Google plans to raise $4B in stock sale - businessweek
Piece "Google Inc. plans to sell another 14.2 million shares, raising about $4 billion, but the famous search engine company isn't providing many clues as to how the money will be spent.
Some analysts speculated Mountain View-based Google might be devising a bid for the Chinese search firm Baidu.com or the digital video recorder pioneer TiVo Inc. Others suggested the money will help finance an Internet telephony service.
In its filing Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Google said it will use the proceeds for "general corporate purposes," including acquisitions. It added that it currently has no agreements to make a material purchase."
Bye-Bye RSS; Hello Web Feeds - internetweek
Piece "Consumers have spoken, so that geeky acronym RSS is on its way out. With most consumers having no idea what RSS means, Microsoft decided to replace the term with "web feeds" in Internet Explorer 7 Beta 1. After all, people are less likely to use something, if they don't know what it is.
Despite the sound logic behind the move, tossing RSS for a more consumer-friendly name sent some developers into a tizzy, accusing Microsoft of doing an evil thing. After all, RSS had served geeks quite well for a long time to describe technology for distributing content on the web, and there seemed no reason to change it."
IBM unveils business intelligence solution digitalmediaasia
Piece "Information technology company IBM has announced a business intelligence (BI) solution that combines servers, storage and software in a single integrated package for information management. BI is a process that companies use to help better understand their business issues by analysing data they receive as a result of ATM transactions, retail purchases and other similar transactions. "
Entering the Corposphere - internetnews
Piece "Businesses are learning they can't ignore bloggers. A positive mention in a well-read blog can spike sales and cred, while bloggers can be meaner than a middle-school clique if they disapprove of a company or product -- or its blog.
At the Blog Business Summit, held in San Francisco on Thursday and Friday, corporate communications pros and public relations account execs gathered to grok the rules of engagement with the blogosphere.
Blogger relations can be more critical than public relations, according to Robert Scoble, Microsoft's chief blogger. That's because bloggers tend to be influencers within their communities.
"You're not after me; you're after the bigger audience, the 98 percent," he said. "But to get to them, you have to get the connectors to link to you. If you treat the 2 percent of geeks using RSS badly, you're shooting yourself in the foot."
Google Pushes Deeper Into Microsoft Software - internetweek
Piece "Google Inc. has launched a tool that lets subscribers to its blog-hosting service write and post blogs directly from Microsoft Word, a move that reflects the search engine's determination to stake its claim on the software maker's Windows desktop.
Blogger for Word is a free add-in that lets a Google subscriber save a Word document as a post to the blog, without opening a web browser. The application appears as three buttons in the Word toolbar and requires Microsoft Windows 2000 and Word 2000 or more recent versions of the products.
The add-in's features include the ability to take the text from a Word document and publish it to a person's blog, open and edit the last 15 blog posts and save text in a Blogger account for later editing and posting.
Rivals Microsoft MSN, Google and Yahoo Inc. have been developing software that links their online services, particularly search, directly to the desktop. The reason is to entice people to one of the portals before they open a web browser. "
Managed services boom - itp.net
Piece "The concept of managed services is a growing discipline for a number of reasons, according to the Kelly IT Resources report. To begin with, there is a rapid rise in the number of organisations that provide services. As these companies acquire more corporate clients, they establish economies of scale that allow them to provide services at an extremely cost-competitive price. They also develop an expertise in a particular IT realm, which enables them to deliver more informed and increasingly reliable performance, the report states.
Competition intensified among IT services vendors in the UAE in 2004 and local players dominated the scene. The leading players included Mideast Data Systems, Emirates Computers, Computer Network Systems (CNS), Mercator and GBM. However, no one vendor controlled the market, with the top ten only accounting for 54.2% of total revenue. "Things have really heated up between the main IT services providers this last year and are going to get hotter this year," says Philip van Heerden, analyst at IDC. "Government-owned firms have entered the fray, often winning key government contracts and reducing the available business for private vendors,” he adds. "
Intel buys XML router company - zdnet
Piece "Chipmaker Intel signaled that it's once again interested in selling communications equipment with its purchase on Wednesday of Sarvega, which makes network routers that use the XML standard to improve Internet traffic.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Sarvega, based in Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., posted $7 million in revenue in 2003 and lists Intel as one of the supporters that contributed to Sarvega's $20 million venture capital fund.
The 5-year-old Sarvega has developed what it calls an "XML router," a device that can look at the content of a message using Extensible Markup Language and send it to the appropriate point on a network.
An XML router is meant to complement the IP routers and switches that carry the streams of data traffic across the Internet, Sarvega said. "
VC Cliche of the Week - AVc
Piece "When a startup company needs to raise money, a rifle shot approach is always better than a shotgun approach. This is true of every raise, but it is particularly true of the second and third rounds, once there is already a VC firm or two in place. Raising money is time consuming and you must focus on a small set of highly likely prospects if you want the fundraising process to go quickly and end successfully.
I always tell the entrepreneurs and managers that we need to put together a "short list" before we start the fundraising process.
Building the short list is an iterative process. Someone starts it off, usually the company, but sometimes the investors. Then they pass it back and forth, usually in an excel file, and make modifications. The short list should be shared with everyone in and around the company who has relationships in the venture business, including your lawyers, advisory board if you have one, angel investors, and even employees and friends."
What is "Market"? - bostonvcblog
Piece "can only attempt to answer this question with the perspective of the Boston-area, venture-backed start-up market. Keeping that in mind, and recognizing that every number and opinion has an asterix next to it with a large footnote "it depends...", here goes.
CEO. $175-225K base, $40-80K bonus. 5-7% of the company, maybe 6-8% if they arrive shortly after the A round. Larger companies are at the high end of cash and lower end of equity.
COO. $150-200K base, $25-50K bonus. 1-2% of the company. This position is rare in companies of fewer than 100 employees.
"Top 3-4" VPs (3 most valuable VPS, for example, might be VP Eng., VP Sales, VP BD, CFO). $125-175K base, $25-50K bonus, 0.75-1.5% of the company. Sales VPs are typically at the top end of this range.
"Other VPs" (for example, VP Services, General Counsel, CFO). $125-175K base, $0-35K bonus, 0.4-0.8% of the company.
Outside Board Member. No cash or modest monthly cash stipend for consulting. 0.25-0.50% of the company."
Salesforce.com revenue grows as company tops 300k users - computerworld
Piece "Salesforce.com Inc. continued creeping toward the top tier of enterprise applications vendors in its most recent quarter, reporting subscription revenue of $65.6 million -- not far off the $78.3 million customer relationship management software leader Siebel Systems Inc. generated in its latest quarter. "
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