Chart/data courtesy of Forrester Research

I am a bit sleepy and getting ready for our 10th D: All Things Digital conference next week, so you are going to have to read for yourself this short regulatory filing Yahoo just made about its recent deal to sell half of its large stake in China’s Alibaba Group for about $7 billion.

The deets were all reported here earlier, but knock yourself out if you want more:

YHOO-20120524-8K-20120520

The deal marks the unraveling of one of the most celebrated tie-ups between Western and Chinese Internet companies, which gave a boost to Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma in the partnership’s early days but became strained in recent years.

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As AllThingsD reported several days ago they would, Yahoo and Alibaba Group have finally reached an agreement for the Silicon Valley Internet giant to sell back half its stake in the Chinese Web company in a $7 billion deal.

The taxable shares sale agreement, which is now being approved by both boards, is part of a larger and more complex arrangement, which will also include a multibillion-dollar stock buyback by Yahoo and an eventual IPO of Alibaba.

And, perhaps most importantly, it will bring to an end what could be the longest running global cat fight in Internet history, in which the long-time partners have bickered over the terms of their relationship for years now.

It has mostly been over how they could get to the transaction they should be announcing later tonight (or morning in Hong Kong, which it is there now). While it could fall apart at the last minute, that is highly unlikely at this point.

(Update: The Yahoo board has approved the deal unanimously, said sources, so it is done done.)

(Update 2: Yahoo and Alibaba both confirmed the deal in a joint press release, which is below.)

Thus, after many failed attempts to strike a tax-free deal — also involving Yahoo’s Japanese partner, SoftBank — collapsed, the pair have finally settled on a taxable deal, which could net Yahoo upwards of $4 billion.

The transaction values Alibaba at $35 billion and is subject to a number of funding issues that could change the value of the deal.

But here is the overall situation, as I previously reported:

Yahoo is set to sell half of its roughly 40 percent stake in Alibaba, in a taxable deal. The transaction is likely to value that portion of Yahoo’s holdings at about $7 billion — or 20 percent of Alibaba’s $35 billion enterprise valuation. Alibaba is in the midst of raising capital to fund the sale.

After taxes of upward of 35 percent are paid on the long-term gains — remember that Yahoo bought the now-lucrative Alibaba stake for just $1 billion in 2005 — the company will use the funds to buy back its own shares. That stock has been caught in the mid-teens doldrums for quite a while, so this could help boost shares significantly.

A shareholder dividend is also being considered by the Yahoo board, but it is unlikely. It’s also not clear if some of the cash will be held back for acquisitions by Yahoo, sources added, but it is also unlikely.

As part of the deal, sources said, medium-term incentives have been put in place for Alibaba to move forward with a public offering, which sources stressed is without contractual obligation or a time frame. Alibaba execs have already been publicly indicating such a direction recently, but this will put them more firmly on that path.

Although there are no plans to go public as yet, the IPO incentive revolves around several terms, including the right to buy back half the remaining stake, which expires in December of 2015. As I previously reported, Yahoo will be required to sell back half of the 20 percent remaining stake upon IPO and the other half after that if Alibaba goes public in the time frame agreed to.

Lastly, the Alibaba voting rights for both Yahoo and SoftBank are much diminished in the new deal, according to sources, to under 50 percent.

Translation: Alibaba CEO Jack Ma is now in the driver’s seat completely.

Once close, the pair have been wrangling over the large Yahoo ownership, which Ma has been trying to dislodge in a variety of nice and not-so-nice ways. It has resulted in a number of very public disagreements.

That included a nasty back-and-forth over its Alipay unit with now-fired CEO Carol Bartz, threats of takeover of Yahoo with private equity firms and, more recently, making friendly with its just-ousted CEO, Scott Thompson.

Those talks with him in recent weeks, which included a visit to China by Thompson, led to the new deal, which was negotiated primarily between Yahoo’s CFO Tim Morse and legal head Mike Callahan and Ma and Alibaba’s Joe Tsai.

The talks continued even as Thompson was suddenly engulfed in a controversy over a fake computer science degree on his resume that quickly led to his departure from Yahoo.

Ironically, the error was first discovered by activist shareholder Daniel Loeb, who is now voting on the deal as a newly named director of Yahoo, after successfully helping to oust Thompson.

He owns almost 6 percent of Yahoo.

The final decision to approve the deal was in the hands of a very new board of Yahoo, which has been drastically reshaped in recent weeks. It met to decide on the deal this weekend.

While the deal with Alibaba is finally nearing an end, Yahoo’s talks to sell its 33 percent stake in Yahoo! Japan is not part of this agreement. That’s due to what Thompson had called a “valuation gap,” which sources said is still an outstanding issue.

New interim CEO Ross Levinsohn has not been involved in the Alibaba deal in any significant way. But he certainly will benefit from its halo effect, if approved, especially given that it will likely boost Yahoo shares.

It also puts Yahoo in a unique situation, in which it must sink or swim more largely based on the value of its troubled core business.

That could mean a lot of things, including the eventual sale of the company, whose most lucrative asset recently — its Alibaba holding — will matter much less.

As soon as I get the press release, I will post it here, but no one is commenting, despite the inevitable happy ending to this long-running story.

And here’s the press release, finally:

Yahoo! and Alibaba Reach Agreement on Comprehensive Plan for Alibaba Stake Agreement Realizes Significant Value, Immediate Liquidity and Path to Future Monetization

Yahoo! Board Increases Share Repurchase Plan by US$5 Billion

May 20, 2012 — Sunnyvale, California and Hangzhou, China – Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Alibaba Group Holding Limited today announced they have entered into a definitive agreement for a staged and comprehensive value realization plan for Yahoo!’s stake in Alibaba.

The first step is the repurchase by Alibaba of up to one-half of Yahoo!’s stake, or approximately 20% of Alibaba’s fully-diluted shares. The purchase price will be based on a valuation of Alibaba to be established through equity financings that Alibaba intends to undertake to finance the transaction, subject to a floor valuation of approximately US$35 billion. The agreement includes substantial financial incentives for Alibaba to raise the additional equity at a valuation higher than US$35 billion. At the minimum price and assuming the initial repurchase of the full 20% stake, Yahoo! would receive from Alibaba consideration of approximately US$7.1 billion, composed of at least US$6.3 billion in cash proceeds and up to US$800 million in newly-issued Alibaba preferred stock.

The agreement also establishes a framework for Yahoo! to monetize its remaining interest in Alibaba in stages. First, at the time of an initial public offering (IPO) of Alibaba in the future, Alibaba will be required either to repurchase one-quarter of Yahoo!’s current stake at the IPO price or allow Yahoo! to sell those shares in the IPO. Second, following such an IPO, Yahoo! has registration rights and rights to marketing support from Alibaba to enable Yahoo! to dispose of its remaining shares, at times of Yahoo!’s choosing following a customary lock-up period.

This agreement is a result of extensive discussions between the two parties and a comprehensive review of both taxable and tax-efficient alternatives. Yahoo! and Alibaba believe this agreement to be the best path to align incentives and maximize value for shareholders of both companies and it paves the way for Alibaba to achieve future public market liquidity for all of Alibaba’s shareholders. For Yahoo!, the agreement provides for a staged exit over time, balancing near-term liquidity and return of cash to shareholders with the opportunity to participate in future value appreciation of Alibaba.

“Today’s agreement provides clarity for our shareholders on a substantial component of Yahoo!’s value and reaffirms the significance of our relationship with Alibaba,” said Ross Levinsohn, Interim CEO of Yahoo!. “We look forward to continued collaboration with the Alibaba team on business initiatives as we explore joint opportunities for growth and benefit from Alibaba’s future. I want to thank Jack Ma, Joe Tsai and the Alibaba team, as well as Tim Morse, Michael Callahan and our Yahoo! team for their dedication in achieving this successful outcome.”

“This transaction opens a new chapter in our relationship with Yahoo!,” said Jack Ma, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Alibaba Group. “I look forward to working with Ross Levinsohn and the Yahoo! team as Alibaba builds China’s leading e-commerce company. Yahoo!’s global audience reach will provide attractive partnership opportunities for Alibaba to explore markets outside of China. The transaction will establish a balanced ownership structure that enables Alibaba to take our business to the next level as a public company in the future.”

“We look forward to delivering the proceeds of the near-term transaction to our shareholders, and to the further enhancement of value and the additional monetization in the future that this agreement enables,” said Timothy R. Morse, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Yahoo!.

In addition to the share repurchase, the companies have also agreed to amend their existing technology and intellectual property licensing agreement. Among other things, this amendment will result in Yahoo! granting Alibaba a transitional license to continue to operate Yahoo! China under the Yahoo! brand for up to four years, while restrictions on Yahoo!’s ability to make other investments in China will be terminated. Alibaba will make an upfront lump sum royalty payment of US$550 million to Yahoo! and continuing royalty payments for up to four years. In addition, Alibaba will license certain patents to Yahoo!. Upon closing of the repurchase transaction, the Alibaba shareholders’ agreement will be amended so that the parties’ respective rights will be commensurate with the parties’ post-closing level of ownership in Alibaba. Yahoo! will continue to be represented on Alibaba’s board of directors with the right to appoint one of four existing directors.

Yahoo! intends to return substantially all of the after-tax cash proceeds to shareholders following the closing of the transaction. While the form of the return of capital to shareholders has not yet been finalized, Yahoo!’s board has increased Yahoo!’s share buyback authorization by US $5 billion concurrently with this transaction.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions. Alibaba will be required to close the repurchase with respect to at least one-quarter of Yahoo!’s current stake in Alibaba regardless of the amount of financing raised, and up to one-half of Yahoo!’s current stake if it obtains the requisite financing. Alibaba intends to finance the repurchase through a combination of its own cash resources, debt, equity and equity-linked financing. The transaction is expected to close within approximately six months.

UBS Investment Bank acted as lead financial advisor to Yahoo! and Allen & Company LLC and Goldman Sachs & Co. also served as financial advisors. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP acted as lead legal counsel to Yahoo! and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP also acted as legal counsel. Munger, Tolles, & Olson LLP acted as legal counsel to the Yahoo! Board of Directors. Credit Suisse acted as lead financial advisor to Alibaba and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz acted as lead legal counsel to Alibaba. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP acted as counsel to Alibaba on certain financing and Hong Kong legal matters and Fenwick & West LLP acted as counsel to Alibaba on intellectual property matters.

Google, a Silicon Valley giant that built its business on Web services, startled the tech industry last August by saying it would buy the company, a much older, Illinois-based maker of mobile devices and other hardware.

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The move is aimed at helping its smaller operations, such as its mobile, search and e-commerce businesses, gain more independence, analysts said. Over the past year Tencent’s profit growth has slowed as it has sought to spend on a wide array of initiatives to solidify its holdings in areas such as mobile chat and online shopping.

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Yahoo is in the final stages of selling a large chunk of its stake in the Alibaba Group back to the company — in a complex deal that is set to include a multibillion-dollar share buyback to investors of the Silicon Valley Internet giant and an eventual IPO of the Chinese company — according to multiple sources close to the situation.

The deal has yet to be officially approved by the boards of both companies, but sources said it is likely to be, and could be announced as early as Monday.

This all could change, of course, since negotiations between Alibaba and Yahoo have taken place in a variety of ways in recent years, without success and with much acrimony. Talks over a tax-free deal — also involving Yahoo’s Japanese partner, SoftBank — collapsed in February, for example.

But the 324th time is apparently the charm — so here are the details of what looks to be a nearly complete agreement that I have ferreted out thus far from lots of relieved sources familiar with the situation:

Yahoo will sell half of its roughly 40 percent stake in Alibaba, in a taxable deal. The transaction is likely to value that portion of Yahoo’s holdings at about $7 billion — or 20 percent of Alibaba’s $35 billion enterprise valuation. Alibaba is in the midst of raising capital to fund the sale.

After taxes of upward of 35 percent are paid on the long-term gains — remember that Yahoo bought the now-lucrative Alibaba stake for a fraction of that, many years ago — the company will likely use the funds to buy back its own shares. That stock has been caught in the mid-teens doldrums for quite a while.

A shareholder dividend is also being considered. It’s not clear if some of the cash will be held back for acquisitions by Yahoo, sources added, but it is unlikely.

As part of the deal, sources said, incentives have been put in place for Alibaba to move forward with a public offering, which sources stressed is without the contractual obligation or a time frame. Alibaba execs have already been publicly indicating such a direction recently, but this will put them more firmly on that path.

In return, Yahoo has agreed to sell the remaining quarter of its current holdings when that IPO does occur. It would then have an only 10 percent stake of Alibaba, which it could sell at any time after the IPO.

If finally struck, the transaction will finally bring to an end one of the more protracted and disputed relationships in the Internet world.

Once close, the pair have been wrangling over the large Yahoo ownership, which Alibaba CEO Jack Ma has been trying to dislodge in a variety of nice and not-so-nice ways. It has resulted in a number of very public disagreements.

That included a nasty back-and-forth over its Alipay unit with now-fired CEO Carol Bartz, threats of takeover of Yahoo with private equity firms and, more recently, making friendly with its just-ousted CEO, Scott Thompson.

Those talks with him in recent weeks, which included a visit to China by Thompson, led to the new deal, which was negotiated primarily between Yahoo’s CFO Tim Morse and legal head Mike Callahan and Ma and Alibaba’s Joe Tsai.

The talks continued even as Thompson was suddenly engulfed in a controversy over a fake computer science degree on his resume that quickly led to his departure from Yahoo on Sunday.

Ironically, the error was first discovered by activist shareholder Daniel Loeb, who will now vote on the deal as a newly named director of Yahoo, after successfully helping to oust Thompson.

He owns almost 6 percent of Yahoo, and is expected to approve the transaction.

But the final decision to approve the deal will be in the hands of a very new board of Yahoo, which has been drastically reshaped in recent weeks. It is meeting tomorrow and perhaps over the weekend to vote on it.

While the deal with Alibaba looks to be nearing an end, Yahoo’s talks to sell its 33 percent stake in Yahoo Japan is not part of this agreement. That’s due to what Thompson had called a “valuation gap,” which sources said is still an outstanding issue.

New interim CEO Ross Levinsohn has not been involved in the Alibaba deal in any significant way. But he certainly will benefit from its halo effect, if approved, especially given that it will likely boost Yahoo shares.

Next up for Levinsohn, who has just rejiggered Yahoo management again, other sources said, is an effort to settle the patent-infringement lawsuit with Facebook, and also to renegotiate its search deal with Microsoft.

And, oh yes, fix Yahoo’s rocky core-advertising business, which is still in distress and needs a major overhaul to push it back to growth.

But that, as they say, is yet another episode of Yahoo’s ongoing reality show.

UC’s next target is the U.S., where the company released localized Android and iOS versions this past week, and plans to open up a Silicon Valley office later this year. (It has already made inroads into India, where it has 20 percent share and is close to knocking off market leader Opera, execs said.)

UCWeb's Roy Rong and Yu Yongfu visit AllThingsD.

UC Browser is more than a just dumb container for Web sites; in China, the browser includes its own virtual currency accounts, identity system, social network and navigation services. In a way, it’s more like a mobile-only Facebook platform than the pure Chrome or Safari browsers.

Plus, UC browser is quite fast, because the company maintains local data centers from where it compresses Web sites and sends them to phones. Opera Mini and Amazon’s Kindle Fire Silk browser use similar techniques.

Bridging to the U.S. market won’t necessarily be easy, but UC’s design and experience across the spectrum of low- to high-end phones could be instructive.

CEO Yu Yongfu — who’s on a grand tour of Silicon Valley this week — emphasized that while his company started doing all this in 2004, the U.S. smartphone market only launched with the iPhone in 2007.

And beyond that three-year lead, China is supposed to oust the U.S. as the world’s biggest smartphone market this year.

Yu said he thinks he understands how to deal with the limitations of mobile — small screen size, reduced bandwidth, limited input, short battery life and some eight different operating systems — better than just about anyone.

Still, it’s not clear that the pillars of the UC Web strategy — compressing sites to speed up page loads, and bundling in services and shortcuts — will go over well in the U.S. smartphone market, where we have tended to like our browsers to just show Web pages for us, while leaving heavier lifting to dedicated apps.

UC Browser has 200 million active monthly users, with 50 million of them on Android and the rest spread across other platforms. It gets about a quarter of its users from deals to be preinstalled on phones, said CFO Roy Rong.

The new U.S. version of UC Browser for iPhone

Like other browsers, UC receives revenue through search referral agreements (in China, the default is Baidu; in the U.S., it’s Google). The UC app also includes paid links, display ads, and virtual goods sold in the Flash games it licenses for users. It has its own “app store,” and helps users save bookmarks to HTML5 apps on its home screen. It’s almost like a mobile Web OS.

Rong and Yu said they couldn’t think of any examples of Chinese Internet companies with significant usage in the U.S., so they are hoping to blaze that trail.

To get things started, they rented data centers in Los Angeles and Dallas, signed an agreement to bundle Evernote in UC Browser to help it get distribution in China and vice versa (and plan to do so with other apps), and tweaked the browser’s interface to be more spacious and empty.

For whatever reason, people in China seem to prefer more clutter, Rong said.

“China Mobile and Apple both have the will to strengthen cooperation,” Chairman Xi Guohua said, according to Bloomberg. “When there is more specific news, we will disclose it.”

The company reportedly indicated that it is unclear whether a deal will be reached this year. An Apple representative was not immediately available for comment.

However, sources have said that a meeting with China Mobile was among the stops CEO Tim Cook made during a China trip earlier this year.

With roughly two-thirds-of-a-billion users, China Mobile is the biggest carrier in the world, as measured by number of customers. The company’s current 3G network doesn’t work with today’s iPhone, but a next-generation iPhone could well work with China Mobile’s 4G network, which is currently in a few spots.

China Mobile has also applied to offer service in the U.S., Reuters said, but it is unclear how well that bid will be received.

Judge Mark Pierce in the Superior Court of the State of California in Santa Clara County on May 4 approved Apple’s motion to dismiss the suit, which was first filed in February. The order wasn’t previously disclosed.

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According to Proview attorney Xie Xianghui, mediation talks between the two companies are progressing, albeit slowly. “We feel that the attitude of Apple has changed,” Xie told China’s government newswire. “Although they expressed that they were willing to negotiate, they have never taken any action before. But now, they are having conversations with us, and we have begun to consult on the case.”

And, evidently, Apple is looking to close the complaint. Xie says the company has already proposed a sum to end the litigation, though it’s not high enough for Proview. “Right now, there is still a big gap between the two sides on the settlement amount,” he said.

Which isn’t at all surprising. Apple has maintained throughout this battle that it legally owns the iPad mark across Asia, and that Proview is doing nothing more than squeezing it for additional money to use the trademark in China — despite the fact that it has already purchased those rights.

“We bought Proview’s worldwide rights to the iPad trademark in 10 different countries several years ago,” Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet told AllThingsD earlier this year. “Proview refuses to honor their agreement with Apple in China, and a Hong Kong court has sided with Apple in this matter.”

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120507/apple-proview-talking-settlement-in-ipad-trademark-spat/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120507/lenovo-reaches-beyond-pcs/ http://allthingsd.com/20120507/lenovo-reaches-beyond-pcs/#comments Mon, 07 May 2012 14:30:20 +0000 Loretta Chao http://allthingsd.com/?p=204344 Personal-computer maker Lenovo Group Ltd. said Monday that it plans to spend about $800 million on a new base to house the development, production and sale of mobile products as the Chinese company tries to expand beyond its core PC business.

Lenovo, the world’s second-largest PC maker, said in a written statement on Monday that the five-billion-yuan facility, in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, will have several thousand employees, mainly focused on smartphones, tablet computers and other mobile devices for China and global markets.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120507/lenovo-reaches-beyond-pcs/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120505/yahoo-alibaba-working-on-new-taxable-deal/ http://allthingsd.com/20120505/yahoo-alibaba-working-on-new-taxable-deal/#comments Sat, 05 May 2012 19:41:08 +0000 Anupreeta Das and Gina Chon http://allthingsd.com/?p=204070 Yahoo has been working on a new deal to sell a portion of its stake in Alibaba Group back to the Asian company, and a transaction could be completed within weeks, people familiar with the matter said. At the same time, they cautioned, the two parties have failed to strike a deal numerous times in the past, and there is no guarantee a deal will be reached this time.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120505/yahoo-alibaba-working-on-new-taxable-deal/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120430/profits-dont-always-stick-in-chinas-web/ http://allthingsd.com/20120430/profits-dont-always-stick-in-chinas-web/#comments Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:40:51 +0000 Tom Orlik http://allthingsd.com/?p=201360 The only thing growing faster than China’s e-commerce sector seems to be the losses of firms burning cash to gain market share.

Higher incomes, an expanding pool of Internet users and the rise of smartphones mean online retail in China is booming. In 2011, the number of Internet users rose 12 percent to 513 million. E-commerce transaction value jumped 55 percent to 806 billion yuan ($127 billion), according to data from Analysys.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120430/profits-dont-always-stick-in-chinas-web/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120428/despite-crackdowns-sina-still-winning-the-weibo-game/ http://allthingsd.com/20120428/despite-crackdowns-sina-still-winning-the-weibo-game/#comments Sat, 28 Apr 2012 17:23:27 +0000 Loretta Chao and Josh Chin http://allthingsd.com/?p=200984 Chinese microblogging site Sina Weibo may be in the midst of its most aggressive crackdown yet following an explosion of political rumors among users, but it is still beating Tencent in the microblogging race in China, according to a McKinsey & Co. report released this week.

According to the report, social networking is becoming a more important means of communication and information gathering in China, where 36% of PC users said social media sites are their favorite source of content. Chinese users spend an average of 46 minutes per day on social media sites, the report says, while users in the U.S. and Japan spend 37 minutes and seven minutes on the sites per day, respectively.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120428/despite-crackdowns-sina-still-winning-the-weibo-game/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120425/china-escalates-crackdown-on-internet-amid-scandal/ http://allthingsd.com/20120425/china-escalates-crackdown-on-internet-amid-scandal/#comments Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:50:36 +0000 Loretta Chao and Josh Chin http://allthingsd.com/?p=199875 China has stepped up its campaign to clamp down on the Internet, which has emerged as a virtual town square for exchanging information about the Bo Xilai scandal and the nation’s biggest political upheaval in years.

The popular Twitter-like microblogging service Sina Weibo on Tuesday deleted the accounts of several users, including that of Li Delin, a senior editor of the Chinese business magazine Capital Week, whose March 19 post helped fuel rumors of a coup in Beijing. The service announced the move to many of its more than 300 million user accounts, thereby turning it into a public lesson in the consequences of rumor mongering.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120425/china-escalates-crackdown-on-internet-amid-scandal/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120424/baidus-profit-revenue-jump/ http://allthingsd.com/20120424/baidus-profit-revenue-jump/#comments Tue, 24 Apr 2012 22:07:47 +0000 Drew FitzGerald http://allthingsd.com/?p=199742 Baidu Inc.’s first-quarter earnings rose 76 percent as the Chinese Internet search giant’s revenue continued to surge.

Baidu, which generates almost all its revenue from search advertising, has posted double-digit earnings growth over the past year on soaring ad sales. The company has solidified its market-leading position in China after U.S.-based rival Google Inc. shifted its local search traffic to Hong Kong in 2010 following a disagreement with Chinese officials over online censorship.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120424/baidus-profit-revenue-jump/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120424/chinese-official-says-proview-owns-ipad-trademark-not-apple/ http://allthingsd.com/20120424/chinese-official-says-proview-owns-ipad-trademark-not-apple/#comments Tue, 24 Apr 2012 15:14:28 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=199496 Who owns the iPad trademark in China? Apple claims it does. But, evidently, Chinese government officials disagree.

Fu Shuangjian, the vice minister of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), an agency that enforces trade laws in China, said today that Apple gadfly Proview is still the holder of the iPad trademark in the country.

“According to the provisions of China Trademark Law, currently Shenzhen Proview is the legal registrant of the iPad trademark,” Fu told reporters at a news conference in Beijing.

Fu’s remarks are the first the SAIC has made on Apple’s ongoing battle with Proview for ownership of the iPad trademark, and while they certainly won’t determine its outcome, they do suggest that Apple’s chances of winning it in court might not be as good as evidence suggests. And if that’s truly the case, Apple may be better off settling with the opportunistic Proview — as much as the prospect of doing so must chafe.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

RELATED POSTS:

• Apple, Proview Will Try to Talk Out iPad Trademark Tussle
• Apple vs. Proview: We Lawyers Have a Word for Cases Like This, and It Starts With “Cluster”
• Proview’s New PR Attack: Apple Cheated Us Out of the iPad Trademark
• Proview Loses Bid to Ban iPad in Shanghai
• Surprise — Proview’s Ready to Talk Settlement With Apple
• Proview to Apple: You Owe Us $2 Billion
• Take a Look at Some of Apple’s Evidence in Proview iPad Dispute
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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120424/chinese-official-says-proview-owns-ipad-trademark-not-apple/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120423/consolidationville-coming-to-social-games-market-in-2012/ http://allthingsd.com/20120423/consolidationville-coming-to-social-games-market-in-2012/#comments Mon, 23 Apr 2012 23:25:47 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=198688 Even more social game consolidation is coming this year.

And here’s the reason why: There are hundreds of game companies competing on Facebook, and Zynga is single-handedly grabbing 15 percent of all the revenue.

A report published by Digi-Capital, an investment bank focused on videogames, says this year will be a strong one for consolidation, based on the number of discussions it is having with investors and management teams.

The bankers said the catalyst for the consolidation is either lack of revenue, or profitability, or both. The report said that Zynga, Wooga, King, Electronic Arts and Peak Games are all doing well, but as you get further down the list, many others are struggling to gain momentum.

Meanwhile, the leaders in the space — and particularly Zynga — are constantly having to come up with new games to keep their user base engaged, which is good news for companies that have strong games or teams and are looking for a buyer.

In the first quarter of 2012, Digi-Capital reports, 30 deals closed across all game sectors for a total value of $1.7 billion. In particular, casual, social, mobile and massively multiplayer online games were in demand.

In 2011, a total of 113 games transactions took place, for a total value of $3.4 billion.

Zynga, which recently spent $180 million to acquire OMGPOP, said it is looking to purchase more companies — and has the deep pockets to do it. Besides the leading social games company, the report noted that other companies looking acquire or invest are from China and South Korea, and they are specifically interested in social, mobile or other free-to-play games in domestic and international markets.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120423/consolidationville-coming-to-social-games-market-in-2012/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120420/apple-proview-will-try-to-talk-out-ipad-trademark-tussle/ http://allthingsd.com/20120420/apple-proview-will-try-to-talk-out-ipad-trademark-tussle/#comments Fri, 20 Apr 2012 18:08:56 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=198414 Apple’s battle over the iPad trademark in China could be moving toward resolution. That’s the word from the attorney representing Proview, Apple’s antagonist in the spat, who tells IDG that the two companies have agreed to participate in a mediation session.

Meanwhile, the case — a rat’s nest of a dispute over just who owns the rights to the iPad trademark in China — drags on, Proview’s financial situation continues to worsen and Apple’s new iPad continues to be unavailable for purchase in mainland China.

Of course, Proview has said all along that it’s willing to negotiate a settlement. Problem is, Apple may not see the need for one. It contends that it reached an agreement with Proview years ago, when it first purchased the company’s worldwide rights to the iPad trademark in 10 different countries, and it has a fair bit of evidence to back it up.

Apple did not respond to requests for comment.

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• Proview’s New PR Attack: Apple Cheated Us Out of the iPad Trademark
• Proview Loses Bid to Ban iPad in Shanghai
• Surprise — Proview’s Ready to Talk Settlement With Apple
• Proview to Apple: You Owe Us $2 Billion
• Take a Look at Some of Apple’s Evidence in Proview iPad Dispute
• Here’s the Chinese Court Ruling Backing Apple in iPad Trademark Tiff
• Apple: China’s Proview Trying to Weasel Out of iPad Trademark Deal
• All Apple coverage

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120420/apple-proview-will-try-to-talk-out-ipad-trademark-tussle/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120418/eucalyptus-creator-of-roll-your-own-cloud-platform-raises-30-million/ http://allthingsd.com/20120418/eucalyptus-creator-of-roll-your-own-cloud-platform-raises-30-million/#comments Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:08:23 +0000 Arik Hesseldahl http://allthingsd.com/?p=197697 Not everyone wants to run their applications on the public cloud. Their reasons can vary widely. Some companies don’t want the crown jewels of their intellectual property leaving the confines of their own premises. Some just like having things run on a server they can see and touch.

But there’s no denying the attraction of services like Amazon Web Services or Joyent or Rackspace, where you can spin up and configure a new virtual machine within minutes of figuring out that you need it. So, many companies seek to approximate the experience they would get from a public cloud provider on their own internal infrastructure.

It turns out that a start-up I had never heard of before this week is the most widely deployed platform for running these “private clouds,” and it’s not a bad business. Eucalyptus Systems essentially enables the same functionality on your own servers that you would expect from a cloud provider.

Eucalyptus said today that it has raised a $30 million Series C round of venture capital funding led by Institutional Venture Partners. Steve Harrick, general partner at IVP, will join the Eucalyptus board. Existing investors, including Benchmark Capital, BV Capital and New Enterprise Associates, are also in on the round. The funding brings Eucalyptus’ total capital raised to north of $50 million.

The company has an impressive roster of customers: Sony, Intercontinental Hotels, Raytheon, and the athletic-apparel group Puma. There are also several government customers, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, NASA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Defense.

In March, Eucalyptus signed a deal with Amazon to allow customers of both to migrate their workloads between the private and public environments. The point here is to give companies the flexibility they need to run their computing workloads in a mixed environment, or move them back and forth as needed. They could also operate them in tandem.

Key to this is a provision of the deal with Amazon that gives Eucalyptus access to Amazon’s APIs. What that means is that you can run processes on your own servers that are fully compatible with Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3), or its Elastic Compute cloud, known as EC2. “We’ve removed all the hurdles that might have been in the way of moving workloads,” Eucalyptus CEO Marten Mickos told me. The company has similar deals in place with Wipro Infotech in India and CETC32 in China.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120418/eucalyptus-creator-of-roll-your-own-cloud-platform-raises-30-million/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120417/liveblogging-yahoos-q1-earnings-im-so-excited-and-i-just-cant-hide-it/ http://allthingsd.com/20120417/liveblogging-yahoos-q1-earnings-im-so-excited-and-i-just-cant-hide-it/#comments Tue, 17 Apr 2012 21:06:33 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=197426

Yahoo turned in better-than-expected earnings today in its first quarter, and — as usual — I will be liveblogging the call with CEO Scott Thompson.

Yahoo beat Wall Street estimates in its first-quarter earnings report earlier today, with revenues of $1.08 billion and earnings of 23 cents. That’s a gain of 28 percent from a year ago in net earnings and 38 percent per diluted shares.

Earlier:
2:03 pm: We begin with a new investor relations dude, who has replaced Marta Nichols. She is now CEO Scott Thompson’s new chief of staff.

His name is Joon and he seems much more festive than Marta, who was very, very serious.

I could not be more thrilled.

Thompson comes on quickly enough and he is also pretty jaunty.

Yahoo has been “moving very fast” on a range of things. And how — this guy seems to eat Ritalin for breakfast.

But there is still a long way to go, he notes.

“I am not satisfied with the pace of top-line growth,” said Thompson, who added he would not be until Yahoo was keeping up with others like Google, which turned in a much stronger report last week.

He can’t get no satisfaction — but he will!

Thompson said one problem was still its ongoing search and advertising partnership with Microsoft. It’s still rocky in terms of monetization and more.

2:09 pm: But first, it is CFO Tim Morse’s turn to re-read the results that were just released.

I am not actually listening until he gets to the part about Thompson giving more deets soon.

Morse is teeing this up by noting that Yahoo is adding more to its bag of tricks beyond search and display, such as commerce.

This will take investments, which are core to success.

Thompson is back: “This business can and will grow going forward.”

I am holding him to that one!

He starts first by talking about Yahoo’s content business, which remains strong, but he points out the obvious: Engagement is off.

In other words, the kids love Facebook. Also Instagram. Also Tumblr.

That’s why Thompson says he told the staff of Yahoo to rethink it all when he arrived in January.

The conclusion:

“Yahoo has been doing way too much for too long and has only been doing a few thing well.”

As in, jack of all trades, master of none.

“We have to be clearer going forward about what we won’t do,” said Thompson.

2:22 pm: He goes over some specifics.

Shutting down 50 properties — Thompson does not say which, though.

Consolidating platforms.

Dedicating key teams to innovation.

Something else about being nimbler.

Data. Also data. Did I say data?

Research and development only for Yahoo-owned and -operated properties.

That is six points, which will be underscored by better execution.

Thompson has been talking about the “complex processes” that was once called peanut butter by one former exec.

Peanut butter is sticky and that’s the point.

2:26 pm: Oops, when talking about layoffs, Thompson says “PayPal” and not “people.” He used to run the eBay payments unit.

Thompson moves to the board changes — five new members and the jacking of five from previous year.

He then defends his decision to sue Facebook over patent infringement. “Facebook must do the same or change its practices,” he sad.

Thompson adds the company is in “active” talks with its Asian partners, Softbank of Japan and Alibaba of China.

And some news! Talks related to its Japanese assets have a gap in valuation, so Yahoo is focusing on the Chinese ones.

And in summation:

“We don’t have to reinvent who we are, but we do need to reinvent our experiences … We have to move and think like a growth company.”

That would be nice.

2:32 pm: Time for Q&A, in which I like to see exactly how wimpy Wall Street analysts can be in asking tough questions.

The first is asking about some strategery specifics, including whether it can get the cool $1 billion AOL just got from Microsoft.

Thompson talks about the new commerce unit, which will be co-led by someone who worked with him at PayPal. It’s not really new, since Yahoo is in that arena already.

Morse answers on intellectual property issues, noting Yahoo is happy to license its family jewels. Most tech companies use these patents as a defense, but no longer.

The next question is on morale of sales force. I can answer that! Not good!

But Morse says there is progress.

Bygones.

Morse also notes that Yahoo still has search revenue per share guarantee from Microsoft, but that he hopes it will get better before that deal runs out.

Back to Thompson. He wants better results to advertising customers.

He keeps saying “at or above the market rate.” Yahoo’s growth has been lackluster, so this would be a key victory if Thompson could pull it off.

2:39 pm: A question about mobile, which has been one of Yahoo’s most embarrassing holes of all.

Besides Facebook, the kids love those smartphones. You would not know it from Yahoo’s shoddy products.

“We need to get good real fast in mobile … and we’re not there today,” said Thompson. Actually, Yahoo was not there yesterday, either.

Note to Scott: Real fast is a good idea.

There is a question about its advertising platforms, a back-handed way of asking if it is for sale. It is.

Thompson notes that there has been a lot of evaluating, but that “we have not come to a conclusion.”

2:42 pm: A question about its revenues from its Asian assets. China’s Alibaba — which is not run by Yahoo — is doing great.

It’s kind of like being the dude who bought Apple some years ago and is now rich through no effort of his own.

Thompson addresses a question about dividends, which Apple just gave out. Yahoo will be sticking with stock buybacks, so everyone can put away those Porsche catalogs.

I am briefly distracted during some accounting questions by the new Apple ads with Zooey Deschanel. She is so adorkable, it makes me slightly queasy.

Back to Thompson, who is non-answering a question about possible acquisitions. He’s not talking, but I am sure he will be buying if he gets a transaction with Alibaba done finally.

Given the long and convoluted and always aborted deals over the years, this would be cause for much celebration if Thompson pulls it off.

(And, if he does, I pledge to buy him dinner in Boston at the restaurant of his choice!)

2:52 pm: A question of what the heck Thompson actually means when is he talking about using Yahoo’s data.

There are apparently three main places.

Personalization, which is uniquely related content, which gives him a chance to egregiously tout Boston sports teams.

Contextual advertising, which means ads you want.

And data and analysis to advertisers that will help them do a better targeting job. Oh, joy.

A search question, which I have decided to ignore, since I feel search is simply not Yahoo’s business any longer and should be sold off.

But what do I know?

Morse keeps yammering away on “better experiences for our users” by its search team.

Hey, it’s called Google. Then, Bing. And only then, Yahoo.

2:58 pm: Last question, which I missed while I was focusing on search ranting.

And with that, it’s back to the future for Yahoo. Hopefully.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120417/liveblogging-yahoos-q1-earnings-im-so-excited-and-i-just-cant-hide-it/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120413/one-to-watch-tencents-100m-user-strong-weixin-messaging-app/ http://allthingsd.com/20120413/one-to-watch-tencents-100m-user-strong-weixin-messaging-app/#comments Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:39:08 +0000 Liz Gannes http://allthingsd.com/?p=196281 I was researching a feature project when I was introduced to Weixin, a hot Chinese smartphone messaging app that’s probably worth checking out, given its huge adoption in China — a reported 100 million registered users in a bit more than a year.

Weixin is made by Chinese Internet giant Tencent, and it combines a bunch of different app functions from products you may be familiar with, like WhatsApp, Voxer and Skout. It offers individual and group chat with friends with text and voice, as well as flirting features to find people nearby and around the world.

Weixin has a few cute gimmicky features. For example, users can shake their phones and be virtually connected to someone else shaking his or her phone at the same time. I sent out an anonymous “message in a bottle” on the app and virtually immediately got replies from five people who wanted to chat. Unfortunately, I don’t speak Chinese and only one of them spoke English.

“It’s really crazy how few people in the Valley know of this app,” said a Silicon Valley VC who is currently traveling in China.

Tencent’s QQ is China’s dominant instant messaging service and Weixin is compatible with QQ accounts, but the mobile app has attracted more of a “white-collar” or “fancy” user base, according to the Chinese tech blog TechRice. The app is available for iOS, Android, Windows Mobile and Symbian.

I’ll include Weixin in my feature story next week, but thought it was worth flagging for now.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120413/one-to-watch-tencents-100m-user-strong-weixin-messaging-app/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120405/apple-supplier-to-raise-taiwan-wages/ http://allthingsd.com/20120405/apple-supplier-to-raise-taiwan-wages/#comments Thu, 05 Apr 2012 13:30:44 +0000 Lorraine Luk http://allthingsd.com/?p=193423 Apple Inc. supplier Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. plans to raise wages for its employees in Taiwan “significantly” to better attract and retain talent, a company spokesman said Thursday.

Hon Hai, which makes Apple’s iPhones and iPads under contract, has been facing pressure to improve wages and working conditions since several employee suicides at its facility in Shenzen in 2010 and an explosion in Chengdu in 2011 that killed four workers. Following the incidents, Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn, increased salaries in China and outfitted worker dormitories with safety nets.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120405/apple-supplier-to-raise-taiwan-wages/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120331/sina-tencent-shut-down-commenting-on-microblogs/ http://allthingsd.com/20120331/sina-tencent-shut-down-commenting-on-microblogs/#comments Sat, 31 Mar 2012 23:36:05 +0000 Loretta Chao http://allthingsd.com/?p=191849 BEIJING — China mounted a broad Internet crackdown beginning Friday, putting temporary restrictions on popular microblogging services run by Sina Corp. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. and detaining individuals that it accused of spreading rumors of a coup attempt in Beijing.

The moves are among the most dramatic censorship efforts undertaken by Beijing since the rise over the past two years of the popular microblogging services, known in China as weibo. They allow the fast dissemination of information, challenging the central government’s traditional control of the media.

They also show the continuing tensions in China following the March sacking of Bo Xilai, a former Chinese Communist Party star whose ouster as Party chief of the megacity of Chongqing showed cracks in Beijing’s veneer of political unity.

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