the new age???

Official: HD DVD dead and buried, format war is over

nair — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:50:25 +0000

It’s official. Toshiba just made a statement saying, ” it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders.” Cessation of the player and recorders are targeted for March 2008. Volume production of HD DVD disk drives for PCs and games will end in the same time frame. However, Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation did say that Toshiba will, “continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives.” That’s it folks, the format war is over, Blu-ray has won.

Full press release :

Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses

19 February, 2008

Company Remains Focused on Championing Consumer Access to High Definition Content

TOKYO–Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.

HD DVD was developed to offer consumers access at an affordable price to high-quality, high definition content and prepare them for the digital convergence of tomorrow where the fusion of consumer electronics and IT will continue to progress.

“We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. “While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality.”

Toshiba will continue to lead innovation, in a wide range of technologies that will drive mass market access to high definition content. These include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies. The company expects to make forthcoming announcements around strategic progress in these convergence technologies.

Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand.

This decision will not impact on Toshiba’s commitment to standard DVD, and the company will continue to market conventional DVD players and recorders. Toshiba intends to continue to contribute to the development of the DVD industry, as a member of the DVD Forum, an international organization with some 200 member companies, committed to the discussion and defining of optimum optical disc formats for the consumer and the related industries.

Toshiba also intends to maintain collaborative relations with the companies who joined with Toshiba in working to build up the HD DVD market, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and DreamWorks Animation and major Japanese and European content providers on the entertainment side, as well as leaders in the IT industry, including Microsoft, Intel, and HP. Toshiba will study possible collaboration with these companies for future business opportunities, utilizing the many assets generated through the development of HD DVD.

Yahoo, Google Joining Forces to Make Microsoft Jealous?

nair — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 05:35:55 +0000

While we all stand by and anxiously watch the train wreck that is Yahoo, it looks to be more and more likely that the #1 singular Internet portal will take Microsoft’s bid for $44.6 billion. Despite all appearances, however, perhaps Yahoo is seeking out an alternative to the unsolicited bid from Microsoft, which became the most important tech story in recent history, just two days ago. In what direction could Yahoo divert its current tracks?

In one day, the company lost Semel, and caused quite a stir when it finally commented on the bid offered by Microsoft. The weekend proceeded with additional remarks from Google, in regards to the potential monopoly a merger could cause, making it appear to be quite the expression of a personal vendetta against the trouble-causing Microsoft when Google itself was forced to deal with anti-trust issues for its (still pending) acquisition of Double-Click. Let’s not forget that Yahoo still hasn’t given a very solid response to Microsoft’s bid.

There’s a lot of questions still looming in the air. And when there are a lot of questions still looming, we writers, pundits and analysts have spent all weekend creating answers for ourselves, completely ignoring the fact that Bob Kraft’s New England Patriots could very well be on the verge of making NFL history (I tried keeping track of the Super Bowl via Twitter, but Twitter, alas, is down. Go fig.).

So far, the pundits and analysts have com up with two prominent directions that Yahoo could take: find another buyer, or join forces with Google. Who would the other buyer be? Certainly not News Corp? Just as Microsoft has thrown out bids for Yahoo in the past, talks between Google and Yahoo have taken place in the past as well. According to Reuters, the discussions between Google and Yahoo have resurfaced. Talk about a love triangle.

Since Google is already having anti-trust issues, it’s unlikely that Google will even think about trying to acquire Yahoo. But a super-infused team effort could enable Yahoo to get back on track, sustain itself as an independent entity, and achieve some of the same goals that an acquisition could provide, given a full-merger opportunity. Consider it the repayment of a favor from long ago, eh?

While its seeking out an alternative buyer would appear to be a way for Yahoo to encourage Microsoft to up its bid on the company, I’d prefer to see a partnership between Yahoo and Google, so as to keep the power of three mega-corporations intact for the time being. Either option, however, could very well be an effort to get Microsoft’s bid to inch upwards. Will they work?

Yahoo may consider Google alliance

nair — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 05:31:19 +0000

Yahoo Inc would consider a business alliance with Google Inc as one way to rebuff a $44.6 billion takeover proposal by Microsoft, a source familiar with Yahoo’s strategy said on Sunday.

Yahoo management is considering revisiting talks it held with Google several months ago on an alliance as an alternative to Microsoft’s bid, that source said. At $31 a share, Yahoo believes the bid undervalues the company, two sources said.

A second source close to Yahoo said it had received a procession of preliminary contacts by media, technology, telephone and financial companies. But the source said they were unaware whether any alternative bid was in the offing.

In a memo to Yahoo employees on Friday, which was obtained by Reuters on Sunday, Yahoo leaders wrote: “We want to emphasize that absolutely no decisions have been made — and, despite what some people have tried to suggest, there’s certainly no integration process underway.”

Few natural bidders exist besides Google that could engage in a bidding war, and Google would be unlikely to win approval from antitrust regulators, some Wall Street analysts said on Friday.

The Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site on Sunday that Google’s chief executive Eric Schmidt called Yahoo’s chief executive Jerry Yang to offer his company’s help in any effort to thwart Microsoft’s bid.

Spokesmen for Yahoo and Google declined comment. Google was not immediately available for comment on the WSJ story.

Yahoo’s efforts to find an alternative bidder could simply be a measure to pressure Microsoft to boost its bid, which valued Yahoo at $44.6 billion when first announced on Friday.

Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay wrote in a research note that “the Microsoft bid of $31 is very astute” because it puts pressure on Yahoo management to take actions that could unlock the underlying value of Yahoo assets, which he estimates are worth upward of $39-$45 a share.

The bid gave a boost to markets in Asia when they opened on Monday. Shares in Softbank Corp soared as much as 16 percent and Yahoo Japan was untraded due to a flood of buy orders on Monday, on hopes a potential deal between Microsoft and Yahoo would boost the Japanese firms’ competitiveness. Softbank holds a 3.9 percent stake in Yahoo Inc in terms of voting rights.

The benchmark Nikkei average ended the morning up 2.4 percent while indexes in Shanghai, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore also gained.

COMPETITION CONCERNS

Separately, Google fired back on Sunday at Microsoft Corp’s bid to acquire Yahoo, accusing Microsoft of seeking to extend its computer software monopoly deeper into the Internet realm.

David Drummond, a Google chief legal officer, said in a blog post that the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo could undermine competition on the Web and called on policy makers to challenge the combination.

Microsoft responded to Google’s arguments by saying that a merger with Yahoo would create a “compelling number two competitor for Internet search and online advertising” to market leader Google.

“The alternative scenarios only lead to less competition on the Internet,” Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said in a statement.

Drummond argued that Microsoft’s power stems from decades- old monopolies in Windows — the software operating system used to control most personal computers — and Internet Explorer, which is the dominant browser consumers used to view the Web.

Microsoft’s proposed merger with Yahoo would combine the No. 1 and No. 2 suppliers of Web-based e-mail, instant messaging (IM) and portals, which act as starting points for hundreds of millions of users seeking information on the Web.

“Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors’ email, IM, and Web-based services?” Drummond said in a blog at http://googleblog.blogspot.com/.

In making its case for the deal during a conference call on Friday, Microsoft executives said Google — not Microsoft — was the one company antitrust regulators were likely to bar from buying Yahoo, based on Google’s dominance in Web search.

Microsoft executives cited industry data showing Google has a 75 percent share of worldwide Web search revenue. Collectively, Yahoo and Microsoft attract around 20 percent of Web searches, Internet measurement firms show.

“Today, Google is the dominant search engine and advertising company on the Web,” Smith said in replying to Google on Sunday. “Google has amassed about 75 percent of paid search revenues worldwide and its share continues to grow.”

A person familiar with Google’s thinking said the company believes Microsoft is using the same playbook it did in the 1990s to switch Windows users away from Web browser pioneer Netscape Communications to its own Internet Explorer.

“It is the same old story,” the source said.

Google Slams Microsoft Bid For Yahoo!

nair — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 05:27:09 +0000

n an apparent effort to protect its hefty share of the online search-advertising market, Google on Sunday accused Microsoft of trying to unfairly dominate the Internet by bidding for Yahoo!In a blog post, David Drummond, chief legal counsel for Google (nasdaq: GOOG – news – people ), wrote: “Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies–and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets.”

http://www.forbes.com/2008/02/03/goog-msft-yhoo-tech-internet-cx_wt_0203techgoog.html?partner=links