Wp: NBC Sells Out Super Bowl Ads

NBC has announced that it has sold all of its available ad spots for the network's Super Bowl telecast Sunday.

The network generated a record $206 million in advertising revenue for the game telecast and $261 million for the entire day, NBC announced.

"These advertising milestones show the power of the NFL brand and the strength of the Super Bowl as a TV property in this economic climate," Jeff Zucker, the president and CEO of NBC Universal, said in a written statement released by the network. "The Super Bowl has become one of our country's biggest holidays, a uniquely American day, and advertisers recognized the value in being a part of it, as their commercials are nearly as big a part of the day as the football itself. This is an extraordinary story for NBC against the backdrop of this economy."

NBC sold 69 ad spots for the game telecast, according to a network spokesman.

Fujitsu launches its new “Services Built for Android”, brings Android to nearly everything

"Fujitsu announced on Thursday that it is now offering a new program called “Service Built for Android”. Fujitsu is leveraging its experience in the development of embedded devices and offering to help companies deploy the Android OS on all kinds of hardware, from mobile phones, automotive systems and consumer electronics to embedded systems. Fujitsu will provide consulting, training, engineering and embedded middleware services intended to assist companies in fast tracking their products. For consumers, this means that Fujitsu wants to help bring Android to the world by incorporating the Linux-based OS into almost any device imaginable. Watch out world as Android isn’t just for mobile phones anymore."

Midas touch from Kopelman's Midas Capital

"Midas Capital has investments in a variety of emerging growth companies. The portfolio has a strong emphasis on high-technology companies and includes:

• Adchemy - A next-generation online marketing company that applies highly scientific, algorithmic approaches to diect marketing.
• Bioscale - Provides instruments and biochips (disposable) for nano-scale detection of cells and proteins.
• Boomi - Markets an integration platform designed to significantly reduce the time and cost associated with enterprise and eCommerce integration projects
• Buzz Marketing - An alternative advertising agency
• Del.icio.us - A social bookmarks manager that allows you share your bookmarks not only between your own browsers and machines, but also with others. (Sold to Yahoo in December 2005)
• Dragnet Solutions - Currently in stealth mode
• e-Touch - Innovative web and kiosk-based self-service ordering systems for the food-service industry (Sold to InfoGenesis/Warburg Pincus in August 2005)
• engage.com - The world's first online relationship service where people help each other find love. Computers are great, but when it comes to matchmaking, people are much better at doing the job.
• EVDB - Creator of Eventful.com, a collaborative, searchable database and web services platform for event and venue data worldwide
• First Flavor, Inc. - Currently in stealth mode
• Feedster - A rapidly growing search engine for blogs and online content published using RSS
• Five Below - A new retail concept positioned to become the leading extreme-value retailer to the teen market
• Flock - Introducing the world's most innovative social browsing experience.
• InstaMed Communications - InstaMed is a real-time gateway and processor of healthcare and financial transactions offering products and services that integrate into existing systems and workflow for real-time, direct connectivity to payers and banks.
• IronPort Systems - The leading email security provider for organizations ranging from small businesses to the Global 2000. (Sold to Cisco in January 2007)
• Koolspan - Developer of an easy-to-install and operate, network and device independent, approach to user authentication, network security and remote access for users of wired and wireless networks
• Kubi Software - Creator of a new class of business software called Collaborative Email.(Sold to Pragmatech Software in September 2006)
• LinkedIn - The leading provider of private and effective networking tools used by over 4 million professionals across the globe
• LiveOps - The nation's largest domestic outsourced call center making exclusive use of home-based operators (agents).
• Magic Works LLC - High speed trading technology for the financial markets.
• Majestic Research - An independent research company leveraging proprietary industry data sources to generate fresh insights for institutional investors.
• MerchantCircle - Helps small enterprises build strong relationships with local customers.
• Metaphor Technologies - Provides speech recognition solutions to automate customer service offering the largest selection of packaged speech soutions in the industry
• New.net - An established developer of Internet search services, products and domain-registry solutions (Sold to Vendare Media in September 2004)
• Partsearch - A Master Parts Catalog and supply chain provide access to over 7,000,000 parts and accessories
• RealTravel - The best place for real people to share travel advice and experiences.
• Restricted Stock Systems - A leading provider of restricted and control stock management solutions for reporting corporate insider transactions. (Sold toComputershare in October 2007)
• TrustedID - The first provider of third-generation solutions for consumer and business identity verification that proactively prevents identity theft.
• TerraPass - Kyoto for consumers.
• TurnTide - Inventor of the world's first anti-spam router (Sold to Symantec in July 2004)
• Vamoose - Develops customized, subject specific web-crawlers enabling the creation of specialized searchable databases (Sold to Internet Brands in August 2005)
• Zero G - The only space entertainment and tourism company approved by the FAA to conduct Weightless Flights for the public"

way too sad - twitter @martin

opentable s-1 filing

"Our Company

We provide solutions that form an online network connecting reservation-taking restaurants and people who dine at those restaurants. For our restaurant customers, we provide our proprietary Electronic Reservation Book, or ERB, an integrated software and hardware solution that computerizes restaurant host-stand operations and replaces traditional pen-and-paper reservation books. Our ERB streamlines and enhances a number of business-critical functions and processes for restaurants, including reservation management, table management, guest recognition and email marketing. The ERBs at our restaurant customers connect via the Internet to form an online network of restaurant reservation books. For diners, we operate www.opentable.com, a popular restaurant reservation website. The OpenTable website enables diners to find, choose and book tables at restaurants on the OpenTable network in real time, overcoming the inefficiencies associated with the traditional process of reserving by phone. Restaurants pay us a one-time installation fee, a monthly subscription fee and a fee for each restaurant guest seated through online reservations. Our online reservation service is free to diners.

We initially focused on acquiring a critical mass of local restaurant customers in four metropolitan areas: Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. These markets have since developed into active, local networks of restaurants and diners that continue to grow. We have applied and continue to apply the same fundamental strategy in developing and penetrating our other markets. As of December 31, 2008, the OpenTable network included approximately 10,000 OpenTable restaurant customers spanning all 50 states as well as select markets outside of the United States. Since our inception in 1998, we have seated approximately 90 million diners through OpenTable reservations, and during the nine months ended September 30, 2008, we seated an average of approximately 2.8 million diners per month. For the twelve months ended December 31, 2007 and the nine months ended September 30, 2008, our revenues were $41.1 million and $41.3 million, respectively.

Market Opportunity

We target our solutions towards both reservation-taking restaurants and diners. We believe based on our internal estimates that there are approximately 30,000 reservation-taking restaurants in North America that seat approximately 600 million diners through reservations annually, though this number fluctuates with economic and other conditions.

The ability of the restaurant industry to leverage the power of the Internet for reservation transactions has been inhibited by two key characteristics. First, the reservation-taking restaurant industry has been slow to computerize host-stand operations. Restaurant reservations historically have been largely handled by the traditional pen-and-paper reservation book, despite the inherent operational inefficiencies and potential for error. Second, the reservation-taking restaurant industry is highly fragmented, with independent restaurants and small, local restaurant groups comprising a significant majority of restaurant locations. The restaurant industry is also inherently local, making it time-consuming and costly to aggregate the breadth of local restaurant table inventory required to attract a critical mass of diners to make reservations online and create an online restaurant reservation network."

forbes: the vc madoff- sand hill capital III

"William "Boots" Del Biaggio III was a wealthy and successful venture capitalist on the cusp of achieving his lifelong aspiration of owning a National Hockey League team. Then, just after he paid $25 million for sizable stake in the Nashville Predators, Del Biaggio's golden image was shattered. Banks sued the investor last June, claiming he bilked them out of millions of dollars. Federal prosecutors followed up in December with criminal charges alleging $100 million in fraud.

Thanks to media accounts--including the Midas List--documenting wealth and economic impact of enterprise-building venture investors, the designation "venture capitalist" conveys a sense of power, glamor and financial sophistication that few other occupations can match. So--no shock here--some venture capitalists and hucksters appropriating their titles have bilked unsophisticated investors out of millions of dollars in hard-earned savings."

venturebeat: glam acquires adaptiveads

"Glam Media, a fast-growing advertising and publishing network for women, has acquired a Silicon Valley start-ups AdaptiveAds for an undisclosed price to help it better target ads.

Glam is one of the more controversial companies in Silicon Valley right now. It has witnessed rocketing growth over the past two years, by signing deals with publishers who agreed to place their content on Glam’s network and receive advertising for it. It recently emerged as a top-ten U.S. media site, according to Comscore."

union square ventures: super smart investors

"We are often asked if our strategy is to invest in specific markets, like media, or financial services, or specific technologies, like video, or wireless, or if we confine ourselves to one style or stage of investing, or if we invest only in consumer facing businesses. If you looked at our portfolio you could conclude that we invest in early stage, consumer facing, web services, in the media market. I am sure we are guilty of furthering this misconception by using this description of our firm as a short hand when we introduce ourselves. But it would not be true to say that our investment strategy is to invest in one stage, one type of business, one technology and one market. That would not answer the question - why do we invest in these things? It would not be arguing from first principles.

So why do we invest this way? We believe the web is fundamentally transformative (have we said this before). The global economy is defined by scarcity in resources, production, and distribution. On the web, the raw material is data. It is often shaped (produced) by volunteers, and it costs almost nothing to replicate and distribute the resulting product. This is profoundly different than the current industrial economy. Our investment strategy is to arbitrage the difference between the capabilities of the new medium and readiness of the existing economic and social structures to exploit those capabilities."

thedeal: Analysis: Lack of IPOs drives layoffs at Wilson Sonsini and other Silicon Valley law firms

"Silicon Valley's tech companies aren't the only ones trimming staff. Times are also tough on the region's law firms. Cooley Godward Kronish laid off 52 lawyers and 62 staffers last week, and its rival Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC announced Monday that it would cut 45 associates and 68 staffers. The moves were driven by the economy, of course, but behind them lie an array of long-term forces that threaten the law firms themselves.

The most obvious of those is the decline of the IPO. The frenzy of the late 1990s has never recurred, not only because investors were badly burned but also because the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002 made going public much less appealing. At the time, lawyers estimated that SOX meant that to be viable, a public company needed to have a market capitalization of about $250 million, double what would have previously been required. VCs adjusted their ambitions accordingly and started to put more emphasis on funding companies from which investors could successfully exit via a sale instead of an IPO."

allthingsd: Steve Ballmer's Entire Memo to the Microsoft Troops About Layoffs and Weak Results

"Here is the full memo from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer about the 5,000 layoffs and cost cuts just announced, due to economic slowdown, which also resulted its weak financial results for the second quarter.

From: Steve Ballmer
To: All Microsoft FTE
Subject: Realigning Resources and Reducing Costs

In response to the realities of a deteriorating economy, we’re taking important steps to realign Microsoft’s business. I want to tell you about what we’re doing and why.
Today we announced second quarter revenue of $16.6 billion. This number is an increase of just 2 percent compared with the second quarter of last year and it is approximately $900 million below our earlier expectations.

The fact that we are growing at all during the worst recession in two generations reflects our strong business fundamentals and is a testament to your hard work. Our products provide great value to our customers. Our financial position is solid. We have made long-term investments that continue to pay off.

But it is also clear that we are not immune to the effects of the economy. Consumers and businesses have reined in spending, which is affecting PC shipments and IT expenditures.

Our response to this environment must combine a commitment to long-term investments in innovation with prompt action to reduce our costs.
During the second quarter we started down the right path. As the economy deteriorated, we acted quickly. As a result, we reduced operating expenses during the quarter by $600 million. I appreciate the agility you have shown in enabling us to achieve this result.

Now we need to do more. We must make adjustments to ensure that our investments are tightly aligned with current and future revenue opportunities. The current environment requires that we continue to increase our efficiency.

As part of the process of adjustments, we will eliminate up to 5,000 positions in R&D, marketing, sales, finance, LCA, HR, and IT over the next 18 months, of which 1,400 will occur today. We’ll also open new positions to support key investment areas during this same period of time. Our net headcount in these functions will decline by 2,000 to 3,000 over the next 18 months. In addition, our workforce in support, consulting, operations, billing, manufacturing, and data center operations will continue to change in direct response to customer needs.

Our leaders all have specific goals to manage costs prudently and thoughtfully. They have the flexibility to adjust the size of their teams so they are appropriately matched to revenue potential, to add headcount where they need to increase investments in order to ensure future success, and to drive efficiency.

To increase efficiency, we’re taking a series of aggressive steps. We’ll cut travel expenditures 20 percent and make significant reductions in spending on vendors and contingent staff. We’ve scaled back Puget Sound campus expansion and reduced marketing budgets. We’ll also reduce costs by eliminating merit increases for FY10 that would have taken effect in September of this calendar year.

Each of these steps will be difficult. Our priority remains doing right by our customers and our employees. For employees who are directly affected, I know this will be a difficult time for you and I want to assure you that we will provide help and support during this transition. We have established an outplacement center in the Puget Sound region and we’ll provide outplacement services in many other locations to help you find new jobs. Some of you may find jobs internally. For those who don’t, we will also offer severance pay and other benefits.

The decision to eliminate jobs is a very difficult one. Our people are the foundation of everything we have achieved and we place the highest value on the commitment and hard work that you have dedicated to building this company. But we believe these job eliminations are crucial to our ability to adjust the company’s cost structure so that we have the resources to drive future profitable growth. I encourage you to attend tomorrow’s Town Hall at 9am PST in Café 34 or watch the webcast .

While this is the most challenging economic climate we have ever faced, I want to reiterate my confidence in the strength of our competitive position and soundness of our approach.

With these changes in place, I feel confident that we will have the resources we need to continue to invest in long-term computing trends that offer the greatest opportunity to deliver value to our customers and shareholders, benefit to society, and growth for Microsoft.

With our approach to investing for the long term and managing our expenses, I know Microsoft will emerge an even stronger industry leader than it is today.

Thank you for your continued commitment and hard work.

Steve "

edn: Venture capital for EDA is dead

"There have been a couple of recent articles about venture capital in Business Week, ABC News and elsewhere. They have focused on venture capital being broken since many funds are losing money and even that venture capital, in aggregate, is investing more than it is taking out in exits. There are short term problems with the current downturn too. For example, I’ve heard of limited partners (the actual investors) refusing capital calls when a fund wants to make an investment. As a result, VCs have essentially suspended new investments for Q4 of 2008 and Q1 of 2009. Of course one of the biggest problem of all is that the market for IPOs is closed completely.
In the EDA world venture capital has been broken for some time. VC funds are simply too large and too risk averse. In effect they have become private equity banks. The reason size matters is that a $500M or $1B fund simply can’t make $5M or $10M investments. A partner can only serve on a limited number of boards and funds of this size would need to make hundreds of investments. Instead, they need to focus on making fewer big investments. However, early stage investments simply don’t require that much money, and the amount of money that they do require is continuing to decrease in the software world. A cynic might look at the enormous VC investment in cleantech, especially solar, as being attractive simply because they require a lot of money to get to manufacturing. On the other hand, Web 2.0 and EDA startups do not require little money, often less than $10M, to get to revenue.
The herd dynamic means that VCs all either want to invest in a sector or don’t. A VC told me once that “venture capitalists make sheep look like independent thinkers”. So if the big guys like Sequoia or Kleiner-Perkins are avoiding a sector (perhaps just because their funds are too simply big for the sector or the limited partners have directed them) then everyone else seems to avoid it too. EDA has been out of favor for some time since each startup does not address a “billion dollar market” nor is it not going to be a phenomenon (although without much revenue) like Facebook or mySQL.
In the software world, the cost of hardware is basically zero (we all have a computer already and even buying a new one is something we can afford without a VC) and software productivity is improving all the time. In the web world this is driven by languages like Python and Ruby, along with environments like Django or Rails. And for web infrastructure there is Amazon S3 and Google App Engine. All the costs are variable so big upfront investment isn’t needed even to scale to millions of users. In the EDA world this is driven by the same languages, along with infrastructure like Open Access that mean that a startup doesn’t need to spend its first year or so building its underlying scaffolding, it can focus immediately on code that adds real value to users.
Paul Graham of Y-combinator thinks that VCs have become redundant in the internet space. In EDA the amount of money required is low enough that personal investment and private investors are sometimes enough to get to positive cash-flow without any venture capital at all. Altos and Apache are both profitable and were funded entirely privately. Denali has been private and reportedly very profitable for a long time; they certainly throw a good party.
How long before a venture capital fund decides to buy a company, removing any semblance of being genuinely different from private equity banks?"

NetworkWorld: New paint promises high-speed Wi-Fi shielding

"IT managers should start familiarising themselves with a new security tool, the paint brush, as Japanese researchers have come up with a paint that they say will block high-speed wireless signals, giving businesses a cheap option to protect their wireless networks.

The problem of securing wireless networks has been an issue for a while now. Wi-Fi LANs with no encryption or running the obsolete WEP system, run the risk of having hackers outside the building eavesdrop on wireless LAN traffic, or simply stealing bandwidth. However, there are a number of solutions, besides encryption, for companies wishing to secure their networks.

For example, Meru Networks said last year that it was using Wi-Fi signals to "cloak" wireless LANs and make it impossible for hackers to decipher them outside the office building. Other methods include putting energy-efficient windows in buildings, physically blocking radio signals or even turning a building or office into a 'Faraday Cage' using mesh metal. However these options tend to be expensive."

"But now, according to a report in the New Scientist, paint can be used to secure high-speed wireless networks. This is nothing new though, as RF-blocking paints have been available for a number of years now. Indeed, EM-SEC Technologies successfully tested its own RF-blocking paint back in March 2007 to shield wireless devices and other electronic equipment within a building."

wsj: VC triage - end is near??

"Claremont Creek Ventures recently had to decide which of its young to forsake.

The venture-capital firm had invested in such companies as online travel site cFares Inc. and genetic-technology start-up Gene Security Network Inc., with cash from a $130 million venture fund it launched in 2005.

Amid the financial crisis and the plunging stock market, Claremont Creek decided to focus on the fund's best investments and stop backing the less-promising start-ups. It wanted to be sure it had enough cash for the next few years for the winners. The venture firm ranked the start-ups in the fund's ..."

peweek wire: NEA

"*** VentureWire this morning reported that Michael Raab will leave New Enterprise Associates, when it finishes raising its thirteenth VC fund later this year. In the meantime, he’ll transition from a partner to a venture partner role.

Semi-sequitur: NEA is one of the few firms out there that operates with an annual budget, instead of a pre-determined management fee. This means that, each year, NEA determines how much money it will require for operations, and then requests that amount from its limited partners. I wonder how the current economic situation has affected NEA’s 2009 budget, from both the request and granting points-of-view. Maybe that’s something for me to work on today…"

Obama Takes Oath, and Nation in Crisis Embraces the Moment

boston.com: Tips in raising venture money

"I received an e-mail earlier this month from the cofounder of a robotics company that is just starting to hunt for venture capital funding. "We'd like to avoid spending weeks or months courting firms that profess interest, then ultimately discover that they are too timid to fund anyone in the current climate," he wrote."

"inding money to start a company (or keep one going) is worry number one right now for entrepreneurs, whether they're designing robots, starting a restaurant, opening a clothing boutique, or developing cancer drugs. And with banks, angel investors, and venture capital firms clinging more tightly than ever to their bankrolls, that worry is occupying much more mental bandwidth.

Here are 10 pieces of advice I've collected since I got that e-mail from the robotics entrepreneur. Some of the advice pertains more to those who are starting a business that's likely to be bank-financed or boot-strapped with credit cards, like a pet grooming salon. Some of the advice is more relevant to entrepreneurs starting a medical device company that could be worth a couple hundred million dollars within a decade, who're more likely to attract the interest of venture capital firms."

israel 2.0: Good Morning Obama

"Today is January 20th, 2009. Today is a special day, one of those days that you will always remember. The US had 6 presidents since I was born (Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr.), but this one is probably the most important. There are a few reasons for this: He is Black, He is a natural leader, and he is providing hope for a country that needs a lot of change.

But there is another reason why this president is so special. Obama is the first president that is truly from MY GENERATION. He is (almost) my age, he likes basketball, addicted to his Blackberry, and uses Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. He even likes some of the music I love (Bob Dylan, Miles Davis)."

sfgate: U.S. venture capital fundraising plummets

"Fundraising by U.S. venture capitalists plummeted last quarter, according to numbers released Monday, marking lows that haven't been seen since the industry started to recover from the dot-com bust."

"For the fourth quarter of 2008, 43 firms raised $3.4 billion - down from $8.4 billion in the previous quarter and $11.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007. For the full year of 2008, fundraising was down 21 percent.

The number of firms raising money also dropped by more than 30 percent between the third and fourth quarters of last year and by nearly half compared with the fourth quarter of 2007.

The slowdown is expected to continue well into this year."

msnbc.com: Aster Data Systems Raises $12 Million in Series B Funding

"Aster Data Systems, a proven leader dedicated to providing the best analytic databases for frontline data warehousing, today announced it has completed a $12 million round of equity funding led by JAFCO Ventures. Joe Horowitz, Managing General Partner of JAFCO Ventures, has joined Aster's Board of Directors. Existing investors Sequoia Capital, Cambrian Ventures and First Round Capital also participated in the round.
JAFCO Ventures has a deep understanding of the data warehousing market from their previous investment in DATAllegro, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2008. This investment reinforces the domain understanding that Sequoia Capital brings to Aster, from their previous investment in Netezza, which went public in 2007."

Austin Business Journal:: More money but fewer deals from VCs in Q4

"Venture capital investment in Austin-area companies increased nearly 24 percent during the fourth quarter of 2008 versus the same period the previous year while the number of investments decreased nearly 61 percent, according to Dow Jones; VentureSource report.
Local venture-backed companies attracted $300 million in financing during the quarter compared with $242.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2007. However, deal volume decreased sharply to nine investment during the three-month period versus 23 in during the same period in 2007, the report shows.
Austin-based HomeAway Inc. collected the largest funding in the country during the fourth quarter. The online marketplace for vacation rental properties collected $250 million in October. Without that significant funding deal Austin's VC total would have been dismally down for the quarter."

Venture capital funding in Southern California falls off a cliff | Technology | Los Angeles Times

"Tony Katz had big hopes for his Porter Ranch company, Aweli, when he first started looking for venture funding in late 2007. He was sure its method of monetizing online videos would appeal to investors.
Twelve months later, he's kind of given up.
"There's no math that we can do that in this economy that shows it making sense to go after venture money," he said. Instead, he's trying to run the company on existing cash. "As we see it, if you can’t run a company on the dollars that you have, you don’t have a company. Those days are over.""

globalinvestor: Downers and Uppers

"Everyone has an opinion on the economy these days, with some of the most trenchant, irreverent, outrageous (and occasionally profane) opinions found in business blogs on the web.
Reportonbusiness.com browsed through the blogosphere recently to discover five of the most gloomy bloggers out there and five of the more upbeat optimistic – optimistic in the relative sense, that is.
Here's what we found:
THE MOST BEARISH:
Former MP and author Garth Turner is among the most pessimistic of the bunch. The author of two books – After the Crash and Greater Fool: The Troubled Future of Real Estate – Mr. Turner's worst-case-scenario advice to readers includes downsizing the house, renting out the basement, planting a garden and – for those who have moved to the country – raising chickens.
Still feeling foolishly optimistic? Check out this Baltimore-based blog, created by Bill Bonner, founder of publishing firm Algora Inc.
“Here at The Daily Reckoning we give the devil his due; if the feds want to really want to destroy the dollar, we believe they'll be able to pull it off. Just give them time. To that end, we are still rolling on the floor over the proposal to create a ‘bad bank' that will buy up bad investments. We thought the banks already had plenty of bad investments of their own…”
Or log on to the related Rude Awakening, which declared 2008 the “year of the jackass.”
Still game for more? Take a look at Dollar Collapse, - your ringside seat to the global financial crisis.
“Americans hoping to protect their wealth from a soon-to-be-bankrupt and panicked government are finding that their options are few, and growing fewer by the day,” DollarCollapse said in a recent posting.
Former Wall Street analyst and author John Rubino is a key contributor.
To round out the doom and gloom list, take a look at this excerpt from a Thank-God-It's-Friday posting on the upsidetrader blog, created by a former hedge fund manager.
“The financials are catching a bit of a bump as Bank America shamelessly sucks more blood from us taxpayers with little remorse. Citibank reported and as expected the number was dismal. Their CFO also announced above average losses from first tier mortgages for the next several quarters. Just swell.”
AND THE BULLISH (WELL, LESS BEARISH AT LEAST)
Howard Lindzon, a Canadian portfolio manager at Lindzon Capital Partners in Phoenix, counts himself among the more optimistic bloggers.
In a recent posting, Mr. Lindzon wrote that the pain is not over “as pension funds and retirement funds have been gutted and the trust stolen from American investors.”
The good news?
“Things are going to change. It is almost impossible for government policies or elected officials to remain as dumb as they have been.”
Some more good news, sort of, can be found on themoneygardner personal finance blog. A recent posting included the news that if you buy a new Hyundai in the United States, and then lose your job, you can walk away from your new car and your new car payments.
“But do they give you a ride home after?” the moneygardener asks.
Anyone looking for a bright spot can usually count on the gold bugs, including Beverley Hills financial adviser Howard Katz, whose most recent posting is a poem, which concludes:
“Things are much worse than I foresaw.
So turn the page and learn some more.
A sad, sad story does unfold.
So get your assets into gold.”
Global investor Jim Rogers is still bullish on China, oil and other commodities, although he is shorting U.S. government bonds.
Finally, Jim Letourneau, a Calgary-based geologist, newsletter writer and blogger, notes: “There's always a bull market in something.”
Mr. Letourneau prides himself on finding “under the radar” opportunities.
Feeling better now? Browse on …

Bloomberg: Cash-Strapped Technology Small-Caps Hold Patent Sales (Update3)

Small-cap technology companies from Silicon Valley to Israel, struggling to raise enough money to survive amid the credit crisis, are selling prized patents to stay in business.

VocalTec Communications Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Ido Gur said he needed to sell 15 of the Israeli company’s 22 inventions to raise money to market its main Internet phone software. Irvine Sensors Corp., whose infrared camera technology is used by the U.S. military, and TurfTrax Plc, a U.K. owner of patents for monitoring horseraces, are also selling or considering a sale of rights to stem a slump in revenue.

“I needed the money,” said Gur, 40, who agreed to become CEO on condition that VocalTec, which reported $5.8 million in 2007 revenue, would dispose of its consumer phone patents to focus on sales to clients such as Deutsche Telekom AG. “I would be able to recover VocalTec only when I had cash in hand.”

Developers who once imagined spending years to build businesses that would create multiple products or tap many markets now find they need to scale back their ambitions. Applications for intellectual property transfers in the U.S. climbed 20 percent in the second half of 2008 to 199,699 from a year earlier, data compiled by the Patent and Trademark Office show. In the U.K., the number of requests rose 41 percent.

“They can essentially raise cash without diluting existing investors,” said Andrew Ramer, managing director of the transaction practice at Ocean Tomo LLC, a Chicago-based merchant bank that auctions intellectual property collections for smaller businesses and individuals. “Selling their patents and keeping a license back allows companies to have their cake and eat it, too.”

entrepreneur.com: 3 Weeks to Startup

"Are you looking for the fast track to starting your business? You want to make sure you hit all the high points but don't get bogged down in too many fine points that lead you nowhere, right? Then read this guide, and get your business running in less than a month."

ZeaChem, Ethanol Company Raises Capital

"A company claiming to have the capability to produce “third generation” ethanol has raised $34 million to prove it.
Colorado-based ZeaChem is developing a cellulose-based green fuels and chemicals biorefinery platform that converts renewable non-food biomass into market-competitive products such as ethanol. The new funds will be used to build ZeaChem’s first cellulosic biorefinery set to begin construction this year.
ZeaChem president and CEO James Imbler says the initial funding will allow them “to produce the highest yield, lowest capital cost, lowest carbon footprint bio-based fuels and chemicals benefiting our investors, strategic partners, and our future customers.” Among the investors in ZeaChem is Valero Energy Corporation, the largest petroleum refiner in the United States.
The company technology uses micro-organisms from the digestive tracts of termites as part of the conversion process for making ethanol from wood and other biomass sources."

PC World: Enterprise 2.0 Vendor NewsGator Gets Funding Boost

Dumb investment!

"NewsGator, a maker of hosted and on-premise social computing software for companies, has closed a US$10 million round of funding, the company announced Monday.
Masthead Venture Partners, Mobius Venture Capital and Vista Ventures participated in the round of funding. All three companies had previously invested in NewsGator.
NewsGator initially focused on the RSS market and has since broadened its focus to enterprise social networking with its Social Sites product.
Social Sites, now in version 2.5, is designed to provide a Facebook-like experience in the workplace to improve communication and collaboration among employees. It is specifically designed as a complement to Microsoft's SharePoint Server.
The Edelman public relations firm was among the large companies that became NewsGator customers in late 2008, along with banks, pharmaceuticals and manufacturers.
The fourth quarter of 2008 was the best in terms of revenue in NewsGator's five-year history, the company said. NewsGator's competitors include SocialText, Jive Software, Central Desktop, Telligent and Atlassian, as well as bigger players such as IBM and Google."

Vector Takes Aladdin in $160 Million Deal - DealBook Blog - NYTimes.com

"Vector Capital has finally won Aladdin Knowledge Systems, the maker of computer security products that it has been chasing since August.
Aladdin said Monday it agreed to be acquired by a consortium of investors led by the private-equity firm, in a deal valued at $160 million.
Under the terms of the deal, shareholders of Israel-based Aladdin will receive $11.50 per share in cash for each share of common stock, representing a 19.8 percent premium over its Friday closing price of $9.60.
“After extensive negotiations and careful and thorough analysis conducted with our independent advisers, the board has unanimously endorsed this transaction as in the best interests of the company and our shareholders,” said Yanki Margalit, chairman and chief executive of Aladdin, in a statement."

cnn: An entrepreneur's personality can influence a business

Story Highlights

An entrepreneur's personality can influence a business
Harvard prof: Entrepreneurs have some tendencies similar to juvenile delinquents
Many people choose to start their own business in bad economy
Expert: Delusional optimism helps fend off scary challenges

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"Segway scooter inventor Dean Kamen freely admits it: He often suffers sleepless nights wrestling over whether to quit a project that's not panning out."

""You end up lying there saying, 'I'm not stopping. It would be an act of shallow cowardice. Or you decide to quit and you say, 'This is one of those ideas that just isn't going to work,' " said Kamen, speaking by phone from his home office in Manchester, New Hampshire.
When to quit -- said Kamen, also the inventor of health care technologies and the Slingshot water purifier -- is "the toughest question there is" for any entrepreneur who survives on creativity and instinct.
"It's not nearly as glamorous as people think to keep working on something and to keep hitting roadblocks and to keep going," he said.
Stubborn, delusionally optimistic, creative, fearless, flexible and focused are some of the ways psychologists and business people describe the personality of an entrepreneur. Surprisingly, another word is ignorant. Quiz: Do you have the right stuff for entrepreneurship? »
"You need to be in denial or in ignorance about the huge challenges you face," laughs Guy Kawasaki, a former Apple executive and entrepreneur who's starting the self-described "magazine rack" alltop.com. "You have to believe that it wouldn't be hard for you to succeed."
Research by Harvard Business School psychology professor emeritus Abraham Zaleznik has unveiled a darker side to the entrepreneur's psyche.
Don't MissIn Depth: Going Solo "Entrepreneurs tend to have a singular weakness that allows them to do things without checking their conscience," Zaleznik said. "Juvenile delinquents act and then try to sort things out afterward. I think entrepreneurs have this tendency."
Another academic researcher on the topic, professor Kelly Shaver of the College of William & Mary, told Forbes magazine in 2002 that successful entrepreneurs "really don't care as much" about what other people think. "They're just happy to go ahead and do what they're doing."
In a recession that has forced employers to eliminate 2.6 million jobs in 2008, people who might otherwise start a business at a time of their own choosing find themselves being pushed into entrepreneurship.
"More people often become self-employed in tough times like this," said John Challenger, CEO of a top employment firm for executives and middle managers.
Between 5 percent and 7 percent of clients at Challenger, Gray & Christmas are choosing to start their own businesses, he said. Workers are more open to starting a small business in the dot-com era, Challenger said. "I think we're in a more entrepreneurial period than we were in the '80s and '90s," he said.
Recessions can be "crucibles" for at-home start-ups. "Some of the best new businesses start in recessions because what they have really makes a difference if the market is interested in it," Challenger said. "There's not a lot of easy money to go around, and they have to fight their way forward."
Great entrepreneurs, said Kawasaki, do more than just fight hard to win their market share. They have vision. They ask what he calls the "fundamental question": Wouldn't it be neat if ... ?
Kawasaki said Apple would have failed without the unique contributions of its co-founder, Steve Jobs. "He asked the question, 'Wouldn't it be neat if people could carry all their music with them wherever they went?' " Result: the iPod.
Psychologist Lynn Friedman, whose clients often include entrepreneurs, said many of them are "tuned into consumer needs." They tend to grow up in nurturing families and learned to value the concept of trying new things.
Jobs described fond memories of his California childhood during an 1995 interview with the Smithsonian Institution, saying his father "spent a lot of time with me . . . teaching me how to build things, how to take things apart, put things back together."
But obviously, Kawasaki said, everybody's not always right about the "wouldn't it be neat" question.
He cited Webvan, the online grocery store that served as many as 10 U.S. cities before going bankrupt in 2001.
"Somebody asked the question, 'Wouldn't it be neat if I could buy lettuce online and they'll deliver lettuce to my house?' "
Webvan failed with sales of $178.5 million in 2000 partly because it was buried in $525.4 million in expenses, according to a 2001 CNNMoney.com article.
"They went about it in a grand way," Kawasaki said. "Sometimes it helps to start small."
Webvan entrepreneur Louis Borders, who stepped down as CEO in 1999, told the San Francisco Chronicle four years later, "I get the strategy set, the operation running, the team in place. That's my role as an entrepreneur."
According to Friedman, entrepreneurs "live in the world of action," and they "often need help with slowing down and thinking several steps ahead."

nytimes: Daddy’s Home, and a Bit Lost

"SCOTT BERRY has always been a morning person. For years he would wake up at 5 a.m., shower, shave and, tamping down a twinge of regret, plant quiet kisses on his two sleeping children and his wife, before backing his BMW out of the driveway.
As the family breadwinner, he worked long hours at his job as a technology analyst for a boutique investment firm in Manhattan. The demands of his work and the substantial commute from his home in Darien meant he rarely saw Samantha, 8, and Max, 7, before his wife, Tracey, had them in their pajamas and ready for bed.
Then in December 2007, Mr. Berry, 49, lost his job. He immediately looked for a new position but found opportunities puzzlingly elusive. In mid-2008 came the rout on Wall Street. “The good news is, I don’t feel singled out for unemployment,” he said, running his hand through his light-brown hair.
But his plan for his next job — as an analyst in a venture capital firm or as an executive at a start-up — has been deferred. So Scott and Tracey Berry have faced a complex series of choices about work, money and the roles and responsibilities each would assume in the family. Their goals: to keep their domestic economy from mirroring the national one — and to stay married. "

sfgate: Venture capitalist says U.S. losing green race

"Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr, whose early investments helped launch Google and Amazon, delivered a stark warning to Congress on Wednesday that the United States is on the verge of being left behind in the green tech revolution."

The 44 Places to Go in 2009

From the Aegean Sea to Zambia, this year’s most compelling destinations are awash in sublime landscapes, cutting-edge art, gala music festivals, and stylish new resorts.

Dealbook: Clearwire Proves Costly for Its Big Investors

"Clearwire, the wireless Internet provider that attracted billions of dollars of investment last May from big names like Google, Time Warner Cable, Intel and Comcast, is causing its investors some major heartburn.

Time Warner Cable and Intel announced Wednesday that they were writing down the value of their investments in the “WiMax” wireless broadband company to reflect the 66 percent drop in the company’s stock price since May. Time Warner Cable wrote down $350 million of its $550 million investment, while Intel wrote down $950 million of its $1 billion investment.

Other investors are expected to follow suit. Comcast is expected to write down the value of its $1.05 billion investment in Clearwire when it announces its fourth quarter earnings in February, according to Bloomberg News, citing people familiar with the situation.

The other investors in the WiMax venture have yet to announce write-downs. They include Google, which invested $500 million; Bright House, a cable provider, which invested $100 million, and Trilogy Equity Partners, a private investment group with wireless industry expertise, which invested $10 million.

A Time Warner Cable spokesman told DealBook that the write-down was mostly for accounting purposes and in “no way diminishes” its confidence in Clearwire.

Clearwire has just begun rolling out its WiMax Internet service. It is currently available in just two cities: Baltimore and Portland, Ore. The company plans on bringing its service to the rest of the country in the next few years.

Sprint Nextel is the lead investor in the project and is counting on it to revive its sagging brand. Sprint owns 51 percent of the joint venture, while Clearwire, which already operated “pre-WiMax” Internet service to 46 locations, owns 27 percent. The remaining 22 percent is owned by the other six partners.

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Venturebeat: Dogster retains bite post downturn as revenue rolls in

"Dogster, the social network for dogs and their owners, just converted $425,000 in bridge funds into additional first round financing, reports VentureWire. After a profitable 2008, raising a second round isn’t as pressing, the company says — citing a broader trend of success for sites catering to pet enthusiasts."

Enron fraud in India

"HONG KONG (Dow Jones) -- Satyam Computer Services' disclosure Wednesday that it had misrepresented its financial numbers raised fears that India's largest alleged corporate fraud to date will impact the corporate sector and foreign investment.

"It's something very unexpected. It will make a major dent in the credibility of the corporate sector," said K.H. Vishwanathan, executive director at India- based audit firm RSM Consulting Group.

His comments were in response to the announcement by Satyam (SAY) Chairman B. Ramalinga Raju that the company had inflated its cash and bank balances on the balance sheet by more than $1 billion.

Some brokerages also moved fast to suspend the rating on the company, India's fourth-largest software exporter and one of the best-known brands outside the country, following the announcement.

"We believe that the current event will inflict collateral damage to the [ information technology] sector's premium valuations vis-Ã -vis broader markets, as well as could dent foreign investor faith in other Indian companies, " Emkay Research analyst Manik Taneja wrote in a report.

Emkay, as well as Angel Broking discontinued their rating on Satyam stock, which crashed more than 70% after the announcement, wiping out millions of dollars in its market value.

Angel Broking analyst Harit Shah dubbed Satyam "India's 'Enron'", adding Satyam's misrepresentation constituted "one of the biggest-ever frauds in Indian corporate history."

A spokeswoman for Aberdeen Asset Management, one of the largest investors in Satyam, declined to comment immediately, but said the asset management firm was likely to issue a statement later.

Mike Davies, a London-based spokesman for Satyam's external auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers, also said the accounting firm will issue a statement later.

"Based on our experience, I think it can't happen without the knowledge of the auditor. [The auditors] may not know 100%, but there would definitely have been some leads for them to latch on to," said RSM's Vishwanathan, noting that the financial misrepresentation by the company happened over a period of several years, according to Raju's letter.

The Indian software industry's umbrella body, meanwhile, played down the likely impact of Satyam's disclosure on the industry.

"While the law will take its own course, this incident is particularly unfortunate as the Indian information technology-business process outsourcing industry had set very high standards of ethics and corporate governance," the influential National Association of Software and Service Companies said in a statement.

"This is a stand-alone case of failure of corporate governance and it is critical that it be viewed in this light," Nasscom added.

The Indian government also got into the act, meantime, with corporate affairs minister P.C. Gupta reportedly saying the contents of Raju's letter were being verified.

"Once the contents are verified, proper action will be taken," Gupta said at a press conference, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

Byron Wien Announces Ten Surprises for 2009

Byron R. Wien, Chief Investment Strategist of Pequot Capital Management, Inc., today issued his list of Ten Surprises for 2009. Mr. Wien has issued his economic, financial market and political surprises annually since 1986. The 2009 list follows:
1. The Standard and Poor's 500 rises to 1200. In anticipation of a second-half recovery in the U.S. economy, the market improves from a base of investor despondency and hedge fund and mutual fund withdrawals. The mantra changes from "fortunes have been lost" to "fortunes can still be made." Higher quality corporate bonds, leveraged loans and mortgages lead the way.
2. Gold rises to $1,200 per ounce. Heavy buying by Middle Eastern investors and a worldwide disenchantment with paper currencies drive the price of precious metals higher. In a time of uncertainty, investors want something they can count on as real.
3. The price of oil returns to $80 per barrel. Production disappointments and rising Asian demand create an unfavorable supply/demand balance. Other commodities also rise, some doubling from their 2008 lows. Natural gas goes to $9 per mcf.
4. Low Treasury interest rates coupled with huge borrowing by the Treasury send the dollar into a serious downward slide. Overseas investors become concerned that the currency printing presses will never stop. The yen goes to 75 and the euro to 1.65.
5. The ten-year U.S. Treasury yield climbs to 4%. Later in the year, as the economy shows signs of recovery, economists and investors shift their mood from concern about deflation to worries about inflation. A weak dollar, rapid growth in money supply and record-setting deficits (over $1 trillion) are behind the change.
6. China's growth exceeds 7% and its stock market revives. World leaders credit China's authoritarian government for its thoughtful stimulus policies and effective execution during a challenging period. The Chinese consumer begins to spend more and save less and this shift is behind the unexpected strength in the economy.
7. Falling tax revenues from the financial sector cause New York State to threaten bankruptcy and other states and municipalities follow. The Federal government is forced to step in and provide substantial assistance. The New York Post screams "When will the bailouts stop?"
8. Housing starts reach bottom ahead of schedule in the fall, and house prices stabilize after dropping 15% from year-end 2008 levels. The Obama stimulus program proves effective and a slow growth recovery begins before year-end. Third and fourth quarter real gross domestic product numbers are positive.
9. The savings rate in the United States fails to improve beyond 3%, as most economists expect. The concept of thrift seems to have vanished from American culture. Peak job insecurity and negative growth drive increased savings early in the year, but spending resumes as the economic growth turns positive in the second half, making Christmas 2009 the best ever.
10. Citing concerns about Iraq's fragile democratically elected government and the danger of a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, Barack Obama slows his plan for troop withdrawal in the former and meaningfully increases U.S. military presence in the latter. In a hawkish speech he states that the threat of terrorism forces the United States to maintain a strong military force in this strategic area.
Mr. Wien believes these surprises, which the consensus would assign only a one-in-three chance of happening, have at least a 50% probability of occurring at some point during the year. In previous years, more than half of the elements of the list have proven correct.
Pequot Capital Management is a private investment firm.

AAPL stock up - Jobs says he doesn't have cancer

Press Release Source: Apple


Letter From Apple CEO Steve Jobs
Monday January 5, 8:30 am ET


Dear Apple Community,
For the first time in a decade, I'm getting to spend the holiday season with my family, rather than intensely preparing for a Macworld keynote.

Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed.

I've decided to share something very personal with the Apple community so that we can all relax and enjoy the show tomorrow.

As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.

Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause -- a hormone imbalance that has been "robbing" me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I've already begun treatment. But, just like I didn't lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple's CEO during my recovery.

I have given more than my all to Apple for the past 11 years now. I will be the first one to step up and tell our Board of Directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple's CEO. I hope the Apple community will support me in my recovery and know that I will always put what is best for Apple first.

So now I've said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.



Steve

Nytimes op ed: The End of the Financial World as We Know It

"AMERICANS enter the New Year in a strange new role: financial lunatics. We’ve been viewed by the wider world with mistrust and suspicion on other matters, but on the subject of money even our harshest critics have been inclined to believe that we knew what we were doing. They watched our investment bankers and emulated them: for a long time now half the planet’s college graduates seemed to want nothing more out of life than a job on Wall Street."

The Drama Show: Why Silicon Valley Won’t Become the New Detroit

"A few months ago, I discussed why I believe VC infatuation with cleantech would hurt Silicon Valley but since United States President-Elect Barack Obama seems committed to the idea of a “Green Revolution”, I figured it was a good time to shift some of my debunking to the nascent “cleantech” industry.
My first substantial post of 2009 kicks off my cleantech/green bullshit column: Green Smoke.
You won’t be surprised to learn that I believe that cleantech is a lot like Web 2.0: there’s far more irrational hype and unbridled naivety than real substance. For those who have some knowledge of the history of energy policy in the world’s most prolific energy consuming nation (the United States), you are probably already familiar with the fact that US politicians have been promising “cleaner” energy (as well as “energy independence”) for decades."