In the early ’90’s, when it became clear that I, an Amiga user at the time, would need to buy and learn a PC for work-related reasons, I shifted into my immersion mode of knowledge acquisition, which consisted of reading everything current that I could get my hands on and gradually increasing the percentage that I understood. And among the places I spent the most time immersed were the glossy pages of PC Magazine, each issue thick as a small city’s phone book, packed with ads and write-ups on Intel’s wicked-fast 33 MHz processors, the new “local bus” video card connection, dot-matrix printer comparisons and such. Somewhere around here, I know I have a stack of those mags, stashed specifically for the entertainment value of looking back in later years.
And now would be an appropriate time for such a sentimental journey. Tech media company Ziff Davis, fresh out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, announced today that the January 2009 issue of PC Magazine would be the last to be printed on paper, ending a 26-year run on the newsstands. The PCMag.com Web site will live on as the flagship of a fleet of related tech sites, and all subscribers will start getting PC Magazine Digital, a downloadable version with the print edition’s look if not feel, by e-mail. Such a transition doesn’t exactly come as a surprise. Ad revenues are down, distribution costs are up, and the timeliness of tech news in particular suffers under print’s early deadlines and late delivery. Still, we’re permitted a quick and wistful glance as this modest milestone goes whizzing past.
What exactly were these Yahoo investors expecting? That immediately upon the announcement of Jerry Yang’s decision to step down as CEO, Microsoft would do a quick 180 and come running back with a new offer to buy the company? Apparently that dream alone, and not any renewed confidence in Yahoo’s independent prospects, fueled Tuesday’s run-up in the stock price, and when Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer popped that bubble once again today, those gains and more evaporated, leaving the stock to bounce around near its 52-week low. Speaking at Microsoft’s annual stockholders meeting, Ballmer was unequivocal: “Let me be as clear as I think I’ve tried to be publicly: We are done with all acquisition discussions with Yahoo. We have moved on.” Consistent with earlier and repeated pronouncements (see “A Yahoo search for ’stages of grief’ might help“), Ballmer said some sort of search and advertising deal with the purple portal people remained a possibility. “There’s no active discussion on that front, but we’d be very open to it,” Ballmer said. Apparently, Microsoft is also open to picking off some of Yahoo’s talent on an individual basis. Sean Suchter, Yahoo’s VP of search technology, has resigned and is reportedly heading toward Redmond.
“I’ve got a traditional Kentish accent and the thing kept on spitting back ridiculous things. I asked it to find my nearest pizza take away and it came back with something about volcanoes. I asked it to find my nearest pub and it gave me a link to some kind of weird dating Web site. I’ll have to try to put on my best American accent to get it to work.”
– Roger Ellinson from southeastern England, one of many British residents to report that Google’s new voice-search feature for the iPhone has difficulty understanding their accents
The official Monty Python channel on YouTube (introduced this way: “For 3 years you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them on YouTube. Now the tables are turned. It’s time for us to take matters into our own hands. We know who you are, we know where you live and we could come after you in ways too horrible to tell. But being the extraordinarily nice chaps we are, we’ve figured a better way to get our own back: We’ve launched our own Monty Python channel on YouTube. No more of those crap quality videos you’ve been posting. We’re giving you the real thing — HQ videos delivered straight from our vault.”)
Here’s good news for anyone who appreciates the power of a still image. Google is in the process of putting the entire photographic archives of Life magazine online. That’s about 10 million photos, 97 percent of which have never been seen by the public. Most, says Google engineer Paco Galanes, “have been sitting in dusty archives in the form of negatives, slides, glass plates, etchings, and prints. We’re digitizing them so that everyone can easily experience these fascinating moments in time.” About 20 percent of the collection is online now, accessible both in a special area and in normal image search results, with the rest to follow in the next few months. The images will be free to use for “personal and research purposes” but will be digitally watermarked to prevent unauthorized or unlicensed commercial uses. “Fine art photographic prints” are available for a price.
If Yahoo is seeking any inspirational examples of a large tech company successfully surviving a wrenching change at the helm, it need look no farther than Hewlett-Packard, where the steady hand of Mark Hurd has been guiding the company out of the rubble of the Fiorina Era. While other tech firms have been taking turns bumming out the market with weaker-than-expected earnings and outlooks, HP said today its fourth-quarter earnings and first-quarter and yearly forecasts would all exceed analysts’ projections. Despite the “challenging marketplace,” Hurd credited the performance to the company’s “global reach, diverse customer base, broad portfolio and numerous cost initiatives.” The gains haven’t come without pain — a series of acquisitions, most notably that of EDS, has been accompanied by thousands of layoffs, and cost containment is still very much the order of the day, as evidenced by the extension of the annual holiday shutdown from one week to two this year. But the sacrifices are showing results on the bottom line, and the company was immediately rewarded with a more than 14 percent jump in the stock price.
Hurd and his management team are getting the credit for being both bold and disciplined. Says Craig Zarley at ChannelWeb, “(Hurd’s) most important trait is that he’s constantly visiting and listening to customers. And he keeps his closest counsel with his biggest customer: the channel. Hurd regularly makes one-on-one visits to solution providers both large and small. He asks questions. He listens. He motivates. No other CEO of a major technology company keeps as close to the channel as Hurd.”
There is, as you would expect, a ton of blogosphere chatter reacting to Jerry Yang’s announcement late Monday that he would be stepping down as Yahoo’s CEO, but the market today is saying all you really need to know. The initial burst of enthusiasm that sent the company’s market cap up by about $2 billion in early trading reflected a consensus that this was a step that had to be taken before anything else could happen, and a later partial retreat showed those hopes tempered by the reality of the challenges that still face Yang’s successor.
Yang announced his intent to return to his roles as Chief Yahoo and director in a memo to the troops, telling them, “All of you know that I have always, and will always bleed purple. I will always do what I think is right for this great company. While this step will be an adjustment for all of us, I know it’s the right one.” He exits not only bleeding, but battered into a stunning shade of aubergine after months of public pummeling for passing on a Microsoft buyout and failing to firm up a viable alternative strategy as the stock tanked (see “Crazy Jerry’s Portal Emporium — no reasonable offer refused“). “It’s definitely positive from a shareholder perspective,” said Ross Sandler, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets. “Jerry has done less than a stellar job after taking the reins from Terry Semel last year, not just completely botching the Microsoft deal but with poor execution and multiple company restructurings that have done little to restore confidence of any of Yahoo’s shareholders, employees or customers.”
Attention has quickly turned to speculation on a successor, and the perception that Yahoo’s problems are systemic bodes ill for any in-house candidates, like President Sue Decker. “The next hire has to be a statement; it can’t be from inside the company,” said Rick Munarriz, an analyst with the Motley Fool. “You don’t need a Yahoo again. The first thing they should do with the new CEO is cut him open and if he bleeds purple they kick him out.” Instead, the choice may hinge on the degree to which Yahoo believes some kind of deal with Microsoft is still both desirable and possible. If the master plan is counting on coaxing Redmond into taking a some serious stake, analysts say, the company may want to bring aboard a respected manager in a transitional role. If the plan is to stand firm and work a turnaround, the board may opt for some star power. Among the names being bandied about: ex-AOL CEO Jonathan Miller, whose non-compete agreement expires in March; News Corp. President and COO Peter Chernin; former Fox Interactive Media head Ross Levinsohn; former Nextel CEO and current Yahoo board member John Chapple; and former Microsoft exec and current Juniper Networks head Kevin Johnson, who would have run Yahoo if Microsoft’s takeover bid had succeeded.
Microsoft, meanwhile, is biding its time, reportedly still interested not in a takeover, but some sort of search and advertising deal. “They are ready to move, as soon as it becomes clear who is in charge at Yahoo,” one source told Boomtown’s Kara Swisher. “They don’t want to appear too eager, but also don’t want to lose this one.”
“Please help! I took my husband’s i-phone and found a raunchy picture of him attached to an e-mail to a woman in his sent e-mail file (a Yahoo account). When I approached him about this (I think that he is cheating on me) he admitted that he took the picture but says that he never sent it to anyone. He claims that he went to the Genius Bar at the local Apple store and they told him that it is an i-phone glitch: that photos sometimes automatically attach themselves to an e-mail address and appear in the sent folder, even though no e-mail was ever sent. Has anyone ever heard of this happening? The future of my marriage depends on this answer!”
– Susan from New Jersey, seeking some advice in an Apple forum (the consensus is that there is a glitch, but it’s with her marriage)
Not that you can ever let down your guard against the constant efforts by malware mavens to separate you from your cash or secretly seize control of your computer, but starting right about now, you might want to set your suspicion sensors on highest sensitivity through the holiday season. Traditionally there’s a surge in spam, virus and worm activity that coincides with the surge of holiday shoppers online. This year, the researchers at security software vendor PC Tools have analyzed worldwide virus data on more 500,000 machines along with data from last year and concluded that Monday, Nov. 24, will be the most dangerous day to be online. If your suspicion sensor is already on high, you may be thinking that making such a specific prediction is less a useful piece of advice and more a way for PC Tools to grab a few headlines and maybe move some product. And indeed there are those in the security biz who see a downside in such warnings. “The very real danger is that people will think that it is more important to take computer security more seriously next Monday than, say, tomorrow or next Wednesday,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant with Sophos. “Indeed, if stories like this became widespread, wouldn’t it be in the interest of hackers to launch their attack on a day when they believed people would be more relaxed about their PC’s security?” But PC Tools says anything that raises security awareness is a good thing. “Singling out a particular day may seem excessive, but we can inform ourselves on what we may expect based on last year’s online malware,” said Kurt Baumgartner, the company’s chief threat analyst. “We are not suggesting that users give up on attending to computer security the rest of the year. We wouldn’t suggest that they leave their front door open the rest of the year, either.”
Elsewhere in the wide world of security:
* Security software maker Symantec announced today that John W. Thompson, chairman and chief executive officer, will retire as CEO when the company’s fiscal year ends, with COO Enrique T. Salem taking the reins effective April 4. Thompson will remain as chairman of the board, and Salem will become a director.
* British site Bobbear, run by Bob Harrison to warn Internet innocents about scam and money-laundering sites, is currently under enemy attack, bombarded into unreachability by a denial of service assault from a massive botnet — perhaps a preemptive move to keep its helpful information out of reach during hacking’s high season.
Outspoken billionaire tech entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has blustered, laughed and shrugged his way through at least $1.5 million in fines from the NBA over the years, but dealing with a full court press by the Securities and Exchange Commission may be tougher. The SEC today charged Cuban with insider trading, citing the circumstances in which he threw Mamma.com from the train four years ago.
Cuban bought 600,000 shares of the Canadian search engine (since merged into Copernic Technologies) in March 2004, blogging at the time, “I love businesses with low overhead, that don’t need to be technology leaders to succeed, that generate cash that they can put in the bank, and at some point, hopefully payout to shareholders. I think Mamma.com has that potential.” A few months later, Mamma.com’s CEO called Cuban to tell him the company was planning to raise money through a PIPE, or private investment in private entity, a move that often knocks down share price because the stock is sold at a discount and dilutes existing holdings. According to the SEC, the CEO started the conversation by telling Cuban the information was confidential, and Cuban acknowledged that being so advised left him “screwed.” Cuban is contending he was never told the information was privileged. And on that point rests the case, because within hours of that call, Cuban sold off all of his Mamma.com stock, and by doing so, the SEC alleges, he avoided more than $750,000 in losses when the PIPE plan was announced the next day and the share price dropped 9 percent.
The brief response from Cuban’s lawyer suggests that the game plan is to play defense aggressively. “This matter, which has been pending before the Commission for nearly two years, has no merit and is a product of gross abuse of prosecutorial discretion. Mr. Cuban intends to contest the allegations and to demonstrate that the Commission’s claims are infected by the misconduct of the staff of its Enforcement Division,” said the release, going on to quote Cuban: “I am disappointed that the Commission chose to bring this case based upon its Enforcement staff’s win-at-any-cost ambitions. The staff’s process was result-oriented, facts be damned. The government’s claims are false and they will be proven to be so.”
Depending on your position, this is either a sign of the fast-approaching end times or a harbinger of consumer nirvana — the latter if your position is slumped deep in your sofa in front of a large screen. TiVo is now giving its broadband-connected customers the ability to order a pizza from Domino’s with a few clicks on the remote. Finally, there’s no need to waste time and energy walking to the phone, and while you’ll still have to pay cash when the food arrives, if you yell “Come in” really loud when the doorbell rings, maybe you can get chair-side delivery as well. “This is the first step in the future of customer interactions with the brands they seek to engage with and buy from,” said Domino’s VP Rob Weisberg. “This is the first time in history that the ‘on- demand’ generation will be able to fully experience couch commerce by ordering pizza directly through their television set. You’ll see a television ad for Domino’s and you’ll click ‘I want it’ through your remote. In about 30 minutes, your pizza will show up at your door.” That’s right — couch commerce. If natural selection has anything to say about it, the future favors limp blobs of humans with slender, agile fingers and a remarkable ability to excrete cholesterol.
“What typically happens is it is just a load of engineers producing a load of things and then refining until it finds an audience. What they have never really done is to look at audiences and understand audiences and say ‘perhaps there is a need over here — let’s meet that need’. Now I think they have seen an opportunity to come at it from an audience perspective and that is part of what any planners’ job is — to understand audiences.”
– Advertising veteran Stuart Smith, the new strategic planning director of Google’s Creative Lab, raises the possibility that Google engineers might have to spend some of their “20 percent time” listening to focus groups.
A few news nuggets from the wide world of science:
* Since 1995, planets outside our solar system have been observed only indirectly, spotted by detecting the slight wobble they cause in the stars they orbit. Now, for the first time, researchers have taken some direct snapshots — one team using the Hubble Space Telescope and visible light to spot a Neptune-size planet orbiting the star Fomalhaut, 25 light years from Earth, and another team using ground-based telescopes and infrared light to capture a portrait of three giant gas planets around the star HR 8799, 130 light years away. Said UC Berkeley astronomer Paul Kalas, lead author on the Fomalhaut team, “It was a profound and overwhelming experience to lay eyes on a planet never seen before.”
* Philips has developed an “intelligent pill” that contains a microprocessor, battery, wireless radio, pump and a drug reservoir to release medication in a more targeted fashion. The pill is able to measure acidity to determine its location in the gut, then release drugs right where they’re needed. Philips is calling this the iPill; no word whether that makes Apple queasy or not.
* Turns out that when fish vote for a leader, the results are usually a landslide (or would that be a waterslide?).
* New research at Princeton indicates that evolutionary changes may not be entirely random, but may be subtly directed by an organism’s own proteins.
