Posts Tagged ‘Microsoft’
Darko on June 20th, 2008
Microsoft executives said the company does not plan to make a slew of Internet acquisitions since it ended its bid for Yahoo.
There has been speculation that Microsoft would possibly buy Facebook, which it has a small stake in or Time Warner’s AOL along with a number of other companies.
“People don’t understand what they’re talking about,” chief executive Steve Ballmer said in an interview with the Financial Times. “At the end of the day, this is about the ad platform. This is not about just any one of the applications.”
Kevin Johnson, head of Microsoft’s Windows and Internet businesses, said that the bid for Yahoo was part of Microsoft’s strategy to strengthen its advertising business, with the focus on the search advertising market.
After Microsoft dropped its bid for Yahoo last month it returned with an offer for the search business.
“The most important application for the foreseeable future . . . is search,” Ballmer said.
“I don’t think we can say, ‘OK, well, we’re going to be in the ad platform business and we’re going to do it just on the strength of non-search-based assets.’ We don’t have to dominate, but we’d better have a darn good chunk of the search market over time.”
Darko on June 20th, 2008
Kevin Johnson, president of the Platforms and Services Division at Microsoft, whined a bit about the pact between Google and Yahoo, during a debate in Cannes about advertising topics.
Yahoo EVP Hilary Schneider gave Johnson a little something to chew on in exulting over the company’s advertising agreement with Google. Valued roughly at $800 million in annual revenue initially, placing Google ads alongside Yahoo search results gives the latter a big boost.
Reuters noted Schneider calling the deal a “win-win,” to which Johnson said, “If win is consolidating around 90 percent of the paid search with Google, you can say, ok, Google would do that as a win.”
“I don’t think that from an industry perspective that supports having choices and having a number of strong players in the advertising business,” he continued.
Unfortunately, the awful truth shows Microsoft completely missing the boat on search, and the multi-billion dollar revolution delivered by contextual search advertising. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told the Financial Times his company simply didn’t take advantage of the chance search presented.
“I give Google credit for innovating in the business model around search. They did a nice job on that, and that’s why they won,” he said in the report. Ballmer also blamed the five-year gap where its research and development resources were focused on Windows rather than other areas, including search, as ‘calcifying’ Microsoft’s ability to respond to Google’s competition.
Darko on June 19th, 2008
BEIJING — China’s anti-piracy bureau on Thursday denied reports it is investigating possible monopoly behaviour of large software companies including Microsoft Corp.
China’s State Intellectual Property Office said in a notice that it was not conducting any investigation and such reports were “seriously untrue.”
The state-run newspaper Shanghai Securities News reported Wednesday that the office was investigating alleged monopolistic practices of large software companies such as Microsoft and that local companies might file antitrust lawsuits under a new law taking effect August 1.
“Our office has never conducted research on monopoly behaviour aimed at any enterprises,” the notice said. “And at present we have no plan to conduct this work,” it said.
A Microsoft spokesman, Ranfeng Chen, said the company supports efforts to establish an environment conducive to promoting fair competition and said Microsoft is in compliance with Chinese law.
“We also believe efforts such as the anti-monopoly law will better safeguard interests and benefits of consumers, encourage innovation and enhance economic development,” he said.
The report in the Shanghai Securities News said the investigation would focus on discriminatory pricing of software and the use of a monopoly position in operating system and office software to sell more software and limit space for development of domestic companies.
While not mentioning Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft by name, the report quoted a source that named the company.
It cited an unnamed “authoritative source” as saying that the cost of Microsoft Windows system, which sells for 1,000 to 2,000 yuan ($145-$285), and Office software, at 4,000-5,000 yuan, is higher than the cost of a computer.
It cited the same source as saying that it was “not normal” for a multinational company to use its dominant position to sell its legitimate software at extremely high prices while criticizing a public lack of respect for copyright protections.
Darko on June 18th, 2008
Playing a little bit of catch-up to rival Google, Microsoft announced the acquisition of Navic Networks on Wednesday, giving it a foothold in the television advertising business.
The interactive TV advertising market has been considered a “new and burgeoning” industry for well over a decade now, and for perhaps all of that time, Microsoft has been working to gain a competitive position there. But this morning’s announced acquisition of interactive ad platform provider Navic Networks is being perceived as a catch-up play with Google, whose recent deal with Dish Network has been the talk of the industry.
With all television going digital soon, many TVs and HDTVs will be using new, next-generation set-top boxes, and some displays will already have STB technology built-in. Those STBs will be the interactive channel-changers, some with built-in TV Guide, and many with on-demand movie and show selection functionality.It’s Navic’s Admira advertising platform that plays to these STBs, with the capability of delivering highly targeted ads, similar in concept to behavioral targeting platforms on the Internet now, but directed toward TV viewers. For years, Microsoft has wanted to build a similar platform; today, it announced it has decided to buy a fully established one instead.
Navic’s technology works much like the popups that TiVo customers have recently become accustomed to when seeing some ads. Targeting by ZIP code — and perhaps deeper — allows advertisers using the functionality to micro-target consumers, enabling them to click on an overlay to see additional information on the product.
One thing that is missing from Navic’s offering is any kind of tie-in to Web advertising. Microsoft may seek to leverage its adCenter program to make Navic’s services more attractive to potential clients.
That seems like it is what the two companies plan to do. “While our current business relationships will continue to grow, we look forward to extending our technology into a vast array of new markets and software solutions,” CEO Chet Kanojia said.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, although news reports indicate Microsoft may have paid anywhere between $200 and 300 million for Navic. The company will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Redmond company, and will be folded into the Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group, which is lead by Brian McAndrews.
Microsoft is still trailing behind Google when it comes to advertising. In the most recent quarter, Google’s advertising revenues totaled $5.1 billion: The Redmond company managed to generate $843 million in revenue from its Online services business, which includes its advertising endeavors.
Darko on June 17th, 2008
It failed to acquire Yahoo’s search business — or at least that’s what Yahoo has said. So now Microsoft has to rely on its own resources to come up with a plan for moving forward in search; and to do that, it’s setting up a second laboratory.
This morning, Microsoft publicly announced it will be opening what it’s calling a “Search Technology Center” somewhere in Europe at some point next year. It did not say exactly when or exactly where, though with the company’s slate of acquisitions in the search space already hailing from all over the continent, there are several intriguing candidates.
Although Microsoft’s announcement was made this morning in Cannes, Oslo, Norway may be high on the company’s list. That’s where one of its most important acquisitions in the search space is located: Fast Search & Transfer, the manufacturer of a groundbreaking behavior-monitoring search platform for enterprises. That platform already enables big businesses that produce and manage a lot of text to use tracking data gleaned from employees to enhance the relevancy of documents retrieved during queries.
But that’s a product sold to businesses, not a query line served up through a public Web page like Windows Live Search. In a statement sent to BetaNews this morning, Microsoft said that its new tech center — wherever it ends up being located — will be partnering directly with the Live Search team to develop “a highly relevant, localized, and interactive search experience” for online users. If FAST’s behavioral algorithms are to play a role there, perhaps Oslo will be the center; but if FAST remains a professional platform, the new European STC might be running on a different track.
For the last two and a half years, Microsoft has already been operating an STC in Beijing. There, one of its key projects has been improved relevancy and experience for Live Search and the public Web, though some academic projects are also involved.
Back in February 2006, Microsoft acquired Paris-based mobile search technology provider MotionBridge. Since that time, the company has made some headway in building location-oriented search services for mobile handset users — not just Windows Mobile — although it’s struggled with the problem of branding these services. Then in a deal completed last January, Microsoft acquired geographical search provider Multimap, based in London. That deal could also play into the company’s expansion of mobile search services as well.
But if Microsoft’s intentions with this new STC are to provide more transparency to European regulators, who may be questioning the efficacy of these acquisitions, the company may want to consider Brussels as a home base.
Darko on June 17th, 2008
Microsoft may have a market cap of over $268 billion, but the corporation isn’t an expert in every field. So, whenever Microsoft isn’t able to sell video ad inventory, a new agreement will have its friend YuMe step in to handle the task.
It’s interesting that Microsoft didn’t just acquire YuMe; the two have worked together before, making matters of long-term usefulness and trust look like less of an issue than usual. But for whatever reason (perhaps YuMe’s backers see an even brighter future for the comparatively small company), this agreement was reached instead, and the deal should take effect this summer.
Rob Bennett, Microsoft’s general manager of MSN Entertainment, Video & Sports, explained the basic idea, stating, “YuMe offers the ability to connect additional ad networks to its platform, and we plan on utilizing this service to provide YuMe and other ad networks access to Microsoft’s unsold video inventory.”
For its part, YuMe claims to have a network of over 400 websites and reach something in the neighborhood of 120 million unique visitors.
More immediately relevant details - including any figure attached to a dollar sign - are pretty much nonexistent, so we’ll have to see what trickles out as operations ramp up.
Darko on June 17th, 2008
Companies generally don’t comment on rumor or speculation—that’s the blogosphere/news media’s job. The speculation du jour, which seems very likely born of non-buyer’s remorse, is that Microsoft is eyeing—or should eye—an acquisition of eBay or, at least, PayPal and/or Skype.
Acquisition rumors not that crazyeBay Logo
Or not. But it wasn’t that long ago, when it was becoming abundantly clear Google was busting the search block, that analysts and investors started pushing Microsoft to make a bid for Yahoo just because it made a lot of sense. As soon as MS got its ducks in a row* with the Office update and the release of Vista, that’s pretty much what they did.
And we know how well that worked out: Microsoft’s still got its $44 billion and Yahoo has a few months worth of ’splainin’ to do. Lots of questions remain about Microsoft’s next move, which could be another Yahoo bid once share prices sink below $20 again, or it could be, according to Stifel Nicolaus analyst Scott Devit, buying a stake in PayPal or Skype.
Driving the speculation are MSN’s cash back display ads popping up on eBay, where fixed-price items qualify for the program.
And that’s it, really. That’s what appears to be driving the speculation. But Devit’s not the only one tossing around theoretical good ideas. Berstein Research’s Jeffrey Lindsay takes another route, crediting a “Microsoft-like suitor” as a potential eBay acquirer, who would then spin off PayPal and/or Skype.
ZDNet Editor in Chief Larry Dignan doesn’t think that idea is so off base, and makes a case that an eBay buy would be a better deal for Microsoft than Yahoo, if Microsoft just had to spend some money. With a higher market cap, more revenue, better price to earnings ratio and a current share price of $28.50, Dignan might be right.
Given eBay sellers recent rows with the auction giant, new ownership could be welcomed. Stranger things have happened, including speculation Google is negotiating a buyout of Digg.com. Try and make sense of that one.
Microsoft appears to have abandoned any hopes of owning Yahoo, but with the right collective acquisition focus, the Beast of Redmond could grab a pretty good chunk of the online market without Yahoo. Buying Ask, for example, would add some more search share as Microsoft figures out its own brand; eBay would put them in charge of online auctions; and why not just go ahead and buy all of Facebook, just to round off their edges?
Darko on June 17th, 2008
The ER doctor stares at the unconscious stranger on his table. He has never seen this patient. He has never seen this patient’s records.
He cannot know the patient is allergic to the medicine he’s about to inject.
This scenario, more than any other, illustrates why individuals should consider using one of the new services that let patients keep their own medical records online.
Google Health, Microsoft HealthVault and others still have serious shortcomings. They lack obvious features. They can be hard to use. They worry privacy advocates.
But even now, as their creators devise a new product category on the fly, these services can do much for users, even those who never make an unexpected trip to the emergency room.
In theory, records follow patients from doctor to doctor. In practice, studies show, they make it less than half the time.
Even when one doctor refers a patient to another, the records often stay put. About a fifth of all tests that doctors order duplicate tests ordered by other doctors.
“Critical information is falling through the cracks. It makes patients suffer and pushes costs up,” said Roni Zeiger, project manager for Google Health.
“Even when doctors have complete records, computers can help make sense of them. A graph that charts patient weight and blood pressure over five years conveys more information more quickly than a huge file of handwritten notes.”
For all that personal health records can help doctors, their real goal is to help patients help themselves.
Users who enter nothing but the most basic information – their age – get warnings when they reach milestone birthdays that require tests such as prostate or breast exams.
The more information that users provide, the more these systems can help them.
Users who type their medications into Google Health get warnings about potential interactions. Users who tell the system their vaccination history get messages when they need boosters.
System designers hope to make it easy for users to provide the system with detailed information.
Even now, HealthVault works with 10 different medical devices, such as blood pressure and blood sugar monitors.
Patients just plug the devices into their computers and the information zips into their accounts.
“We’re not building these devices at Microsoft. We’ve made HealthVault an open platform so anyone can make compatible equipment,” said Grad Conn, senior director of Microsoft’s health solutions marketing.
“We’ve also made it easy for customers to see what works with HealthVault. We have a logo that gets stamped on compatible products.”
Both Google and Microsoft are inviting other companies and organizations to develop products and services that work with their health portals.
Indeed, both companies need many more partners to attract broad use.
The most important partners will be organizations that handle patient records: hospitals, medical practices, pharmacies, insurers and government agencies.
If Google and Microsoft can get these groups to put medical records in the proper electronic formats, users will be able to import all their data with the click of a button.
If not, users will have to get copies of paper records and enter everything by hand, as they generally do now.
Partnerships with doctors, pharmacies and the rest would also enable users to manage appointments, schedule drug pickups, make claims and otherwise control their medical lives.
Other potentially valuable partners include the many organizations that store data about doctor and hospital quality.
Such partnerships would let users see awards, complaints, lawsuits and other vital information. The addition of user reviews would make health platforms the medical equivalent of the Zagat restaurant surveys.
“Both Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault already do interesting things, but it’s going to take a lot of years to add the features and win the acceptance that will make them mainstream products,” said David Merritt, project director at the Center for Health Transformation in Washington.
Nearly everyone agrees with Mr. Merritt that years will pass before most Americans store complete medical records online.
Congress will probably need to pass privacy laws that specify the proper use of electronic medical records. Users will need to become comfortable with the idea. The systems will need to become easier because no one expects users to type in all their records.
“Think about how long it took for electronic banking to seem normal and then multiply a few times over because medicine is more complex and way more conservative,” Mr. Merritt said. “That said, when these systems finally do win wide acceptance, they are going to extend millions of lives.”
Darko on May 8th, 2008
A New York Times article purporting that Microsoft is working with NBC Universal to create a “copyright cop” — or anti-piracy filter — for the Zune that will prevent playback of unauthorized videos, was refuted by Microsoft today.
In the article which appeared on a Times blog, Saul Hansell, a Times reporter, quotes J.B. Perrette, president of digital distribution for the movie studio, as saying there are two reasons why NBC chose Microsoft’s Zune over Apple’s iTunes for content distribution.
One reason given by Perrette is that Apple insists on paying the same wholesale price for all videos, so that Apple can charge $1.99 for each film. The other is that Apple presented NBC with a flat out refusal on a request to include filters in the iPod.”Microsoft, by contrast, will accept NBC’s pricing scheme and will work with it to try to develop a copyright ‘cop’ to be installed on its devices,” according to Hansell’s story.
Hansell also said that Adam Sohn, a spokesman for Microsoft, declined comment on the issue except to say that the software company is exploring anti-piracy measures with NBC.
But in a blog post on the Zune site yesterday, Cesar Menendez, a member of Microsoft’s Zune team, responded by denying that content filtering is part of its content distribution deal with NBC.
“We have no plans or commitments to implement any new type of content filtering in the Zune devices as part of our content distribution deal with NBC,” Menendez wrote. “We think some folks in the industry were expressing hopes for how the entire industry, not just Microsoft, would come to look at content distribution, and some speculation has ensued. Again, no plans are in place toward this end.”
This morning, Hansell updated his NYT article with a link to Microsoft’s blog post, along with some new commentary of his own.
“It’s worth noting that Mr. Perrette told me that Microsoft committed to explore filtering; he didn’t say it committed to implementing those filters,” according to Hansell’s update.
“Here is what Mr. Sohn, the Microsoft spokesman, told me yesterday when I asked him about what Mr. Perrette said: ‘I don’t think they are wrong, but we are not going to characterize those discussions.’ Later he added, ‘We have agreed to work with NBC across a range of topics, and protection of copyrighted material is certainly one of them,’” Hansell wrote.
Darko on May 6th, 2008
Despite reports that a Blu-ray Xbox 360 is in the works from an ASUS subsidiary, Microsoft has once again moved to deny the rumors.
Microsoft had no comment when the reports hit last week, but now an official has sent an email to the popular gaming website GamePro denying the reports.
“As we have stated, we have no plans to introduce a Blu-ray drive for Xbox 360. Games are what drive consumers to purchase game consoles, and we remain focused on providing the largest library of blockbuster games available.”
It seems that more and more reports will hit the Internet that a Blu-ray Xbox 360 is coming and Microsoft will continue to deny them. Will a Blu-ray Xbox 360 be coming anytime soon, or will Microsoft stick by its guns and stay with HD digital downloads?
