Microsoft, Yahoo may finally embrace with search, advertising deal
Update: Such a deal has just been announced.
Yahoo and Microsoft are close to a search and advertising deal that would finally bring them together in a fight against Google’s dominance, according to the Wall Street Journal. Yahoo would use Microsoft’s Bing search engine for its properties and handle sales for some text ads in search results. The deal would deliver the pair 30 percent of the search market against Google’s 65 percent.
For Microsoft, the agreement… Continue Reading
Study: Windows 7 could follow Vista to an early grave
Redmond’s latest and greatest — the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system — runs the risk of following a similar path its last version, Vista, according to a study being released this week by Dimensional Research. InformationWeek, which got an early look at the study and was first to report on it today, relayed some key results: 83 percent of corporate IT departments plan to hold off on upgrading to Windows 7 for at least 12… Continue Reading
Updated: Video game sales grow 34 percent in February, PS 3 stays ahead of Xbox 360
Monthly video game sales statistics from the NPD Group show that the video game industry continues to grow in 2008, defying any concerns about the recession and a cyclical slowdown. On top of that, the Sony PlayStation 3’s resurgence is becoming evident as it beat out Microsoft’s Xbox 360 for the second month in a row in unit sales.
The Nintendo Wii is still on top with sales of 432,000 consoles in February in the U.S.,… Continue Reading
Web 2.0 Summit: MadeIt, Nokia’s new phone, and Zennstrom’s disappearance
Web 2.0 Summit, co-hosted by O’Reilly Media and CMP, kicks off this Wednesday at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel. A who’s who list of Web 2.0 digerati will converge for three days of deal making, partying and more deal making.
If you didn’t have the budget to nab one of the $3,595 tickets for the event, fret not – VentureBeat reporters will be on hand to bring you frontline dispatches.
In preparation for the event, here’s a quick… Continue Reading
Google Health coming, lets you manage your records online
updated
Google has previewed a prototype of Google Health, a consumer-oriented health service dedicated to helping people track their health information online. (See Google Blogoscoped for screenshots, and useful descriptions of the service.)
This is a big deal.
Online health is emerging to become one of the internet’s major industries, and health-related start-ups are popping up and getting funded left and right. It was probably only a matter of time before Google and Microsoft woke up and started… Continue Reading
Google buys Zenter, powerpoint for the browser
Google has just acquired Zenter, software that aimed to be a web-based Powerpoint-killer.
Zenter built the application in just a few months, and the company was one of the more dynamic Y Combinator-backed companies from this past winter: The founders also patented the software they built. It’s little surprise that the company has just been snapped up by Sam Schillace’s application division at Google.
The site itself offers features as a large library of web-based fonts as… Continue Reading
Yahoo just needs to fix one thing: Monetization
Everyone seems to be chapping Yahoo’s hide these days, including even Yahoo itself — or at least one very audible Jerry Maguire over there. However while many large companies could benefit from more focus and cost-cutting, neither issue is really at the core of the company’s problems. Yahoo is still #1 in both users and page views, and will remain a leading internet property for the foreseeable future. And though some critics contend Yahoo is spread… Continue Reading
Googlogy, and how to avoid the Google Juggernaut
It used to be de rigueur in Silicon Valley to stay out of the way of Microsoft’s product road map • even areas Microsoft hinted they might pursue. Nowadays, venture folks more commonly ask, “What are you going to do about Google?”
The reality of the marketplace is that unless a startup builds a huge community, Google pays only around $50 million for a company (if you’re lucky) and then only if they want to… Continue Reading
Anticipating Zune
Microsoft’s new music player, Zune, has been unveiled and here are significant points. More than just a music player, it has a social networking component too, with a Marketplace to share music with friends. This could create some excitement in Silicon Valley, creating a cottage industry of suppliers like the one around the iPod.
Here are the basics, as being reported by Engaget and other places:
–Three-inch screen, which is larger than the largest iPod screen… Continue Reading