Internet & Businesss
Google’s Home State Increases Investigations of Digital Crimes
Posted on December 13, 2011 |
By Olga Kharif
California Attorney General Kamala Harris today unveiled a new push to fight technology crimes and identity theft in a state that's home to companies such as Google Inc., Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc.
Comprising 20 investigators and prosecutors, a high-tech unit announced today may be the largest such team in the country and will tackle crimes such as identity theft, child pornography and software piracy, as well as thefts of iPads and other devices made and imported into California, said Shum Preston, a spokesman for the California State Department of Justice. The agency's ECrime unit, formed in August, has filed 20 criminal cases to date and is investigating an additional 24, Preston said in a telephone interview.
More than 1 million Californians become victims of identity theft every year and total losses in the state exceeded $46 million in 2010, according to a department statement.
The ECrime unit will target criminals who ``increasingly use the Internet, smartphones, and other digital devices to victimize people online and offline,'' Harris said in the statement.
Christmas-Tree Lots Push Square Past 1 Million Customer Mark
Posted on December 13, 2011 |
By Danielle Kucera
Christmas-tree farmers like Joe and Kay Gersch helped push Square Inc. past the one-million merchant customer mark in time for the yearend holidays.
Square, the mobile-payments provider created by Twitter Inc. co-founder Jack Dorsey, reached the milestone last week.
Small businesses like Yawn Station Christmas Tree Farm , located in Independence, Louisiana, are crucial to helping Square compete in the market for mobile payments, which may exceed $170 billion by 2015, compared with an estimated $60 billion this year, according to Juniper Research. The company is vying with companies such as EBay Inc.'s PayPal, which has 103 million users and also is encouraging shoppers to use smartphones to buy through its payments network.
Square's technology lets businesses handle payments via Apple Inc.'s iPhone and iPad, as well as devices running on Google Inc.'s Android software. The card reader plugs into the headphone jack of the mobile device and lets merchants swipe customers' credit and debit cards.
The ability to take credit cards has increased sales by about 40 percent at Yawn Station Christmas Tree Farm, Joe Gersch said. ``If everyone came and paid with credit or debit it would save me money, because it would cost me less than I pay in gas to go to the bank and deliver the deposits,'' he said. ``Most of my older customers already knew I only accepted cash or check, so the people that I've already used Square with have been new.''
Square is targeting small businesses that may not be able to afford traditional machinery that handles credit cards, Chief Operating Officer Keith Rabois has said. Gersch, 65, had to buy his first smartphone to operate the card reader. He signed up for the service about three weeks ago after Square called and pitched its service, he said.
Customers who visit Yawn Station sometimes spend the whole day at the farm, picking a tree and chopping it down themselves. Before now, someone without cash would have to drive 20 miles to the nearest automated teller machine before they bought a tree or any of the add-ons the farm offers - wreaths, for instance, or a horse-drawn carriage ride, Gersch said.
The sales will help Yawn Station sell 1,000 to 1,200 trees this season at an average $55 to $60 apiece, more than the 800 it sold last year, Gersch said. ``Customers don't realize I work 365 days a year to provide that tree,'' said Gersch, whose farm has about 7,000 trees. ``We're trying to provide an entire experience when you come here.''
Tibco CEO’s Soiree Draws HP’s Whitman, Valley Revelers
Posted on December 13, 2011 |
(This story was updated to include Ranadive's title in the headline).
By Aaron Ricadela
Meg Whitman, Chad Hurley, Tom Siebel and a passel of Golden State Warriors joined more than 300 other guests crammed in Tibco Software CEO Vivek Ranadive's Atherton, Calif., mansion Saturday night for the executive's annual Christmas bash. Amid the Indian buffet, sushi station and several wet bars deployed around the manse, Whitman took time out to tell me about her long-term plans at Hewlett-Packard, where she's CEO.
Whitman, who took the reins Sept. 22, says she plans to stay at HP for a while. The company needs a CEO who's going to stick around, she says, and she decided when accepting the job that she wouldn't take a future position working for her friend and political ally Mitt Romney, should he win next year's presidential election. Whitman is HP's third CEO in a year and a half; she replaced Leo Apotheker, who lasted less than 11 months after succeeding Mark Hurd.
"I couldn't take it and then leave," says Whitman, who attended with her husband, the neurosurgeon Griffith Harsh.
After losing last year's California gubernatorial election to Jerry Brown, Whitman -- who was CEO of EBay for 10 years until 2008 -- didn't plan on becoming a CEO again, she says. Now, she's taking a pragmatic approach to solving HP's woes, which included several quarters of disappointing sales forecasts under Apotheker and his ill-fated decision to explore a spin-out of HP's PC group.
Other guests at the swanky soiree, staffed by legions of waiters, bartenders and valets, included the Siebel Systems founder, YouTube founder Hurley, SAP Chief Technology Officer Vishal Sikka, and the academic Vivek Wadhwa. Also in attendance were players for the NBA's Golden State Warriors, which Ranadive partly owns.
Ranadive, who runs business software maker Tibco, has also been profiled by the New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell for the way he coached his daughter's school basketball team, which ended up at the national championships. During the party, Ranadive's home basketball court, which sits below his finished basement, became a dance floor for the younger attendees.
Before Zynga, Pincus Thrived as Investor
Posted on December 13, 2011 |
By Douglas MacMillan
As Mark Pincus enters the final days of Zynga's road show, he's aiming to sell investors on the prospects for the social-gaming startup, set to raise $1 billion in an initial public offering later this week.
It's a reversal of roles for Pincus, a finance whiz who once worked as an investment banking analyst and who has, over the past decade-and-a-half, amassed a portfolio of early investments in some of tech's hottest startups.
Pincus is one of the earliest and most consistent backers of social media. Through an acquaintance with Peter Thiel, Pincus got a chance in 2004 to participate in the first outside funding round of Facebook, as I wrote in a profile this week.
According to Thiel, Pincus and Reid Hoffman were the only angel investors who were interested in taking a chance on the startup at the time. Pincus was also an investor in Friendster, the social media pioneer that was quickly overshadowed by MySpace and Facebook. While that bet soured as Friendster fizzled, Pincus may fare better from his stakes in three social-Web up-and-comers: Twitter, Buddy Media and LikeALittle.
A few of the bets placed by Zynga founder have already paid off. Impulse Buy Network, an e-commerce service provider, was acquired in 1999 by Inktomi for about $112 million. Spam blocker Brightmail, another Pincus investment, was bought by Symantec in 2004 for about $300 million.
Other startups he's backed include Napster, Xoom, Seesmic, Grockit, EVDB (later renamed Eventful), Technorati, Feedster, Socialtext, Nanosolar, Mahalo and 360buy.
Pincus is also an avid investor in the public markets, and has described his investing strategy on his blog. "I love investing, especially in public securities where you get an immediate score card of how you're doing," he wrote in 2005. "My reality is that I will always be a macro investor, meaning I invest in big picture themes rather than based on detailed fundamental analysis."
He got in on Google's IPO in 2004, a bet that has netted fivefold returns. In 2005, he recommended buying Amazon.com and shorting eBay, writing, "it seems clear that Amazon should one day be worth more than eBay." Six years later, Amazon's $86 billion market cap is more than double eBay's. Pincus also bragged in 2007 that he sold Yahoo when the stock was trading at $32. It's now trading at less than half that.
Pincus is not one to shy away from sharing investing insights. In late 2002, he called his friend and fellow tech entrepreneur Auren Hoffman, advising him to buy shares of Corio Inc., a little-known software outfit then trading at about 50 cents. Hoffman shrugged off the stock tip, and then watched as Corio shares rose seven-fold over the next year. It was later bought by IBM.
"He's incredibly perceptive financially -- much more so than any tech entrepreneur I know," says Hoffman, who now runs Web analytics firm Rapleaf. "You should always bet on Mark."
Board Turnover Falls Again at Tech Firms, Survey Says
Posted on December 9, 2011 |
By Peter Burrows
After Sarbanes-Oxley became the law of the land in 2002, there was hand-wringing over whether public companies would be able to keep great directors on their boards. In the tech industry, at least, the more pressing issue seems to be getting them to leave.
According to a survey in late November by recruiting firm Spencer Stuart, board turnover at tech firms fell for the third year in a row this year. Only 29 percent of Silicon Valley firms added a new director in 2011, compared to 50 percent in 2008.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. During turbulent economic times, it's best to stick with proven quantities rather than introduce even more change, says study co-author Jonathan Visbal. "Boards have been battening down the hatches to ensure consistency," he says.
Another reason to stick with known quantities is the increasing difficulty in finding the people most CEOs would most like to have on their boards: other CEOs. In recent years, many boards have added by-laws that restrict their CEO from sitting on more than one or two outside boards. In particularly short supply: CEOs who have expertise in digital media, to help companies acclimate to the post-Facebook world.
"Often companies go with younger candidates who may not have much experience, but that's the trade-off they need to make," says Visbal.
As for the directors themselves, it seems the trade-offs are getting easier. For the year, the average number of board meetings fell to 8, from 9.7 two years ago. Yet director pay increased 14 percent, to an average of $251,630. And the pay is far more reliable, since more of it is paid in cold hard cash. The number of companies that gave stock options to directors fell to 60 percent, from 72 percent in 2010. Restricted stock awards were also down, to 58 percent from 65 percent in 2010. While cash retainers fell slightly as well for the year, they're up 78 percent since 2003, says study co-author Nyla Rizk.
The data comes in a year that has had more than its share of corporate governance fiascos. Yahoo fired Carol Bartz without having a successor in place. HP pushed out Leo Apotheker after less than a year on the job, and replaced him with director Meg Whitman. Still, the co-authors say the data does not suggest a decline in the quality of governance in tech.
"Governance has gotten better," says Rizk, who notes that the number of boards that separate the chairman and CEO duties has risen from 45 percent in 2003 to 73 percent.
Since one wouldn't expect a recruiter to bash his potential clients, I asked Paul Hodgson, a researcher with the Corporate Library, a corporate governance advisory firm, if he agreed that the fall in turnover was no cause for concern. He did.
"It's a smart thing to do to stick with people who know the business well -- unless, of course, you have a lousy board," he says.
