Acquisitions

Microsoft is being successful lately: its Internet shares rose from $31.25 to $31.47, it knows how to approach other developers and create crucial, beneficial relationships. Whereas Google co-founder Sergey Brin stated for Yahoo! News Google doesn't need to acquaint every stronger company on the Internet, Google's shares dropped to $675 from a higher $675.82. Maybe thanks to Brin's friendly statement, it was Microsoft, who triumphed in the last task. On Wednesday, October 24, after many weeks of negotiations, Facebook founder Mark Zuckenberg decided to sell a 1.6% stake to Microsoft for $240 million. The estimate value of Facebook is $15 billion which is a stunning price for now a 4-year-old project started out of boredom by a regular Harvard graduate. Kevin Johnson, the president of Microsoft, put it in his own words; he believes this deal is a strong statement of confidence in this partnership and in Facebook. Zuckenberg's acceptance surprised the public;, the most recent offer to share a stake of Facebook (for $1 billion by Yahoo) has been rejected. Zuzkenberg also said for MSNBC that he'd like to spend at least the next two years without sealing any more acquaintances. He said he was not comfortable with the idea of cooperating with Google & because Google was not being secretive about its future plans: to build a social network on its own. Facebook's major rival, MySpace, has in comparison much more users, but Facebook is growing more rapidly. To support its growth, 400 more employees (to current 300) are planned to be hired. This deal also shows the world that Microsoft is becoming more understanding about the Internet of today.

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by Barbie Kunkelova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

The instability of the stock market showed slide of the AT&T share price, but after the new acquisition it is definitely on the wave. BellSouth Corp brought a 42 percent higher income in the third quarter than the same period last year. Therefore stock rose 85 percent, closing at $42.2 percent on Tuesday- the day of the acquisition official announcement. That was an outstanding achievement, from the 71 cents that analyst expected, according to a survey by Thomson Financial. Furthermore, last year the third-quarter earnings brought 56 cents per share. Another record was the 2 million subscribers added to other 63.7 million, being the third highest increase in the AT&T's history. Also a smart move was the launching of the iPhone this June that 1.4 million of them were sold in the US according to Apple Inc. Chief Financial Officer Richard Lindner stated that wireless growth was excellent due to the increasing use of data of customers. And the list goes on with other successes like its own television service, called U-verse, delivered over high-speed Internet grew five times more from 2006. However on this matter they have experienced some problem on Sunday which Zachary Investment Research analyst Patrick Comack confesses to be troublesome. But Rich Dietz, AT&T's senior vice president for investor relations contradicts him and says it will get better now after the expansion despite the outage. All other acquisitions that AT&T might be interested in were not confirmed, including that of EchoStar Communications Inc., the operator of DISH Network. Their main priority is for the time been U-verse with the prospect of a satellite filling in. Finally, an overview of the company's progress this year reveals that AT&T revenue reached $88.6 billion from the $47.2 billion last year. Well done, touch down for them. Keep going and surprises for the best. That is, don't introduce preferential treatment and respect the Net Neutrality, because all the success it's owed to it.

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by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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EBay, the world known online auction center, published a financial report on Wednesday and revealed, that in third-quarter of 2007 lost about $ 1 billion. This unpleasant situation was caused by charges to its Skype telecommunications division. EBay acquired Skype in September 2005 for $ 2.6 billion in cash and stock. But nothing is lost for the company. If they count the revenue without Skype, they earned $ 563.8 million, what makes 41 cents per share. That's 53% more than last year in this time. Anyway, although they lost $ 936 million, their revenue was still more than high. From July to September eBay has made record revenue of $ 1.89 billion. That's 30 % more than last year this time. But the loss is still there, and that's no success for them. In comparison, in the last quarter eBay earned about $ 280 million. This quarter was the first time since 1999, when the company ended up with a loss. EBay will now write-down $ 900 million in the value of Skype. They overestimated the acquisition and now it's time to repair that. The write-down has never occurred in history of the company. The executives of eBay are disappointed, but state that their acts in 2005 were right and they wouldn't change them if they had a chance. In its 12 year history is EBay is more successful than ever. And as long they will continue to sell cars for 50 pence, towns, single cornflakes or Britney Spears hair she shaved, they don't have to worry about their earnings. They will be only higher and higher.

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by Nina Gotzmannova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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In the business world, relations and hierarchies are never meant to last forever. Big fish eat the little fish, and it takes great skill to know when you should sell your company if running it becomes too difficult. This is the case in the software business as well, where "middleware" company BEA is up for sale and it's been getting offers from database giant Oracle. For now, Oracle's offering $17 per share and BEA's been refusing to sell, but as analysts think it could get up to 3 more dollars per share, maybe waiting isn't such a bad choice after all. Other companies interested in the bid were initially IBM and SAP but the latter has recently announced it has lost interest and would not even be able to accomplish the purchase financially, having had announced its intention to buy Business Objects SA for $6.8 billion. For IBM, it could be a matter of pride to buy a company more oriented to the Web 2.0 and also get something right from under Oracle's nose. IBM and Oracle are long-time rivals in the database market and a battle between the two would prove the best especially for BEA. Prices on its stock have already begun to rise as investors expect a massive price from its buyer, but it's likely they will have to wait a while before it gives in. Oracle is patient though, and known for getting what it wants; the 2004 story of the PeopleSoft purchase speaks volumes about its determination.

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by Corina Ciubotaru for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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FIFA, Need for Speed, Sim City or The Sims, that are the names of the most popular games produced by Electronic Arts, famous American game developing company. Celebrating their 25th anniversary this year, EA has signed the deal of their history. For two software studios they will exchange $ 860 millions. EA is the world number one in producing videogames. In other field of game pop culture, such as role playing, action and adventure games, they are not so enlarged. By this move of acquiring two new studios, which are specializing in this sphere, everything will be different. Since the two new studios, BioWare Corp. and Pandemic Studios, are developing ten games, EA will occupy a strong competitive position. The acquisition will close in January. By this time EA will pay to Elevation Partners, which was the former owner, $ 620 million in cash. Another part of the money will come in form of equity to some of the company's employees. The largest financial transaction before this deal was in 2006, when the EA bought a mobile games publisher Jamdat Mobile Inc. for $ 680 million. Current revenue of EA in 2006 was $ 2.951 billion. The employ 7,200 people worldwide, with the two new studios it will be 8,000. This new deal will affect the position of EA on stock market, but the company is already counting on it. They expect in 2008 they will earn up to 40 cents less per share. But until they will produce games that will be so highly saleable as now, the shares will grow again.

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by Nina Gotzmannova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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However hard it might be to find a friend, it is much harder to keep the friendship going. Now, on the other side, it is interesting that while creating an enemy might be easy, deleting him might cost us lots of energy and other fine resources. Let's apply this fact to the reality or, more precisely, to the real business world. The German software company SAP offered 4.8 billion of Euros to its French competitor Business Objects on October 8, this offer being the biggest one of SAP's acquisitions so far. This action had been launched by the recent drop in SAP's sales and it is supposed to bring thousands of new customers into view. This launch should be done before the first quarter of 2008. Was SAP only trying to increase its powers or was this offer only a sign of revenge? Some examples of small powers joining giants: Oracle bought Hyperion (however, the offer was smaller), the next purchasers (or expanders) could be either of two other software giants - IBM or Hewlett-Packard. These collaborations are crucial for the software society and beneficial for the society as a whole. More people in team mean more ideas and the new, more powerful environment sparks new views plus is able to support the more expensive experiments and innovations. We have to upgrade in order to survive & so why do this by liaisons and use it for deleting enemies?

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by Barbie Kunkelova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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Despite Fed's actions to make the stock market more stable, the housing crisis continues and one by one economy branches are affected. Furniture makers are now hit by the housing slump. This fall at the High Point Market- the twice-annual home decor and furnishings trade show that presents what consumers will see in stores next season- the place was rather empty. According to Doug Schock, a territory manager for OneCoast Midwest Home, the housing slump combined with the weak economy led to a downfall in the interest of people for the latest styles in sofas, bedroom sets, and dining room tables and chairs. This year although there wasn't any official attendance number, it was clearly obvious that the housing issue had a great influence on the industry turning it into a victim. More than 85,000 industry insiders descend on North Carolina for the market, at which thousands of vendors fill 188 buildings and 12 million square feet of showroom space with thousands of new products. Unfortunately most of them were still waiting for customers and even gave up to the custom of participating in the traditional dance of hand-holding buyers as they walk though bedroom and dining room displays. The entire issue is reinforced by Russ Ortiz, president and chief executive of Shine Home, a California-based home furnishings boutique. The forecast for the furniture market is a growth of 1.5 percent this year and 2.2 percent in 2008, according to journal Furniture Today. That might make the 2007 year one of the worst from 2001 when sales declined o.6 percent. Vaughan-Bassett Furniture Co., one of the nation's largest manufacturers of wood furnishings is one of the furniture companies that came up with new ideas like the model of "green furniture". Doug Bassett, a spokesman for the Virginia-based company, revealed that the company came with fewer products than last year due to the dealer's low interest. Besides all this, the cheaper Asian furniture becomes a real competition. 200 Virginia-based Stanley Furniture Co. workers hit the sack and Bombay Co. filled for bankruptcy. Furniture Brands International Inc., the maker of Broyhill, Thomasville and Lane brands registered a loss of 66 percent in the second quarter. However, Morningstar equity analyst John Gabriel says it is only a natural selection from which only the strongest will survive. Don't go away…more to come!

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by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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Nokia, the world's largest phone makers, announced Monday that it plans to buy digital mapmaker Navteq Corp. for $8.1 billion. The Finland-based company said that Navteq will continue to support its existing customers, continuing to operate independently, but it will be organized as a Nokia group company. Nokia President and Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said that Nokia "will be able to bring context and geographical information to a number of our Internet services with accelerated time to market." It's not the first acquisition of the year for Nokia, they recently bought Gate5 a small company based in Berlin that makes navigational software applications for cellphones, and Enpocket, a mobile advertising company based in Boston. "This is not just about ‘the Internet goes mobile,'" said Richard A. Simonson, Nokia's chief financial officer. "We're not just trying to replicate the Google or Microsoft experience online. The consumer won't come unless we give them something that is rich." Chicago-based Navteq was formed in 1985 creating map devices, and now it creates digital maps of cities and other locations worldwide for Internet mapping services offered by Mapquest and Google. Shares for Nokia fell after the announcement with 4 percent, but they closed up to 3 cents, at $37.96 a share on the New York Stock Exchange. "This is a very high valuation for the U.S. company, so yes, this is a high price to pay," said Mats Nystrom, an analyst at SEB Enskilda Bank in Stockholm. "But navigation is a hot area and fits well with Nokia's strategy."

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by Delia Cruceru for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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