Tag Archive
Zillow Wants a Home on Wall Street
Zillow, a real estate listing service that’s nearing profitability, is also dreaming of going public, though it’s pragmatic enough not to set its sights on doing so for another year. Zillow COO Spencer Rascoff today told Bloomberg that the company was courting Wall Street investors. The question is, why is he talking about it now? If you... »
Australia goes wild for wireless internet
Use of wireless broadband services mushroomed during the past year to reach more than two million subscribers, driven by the popularity of wireless modems and mobile devices such as the iPhone. The Australian Communications and Media Authority’s communications report, released yesterday, revealed the use of wireless broadband services jumped 162 per cent in 2008-09, while... »
NII Holdings: Strong Growth, Low Valuation
Chuck Carnevale submits: NII Holdings, Inc, (NIHD) formerly known as Nextel International, has been on a tear. The stock rose over 100% in 2009, which was four times better than the general market as represented by the S&P 500. (See Figures 1 & 2 below) So far this performance has continued in 2010, as NII Holdings... »
Fitch sees Weak Prospects for U.S. Cable and Telecoms Companies in 2010
Research Recap submits: Fitch Ratings expects that many of the competitive and economic pressures of 2009 will remain for U.S. telecommunications and cable operators in 2010: Competitive overlap of services is ever-growing for this sector and will continue to materially affect companies’ near-term results and long-term prospects. Economic challenges for the sector, particularly related to unemployment... »
More on GENBAND’s Nortel CVAS bid
Just before the holiday break, GENBAND threw its hat into the Nortel ring in hopes of acquiring the Canadian vendor’s much coveted Carrier VoIP and Application Solutions (CVAS) unit. GENBAND launched a ’stalking horse’ bid for Nortel’s CVAS unit offering a purchase price for the CVAS unit of $282 million, but the total cost of... »
Google Voice VoIP in 2010?
eWeek has an interesting interview with Google’s Vice President of Product Management Bradley Horowitz where Bradley said he was very enthusiastic about Google’s acquisition of Gizmo5, a company that unlike Skype adopted the industry SIP standard. Gizmo5 brings technological know-how to Google in the areas of VoIP, SIP, and termination. Further, Gizmo5 has... »
Amazon Should Collect Taxes? Over my Dead Gadget-Loving Body!
The NY Times must be smoking the weed again. They have an article posted the day after Christmas arguing that Amazon should charge customers state taxes to help fill the state’s tax coffers. The NY Times writes, “Competitors aren’t the only ones hurt by Amazon’s stance on sales taxes: it also means the loss... »
Top Stories of 2009: It’s the economy stupid!
With the 2009 economy almost in the can, there has been much debate about what that means for VoIP. The nature of our industry gives it both pros and cons in times of financial cut backs and companies looking to save a dime. VoIP upgrades often mean expensive equipment purchases and buildouts but also... »
‘VoIP’ Named Industry of the Decade
According to IBISWorld, VoIP was named “Industry Of The Decade” besting even the search engine industry? Surely, you jest. You mean to tell me the VoIP industry beat Google’s, Yahoo’s, and MSN’s (now Bing’s) billions?... »
November 2009: State of Location Apps
I have long been fascinated by location-based applications, especially on the new mobile platforms, for they represent a different (and a new) way of consuming and interaction with information. So perhaps that’s why I found this new report jointly produced by location-based services company Skyhook Wireless and Distimo, an app analytics company, mildly interesting. Here... »
Gartner Says Worldwide Mobile Device Sales on Pace for Flat Growth in 2009, Increase 9 Per Cent in 2010
Stronger than expected sales in Western Europe and an acceleration in the grey market in the third quarter of this year will drive worldwide mobile device sales to end users to 1.214 billion units, a 0.67 per cent decline from 2008, according to the latest outlook by Gartner, Inc. In September, Gartner had forecast... »
Verizon Perfects the Art of the Non-answer
When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) a few weeks ago asked Verizon to explain why it doubled its early termination fees, I thought it was a good idea that the FCC was raking the wireless giant over the coals. You know, keeping them honest and whatnot. My stance prompted one Verizon spokesperson to jokingly... »
Holiday E-Commerce Up 15%
Large online retailers are seeing a big jump in their sales — more than 15 percent — so far this holiday season, according to data collected by Chase Paymentech, a big Internet payment processor, which claims to have handled more than 50 percent of Internet transactions in 2008. The data that’s collected as Chase... »
Nortel CVAS leads the VoIP pack
Nortel decided it was time to connect all the dots for us and in a release today noted that all the recent VoIP market research reports had it’s VoIP company at the head of the pack. Infonetics Research’s report, Service Provider VoIP Equipment and Subscribers Market Share, Size, and Forecasts for 3Q09, claimed that Nortel... »
Infonetics: VoIP equipment revenue steady in Q3; IMS expectations dialed back
A new Infonetics report claims the worldwide service provider Voice over IP equipment revenue totaled $595 million in Q3 09, which was only a slight decline from the last quarter. Infonetics Research releases a quarterly report on service providers VoIP equipment and subscribers as well as IMS equipment and subscribers forecasts. Q3 saw the VoIP... »
Technology, Media and Telecommunications: News from Asia
Japan Telecommunications • Softbank Corp. (SFTBF.PK) is interested in buying stakes in Indian and Chinese companies. The company is eying companies engaged in mobile applications and technology. Softbank bought an additional stake in U.S. application provider RockYou Inc. for US$50 million. Softbank has a 33 percent stake in... »
The State of Cloud: Startup Heroku Now Hosting 40,000+ Apps
IMPORTANT POINTS Heroku is adding about 1,000 apps to its platform every week Heroku is seeing interest from non web developers. Heroku has built its platform as a service cloud cheaply using Amazon’s web services. Heroku, the San Francisco-based startup that offers a Ruby-focused cloud platform as a service, last week saw the number of apps... »
Skype CEO Outlines Platform Ambitions, Hiring Plans
Skype, with its spinout from eBay complete and its legal troubles with founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis settled, is looking to the future, where it wants to become a ubiquitous real-time communications platform. And that means thinking about the next-generation Skype architecture and hiring a lot of smart people, CEO Josh Silverman said... »
Against all odds, broadband internet continues to grow in the EU
With more than 11 million new fixed lines laid in a year, the take up of broadband internet continues to grow in Europe. According to a report published today by the European Commission, 24% of the EU population had a broadband access line subscription in July 2009, up from 21.6% in July... »
Nortel’s earnings are down, but VoIP is looking up
Looks like Nortel’s plugging away in the face of adversity payed off a little. The company may not have posted the brightest Q3 earnings report, but its VoIP results looked good. Nortel managed to narrow its ongoing losses from $3.41 billion in Q3 2008 to $508 million in Q3 2009. But it reported that revenue declined... »
How Much Money Did Joyent Really Raise?
Intel today said it had invested an undisclosed amount in Joyent, the 6-year-old Sausalito, Calif.-based startup that started out as a web hosting company but eventually evolved into a cloud service provider. Neither Intel nor Joyent disclosed the amount of money invested, but Intel’s investment in the company is a strategic bet for... »
BlackBerry Will Remain Market Leader Through 2014: Analyst
Google’s Android OS-based phones and Apple’s iPhone maybe get all the media love, but one analyst firm believes that it will be RIM’s BlackBerry that will be the smartphone king of the U.S. market in five years. Pyramid Research expects the device to be the biggest beneficiary of the move to smartphones. According to their... »
Palm Shares Close Higher on Nokia Rumors
Palm Inc. (PALM) shares closed up 8.3 percent on Friday as rumors flew that the device maker, which has watched its fortunes decline, could be an MA target.Specifically, speculation has it that cell phone giant Nokia Corp. (NOK) wants to buy Palm. Palm’s stock closed at $12.40 on Friday; Nokia’s ended at …(139 words) ... »
Cisco reports earnings, highlights IP communications
Let’s set aside all the rumors and speculation about Cisco’s potential mergers and acquisitions. We’ve got some cold hard figures to report as the company just released their first quarter financial results. Cisco, a networking solutions vendor that’s incorporating more telepresence offerings into its product suite, today reported its first quarter results for the period ended... »
The Next Hot e-Reader: The iPhone
Yesterday at the urging of a friend, I ordered “Your Brain at Work” by David Rock on my iPod touch via the Amazon Kindle app. In doing so, I became one of many people who are helping the iPhone become more than just a phone. It’s latest role: e-reader. Book-related apps saw an upsurge... »
Skype, Founders Settlement in the Works
The ongoing legal scuffle between Skype, a division of eBay, and its founders, Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, may soon see a resolution, according to someone familiar with the situation. The parties are in discussions to resolve the various issues. The talks are described to be at a sensitive stage and can break down... »
Sprint’s wireline revenue down, but wholesale VoIP going strong
While Sprint reported wireline revenues of $1.4 billion were down 10 percent year-over-year because of decreases in voice and legacy data services, the IXC’s Internet revenues were up 5 percent due in part to increased wholesale VoIP service demand. Sprint’s third quarter Internet revenues were up 5 percent from the third quarter of 2008 and flat... »
Former AMD CEO Caught in Hedge Fund Scandal
Hector Ruiz, the soft-spoken executive who rose to prominence as the chief executive officer of Advanced Micro Devices, has been named by government prosecutors as a senior executive who allegedly gave inside information in the Galleon hedge fund scandal, according to The Wall Street Journal. An unnamed source told the Journal that Ruiz was... »
Sprint Reports Loss, Again
Zacks.com submits: Sprint Nextel (S) reported third-quarter 2009 results with net loss per share of 17 cents, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 15 cents and the year-ago loss per share of 11 cents. (See earnings call transcript.) The third-largest US wireless carrier posted a net loss of $478 million, 47% more than the net... »
AT&T Q3: Beats Estimates, Activates 3.2 Million iPhones
Larry Dignan (ZDNet) submits: AT&T’s (T) bet on the iPhone continues to work well. The company reported a better-than-expected third quarter, delivered post paid churn of 1.17 percent (a low for AT&T), activated 3.2 million iPhones and boosted data revenue by 33.6 percent. The telecom giant on Thursday delivered net income of $3.2 billion, or... »