September, 2009
RIM’s Balsillie Loses Bid To Buy Bankrupt Hockey Team
Posted on September 30, 2009 |
Blackberry billionaire James Balsillie has lost his fight for control of the bankrupt Phoenix Coyotes hockey team, about which I wrote last month. An Arizona bankruptcy judge today rejected both of two competing bids for the team, one by Balsillie, co-CEO of Canadian wireless giant Research In Motion and one by the National Hockey League.
As Canada's National Post reported today, the bankruptcy judge, Redfield T. Baum, said he rejected a $212.5 million bid by Balsillie's PSE Sports to take control of the team and to move it to Hamilton, Ontario against the wishes of the league. Baum rejected Balsillie's bid "with prejudice" saying that the interests of the league could not be adequately protected.
Baum also rejected a smaller $140 million bid by the NHL without prejudice saying that the league could "probably cure the defect in its bid."
This is the third time that Balsillie, a avowed hockey fanatic, has sought to buy an NHL team. The first was the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2006, and the second was a move on the Nashville Predators in 2007. Balsillie walked away from both deals late in the process.
The decision effectively slams the door on any further hope that Balsillie had in winning the drawn-out legal fight for control of the team. But you can bet it's not the last time he tries. As he told me in August: "It's no secret that there are other financially troubled teams out there ... And I've certainly been approached by other owners."
Boucher’s Net Neutrality Effort Could Eclipse the Markey Bill
Posted on September 30, 2009 |
The Federal Communications Commission is moving aggressively--or as aggressively as the ponderous FCC can move--to implement Chairman Julius Genachowski's proposals to expand and codify network neutrality rules. But the commission faces a potentially huge challenge: Any enforcement action it takes under the new rules is almost certain to be challenged in court, and the FCC's legal track record on on efforts to regulate data services has been dismal.
The best answer, of course, would be for Congress to give the FCC the authority to enforce neutrality rules. Representative Rick Boucher (D-Va.), chair of the House subcommitte on technology, communications, and the Internet, seems to be ready to step to the plate.
AdSense Oddity: Gizmodo Burial Urns
Posted on September 30, 2009 |
Google AdSense is the service that puts "Ads by Google" display advertisements on many Web pages. It usually does a pretty good job of serving ads relevant to the content of the page--and sometimes it does a little too well.
Today, while reading the RSS feed of Gizmodo in Google Reader, I came across a curious item about a man whose family had placed his ashes inside the case of an old Sun Microsystems SPARCstation. Sure enough, beneath the item was an ad for Shine On Brightly cremation urns, plus offers for discount cremation, a San Francisco Bay ash-scattering service, and a company that will place your cremated remains in an artificial reef off Miami. Who knew? (You can see the Gizmodo item here, but with much duller, non-AdSense ads.
Cable: Not Impacted by Net Neutrality?
Posted on September 30, 2009 |
Ever since the Federal Communications Commission ruled last year that Comcast had no right to slow down certain applications, such as file-sharing service BitTorrent, running over its network, the impact of the ruling has been subject of much debate. But has there been much of an impact?
Comcast's results are still robust: The company's second-quarter revenues rose 4.5%, and earnings per share climbed 57.1% year over year. Back in the same quarter of 2008, Comcast's sales and earnings both increased 11%. Even more stringent regulation proposed by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on Sept. 21 is unlikely to have much financial impact on the cable industry, according to recent reports from Oppenheimer & Co.'s Tim Horan and Hudson Square Research's Todd Rethemeier.
The analysts point out that most cable companies abide by the FCC's proposed rules already. And when forced by regulators to cater to bandwidth-hogging services users, broadband providers can simply charge these heavy users higher fees. The industry has already implemented tiered pricing, in which people who want higher-speed access have to pay more for it. It's also been experimenting with metered pricing, in which people's monthly fees are directly tied to how much network capacity they use up. While metered pricing hasn't found favor with consumers, cable companies could still go for it, and mitigate any negative impact from additional regulation.
Windows 7 compatibility sticker, but not for Netbooks?
Posted on September 30, 2009 |
(Atom Netbooks not included)
(Credit: Microsoft(Note: please see our updated correction on this story.)
Now here's an oddity: Microsoft's "Windows 7 compatible" sticker that will be affixed to nearly all Windows computers around Windows 7 launch doesn't seem to include current Atom Netbooks.
The reasoning, according
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