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Tag Archive: cnn money
E3 Sneak Peak at CNN.com
“The new consoles will get the lion’s share of the spotlight, for obvious reasons. But software publishers have a few surprises up their sleeves that may shift the focus back to games by the time theshow wraps up. (Before you start planning your trip, I should point out that E3 is closed to the general public. We’ll have full coverage next month here at CNN/Money, though.)
Microsoft has the most riding on this year’s show. On Monday, two days before E3 officially begins, the company will finally take the wraps off of its next generation Xbox (which will almost certainly be named Xbox 360). Microsoft hopes the new machine will help it unseat Sony from its long-held industry leader position, which won’t be an easy feat. “
Ask Jeeves Sold For $1.9 Billion
“IAC will issue 1.2668 shares of its stock for each share of Ask Jeeves. That would represent a premium of about 16 percent for Ask Jeeves shareholders, based on Friday’s closing prices.
Shares of Ask Jeeves gained $3.41, or 14 percent, to $27.65 in pre-market trading on Inet following Monday’s announcement, while shares of IAC lost 60 cents, or about 2.5 percent, to $21.69. “
Ask Jeeves owns the popular advertising network MaxOnline, and is the 9th largest web company.
For those of you unfamiliar with IAC/InterActiveCorp, the company owns properties such as Ticketmaster, home shopping service HSN and travel site Expedia.
Wish List For Xbox 2
Quote from the column:
“Be backward compatible: Look, I know replicating technological capabilities and performance is tricky when you’ve switched hardware vendors. Gamers don’t care, though. They just want it done.
If the next Xbox launches and people aren’t able to play “Halo 2″ along with their new titles, you’re going to have a riot on your hands. Given how heavily you marketed that title, you’ll deserve that riot.
Follow through: As any company gets close to a launch window, the hyperbole ratchets up to an outlandish degree. No problem. We’ve all come to accept it. But how about, just for giggles, following up on all the promises Microsoft (Research) makes? “
HP’s Carla Fiorina Is Forced Out
“The stock is up a bit on the fact that nobody liked Carly’s leadership all that much,” said Robert Cihra, an analyst with Fulcrum Global Partners. “The Street had lost all faith in her and the market’s hope is that anyone will be better.”
Fiorina, the only female CEO at a company in the Dow Jones industrial average, had been with HP since 1999. But the company’s controversial deal to buy Compaq in the spring of 2002 — after a bruising proxy fight led by one of the Hewlett family heirs — has not produced the shareholder returns or profits she had promised.
Want a Windows Update? Get Verified First
Under a new authentication program, Windows XP user will have to prove their copy of Windows is legit in order to receive “greater reliability, faster access to updates, and richer user experiences” from the Windows XP operating system.
If you have a pirated copy of the OS, then you should still be able to download security updates, you just will not have access to add-ons and performance enhacing patches according to Microsoft.
The real question is everyone will be asking is whether you will be able to install the same version on multiple computers in the home without getting penalized by the new copy protection system. The answer is yes, but there is a limit.
Online Song Sales Top 200 Million
“The IFPI said research firm Jupiter expects the $330 million online music market to double in 2005.
The increasing popularity of online music stores is welcome news to a music industry that blames digital piracy for more than two years of precipitous sales declines.”
The article says there are more than 1 million songs available for download on the net at this time.
Read more at CNN/Money
Google Adds Features To Photo Service
“With the explosion in popularity of digital photography technology, providers are scrambling to create a foothold in the growing market for managing, editing, printing and sharing photos.
Among Picasa’s new editing features is a “fill light” tool that brightens dark, backlit photos.”
Read more at CNN Money
iMac Could Be Lower Priced In 2005
“Apple Computer Inc. could decide to sell a lower-priced version of its Macintosh computer to attract consumers already enamored of its iPod music player and annoyed by security problems with Windows PCs, according to an analyst at Piper Jaffray.
“We believe that it is not out of the question that Apple would try to capitalize on this opportunity with a more widely accessible product,” analyst Gene Munster said Thursday.”
This makes perfect sense. The low priced Apple iPod is the perfect way to introduce consumers to the Apple brand. If the quality of the iPod is better than people expect, why wouldn’t their computer systems? That’s exactly what Apple is playing on.
AOL Reports Win In Spam Fight
“As of November 2004, AOL received an average of 2.2 million complaints daily from its more than 24 million subscribers, down from 11 million complaints in the same period last year.
The daily average number of e-mails blocked by AOL’s spam filters fell 50 percent to about 1.2 billion e-mails in late 2004 from a peak of 2.4 billion in 2003. “
Read more at CNN/Money
MSNBC also posted the same story, but claims that the news by AOL “contradicts other spam studies released recently, and some analysts were skeptical of AOL’s claims. “.
