Dell and Google Anounce Partnership

Google Strikes Deal With Dell

reprinted from Wall Street Journal

Google Inc. and Dell Inc. have reached an agreement to install Google software on millions of Dell personal computers before they are shipped to users, said Google's Chief Executive Eric Schmidt.

Under a roughly three-year pact, Google, of Mountain View, Calif., would pay Dell to have its desktop software for searching the content of a user's hard drive and emails, and a Web browser search toolbar installed on the computers, according to people in the industry familiar with the matter. Dell would also set the default search engine for users to Google's offering, one of the sources said. Financial terms are not expected to be disclosed. Talks between Google and Dell were first reported in The Wall Street Journal in February.

PC Makers Team Up With Microsoft's Rivals
02/07/06The agreement would help circumvent some of Google's sticking points with Microsoft Corp.'s new Web browser to be released this year. The Web search company has complained that Microsoft is making it too difficult for users to change the default setting away from Microsoft's search engine. The Justice Department earlier this month said that Google's concerns were not founded.

By expanding its placement on PCs, Google will instantly gain a spot in front of millions of consumers, who industry analysts say are far more likely to use software and access Internet services if they are pre-loaded on PCs. People familiar with Google's thinking have said the deal with Dell wasn't designed exclusively to strike back at Microsoft, but rather to increase use of Google's services. Still, a tussle with Microsoft over the new Web browser settings increased Google's desire to win the Dell agreement, the people said.

For Dell, the agreement is an opportunity to boost revenue from software shipped on new computers. The world's largest PC maker, had set up a competitive bidding process for Internet companies who wanted the right to load their software on as many as 100 million new Dell PCs. Yahoo pulled out of the running, and then Google beat Microsoft, people familiar with the matter said.

Under the agreement, buyers of Dell PCs will have their browser home page set to a co-branded Dell and Google site, according to the industry sources. The two companies earlier this year publicly acknowledged offering that page and distributing Google software on new Dell PCs under a test agreement.

Stay Tuned as the Browser Wars between Microsoft and Google continue to heat up !!!

Yahoo Ebay Merger Rumors Running Hot

Wall Street Sources Are Reporting That Yahoo and Ebay Will Join Forces Soon

Reprinted from Reuters with comments.

Speculation is rife on Wall Street that a big internet deal or alliance is in the works, with Google, Yahoo, eBay or Microsoft as possible partners - and a Yahoo-eBay partnership seen as most likely.

"A partnership or merger between eBay and Yahoo! is the most strategically feasible," a report authored by analyst Imran Khan and the JP Morgan internet team said.

"A combined company would have the leading position in auctions, communications, payments, graphical advertising, audience reach, and geographic breadth," the report said.

Silicon Valley insiders, high-tech bankers and financial analysts are giving new credence to potential merger deals, which fly in the face of common wisdom that the internet's rapid growth has always outweighed the logic of consolidation.

But internet growth is slowing and competition among the biggest companies - Google Inc, Yahoo Inc, eBay Inc and Microsoft Corp - is intensifying.

EBay stock is down 30 per cent on the year. Yahoo is off 20 per cent and Google down 10 per cent.

Google, which nearly doubled its revenues last year, is expected to grow 62 per cent this year. EBay is seen growing 30 per cent, down from 50 per cent two years ago, and Yahoo's growth is slowing at a similar pace.

EBay spokesman Hani Durzy said the company works very closely with all the major Web search providers - Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, but he declined to comment on any potential Yahoo tie-up.

EBay is one of the world's biggest buyers of Web search terms. It manages a portfolio of 15 million keywords on different search sites aimed at wooing bidders.

"We don't comment on rumours and speculation," Durzy said.

"We are talking to Yahoo and other companies all the time as part of our normal course of business."

Yahoo was not immediately available to comment.

The 56-page JP Morgan report weighs other scenarios, including the possibility that Microsoft Corp's MSN internet unit would strike a partnership with Yahoo. Google is viewed as likely to sit out big mergers and continue to go it alone, Imran argues, a view that many Wall Street analysts share.

Investors worry that gains by these companies are likely to come at the expense of one another, rather than through internet expansion, driving shares down this year.

Microsoft shares are off 12 per cent so far in 2006, hit by product delays as well as a recent move by the company to step up investment to better compete with Google and Yahoo.

Market share gains by Google are most frequently said to be driving the talk of partnerships or mergers.

On May 3, the Wall Street Journal newspaper carried a story that Microsoft's MSN unit was planning a stop-Google strategy by seeking to buy a stake in Yahoo.

Last week, Yahoo Chief Executive Terry Semel confirmed that his company had been approached by Microsoft to buy a piece of Yahoo's search business. He ruled out a deal for what he viewed as a centerpiece of Yahoo's strategy to sell Web advertising.

"I will not sell a piece of search -- it is like selling your right arm while keeping your left; it does not make any sense," Semel said in a public forum in New York last week where he was interviewed by The New Yorker magazine writer Ken Auletta.

He dismissed an outright merger between Microsoft and Yahoo, saying, "That conversation has never come up".

"For me the most interesting alignment would be putting together Yahoo and eBay," said analyst Scott Devitt of brokerage Stifel Nicolaus, but he cautioned: "These things tend to be discussed often and rarely occur".

The strengths of Yahoo and eBay are seen as complementary, with Yahoo in media and eBay in e-commerce. Yahoo's foreign strength is in Asia and eBay's is in Europe.

The most compelling scenario is an alliance where eBay uses Yahoo search to drive consumers to eBay auctions, Devitt said.

In return, Yahoo could take advantage of assets such as eBay's PayPal online payments franchise and the vast Skype Web telephone audience that eBay has acquired, he said.

EBay must tread carefully, however, so that it does not cut off ties to Google. As the world leader in Web search, eBay depends on Google search referrals for an increasing amount of its audience.

"I don't particularly find eBay in a position of power," Devitt said.

"EBay needs its relationship with Google."

- REUTERS

Yahoo to Roll Out New Pay Per Click Ad-Ranking Technology

Organic Search Algorithm Advancements Not Promoted at Yahoo shareholder Meetings.

Paid Search Advertising with new Social Networking factors the focus at Yahoo.

Sunnyvale, Calif., Internet company Yahoo will be rolling out a new paid search search-advertising ranking technology in the fourth quarter of 2006, a move that Yahoo promotes as a Google "monetization" gap designed to pull Yahoo closer with Google in the heated race for more of the search advertising pie.

Terry Semel Yahoo's chief executive says his company is also working steadfast to incorporate "social media" tools that further engage Yahoo CONSUMERS (this classifaction is key as Yahoo seeks to monetize 'consumers' vs. serving 'keyword searchers') so that Yahoo consumers can contribute content to Yahoo sites and hopefully spend more time actually searching Yahoo vs. retreiving email, stocks, news headlines, etc. and quickly departing to Google for search needs.

Yahoo hopes the new paid search advertising advancements will create more advertising dollars from companies worldwide. "We think this area will provide growth for our company," Mr. Semel says of the new social media search advancements in beta.

Yahoo views social media as a way to differentiate its search results from Google and generate paid search market share gains. Jeff Weiner, Yahoo's sr. vp of search and marketplace, says Yahoo will leverage social initiatives -- including Yahoo Answers, where Yahoo users ask and answer each others' questions and also incorporate new technology using the Flickr photo-sharing and del.icio.us tagging technology (both recent Yahoo acquistions) to improve the quality of Yahoo search. By blending human knowledge and content, Yahoo fells it can better answer - keyword search question queries - ex: "top restaurants Detroit".

In Taiwan, Yahoo rolled out a version of Yahoo Answers and was able to increase search advertising market share cutting into Google's dominant PPC pie. Yahoo claims its paid search market share lead in Taiwan jumped to 65%, and Google's fell to 30% in April 2006, compared with 50% for Yahoo and 45% for Google in December 2004.

Yahoo failed to mention that Google was tangled up in negotiations with the government of Taiwan during this time as a new shared portal between google and the taiwanese government is set to launch in 2007.

Responding to a question on how Google plans to compete with Yahoo-Kimo, Lee Kai-fu, Google's vice president of engineering and president of the greater China region, said that instead of putting the emphasis on PAID SEARCH ADVERTISING AND COMPETITION, Google wanted to focus and strengthen its core-competency; ONLINE SEARCH.

Unlike Yahoo-Kimo, Google would not enter the sponsored search result business, Lee said, as this would influence search precision and not serve users with content relevant search results.

Yahoo is focused on developing paid search advertising platforms that "goes beyond the browser" with an aggressive mobile search push. Mobile search is an enormous opportunity because mobile devices outnumber personal computers 2-to-1 and are direct exposure lines into search consumers in global markets like Taiwan, China, Asia, and India.

New Yahoo sponsored search advertising technology will be introduced with a new Pay Per Click search algorithm set to launch this falle in the U.S. The new technology will change how Yahoo sets the position of its "pay per click" text ads. The algorithm will use a quality score that incorporates a mix of factors, beyond bid price to determine advertisier position on Yahoo search results page. To date, Yahoo has ranked Pay Per Click search marketing ads strictly based on bid price alone, an approach that Yahoo feels is preventing them from gaining more of the search advertising dollars.

Yahoo made no mention of new organic search algorithm updates in the works and potential roll out dates.

Yahoo could substanially improve revenues by retaining more users with higher quality organic search results and faster results page delivery times. Yahoo needs to parlay their email advantages and bridge the two most popular actions on the internet email followed by search.

Yahoo is the leader in email and then falls to a distant second in keyword search. If Yahoo could be the first portal to bridge email with higher quality organic / natural search results, market share and search advertising revenues will both explode. The keys to castle as rooted in organic/natural search.