E-Commerce Times: E-Business Means Business

Tuesday - May 15, 2012

Groupon delivered earnings that pleasantly surprised shareholders. The daily deal provider reported a net loss of $11.7 million, a huge improvement from the $146.5 million it lost a year ago in its first quarter as a private company. It also posted stronger-than-expected revenue for the quarter, at $559.3 million -- an 89 percent increase from the same period a year ago. Despite the net loss, the results are a welcome sign of growth for Groupon, which has been under the gun for shoddy accounting practices, disgruntled participating merchants and disillusioned shareholders. [More...]

Facebook's Future May Still Be in Play

Tuesday - May 15, 2012

Half of Americans believe the social network giant Facebook is just a passing fad, and a similar number believe the expected asking price in its upcoming IPO is too high, according to a new poll. Since the dot-com boom of the 1990s ended with a dot-com bust, many once-dominant players have fallen by the wayside. Will Facebook share their fate? [More...]

Nvidia Deal Puts a New Spin on Patent-Portfolio Acquisition

Tuesday - May 15, 2012

Nvidia and Intellectual Ventures have partnered to buy a set of patents developed and owned by IPWireless. The patent portfolio comprises approximately 500 wireless patents, including in such areas as LTE, LTE-Advanced and 3G/4G technologies. The acquisition is viewed as another sign that the company is getting more serious about diversifying beyond its gamer-friendly graphics cards. [More...]

Federal Cloud Adoption, Part 1: Lots of Baby Steps

Tuesday - May 15, 2012

The U.S. government is learning quickly that achieving the next big thing in information technology depends upon implementing a huge number of little things. For federal IT managers, that big thing is the cloud. Federal agencies have busily pursued cloud solutions since December 2010, when the government adopted its "Cloud First" policy, requiring agencies to give priority consideration to cloud technologies. [More...]

Sapphire Now: It's a Mobile, Social, Cloudy, Collaborative World

Tuesday - May 15, 2012

The Sapphire Now conference kicked off Monday in Orlando, Fla., with 60,000 customers, partners and employees of SAP participating, either at the conference facility or watching it online. The first day of the event offered the usual lineup of celebrity speakers -- corporate and otherwise -- with Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong featured in the morning and SAP Co-CEO Bill McDermott in the afternoon. [More...]

Muddy Road Ahead for Yahoo?

Monday - May 14, 2012

Embattled Yahoo has a new interim chief executive. It announced Sunday that Ross Levinsohn, the company's global media leader, would take over as interim CEO following Scott Thompson's departure. Thompson's exit comes amid controversy over an unearned computer science college degree listed on his resume. Also leaving the company are several board members. [More...]

Cofounder's Renunciation of US Citizenship Unlikely to Hurt Facebook IPO

Monday - May 14, 2012

Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin, a Brazilian native who is currently a resident of Singapore, has given up his U.S. citizenship. The widely-held assumption is that Saverin wanted to escape the tax liability he would assume from the Facebook initial public offering, expected as early as this week, by becoming a citizen of Singapore. [More...]

Facebook Offers Users a Megaphone for Hire

Monday - May 14, 2012

Facebook is testing a new feature that offers to promote users' posts and status updates for a fee. The new service is currently only available in New Zealand. There, Facebook users can pay $2 to "highlight" a post, making it more visible to a greater number of their Facebook contacts. [More...]

PODCAST
Security and the Cloud: The Great Reconciliation

Monday - May 14, 2012

It now falls to CIOs not only to rapidly adapt to cloud computing, but also to find the ways to protect their employees and customers as they adopt cloud models, even as security threats grow. This is a serious -- but not insurmountable -- challenge. Cloud computing has clearly sparked the imagination of business leaders, who see it as a powerful new way to be innovative and gain first-mover advantages. [More...]

ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE REPORT
CRM Conference to Showcase the Retail Experience

Monday - May 14, 2012

CRM Conference is being held May 29 to 31 at the Chicago Hyatt Regency. This annual event offers a unique agenda for retailers, said Devon Wylie, CEO of CRMC. "It's specifically focused on case studies from topnotch multinational retailers. With this approach, attendees can get actionable learnings they can take home with them." [More...]

OPINION
NAD Finds Oracle's Pants on Fire

Saturday - May 12, 2012

It pays to advertise, right? Not necessarily, as Oracle found out when it tangled with IBM recently over advertisements in which Oracle claimed its servers were faster and much less expensive than IBM hardware. Unlike Oracle's headline-grabbing Java copyright and patent infringement suit against Google, Big Blue didn't spend big bucks to take on Oracle in court. [More...]

Dish Offers New Ad-Vanishing DVR Service

Friday - May 11, 2012

Dish Network began offering a new service Thursday that lets users skip all commercials for shows broadcast on major networks when watched the day after the programming first aired. Dubbed "Auto Hop," the feature on Dish Network's digital video recorders allows users to bypass commercials on recorded HD prime-time programs from ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC. [More...]

Under Zuckerberg's Hoodie

Friday - May 11, 2012

The Facebook IPO roadshow -- a crucial time for the company -- is well under way, and the company's CEO has been in the spotlight. It was no doubt expected that Mark Zuckerberg would ditch his trademark hoodie for attire more befitting the circumstances, but no. At the few events Zuckerberg has attended, including the launch event in New York, he has sported the hoodie. [More...]

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