Archive for the 'News' Category

By ROBERT CYRAN and CHRISTOPHER SWANN

[excerpt]

Skype’s initial public offering may add a dose of healthy hype to Silicon Valley. The Internet telephone group’s $100 million float should be red hot. While there have been several tech offerings this year, investor reception has been uneven. A bit of justified excitement over Skype’s growth and its backers’ gains is just what the Valley’s capitalists — and entrepreneurs — need.

With hot companies like Facebook and Zynga ruling out public floats in the near future, growth investors are hungry for the next big ticket. Skype obliges. It has 560 million registered users and continues to grow. It added 86 million in the first six months of the year. Moreover, it is in the black. Skype has $116 million of adjusted Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) since January, and this figure could grow rapidly if the company succeeds in cracking the lucrative business market.

Moreover, Skype is big. If its estimated 2011 revenue of $1 billion is valued on the same multiple as Google, the company might be worth more than $5 billion. That would be a huge gain for the private equity backers at Silver Lake who led Skype’s carve-out from eBay, clarified copyright issues with its founders and tweaked its software. They valued it at $2.75 billion at purchase in 2009.

Read more.

By Pete Carey

[excerpt]

Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison blasted Hewlett-Packard’s board Monday for ousting Mark Hurd, saying it “just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago.”

Ellison also lambasted the board for “cowardly corporate political correctness” when it revealed a sexual harassment allegation against Hurd even though its own investigation determined the claim was unfounded.

Ellison’s criticism, made in an e-mail to The New York Times that was obtained by the Mercury News, could add fuel to the discontent of some investors and others who were dismayed to see HP lose the CEO credited with engineering much of the company’s phenomenal success in recent years.

Since the board pushed Hurd out, Ellison noted, stockholders have lost “$10 billion … and my guess (is) it’s going to cost them a lot more.”

The attack on the board by a prominent CEO is unusual, even for freewheeling Silicon Valley, and especially between two companies that, while they compete in some areas, also do lots of business together.

But Ellison said of his close friend Hurd, “I am deeply offended by what just happened to him. If the HP board is offended by my comments … so be it.”

Read more.  See quote below.

The H.P. board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago.  That decision nearly destroyed Apple and would have if Steve hadn’t come back and saved them.  In losing Mark Hurd, the H.P. board failed to act in the best interest of H.P.’s employees, shareholders, customers and partners.  The H.P. board admits that it fully investigated the sexual harassment claims against Mark and found them to be utterly false.

Jodie Fisher, the woman at the center of the sexual harassment claim that forced the resignation of Hewlett-Packard Co. CEO Mark Hurd, said she is “surprised and saddened” that Hurd lost his job. Fisher, an actress and businesswoman, knew Hurd through her contract jobs with HP’s marketing department from 2007 to 2009. HP paid her up to $5,000 per event to greet people and make introductions among executives attending HP events that she helped organize.

Jodie Fisher statement on ex-Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd –

Max Levchin, Slide

By David Goldman, CNNMoney.com

[Excerpt]

Google announced Friday that it has agreed to purchase social networking app maker Slide for an undisclosed amount.

The deal marks the latest try for the search giant to make some headway into the world of social networking. So far, Google has mostly failed in its attempts, including the poorly received Orkut and Google Buzz. Though the terms weren’t disclosed, various new reports have put the value at between $180 million and $230 million.

“As the Slide team joins Google, we’ll be investing even more to make Google services socially aware and expand these capabilities for our users across the Web,” said David Glazer, Google’s engineering director, in a company blog post.

With Slide, Google is scooping up a developer with an already well-established presence on Facebook, MySpace and other networks. Slide makes a number of popular social games like SuperPoke! Pets, Rock Riot, Top Friends and FunSpace.

Read more.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

By Colin Barr, senior writer, Fortune

[excerpt]

Hewlett-Packard chief executive officer Mark Hurd, one of the highest-profile CEOs in America, resigned Friday following a sexual harassment claim against him and the company.

HP said an investigation found Hurd didn’t violate its sexual harassment policy. But he did violate its standards of conduct policy, the company said.

HP (HPQ, Fortune 500) shares were down more than 9% in after-hours trading following a slight decline in regular action.

Executives said Hurd, who is married, failed to tell the board about a personal relationship with a female marketing contractor who was hired by his office. He repeatedly filed inaccurate expense account reports in a bid to keep the relationship secret, HP said.

Read more.

[Excerpt]

First of all, nothing but the best for Chuck and Nolan.  I want the Rangers to win the World Series as much as any fan does and I think they have the right people on the field and off to help them do it.

So why did I go chasing the Rangers despite all the negative media attention ?  Because I believe  it was the right thing to do.

FIrst some background. This wasn’t a spur of the moment thing.  More than a year ago, before the current parties were involved (or at least I was told there weren’t others involved), I was contacted by someone  the team owed a lot of money to and asked if I would be interested in buying the team side by side with them.  I said yes.  Got information. Did some very preliminary homework and told the group I was interested. That fell through. They decided not to go forward.

Then I was contacted by the departing owner of the Rangers and asked if I would be interested in investing in the team . I said no, but to get in  touch if there was the opportunity to buy the team.  Not long after that, I was contacted and started the process of discussing a purchase of the team.  We had a few meetings and quite a few options were discussed. Most of the options required that I also purchase and take on expenses and assets/liabilities that I believed  were not core to the operation of the team and could in fact make things more difficult. I was not willing to do that.

What I was willing to do was to  make a significant enough of an investment that would catch the team up on all of their debt and provide some working capital (it would require the creditors to make some adjustments, but early discussions suggested that it would not be a problem). I was willing to go forward if i got control of the team. I want to win Championships and in my mind there was hope of winning a World Series with the Rangers

At that point we also had some preliminary discussions with MLB who were on board because it would avoid what appeared in my and others opinion  to be inevitable, bankruptcy.  I thought I was on my way to buying the Rangers.  At that point we signed some paperwork so we could have further meetings. It was at this point I also spend 2mm dollars on bonds in the Rangers holding company in order to get access to information about the Rangers, and also the Stars (because they are my co-tenant at the AAC). Why get the information that way ?… Trust but verify. It gave me a way to confirm what i was being told.

Unfortunately,  in our further discussions, I was not able to get anywhere close to doing a deal that did not have those obligations I was not willing to take.  They were deal killers for me.

Read entire original entry.

Omniture founder and CEO Josh James, who sold his web analytics company to Adobe last September for $1.8 billion, is leaving the company at the end of the month.

Here’s the specific comments in the official Adobe press release:

Brad Rencher, who previously served as vice president of business operations for the Omniture BU (OBU), has been promoted to vice president and general manager, also reporting to Narayen. Rencher succeeds Josh James, founder and former CEO of Omniture, who will leave his post as senior vice president of the OBU at the end of July 2010.

“With Omniture, Josh built the industry’s first integrated online marketing suite as an intelligent platform to optimize online business initiatives. Further, he provided the leadership to ensure that we exceeded our timelines and milestones for the integration of Omniture into Adobe,” said Narayen. “In fact, Omniture’s business has never been stronger and now accounts for about 10 percent of Adobe’s revenue. This is due, in large part, to Josh’s leadership and we’re grateful for his contributions.”

Under Rencher’s leadership, the OBU will expand to include Adobe’s Scene7® rich media solutions, which, combined with Omniture’s tracking and analytics solutions, will empower online marketers, advertisers and retailers to deliver more impactful user experiences and business results.

“Brad played a key role integrating Omniture into Adobe’s business during the past nine months,” said Narayen. “The business has continued to perform exceptionally well and we see increasing momentum with the Online Marketing Suite, which is expanding our relationships with key customers. Under Brad’s leadership, we have the opportunity to provide even more complete solutions for our customers in these segments.”

By Ian Sherr and Roger Cheng, Dow Jones Newswire

[excerpt]

Apple Inc. (AAPL), answering mounting criticism over the reception issue and antenna design of its recently launched iPhone 4, admitted the phone drops more calls than the previous version and said it would give away cases as a remedy.

Apple “screwed up” with the signal algorithm of the phone, Chief Executive Steve Jobs said during a press conference on Friday. But he denied that there was a design problem with the antenna, sticking to the company line that the problem is common with all smartphones. He added the issue was blown out of proportion, and that there was no “Antennagate.”

“Haven’t we earned credibility for the press to give us the benefit of the doubt?” he asked.

Apple has sold 3 million iPhone 4s since they were available on June 24, and the device quickly became the company’s fastest selling product ever. But the phone, which has an unusual antenna design, was immediately dogged by complaints about its reception, particularly when owners held the device in a way that covered the bottom left corner.

The problems cascaded into a full-blown public relations disaster for Apple, which initially told owners to hold the phone differently and then blamed the reception difficulties on software. The company’s problems worsened when influential product review publication Consumer Reports said it could not recommend the phone. The escalating criticism is of particular concern for a company like Apple, which stakes its reputation on the quality of its products.

“To customers that are having problems, I apologize to them,” Jobs said.

Read more.

By David Biderman

[Excerpt]

After several days of speculation that Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison was near a deal to purchase the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, the negotiations switched speeds Thursday when Mandalay Entertainment Group chairman Peter Guber and Joe Lacob, who had been a minority partner in the Boston Celtics, bought the team for an NBA-record $450 million.

In a statement, Mr. Ellison said he made the highest offer for the team but that current owner Chris Cohan selected the competing bid. “In my experience this is a bit unusual. Nonetheless, I wish the Warriors and their fans nothing but success under their new ownership,” Mr. Ellison said in the release.

One person familiar with the matter said Mr. Ellison didn’t want to bid that high but then submitted a late bid that was above $450 million. The Warriors referred questions to Sal Galatioto, who advised the team on the sale. Mr. Galatioto declined to comment.

Read more.