Yahoo Dumped Microsoft Buy-out For Google Non-Exclusive Partnership. Has the Courtship Ended? Or is it just beginning?

Yahoo has finally made their call. They have finally said "NO" to Microsoft. Yes Microsoft got dumped. Yahoo didn't want a buy-out or maybe they did, but they just didn't think Microsoft's offer was good enough.

What they have done instead is partnered with Google. They have ceded their search capacity to Google. So right now, the ads that will come out on Yahoo are essentially Google ads. That's what it means.

The business strategy here being that revenues could potentially increase for Yahoo search. However the flip-side is that this gives Google even more power in the market. It's now closing into monopoly if I may say so myself as Google supplies other smaller search engines like Ask.com

CNet reports that Yahoo expects the revenue to help the company invest in its dual-pronged advertising strategy that's designed to offer advertisers an easy ability to buy text ads on search results and to buy graphical "display" ads elsewhere on Yahoo's considerable Internet properties.

"This agreement provides a source of funds to both deliver financial value to stockholders from search monetization and to invest in our broader strategy to transform display advertising and advance our starting-point objectives with users," Yahoo President Sue Decker said in a statement. "It enhances competition by promoting our ability to compete in the marketplace where we are especially well-positioned: in the convergence of search and display."

Under the deal, Yahoo will select the search terms for which Google will supply ads, the companies said. The ads will be displayed in the United States and Canada, and Decker took pains to say how Yahoo controls which Google results are displayed and when.

Yahoo's search ad engine, Panama, is competitive with Google's for many popular queries, but Yahoo plans to use Google with less common searches, Decker said. "Yahoo monetizes very competitively with Google for query ads but is not as competitive in the tail," she said, referring to the long statistical tail consisting of a large number of infrequent searches.

New iPhone, New Business Model For Apple

Apple will be selling the new third generation iPhones at a much cheaper rate. $200 less than older versions, if you can imagine that. That's sure to kill future purchases for older models though

But the way Apple now shares its income with carriers has also changed. Whereas historically, carriers get a percentage of the initial purchase and the users continuing payments during the life of the contract, the new scheme lets Apple keep all of the initial sale while carriers will benefit more from the recurring fees of users.

I think this isn't such a bad idea as carriers will be forced to provide more continuous customer support after the sale.

Apple has decided to expand its dealership for operators. Under the former business model, Apple reached exclusive deals that allowed only one operator per country to sell the phone. That strategy, while building up demand, was criticized as cloistering the iPhone from a potential huge audience.

All this will fall into place when the new 3G iPhone goes on sale next month. So watch out for it. It's twice as fast at only half the price -- on sale July 11

Microsoft's and Apple's Approaches To Security Disclosures - The Carpet Bomb Case, Microsoft Says Stop Using Safari

This shows how 2 companies can be very different in approaching dilemmas. I guess it's company culture combined with executive decisiveness.

I do not criticize Apple for being the way they are. It's great to come clean about a problem and say, "Yes we have a problem and yes we have the solution." But it doesn't help in the interim if it takes 3 months to find the answers.

I also see Microsoft's point of coming forward early in the game and calling out the competition. We all know something is wrong with Safari and they have acknowledged that Safari coupled with Windows poses a very vulnerable spot for users versus hackers.

This article in Computer World quotes nCircle's Storms, "Microsoft has really embraced the enterprise, and decided that disclosure and a regular patch schedule is what the enterprise needs to support and maintain its products.

"Apple, on the other hand, appeals to consumers, and believes that for the majority of consumers, issuing an advisory without a patch would probably just create FUD [fear, uncertainty and doubt]," Storms concluded.

As Storms noted, Apple has remained silent on the Safari carpet bomb problem. Last week, it did not respond to a request for comment on its security team's decision against adding a user-approval option to Safari. The company was not available Saturday.

Microsoft did say that it was working with its rival, however. "[We] are working with our colleagues at Apple to investigate the issue," said Tim Rains, a product manager in Microsoft's malware protection center, in a post to the MSRC blog.

No timetable has been set by Microsoft for patching its software to block combined Safari-IE attacks. As it often does in security advisories, the company only said that it may issue a patch.

Well now I'm glad I'm using Mozilla Firefox instead of the reportedly bugged Safari and Internet Explorer.

Google Takes Top Online Property Position For The First Time With Barely 1 Million Visitors Over Yahoo

Wow I always thought Yahoo had the edge in terms on online property, but recent study has shown that Google was victorious this month in routing visitors to their sites.



For more details on this web ranking report - visit Marketing Charts

Bill Gates Does Touch Wall Demo For CEO's

I guess it is always more effective when the CEO of one company speaks to others like him, rather than the typical sales person. Bill Gates pulled off the Touch Wall demo with the precision of the Microsoft giant that he is. Although haunted by news that he is to be soon-to-be-retired chairman - being a has-been does not seem to be affecting Mr. Bill Gates.

His demo of Touch Wall was pretty good. In fairness though, the product is amazing. An offshoot of Microsoft Surface, Touch Wall includes special software plus "some scanning cameras down here at the bottom, so whenever I go up to it and say just touch it, the software will notice that, theoretically," Bill Gates said so himself.

He also spoke about another related product in Beta News:

"I've also shown here the RoundTable, which is the videoconferencing thing that takes the entire view, the 360-degree view of everybody in the room by using multiple cameras, and creates that teleconferencing interaction that's far, far better. That's a new type of interaction," continued Gates.

Now emerging on the horizon, he said, are "little thin, tablet-like computers that have both the pen capability and that finger touch...and you'll be able to switch back and forth between those."

Gates told the CEOs he ultimately foresees vertical and horizontal natural interfaces of various sizes appearing almost everywhere.

"This idea that you just sit there and interact, touch, you don't have to learn anything, that naturalness really draws people in. So, it's been a strong success so far, and that form factor is going to get cheaper and smaller," predicted Microsoft's chairman.

No wonder he's the genius behind Microsoft - how else do you sell something that would be this expensive? I mean come on who else could possible afford it. I certainly wouldn't but my CEO, yes he will. Now that's marketing to a target audience.

Dissension Within The Ranks - Ask.com

There is said to be dissension within the ranks of Ask.com, with Barry Diller - Ask.com's CEO believing that Ask.com needs better high profile advertising while Jim Safka who used to run Match.com and ran the famous campaign featuring Dr. Phil McGraw stands for his premise that it would be more beneficial for Ask.com to develop the core search engine as well as creating flashy features that will differentiate it from the other big players in the search market like Google and Yahoo.

This disagreement among executives causes a confusion of company direction from budgeting for infrastructure and staff direction. It has been said in a New York Times article that there was always a clash about everything from how much to spend on engineers and servers to the design of their logos to the scripts of their commercials.

This is very dangerous for a company. If there is no unison in terms of goals and direction then the company is only heading towards a downward spiral.

How The Number 1 Brand In The World Stays On Top - The Secret Of Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton was recently ranked the No. 1 luxury brand in the Millward Brown BrandZ ranking of the Top 100 Most Powerful Brands, a list that covers 50,000 brands worldwide according to Forbes.

So what's their brand secret? Well for one, they are revolutionary. Consider their newest endorser - Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. He's not the typical celebrity endorser and they know it. But why pick him? They want trend-setters and jet-setters. People who will pay the extra grand to get the best in luxury.

The economy is already unstable as it is, why settle for the girl/ boy next door who might not even have enough money to spare? Louis Vuitton is going for class A, retirement age individuals who have money to burn.

Bold moves like this keep Louis Vuitton ahead of the pack currently with a brand value of $25.74 million. Sometimes it's just amazing how they started as a steamer trunks and luggage retailer in 1854 and eventually evolved into the marquee brand they are today.