Yahoo's top U.S. sites get traffic help from Google search

By Dawn Kawamoto, CNET

YahooHitwise

Such a question is rather important to Yahoo investors, given the Internet search pioneer has given a cold shoulder to Microsoft, which has previously expressed interest in buying Yahoo's search assets. Yahoo, however, rebuffed the offer, noting in its investor presentation that selling its search assets, including its algorithmic search, would:

Jeopardize the Yahoo user experience and make it difficult for Yahoo to maintain search and display volume.

But Heather Hopkins, vice president of research for Hitwise, noted in her blog that Yahoo's valuable sites would not necessarily fair poorly without Yahoo's search engine.

Hopkins took Yahoo's top 20 U.S. Internet properties for the month of June and ranked them, based on user traffic.

As expected, Yahoo Mail represented a 37.5 percent slice of the traffic pie, followed by the main Yahoo site with 30.6 percent and Yahoo search with 12.l percent.

Yahoo Answers showed the disparity the most, with 49 percent of its U.S. traffic coming from Google in June, while only 20 percent was from a Yahoo search.

Hopkins made this observation in her blog:

Whether Yahoo is better kept whole or split up I can't say. What I can say is that the parts of Yahoo are quite valuable and wouldn't necessarily be lost without the search engine.

Wonder if Yahoo has read Hopkins' blog?

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Google Talk Revamped For Apple's iPhone

By Thomas ClaburnInformationWeek

AT&TGoogleGoogleinstant messaging

The new Google Talk is designed specifically to run in Apple's Safari browser on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

In order to accommodate the restrictions that Apple placed on iPhone apps to conserve system resources, this version of Google Talk shuts down if you launch another application.

"[I]n order to receive instant messages with Google Talk on your iPhone, the application needs to be open in your Safari browser," explains Google engineer Adam Connors in a blog post. "When you navigate away to another browser window or application, your status will be changed to 'unavailable' and your Google Talk session will be restarted when you return."

The reason that AT&T grumble about Google Talk, not to mention other IM clients for the iPhone like Meebo's Web-based IM app, is that it could reduce text messaging revenue.

Under AT&T's current iPhone plans, text messaging isn't a major source of revenue. The phone company charges $20 per month for an unlimited data plan that includes 200 text messages.

Because text messages will be billed separately from the $30 per month 3G data plan, iPhone users will have a more obvious incentive to forgo the expense of text messages for instant messages, which don't cost anything beyond the flat data fee.

The impact of IM isn't likely to be immediate because text messaging is easy to use and works across carriers, whereas not all mobile phone users have instant messaging accounts or use compatible IM clients. But sooner or later, iPhone users are likely to realize that paying $1310 per megabyte for text messages isn't such a good deal.

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Nvidia Stock Falls On Lowered Revenue Forecast

By Antone GonsalvesInformationWeek

Nvidia stock fell about 30% to less than $13, as investors showed little confidence in the company following its negative reports.

The dive started late Wednesday when Nvidia lowered its second-quarter sales estimate to between $875 million and $950 million. The forecast was lower than the $1.1 billion expected from analysts polled by Thomson Financial.

Nvidia blamed the lower estimate on a drop in demand and on competitive pressure that forced the company to lower pricing. Nvidia's main rival is Advanced Micro Devices, which makes the ATI line of graphics cards.

In addition, Nvidia said it suffered from a delay in production of its next-generation media communication processor, which is designed specifically for the creation and distribution of digital media.

Also weighing heavily on investors was Nvidia's disclosure that it would take a one-time charge of $150 million to $200 million in the second quarter to cover warranty, repair, return, replacement, and other costs and expenses related to a "weak die/packaging material" in versions of its previous-generation graphics processing units and MCPs used in notebooks.

The problem was related to excessive heat that appeared to be caused by the notebook design, Nvidia chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang said. To correct the problem, the company switched production to a better die/package material and was working with computer makers to develop system management software that would provide better heat management to the GPU.

"Today's high-performance notebooks are highly complex systems with extreme thermal environments," Huang said. "The combination of limited thermal management and frequent power cycling is particularly challenging for complex processors like the GPU."

In the future, Nvidia plans to head off such problems by working more closely with notebook system designers and its chip foundries "to ensure that the GPU and the system are designed collaboratively for the best performance and robustness," Huang said.

Further details would not be available until Nvidia reports quarterly results Aug. 12, the company said.

Competition between Nvidia and AMD is fierce because of the growing importance of graphics, as PC makers offer an increasing number of products focused on video and photos. At the same time, Intel is making its own play in the market by boosting the performance of its integrated graphics processors in chipsets that accompany the company's general-purpose CPUs.

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Adobe's PDF Format Now An International Standard

By Paul McDougallInformationWeek

AdobePortable Document Format publishing

The move follows a recent decision by Adobe to release PDF to the ISO, which will assume responsibility for publishing specifications for the current 1.7 version, and for updating and developing future versions.

"By releasing the full PDF specification for ISO standardization, we are reinforcing our commitment to openness," Adobe chief technology officer Kevin Lynch said in a statement.

"As governments and organizations increasingly request open standards, maintenance of the PDF specification by an external and participatory organization will help continue to drive innovation and expand the rich PDF ecosystem," said Lynch.

Adobe introduced PDF in 1993. Since then, it's been used by millions of consumers and businesses to create and publish documents through Adobe's Acrobat application.

"As an ISO standard, we can ensure that this useful and widely popular format is easily available to all interested stakeholders," ISO secretary-general Alan Bryden said in a statement. "The standard will benefit both software developers and users by encouraging the propagation and dissemination of a common technology."

ISO recognition for PDF could open the door for its use by governments and public agencies that are required to use standardized technologies. It could also ensure that it continues to command significant market share over Microsoft's rival XML Paper Specification.

The ISO recently drew complaints from open source advocates for fast-tracking approval of Microsoft's Office Open XML document format.

The full specification can be purchased from ISO national member institutes for about $360.

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Forget DSL Or Cable, Broadband Users Want Their Fiber

By W. David GardnerInformationWeek

The U.K. market research firm said 4.2 million high-speed Internet users received fiber in the first quarter of 2008 versus 2.5 million who received cable. "It's a significant milestone for fiber-optic broadband," Point Topic CEO Oliver Johnson said in a statement Wednesday. "Where it is available, consumers will take fiber over other broadband technologies."

The report removed all doubts that consumers might decline to install fiber because they think they don't need or want additional bandwidth. The Point Topic report concluded that price is a significant factor in choosing fiber. The fast speeds of fiber also appear to be a factor in subscribers choosing the technology, according to Point Topic.

"If you look at the cost per megabit, then DSL comes in at around $20 per megabit per month taking global averages. Cable does better at roughly $12, but they are both completely eclipsed by fiber where costs can get as low as 50 cents per megabit per month," Johnson said in a statement.

Verizon Communications' FiOS fiber-optic-based service remains the fiber leader in the United States. The company said 1.8 million customers were receiving broadband service over its fiber network at the end of the first quarter.

While the United States holds the lead in fiber installations, China is closing in fast, with fiber adding more subscribers than cable and DSL.

The role of governments in the deployment of broadband technologies also can influence rollouts of different technologies.

"There are problems in the deregulated markets when it comes to major infrastructure investment," said Johnson. "Fiber deployment is expensive, and in the U.S. and Europe there are significant regulatory hurdles to overcome."

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Linspire Chairman Frustrated By Futility Of Desktop Linux, Rebuts Carmony

By Charles BabcockInformationWeek

LinspireLinux

Robertson couldn't disclose the terms of the deal with Xandros, a rival Linux distributor, but said Linspire's Click'N'Run download technology would fit in well with Xandros' own bid to establish Linux on end-user machines. To date, its biggest success has been on the Asus Eee PC, a small notebook with long battery life and a low price tag from Taiwanese laptop maker Asustek Computer. It comes with either Xandros Linux or Windows XP.

"Trying to compete with Microsoft on the desktop has been a futile effort. What the last 20 years has shown is that the Microsoft ecosystem goes far beyond Windows" into thousands of drivers for PC devices and applications to run on end-user machines. For Linux to match that may be impossible, he said.

But next-generation devices, including the Asus Eee PC, smartphones, and other mobile devices may yet prove a lucrative end-user market for Linux. "Linux has to look at new markets," he said.

Robertson also addressed former Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony's call for a stockholders meeting after the sale to consider distribution of Linspire assets. Many Linspire employees bought stock in the company through stock options, Robertson said. Carmony claims there are still 100 such stockholders in existence. Robertson said Linspire assets resulting from the sale will be divided among stockholders, as with any other company sale.

But he also warned that Linspire's preferred stockholders were at the head of the line, having provided the money that financed the startup of Linspire. Carmony and other purchasers are not holders of preferred Linspire stock, he said. He had no comment on why Carmony left the company July 31, 2007, other than to note he had "resigned abruptly."

Carmony has called for a stockholders meeting, but Robertson said Delaware law, under which Linspire was chartered, only requires a majority of the stockholders to approve the sale, not a public meeting on the sale or a higher-than-majority vote in favor of selling. No stockholders meeting is in the works, he said.

Linspire once went by the name Lindows and has existed as a company for six to seven years. Its 10-person engineering staff is still located in Linspire's former San Diego offices and will remain there as part of Xandros, said Robertson.

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IDC Report Sees Steady Growth for BI, Pent-Up Demand for Analytics

By Doug HenschenIntelligent Enterprise

business analysts

Another technology seeing increased demand is text mining, says Vesset, with applications blossoming in areas such as voice-of-the-customer analysis. Vendors including Business Objects, SAS and SPSS have responded with recent acquisitions and product releases aimed at combining text mining and data mining techniques. "The two camps of structured and unstructured data analysis remain very separate," says Vesset. "It's important for vendors to respond because if the products aren't there, it makes it harder for practitioners to invest in the technology."

Predicting steady demand, IDC's report concludes that "although the worldwide economy is experiencing a slowdown that is affecting overall IT spending, IDC does not expect a slowdown in the BI tools market similar to that of 2001-2003 [when growth slowed to the 2- to 7-percent range]."

Vesset says IDC has lowered its short-term forecasts "just a bit" in recent months, but he adds that the mainstreaming trend and the emergence of a new generation of BI-savvy business leaders will encourage long-term growth. "Babson, Bentley, Boston University, MIT and North Carolina State are just a few examples of schools that have been offering coursework and programs specifically around BI," he explains. And as these new leaders rise in the corporate ranks, "it signals an opportunity to ask for funding for the BI initiatives that may have been denied in the past."

An excerpted version of IDC's "Worldwide Business Intelligence Tools 2007 Vendor Shares" report covering top-five vendors Business Objects, an SAP Company, Cognos, an IBM Company, Oracle, Microsoft and SAS is available at no charge (and with no registration required) courtesy of SAS click here. The complete 20-page report available from IDC (for $3,500) also covers MicroStrategy, SPSS, Information Builders, Actuate, QlikTech, Panorama Software, IBM, Visual Numerics and TIBCO. IDC figures show that the top-ten vendors now control nearly 70 percent of the market, but Vesset says there are "dozens and dozens of smaller vendors that are doing interesting things, and the innovation is likely to come from these companies."

Business leaders are gaining influence in BI purchase decisions, the advanced analytics market is showing signs of pent-up demand, and text-mining is becoming a core capability. These are three of the most notable conclusions of IDC's latest annual business intelligence software sales report, released late last month. Despite gloomy economic news in recent months, the report forecasts continued growth in BI software sales.

IDC's report, "Worldwide Business Intelligence Tools 2007 Vendor Shares," concludes that the total BI market grew 12.1 percent last year to reach $7.05 billion. The performance marked a third straight year of 12-percent growth, and according to report co-author Dan Vesset, "the biggest point is that BI is starting to get to the mass market."

Pointing to recent IDC qualitative research on "Best Practices in Pervasive BI," the analyst reports increasing line-of-business and corporate executive influence over BI purchase decisions. "One leading indicator of new BI projects these days is executive turnover," Vesset explains. "When new regimes come in, there are usually requests for more information, and for better and faster access to that information."
Mainstream demand is also being fueled by a growing body of popular business literature on BI, says Vesset. "Whether it's the "Harvard Business Review" or "The Wall Street Journal" or books, such as Tom Davenport's Competing on Analytics or Ian Ayres' Super Crunchers, there are many sources that are now calling attention to BI."

Worldwide BI Query, Analysis and Reporting Tools Revenue 2007
(click image for larger view)


IDC breaks the total BI market into two segments. The "BI Query, Reporting and Analysis Tools" segment grew 11.9 percent to reach nearly $5.7 billion in sales in 2007, IDC reports. Microsoft and SAS, the fourth- and fifth-largest vendors in this segment, had the fastest growth among the top-five vendors at 15.4 percent and 18.3 percent, respectively (see Worldwide BI Revenue chart at right).

Worldwide Advanced Analytics Tools Revenue 2007
(click image for larger view)


The "Advanced Analytics Tools" segment grew at a slightly faster pace of 13.1 percent to reach nearly $1.4 billion in 2007, according IDC. SAS continued to dominate the segment with 32 percent of the market, but SPSS and Microsoft, the second- and fourth-largest vendors, had the fastest growth among the top-five vendors at 17.8 percent and 20.0 percent, respectively (see Advanced Analytics chart at left).

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