By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

Apparently not satisfied with his “win” against Motorola, Carl Icahn has been buying up Yahoo! stock, apparently planning a proxy fight designed to replace the Yahoo! Board of Directors with a set of nominees that will move forward toward a possible merger with Microsoft. On Thursday Icahn sent an open letter to Yahoo! Chairman Roy Bostock outlining his plans, stating that the company’s board had “acted irrationally and lost the faith of shareholders and Microsoft.”

The letter, revealed in a press release, said the following:
More

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

Apple has been adamant about pricing of videos on iTunes, and in fact that’s one of the reasons that NBC left the iTunes store and eventually wound up at the Zune Marketplace. But now it appears they have become more flexible, as HBO and Apple announced on Tuesday that HBO shows are now available on iTunes - and some are priced above the $1.99 price Apple had previously set as a ceiling.

In a press release, Apple said:

Television shows purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Store can be viewed on a Mac or PC, iPod nano with video, iPod classic, iPod touch, fifth generation iPod, iPhone or on a widescreen TV with Apple TV. “Sex and the City,” “The Wire” and “Flight of the Conchords” are $1.99 per episode, and “The Sopranos,” “Deadwood” and “Rome” are priced at $2.99 per episode. iTunes customers can also choose to purchase entire seasons of their favorite programs.

So, Apple has broken their glass ceiling of $1.99. Hey, NBC, are you watching all this drama?

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

In February, Robert Scoble wrote that Microsoft researchers showed him something that made him cry. At the time, he couldn’t write about it, but it turned out to be this project, the Microsoft WorldWide Telescope.

It’s a desktop application, so you do have to download and install it. Think of it as a Google Earth for space. It’s dedicated to Jim Gray, the Microsoft Researcher who sailed out of San Francisco Bay in late January of 2007 and was never seen again. The first inklings of this project appeared in a 2002 paper he wrote with Alexander S. Szalay.

Before you ask: Windows only. Yep. You can run it on a Mac with Boot Camp, but …

In a press release, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said:

“The WorldWide Telescope is a powerful tool for science and education that makes it possible for everyone to explore the universe. By combining terabytes of incredible imagery and data with easy-to-use software for viewing and moving through all that information, the WorldWide Telescope opens the door to new ways to see and experience the wonders of space. Our hope is that it will inspire young people to explore astronomy and science, and help researchers in their quest to better understand the universe.”

Microsoft is probably also thinking that the galaxy is much cooler than silly old Earth, and they don’t have to worry about security or privacy issues - or lawsuits - a la Google Earth or Google Street View.

Playing around with it … it’s cool. You pick something from a collection, and it scrolls around, or you can scroll yourself. It does need 3D acceleration, and although it will work with 1 MB 0f RAM, they recommend 2 MB.

Some of the coolness is shown above with Jupiter. Zoom in on something, right-click on it and you get more details. Just to be clear, it’s pre-release software, and you’ll run into bugs, such as artifacts and the like.

It does seem to be somewhat of a resource hog, as it sure slowed down my system while it was running. Still, I was impressed. It didn’t make me cry, but the images sure blew me away.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

Let’s face it: smartphone news nowadays seems to center on the iPhone, even if some analysts don’t label it a smartphone. And with the iPhone’s upcoming Exchange support, RIM has to be feeling some heat, despite its dominance in the Enterprise market. The BlackBerry Bold (known during development as the BlackBerry 9000) has been labeled by some as an “iPhone killer,” but it’s not really that so much as a device aimed at keeping BlackBerry on top of the Enterprise game.

From their press release:

The BlackBerry Bold smartphone’s support for tri-band HSDPA and enterprise-grade Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g) networks and its next-generation 624 MHz mobile processor make short work of downloading email attachments, streaming video or rendering web pages. The BlackBerry Bold also includes 128 MB Flash memory plus 1 GB on-board storage memory.

Note that unlike the T-Mobile Pearl, Wi-Fi can be used only for data, not voice calls. More:

The BlackBerry Bold smartphone comes with the most vivid and bold display ever introduced on a BlackBerry smartphone. Its half-VGA (480×320 resolution) color LCD is fused to the undersurface of the lens, making images leap out with stunning definition and clarity.

While it has the same resolution as the iPhone, the display is (quite obviously) smaller. The hard keyboard is a plus for Enterprise users, though.

For off-business hours, the Bold has a 2-megapixel camera with video recording capability, built-in flash and 5x digital zoom. It has built-in stereo speakers. According to RIM, when using wired headphones or external speakers, the media player gives the user an equalizer with 11 preset filters.

What else? Integrated GPS, so you can’t say you were lost if you miss an important business meeting.

The big question? When. The somewhat vague answer: summer. I’m thinking sometime close to the 3G iPhone launch, which many feel will be sometime between mid-June and mid-July.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

Another lawsuit, more cash out of Apple’s pockets. I wrote earlier about the credit being offered to Canadian owners of older iPods. This case involves faulty power adapters for Powerbooks and iBooks.

A class-action suit, filed in 2006, alleged that Apple misrepresented problems with the power adapters. In 2001, Apple recalled about 570,000 adapters sold with PowerBooks after reports of overheating and sparking.

In court filings, plaintiffs said “the adapter dangerously frays, sparks and prematurely fails to work.”

Apple will pay customers who bought replacements made by Apple or a 3rd party $25 - $79 depending on the cost of the item. It’s unclear as to whether or not you’ll need a receipt, and since it’s been some time since this all happened, it’s unclear if that would truly be fair anyway.

The settlement, which was granted preliminary approval by U.S. District Court Judge James Ware on March 24th, still requires final approval. A hearing on final approval is scheduled for September 8th.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

No doubt the biggest story of last weekend was Microsoft abruptly walking away from their unsolicited deal with Yahoo!. And no doubt among the biggest stories of today are “what now?” and “what’s happening to their stocks?”

Yahoo! stock plummeted in pre-market trading, down 19.7% to $23.02 at market open on Monday. It’s recovered slightly to $24.06, down 16.1% at the time of this writing.

Meanwhile, Microsoft shares opened at $29.95, up 2.4% from Friday’s close, and is at $29.86 at the time of this writing, up 2.1%.

Google might be one of the the beneficiaries of the weekend’s events. It has been reported that Yahoo! may begin outsourcing its search ads permanently to Google as early as this week (recall that Yahoo!’s earlier trial with outsourcing was successful). Google shares are up to $596.01 or $14.72 (2.53%) at the time of this writing.

And what about Time-Warner, parent company of AOL, which has been widely rumored to be interested in a possible merger of AOL with Yahoo!? That stock is up $0.13 or .82%.

Just prior to the announcement of Microsoft’s advances, on Jan. 31st, Yahoo! stock was $19.18. Since then Yahoo’s shares have traded as high as $30.25 and as low as $25.72, prior to today.

Speculation? Are we about to see a precipitous drop? Right now it appears what Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang has done since then has at least given investors a “higher than $19 / share” feeling about Yahoo!, as the stock has stabilized since today’s opening.

There’s no doubt, however, that Yang is on the hot seat. Yahoo! wanted $37 / share, Microsoft offered $33 / share. If Yang can’t convince investors of the same, it’s not going to be pretty. And in terms of “now what?” Yang was clear, particularly to employees, in a blog post yesterday. It’s time to work.

No one is celebrating about the outcome of these past three months… and no one should. We live and work in a competitive world and the Web is only going to get more competitive. Executing on our strategic plan is what matters most.

Is that plan good enough? Time will tell.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

Despite reports on Friday that Yahoo! had been brought to the bargaining table by a higher Microsoft offer, Microsoft issued a press release on Saturday indicating it was walking away from the deal.

In the press release, which also contains the text of a letter from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang, Microsoft indicated that although they had raised their offer to $33 per share or a total of $5 billion, Yahoo! wanted $37 per share, or still another $5 billion. Microsoft decided this was just too much. Ballmer said:

“Despite our best efforts, including raising our bid by roughly $5 billion, Yahoo! has not moved toward accepting our offer. After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo! do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal.”

Additionally, Microsoft felt a proxy fight, or hostile takeover, was not worth it either. In his letter, Ballmer indicated that Microsoft felt that during any ensuing fight, Yahoo! would take steps to make their company “undesirable.” More

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

I wrote earlier about New York’s so-called “Amazon Tax,” which would force e-tailers to collect sales tax on purchases made by New York State residents. In the past sales tax collection has only been required of retailers who had a physical presence in a state.

But New York has crafted a new law to force e-tailers to collect sales tax, and Amazon.com isn’t too happy about it. They filed suit Friday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan.

To get around the “physical presence” rule, New York is using a novel addition to their tax code: rather than a physical presence by Amazon.com itself, the new code mandates sales tax collection if a web site advertises say, Amazon.com, and that web site is based in New York.

These could either be huge web sites, or tiny blogs. If the site is based in New York State, links to Amazon.com products, and gets a referral for redirected traffic (the site is one of Amazon’s affiliates, in others words), that qualifies as a “physical presence” for Amazon.com.

This is an extension of an already existing law which states that companies employing independent agents to solicit business must collect taxes for the state.

Amazon.com’s lawsuit argues the following:

• The statute is overly broad and vague.” It is impossible, Amazon.com asserts, for it to determine which of its affiliates are actually in New York State. My thought is it would be pretty difficult, but not impossible.

• Amazon.com also states in the lawsuit that its affiliates are not agents, but simply sites on which it places ads. I agree, because how is this really different than a newspaper ad, for example?

• Amazon.com also uses the fact that legislators foolishly nicknamed this the “Amazon Tax,” stating that the law violates the equal-protection law of the Constitution. They say, “It was carefully crafted to increase state tax revenues by forcing Amazon to collect sales and use taxes.”

It should be noted that although the nickname of this law is the “Amazon Tax,” it’s not solely focused on Amazon.com, but with Amazon.com huge number of of sales - and affiliates - well, you can see where this is going.

Amazon’s suit seeks a declaratory judgment that the law is invalid.

The argument has always been that with the myriad of sales tax codes around the country, it would be impossible for a retailer to keep up with all of them. In fact, in a 1992 Supreme Court decision, Quill vs. North Dakota, the Supreme Court ruled that out-of-state retailers cannot be required to collect sales tax on purchases sent to states where they did not have a physical presence.

We Say: The question is, will this new approach to physical presence pass legal muster? It’s well-known that states are feeling the pinch of loss of sales tax revenue, as more buy online. They will all be watching this carefully.