3Com acquired US Robotics, and then USR started shrinking in the modem market, one of its primary franchises. In a royal nightmare that ensued, Eric lost the advantage that 3Com had built as part of its first turnaround. SM: Were there any positives which came out of this mess? EB: The only thing that came
M&A and VC activity In February 2007, Sports Illustrated bought a 40% stake in the social networking site FanNation for $25 million, valuing the sports social network at $60 million. FanNation aggregates, filters, and customizes all the relevant player and team content available at any time on the Internet. Sports Illustrated has also entered into
It has been a strange summer of uncertainties elsewhere in the market, but certainly, VMWare’s hot IPO has not felt any of the pressure. In fact, it has made a slow August exciting with one of Tech’s most important events this year. Eric Savitz at Barrons reports: “EMC (EMC) today generated a massive return on
By Frank Lara, Guest Author If John Welch is building a new Electronic Arts then how is the real Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) doing and is it worth your time and money for a potential investment opportunity? The quick answer – they are worth your attention. Electronic Arts is the big daddy of the gaming
Here’s a must-read analysis of the patent by Marty Himmelstein, formerly from Vicinity. Marty also wrote to me privately: “Hi Sramana – I read your post on local.com today. As I tried to make the case in my post, the Local.com patent is fatally flawed. First, the copious prior art makes the patent irrelevant. I
Over the last few weeks, we have reviewed the iPhone’s Component Vendors. Here is a recap of the articles: iPhone’s Inside Beneficiaries provides an overview of the various players. We covered Samsung, one of the top component providers, who also has the manufacturing and design capabilities to become the iPhone’s major competitor in the future.
By Guest Author, Robert Lowry, Unitus As I discussed yesterday, Unitus focuses on two kinds of microfinance institutions (MFIs) for partnership: emerging microfinance institutions, which serve more than 2,500 clients and are in the early stages of growth; and commercial startups, which may not have a track record of growth but are well-capitalized and have
SM: Let’s discuss your financial history, in the final segment of the conversation. Who financed the company at the very beginning? I assume it was some of Neal’s Capital IQ proceeds that went into Inform. JS: It was friends and family, yes. SM: Did you raise Venture money? How much? From whom?