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Cleaning House Before Its IPO Will Cost AOL $200 Million And Up To 1,000 Jobs

November 13, 2009 by Steven R. Gerbsman

As AOL prepares to spin off from Time Warner in an IPO, it wants to gussy itself up so that it looks as appealing as possible tp ublic investors. Today, AOL disclosed that it plans yet another restructuring which could cost as much as $200 million. The biggest cost savings from any restructuring is usually through layoffs, and the latest round has already started at AOL, with 100 let go this week and as many as 1,000 of its 6,000 jobs at risk of being eliminated.

Despite new leadership under CEO Tim Armstrong, AOL has yet to turn around financially.  Last quarter, revenues sank 23 percent to $777 million.  The biggest drop came from subscription revenues to its legacy Internet access business, down 29 percent, but advertising revenues also took a hit, down 18 percent.  AOL depends on display advertising, which has not yet rebounded like search advertising appears to be doing.

By cleaning up house and removing as many costs as possible before the IPO, Armstrong is trying to make AOL as lean as possible. But eliminating salaries and benefits can only go so far. He has to show that his new content strategy can create actual growth as well.

Article @TechCrunch

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, boic, Economy, Gerbsman Partners, Intellectual capital, IPO news, Market research, Technology, Venture Capital | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

HP acquires 3Com

November 12, 2009 by Steven R. Gerbsman

Oracle, Dell, Xerox and now HP – the high tech world as we knew it is changing fast. Companies that previously stood their ground and was seen as pillars of innovation are know swallowed into mega-companies that will challenge the marketplace with new services, products and offerings. Here is some selected tidbits from BusinessWeek in regards to the deal.

“Through its acquisition of networking gear maker 3Com, Hewlett-Packard will accelerate competition with Cisco Systems (CSCO), especially in China, practically overnight. Then comes the hard part. To make the most of the $2.7 billion deal, HP also needs to revitalize 3Com’s faded brand and persuade Western companies to take a chance on its products, designed largely in Asia.

Analysts were quick to see the logic in the planned acquisition, announced on Nov. 11. HP (HPQ) is attacking Cisco’s dominance of the market for gear that connects computers just as Cisco moves more aggressively into the market for computer systems, where HP is strong. Cisco on Nov. 3 struck a partnership with storage company EMC (EMC) and software company VMware (VMW) aimed atsupplying bundles of computers, storage, networking, and software.”

The article continues…

“HP’s bigger challenge in making the deal a success will be removing the tarnish that remains on the 3Com ‘s brand in the U.S. and Europe as a result of years of mismanagement. While 3Com’s data-center networking gear has about 35% of the Chinese market, it’s practically absent from the largest companies in the U.S. and Europe, analysts say.”

Read the full article here.

Other good resources for this topic include: Barrons, WSJ, 24/7 Wall St., Mashable & Techcrunch.

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Business models, BusinessWeek, Economy, Gerbsman Partners, Intellectual capital, Investments, Java, Market research, Strategy, Sun Microsystems, Technology, Venture Capital | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Veterans Day 2009 – Thank You for your service

November 11, 2009 by Steven R. Gerbsman

Veterans Day – 2009 – “Freedom is not FREE”

On this Veterans Day- please say “thank you” to a veteran and stop an active duty soldier and say “thank you for your service”.

Also, please support American Legion Post 911 “Serving Generations of Heroes” and more specifically returning Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans.

http://www.legionpost911.org/alp911/home.html

May God Bless and Protect our service men and woman in harms way and give them the courage and support in performing their duty.

Freedom is NOT FREE – and we must never, ever, ever forget that.

Please salute these soldiers and their commitment to duty, honor and country.

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Unemployment Skyrockets: “U.S. now beating European unemployment rates”

November 11, 2009 by Robert Tillman

Here is some news from OpenMarket.org.

“Unemployment is now higher in the U.S. than in Europe,  reports the Washington Post.  “The official U.S. unemployment rate, reported last Friday, now stands at 10.2 percent,” compared to “9.7 percent” in Europe.   This is the highest rate inmore than 26 years, and marks a huge change from the recent past, in which unemployment was double the American rate in much of Europe.

Unemployment is at 10 percent in France, whichrefused to adopt a U.S.-style stimulus package, and only 7.6 percent in Germany, which adopted a stimulus package that was smaller relative to its economy than ours was.  (Countries that refusedto adopt big stimulus packages have fared better than those that imitated President Obama. And the biggest-spending countries have suffered worst in the recession.)

A “broader measure of U.S. unemployment,” including discouraged workers, puts U.S. unemployment at 17.5 percent, reports the New York Times.

As the Post notes, “For many on the left, the lament for years has been: Why can’t America be more like Europe? Why can’t rustic Americans be more like sophisticated Europeans? The sentiment has resurfaced in recent months as the health-care debate has raged on — why can’t the American health-care system be more like Europe’s?”

Well, America is now more like Europe when it comes to unemployment.  But not when it comes to social benefits and protections.  The American Left knows how to import Europe’s failures, but not its successes.

The massive health-care bill passed by the House on Saturday is a classic example.  It would expand health care coverage somewhat, but not to European levels, and it would vastly increase the costs of our health care system, rather than reducing it to European levels.   It would also increase taxes to “European levels of taxation.”  The health care bill contains politically-correct provisions that Europeans would never put up with, like pork for trial lawyers and racial preferences.  And restrictions on national competition in health insurance, which do not exist in Europe.”

Read the full article here.

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E.U. challenge to Oracle/Sun deal a bad omen for M&A

November 10, 2009 by Steven R. Gerbsman

We all know that mergers are not easy. Here is some news in regards to the Oracle/ Sun merger from Daily Finance.

“As expected, the E.U. raised objections to the Oracle (ORCL) buyout of Sun (JAVA) at about the same time that the Department of Justice approved the deal. The E.U.’s objection is based on the large market share that the two tech companies would have in the MySQL software business.

European authorities have been deviling American companies for years. In 2001 they killed the GE (GE) deal to purchase Honeywell (HON), which would have been the crowning achievement of Jack Welch’s tenure at the world’s largest conglomerate. The E.U. has troubled Microsoft (MSFT) and Intel (INTC) over antitrust concerns, and now it has brought up similar issues with Oracle’s plans.

The aggressive stance of the Europeans could threaten other deals in the works, starting with the planned joint venture in the search industry betweenYahoo! (YHOO) and Microsoft. Action on the merger could bring Google’s (GOOG) huge market share in the search industry under scrutiny. Even the Kraft (KFT) deal with Cadbury might be aggressively reviewed — if it ever happens. That transaction would give Kraft a huge portion of the gum and chocolate businesses in Europe.”

Read the full article here.

 

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Business models, Distressed Intellectual Property, Economy, Gerbsman Partners, Intellectual capital, Investments, Java, Strategy, Sun Microsystems, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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