1. Monthly archive
  2. September 2011

September 2011

Jobs Steps Down at Apple, Saying He Can't Meet Duties

Steven P. Jobs, whose insistent vision that he knew what consumers wanted made Apple one of the world’s most valuable and influential companies, is stepping down as chief executive.

Jobs, 56, has been on medical leave since January, his third such absence. He underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer in 2004, and received a liver transplant in 2009. But as recently as a few weeks ago, Mr. Jobs was negotiating business issues with another Silicon Valley executive. Jobs will become chairman, a position that did not exist before. Apple named Tim Cook, its chief operating officer, to succeed Mr. Jobs as chief executive. Rarely has a major company and industry been so dominated by a single individual, and so successful. His influence has gone far beyond the iconic personal computers that were Apple’s principal product for its first 20 years. In the last decade, Apple has redefined the music business through the iPod, the cellphone business through the iPhone and the entertainment and media world through the iPad. Again and again, Mr. Jobs has gambled that he knew what the customer would want, and again and again he has been right.

(Aug 24)

Steve Jobs Reshaped Industries

[Commentary] Steve Jobs' resignation from Apple is rocking the world — and not just the tech world. Jobs, after all, has almost single-handedly reshaped a stunning range of industries: music, TV, movies, software, cellphones, and cloud computing. The products he’s shepherded into existence with single-minded vision read like a Top 10 list, or a Top 50 list, of the world’s most successful inventions: Macintosh. iPod. iPhone. iTunes. iMovie. iPad.

Jobs will remain chairman of Apple's board. You can bet that as chairman, Jobs will still be the godfather. He'll still be pulling plenty of strings, feeding his vision to his carefully built team, and weighing in on the company’s compass headings.
Second, the tech world doesn't turn on a dime. Apple’s pipeline is already stuffed with at least a couple of years’ worth of Jobs-directed products. In the short term, you won't see any difference in Apple’s output of cool, popular inventions.
Third, even if Jobs isn't sitting at every design meeting, ripping apart or heartily embracing each idea presented to him, his tastes, methods and philosophies are deeply entrenched in the company’s blood. (Aug 25)

Can an Apple without Steve Jobs come up with the next big thing?

Tim Cook is an operational wiz. Philip Schiller is a marketing maven. Jonathan Ive is a design visionary. The men at the helm of Apple are among the best at what they do. But none seems to have that spark of genius like Steve Jobs — an industry oddity studied by business school students for his creative vision, uncanny sense for what consumers want and shrewd leadership. And that’s the central issue Apple faces, now that Jobs has relinquished day-to-day control. Apple’s breakaway success has largely been defined by Jobs’s ability to repeatedly develop groundbreaking computers and electronics. But the super-competitive marketplace ensured that the dominance of many Apple products was short-lived.

(Aug 25)

Google Reaches $500 Million Settlement With Government

Google will pay $500 million to settle federal government charges that it has knowingly shown illegal ads for fraudulent Canadian pharmacies in the United States, the Justice Department announced.

The federal investigation, which was first revealed in May, found that Google was aware that some Canadian pharmacies that advertised on its site failed to require a prescription for substances like the painkiller Oxycontin and the stimulant Ritalin. Google continued to accept their money and assisted the pharmacies in placing ads and improving their Web sites, according to the Justice Department. Illegal online pharmacies have been a challenge for regulators, because the Internet makes it easy for them to operate under the radar and emerge under different names when they get shut down. Search engines like Google drive much of the traffic to these sites, say researchers who study online pharmacies. Web sites are liable for advertising that breaks federal criminal law. Since 2009, when it became aware of the investigation, Google has taken significant steps to chase illegal pharmacies from its site.

(Aug 24)

Carlos Slim Adds to Stake in Times Company

Carlos Slim Helú, the Mexican billionaire who is by some accounts the world’s richest man, has added to his holdings in The New York Times Company.

In a regulatory filing, Slim and members of his family said they had bought additional shares in the company, raising their ownership stake to just over 7 percent. Previously the family owned just under 7 percent. Slim and his family hold warrants to buy nearly 16 million more shares, which would bring their holdings to 16 percent should they choose to execute them. The warrants expire in 2015. The Times Company recently repaid Mr. Slim a $250 million loan, plus 14 percent interest.

Motorola Mobility Director Resigns

William R. Hambrecht, who was put on Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc.'s board by activist investor Carl Icahn, has resigned his seat, leaving the mobile-device company with nine directors.

The departure came just two days after Motorola Mobility disclosed plans to be acquired by Google in a deal worth about $12.5 billion. Motorola said the resignation was effective immediately. Hambrecht said, "I am delighted with the transaction we entered into with Google, and I look forward to seeing the benefits and new opportunities this partnership creates."

(Aug 18)

Verizon Hopes Google Deal Calms Patent Spats

Verizon Communications Inc. said Google Inc.'s $12.5 billion bid for Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. was a welcome development because it may bring "stability" to a recent slate of smartphone patent disputes, though it stopped short of totally endorsing the proposed acquisition.

It was the first time a U.S. phone company publicly commented on the blockbuster deal. "We will be looking with interest as further details of the proposed transaction become clear," said John Thorne, Verizon's senior vice president and deputy general counsel. "But, at first glance, to the extent that this deal might bring some stability to the ongoing smartphone patent disputes, that would be a welcome development."

Verizon Wireless was the first U.S. wireless carrier to make a big bet on Google's Android software, and it relied heavily on Motorola's Droid smartphone lineup to combat the iPhone, which was exclusively distributed by rival AT&T Inc. for four years. Even though Verizon Wireless started selling the iPhone earlier this year, it has a lot at stake since it still distributes millions of smartphones from Motorola Mobility and other device makers that support the Android system. Verizon Wireless is the largest seller of Android phones in North America. In August, Verizon Wireless claimed about 41% of active Android phones in North America, compared to nearly 26% for Sprint Nextel Corp., 16% for T-Mobile USA and about 9% for AT&T Inc., according to a survey by Chitika, an online advertising provider. Google said it activates 550,000 Android devices daily.

(Aug 17)

Helping Hands for Broadband

As smartphones, tablet computers and other mobile devices gobble up ever-bigger portions of available bandwidth, wireless-service providers are turning to outside technology companies to help find ways to either boost capacity or lighten the load on their systems. For wireless carriers, the growth in mobile broadband represents an opportunity for revenue growth at a time when traditional phone revenue is dwindling as customers "cut the cord" on land lines. But the rapid-adoption smartphones and tablet computers that browse the Internet, play mobile video and download software applications tax their systems.

The congestion leads to longer wait times and lower quality for Web surfers, ticking off customers. The data crunch will only get worse. The success of Apple's iPad has spawned a wave of other tablet computers, and smartphones are now ubiquitous. Meanwhile, Internet sticks -- thumb-sized gizmos that plug into laptops for wireless Web surfing -- are gaining in popularity, and consumers increasingly want high-bandwidth video on their portable devices. Mobile-broadband use is growing "a lot faster than anybody anticipated some years ago," says Anders Langkilde, product manager at TDC. "The challenge is the capacity, and having to increase the capacity in the right places."

TDC A/S, a Denmark mobile operator, turned to Birdstep Technology ASA, a Norwegian company, to help ease the data overload. Essentially, the technology reaches out to users and urges them to temporarily switch away from the broadband network to Wi-Fi hot spots whenever possible, promising faster speeds as an incentive.

Other companies offer systems to compress video, reducing the amount of bandwidth it needs. Another product on the market cuts down in the amount of unnecessary requests for data made to networks for updates.

(Aug 25)

FCC asks AT&T for more information on merger

The Federal Communications Commission asked AT&T for more information backing the company’s claims it needs to merge with T-Mobile in order to bring mobile broadband services to rural areas.

The FCC’s request comes after the discovery of private AT&T documents filed to the agency that showed the company figured it would cost $3.8 billion to bring 4G LTE wireless services to 97 percent of the country. The documents, reported by media, raised criticism that the company didn't need to buy T-Mobile for the much bigger price tag of $39 billion. The company had unintentionally filed the documents with information intended to remain private. The FCC later took down the document from its Web site. AT&T has argued to regulators that without the merger, it wouldn't be able to expand high-speed mobile Internet access to as many rural areas as the U.S. government would like. The company said it didn't have a business justification for the expansion.

(Aug 24)

AT&T, T-Mobile merger faces new criticism from Free Press

Media reform group Free Press sent a letter urging Democratic lawmakers to reconsider their position on the proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile based on information revealed in an accidentally unredacted file uploaded to the Internet last week.

The file, an AT&T letter, revealed that the company estimates rolling out LTE to 97 percent of the county will cost $3.8 billion. The file, which was uploaded to the FCC docket without first being redacted for public view, has since been removed and resubmitted with the redactions in place. Free Press said that this is a figure the company calculated before its proposed $39 billion merger with T-Mobile and invalidates the company’s claim that the deal will help rural America by making it viable to roll out the high-speed broadband to more of the country.

(Aug 19)

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