HP announced this week that it is keeping its PC division, despite recent rumors to the contrary.
The company’s Personal System Group was the world’s leading manufacturer of personal computers for fiscal year 2010.
“HP objectively evaluated the strategic, financial and operational impact of spinning off PSG. It’s clear after our analysis that keeping PSG within HP is right for customers and partners, right for shareholders, and right for employees,” explained Meg Whitman, HP president and CEO, in a press release.
The decision followed a data-driven evaluation that indicated PSG’s deep integration across the supply chain, IT and procurement. “It also detailed the significant extent to which PSG contributes to HP’s solutions portfolio and overall brand value,” suggests the release. “Finally, it also showed that the cost to recreate these in a standalone company outweighed any benefits of separation.”
Forbes contributor John Furrier has been railing against HP getting rid of its PC division, citing its strong potential to “morph into smartphones, tablets, future laptops, etc.”
According to The Next Web, 90 of the 251 products (36 percent) that Google released in the past 12 years have been cancelled.
“Experimentation is a part of Google’s culture,” indicates TNW. “Launching in beta habitually creates a fearlessness that continues to serve them well. Even though Google knows that tons of their products won’t make the cut, their success is partially due to throwing a fist full of darts, and seeing what sticks.”
In a related TechCrunch post, the company plans to focus on Google+, and as a result will be killing off Google Buzz in a few weeks as well as iGoogle’s social features come January 15, 2012. Google Labs was shut down on Friday.
Additional services are also reportedly getting the axe by January 15: Code Search (for open source code on the Web), Jaiku (for users to send updates to friends), and the University Research Program for Google Search (available to select academic researchers).
Oren Jacob, Pixar’s former CTO, talks about the company’s keys to their success: Honesty about the quality of their films, a willingness to address problems quickly, looking at the source of problems, storyboarding out the issues, and hiring people that fit the company culture.
The story behind the overhaul of “Toy Story 2” was presented regarding the importance to: “Be honest with yourself. When the work isn’t great, say so. Then get to work making something you can believe in.”
Fast Company also points out the company’s hiring philosophy: “When Pixar is evaluating potential hires they look for three traits: humor, the ability to tell a story, and an example of excellence.”
And one of the more interesting lessons (applicable to a range of businesses): “Sketching storyboards and acting out scripts are the currency of ideas at Pixar. Try a variety of different media to find what works best for you and your organization.”
After months of bidding, Hulu’s owners — News Corp., NBCUniversal, Disney and Providence Equity Partners — have decided to stop its sale.
“Since Hulu holds a unique and compelling strategic value to each of its owners, we have terminated the sale process and look forward to working together to continue mapping out its path to even greater success,” explained the partners in a short statement. “Our focus now rests solely on ensuring that our efforts as owners contribute in a meaningful way to the exciting future that lies ahead for Hulu.”
In a related TechCrunch post, it was suggested that media companies saw more value in retaining licensing fees than selling them.
Bidders were not willing to pay more for Hulu knowing that the costs for content rights would increase dramatically after the two year period being sold. (Google reportedly bid $4 billion, but wanted streaming rights for longer than the guaranteed “couple of years.”)
Apple’s new CEO Tim Cook hosted his first iPhone event since taking over the company reigns in August. The Hollywood Reporter provides some interesting insight into Cook’s personality and work ethic.
Cook has been with Apple since 1998. Until taking over for Steve Jobs as CEO, he expertly handled company logistics and operations, serving as Mr. Inside to Jobs’ Mr. Outside, suggest the article.
His 18-hour workdays are legendary, even amongst Apple employees. “Cook probably gets his stamina from being a fitness buff and is said to be a fan of cyclist Lance Armstrong,” comments THR.
Cook is said to be more personable than Jobs was in the position of CEO, taking more time to respond cordially and even with a tone of friendliness to customer emails.
Under Jobs, Apple didn’t have a corporate policy matching employees’ charitable donations, but Cook changed that and now Apple will match employee donations dollar-for-dollar up to $10,000.
Forrester Research defines big data as “techniques and technologies that make handling data at extreme scale affordable.” The research firm estimates that companies effectively utilize less than 5 percent of available data, and further suggests that big data will help companies use information to dominate the competition in their market.
“It seems that every week another vendor slaps ‘big data’ into its marketing material – and it’s going to get worse,” writes Forrester analyst Brian Hopkins for Forbes. “Should you look beyond the vendor hype and pay attention? Absolutely yes! Why? Because big data has the potential to shape your market’s next winners and losers.”
Big data is not only concerned with the volume of information but also in velocity, variety and variability of data, since “data is usually generated so fast that you need to constantly capture more of it to be valuable for some decisions.”
The write-up in Forbes is promoting Forrester’s new report, “Expand Your Digital Horizon With Big Data.” From the executive summary: “At extreme scale, traditional data management and business intelligence (BI) become impractical, and your business does not get what it demands — more insight to drive greater business performance. Big data helps firms work with extremes to deliver value from data cost-effectively.
However CIOs must understand that this is not business as usual. In fact, big data will disrupt the data management landscape by changing fundamental notions about data governance and IT delivery. Take the time to understand big data as well as its implications and begin a balanced approach that considers more than just the technology hype.”
Amsterdam’s annual IBC event offered a number of potential TV game-changers earlier this month, suggests TVNewsCheck. These include cloud-based or service-oriented architecture (SOA) applications for capturing, producing, processing and distributing digital video and audio; IT-based playout (channel in a box) tools that could potentially make broadcast playout more affordable; and 3D technology likely to be deployed for the 2012 London Olympics.
Also on display were technologies “aimed at making 3D production more affordable and compatible with standard 2D operations.”
Cloud services were at the forefront since broadcasters are now challenged by having to support an increasing number of distribution platforms.
Vendors discussed the fundamental concerns about cloud-based architectures, “notably content security, access to content, collaboration, bandwidth and workflow continuity,” reports TVNewsCheck.
In a related article from GigaOM that analyzes shifts in traditional television, venture capitalist Habib Kairouz writes that the TV industry is poised for some significant changes due to a number of upcoming trends: TV anywhere and anytime will catch on; the rise of the Internet-connected TV and interactive programming; and personalized advertising.
The article suggests that content owners will benefit as MSOs, IPTV providers, and others compete with one another. MSO’s are hedging their bets by purchasing both traditional and interactive content, while TV manufacturers are looking to build Internet services into their low margin businesses. We should watch for new entrants to increase the disruption in this space.
Just after taking over the reigns at Hewlett-Packard last week, Meg Whitman spoke with Kara Swisher of All Things D about her initial plans regarding her new role.
As HP’s new CEO, Whitman plans to focus on four major issues: meeting Wall Street’s expectations for HP over the next 45 days, integrating HP’s $10 billion acquisition of Autonomy into the company, making a decision whether to keep or spin off the Personal Systems Group (which includes HP’s consumer PC business), and meeting and getting to know HP’s employees.
“I took this job, because HP really matters to Silicon Valley, to California, to this country and to the world,” said Whitman. “This is an icon and the place where the initial spark to create Silicon Valley came from and I am resolved to restore it to its rightful place… I have the skills to do that.”
Whitman takes over for former CEO Leo Apotheker. According to All Things D, “the troubled tech giant has had a lot of leaders — seven CEOs since 1999.”
This week’s Senate hearings on “The Power of Google: Serving Customers or Threatening Competition?” barely scratched the surface, suggests CNNMoney.
“What Google did to Apple — copying Apple’s touchscreen operating system and offering it to Apple’s competitors for free — never came up,” indicates the article. “Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) used much of their time to suck up to Google chairman Eric Schmidt, practically begging him to bring Google’s fiber-to-the-home experiment to their states.”
However, testimony from Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO of Yelp, was compelling, especially in regards to his take on the search giant’s apparent new mission.
“Let’s be clear. Google is no longer in the business of sending users to the best sources of information on the Web,” explained Stoppelman. “It now hopes to become a destination site itself for one vertical market after another, including news, shopping, travel, and now, local business reviews. It would be one thing if these efforts were conducted on a level playing field, but the reality is they’re not.”
“The experience in my industry is telling,” he added. “Google forces review websites to provide their content for free to benefit Google’s own competing product, not consumers. Google then gives its own product preferential treatment in Google search results.”
Stoppelman suggested the company’s actions were essentially part of an ultimatum: “Google first began taking our content without permission a year ago. Despite public and private protests, Google gave the ultimatum that only a monopolist can give: In order to appear in Web search, you must allow us to use your content to compete against you. As everyone in this room knows, not being in Google is equivalent to not existing on the Internet. We had no choice.”
Twitter has announced that venture capitalists Bijan Sabet and Fred Wilson, two of the company’s earliest investors, will be leaving Twitter’s board of directors.
Additionally, Chief Scientist Abdur Chowdhury confirmed his departure, ironically enough, through his own Twitter account.
“So Long and Thanks for All the Fish. Twitter was an amazing experience & even greater set of people,” tweeted Chowdhury. (The first sentence is a reference to “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” spoken by hyper-intelligent dolphins on their flight from the end of the world, reports VatorNews.)
The departures mark the latest in a series of related moves in what Vator refers to as a “mass exodus” that “reveals a leaky ship.”
Two of the company’s co-founders, Biz Stone and Evan Williams recently resigned from day-to-day operations (Williams remains on the board) and CTO Greg Pass left in May. Also, four product managers have reportedly been dismissed.
Other reports suggest the departure of the two directors may be less about a “leaky ship” and more about financial restructuring. “The person familiar with the matter said their departures were related to the reduction of their firms’ stakes in Twitter as part of a financing round in August,” reports The Wall Street Journal. Twitter recently announced it had raised a significant round of financing, putting the company’s worth at $8 billion.
An intellectual property analyst makes the case that the reason Google acquired Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion last month was not to provide patent protection for Android as most believe. It was to prevent Motorola Mobility from making one or more key moves that would have weakened Android’s patent situation even more.
For example, Motorola Mobility could have taken a patent license from Microsoft signaling a surrender that would have affected every other Android licensee.
It could have started work on a Windows Phone as a way to help it deal with a Microsoft infringement case, suggests the FOSS Patents blog. It also could have attacked other Android licensees to collect royalties.
And finally, it could have sold off its patent portfolio to one of Google’s competitors.
Following Steve Jobs’ departure as CEO of Apple, The Daily Beast has published an insightful infographic that outlines what it sees as the “ten commandments” of Jobs’ business and creative philosophies.
The commandments range from “Be ruthless” and “Tap the experts” to “Shun focus groups” and “Prototype to the extreme.”
For example, Commandment 1: “Go for perfect — Jobs sweats the details. The night before the first iPod launched, the Apple staff stayed up all night replacing headphone jacks because Jobs didn’t think they were ‘clicky’ enough.”
ETCentric staffer Bob Lambert provided the following comments with this submission: “There are many, many tributes to the wisdom and business style of Steve Jobs these days. This one-page infographic is one of the best I’ve seen on the idealogy of the man and the company. What lesson on clear and focused thinking can we take from this?”
Amazon has become “the most disruptive company in the media and technology industries,” suggests Wired.
Amazon’s rumored tablet has the potential to be the perfect machine to sell both digital goods delivered immediately or physical goods delivered in two days.
“Why not make an independent movie or television show and release it through Amazon?” asks the article. “Once the video is hosted on Amazon’s servers, it’s available for immediate digital download or streaming through Prime to desktops, tablets or set-top boxes. Both streaming and downloads promise a revenue share for content creators. Customers could buy a Blu-ray or DVD that Amazon burns and ships on demand — no storage, no overhead.”
While some of the content may not prove to be top quality, some of it could be the next Funny Or Die or Channel 101 while dramatically impacting distribution: “The breadth and independence of buying choices could easily differentiate Amazon from traditional studios — or even for those studios themselves, from competing services like Netflix.”
Amazon may also offer its forked Android-based OS as a platform to hardware partners providing a new platform with its own code, app and media stores, cloud services and revamped UI.
“In a year from now,” writes Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps, “we could see a range of ‘Amazon tablets’ made by different hardware manufacturers.”
A study of Yahoo’s assets and performance conducted in the past two weeks has led independent directors to conclude a management change was needed. As a result, Carol Bartz, Yahoo’s CEO, was fired and will be replaced on an interim basis by the company’s CFO Tim Morse.
Yahoo’s interest in bidding for Hulu is expected to continue.
The company’s performance has been lackluster and characterized by missteps and high levels of executive turnover under Bartz, resulting in a flat stock price over 2 1/2 years, despite a 60 percent rise in the Nasdaq Composite Index.
“The board hasn’t hired an executive-search firm or financial advisers to help in a strategic review, but is expected to do so soon, said someone familiar with the matter,” reports The Wall Street Journal. “The strategic review isn’t expected to include an evaluation of whether Yahoo should be put up for sale, but will focus on so-called ‘organic’ growth, including the possibility of acquisitions or partnerships, the person added.”
Bartz wrote a memo to her employees Tuesday afternoon: “I am very sad to tell you that I’ve just been fired over the phone by Yahoo’s Chairman of the Board. It has been my pleasure to work with all of you and I wish you only the best going forward.”
Tech companies are spending from $400K -$750K per patent. This is money companies are not spending on innovation or jobs.
Writing for InfoWorld, Bill Snyder makes the analogy to problems with the high costs of healthcare due to money spent defending against medical malpractice. He points out that while the “patent arms race goes nuclear,” not only will new tech jobs not be created, but existing jobs will be lost.
“Think what Google could do with $6 billion, writes Snyder. “Think of the research that would spawn new products, advance innovation, and create who knows how many thousands of good jobs up and down the technology food chain. Instead, that money is going to buy patents.”
Snyder indicates more patent buyouts are on the way. “Everyone knows what an arms race is. One side builds a new weapon, and the other side has to match it. Then the first side builds an even more powerful weapon, prompting the other guy to build more and so on. Remember how well that worked out for the Soviet Union?”
