Bebo Goes To AOL For $850 Million - What Now?

AOL will pay $850 million to acquire global social networking site Bebo.com in an all-cash deal announced Thursday through an article from CNN Money.

With 40 million members, Bebo's audience lags Facebook and MySpace in the United States, but it vies for the top spot in the United Kingdom and has a fast-growing global audience.

"Bebo is the perfect complement to AOL's personal communications network and puts us in a leading position in social media," said AOL chief executive Randy Falco.

AOL hopes to leverage its advertising sales business across Bebo's network. Time Warner owns AOL and Fortune.

Bebo will be the cornerstone to AOL's social media strategy. When integrated with instant messaging services ICQ and AIM, it is expected to reach 80 million members.

Started in 2005 by San Francisco programmers Michael and Xochi Birch, the company has approximately 100 employees.

Bebo's site looks a lot like MySpace with a cleaner interface. It has been a pioneer in combining professionally produced entertainment and user-generated content with programs like KateModern.

The show's title character, Kate Modern (whose name is a play on the famous British museum, the Tate Modern), is a waifish art student trying to make it in London. She and her friends record and post short video diaries and chat with viewers. Her popularity is one reason why Bebo's 40 million members spend an average 33 minutes on the site. Another reason is that with the launch of its open media platform in the fall, Bebo plays host to content from old media companies like CBS Beand MTV.

The deal comes just one week after AOL launched Open AIM 2.0, which allows developers greater freedom to develop for the AIM network and integrate AIM into its sites and applications.

Bebo has a number of pre-existing deals with AOL competitors. In September the site announced a partnership with Yahoo to sell the site's display ads in Britain and Ireland and to integrate Yahoo! Answers with Bebo's site. That followed a Microsoft partnership that let members IM with anyone - Bebo friend or not - on Windows Live Messenger. Shields declined to comment on what will happen to those deals.

There is much debate over how to monetize social media. Relying on advertising has thus far proven disappointing. In a March 9 interview at SXSW, Facebook ceo Mark Zuckerberg said his company, which is valued at $15 billion, was close to breaking even - another way of saying that it is not yet profitable. And Google's $900 million ad deal with MySpace isn't generating the return the company expected.

Instead, companies are looking to profit off of the applications that live atop those platforms. "We used to look at social network sites like we would any ad-supported sites, like the NYTimes," said Google's president of advertising Tim Armstrong at a Bear Sterns media conference on March 10. "Now we think differently. We look at social networks as a platform and see an opportunity to monetize widgets and social network applications."

In a best case scenario, Bebo will now be able to leverage the behavioral targeting capabilities from AOL's Platform A to better target certain demographics, and it will be able to scale to reach a larger audience with AIM. But AOL has not proven itself able to integrate acquisitions well so far. It has been on an acquisitions tear, putting down more than a billion dollars in the last few years for online advertising companies Advertising.com and Tacoda. But its unclear how well these properties work together, and recently the company lost Tacoda founder Dave Morgan and let go Platform A President Curt Viebranz.

Even Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg Needs Help When It Comes To Growth Online

As this Wall Street Journal article suggests, even multi-million dollar Facebook needs help every now and then. Read on to learn Facebook's struggle for growth online.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Inc.'s 23-year-old chief executive, is finding that he and his company have to grow up at Internet speed. The latest sign: He has poached a top Google Inc. executive, Sheryl Sandberg, to help expand his social-networking company.

Sheryl Sandberg

Ms. Sandberg, a six-year Google veteran who has been the search giant's vice president of global online sales and operations, will become Facebook's chief operating officer. In that role, the 38-year-old executive will try to help expand the privately held company's operations, revenue and international reach. She will also lead sales, business development, public policy and communication. Ms. Sandberg will report directly to Mr. Zuckerberg, who has been searching for a second-in-command for several months.

Ms. Sandberg's appointment comes as Mr. Zuckerberg is trying to adjust to being head of a company that is quickly outgrowing its position as one of Silicon Valley's hottest startups while preparing himself to be able to lead it to Google-like international heft. Based in Palo Alto, Calif., Facebook is a social-networking site that allows users to create personal Web pages and communicate with one another.

It has grown fast in the four years since Mr. Zuckerberg founded it. Sales reached $150 million in 2007, but the company's operations are concentrated in the U.S., and it is still burning up more cash than it is generating in revenue, according to a person familiar with the company's finances. Facebook declines to comment on its performance.

In early December, the CEO had a conversation with one of his mentors, Silicon Valley investor Roger McNamee, in which he admitted he was having a tough time with some new pressures he was facing as chief. "Is being a CEO always this hard?" he asked, according to Mr. McNamee, a managing director at private-equity firm Elevation Partners who has a personal stake in Facebook.

In an interview, Mr. Zuckerberg says he doesn't recall the specific conversation with Mr. McNamee, but acknowledges the CEO job "is hard -- I do sometimes whine to Roger about it."

Weeks prior, Mr. Zuckerberg had faced protests from users and privacy groups after launching a new advertising program. One element of the program tracked users' activities on Web sites outside of Facebook and shared those activities with their friends. Some Facebook members complained that this violated their privacy, and one local blog dubbed Mr. Zuckerberg "the Grinch." Around the same time, personal information about Mr. Zuckerberg, including material from his Harvard University application, was posted on a Web site for Harvard alumni.

Facebook's advertising initiative was a turning point in the public's perception of Facebook and its young CEO, who had enjoyed years as a Silicon Valley darling and was now the brunt of a backlash.

A Self-Assured CEO

After founding Facebook as a college student four years ago, Mr. Zuckerberg saw almost instant success. Millions of users flocked to his Web site and top Silicon Valley investors rushed to fund it. Mr. Zuckerberg also become known as a self-assured, even arrogant, CEO. Some of his early business cards read, "I'm CEO ... b -- ." (A Facebook spokeswoman says the cards were meant as a joke.) In a speech in March 2007, he said: "Young people are just smarter."

Mr. Zuckerberg is now finding that young people aren't enough. Like other technology startups, the key skills for Facebook employees in the early days were technology know-how and product development. To keep growing, the company needs to tap people with more traditional skills, including the ability to woo advertisers, manage a big staff and handle public relations.

"I coded the original site and managed the engineering teams," Mr. Zuckerberg says in an interview, adding that his next task is to "work on bringing really talented people into the company to help it scale." Mr. Zuckerberg declined to comment on his personal style or his reputation as a CEO.

Mr. Zuckerberg's experience is emblematic of Silicon Valley's accelerated culture, where startups change more in a few years than most companies do in decades -- forcing CEO-founders to adapt quickly in order to survive in their roles. The founders of Google, Yahoo Inc. and eBay Inc. all handed the reins to outsider CEOs within three years of founding their companies.

To season himself, Mr. Zuckerberg in recent years has reached out to high-profile mentors like Mr. McNamee and Don Graham, CEO of the Washington Post Co. Last year, Facebook brought in trainers including Bill Clinton's former speaking coach to help the CEO improve his speaking style.

Ms. Sandberg joins a roster of recent Facebook hires that includes Chief Financial Officer Gideon Yu, formerly CFO at YouTube, and Vice President of Product Marketing and Operations Chamath Palihapitiya, a former head of AOL's instant-messaging business. Mr. Zuckerberg is also seeking to hire a new general counsel and a vice president of communications and public policy, says Facebook spokeswoman Brandee Barker.

Part of the Struggle

Part of the struggle for quickly maturing startups is that founders don't want to lose their stamp on the company -- something they fear may happen if they hand the reins to a hired CEO. Mr. Zuckerberg says he is trying to build Facebook on his own terms, and indicated recently that he doesn't want another No. 1 in the company. Owen Van Natta, chief revenue officer who previously held the role of Facebook COO, last month said he was leaving the company. The departure was related to Mr. Van Natta's ambitions to be CEO of a company, a title Mr. Zuckerberg isn't willing to relinquish, both men say.

In Ms. Sandberg, whose appointment was confirmed yesterday, Mr. Zuckerberg is seeking an experienced hand who can also enable him to hold on to the reins. "It's going to be very valuable for me to have a partner [to help] me to think about how to do operations, especially as the organization grows very large and as we scale internationally," says Mr. Zuckerberg.

Mr. Zuckerberg built an early Internet venture in October 2003, during his sophomore year at Harvard. He acknowledged hacking into the school's online student directory and accessing students' photos, according to an article published at the time in the Harvard Crimson, the school newspaper. Then he put up a Web site that invited visitors to judge students' attractiveness based on those photos. He was harshly criticized by fellow students for the project and quickly closed it down. Ms. Barker declined to comment on the incident.

His next project was Facebook, which let people create online "profiles," or personal Web pages, through which users could interact with one another. In 2004, he left Harvard and moved to Palo Alto with a few friends. Once in Silicon Valley, he raised funding to expand the Web site, which at first only college students could access.

For a while, he kept up his college lifestyle. Early on, he and his friends worked out of a rented house in Palo Alto, which they allegedly left "in total disarray," with barbecue ashes and broken glass spread on the deck, according to court documents posted on the Web site of "02138," a magazine for Harvard alumni. The documents relate to a lawsuit filed in U.S. district court in Boston in which some former Harvard classmates have alleged that Mr. Zuckerberg stole the idea for a social-networking site from them. Through his spokeswoman, Mr. Zuckerberg declined to comment on the documents or the lawsuit.

When the company moved to an office in downtown Palo Alto, he wore Adidas flip-flops to work and often arrived in late morning and worked until the middle of the night, say people who worked for him at the time. Mr. Zuckerberg has been described by colleagues as shy -- sometimes so uncomfortable socially that he comes across as stiff.

Others describe Mr. Zuckerberg as a quietly thoughtful executive willing to learn from others. "A lot of times, when people meet with Mark for the first time, he's really quiet, and people assume he's not engaged or paying attention," says Matt Cohler, vice president of product management for Facebook. "Actually, he's really engaged and he's trying to listen."

In September 2006, Mr. Zuckerberg's profile grew when Facebook began letting in anyone with an email address, not just students. Around that time, Facebook added a feature called the "news feed" that made it easier for people to track friends' activities on the site. When thousands complained that it violated their privacy, Mr. Zuckerberg upset some further with a blog post telling them to "Calm down. Breathe. We hear you." Later, Facebook changed its privacy settings to make it easier for users to manage how their information is shared.

In May 2007, Mr. Zuckerberg wore his flip-flops onstage at a San Francisco event, where he announced he would let other companies offer services such as games within the Facebook site. Mr. Zuckerberg's investors began urging him to focus on finding a way to turn Facebook's popularity into revenue, say people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Zuckerberg sought seasoned help. He brought on Messrs. Yu and Palihapitiya. Michael Sheehan, a communications coach who has advised Mr. Clinton, came in to teach the CEO how to improve his wooden image, in part by coaching him in public speaking.

He asked friends like the entrepreneur Marc Andreessen, who founded Web-browser company Netscape when he was 22 years old, for advice in keeping Facebook's fast-paced, communicative culture intact as Facebook grew, says a person familiar with the matter. Ms. Barker said Messrs. Zuckerberg and Andreessen discuss business regularly but declined to comment on their conversations. Mr. Zuckerberg also turned to Mr. McNamee. He says he encouraged Mr. Zuckerberg not to sell Facebook or give up his CEO role.

All the while, Facebook kept growing. Last year, Microsoft Corp. invested $240 million in the company, valuing the startup at $15 billion. That gives Mr. Zuckerberg a net worth on paper of at least $3 billion. According to comScore Inc., a Web tracking firm, Facebook had 101 million visitors in January, up from 25 million in January 2007. Facebook's social-networking rivals include MySpace, owned by News Corp., which also owns The Wall Street Journal.

Last summer, Facebook began working on a project that involved attaching ads to messages about a user's activities on the site. These ads would then be seen by the user's friends. The company also designed a feature called Beacon that took this idea a step further: It tracked people's activities on sites outside of Facebook. If someone made a purchase on Overstock.com, for example, Facebook would notify the user's friends through a message, sometimes without explicit permission. Vendors partner with Facebook to participate in the service, and Facebook can make money by displaying tailored ads from the vendors on users' profiles.

At an event in New York in November for top advertisers, Mr. Zuckerberg unveiled the ad program, including the Beacon feature. Efe Cakarel, who runs a service within Facebook that lets users watch independent movies, was with Mr. Zuckerberg and recalls suggesting that advertisers might worry that attaching ads in this way could turn off users. He says Mr. Zuckerberg shrugged off the concern, saying, "They'll like it when they see how well it works." Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Zuckerberg says he doesn't remember the conversation but that it could have happened.

Privacy Complaints

Instead, people complained that Beacon was a privacy invasion. The watchdog group MoveOn.org Civic Action started a petition against Beacon, and companies including online retailer Overstock.com Inc. pulled out of the program or raised concerns about it.

That's when Mr. Zuckerberg complained to Mr. McNamee, asking whether the CEO job was "always this hard." Mr. McNamee recalls answering, "Only if you're successful. And if you're successful, it's really hard, but it's also worth it."

Mr. Zuckerberg deliberated for hours over a public apology letter about Beacon, says a person familiar with the matter. "We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it," he finally posted on Facebook's blog. He also began requiring users' permission to share their details via Beacon.

Mr. Zuckerberg says he also spoke with Mr. McNamee in December about how to structure his management team. That "led me to consider bringing in someone like Sheryl," he says, "starting a few other executive searches and making some other changes on the team."

Mounting Pressure

Ms. Sandberg had joined Google in 2001 when it had fewer than 300 employees. She helped build it into a global company and run its cash-cow AdWords and AdSense programs. Her unit, which has thousands of staff, now handles sales for about 99% of Google's advertisers.

Late last year, Mr. Zuckerberg met Ms. Sandberg at a holiday party. In January, Ms. Sandberg asked Mr. McNamee for career advice about another job opportunity she was weighing, and he suggested she talk to Facebook before making any moves. Mr. Zuckerberg then met again with Ms. Sandberg over dinner and elsewhere before clinching the hire.

Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg will face mounting pressure to find a better business model. Facebook's Web traffic continues to rise. But industry watchers are now questioning whether that growth will ever translate into Google-size revenue.

According to a person familiar with the company's finances, Facebook hopes to double revenue to $300 million to $350 million this year, its fourth full year in business. Google had revenue of $440 million in its fourth year, a fivefold jump from the previous year.

Mr. Zuckerberg's growing fame has included some unexpected challenges. On a recent trip to Los Angeles, for example, paparazzi caught him leaving a restaurant with a woman and heckled him with suggestions that he was cheating on his longtime girlfriend. The video showed up on the gossip site TMZ.com, but it turned out that the woman was in fact Mr. Zuckerberg's girlfriend.

When Two Well-known Brands Collide (Volkswagen And Porsche)

Here's amazing news from Forbes.com on the possible fusion of well-known car brands Volkswagen and Porsche!

Porsche's announcement on Monday that it had decided to take a majority stake in Volkswagen came just hours after Volkswagen itself announced it was taking majority control of Swedish truck maker Scania. Two big moves within 24 hours? It was all in a day's work for the 70-year-old grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, and typical of his bold leadership.

Piech is the chairman of Volkswagen, but also one of the biggest shareholders in Porsche, with a 13% stake. Born in Vienna, Austria, Piech cut his teeth in the car business, having started out designing and engineering new Porsche models when he was just 26.

In his golden years he has been doing a lot more corporate engineering, facilitating talks between German truck maker MAN and Swedish rival Scania, and pushing for a three way tie-up with Volkswagen's Brazilian truck business last year. That now process should get into gear now that there is little doubt about the future ownership of Scania.

In fact the tie-up of VW, Scania and Porsche spells a European auto giant that makes everything from affordable cars, to trucks, to city buses, to luxury cars and limos. Will Piech want to spin off the truck division? Probably not. The truck making industry is on a roll at the moment and companies like Scania, Volvo and Daimler are reeling from the strong demand in Eastern Europe and other emerging markets.

What Piech really wants is full, unadulterated control of Volkswagen by Porsche itself. That may seem odd to the uninitiated, since Piech is already VW's chairman. But there is a there is a psychological element behind his strategy. "Piech comes from the family that founded both Porsche and VW and he has been working his whole life to bring them back together," said Roman Mathyssek, senior auto analyst for Global Insight.

Volkswagen came about in 1933 when Ferdinand Porsche, Piech's grandfather, was commissioned by the German government to great a "volkswagen"--literally "people's car" in German--that could carry five people. The "volkswagen" went on to become its own corporate entity, though the ties to Porsche have remained strong over the decades.

Today, though there are myriad family interests to complicate matters, nothing much happens at Porsche without Piech's say so. Soon enough, nothing much will happen at Volkswagen without Porsche-as-a-company's say so.

Hence the drive to get Porsche's official stake in Volkswagen above 50%. For Porsche to use Volkswagen's research and development expertise or collaborate on a project, it'll need to go through the right corporate channels. Porsche may also push for restructuring at Volkswagen. At the moment, the State of Lower Saxony, a region in Germany that is the second largest shareholder of Volkswagen, is loathe to make job cuts at VW, but Piech may well see inefficiencies that need addressing and want to use Porsche to direct the change.

In a nutshell, says Mathyssek, Porsche will benefit from VW's breadth of technical expertise (think Audi) while VW will benefit from Porsche as a stable majority shareholder. Above all, Piech will realize his vision.

(image from Weblo.com)

Sony Invests In Sharp. Would you invest in your competitor?

I didn't know how closely tied competing companies were in the industry of electronics. From this article from Bloomberg is shows that Sharp, Sony and Samsung seem to be co-dependent on each other in terms of investment. Would you do the same and invest in direct competitors? This article might provide some insight into their business strategy in terms of securing supply.

Sony Corp., the world's second-largest maker of consumer electronics, will invest in Sharp Corp.'s newest liquid-crystal display factory to meet demand for brighter flat-panel televisions.

Sony agreed to buy 34 percent of a venture that will operate the factory Sharp is building in Sakai City, Osaka, the companies said today, without providing an investment amount. Sharp, Japan's largest LCD maker, will own the remaining 66 percent.

The venture reduces Sony's reliance on main supplier Samsung Electronics Co. as LCD TV sales are forecast to rise 29 percent this year, outpacing demand for plasma sets. UBS AG and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. predict a shortage of LCDs will persist in 2008.

``The stake will give Sony some clout in determining production schedules and secure a stable supply of panels,'' Osamu Hirose, an analyst with Tokai Tokyo Research Center, said by telephone from Tokyo. He recommends buying Sony shares ``on weakness.''

The Sakai plant, the most advanced in the industry, will produce screens measuring as much as 60 inches diagonally. The companies expect to set up the venture in April 2009, with the factory scheduled to begin operations that fiscal year.

The plant will have a monthly production capacity of 72,000 glass substrates, from which panels are cut, Sony and Sharp said. Initial production is set at 36,000 per month.

Factory Investment

Sony agreed to invest more than 100 billion yen ($926 million) in the Sharp plant, the Nikkei newspaper reported today, without saying where it got the information. In July last year, Sharp said it would invest 380 billion yen to build the factory.

Sony rose 1.2 percent to close at 5,200 yen on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, while Sharp was unchanged at 2,100 yen. Samsung declined 1.7 percent to 571,000 won on the Korea Exchange.

Samsung and Sony in 2004 set up S-LCD Corp., a panel-making venture that has invested about 3.9 trillion won ($4.1 billion) in two factories to make screens measuring 40 inches to 52 inches.

The Japanese company overtook Samsung as the world's largest LCD TV maker by revenue during the fourth quarter, researcher DisplaySearch estimated this month. Sony plans to sell 10 million units of its Bravia LCD TVs in the year ending March 31, up from 6.3 million a year earlier.

``In the long term, Sony's agreement with Sharp will have an impact on Samsung as it may need to find another secure customer,'' Woo Jun Sik, an analyst at Tong Yang Investment Bank, said by phone from Seoul. ``With Japanese panel makers becoming aggressive in the LCD market, competition in the industry may intensify.''

Smaller Portion

Sony probably got 58 percent of its LCD TV panels from Samsung in the three months ended Sept. 30, down from 91 percent a year earlier, Woo said.

Japanese companies are entering partnerships to secure supplies as LCD televisions gain popularity over plasma sets. Global LCD TV shipments are estimated to rise 29 percent to 101 million sets this year, almost seven times the number for those with plasma screens, said James Kim, an analyst at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. President Fumio Otsubo said in January that it faces ``difficulties'' in securing LCDs as televisions using these panels outsell plasma TVs, its main business.

The maker of Panasonic-brand electronics is spending 300 billion yen to build an LCD factory in Hyogo prefecture, western Japan, that will be owned by a venture between Matsushita and Hitachi Ltd.

Sharp said in December it gained Toshiba Corp. as a customer. Sharp's share of sales to other companies from LCD panels, including those to be made at the Sakai plant, will probably exceed 30 percent in the fiscal year starting April 1, from 20 percent at present, President Mikio Katayama said in January.

(image from Krunker.com)

Microsoft's New Business Strategy - Share The Technology

Seeking to satisfy European antitrust officials, Microsoft said on Thursday that it would open up and share many more of its technical secrets with the rest of the software industry and competitors according to this NYTimes.com article

It is now the era of convergence. If Microsoft does not open up, then it is set to fail. I think this is the reason for this sudden generosity. The world's standards have now evolved and Microsoft has been forced to evolve with it.

Microsoft executives, in a conference call, the article mentions that they have characterized the announcement as a “strategic shift” in the company’s business practices and its handling of technical information. They also portrayed the moves as only partly a nod to the continuing challenge Microsoft faces from Europe’s antitrust regulators.

The broader goal, they said, is to bring Microsoft’s flagship personal computer products — the Windows operating system and Office productivity programs — further into the Internet era of computing. Increasingly, people want a seamless flow of documents, data and programming code among desktop PCs and the Internet, especially as they make the shift from using software on a PC to using services on the Web.

“These steps are being taken on our own,” said Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive. The move, he said, was a recognition of Microsoft’s “unique legal situation,” but it was also the company’s effort to adapt to “the opportunities and risks of a more connected, more services-oriented world.”

Microsoft’s first step will be to put on its Web site 30,000 pages of technical documentation detailing how its Windows desktop and Microsoft server programs communicate and share information. Until now, that information was treated as a trade secret and was available only under a special license.

Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s chief software architect, said that by sharing more information, Microsoft would make it easier for others to write Internet programs that tap into personal information on a PC.

That, Mr. Ozzie added, should bring new sets of Web services that, for example, might match a person’s calendar information with a doctor’s schedule. Then smart software could make an appointment. At home, he noted, someone’s digital collection of music, movies and family photos would be more easily shuffled to different devices and screens.

“The Internet opens up a world of potential innovation,” Mr. Ozzie said. “And I think we’ve just scratched the surface.”

Microsoft announced other plans to open up its technology, like allowing developers to add more non-Microsoft document formats to its Office word processing and spreadsheet programs. Microsoft also made commitments to increase its support for industry standards and work with open-source software developers.

European regulators and others have long accused Microsoft of using its dominance in PC operating systems and software to lock out competitors. Last October, after a nine-year confrontation and a ruling against the company by Europe’s second-highest court, Microsoft agreed to share information with rivals on terms it had long resisted. Then, after fresh complaints from Microsoft’s competitors, the European antitrust regulators last month announced that they were opening new investigations of the company.

The new inquiry focuses partly on whether Microsoft has withheld essential information from competitors that want to make products that work smoothly with its Office programs. The Office products were not part of the previous European action against Microsoft.

After the Microsoft announcement on Thursday, the European Commission issued a skeptical statement. The commission said it “would welcome any move towards genuine interoperability,” or allowing software programs from different companies to work smoothly together. But the commission noted that “today’s announcement follows at least four similar statements by Microsoft in the past on the importance of interoperability.”

Asked about the commission’s statement, Bradford L. Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, said that the company’s moves were “qualitatively and quantitatively different from anything we’ve done in the past.”

“People will test us not just by our words but by our actions,” Mr. Smith added.

The industry is taking a wait-and-see stance on Microsoft’s plan. Linux, an open-source competitor to Windows, stands to benefit from Microsoft’s more open posture. Regulators and competition are “forcing Microsoft to change the way it does business,” said James Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, a nonprofit consortium.

The change comes as Microsoft is trying to buy Yahoo, a huge deal that, if it proceeds, will be closely scrutinized by antitrust officials worldwide. The European regulators typically take a harder line than their American counterparts in challenging takeovers.

“To get the deal approved, Microsoft has to convince the European regulators that it has changed its spots on interoperability, no longer acting like a proprietary monopoly,” said Ken Wasch, president of the Software and Information Industry Association, a trade group that includes Microsoft competitors like I.B.M., Oracle, Sun Microsystems and Red Hat.

Microsoft is also trying to win approval from an international standards body for its new document format, Office Open XML. Microsoft contends its format is “open,” meaning files in the format can be created and read by anyone.

A different format standard for Internet-based computing, the OpenDocument Format, is supported by I.B.M., Google, Oracle and other Microsoft rivals. They assert that the proposed Microsoft standard is complex and layered with the company’s own features, making it effectively a corporate standard instead of a truly open one.

Last September, Microsoft failed to win enough support for its standard from the International Organization for Standardization. But the standards body will review that decision in proceedings that begin next week.

(image from istartedsomething.com)

Is Starbucks Losing Its Touch? Corporate Job Cut Part Of Business Strategy

In an attempt to gain footing during difficult times, Starbucks is tightening its belt. CNNmoney.com reports corporate level job cuts throughout Starbucks Corp., specifically mentioning last Thursday the cutting of 220 corporate-level jobs, another step in its restructuring plan to improve U.S. operations.

About 75 of those jobs are at its Seattle headquarters; the rest are in other Starbucks offices across the United States. The jobs involve finance, marketing and communications functions, according to spokesman Brandon Borrman. No retail- store level workers are being let go.

In addition, Starbucks (SBUX) won't fill 380 job positions it had budgeted. On that basis, the coffee-shop chain said that it's trimming its workforce by 600 jobs. It currently employs 170,000.

"We realize that we are operating in an intensely challenging environment, one in which our customers and partners (employees) have extremely high expectations of Starbucks," Chief Executive Howard Schultz told employees in a memo. "We have to step up to the challenge of being strategic as well as nimble as our business evolves."

Schultz retook the helm in early January to rejuvenate the Starbucks U.S. business, which has showed signs of fatigue after years of rapid growth and softer consumer spending of late.

The company is curbing U.S. store-growth plans, closing 100 underperforming stores and testing $1 coffee at some of its Seattle stores. It plans to discontinue financial forecasts and stop serving warm-egg breakfast sandwiches because it interferes with the aroma of coffee.

The company, Schultz said Thursday, also will increase its U.S. field operations to four offices from two, effective Feb. 25. It is part of his broader plan to better connect with consumers.

Starbucks shares, down 45% the past year, closed at $17.83, down 43 cents.

(image from wwff.wordpress.com)

Top 10 Project Management Tips by Smartdraw.com

Here's an article I got from SmartDraw.com. It essentially revolves around project management. It includes categories like planning and research, documentation, training as well as implementation. I think they know their stuff. It shows with SmartDraw's helpful list, created by project management specialists, is designed to help business professionals get their projects off to a quick and successful start.

1. Planning List. When beginning a new project, make a list of all departments within your organization and what you may need from them. This will give you a step-by-step checklist of how to begin nailing down the specifics of your project plan.
2. Know Your Enemies. Prepare a list of the possible risks to the successful completion of the project plan. Have a meeting and get input from others on what potential risks might be. Risks are the enemy, so know them and keep them close.
3. Documentation. Document all aspects of a requested change to a project plan (no matter how small), including who is requesting the change and where it falls as a priority. If it changes other priorities, write a detailed explanation of the change itself, and note who is authorizing the change. This not only gives you a clear picture of what you will need to do next, it serves as personal protection in the case of any miscommunication among others in the organization.
4. Priorities Change. This is a fact and a course of life. Yes, it makes project planning more difficult, but an effective project manager will let changes roll off their back and re-prioritize.
5. In the Loop. Project managers need to make themselves known to all of the departments involved in their project. If a department loses an employee, this may affect the project timeline, so it's important to be in the loop for any changes. Request that you be added to relevant departmental e-mail groups—the sooner you get information, the sooner you can revise your plan.
6. Urgency & Momentum. Convey a sense of urgency during the course of a project in order to keep the momentum going. Once you let your guard down, those around you who you need to help you meet your milestones, may start to feel relaxed too. As the PM, communicating an impending deadline in a productive manner is your key to keeping staff motivated.
7. Give Away the Keys. Delegate, delegate, delegate. Giving ownership to others on the team keeps them close and involved in the project, and they realize that the success or failure of the project is tied directly to them.
8. Training. Keep in mind any training that may be necessary for people on your team. This training time will need to be included in any timetable you create, as training can happen before and during a project life cycle.
9. Revisions. Your project plan will most likely go through many revisions. When communicating with others, make sure you are all referring to and working from the most current revision.
10. Audience. When communicating your project progress, keep in mind which audience you are addressing. Your supervisor may have different priorities than the client, so try and stay specific. Spending too much time talking about an area not directly related to your audience may give the impression that their aspect of the project is not being given the proper attention.