occupation.
"Historians are discussing now whether we should have sent more troops to Iraq to preserve law and order, if it was right to dissolve the Iraqi army, if we should have built an Iraqi government quicker, if there should have been such a sweeping de-Baathification programme (removing Saddam-era officials)."
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