Daily Archives: October 15, 2009

Crowdsourcing Wall Street

October 15, 2009 10:12 pm by Richard Waters

Why is Google so tone-deaf to the interests of Wall Street?

The company’s latest quarterly earnings look good, and are enough to warrant Eric Schmidt declaring the search advertising recession well and truly over. All segments of advertising are improving again, he said, and pricing recovered from the second quarter (cost-per-click up 5 per cent.)

The earnings call that is currently underway, however, once again reveals the company’s lack of sensitivity to the way analysts work, and its over-enthusiasm for using technology to replace human interaction. Read more

Tags: google
Posted in Internet, Tech, Tech Finance | Permalink

That Sidekick data must be in here somewhere…

October 15, 2009 4:08 pm by Richard Waters

Paris Hilton must be breathing a sigh of relief.

Losing control of all the personal stuff on her Sidekick once was bad enough, without the threat that Microsoft would then just swallow it all. So for all the users of the “hiptop” device, the news on Thursday that the software company believes it can recover “most, if not all” of the data that was thought to have been lost after a data centre failure will come as a big relief.

It leaves some uncomfortable questions for Microsoft, though. Read more

Tags: microsoft, Sidekick, T-Mobile
Posted in Mobile, Tech | Permalink

Skype founders try to put brakes on sale

October 15, 2009 1:24 am by David Gelles

Ebay’s attempt to offload Skype to a group of investors just got even more complicated.

Joost and Joltid, the companies owned by Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, today filed a motion for a preliminary injunction against Mike Volpi and Index Ventures, two of the players in the group seeking to buy Skype. If granted in full, the injunction would essentially ban Mr Volpi and Index from participating in the deal for the time being.

The motion is the latest move in a legal onslaught from Mr Zennstrom and Mr Friis that began even before the current deal for Skype was announced, and seems designed either to get them control of Skype or, more likely, make sure they get a piece of the action after a sale. Read more