10 posts and columns on distributors

U.S. Approves Comcast’s Acquisition of NBC U, but With Conditions

in Enterprise on January 18, 2011 at 12:18 pm PT

Among the hoops through which Comcast will have to jump: Making video once exclusive to Hulu available to competitors and extending more broadband into rural areas.

Voices

Court Says eBay Sales of L'Oréal Samples Breach Trademark

in News on December 9, 2010 at 2:14 pm PT

EBay Inc. may have to change the way it protects L’Oréal SA’s trademarks after Europe’s highest court said Thursday that the cosmetics company can prohibit the sale on the auction site of free samples and products intended for outside Europe. However, the European Court of Justice’s advocate general, Niilo Jaaskinen, in giving his opinion, said eBay could continue to purchase advertising keywords, including L’Oréal trademarks, in order to direct users of Internet search engines to its site.

Boxee: Either Jeff Zucker or Jason Kilar Is Lying About Booting Us Off Hulu

in Media on February 4, 2010 at 2:21 pm PT

Little Boxee, the much hyped Web video service, played a cameo role at today’s Congressional hearings on the Comcast-NBCU deal. And as sometimes happens when Boxee and big media intersect, controversy ensued.

Intel, AMD Announce Dual Core Litigation Settlement

in News on November 12, 2009 at 6:36 am PT

Wow. Intel and AMD’s seemingly endless legal battles have finally ended. The two companies said early Thursday that they have reached a comprehensive agreement that resolves their many antitrust and patent disputes. Under its terms, Intel will pay AMD $1.25 billion and agree to “abide by a set of business practice provisions” presumably crafted to temper its alleged anticompetitive practices.
AMD-INTEL-DUALCORE-SUPPORT

Palm's Pre Inventory Glut

in News on September 30, 2009 at 9:34 am PT

Discussing Palm’s first-quarter results earlier this month, the company’s leadership claimed that “the vast majority of new sales” for the quarter were generated by the Pre. Palm sold some 823,000 handsets during that period with sell-through of 810,000 units, so that’s an impressive feat. But only if the sales we’re talking about here were made to on-the-street consumers. And, according to Town Hall research analyst David Eller, it’s not entirely clear that they were.
PalmCrate

Palm’s Pre Inventory Glut

in News on September 30, 2009 at 9:34 am PT

Discussing Palm’s first-quarter results earlier this month, the company’s leadership claimed that “the vast majority of new sales” for the quarter were generated by the Pre. Palm sold some 823,000 handsets during that period with sell-through of 810,000 units, so that’s an impressive feat. But only if the sales we’re talking about here were made to on-the-street consumers. And, according to Town Hall research analyst David Eller, it’s not entirely clear that they were.
PalmCrate

Think You Own the Book You Bought for Your Kindle? You Don’t, Says Amazon.

in Media on July 17, 2009 at 12:50 pm PT

Buy an e-book for Amazon’s Kindle recently? You might want to check to see if it’s still on your device. Kindle users are complaining that the e-commerce giant has removed titles from their machines this week and given them refunds in their place. What happened? The details are fuzzy, but apparently, a publisher that supplied Amazon with two George Orwell titles has decided that it doesn’t want to sell them via Amazon anymore. So away they went. Have at it, DRM-haters.
1984

TV on the Web: Growing Fast, Still Small

in Media on June 29, 2009 at 6:49 am PT

Hulu and other purveyors of Web TV are going to see a rush of ad dollars over the next few years. But compared to the ad money going to conventional TV, that won’t mean much. A cautionary tale.
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