Microsoft to buy $12 mln stake in China TV maker
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Microsoft Corp.  has agreed to pay 94 million yuan ($12.3 million) for a stake in Sichuan Changhong Electric Co.  and will form a cooperative alliance with the TV and electrical appliance maker, the Chinese company said on Monday.
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(InfoWorld) - MicrosoftÂ and newly merged Alcatel-LucentÂ have partnered to deliver Internet-based television technology to Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel), the companies said Thursday. But it's not business as usual: the two partners could be headed to court over alleged patent infringements and, depending on the outcome of their dispute, may choose to go their separate ways. SingTel is the second Asian carrier to test Microsoft's IPTV (Internet Protocol television) software, bringing the total number of operators either trialing or commercially deploying the technology to 16. The deal is part of a partnership agreed in 2005 through which Alcatel-Lucent sells the Microsoft IPTV platform to smaller network operators, according to Ed Graczyk, director of marketing in the Microsoft TV unit. "We're selling our platform directly to around three dozen tier-one carriers and partnering with Alcatel-Lucent to sell to the tier-two and tier-three operators," Graczyk said in an interview on the sidelines of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Telecom World conference and exhibition in Hong Kong. The continued scope of that partnership, however, is now as fuzzy as the initial IPTV technology that Microsoft delivered to the first carrier customers of its early adopter program. In November,Â Alcatel filed lawsuits against MicrosoftÂ for several alleged patent infringements. The IPTV patents in question stem from the work of Oracle engineers who had developed fast-forward and rewind features for its video server technology. The patents were sold to a company Alcatel later acquired. Alcatel now maintains that some of the technology developed by the Oracle engineers has resurfaced in Microsoft TV IPTV Edition software as a result of several members of the original development team joining the U.S. software company. Both Alcatel and Lucent had developed IPTV expertise prior to their merger. Together, they now appear keen to stake their own claim. "We can offer carriers choice," John Giere, chief marketing officer at Alcatel-Lucent, said during an interview in Hong Kong. "We can provide the Microsoft solution if that is what carriers want. But with our technology, we can also provide an open system with open interfaces. Many operators don't want to be overly dependent on Microsoft, which offers a proprietary system." Even after forming its partnership with Microsoft in 2005, Alcatel continued to fund its Open Media Platform (OMP), which it acquired from iMagicTV Inc. The technology is deployed by a number of operators including Free in France and Telecom Italia. Another IPTV system in the Alcatel-Lucent camp is the MyViewTV platform developed in conjunction with Spain's TelefÃ³nica SA. Around 400,000 consumers are currently using the company's IPTV systems. The SingTel project is based on a combination of Alcatel-Lucent's services integration system and the Microsoft IPTV platform. It will include testing of broadcast TV and VOD (video on demand), with content featuring high-definition quality picture resolution.
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Rapidly rising Internet star Facebook Inc. has sold a 1.6 percent stake to Microsoft Corp. for $240 million, spurning a competing offer from online search leader Google Inc.
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Technology giant Microsoft Corp   said on Friday that it had offered to acquire Internet  media company Yahoo Inc  for $44.6 billion in cash and  stock.
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Microsoft Corp is talking to Facebook about buying a minority stake in the fast-growing online social network that could value the company at $10 billion or more, the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site on Monday.
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Microsoft Corp. has  agreed to pay 94 million yuan ($12.3 million) for a stake in  Sichuan Changhong Electric Co., a major maker of televisions  and electrical appliances, the Chinese company said on Monday.
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Facebook will sell a $240 million minority stake to Microsoft, which as part of the deal will also expand the advertising services it provides to the social networking phenom, the companies said Wednesday in a statement.The size of the ownership stake Microsoft will take during Facebook&#39;s next round of financing puts Facebook&#39;s valuation at a whopping $15 billion.&#160;Google had reportedly been courting Facebook as well.In addition to the ownership piece, Microsoft will also extend its existing agreement to provide banner ads to Facebook in the U.S. With this deal, Microsoft will become Facebook&#39;s exclusive third-party ad platform as well as provide Facebook ads internationally.Facebook will likely devote the cash influx from its next financing round to bankroll the torrid growth it is expecting in the coming 12 months in usage and headcount.With about 300 employees now, Facebook expects to have about 700 a year from now, its CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg said last week at the&#160;Web 2.0 Summit.Meanwhile, the site is growing its usage at breakneck speed with about 250,000 new users registering every day.Founded in 2004, it currently has about 49 million active users today, up from 12 million in December. More than half of its active members return to the site daily. Some 59 percent of its users are outside the U.S.Earlier Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post reported that Facebook was in the final stages of making a decision on whether to do this deal with Microsoft or Google.For Microsoft, which hasn&#39;t attained as strong a position in online advertising as it had hoped and lags behind Google, landing this deal could be a major win, as long as Facebook proves to be as attractive an advertising vehicle as expected.The Journal reported later on Wednesday that Facebook expects a profit of about $30 million this year, on revenue of $150 million.Google and Yahoo provide ads for Facebook rival MySpace.Still, questions remain about social networking sites&#39; full potential for advertising, since most of their content is largely unregulated and created by millions of individuals, resulting often in material that is vulgar and objectionable.Facebook plans to share more ideas for revving up its advertising business on Nov. 6, at an event in New York to which it has invited what it calls &quot;its closest advertisers.&quot;&quot;As part of [the event], Facebook executives will discuss new approaches for advertising online,&quot; a Facebook spokeswoman said. &quot;We are not sharing any further details.&quot;Facebook, MySpace, and others are also under close scrutiny from law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad because sexual predators use social-networking sites to stalk and victimize people, in particular minors.The Journal first reported Google&#39;s and Microsoft&#39;s pursuit of the Facebook investment a month ago.
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Microsoft Corp.  said on  Wednesday it will buy privately owned Tellme Networks, a voice  recognition technology company, as it promotes the service for  computer users and customer call centers.
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Walt Disney Co. and four Chinese  investment firms are set to take an 11 percent stake in the  National Basketball Association's Chinese subsidiary, The New  York Times reported on Monday.
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DECEMBER 07, 2004 (REUTERS) - China&#39;s largest PC maker, Lenovo Group Ltd., could announce as early as today that it is buying control of IBM&#39;s PC-making business for up to $2 billion, a source familiar with the situation said.
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U.S. retailer Home Depot Inc.  is  preparing to spend $100 million on a majority stake in Chinese  chain HomeWay in a deal that will be unveiled in China this  week, the Financial Times said on Monday.
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SAN FRANCISCO - Rapidly rising Internet star Facebook Inc. has sold a 1.6 percent stake to Microsoft Corp. for $240 million, spurning a competing offer from online search leader Google Inc.
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China's biggest computer maker, Lenovo Group, said today it has acquired a majority stake in International Business Machines Corp.'s personal computer business for $1.25 billion, one of the biggest Chinese overseas acquisitions ever.
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BREAKING NEWS - This afternoon, Microsoft won the apparent battle for an equity stake in social networking applications provider Facebook, making a $240 million equity investment in the company. In exchange, Microsoft will become the exclusive third-party supplier of Facebook's advertising platform.
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Microsoft Corp. is building on its 2002 buy of Danish business application developer Navision A/S with the release Monday of its first major product built on the Navision software suite.
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Walt Disney Co and four Chinese investment firms are set to take an 11 percent stake in the National Basketball Association's Chinese subsidiary, the professional basketball league said on Monday.
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Microsoft Corp.  is in talks to buy privately-held Tellme Networks, a maker of Web-based voice technology, for about $800 million, the Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition on Monday.