Since launching in August, Belly has signed up 1,400 merchants in eight markets, and is adding an average of 100 more merchants each week. Additionally, it has more than 200,000 active users, who have checked into business more than 800,000 times.

The business draws a little bit from Foursquare, because it requires users to check in to earn points; and also draws a little bit from Groupon, because of its focus on local commerce.

But Jeff Jordan, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, argued that Belly is not at all like Groupon. “It’s the anti-Groupon,” he said. “Groupon is doing lead generation through discounting. … What Belly is trying to do is loyalty.”

The difference, Jordan said, is that Belly doesn’t require merchants to offer discounts to get consumers to come back.

For example, a Chicago comic book store owner is letting shoppers punch him in the stomach; a Washington, D.C., Ben & Jerry shop is giving away a chance to eat ice cream with Jerry after 200 visits; and a barber is handing over the clippers to frequent customers, who will shave off his own beard.

Jordan, the former chairman and CEO of OpenTable and former president of PayPal, said there are four reasons why he was attracted to the start-up:

1. The management team: Founder and CEO Logan LaHive previously worked at Redbox, and before that, Pay By Touch, the biometrics payments company that raised $350 million in capital before failing.
2. Product execution: Jordan said both merchants and customers like the product. Merchants must install an iPad at the register, where consumers can check in to earn points by scanning a bar code from their phone or a loyalty card.
3. DNA of the investors: Before Andreessen Horowitz got involved, LaHive incubated the company in the offices of Lightbank, the VC fund created by Groupon founders in Chicago. Jordan believes that the one who gets to market fastest will win in this market. Belly has that in its DNA.
4. Connected retailers: Once retailers have an iPad in every store, there will be additional opportunities for Belly to roll out other services.

LaHive said the capital will be used to fuel expansion into new markets and to develop new services. To date, the company has raised $13 million.

Belly charges merchants $50 to $100 a month for the service, which includes an iPad, a case and lock for the iPad, marketing materials, and data and analytics to manage their business better.

Belly @ Berry Austin from Bellycard.com on Vimeo.

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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Apple’s App Store is on pace to exceed 10 billion downloads this year alone, which is twice the number it recorded over the three previous years combined.

The Android Market is also setting records. Over the past seven months, it has achieved more than 7 billion downloads, which more than triples its life-to-date downloads of 3 billion reached in May 2011.

At those rates, both operating systems are generating roughly one billion downloads a month, or the equivalent of 33 million a day.

The data was reported by Flurry Analytics, which creates tools that thousands of developers use to track usage of their mobile applications.

Christmas Day was one of the big catalysts for achieving huge end-of-the-year records.

Flurry found that application downloads more than doubled on Christmas compared to the average number of downloads occurring during the first 20 days of December.

On Dec. 25, it registered 242 million app downloads, jumping more than 125 percent over an average day.

In addition, because of its insight into application usage, Flurry is also able to see the number of new devices activated. Phones and tablets are always a hot Christmas item and this year was no exception.

On the average day in December, 1.5 million phones were activated, but on Christmas, 6.8 million were activated, representing a 353 percent spike. Last year, Christmas held the previous single-day record with 2.8 million device activations.

There are three big announcements coming in Benioff’s remarks, and they’re all connected to Chatter, the social enterprise service that Salesforce promoted in a pair of TV ads that aired during the Super Bowl; Chatter will appear as part of the next upgrade to Salesforce.com, called Winter ’12. The whole idea is to deliver a Facebook- or Twitter-like experience that supplants traditional collaboration methods like email and meetings. Salesforce says its clients who use Chatter are seeing email volume decline by 30 percent; meetings decline by 27 percent.

The first is Chatter Now, which will deliver real-time collaboration within Chatter itself. You’ll be able to see if your colleagues are signed in and available in real time — kinda like on AOL instant messenger or Skype — and you’ll be able to chat and share your screen without leaving your Chatter feed.

The second is Chatter Customer Groups. You don’t need to collaborate just internally, but also with people you do business with. You’ll be able to invite people from outside your company into your Chatter network, and can set rules on what they’re allowed to see and do.

Third is Chatter Connect, which is intended to entice software developers to work Chatter into other enterprise applications — many people think this is where the real action is in the social enterprise field. Ask the soon-to-be-public Jive Software, which can add social features to, among other applications, Microsoft Office. There’s also Yammer, which grabs social feeds from any application that has them, including, uh, Chatter. It’s not the newest idea under the sun, but Salesforce is off to a respectable start: Its first conquest is Microsoft’s collaboration software, SharePoint.

Finally, Benioff will talk about mobile devices. He’s a big fan of Apple’s iPad and has regularly talked about its popularity among enterprise customers. And while Salesforce.com has been available as a dedicated app through the iTunes App store for some time now, it’s about to get a lot more flexible through the iPad browser. Salesforce will announce touch.salesforce.com, which it says will bring the power of HTML5 to enterprise applications.

If HTML5 doesn’t mean anything to you, then you missed one of the more significant controversies about Apple’s iOS devices. They don’t support Adobe Flash, because Apple argues that Flash — which is used widely for Web video and animation — is clunky on mobile devices and drains batteries too fast. When it comes to multimedia and rich experiences on the Web, Apple prefers HTML. So touch.salesforce.com will be the place where users of iPads, iPhones and scores of other mobile devices will be able to go and get an experience that’s geared to their device without having to compromise on the Salesforce features they’re accustomed to on their desktops. Additionally, developers will be able to build their own apps, and all 220,000 apps built using Salesforce’s Force.com development platform will work with HTML5, as well.

That’s an awful lot for one CEO to talk about, and Benioff is a busy man. But, as in the past, he’s not too busy to give TV interviews that coincide with the Dreamforce conference. While he’s regularly found on CNBC’s “Mad Money,” on Monday he showed up on Bloomberg West for a chat with Emily Chang.

The highlight comes early in the interview, when Benioff links the Arab Spring — which has been propelled in part by Facebook- and Twitter-using protesters who have toppled a couple of dictators, most notably Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and now apparently Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. Companies are falling, too, Benioff says, but they have a fighting chance to survive if they get a little more social. Get it? Chang, to her credit, doesn’t let this pass without calling it an “extreme analogy.” She then goes on to quiz him about Salesforce landing Groupon as a customer. (And revealing that Groupon CEO Andrew Mason went to Davos. Who knew?)

What else about Salesforce is extreme? Its price-to-earnings ratio is insane, at 602 times trailing earnings; which, of course, leads to the question of whether or not Salesforce is overpriced. Benioff, true to form, dodges the question. It’s all about growing the topline and gaining market share now, he says. No change there. Enjoy the video:

With HP set to report quarterly earnings tomorrow, sources familiar with the matter tell AllThingsD that TouchPad sales are failing yet another critical test: Sales at big-box consumer electronics retailer Best Buy.

According to one source who has seen internal HP reports, Best Buy has taken delivery of 270,000 TouchPads and has so far managed to sell only 25,000, or less than 10 percent of the units in its inventory.

A second person who has seen Best Buy’s TouchPad sales figures confirmed the results as “consistent with what I’ve seen,” and went so far as to say that 25,000 sold might be “charitable.” This source suggested that the 25,000-unit sales number may not account for units that consumers return to stores for a refund.

Best Buy, sources tell us, is so unhappy that it has told HP it is unwilling to pay for all the TouchPads taking up expensive space in its stores and warehouses, and wants HP to take them back. HP, for its part, is pleading with Best Buy to be patient. We’re also told that a senior HP executive, possibly executive VP Todd Bradley, is slated to travel to Minneapolis soon to discuss the matter with Best Buy executives.

These numbers are emerging just one day before HP is set to report quarterly earnings. While it’s possible that HP will choose not to disclose any unit-sales results for the TouchPad — because as yet they’re unlikely to be large enough to be material — if it does report anything on the subject, that will probably be a figure known in industry circles as “channel sales,” which are the number of units sold to stores like Best Buy and Costco. Channel sales don’t reflect sales to end customers, known as “sell-through.”

HP declined to comment, as did Best Buy.

There’s more. TouchPad sales aren’t only failing to catch on at Best Buy, but also at other retailers, including Wal-Mart, Micro Center and Fry’s, says analyst Rich Doherty, head of the Envisioneering Group. Doherty says that spot interviews at stores on both coasts show that HP’s “wildcat pricing moves” on the TouchPad have prompted consumers to wait and see what happens in the next few months.

“After the initial surge of interest after the July release, all those price promotions have caused consumers interested in buying a TouchPad to pause, because they think the price is going to fall further,” Doherty told me.

For the record, the TouchPad costs $399.99 for the 16GB model and $499.99 for the 32GB version. Both started at prices exactly $100 higher when first announced in June.

So what’s HP’s next move? Doherty says that with the back-to-school PC buying season underway, HP will likely use its leverage as one of Best Buy’s top suppliers — the other is Samsung — to offer bundle deals: Buy an HP computer, get the TouchPad for a special price.

The Silicon Valley inventor, who has recently been delivering videogames online with a startup called OnLive, has also been quietly working for more than ten years on the problem of radio interference–the phenomenon that, among other things, slows down data speeds when too many users of mobile devices log on at the same time.

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Terms were not disclosed, but Qualcomm is taking control of certain parts of GestureTek’s business geared toward smartphones, while leaving behind some non-phone-related parts concerned with public displays and digital signage.

The plan is to add GestureTek’s technology to future versions of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors for smartphones, Steve Mollenkopf, a Qualcomm executive vice president, said in a statement.

I hadn’t heard of GestureTek before today, but I did find a video from last year demonstrating its Momo engine. The technology follows the movement of your head or face or hands as part of the user interface, so you can answer a call, play a game or turn a page without having to touch a button or the screen.

The demonstration below, which is about a year old, shows the technology built into a mobile gaming device. I wonder what it would look like on a phone.

The problem: The talent pool isn’t growing nearly that fast.

“The demand is constant,” said Dan Gilmartin, Where’s vice president of marketing. “Every company is looking for these people.”
The intense competition for mobile engineers, which affects large companies and fast-growing start-ups alike, is emerging as a key bottleneck as companies scramble to capitalize on the fast growth of smartphones and other mobile devices.

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That creates an interesting opportunity that the Boston-based startup Apperian has been working on. Companies often have their own custom-made applications that they need to distribute to hundreds or thousands of employees, but they’d rather not do so via the iTunes App Store, where Apple has control and the power to approve all applications. No, instead companies need their own internal App store.

That’s exactly what Apperian has built. It’s called EASE–for Enterprise App Service Environment–and it gives enterprises the ability to create apps that can be distributed and managed and updated throughout a company.

After two years of operation, Apperian will announce today that it has landed a $9.5 million series A led by North Bridge Partners and joined by Bessemer Venture Partners and the Kleiner Perkins iFund, the $200 million fund focused on investments in the iPhone-iPad universe. Apperian is, I’m told, its first enterprise investment. Before this round, the company was funded by about $1.9 million in seed funding from CommonAngels and LaunchCapital. Michael Skok, a partner at North Bridge, and Bob Goodman, a founder partner at Bessemer, will be joining Apperian’s board.

One of its founders and its current Chief Strategy Officer is Chuck Goldman, who spent eight years as the Director of Field Engineering and Professional Services for Apple. His job was helping companies integrate Apple gear–first Macs but then later the iPhone–into their corporate infrastructure. (A 2008 BusinessWeek cover story I worked on focused on Apple’s somewhat reluctant embracing of its newfound popularity within corporations, which has only accelerated since then.)

I talked with Apperian CEO David Patrick yesterday. Initially, the plan was to build apps for corporate customers. “About halfway through we realized there was a huge interest among our customers in building apps internally for specific internal use, especially on the iPad.” That led to EASE, which is essentially a cloud-based platform that allows companies to build, deploy and manage iPad and iPhone applications. Customers can create their own branded app store-like environments.

And there are many customers: Procter and Gamble, Cisco Systems, NetApp, and Estée Lauder among them. All of them, Patrick told me, have built their own internal app stores that authenticate employees and serve up apps that are used for company-specific work without any need to host them in Apple’s public-facing app store. “You can literally push out an application to 5,000 users in a matter of seconds,” Patrick said.

Cisco builds its own internal sales force automation apps, Patrick told me. Cosmetics giant Estée Lauder uses the iPad at its retail counters to help suggest Clinique skin care products to customers. (Apperian also built this app.)

It’s a big turn of events from when the company first started, Patrick said. “We started working on EASE about 15 months ago, and we showed it to companies who asked why they’d ever want it,” he said. “They were providing email and calendar access and that was the extent of their commitment to the iPhone and the iPad. By summer, after the iPad first launched, our phone was ringing off the hook.” CIOs at big companies quickly got iPad religion when all their senior executives and board members walked in the door with iPads. “They could read all the documents on the screen, and it wasn’t long before they wanted their corporate apps, their business intelligence and SAP reports on the iPad too.”

VeriFone makes what are called point-of-sale terminals that stores across the country use to process credit card payments. As part of the potential tie-up with Google, VeriFone’s terminals would be able to accept payments from mobile devices that are embedded with technology called near-field-communication, or NFC, this person said.

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Executives discussing their companies’ plans for managing fleets of smartphones, laptops, tablets and other mobile devices at a technology conference in Palm Desert, Calif. this week said they are either testing or implementing policies for having employees bring their own technology, and then reimbursing them for part or all of the associated costs.

Kevin Summers, the chief information officer at Whirlpool, said that, eventually, the appliance-maker expects 60 percent of such equipment to be employee-owned.

Some, like insurance company USAA, will provide employees with stipends to cover their expenses, with any overages being the employees’ responsibility, while others, like pharmaceutical research company PPDI, will allow employees to charge a portion of their expenses back to the company. Brad Wright, vice president of global communications technology for international engineering firm Jacobs, told Digits during a break at the conference that his firm gave employees a one-time raise to cover the cost of acquiring this equipment.

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Yesterday, BoomTown paid a long overdue visit on the Mountain View, Calif., HQ of Mozilla, the unusual public-private company that makes the Firefox browser, to chat with its (relatively) new CEO Gary Kovacs (pictured here).

There is a lot to talk about with the new exec, especially the near-to-official launch of Firefox 4, the increasing coopetition with Google and its Chrome efforts and where Mozilla goes next (mobile).

Kovacs, in fact, has a deep mobile background, having arrived in the late fall of 2010 to take over from John Lilly, who moved on to a stint as a venture capitalist.

Before Mozilla, Kovacs worked on a range of products at Sybase–until after its purchase by SAP–and also on mobile and devices at Adobe. Before that, he played a key role at Zi Corporation, a company specializing in embedded software and services for mobile and consumer devices.

He’ll need all that expertise if Firefox is to do as well on mobile devices as it has in gaining market share on the desktop, an effort that has been challenged by a continual and intense effort at upgrade and improvement by No. 3 Google especially.

According to a recent poll, for example, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer holds the dominant 56 percent share, with Mozilla’s Firefox at almost 23 percent and Google at just above 10 percent. Apple’s Safari and Opera follow.

Of course, Firefox has been playing nicer with Chrome cousin Android, which is beginning to dominate the smartphone market and is moving aggressively into the tablet arena. In fact, Mozilla just released a new beta in the marketplace for Google’s mobile operating system.

Still, some have fretted as Mozilla delayed its official release of Firefox 4 several times since last fall.

Nonetheless, by dislodging IE from its dominant market position, Firefox has proved not only that open-source projects can provide better software, but that it’s possible for a particularly well done one to become an everyday consumer application.

Despite its success, Mozilla still has to keep up its innovation and technical prowess. But given its unusual status as both a profit and nonprofit, it is hindered in that it is not likely to go public and shower its Silicon Valley employees with giant gobs of overhyped stock.

In the video below, Kovacs talks about Mozilla’s relationship with Google (not easy!), feature improvements in Firefox 4 (a new Chromish user interface!), how to hold onto talent in Silicon Valley (also not easy!) and what it’s like to deal with Apple (definitely not easy!).

Enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110224/video-mozilla-ceo-gary-kovacs-talks-firefox-4-competition-with-googles-chrome-and-more/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20110201/six-questions-for-arm-ceo-tudor-brown/ http://allthingsd.com/20110201/six-questions-for-arm-ceo-tudor-brown/#comments Tue, 01 Feb 2011 19:32:43 +0000 Arik Hesseldahl http://newenterprise.allthingsd.com/?p=2663 British chip technology designer ARM Holdings reported earnings today, and it’s probably no surprise that results were pretty good, given all the news around ARM-based chips announced at the recent Consumer Electronics Show, the most important of which was probably that Microsoft will support ARM chips in its next version of Windows.

Revenue at $179.6 million beat the average estimate of analysts by more than $18 million, and per-share earnings at 14 cents beat the analysts by four cents. Tiernan Ray at Tech Trader Daily has more on the results themselves.

ARM’s business is to license the technology around which numerous chips you probably use every day are built. If you have a wireless phone, chances are there are ARM-based chips in it from any one of a number of vendors: Texas Instruments, Broadcom and Samsung, to name a few, though ARM designs have been known to show up in devices as varied as toys, cars, alarm clocks and remote-control devices.

This morning I chatted with ARM CEO President Tudor Brown about the overwhelming strength of ARM-based chips in the exploding world of mobile devices, and whether that serves as a strategic beachhead to attack the world of PCs and servers, where Intel and its smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices hold sway.

NewEnterprise: Is any one customer responsible for a larger percentage of revenue than another?

Tudor Brown: The nicest thing about ARM’s business model is that our technology is very widely licensed. We’ve got 750 licensees to 200 different companies, and 18 of the top 20 semiconductor companies in the world. Some of those companies you know and are doing well, some of which you don’t know and which aren’t doing well. Our job is not to back winners, but to let them succeed with our technology.

Cleary ARM-based chips dominate mobile, and numerous ones are trying to challenge Apple with their own answers to the the iPad. What are your customers saying about that space?

Computing is changing. We’ve all been used to the PC world for the last 20 to 30 years. But going forward it’s breaking down and fragmenting. The PC will certainly continue, but we think things like smartphones and tablets are a big growth market, and it’s really driven by the demand for more portability. And these represent much bigger markets than the traditional PC market. ARM is obviously well positioned there. Whether the market is going to be about iPhones and iPads or Android phones and Android tablets, in a sense we really don’t care, because almost all of them are running on ARM. There are 300,000 Android activations every day and nearly all of them are on ARM. And so it’s not for us to say whether Android should win over iPhone or anyone else. Our job is to make the technology available and for these product categories to succeed on their own.

ARM has usually been associated with consumer and mobile devices. What other market segments is it in?

ARM has been pushing the consumer market because the business model is well-tuned to high-volume products. Mobile application processors have obviously been very successful in all the smartphones and other mobile devices out there, but we’ve also been successful in the low end with microcontroller chips, and also in the middle with unsexy things like chips that control disk drives and car braking systems and things like that. These add up to a pretty big share of revenue. Mobile products add up to about 62 percent of shipments, but that’s been moving down slightly. Non-mobile products are the other 38 percent. Very gradually we’re seeing these other markets growing faster than the mobile market.

And now there’s been talk of ARM chips in personal computers–Microsoft will support ARM with future versions of Windows–and in even in servers and supercomputers. What’s going on with that?

As we’ve seen the rise in servers and cloud computing in general, its been fundamentally behind the rising popularity of mobile devices which drives an insatiable demand for servers. The problem with servers is the amount of power they’re using. They’re based on very high-powered Intel technology. And so we believe as servers become higher volume that there becomes a need to get the cost down, including the cost of electricity, over time. People are starting to notice that ARM computing performance is going up. We launched the Cortex A15, which is our highest-performing processor to date, and I think you’ll see that some of our partners will be putting it in experimental servers this year or early next year. This switch to servers is going to take a long time. We think over five years we’ll see significant growth in servers.

The conventional wisdom right now is that Intel’s longest-term strategic threat is ARM. Is that fair? Will ARM become the rival camp to Intel and x86?

The two markets have been very separate and so they’ve been coming together. Intel has acknowledged that computing has to go lower-power, and they’ve done some work with the Atom processor. They’re still a long way off in terms of power consumption from where we are today. They’ll get closer, and ARM will move higher up in terms of computing performance. Inevitably there’s going to be a clash. Some thought it would happen in the netbook space, but that fizzled out in my mind. What people wanted was a PC running Windows, not some flavor of Linux, so x86 won out in that space. Now Windows is supporting ARM, and that starts to make new options available in the mobile computing space.

There was a bizarre rumor last year that ARM was being targeted for acquisition by Apple. I didn’t believe it, and most people who understand your business didn’t. But your stock certainly moved on the rumor. What was that about?

At the end of the day, ARM is a public company. If someone wants to buy us, they can make a bid. But we don’t think it makes any sense. If you think about what ARM’s business model is, it’s about supplying everyone with base technology. The moment that is controlled by one company in the ecosystem, it blows away most of the benefits of what the ARM technology is all about. What makes ARM so powerful today is the ecosystem of third-party companies that have grown up around it. All of those companies need to support ARM for it to be successful. The moment you take that away, you destroy that community, so we don’t think it makes any sense at all for one company to take us over. But when a rumor gets out there, it’s hard to go out and say it’s all nonsense.

Update: I updated this post to correct Brown’s title. He is President of ARM, not CEO.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110201/six-questions-for-arm-ceo-tudor-brown/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20100819/intel-to-buy-mcafee-for-7-7-billion/ http://allthingsd.com/20100819/intel-to-buy-mcafee-for-7-7-billion/#comments Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:03:40 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=46740

Intel announced its largest acquisition to date this morning, and it has little to do with the chipset market it has dominated for decades.

The chipmaker said it has agreed to buy antivirus software company McAfee (MFE) in a $7.7 billion acquisition that will expand its security offerings. Under the terms of the deal, Intel will pay $48 a share in cash, a hefty 60 percent premium over McAfee’s Wednesday closing stock price of $29.93. Both companies’ boards have approved the deal, though it still requires approval from McAfee shareholders and regulators.

What does Intel (INTC) want with McAfee, a vendor of oft-maligned antivirus software? To embed some of the company’s security tools directly into Intel chips for “hardware enhanced security.” And secure another, steadier revenue stream, perhaps.

Anyway, the acquisition is Intel’s largest ever, easily surpassing its 1999 takeover of Level One for $2.2 billion. Once it closes, McAfee will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel, reporting to its software and services group.

“With the rapid expansion of growth across a vast array of Internet-connected devices, more and more of the elements of our lives have moved online,” said Intel President and Chief Executive Paul Otellini. “In the past, energy-efficient performance and connectivity have defined computing requirements. Looking forward, security will join those as a third pillar of what people demand from all computing experiences.”

And just like that Intel is a player in the security software and services market.

SANTA CLARA, Calif.–Intel Corporation has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire McAfee, Inc., through the purchase of all of the company’s common stock at $48 per share in cash, for approximately $7.68 billion. Both boards of directors have unanimously approved the deal, which is expected to close after McAfee shareholder approval, regulatory clearances and other customary conditions specified in the agreement.

“We believe this acquisition will result in our ability to deliver a safer, more secure and trusted Internet-enabled device experience.”
The acquisition reflects that security is now a fundamental component of online computing. Today’s security approach does not fully address the billions of new Internet-ready devices connecting, including mobile and wireless devices, TVs, cars, medical devices and ATM machines as well as the accompanying surge in cyber threats. Providing protection to a diverse online world requires a fundamentally new approach involving software, hardware and services.

Inside Intel, the company has elevated the priority of security to be on par with its strategic focus areas in energy-efficient performance and Internet connectivity.

McAfee, which has enjoyed double-digit, year-over-year growth and nearly 80 percent gross margins last year, will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Intel, reporting into Intel’s Software and Services Group. The group is managed by Renée James, Intel senior vice president, and general manager of the group.

“With the rapid expansion of growth across a vast array of Internet-connected devices, more and more of the elements of our lives have moved online,” said Paul Otellini, Intel president and CEO. “In the past, energy-efficient performance and connectivity have defined computing requirements. Looking forward, security will join those as a third pillar of what people demand from all computing experiences.

“The addition of McAfee products and technologies into the Intel computing portfolio brings us incredibly talented people with a track record of delivering security innovations, products and services that the industry and consumers trust to make connecting to the Internet safer and more secure,” Otellini added.

“Hardware-enhanced security will lead to breakthroughs in effectively countering the increasingly sophisticated threats of today and tomorrow,” said James. “This acquisition is consistent with our software and services strategy to deliver an outstanding computing experience in fast-growing business areas, especially around the move to wireless mobility.”

“McAfee is the next step in this strategy, and the right security partner for us,” she added. “Our current work together has impressive prospects, and we look forward to introducing a product from our strategic partnership next year.”

“The cyber threat landscape has changed dramatically over the past few years, with millions of new threats appearing every month,” said Dave DeWalt, president and CEO of McAfee. “We believe this acquisition will result in our ability to deliver a safer, more secure and trusted Internet-enabled device experience.”

McAfee, based in Santa Clara and founded in 1987, is the world’s largest dedicated security technology company with approximately $2 billion in revenue in 2009. With approximately 6,100 employees, McAfee’s products and technologies deliver secure solutions and services to consumers, enterprises and governments around the world and include a strong sales force that works with a variety of customers.

The company has a suite of software-related security solutions, including end-point and networking products and services that are focused on helping to ensure Internet-connected devices and networks are protected from malicious content, phony requests and unsecured transactions and communications. Among others, products include McAfee Total Protection™, McAfee Antivirus, McAfee Internet Security, McAfee Firewall, McAfee IPS as well as an expanding line of products targeting mobile devices such as smartphones.

Intel has made a series of recent and successful software acquisitions to pursue a deliberate strategy focused on leading companies in their industry delivering software that takes advantage of silicon. These include gaming, visual computing, embedded device and machine software and now security.

Home to two of the most innovative labs and research in the high-tech industry, Intel and McAfee will also jointly explore future product concepts to further strengthen security in the cloud network and myriad of computers and devices people use in their everyday lives.

On a GAAP basis, Intel expects the combination to be slightly dilutive to earnings in the first year of operations and approximately flat in the second year. On a non-GAAP basis, excluding a one-time write down of deferred revenue when the transaction closes and amortization of acquired intangibles, Intel expects the combination to be slightly accretive in the first year and improve beyond that.

Intel was advised by Goldman Sachs & Co. and Morrison & Foerster LLP. McAfee was advised by Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc. and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, P.C.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100819/intel-to-buy-mcafee-for-7-7-billion/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100105/google-tries-redialing-click-to-call-again/ http://allthingsd.com/20100105/google-tries-redialing-click-to-call-again/#comments Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:24:22 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=14733 Here’s an interesting side note to GPhone (a.k.a. “Nexus One”) Day–Google is still experimenting with its “click-to-call” program for advertisers on “high-end mobile devices.” Coincidence?

From Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land:

Google sent out notification to its AdWords advertisers that this month “your location-specific business phone number will display alongside your destination url in ads that appear on high-end mobile devices. Users will be able to click-to-call your business just as easily as they click to visit your website. You’ll be charged for clicks to call, same as you are for clicks to visit your website.”

Note that this offer doesn’t appear to be specific to phones running Google’s (GOOG) Android operating system. And it appears to be running in addition to Google’s practice of providing phone numbers in organic search results, which also essentially provide “click to call” options for smartphone users.

In Sterling’s words: “This is a version, effectively, of “pay-per-phone call” but the cost per call is the same as a click–a bargain (generally speaking) for the advertisers to receive a ‘warm lead.’”

Google first started playing around with “click to call” programs for conventional Web search four years ago. In that scenario, you gave Google your phone number (this was designed for landline use, really), and it connected calls to advertisers on your behalf.

Google eventually moved on, since no one seemed to use this option (though you can still see traces of the program here). But connecting mobile users with advertisers ought to be a very lucrative proposition, so no surprise that Google is still chasing after this.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100105/google-tries-redialing-click-to-call-again/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091111/moto-3/ http://allthingsd.com/20091111/moto-3/#comments Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:29:20 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=28741 Got a set-top box fetish and a few billion dollars to blow on it? Then boy, does Motorola have a deal for you. “People familiar with the matter” tell The Wall Street Journal that the company is seeking a buyer for its home and networks mobility division, which makes set-top boxes and other kit for the cable and telecom industry.

With sales of $10.1 billion last year, a third of its total, the home and networks business is among Motorola’s (MOT) largest and most profitable. It also makes Motorola one of the top three set-top box manufacturers in the industry. As such, the division will command a hefty price–roughly $4.5 billion, according to The Journal, which posits private equity firms and other communications gear makers as possible buyers.

No word yet on whether the possibility of selling home and networks emerged after Motorola was unable to spin off its mobile-phone business. The company for its part, insists that such a move is still in the cards.

“Separation into two independent, publicly traded companies (Mobile Devices and Broadband Mobility Solutions, which comprise Enterprise Mobility Solutions and Home and Networks Mobility Solutions) is the publicly stated long-term goal of Motorola,” the company said in a statement. “We remain committed to the separation goal and continue to believe that it is the right strategy to position Motorola for long-term success.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091111/moto-3/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090806/sources-layoffs-at-rhapsody/ http://allthingsd.com/20090806/sources-layoffs-at-rhapsody/#comments Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:01:27 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=22962 The ax is swinging at Rhapsody America. The subscription music service, a joint venture between RealNetworks (RNWK) and Viacom (VIA) subsidiary MTV Networks, is sacking nine percent of its employees, mostly in editorial.

Affected employees were notified this morning, and executives are meeting with remaining staff this afternoon to do damage control.

Slowing consumer and business spending due to the econalypse is the obvious explanation for today’s cuts, though Rhapsody’s struggle to compete with other music services, among them Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes, clearly played a role here as well.

RealNetworks last implemented layoffs in December 2008 when it cut 7.5 percent of its workforce.

UPDATE: A Real spokesperson has confirmed the cuts, noting that the company is “placing greater emphasis on mobile devices and Web platforms and less on editorial and heavy client software.”

Tim Quirk, VP of music programming for Rhapsody, has taken to Twitter to try to drum up some job leads for the folks he just had to let go.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090806/sources-layoffs-at-rhapsody/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090806/sources-layoffs-at-rhapsody-2/ http://allthingsd.com/20090806/sources-layoffs-at-rhapsody-2/#comments Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:01:27 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=22962 The ax is swinging at Rhapsody America. The subscription music service, a joint venture between RealNetworks (RNWK) and Viacom (VIA) subsidiary MTV Networks, is sacking nine percent of its employees, mostly in editorial.

Affected employees were notified this morning, and executives are meeting with remaining staff this afternoon to do damage control.

Slowing consumer and business spending due to the econalypse is the obvious explanation for today’s cuts, though Rhapsody’s struggle to compete with other music services, among them Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes, clearly played a role here as well.

RealNetworks last implemented layoffs in December 2008 when it cut 7.5 percent of its workforce.

UPDATE: A Real spokesperson has confirmed the cuts, noting that the company is “placing greater emphasis on mobile devices and Web platforms and less on editorial and heavy client software.”

Tim Quirk, VP of music programming for Rhapsody, has taken to Twitter to try to drum up some job leads for the folks he just had to let go.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090806/sources-layoffs-at-rhapsody-2/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090330/it%e2%80%99s-not-easy-being-a-green-recharger/ http://allthingsd.com/20090330/it%e2%80%99s-not-easy-being-a-green-recharger/#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:01:53 +0000 Willa Plank http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=9969 My iPhone needs charging every night. Even then, it dies on me by the end of the day, cutting off important conversations. Coming upon solar- and wind-powered portable chargers, I wondered if I found the perfect solution to keeping it going while helping the environment.

How these chargers work is very simple. They take sunlight or wind power to charge their internal batteries, thus able to recharge a cellphone, MP3 player or digital camera through a connector. They are a part of a growing market of products that power up mobile devices on the go.

“For the first time we are seeing innovation,” said Shawn DuBravac, economist and director of research at the Consumer Electronics Association. He said the newest power solutions for portables are in the infancy stage.

I chose the Devotec and the HYmini devices because of their futuristic, sleek looks. The Devotec solar charger, with its cover, can easily fit in a pocket or purse.

I left the Devotec near my windowsill the whole afternoon to catch some rays. The device charged my iPhone, albeit not completely. The most frustrating thing with this device is that I don’t know when it’s done charging. The solar indicator light doesn’t turn off. Also, I don’t know how charged–i.e., quarter- or half-full–the battery is.

The manual says that an hour of sunlight should suffice to start charging. But after speaking with the company, I was told that the battery needed 24 hours of sunlight, equating to a couple of days near a windowsill, for the internal battery to be fully charged.

Read the rest of this post

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090330/it%e2%80%99s-not-easy-being-a-green-recharger/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20081031/sonys-assaultin-battery/ http://allthingsd.com/20081031/sonys-assaultin-battery/#comments Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:00:16 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=7630

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20081031/sonys-assaultin-battery/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20081031/sonys-assaultin-battery-2/ http://allthingsd.com/20081031/sonys-assaultin-battery-2/#comments Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:00:16 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=7630

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20081031/sonys-assaultin-battery-2/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080804/former-qualcomm-coo-hellomoto/ http://allthingsd.com/20080804/former-qualcomm-coo-hellomoto/#comments Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:53:31 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=2946

On the CEO search, we’re making very good progress and I will obviously keep you posted, and when we have something to announce, we will do so accordingly.”

– Motorola CEO Greg Brown, Jul. 31, 2008

When Motorola CEO Greg Brown told investors last Thursday that the company was making progress in hiring a CEO for its mobile division, he wasn’t kidding. This morning the company named former Qualcomm (QCOM) COO Sanjay Jha to the position.

“Sanjay’s technical expertise and industry experience make him ideally suited to lead mobile devices,” board Chairman David Dorman said in a statement.

Great news for Motorola (MOT), which has spent months searching for an executive to run its handset division, with several candidates reportedly refusing the job. With that position finally filled, the company is firmly on track to spin off the division as a separate company in the third quarter next year, as planned.

Then begins the arduous task of reversing the ongoing collapse of the company’s post-Razr phone business and its share price which is down more than 61 percent since Oct. 2006.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080804/former-qualcomm-coo-hellomoto/feed/ 0