Where's the debt crisis in Silicon Valley? The knock-on effects are all too real, but frozen credit markets have had little direct effect on business operations, aside from possibly scotching the debt-fueled sales of Alltel and Nextel. That's because technology companies are run by paranoid sorts who like to keep large cash reserves, in case some upstart renders their market obsolete. In good times, activist shareholders whinged about their parsimonious habits, but the cash hoarders are now sitting pretty — and could be set for acquisition binges. One company which listened, to its detriment, to shareholders was Microsoft. When Bill...
Oracle continued its buying binge Wednesday, buying Primavera Systems, which makes project-management software. In this case Oracle isn’t buying customers or its way into a new market. It’s buying technology. Who Oracle acquire next? The conventional wisdom about Oracle’s acquisition strategy is that the company is buying so-called maintenance revenue, the deferred payments that are a part of most software sales. While that was arguably the case with some of the company’s earlier purchases, such as PeopleSoft and Seibel, lately Oracle has been buying companies for other reasons, such as gaining expertise in a particular industry. Last week, we wrote...
I admit it – I love using Bankrate.com to find the best savings account rates and to use their online calculators. I’m not the only one, between 3 and 4.5 million Americans use the site every month and that number is growing steadily, up 20% year-over-year. But my love for the site, has not necessarily translated into universal love for the stock on Wall Street - RATE is down about 27% year to date. But Compete data shows that the company has given investors something to smile about. Recently, Bankrate.com announced the acquisition of CreditCardGuide.com for $44 million in total...
Great post by Mark Cahill about how to build more blog readership. He’s got quite a healthy action list that he intends to follow, including adding more calls to discussion to his content, where to build his social traffic, and how to better engage with social platforms. There’s lots more so read the article. On top of what Mark has written about, I’ll add a few more ways to build relationships and grow your audience: Write useful posts that are worthy of social bookmarks (such that people will want to come back to them and refer to them). Bookmarks...
GoAdv, the European online media company listed on Alternext market of Nyse-Euronext Paris, has raised more than €11 million more financing after completing a Convertible Bond Issue with several investors in France. The issue will finance the firm’s acquisition strategy following its acquisition of the Excite Europe network of portals last year. GoAdv now retains more than €20 million cash. The firm had Q1 2008 revenues of over €8.8M. GoAdv started in 2004 after Luca Ascani, President, sold BuyCentral.it to Lycos Europe in 2003. He also sold ADVance, a consulting ad agency to NetBooster Group on April 2007. So he...
