Business

Microsoft is going OpenSource, sort of. On Thursday, the Redmond-based company announced that it would make key components of its application programming interfaces available online; over 30, 000 pages of documentation will be available detailing ... Windows client and server protocols. Before the announcement, software developers had to pay for access to the information, but now the company is hoping this move will make it easier for third-party software makers to ensure their programs will work smoothly on Windows operating systems. (Source: news.com ) Microsoft's decision is motivated in part ... (view more)

The great missing iPhone mystery may have been solved. Bosses at Apple were confused that they'd sold 3.7 million phones in the United States and Europe, but only 2.3 million were actually registered on the phone networks which had signed deals to ... provide service for the iPhones. It turns out around 400,000 phones are registered with China Mobile, the country's leading cell phone carrier. The iPhone isn't sold in Asia, so it appears there's a rather ironic pattern by which the phones are manufactured in China, shipped to the US, and then unofficially imported back to China. Apple had ... (view more)

Apple products command premium prices. A quick scan of the computers on Amazon.com's Best Seller List will show Apple computers in 10 of the 25 positions. In that list, according to J.P. Morgan's industry analyst Ingrid Ebeling, the average Apple ... selling price is $1482. All other computers listed averaged less than $600. Three years ago, in 2005, when average industry prices were falling from $1042 to $957 for a PC, Apple Macs stayed solid at $1442. That means that in the last few years the average Mac price has actually increased. (Source: appleinsider.com ) That's a good thing, right? To be ... (view more)

Do you podcast? Podcasting is "is a collection of digital media files which is distributed over the Internet, often using syndication feeds, for playback on portable media players and personal computers." (Source wikipedia.org ) Last week, Apple ... officially filed for a patent on a new variant of podcasting medium. The company's proposal for a patent on the 'podmap' concept was filed in January 2007 but had remained undisclosed until just recently. (Source: appleinsider.com ) According to the patent filing, the concept involves four central components, which will become the crux of this audio- ... (view more)

Yahoo is expected to reject Microsoft's $44.6 billion takeover bid today, believing the offer seriously undervalues the company. But analysts believe Microsoft will not give up easily, and may increase the $31-per-share offer that it proposed ... earlier. Other strategies include a direct offer to shareholders, or an attempt to overthrow Yahoo's board of directors. In the increasing war for online advertising, Microsoft is looking to purchase Yahoo to gain a competitive advantage against dominant ad provider, Google. (Source: nytimes.com ) For its part Yahoo seems willing to stave off Microsoft's ... (view more)

Last week, Time Warner's new CEO Jeff Bewkes confirmed the corporation would separate AOL's Internet dial-up division from the company's advertising and content business. This leads analysts to believe that Time Warner may sell one or both of its ... AOL divisions.(Source: cnn.com ) "We're working on separating AOL's access and audience businesses so we can run them independently. This should significantly increase AOL's strategic options," Bewkes said during a conference call with investors. AOL's subscription business has been faltering since the Web 2.0 explosion, and rival firms ... (view more)

Microsoft researchers are working on ways to make web advertising even smarter. They want to teach computers to do a more accurate job of targeting ads, by specifying which to put into video clips, and those for more specific users. They ... demonstrated the techniques at their headquarters this week. The timing may be an intentional effort to boost their bid for Yahoo which, if successful, would make Microsoft the second biggest Internet ad seller behind Google. (Source: informationweek.com ) The demonstration included a 'dashboard' which advertisers can use to predict how well particular ... (view more)

Microsoft is hoping that its acquisition of Yahoo will help it gain ground on the advertising and search front, and adding Yahoo's 500 million users to its base. But assuming that Jerry Yang and Co. yield to the Redmond giant, will it be enough? The ... New York Times recently ran a picture depicting the Microsoft and Google as two large sharks consuming everything in their path: aQuantive, DoubleClick, and MultiMap. Then there are the smaller exclusivity agreements with prominent tech companies such as The Wall Street Journal and Facebook for Microsoft, and Google's deals with MySpace, Fox, and ... (view more)

In a move that could change the pecking order of the Internet search and advertising marketplace, Microsoft has made an unsolicited bid to purchase ailing Yahoo. In a letter sent to Yahoo's board of directors, Microsoft offered $44.6 billion in cash ... and stock for the troubled company; what's more, it has also been revealed that Microsoft explored an offer a year previous only to be rebuffed by Yahoo because of their confidence in the operational changes they were making at the time. (Source: cnn.com ) The last year, however, has been difficult for Yahoo. Their new ad delivery platform was ... (view more)

Google Inc. has sent out email notifications on January 24, informing its business partners of a change in the way the company deals with advertising-generated revenues. The new policy is aimed at tackling the prevalent practice of 'domain tasting', ... which critics believe hurts legitimate domain ownership. The practice of domain tasting takes advantage of the Add Grace Period (AGP), which is the allocation of a 5 day grace period during which time registrants can cancel their request for a domain at no cost. Several online businesses have been set up to take advantage of this loop hole, which ... (view more)