Thought Beans Blog

Lively, Google’s newest product, aimed at the social networking market. The users can create an avatar & personal virtual room that can be used on the web. This can be used on a blog, chat profile & others.  With facebook’s rising popularity, Google has been aiming high for the social networking & introduced the Open social platform.  First we have to sign up for the Google account & download a browser plug-in. Then we can create an avatar with customizable hair color, skin & tone. The templates are also available which can be used for the avatars. This is part of Google’s bigger plans of moving into social networking arena.  There is also the option to create the rooms. Rooms can then be added with add ons like music, photos , videos & others. The embeddable code is also available to post it anywhere or the with the URL the user can be sent directly. Myspace, Facebook & other social networking sites have been getting millions of visitors every month & Google’s bread & butter. i.e adwords & adsense can be used extensively  to milk money. Google has been experimenting with various social networking ways to tap into the huge market.  Website can be found at http://www.lively.com/html/landing.html

The Yahoo & Microsoft saga continuos with Microsoft willing to go ahead with partial or a full buyout only if the current board is dismissed. MS has indicated that it would go ahead with Carl about the plans. This Microsoft-Yahoo-AOL-Google & who else is turning out to be the Good, bad & ugly of the internet. Before the Aug 1st Shareholder meeting, Jul 22 earnings is going to be a big thing for the shareholders. Yahoo says Carl is only interested in selling off yahoo to MS & has no real plans for the company.  MS beleives that if the current board is there, it would take many months before the regulatory hurdles are cleared & the board may mismanage the company.  Also the Yahoo’s plans of getting its hands on AOL before Aug 1st may be difficult. It looks like a western classic movie with who will lay their hands on whom.

 It seems InBev has won the PR war on Anheuser-Busch going by the way it is handling the PR matters. InBev is now going one step further with proposing a new set of directors for the company. Some of the names proposed include the decendents of the founder as well. Ever since the InBev details were leaked first on a blog, Anheuser-Busch has been defending itself from takeover. Anheuser-Busch, maker of Budweiser beer was offered $65 a share amounting to $46 billion. However, the offer was rejected by the company. Inbev has been pushing hard for the company.

Nokia will create Symbian Foundation once it acquires the remaining stake in Symbian Ltd, open source model for symbian based phones similar to Google’s Android open source model.  Other partners in Symbian include Siemens, Samsung, Ericsson, LG panasonic & others. This will help Nokia face the increasing competition from Apple’s iphone, Google & RIM. With this the market now is like Symbian, Google’s Android, Windows mobile OS, RIM & Apple iphone. This will help lower the development costs & increase the innovation. The board will have 10 member representation. Nokia has been paying license fees for the symbian OS to use in its mobile phones. This is a good move on the part of Nokia as the competition is hotting up in the mobile sector. As there are many mobile makers in the world bringing all of them under the same platform will help make the spread of technology easier. Millions of phones around the world have been shipped with the Symbian OS. As Nokia is the largest phone manufacturer in the world, symbian would help strengthen its position.

Yahoo has announced that it has entered into a non exclusive agreement with Google to serve ads in its pages for the US & Canadian sites. This is a for a period of 10 years. With Microsoft deciding to shut the door for further negotiation on Yahoo deal, the deal has come at a right time for Yahoo. Will this mark the end of Yahoo or a new beginning for yahoo? The deal will bring millions of dollars over the years to Yahoo. Once the darling of wall Street, the time is going tough for Yahoo. Most of the companies which yahoo bought have not done well except Flickr & the MSFT & Carl Ichan issuses hurt Yahoo where it hurts most. Also there is exodus of top people from Yahoo & Jerry Yang & his team have to prove the wall street that they can monetize better than MSFT deal. Carl IChan is now left holding stock certificates of Yahoo. He has poured billions into Yahoo stocks hoping to cash in on the MSFT- Yahoo deal. Yahoo should come out with new products & focus on its core competency.

Sergey Brin, the Google co-founder, has booked a $5 million seat aborad the Space Adventures’ flight into space. Virginia based Space Adventures which organizes the space trip on Russian Soyuz rockets to the ISS. So for, 5 tourists have been sent to spece by the company since 2001. The company has plans to purchase its own Soyuz rocket by 2011 & Brin will be aborad this spacecraft. $5 Millions also is an investment by Sergey Brin in the company. The space travel also come with its own disadvantages like health problmes for the in experienced ones.  They will have to undergo rigorous training at the Russain center. They will also experience the zero gravity conditions.  Google is working with NASA on many space related issuses like a complex at the NASA-Ames Research Center at Moffett Field & million dollar prize for space probes.

Japanese pharma company Daiichi Sankyo is to acquire majority stake in Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. Malvinder Singh wil continue to be CEO and Managing Director & also the board chairman, once the process will be over.Both companies have announced a binding share purchase & share subscription agreement. The deal would value Ranbaxy at $8.5 billion, making this one of the biggest pharma deals of the Indian company. Post deal which is expected by March, 2009 Ranbaxy would become a subsidiary of the Japanese company. Religare Capital Markets Limited acted as the financial advisor for the ranbaxy labs. This has come as a surprise deal for the Indian Industry. While the rest of Indian corporate world is going on a buying spree abroad, Japanese companies are looking to India for the deals.

Apple has released the 3G iphone & will be available on July 11th in US & other countries. There has been lot of rumors over the 3G iphone & the Apple WWDC event in SF was sold out. Such was the build up that Twitter had made special arrangements to cover the event in case the service goes down. It has a battery life with with 300 hours of standby, 8-10 hours of 2G talk & 5 hours of 3G talk with 7 hours of video. 8GB is retailing at $199 & 16 GB at $299. It weighs 133 gms with Bluetooth 2.0 & wi-fi. Apple’s new MobileMe service will also be launched with the iPhone 2.0 software. It will be launched in most of North America & western Europe by July 11th & rest of the countries later on. This new phone is not available online & will have to be purchased at the store & there is also 2 year contract with AT & T. It is also 2.8x faster than EDGE on the iPhone. With this iphone Apple will be going heads on with other Phone makers.

The Bangalore Internation Airport which has been in the making for the last 10 years is finally set to take off. The project has been delayed by the red tapism, beuracratic set up, infrastructure problems & others is finally taking wings. However, there is still many questions to be answered like jobs for local people, naming of the airport, connectivity problem & others. Also the economy of the area around the present HAL airport will be affected to an extent. The real estate business is already sky rocketting surrounding the new airport. The question for the long term will be with the new international airport,  how will the Bangalore Business district, electronics City & ITPL benefit. Will it help increase the Investment. Also what are the plans & how the present airport will be used.

Bush’s Middle east trip including Isreal, Saudi Arabia & other countries in the middle of high oil prices, global terrorism & other economic problems was expected to be a big one. However, the outcome of the trip was not as expected. The Saudi prince did not approve of Bush’s talk on Oil output changes. Also there is news that Bush attacked Obama’s policy on a foreign soil drawing heavy criticism back home. The question is will the next Democratic or Republican President will be able to exercise the same clout which US had earlier in the middle east. The US influence on the Middle east is at an all time low since the end of cold war. The gas price increase is creating a ripple effect on the global economy. Will the new President be able to play role in middle east. The Iran Nuclear program is also straining the relations.