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Silicon Valley is where most everyone’s goal is to be wildly successful in changing the world – creating a runaway success and being rewarded with a big payday. All know the odds, and the daily struggle of insatiable demands for the next big thing with the very least investment, and industry-wide contempt for those who have failed. Despite this, all are driven to grasp for the shiny brass ring that’s always, though sometimes barely, out of reach. It is an environment of soaring hopes, crashing defeats, and maddening near-misses. Despite this, entrepreneurs never lose their yearning to change the world and be entrepreneurs. While they love the perceived freedom, they live in the constant state of self-consciousness (they may deny it), feeling their entire worth as a human being is being judged by people who are risk averse, lack vision, and not technically one’s peers.
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Bill Gust, like most venture capitalists, is an optimist. The managing general partner of Anthem Capital Management’s Baltimore office expects a tougher year for entrepreneurs looking for funding, but said opportunities still exist for the right ideas. Entrepreneurs seeking capital have become more confident and experienced, said Don Rainey, a general partner with GroTech Capital Group. He said the tech bubble burst and Sept. 11 terrorist attacks had a greater chilling effect on entrepreneurs than today’s economy. “The current credit crisis doesn’t cause the same kind of hesitancy,” Rainey said. “I think quality has been improving for a couple years; the management are more mature and experienced than they were a year ago.”
Tag: Microsoft
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Online search site Ask.com is not getting rid of its specialized search technology, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday, saying a blog report to that effect was incorrect. Analysts cited a report in Silicon Alley Insider on Friday as one of several factors that led shares 7 percent lower in Ask.com’s parent, IAC/InterActiveCorp.
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Senior marketing executives in several countries agree that the use of social media for corporate, brand and product marketing is not a passing fad, according to research sponsored by TNS media intelligence/Cymfony. In fact, nearly 50% believe it is a vital component of corporate communications that should be monitored at the executive level and allocated significant resources.
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On the surface, Microsoft’s $44 billion offer to acquire Yahoo! seems to simplify the US search market share race. The combined firm would be second in online ad revenues to No.1 Google, and ahead of AOL. In 2007, Google rang up nearly $6 billion, while Yahoo! had about $3.4 billion and MSN had $1.4 billion net revenues.
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McAfee, Inc. today announced that it is making the Internet safer for all users by completing the acquisition of privately held ScanAlert, Inc. ScanAlert is the creator of the HACKER SAFE web site security certification service, which protects over 50 million e-commerce transactions per month and proactively advises consumers about which sites are safe for shopping. The ScanAlert technology will be integrated into McAfee’s award-winning safe search and surf technology, SiteAdvisor(R), which just reached a significant milestone of its own: It has been downloaded more than 100 million times by consumers who request SiteAdvisor’s Web site ratings more than a billion times each day.
It has been a big week of news related to Microsoft’s unsolicited bid for Yahoo!. Today, I thought I would try to provide you with a link to series of articles and analysis on this big Internet development.
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Most of the talk about Microsoft’s hostile offer for Yahoo has focused on whether the deal could tip the scales in the battle for Internet dominance. Today, I’d like to steer the conversation to something a little more basic that almost everyone has overlooked: the numbers.
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On its own, Yahoo is a stumbling Internet giant. But to Microsoft and Google, two of the world’s most powerful technology companies, control of Yahoo has come to represent an unmatched strategic prize. Now the duel over Yahoo, initiated by Microsoft’s surprise $44.6 billion offer last week, has set off a policy and public-relations battle between the corporate rivals that revolves around a simple question: Which company, Google or Microsoft, most threatens to become an Internet monopoly?
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Microsoft Corp. said Wednesday it has acquired a United Kingdom online mapping company to enhance its existing Windows Live Web-based services.The software maker did not say what it paid for Multimap, which provides street-level maps, travel directions and local information. Multimap also offers hotel and restaurant-booking services and builds private-label mapping tools for companies, including Hilton Hotels and Ford.
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A federal judge ruled that Web auctioneer eBay Inc. must pay about $30 million in damages to MercExchange LLC as part of a long-running dispute over a patent related to the ecommerce company’s "Buy It Now" fixed-price feature. The ruling marks a setback for eBay in a series of recent legal challenges.