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Carnivore is dead, but there's no reason to celebrate
You might have read reports in the past weeks that the FBI has shelved its Big Brother-style application Carnivore. The application was designed to listen in to internet communications around the world.
But don't bother bringing out the party balloons. The American intelligence community isn't even close to stop eavesdropping on consumers and businesses around the world.
"Instead, [the FBI] is simply buying its surveillance tools from private companies," says CNet's Washington, D.C. correspondent Declan McCullagh. Carnivore was developed internally by the FBI.
This gives rise to the question what is more scary: the fact that the FBI is eavesdropping on communications outside of the legal boundaries of the United States, or that commercial for profit organisations are creating the tools that do so – and therefore can sell them to anyone who has an appetite for that software. Just think what that will mean for the future of anything ranging from e-commerce to e-mail communications.
Microsoft cuts Windows reduction
The European Commission has slapped Microsoft on the wrist about its proposed name for the Windows version without Windows Media Player, that the company will ship in Europe as mandated by the commission. Microsoft proposed to call its mutilated baby "Windows XP Reduced Media Edition", but the European commission in all its wishdom has decided that might scare away consumers. A new name hasn't been revealed yet.
By telling the consumer what isn't in the box, Microsoft is opening interesting new perspectives on the world. Instead of prohibiting the new name for the European Win XP, the commission could have forced Microsoft to come clean about what else isn't in its software.
For regular Windows XP I had the following in mind: Windows XP Reduced Security Edition.
Other suggestions will be considered. Please leave them in the comments section below and we'll make sure a printout of this page reaches Redmond.
Microsoft enters the age of mythology
Microsoft enters the age of mythology
Microsoft put on the Linux bashing hat once again, and the company's British platform strategist Nick McGrath is cheerfully jabbing away.
In an interview with vnunet.com he calls the security of Linux "a myth". Not only do just "a fee hundred developers" work on the suite, no-one takes responsibility for the software.
"Who is accountable for the security of the Linux kernel? Does Red Hat, for example, take responsibility? It cannot, as it does not produce the Linux kernel. It produces one distribution of Linux," McGrath said.
So let's do a fun thought experiment.
Does Microsoft take responsibility and even accountability for Windows? Can a bank file charges against the company when it looses billions of dollars due to a security glitch in Microsoft's software? It can't, because of a nasty little thing called software licences, which force users to waive all their rights to being treated as a paying customer.
If my Ford Explorer rolls over when I make a sharp turn, I can sue Ford because they failed to warn me against this – this isn't a fairy tale: Ford in the past has settled such cases and they do warn against it now. But if Microsoft builds an operating system that costs society billions of dollars (or pounds or euros for that matter) because of sloppy programming, Bill Gates laughs all the way to the bank.
Mr. McGrath, if you want to take on Linux, don't start talking about "responsibility". Coming from Microsoft, the R-word doesn't have much credibility.
Microsoft's EU settlement unfriendly to open source
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is up in arms over some of the terms that Microsoft is looking to put in its server licence. According to a EU ruling from last year, Microsoft has to allow third party tools to work together with Windows Server. But the licence that Microsoft has drafted to enable this, effectively blocks out any open source application, the FSF told Builder.com
Microsoft demands a fee to use Microsoft technical documentation to implement Microsoft server protocols, based on the number of applications sold. But open source doesn't sell any software, nor does it track how many of the applications are downloaded. In short, it doesn't have the money to pay Microsoft and doesn't know how to measure the number of licence fees it should pay to Microsoft.
If the European Commission approves the Microsoft licence, open source applications such as Samba will be blocked from working with Microsoft software. That surely couldn't have been what the EU wanted to achieve when it convicted Microsoft.
OpenSolaris has 3683 fans – so far
The first component of OpenSolaris that has been made available so far has logged 3,683 downloads.
The DTrace application, a system optimization tool, was the first part of OpenSolaris that has been made available when Sun announced the release of the source code last Tuesday. The complete version of OpenSolaris is slated for a release in the second quarter of this year.
The 3,683 downloads might seem minor, but it does show that there is genuine interest from the developer community for OpenSolaris. Also, the release of DTrace can be seen as a PR move, largely meant to show Sun's commitment to opening the source code. It plays only a minor part in the larger scheme of open sourcing Solaris.
Google absorbs another Firefox developer
Speculation about Google starting development of its own browser is sure to roar now that the company has hired a second developer that has worked on the Firefox open source browser.
Darin Fisher announced his move on his blog, just days after fellow developer Ben Goodger made a similar move.
Goodger was a full-time lead programmer for Firefox. Fisher worked for IBM and contributed to Firefox' backend infrastructure. Both will continue working on the open source browser as part of the staff of 20 core engineers and 60 volunteer helpers.
Intel's greed makes waves
Intel for years has been complaining about California's hospitable tax climate. Employing staff here is just too expensive, the company has said.
Intel might have its corporate head quarters in the Golden State, but it has repeatedly stated that is has a "no hiring" policy: as a rule California based employees who retire can only be replaced in facilities in other states.
That doesn't mean that Intel doesn't take the state for every penny is can squeeze out of it. As the San Jose Mercury News reports, Intel is one of 18 companies that received a total of $80.9 m in tax refunds from the state of California. Other companies on the list include HP and Cypress Semiconductor.
The refund has Californians fuming, because the companies already pay effectively nothing in income taxes.
Furthermore, the refund comes at a time when the state is facing a $8.6 bn budget deficit. (Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger last year promised to make that black hole disappear by simply "opening up the books").
WiFi Hotspots a $12 bn cash drain
Commercial WiFi networks over the coming years will cost telecommunications providers $12 bn in the US alone, warns Boston based Strategy Analytics. Increased competition as well as the rise of free WiFi networks are to blame, the firm says.
The outcome doesn't surprise me. There are few places in the US, and especially in Silicon Valley, where you can't pick up a WiFi signal. But unless I need an internet connection professionally, I won't be paying up to 20 dollars for one day of internet access. And until WiFi roaming is a reality, allowing T-Mobile subscribers access to Verizon's network and vice versa, I'm not going to sign up for any monthly subscription plan. We've been through this with mobile telephony – these companies by now should know better.
Strategy Analytics might state the obvious, but it's always good to add a scary multi billion dollar figure to your research conclusions.
Why blogs matter
Blog might have been the number one word of 2004, most people on this planet have no idea what the impact of the online journals will be.
If you still ask that same question (and you should!), read this posting by Jeff Nolan. I fully agree with everything he says. But instead of using up your screen's real estate by summarising his views, the fact that Nolan wrote the posting, and that I care about it, says it all.
Nolan works for SAP Ventures, yet he shares his insight on the role of blogging in the enterprise. And he does a pretty good job.
Without his blog, Nolan's views would have reached only a few people – the regular media certainly wouldn't have been interested in his views on blogging. He after all has no expertise on the subject. It isn't until you read his posting that you value his opinion on the matter.
Mac Mini has copycats scrambling
If the Mac mini succeeds in creating a market for secondary computers in the home, an army of copycats is ready to follow the company's lead.
"If [the Mac mini] started a trend of small (desktops)...I'd be very happy about that. It would be a reason for someone to consider a desktop." Tom Anderson, vice president of marketing for the Consumer PC Global Business Unit at Hewlett-Packard told Cnet.
Although consumers have showed they like small computers by embracing laptops, vendors of small desktops systems have been unable to conquer much of a market share.
But now that Apple is trying to do what so many others have tried before – and added a design that doesn't want to make you throw up – it might finally create a market for second and third computers in the home. That has the entire PC industry paying attention.
Amazon redefines yellow pages
Amazon's search outlet A9 has launched a new yellow pages services that lets shoppers view pictures of the shop they are looking for.
The fun of looking at pictures of the grocery shop around the corner wore off pretty quickly for me, but Amazon's new service does have potential for sure. For starters it offers a "Click to Call" button that allows web visitors to talk with a representative from the store over the phone for free. Once traffic picks up, Amazon can start charging the shop (advertiser) for such a service.
And while looking at pictures from your desk might seem rather useless, having that picture available on your mobile phone when you are desperately looking for a location makes it a lot more appealing.
Lastly throw in some of Amazon's unique features that have made is such a great webstore: customer reviews and referral services that tell you that shoppers who went to this store, also visited such and so. Suddenly it all starts coming together.
Microsoft gives 3.46 billion reasons why it doesn't feel any Linux pain
Microsoft just deposited another $3.46 billion to its bank account, ending it's most profitable quarter ever. Revenues rose by 7 percent year over year to 10.82 billion (32% profit margin).
Champagne corks must be flying over in Redmond, as the Home and Entertainment business unit responsible for the Xbox had it's first profitable quarter ever. Microsoft cited strong sales of both Halo 2 and the Xbox Live expansion for the console as the reason for the bookkeeper bringing out the black ink.
EDITED 1/28/05 11:11 AM (PST):
Changed Halo 3 into Halo 2, as "confused" rightfully pointed out
Edited 1/30/05 23.48 PM (MGSST): must get some sleep time
Redmond changed from Redmount as our eagled-eyed visitors have spotted. Sleuth is far from eagle-eyed today, more like red-eyed from all the travelling and tired from all the work getting the skinny from the valley. Apogloies, apologsei, ap.....sorry. ;-)
Edited 2/1/05 11:16 AM (PST): Last comment about the spelling in this posting. I don't know what came over me. Well, I do know that I've been battling a cold last week. But that surely doesn't justify any of the mistakes made in this posting. Things can only go uphill from here…. I hope.
Geek rapper gives nerds some shine
Silicon Valley engineer Rajeev Bajaj has a love not just for circuits and silicon, but for music also. One thing led to another and before he knew it, the 39-year old chemical engineer has become the poster boy for geeksta rap.
With his sweeping lyrics, Rajeev had become the crusader for acceptance of nerds around the world. Read and admire:
"scalar and vector told me to….
don't go as the scalar do,
you gotta know the direction too…."
Or what about:
"I made the calculator and computer, too,
'cause math is not something everybody can do . . .
I am an engineer.
Respect my mind.
So bow down when u see me downtown."
If this makes you laugh, you're probably not the only one. But just replace all the geeky words with some of the regular rap lingo referring to guns, women and sex, and you get a perfectly plausible rap song.
So if you DID laugh, you're exactly the group that Rajeev is trying to reach out to. So bow down when you see him downtown.
Last Novebmer The Pre-engineering Times declared Bajaj "cool engingeer of the month ". In an article for wannabe engineers he explains in detail what he is trying to say with his songs. Read it, it's a blast. But try not to laugh too loud.
Sun's patent umbrella springs some leaks
Sun might feel it's doing a wonderful job by offering developers and users of OpenSolaris indemnification against patent claims, but not everybody agrees.
Although the CDDL licence leaves it up to the developers to contribute source code back to OpenSolaris, not doing so means they forfeit their right for indemnification.
In a forum on Slashdot, open source activist Bruce Perens has a thing or two to say about Sun's attitude.
"I agree, [Sun's] participation so far appears to be cynical and they seem to intend to operate as a "spoiler", fragmenting the Open Source community rather than supporting it. Otherwise, we would see them dual-licensing with CDDL and GPL, and their patents wouldn't be barred from use in Linux," he writes.
By offering indemnification, Sun protects individual developers and users. The company promises to settle any patent disputes, as it did last October with Kodak. The company's patent portfolio also acts as a deterrent that can be used to file counterclaims if a party decides to go after Solaris.
What Perens is saying however, is that Sun could have taken its offering further by expanding its patent portfolio beyond just OpenSolaris and promise that it would refrain from filing claims based on its patents when it concerns any open source project. That would have mimicked a move IBM made when it donated 500 patents to the public domain.
Perens also notes the ambiguity in Sun's decision to limit the indemnification to just work done under de CDDL licence, where it would have been a minor effort to make a wider promise.
Baby Bell buys Ma Bell?
In a move that has corporate Oedipus complex written all over it, SBC Communications is looking to acquire AT&T, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal (paid subscription).
The business newspaper claims that executives of both companies have been talking over the past few weeks. The acquisition is valued at over $15 bn.
AT&T is what remains of America's late monopolistic telephone company. The enterprise was broken up after which several local "Baby Bells" emerged, including SBC. In recent years several of the Baby Bells have merged or were acquired.
Oracle promised more lay-offs... eh... acquisitions
Larry Ellison doesn't take much time to enjoy a tasty bite. Having just swallowed the Peoplesoft acquisition, the Oracle CEO is already talking about additional takeovers.
Oracle specifically is looking at the market for Application Servers, he told an audience of financial analysts. Oracle currently holds the number two spot in the AS market, BEA Systems is number one.
It won't surprise you much to hear that Oracle last year already said it is interested in acquiring BEA.
Civilization gets an upgrade
Bringing back some fond memories of nights wasted playing God when I should have been sweating over my college books, game publisher Take-Two Interactive has acquired the rights for the computer game Civilization.
The new owner has promised to publish a new version 4 of the game by the end of this year. It will allow gamers to create custom content using standard Python or XML development tools.
XML in Civilization? Do they call that progress? Back my days, I just wanted to get to build nuclear missiles as soon as possible and start nuking the place. Why can't certain things just stay the same?
The Sims get kicked out off China
Although you would think that the party brass over in China would appreciate the educational potential for a game where players control the characters in a home and can make their lives a living hell, they instead have outlawed The Sims.
The game that ranks as the best selling game of 2004 doesn't create a "good environment" for Chinese children, the government claims. Neither do Fifa2005, Painkiller: Battle out of Hell, Age of Mythology: The Titans, Battlefield Vietnam or Conflict Vietnam, to name just a few of the 50 games that made it on the black list.
The ban is part of a campaign against pornographic and illegal publications that started in 1989. The same year the Chinese government squased the student protests at the Tianamin Square in Beijing, showing its citizens that you don't need computer games to get gore and bloodshed.
Google adds another beta
Google today launched its Google Video service, adding another beta product to its already busy product development schedule.
Google Video searches the subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired (in the United States refered to as "closed captions") for keywords, presenting the user with a transcript from the show and video still image.
Future versions will also offer the user to watch the actual footage.
Google will have a hard time making money from the search part of the business, because content owners probably won't allow the company to put up advertisements next to search results.
But the company in the future expects to make money from hosting or delivering the video content, product manager John Piscitello told vnunet.com: "We think that we can work with the content owners to figure out the right business model for delivering video content to the users."
Google has a long history of betas sitting in its product pipeline. The most notorious ones are the News.Google news portal and the Froogle price comparison service.
Apple back peddles on overprized Mac mini
Apple has quietly lowered prices on upgrades for its Mac mini computer. The company faced harsh criticism after it turned out that most users would have to add an additional 60% to the device's $499 (£ 339 in the UK) price tag before it could be considered a workable system.
Apple cut the price of upgrading to 1 Gb of memory by 31.5%, the price for adding Bluetooth and WiFi networking dropped 23.3% and an upgrade to a 80 Gb hard drive now only costs $50.
Sales for the device started last Saturday, but the Mac mini seems to have sold out already – waiting times in Apple's web store are 3-4 weeks both in the US and the UK.
Sun unlocks the Solaris vaults
Marking the official release of the source code of Solaris, the website for OpenSolaris is now up and running.
"Unlike a lot of other companies who are using open source as a way to dispose of end of life code, we've taken Solaris 10 - the hottest operating system on the planet with the latest and greatest features and committed that to open source. This is not and EOL [end of life], this is a supercharging, rocket launching way of driving what we think is the best IP in the operating system space forward," Sun CEO Scott McNealy said in a teleconference.
The CEO made a big deal out of the indemnification that the company offers to developers who work on OpenSolaris - something Linux doesn't.
Many details of the launch have been leaked in the past weeks, including the licence Sun is using and the idemnification, leaving few surprises at the actual launch.
Think this ad is boring? What about this one?
Google is testing a new feature for its AdSense services that allows users to pick advertisements they truly like.
Visitors to a website will get the option to chose ads from several categories, as is demonstrated on this page from Consumer Affairs. On a page showing legal information, the visitor gets the option to get ads referring to either "claims court", "accident claims", "compensation claims", "claims damages" or "landlord tenant [disputes]".
The test takes targeted advertising to a new level and will likely deal with some of the user's frustration over irrelevant advertising.
Via: Search Engine Roundtable
Gates' Linux distortion field makes it all the way to the top
Bill Gates has the questionable honour of getting the number 5 spot in Business 2.0's annual list of the 101 dumbest moments in business, making the Microsoft co-founder the highest ranking high tech entry in the list.
The business magazine chose to castigate Gates over his comment that: "Microsoft has had it's competitors in the past. It's a good thing that we have museums to document this stuff," which he said in a speech at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.
Silicon Valley Sleuth happened to be at the event on 1 October 2004, so I'd hereby like you present you with Gates' full quote.
As a first for Silicon Valley Sleuth, I have posted an mp3 audio file so you can hear Bill Gates talk directly (but please don't call this a podcast). Click here to download. You will also find a slightly edited transcript below:
Question from the audience: "There is a report that almost 50 percent of servers being sold today run Linux or some kind of open source system. What does Microsoft have in mind today to counteract this transition?"
Bill Gates: "You should go get the numbers from the reputable people who track the numbers. This is not a right number. Go get a IDC number or anything. Well over 50 pct of servers being sold, run Windows. First start with the facts, than proceed from there."
"We do compete with Linux. The shift in market share to Linux has been dramatic. Linux has now the dominant share of Unix. It will wipe a lot of this stuff that’s been out there down to very small numbers. If you look forward to the next 10 years, a lot of the market share will be whatever Windows is used for and whatever Linux is used for. Sun’s still enhancing Solaris, Apple is still enhancing OS X. But those two [Linux and Windows] will be the big numbers. We are their competitors."
"Microsoft has had their competitors in the past. It’s a good thing we have museums to document that [note the misquote by Business 2.0]. OS2 was going to kill us. IBM which has 10 times as much employees as us said to me, we will put you out of business with OS2. This is all part of history. The same thing was said about Novell. And that makes my job interesting."
The Silicon State takes it too far
Campers in California no longer have an excuse not to work overtime during their vacations. State owned parks in the state ruled by governor Arnold Schwarzenegger over the next month will start providing wireless internet connections, writes The New York Times (free registration).
SBC Communications will provide the infrastructure. The WiFi service gives campers access to information about the park they stay in for free. If they want to hook up to the actual internet to check email and surf the web, they'll have to pay $7.95 for each 24 hours of access.
Nobody will make it much beyond those 24 hours however, since campsites in state parks generally don't have power outlets to recharge your laptop battery. But damned be the era of fuel cells!
Silicon Valley comes to the rescue of Oracle takeover victims
Workers affected by the recent layoffs at Oracle's Redwood Shores and Peoplesoft's Pleasanton's offices can turn to their local Workforce Development Business Services, which over the next weeks will host several community employment resources forums.
Oracle on 14 January revealed that it would lay off 5,000 workers as a result of the Peoplesoft takeover. CEO Larry Ellison last week clarified that the Redwood Shores and Pleasanton offices would suffer no more than a few hundred job cuts.
Even those few hundred will mean a blow to the local economy however. Silicon Valley last year lost 1.3 percent of its jobs while workers on average faced a 1 percent pay cut, according to an annual survey by Joint Venture that will be released this Thursday.
Oursoucring is only partially to blame for the losses, Joint Venture's president Russell Hancock told Cnet. Gains in productivity are just as much a force to reckon with.
Sun to IBM: stop the bullying
In one of his signature jabs at the competition, Sun Microsystems president and COO Jonathan Schwartz throws a few well aimed punches at IBM on his blog in an open letter to the company's CEO Sam Palmisano.
IBM, so claims Schwartz, is withholding support for Solaris 10 for WebSphere, DB2, Tivoli, Rational and MQSeries products because it wants to maintain its vendor lock-in. "A strategy to trap them into IBM's proprietary Power5 platform only," writes the Sun executive.
Schwartz isn't exactly right however. IBM does support DB2 on Linux and Websphere on Linux, to name a few, giving users the option to run the software on Intel hardware and Linux.
That doesn't mean the company isn't holding back support for Solaris 10 for competitive reasons, but calling IBM's decision to do so an effort to create vendor lock-in goes too far.
Schwartz's open letter comes on the eve of Sun opening the source code of Solaris 10. In an exclusive interview with vnunet.com, the executive said last week that he expects the Solaris source code to be released "hopefully by the end of this month".
Sun has scheduled a teleconference to offer "an update on the company's Solaris open source initiative" (quote from the invitation) for tomorrow (Tuesday 25 January). Many expect that to be the official announcement of Sun's release of its operating system.
You suck... at searching at least
Sorry to break it to you, but us citizens of the internet are far too confident about our searching skills. Of those using search engines, 92 percent are confident about their search skills, over 52 percent claims to be very confident, says a survey by Pew Internet & American Life projects
Meanwhile 68 percent of searchers believe that search engines are a fair and unbiased source of information – conveniently forgetting that among others, Yahoo includes sponsored links in the search results it presents to web visitors. To add insult to injury, over half of the persons surveyed say they would stop using search engines if they wouldn't clearly disclose how they deal with sponsored search results.
So time to put our searches where our mouths are.
Silicon Valley's 100 cleanest buttocks
A group of 100 of Silicon Valley's most connected and influential persons have recently received a free electronic bidet toilet seat from a San Francisco start-up that shall remained unnamed (I'll explain later).
The 100 are members of an elite group that will receive free high tech gadgets through a programme conceived by San Francisco marketing firm The Stonebrick Group. Since us mere mortals look up to the likes of Netscape founder Marc Andreessen, venture capitalists Tim Draper, Yahoo vice president Katie Mitic, Siebel Systems cofounder Pat House and Electronic Arts senior vice president Rusty Rueff, we will want to wear the clothes they wear and the gadgets they play with.
The Stonebrick Group hopes that its top 100 list will create appeal out of thin air, in a way similar to what David Beckham did for Siemens Mobile and Michael Jordan did for Nike. The entrepreneurs and executives are supposed to start blogging about the products and recommend them to their friends.
Although I'm saddened by the idea than anyone thinks a product is cool because Marc Andreessen says it is, I fear it will work. Just don't expect me go along with this. That's why I refuse to name the maker of the toilet seat.
The Stonebrick Group won't include journalists on its list, because: "Those people have a different standard and shouldn’t be keeping free products," CEO Auren Hoffman of the marketing firm told Newsweek. In other words: journalists actually have codes of ethics that keep them from blatantly endorsing products because they got them for free – but it's fine to do so for bloggers, entrepreneurs and executives.
My respect for Marc Andreessen just made a nosedive all the way to the bottom and beyond.
Transmeta slowly fades away
Sending home its employees for an awkward weekend, Transmeta this Friday revealed that it will have mass layoffs on 31 March, gets out of the processor manufacturing business and instead will try to pay its CEO's salary by licensing some of its low power microprocessor designs.
This in a nutshell is the CEO's Matthew Perry (not the actor) brilliant new strategy to turn around the company that once promised to change the future of mobile computing with its Crusoe and Efficeon processors.
Frustrated employees can turn to the Yahoo Message Board for Transmeta to air their disappointment.
Transmeta, you might remember, once promised to bring low power processing to a lap near you. The company however missed product deadlines, ruined its relation with OEMs and recently lost the only thing that made it a slightly interesting company: Linus Torvards, who started working for the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) instead.
Signs of Transmeta losing its bearing started showing last December, when Silicon Valley Sleuth found out that the company was going to launch a line of media products at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which the company indeed did. No-one however paid notice because no-one cared.
UPDATE 1/24/05 2:04 PM:
Sony earlier today announced that is will licence some of Transmeta's technology. Transmeta had claimed it had a major customer on Friday, but showing some poor PR planning didn't announce the deal until Monday.
Investors lose faith in tech
Technology stocks are trading at a two month low, caused by disappointing sales during the holiday season and a lack of excitement about upcoming products.
The annual Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month failed to arouse anyone, which was best demonstrated in the keynotes of Microsoft's Bill Gates, Intel's Craig Barrett and Carly Fiorina from HP. The executives pretty much said nothing new, neither did they show any new technologies.
Earnings reports from companies earlier this week have mostly disappointed the markets too – with Apple being the sole exeption.
When the FCC loses its chairman, consumers may lose hope
Consumers around the world should start worrying, for Michael Powell has just stepped down as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Powell, the son of the former Secretary of State (foreign minister) and Gulf War general Colin Powell, has proven himself to a strong advocate of the user, turning away the telecommunication industry's many lobbyists. He has been the FCC's chairman since 2001.
It remains to be seen who president Bush appoints as his replacement, but I fear it can only go downhill from here.
Zero synergy means zero layoffs
Good news for employees at Symantec and Veritas. The two companies that recently merged will lay off only 400 employees of its 13,000 strong workforce.
Security vendor Symantec acquired the storage management software provider Veritas for $13.5 bn (yes, billion) in December. Analysts have their doubts about the deal because the two companies have little in common.
This notion is once again enforced by Veritas CEO Gary Bloom, who according to Cnet said that the combined workforce will have between only 2.5 and 3 percent work force duplication. "Back-office functions such as administration will be most impacted," he said.
The official reasoning behind the merger is that Symantec is largely targeting consumers and small businesses. Veritas goes deep into the data centre at large enterprises, giving the Symantec sales force access to a new grade of customers.
SAP puts some muscle behind its Oracle beating
Unlike Microsoft, SAP isn't just providing lip service when it says it is trying to steal away some of Oracle's Peoplesoft users. The company just acquired Texas based TomorrowNow, a company providing support to Peoplesoft and JD Edwards users.
Microsoft has made some lacklustre attempts at courting Peoplesoft users, but lacks credibility ever since the company testified under oath that its software doesn't have the functionality required for the high end enterprise applications market.
The TomorrowNow acquisition is part of SAP's Safe Passage program, which aims to encourage current Peoplesoft and JD Edwards users to leave the company for some high quality German engineering. The program leans heavily on Oracle's reputation of providing poor support for poor solutions in the enterprise applications market.
It remains to be seens if the program has any succes. Analysts claim that for most users it's too early to switch just yet. They also doubt that Oracle will give them any reason to switch, given that the company just bet $10.3 bn on its ability to keep the customers on board.
Warcraft bites off more than it can chew
If you haven't bought your copy of World of Warcraft yet, you're probably out of luck for now. Overwhelmed by the success of the strategy game, developer Blizzard Entertainment has decided not to distribute any more copies to retail stores. It needs a little break to catch up and add more server capacity to support the online playing capabilities.
Gaming site Filefront even suggests that Blizzard has asked retailers to pull the boxes of the shelves to stop the flow of new gamers to the already overburdended servers. Blizzard denies that is has asked this. And since most retail locations were sold out after the holiday season anyway, Filefront's argument does make sense.
EA spoils Microsoft's Xbox surprise
Game developer Electronic Arts could very well have ruined Microsoft's big surprise for the upcoming E3 gaming convention in Los Angeles where the company might be launching its next generation Xbox.
Gaming website Spong.com reports that it has received what appears to be a draft press release (the site doesn't say too much about its sources) for the upcoming game Need for speed, which will "simultaneous ship with the Xbox2 platform" late 2005.
The logical conclusion obviously is that Microsoft plans to start shipping its new console by the end of this year.
But the lack of sources should make anyone cautious about the credibility of this report.
Also, it has been awfully quiet about Microsoft's next generation Xbox, which leads to believe that work on the console isn't done yet. If any new console will be discussed at E3, it will be the Playstation 3 for sure. Xbox 2… I wouldn't bet on it.
Don't worry Meg, they are merely investors
Shares of Ebay fell on Thursday after the online auctioning giant reported quarterly earning that missed Wall Street's expectations. Dispite a 44 percent rise in profits, investors were hungry for more and send the stock price down as much as $12.
"Q4 was yet another good quarter for eBay," Ebay CEO Meg Whitman, said in a conference call with investors. "Few 10-year-old companies can provide these kinds of results."
Investors obviously weren't impressed. Don't worry Meg. They just don't understand.
Full disclosure.
Silicon Valley Sleuth doesn't own Ebay shares, or stock of any other company that he writes about for that matter. Nice of you to think that I would though. It would mean I actually have money.
Your computer will start multiplying sooner than expected
Intel has sped up development of its Vanderpool technology that allows users to run two operating systems on a single computer, reports vnunet.com. Consumers can expect to later this year run two systems with all the spyware and applications that go with it on a single processor.
Vanderpool allows for greater system performance with only a limited increase in power consumption. Similar virtualisation technologies have been available for the server market for a while, where they allow enterprise customers to consolidate. But I fail to see the need for computer consolidation on my desk at home. Unless of course Intel exepects us to start running media servers on our home computers by this year's end.
Outlook Live is a good idea - just ask Apple
Microsoft has launched a subscription based version of its Outlook email, address book and calendaring client. Dubbed Microsoft Office Outlook Live, the offering is designed to combine Office Outlook with MSN Hotmail in the US, the UK and Canada.
Microsoft watcher Mari Jo Foley wonders who would want to pay the $59.95 annual subscription fee for a service that has free alternatives.
The answer is: keep it simple, stupid! Foley probably never has looked at Apple's .Mac service, which has rather successfully done exactly what Microsoft aims to do with Outlook Live. And it being Apple, they have been charging a rather hefty $100 per year. That makes Microsoft's $59.95 look a lot more attractive, doesn't it?
Users don't mind paying a few bucks if the service makes it easier for them to do their email and gives them an email address that doesn't change every time they switch internet providers.
Microsoft is planning additional subscription services in the future, but won't say which ones. Just look at the other side of the fence for suggestions: backup, web hosting and synchronisation between computers or between your computer and PDA or smartphone all make a lot of sense.
Have a look, the grass really is greenerover there.
Microsoft shows confidence about code quality - sacks testers
Microsoft has laid off 62 software testers. The company that in Bill Gates' latest keynote showed that bugs in its software are an everyday reality, claims that automation is to blame for making the 62 testers redundant.
The Seattle Times, reporting on the subject, is quick to blame the outsourcing trend as the true culprit here. Microsoft strongly denies any ties to any of the company's outsourcing deals with companies in India – which is a politically sensitive topic these days in the US.
And even if Microsoft would outsource its software testing to India. Why would there be anything wrong with that? The USA has no moral monopoly to provide the rest of the world with its software.
As Sun CEO Scott McNealy always points out to the outsourcing whiners: if a company makes 60 percent of its revenues from overseas markets, it's nothing but fair if it would employ 60 percent of its labour force outside of the US as well.
The other Bill resurfaces at VC
Former Sun chief scientist and co-founder Bill Joy has joined Silicon Valley's premier venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) as a partner.
The co-founder of Sun Microsystems is also known as "the other Bill", the first Bill being Microsoft's Bill Gates, for the part he played in the development of the IT industry.
The venture capital firm and Joy go back a long time. The firm's John Doerr sponsored the first investment in Sun Microsystems back in 1982, when only Joy, current Sun CEO Scott McNealy, Andy Bechtolsheim and Vinod Khosla were on the company's payroll. Doerr still works for the KPCB.
Khosla too is a partner with KPCB. Bechtolsheim left Sun in 1995, but returned to the server vendor in February 2003 and is now working on developing servers that use AMD x86 Opteron processors.
Bill Joy left Sun in September 2003. He had long since retreated to Aspen in Colorado, where he headed up a branch of Sun Labs. Aspen just happens to be one of the most luxurious ski resorts in the world, so naturally Sun scientists were fighting each other over a chance to work at the remote location.
Content is king once again
Venture Capital firm Crystal Ventures wants to invest $120 million into new media and content companies in Asia, Dow Jones writes. The VC is looking for investors for the new fund.
"The infrastructure is ready, and consumer behavior for pay-per-use is ready," managing director Joseph Tzeng told the news service. "It ties into the rise of the Chinese middle class, where newly rich professionals have tremendous diversified needs for content."
The decision comes at a time when online advertising in the US and Europe is showing a strong recovery. Furthermore, Asian consumers might be persuaded to pay for content on their mobile devices in a way similar to the multi billion dollar ring tone industry.
Via: paidcontent.org
Google kills evil comment spam
Google has implemented a new technology that allows bloggers to prevent comment spammers from profiting from their malicious activities.
Comment spammers leave links to their V!agrA selling websites and other scams in the comments of weblog postings. Search engines follow those links, raising the profile of the page in question. All you can do as a blogger is manually delete the postings.
But Google now offers a better solution: by inserting a special tag, bloggers can instruct the search engine to ignore links in certain sections of their pages. Major providers of blogging software including Six Apart, MSN Spaces and Live Journal have signed on. They will automatically include the tags in the pages so individual bloggers don't have to do a thing.
Even Yahoo and MSN Search have signed on. The battle against spam brings us all together.
Voice mails piling up at Google
Don’t expect a call back when you phone Google's Silicon Valley headquarters this week. As Silicon Valley Sleuth previously reported, all of Google's 2,000-plus employees from Silicon Valley are hitting the ski slopes at Tahoe this week.
The Googlers are skiing at the plush Squaw Valley ski resort, says Cnet. Tomorrow will see the grand celebration with food filled tents packing the parking lot of the resort.
Dell takes on the world
I must be nice to be on top of the world. Dell CEO Kevin Rollins gets to call Apple an "one-product wonder" with its iPod success, cheers about IBM "waving the white flag" when it sold its PC making business to Lenovo. HP gets off with the least amount of damage. Talking about the HP Compaq merger the executive understatingly says: "they don't make very much money."
Unfortunately Rollings doesn't get far beyond trashing the competition – we learn little about the plans Dell has for the near future, except for some generic comments about Dell wanting to grow market share. But then again, Dell has the historic trends to back up its claims. Perhaps that's all the strategy they need.
Dell makes HP feel the crunch
Some Silicon Valley residents view HP as "the home team" in the struggle for dominance in the computer industry. Others just see the company as a manufacturer of ink guzzling printers that cost too much to use.
Although the latter probably couldn't care less, the first will shed a tear or two after a news report (paid subscription) stated that HP lost title of top PC vendor during the past holiday shopping season. The last quarter of the year is traditionally HP's because it is heavy with consumers buying new computers, a market that Dell traditionally had to leave to the Palo Alto based company.
No more however. HP last quarter grabbed a 15 pct market share, trailing Dell with its 15.9 percent.
HP in the mean time has come up with a devious plan to make up for the lost profits: at CES earlier this month HP CEO Carly Fiorina unveiled a Gwen Stefani branded digital camera. They could hear Carly gna-gna-ing all the way in Texas, and if the rumours are right, Michael Dell has hired McKinsey to come up with an appropriate retaliation.
Oracle overwhelmed by interest in its new baby
Oracle once again proved that there is nothing better than the real thing. A webcast of the presentations at the official launch of the combined Oracle and Peoplesoft companies went south on Tuesday due to overwhelming interest.
Your Silicon Valley Sleuth didn't take any chances and spent last night sleeping in front of the door at the Oracle conference centre at the company's headquarters in Redwood Shores.
Read more here. A report should be up on vnunet.com shortly as well.
Yahoo makes a cool billion
Search engine and internet portal Yahoo reported its first quarter ever in which it made more than one billion dollar in revenues.
If you ever doubted that the online advertising market was on a rebound, this is your queue. Investors certainly paid attention, as stocks for other websites relying on advertising revenues such as Google, Ask Jeeves (do people actually use that one?) and Cnet moved up after Yahoo announced its results.
Even Amazon and eBay saw their stock prises rise. Maybe it's time to fund a company with an "e-" in the name, start selling some goods over the internet and take the thing public.
iPod's screenlessness doesn't hurt sales
The fact that it's impossible to navigate through the music files on the new iPod Shuffle apparently hasn't hurt sales. The Apple.com website at this moment tells prospective buyers that they will have to wait
up to four weeks for the 1 Gb model.
The iPod Shuffle of course is the latest member of the iPod family. The device compensates the lack of a screen by giving the user the option to be surprised by putting in shuffle mode. Buyers don't seem to mind that, as they have purchased every model on earth.
Or this could just be another cruel trick of the Apple PR machine that is creating a buzz around the iPod Shuffle by keeping them in short supply.
Oracle fights the lies with humor
Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison used this morning's official launch of the combined Oracle|Peoplesoft to set the record straight on some of the rumour that have been going around about his database and enterprise application company.
"We are making offers to a lot more people [than was initially thought]. People thought we were going to lay off 16,000 of Peoplesoft's 11,500 employees. We had to lay off people twice just to get the numbers right. There is al kind of nonsensical stuff out there."
Oracle last Friday disclosed that it would fire 5,000 workers around the world.
Ellison seemed at ease and was joking a lot - even more than usual - with the audience and during a question and answer session with members of the media.
Ellison also had some good news for the town of Pleasanton, east of Silicon Valley, where Peoplesoft's headquarters are located. It was expected that the vast majority of the 5,000 lay-offs would be at the Peoplesoft office. But Ellison said that only "hundreds of lay-offs" were in Pleasanton.
"I've been emailing with the vice mayor of Pleasanton," he said. "[Oracle co-president] Safra Catz has been meeting with the mayor of Pleasanton. I get to email with the vice mayor, Safra gets to meet the mayor. That's how things go around here."
Safra Catz at this morning's event.
Ellison also came down hard on the alleged differences between Oracle's and Peoplesoft's corporate cultures, with Peoplesoft being perceived as the people friendly and Oracle as the corporate raider. "It's very interesting. The warm an fussy Craig Conway [former CEO of Peoplesoft], was one of the most aggressive sales executives in the history of Oracle. He led that warm and fussy organisation. I don't think that cultures are all that different. They worked very hard to build the best products they could, and so did we."
Linux best at fighting off hackers
In 1999 a team of security professionals formed the Honeynet Project to analyse hacking activity on the web by setting up systems online, leaving them to be hacked and then studying how it was done.
Yesterday they released their latest report on Linux and the results make grim reading for Microsoft. While a Windows system can be taken over within minutes of going online, the average time for a Linux system was three months - yes months. When they tried the same thing three years ago the average time for Linux systems was 72 hours.
Microsoft is always bleating that its operating system is just as safe as Linux, but gets hacked more because it's so popular. While there's a kernel of truth to this, there can be no arguing about the numbers: Linux is less of a risk, simple as that.
Intel rudely disturbs an otherwise quiet Monday
On a day when half the US has the day off in observance of Martin Luther King Day, Intel tried to sneak in a corporate restructuring that will create five new divisions.
January 17 is the birthday of the civil rights activist and a Bank Holiday.
The new divisions show a separation along the lines of customer groups, focusing on mobility, the digital enterprise, the digital home, distribution channel and digital health care.
Intel previously had two business groups: the Architecture and Communications groups. The first focused on microprocessors ranging from the Pentium to Itanium as well as chipsets, the second did flash memory, mobile processors such as the Xscale and networking products.
The Communications Group lost $791m last year and has been disbanded. Products that were the responsibility of that group will be transferred to the new divisions.
The restructuring has the handwriting of the company's future CEO Paul Otellini all over it (Craig Barrett is slated to step down in May). He has for a long time been pushing for a "platform strategy" where Intel sells bundled products such as processor, chipset and memory, aimed at specific applications.
Intel did not disclose if it expected any charges or cost savings as a result of the restructuring.
Really, IT does not matter
The retail chain 7-Eleven is opening the flood gates of progression, and decided to finally replace its DR DOS based portable inventory control computers in retail locations with Windows CE devies, writes Infoworld.
The upgrade will be welcome ammunition for Nicholas Carr, who in May 2003 shook up the world of IT with a Harvard Business Review article stating that "IT doesn't matter." He argues that few companies have gained any real competitive advantage by investing heavily in Information Technology. Carr has since added a book to his repertoire and has been making a handsome penny in the lectures circuit.
The retailer is actually doing the right thing, IDC research manager Kevin Burden told Infoworld: ""There may not be enough return on investment to make the switch if batch processing and DOS works for you. Moving to a new platform is a big investment in hardware, back-end systems, training, and education."
Employees at 7-Eleven better prepare for a culture shock. The new handheld computers will include b and g WiFi, a 320 by 320 pixel full colour display and a laser scanner. The devices for now will be used for inventory management, but in the future will also be able to ring up customers.
The cunningness of the Super Bowl ad
Ever since in the internet bubble, internet companies have turned to the Super Bowl to build their brands. Advertisers this year have to shelf out $80,000 per second to get some exposure.
The Super Bowl is the final of the American Football season, a sport that no-one outside of the US cares about and for a good reason. But since Americans prefer to compete in sports where they face no international competition (proof: baseball, basketball and ice hockey) the Super Bowl here is a big deal. And so is advertising.
The 30-second commercial blocks for the February 6 game sell for $2.4m, says The Wall Street Journal (paid subscription) – and Careerbuilder.com for the first time has bought one, while Super Bowl veteran Monster.com is saving its money for something more useful.
One can have his doubts about the value of a 30 second commercial during a break when viewers will rush for the toilet or start replenishing snacks. But Super Bowl ads have become somewhat of a phenomenon ever since the internet hype. Somehow mainstream media like the Wall Street Journal care about who is burning its money at the $80,000 per second rate. So more than just a chance to show off your product to a large TV watching audience, you get a lot of free media exposure.
Hey, it must be working. Even I am writing about this!
Open Source movement keeps rolling
Affirming the ever increasing momentum for open source, the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) has appointed Samba Creator Andrew Tridgell as its second Fellow. He joins Linux God Linus Torvards. The fellowship allows Tridgell to focus on Samba's development.
Samba allows computers running Windows access to files and printers that are attached toa network. The application suite was first released in January 1992. The software is running on millions of computers around the world, OSDL claims.
OSDL aims to accelerate the growth and adoption of Linux. The was founded in 2000 by CA, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Intel and NEC. Its membership currently boasts over 40 companies.
Vnunet.com published an interview with OSDL's William Weinberg last summer: Part 1 - Part 2.
The Sims to show on a TV near you
If you think that the TV show Big Brother 74 will bore you to death, you will want to skip the upcoming television show based on the computer game The Sims altogether.
Silicon Valley based Electronic Arts (EA) is talking with several TV production companies about the show, claims Reuters.
"One idea could be that you're controlling a family, telling them when to go to the kitchen and when to go to the bedroom, and with this mechanism you have gamers all over the world 'playing the show'," vice president of marketing and sales for EA Europe Jan Bolz told the news service.
EA wants to use the show to raise its level among non-gamers, as The Sims and The Sims 2 have succeeded in reaching out to women.
The Sims 2 was launched last year September and shattered sales records for computer games by selling 10 million copies within the first 10 days. The November launch of Halo2 attracted more attention but didn't even come close, despite the help from the huge Microsoft hype machine and a launch date that coincided with the Holiday shopping season.
The Sims as a computer game was the first in its category (and still is). Lame TV shows where you can watch people getting bored to death and dress up like idiots, for a shot at a grand prize have been around for too long.
Peoplesofters turn to LinkedIn for relief
Over 3,700 Peoplesoft employees have registered with the online networking site LinkedIn in the past 30 days. " Everyone at PeopleSoft is going a bit nuts with getting their networks up-to-date and whatnot", writes Peoplesoft employee Chiara Fox on her blog. Judging on her post, not much work was getting done the days before Oracle announced that it would eliminate 5,000 jobs at the company.
Oracle weeds out 5,000 employees
Oracle has just disclosed that it will let go 5,000 employees at the combined Oracle-Peoplesoft venture. It was previously announced that the layoffs would come, but the exact number of employees that would be made redundant was new.
The downpoor of pink slips will focus on Peoplesoft's marketing and sales departments, as Oracle said that developers and support staff will be largely spared.
A pink slip is the (pink coloured) form that employees receive with their pay check. It also symbolises the final payment for a laidoff worker.
As previously promised, Oracle will continue working on Peoplesoft version 8.9 and then move on to developing a new version 9.0 of the Peoplesoft product, the company said in a statement.
More details about the company's new course will come this Tuesday at an event in Oracle's headquarters in Redwood Shores. Silicon Valley Sleuth will be there.
HP piles printer division on top of PC business
HP will merge its printer and PC making business in a single business unit, the company just disclosed.
The move will have Vyomesh Joshi overseeing the new business. Joshi was previously in charge of HP's highly profitable printer business. The "personal systems group" however has disappointed CEO Carly Fiorina.
The two groups will still independently report their financial results, so this isn't merely a bookkeeping gimmick to hide the PC group's losses behind the printer's profits. That pretty much leaves one alternative reason for the reshuffling: HP thinks the management for the PC group has failed and hopes that the printer group's leadership can pull the unit afloat.
Cnet had an interview with Joshi in which he didn't say much about what the company wants accomplish. HP wants to become "more profitable" and to speed up the "time to market", but Joshi fails to explain how he plans to accomplish that with the new combined units.
Mac mini getting less and less of a deal
When Steve Jobs on Tuesday said the Mac mini was "a stripped down version" of a Mac computer, he really meant to say it's a stripped down version. Users who are considering putting in an order are getting disappointed after they start adding memory, wifi and other "necessary" options. For Jeff Nolan it raised the price tag for the $499 device to $806.
Apple sells most of its memory and networking expansions at a premium. I've always bought memory for my Mac computers at some online store. But this might not work with the Mac mini, because Apple seems to have welded the device shut, Jupiter research analyst Joe Wilcox points out.
For Wilcox its proves that Apple wants the Mac mini to be mostly a consumer electronics device and less of a computer. Consumers are used to their video players and stereos being closed devices, but expect to go wild on their computers with a screwdriver.
Forrester gives rebuilding its brand a try with new magazine
Being caught in the middle of the internet hype and the subsequent bubble deflating, Forrester Research plans to launch a magazine to "build its brand".
Let's make that: rebuild its brand.
The research firm from the area of Boston is best known as the firm that didn't meet an emerging market it didn't like. To add insult to injury it published some questionable research that clearly supported the views of the sponsoring companies.
The company has itself to blame for the fact that it faded away. I doubt that launching a magazine will change that.
SAP offers axed PSFT-ers safe haven
Oracle's competitor is welcoming some of the Peoplesoft employees who receive their pinkslips later today. On his weblog, SAP Venture's Jeff Nolan invites them to send him an email. The venture capital investement arm of the German entreprise software developer is looking for sales and marketing managers. "We have several portfolio companies that are aggressively building out their sales and marketing organizations and we need people with your experience," he writes.
Peoplesoft employee David Sohigian previously proposed starting a posting one resumee a day for a laid off Peoplesoft worker on his blog. Last thing we heard, he will start posting after the layoffs have been announced, so stay tuned.
ADDED 10:37 PM:
Brad Feld, a managing director with Mobius Venture Capital, too has some job vacancies.
Friday from now on shall be layoff day
Referees in the area of Pleasanton will have a hard time judging children's little league baseball and soccer games this weekend, as parents might take out their frustration over the layoffs at Peoplesoft on them. Oracle is expected to announce the first round of mass layoffs at the recently acquired company on Friday. About 4,000 of Peoplesoft's 11,000 employees live in the city east of Silicon Valley.
The city fears losing its largest employer, and all businesses that depend on it such as restaurant.
The San Jose Mercury News went over to the city and described the eerie atmosphere that took over parts of Pleasanton. Since the takeover became final one month ago, Oracle has been interviewing the Peoplesoft employees to determine who can stay and who has to go.
``People are not coming out with warm, fuzzy feelings,'' an anonymous Peoplesoft marketing employee told the newspaper. ``It's more of, `What is it you do? Well, this is how we do it. Don't call us, we'll call you.' A lot of people want to stay, but it's mostly because of their personal financial situations.''
Yahoo! Finance embraces RSS
For all you RSS junkies out there, Yahoo has just launched a very nice new feature: RSS feeds for Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo's Jeremy Zadodny writes on his blog.
The service brings news about a company straight to you desktop, based on the ticker symbol.
Users who want to track the news about Sun Microsystems (ticker: SUNW) and Oracle (ORCL) simply add the following url to their RSS reader:
http://finance.yahoo.com/rss/headline?s=sunw,orcl
Now all we need is a way to add RSS feeds to our readers without having to worry about or understand the actual URL.
When blogging and reporting compete
As long as the number of bloggers who can pay their rent with their writings is limited to a few, blogging is unlikely to persuade journalists to switch over, argues Adam L. Penenberg, an assistant professor at New York University and the assistant director of the business and economic reporting program in the department of journalism.
Power blogger Om Malik attracts 350,000 visitors to his website per month, but last month made a paltry $7 profit though Google ads that he runs on his website (profit after paying for the hosting and bandwidth). He pays the bills by writing his column and feature stories for Business 2.0 magazine.
Given the economic incentive to be a reporter rather than a blogger, reporter-bloggers will save their real scoops for their publications, Penenberg rightfully argues.
Besides, since blogs often are a reflection of the author's personal opinions, those opinions might jeopardise their journalistic work, if not put their publications in an awkward position. Therefore many publications including The New York Times and Wallstreet Journal restrict their writers from participating in certain activities to ensure the independence and integrity of the publication – up to and including marching in political rallies.
Companies that reporters cover might also take repercussion against blogger-journalists for airing their opinions. Although that isn't just practiced against bloggers, as book author Frederic Alan Maxwell noticed past Tuesday as he was kicked out of MacWorld in San Francisco.
Google gets away with security fraud
Google has patched things up with the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), reaching a settlement over alleged violations of securities laws in the company's IPO last year, according to a SEC filing.
Prior to the floatation, Playboy magazine published an interview with the company's two founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The actual interview took place before Google filed for its IPO, but was published during the so-called quiet period, when Google was prohibited to "hype" the company.
Google also faced criticism for stock options issued to employees and consultants between 2002 and 2004. The company had failed to provide the required financial information. To put it differently: the poor souls could have been taken for a ride, having been issued options to an utterly worthless company. I know – it sounds hilarious now that Google stocks are trading at $195 and the company is valued at $53 billion.
It all ends like a fairy tale for Google. The company admitted to no wrongdoing and doesn't pay a penny in fines.