TechCrunch VentureBeat | News About Tech, Money and Innovation Google's Groupon Bid Said Rejected (Bloomberg) — Groupon Inc., a Chicago-based Internet-coupon service with more than 35 million users, walked away from an acquisition offer from Google Inc. yesterday, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The proposed acquisition fell through amid hesitation by Groupon's founders, said the person, who requested anonymity because the talks are private. The startup will decide next year whether to sell shares in an initial public offering instead, the person said. The discussions could resume if both sides overcome their differences. Google had offered $6 billion, including incentives that would be paid to the target's managers if performance targets were met, people familiar with the matter had said this week. Groupon would have helped its new owner expand in the $133 billion U.S. local-ad market and lessen its reliance on Internet-search advertising. Google's Biggest Deal Jill Hazelbaker, a spokeswoman for Google, said the company doesn't comment on rumors or speculation.
Capital Markets to Broaden Use of Hosted Software in 2010 by Wal Still-tight budgets and small IT staffs will drive Wall Street firms' preference for renting software rather than buying it.Why It's Important: A small revolution has taken place over the past two years in the way capital markets firms, especially buy-side firms, buy and use software. Rather than purchase and install programs, they've grown increasingly willing to rent applications from the software vendor or a third party and to let someone else host and support it for a monthly subscription fee; users log in and access the software over the Internet. This is variously called "software as a service" (SaaS), "hosted software" or the "application service provider model" (although some say "ASP" is an old-school '90s term), and it changes the game for internal IT departments. Even the largest Wall Street powerhouses are turning to hosted software for non-core functions. Morgan Stanley, for example, uses SaaS for e-mail archiving and certain human resources and sales applications.
Why We Sold TechCrunch To AOL, And Where We Go From Here By now you must have heard the news that AOL has acquired us. Here are videos of the on stage signing of the agreement and an interview with AOL CEO Tim Armstrong immediately afterwards. So how did all this happen? And What happens to TechCrunch now? In May I had a chance to interview Tim on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt: New York. Tim asked me how things were going at TechCrunch. “That’s too bad, he said, we’d love to acquire you but we’d need to know you would stick around.” “Wait. We laughed, and that was the end of any conversations for a while. The truth is I was tired. AOL of course fixes that problem perfectly. The more we spoke with AOL the more we saw a perfect fit. From a product and business standpoint, it’s a perfect fit. But what put things over the top, and what ultimately led us to discontinue discussions with other suitors, was the AOL management team. So at that point we were basically sold. Tim told me that he doesn’t want whatever makes TechCrunch special to go away.
VCs And Super Angels: The War For The Entrepreneur It’s a lot like the Cold War – most of the really interesting fights among startup investors – and there are lots of them – occur behind the scenes. Publicly everyone gets along just great. But declining returns, too much capital and the disruptive force of a new breed of angel investors has created enough tension in the system that some frustrations are beginning to boil over. And in some cases, the gloves are coming off. And entrepreneurs can and do get caught in the cross fire. Until very recently there was an established pecking order with venture capitalists. Today things are much more complicated. But the last several years have seen the rise of the cheap startup. An entire generation of entrepreneurs have stopped thinking about hitting up those top tier VCs as their first step in the startup process. And those angels aren’t shy about trashing the VCs. The VCs, for their part, fight back more quietly. And without those occasional but huge exits, the entire ecosystem can fail.
Nokia in talks with Microsoft to develop Windows Phone handsets? 20 December '10, 09:08am Follow Here’s an interesting rumour to start off your week; according to Eldar Murtazin, the man behind many of the handset leaks you see today, is suggesting that Nokia has started talking with Microsoft over possible ways to expand its operations with the possible development of Windows Phone 7 handsets a very real possibility. Murtazin, writing his weekly op-ed, notes that the two companies met behind closed doors last month, a meeting spearheaded by new leadership teams at Nokia, discussing not only the option to exchange technologies but also roll out an “entire line” of Windows Phone devices. The new devices would carry the Nokia brand, be sold via the same sales channels and retain the characteristics features of Nokia handsets. Keeping a sense of perspective, it’s easy to dismiss the rumours, especially after Nokia categorically ruled out any chances of working with Google and its Android operating system.
What does it mean to become a digital leader? Companies in every industry are looking for answers to this question. They are exploring new business models, developing new user experiences, and experimenting with new channels and platforms—all with the strategic goal of creating significant value in a digitally powered business environment. To get there, most of these companies are pursuing the same laundry list of initiatives. They are reengineering processes and products, investing in technology platforms, and launching efforts to achieve back-office efficiency. For too many companies, these efforts have not translated into enough market impact and growth. Reimagination means reshaping your entire business around the customer or user experience. You can see the difference that HCD makes when you look at a typical company that reimagines its business this way. Human-centered design represents a new way of life for business.
The early days of Techcrunch – Helloform I remember it well: back in June 2005, I sent Michael Arrington an email criticizing his personal blog design. I also remember that design quite well – it really did look like crap. Mike and I had been blogging about similar subjects and exchanging blog post comments. A couple months later, on August 25th, I got a long email from Mike. I’ve spent some time discussing edgeio with you and skirting the idea of you working with us. About three weeks later, I was landing at SFO and moving into what for the 4 following years was called the Techcrunch HQ – or simply Mike’s place. I remember going to bed and Mike being up, writing. These days, Techcrunch is huge – Mike talks about how big it is in his post at Uncrunched. I want Techcrunch to succeed, but I know Techcrunch isn’t the same as it was before. “Did you get any sleep?”