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Tag Archive: Brown

Motorola Freezes Salaries, Cuts Benefits

It’s no secret that Motorola has financial problems. Standard & Poor’s has given it a junk credit rating, and it was having financial troubles prior to the credit crunch biting hard.

But it’s taking steps to ride out the recession. Co-chieif executives Greg Brown and Sanjay Jha have both agreed to forgo their 2008 cash bonuses and will take a 25% salary cut, according to CNET.

Beginning in 2009, the company will suspend its matching 401k contributions for employees, and will freeze its pension plan from the start of March. It will fund its pension obligations to retirees, however.

Palm Launches Its Own App Store

PDA pioneer Palm has been on the ropes for a few years, seemingly unable to gather momentum behind its efforts to repossess and renovate the Palm OS and then introducing (but never shipping) the Foleo companion device…which, somewhat ironically, went over like a lead balloon just before so-called "nettops" became all the rage. Now, Palm is bootstrapping itself into the current mobile rage, opening the Palm Software Store—being run by PocketGear—where Palm device users can obtain more than 5,000 applications and games for their Palm OS and Windows Mobile devices…and more than 1,000 of those items are available for free. The move follows Apple’s well-known (and successful) App Store for iPhone and iPod touch applications, as well as similar efforts from RIM and Google.

YouTube to Sell Music and Games

YouTube to Sell Music and Games

Google is taking the first steps towards turning its popular online video sharing site YouTube into an ecommerce destination, beginning with embedding links pointing to music and video games alongside videos available on the service. Google says the “click-to-buy” links displayed with individual videos will related directly to the content; the first tie ins point to music available via iTunes and Amazon.com’s MP3 store, along with the recently-released video game Spore, and appear as “unobtrusive” items beneath a video alongside other community features.

Kentucky To Grab Gambling Domains

It might sound a little bizarre, but it’s true. A Kentucky court has said that the state is within its rights to grab the domain names of 141 different gambling sites in order to protect its citizens, since the state forbids gambling.

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear said:

“Unlicensed, unregulated, illegal Internet gambling poses a tremendous threat to the citizens of the Commonwealth because of its ease, availability and anonymity. The owners and operators of these illegal sites prey on Kentucky citizens, including our youth, and deprive the Commonwealth of millions of dollars in revenue. It’s an underworld wrought with scams and schemes.”

British P.M. Goes Digital

British P.M. Goes Digital

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is finally embracing the digital age that’s already part of the life of most voters in the UK. He’s put a clip on the Downing Street YouTube site promising to respond to any questions submitted there by the public.

It’s claimed that the question and answer Ask the PM forum, which is to all intents and purposes an attempt to make Brown seem as if he’s connecting with younger voters, will be “a regular event,” according to the BBC.

Network Solutions Sued Over Domain Tasting

Network Solutions Sued Over Domain Tasting

The California law firm of Kabateck, Brown, and Kellner has filed a class action suit against Network Solutions and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), alleging the company has unfairly profited by temporarily registering domains as soon as someone conducts a search for their availability via the company’s Web site.

The Network Solutions practice—which the company rolled out with any explanation, but has since attempted to clarify on its Web site—puts a domain name “on reserve” as soon as a customer or potential customer searches for a .com domain for possible registration on the Network Solutions site. If the domain doesn’t exist, Network Solutions places a hold on it, meaning that if even a few seconds later the same user goes to another domain registrar and attempts to register the domain, it won’t be available.

Motorola Mulls Selling Off Phone Business

Motorola Mulls Selling Off Phone Business

It wasn’t so long ago that Motorola’s mobile phone business—anchored by the company’s popular RAZR handset—was the envy of the industry. Now, however, the electronics giant finds its mobile phones operations have tkane a third place behind Nokia and Samsung, falling to a 13 percent share of the worldwide market in thhe third quarter of 2007, down from 21 percent in the same quarter of 2006. In fact, things have gotten so bad that Motorola is apparently considering a drastic move: selling off its mobile devices business altogether.

Ed Zander Resigns as Motorola CEO

Ed Zander Resigns as Motorola CEO

Although Motorola rode a two-year high-profile success with its sleek RAZR phone, the company has dropped to third place among mobile phone makers, and turned in doleful financials for the first half of 2007—and although the third quarter wasn’t to bad, it still represented a 94 percent drop in profits. Today, however, Motorola’s stock buoyed up a bit: CEO Ed Zander announced he would be stepping down January 1, to be replaced by current Chief Operating Office Greg Brown. Zander will continue in his role as chairman of the company’s board until at least the company’s annual shareholder meeting in May 2008, and as an advisor to the CEO through January 5, 2009..

Google Tops Brand Value Rankings

The second annual Brandz survey (PDF) from UK research firm Millward Brown attempts to measure the “brand equity” of almost 40,000 consumer-facing brands by interviewing nearly 1 million consumers around the world, and taking into account brand momentum, a brand’s contribution to business earnings, and the brand’s overall value based on financial data. This year’s result? Google has unseated Microsoft as the world’s top brand.

“Success stories from this year’s Brandz Top 100 demonstrate that winning brands leverage major market trends effectively to create business value,” said Joanna Seddon, global CEO Millward Brown Optimor, in a release. “Strong brands are capable of extending into areas of opportunity to access new revenue streams and to help businesses respond to market changes.”

Shareholders Defenistrate Take-Two Execs

A shareholder revolt at video game publisher Take-Two Interactive has resulted in the ouster of CEO Paul Eibelier and appointment of a new slate of directors to the company’s board. The new board has appointed former Sony BMG executive Strauss Zelnick, of ZelnickMedia as the new non-executive chairman of Take-Two; ZelnickMedia partner Ben Feder will serve a acting CEO . The company’s board is now made up by Grover Brown, Michael Dornemann, Benjamin Feder, John Levy, Jon Moses, Michael Sheresky, and Strauss Zelnick; Brown and Levy are incumbent board members.

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