Smartphone Makers Aim at Emerging Markets With Low-End Devices; Companies Introduce Phones With Limited Internet Capability, Some Priced Under $100; For Smartphones, Price Is the New X Factor

Smartphone Makers Aim at Emerging Markets With Low-End Devices

Companies Introduce Phones With Limited Internet Capability, Some Priced Under $100

SVEN GRUNDBERG and TOM GRYTA in Barcelona and WILL CONNORS in Toronto

Feb. 25, 2014 1:36 p.m. ET

High-end smartphones from Samsung Electronics Co. 005930.SE -0.07% and Apple Inc.AAPL -1.04% tend to hog the spotlight, but companies eager to capture growth in emerging markets are working off another benchmark: Which phone is least expensive. Read more of this post

South Korea’s Kakao Pushes Boundaries of Social Media; Far From Keeping Things Simple, Ventures Include Basic Messaging, Gaming and Celebrity ‘Friending’

South Korea’s Kakao Pushes Boundaries of Social Media

Far From Keeping Things Simple, Ventures Include Basic Messaging, Gaming and Celebrity ‘Friending’

JONATHAN CHENG 

Feb. 25, 2014 2:15 p.m. ET

WhatsApp’s Jan Koum next to Kakao’s Sirgoo Lee (right) on Monday. Kakao

BARCELONA— Jan Koum, WhatsApp Inc.’s chief executive, vowed this week to keep his messaging service simple, despite a $19 billion deal to be swallowed up by Facebook Inc. Read more of this post

Carl Icahn’s criticism of eBay’s board highlights Silicon Valley’s systemic issues

Carl Icahn’s criticism of eBay’s board highlights Silicon Valley’s systemic issues

BY VIVEK WADHWA

February 25 at 1:08 pm

The compositions of the boards of Silicon Valley companies are once again in the spotlight. Recently, Twitter was called out for having a board comprising of members of the Silicon Valley Boys Club. Now Carl Icahn is accusing eBay board members of being in conflict.  He wrote an open letter to eBay shareholders excoriating its management and board for various alleged lapses in corporate governance. Read more of this post

Battle for Bitcoin: Will it survive?

Battle for Bitcoin: Will it survive?

Rick Jervis, and Jon Swartz, USATODAY7:58 p.m. EST February 25, 2014

The future of Bitcoin is being hotly debated in the wake of a huge online exchange site, but most say the cryptocurrency will move ahead.

Cryptocurrency experts around the globe are waging a furious back-and-forth battle to predict the future of Bitcoin — but the consensus is that the renegade currency will survive its first big setback just fine. Read more of this post

White hats to the rescue: Law-abiding hackers are helping businesses to fight off the bad guys

White hats to the rescue: Law-abiding hackers are helping businesses to fight off the bad guys

Feb 22nd 2014 | SAN FRANCISCO | From the print edition

ANDREW WHITAKER has made a career out of breaking into things. A “white hat” hacker in techie jargon, Mr Whitaker leads a team of security specialists at Knowledge Consulting Group who spend their days trying to worm their way into clients’ computer systems to see how vulnerable they are to cyber-criminals, spies and other nefarious “black hats”. The team’s record is both impressive and alarming. Some of the firm’s clients are utilities, and Mr Whitaker and his colleagues often target software that controls critical infrastructure, such as water and power supplies. “We’re getting in pretty much every single time,” he says. Read more of this post

Lenovo continues strategy of acquiring loss-making firms

Lenovo continues strategy of acquiring loss-making firms

Staff Reporter

2014-02-25

Chinese PC giant Lenovo Group announced two major acquisitions before the Chinese New Year holiday at the end of January, almost a decade after it bought IBM’s PC business, the move which paved the way for its global expansion, China Entrepreneur magazine reports. Read more of this post

Why we’re not impressed with Samsung’s latest wearable effort

Why we’re not impressed with Samsung’s latest wearable effort

By Rachel Feltman @rachelfeltman 10 hours ago

Today at the Mobile World Congress, Samsung unveiled three new wearables to replace their previous flop: The Galaxy Gear 2, the Gear 2 Neo, and the Gear Fit. The first two are smartwatches like the original (widely-panned) Galaxy Gear. The third marks the company’s first foray into fitness tracking. Read more of this post

India’s emerging market rollercoaster has been a brutal ride for IBM

India’s emerging market rollercoaster has been a brutal ride for IBM

By Heather Timmons @HeathaT 2 hours ago

Recent tremors in developing economies have wreaked havoc with equity markets, triggering frightening currency drops and weighing on earnings at global corporations. For a specific example of what a rough ride these markets can be, look no further than IBM’s experience in India. Read more of this post

Comcast to Benefit from Netflix Streaming Deal; With Netflix paying Comcast to ensure smooth video streaming, this watershed deal marks a win for cable’s long-term value

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2014

Comcast to Benefit from Netflix Streaming Deal

By ALEXANDER EULE | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR

With Netflix paying Comcast to ensure smooth video streaming, this watershed deal marks a win for cable’s long-term value.

After years of hearing about consumers cutting their cable cord, it’s the cord that’s suddenly back in demand. That’s the key takeaway from Sunday’s agreement betweenComcast (ticker: CMCSA) and Netflix (NFLX), which is finally agreeing to make a direct payment for the massive Internet bandwidth it consumes. For all its success with original content, Netflix still relies on cable companies to deliver those streams into consumers’ homes. Read more of this post

Walt Disney: Quantifying the Frozen Effect; cartoon movie Frozen has raked in nearly $1 billion worldwide

February 24, 2014, 3:57 P.M. ET

Walt Disney: Quantifying the Frozen Effect

By Ben Levisohn

Anyone who has a little girl, as I do, knows the power of Walt Disney’s (DIS) Frozen. She acts out the movie; she sings the songs (and has me singing them too); and she wants to grow up to be Princess Elsa, the movies ice-empowered heroine.

And anyone that’s an investor knows how well Frozen has done at the box office–the cartoon has raked in nearly $1 billion worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. Read more of this post

Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn issued an open letter to shareholders of the global commerce company in which he excoriated eBay’s management and board for various alleged conflicts of interest and lapses in corporate governance

Carl Icahn’s eBay battle gets nasty

By Jesse Solomon  @JesseSolomonCNN February 24, 2014: 12:48 PM ET

Carl Icahn released a letter Monday criticizing eBay’s management and two of its board of directors. EBay is fighting back.

Carl Icahn and eBay are digging into the trenches.

On Monday, the activist investor issued an open letter to shareholders of the global commerce company in which he excoriated eBay’s (EBAY, Fortune 500) management and board for various alleged conflicts of interest and lapses in corporate governance. Read more of this post

Flappy Bird Copycats Keep on Flapping

FEBRUARY 24, 2014, 5:14 PM  Comment

Flappy Bird Copycats Keep on Flapping

By NICK BILTON

On Feb. 9, the Western world fell into chaos as Flappy Bird, a highly addictive game, was removed from mobile app stores by Dong Nguyen, an independent developer in Vietnam.

Since then, people have scrambled to create clones of Flappy Bird, including Fly Birdie, Flappy Bee, Flappy Plane and Ironpants, to satiate the addictive gaming habits of smartphone owners. Read more of this post

In An Ad-mad World, Google Wants It All; Forget wearable computers and self-driving cars. The search giant will continue its dominance by sticking with its roots-taking $20 billion out of the hides of some very familiar companies

In An Ad-mad World, Google Wants It All

by Robert Hof | Feb 25, 2014

Forget wearable computers and self-driving cars. The search giant will continue its dominance by sticking with its roots—taking $20 billion out of the hides of some very familiar companies

It’s mid-September, and Volkswagen of America has a problem: It won’t have any new models coming out until the spring. Keeping VW front and centre in consumers’ minds has drawn a group of marketing folks from the automaker and two of its ad agencies to Google’s BrandLab at its YouTube headquarters south of San Francisco. Dedicated to “evangelising the art and science of brand-building”, the richly appointed meeting space is basically a man cave for ad creatives, complete with overstuffed couches, booze and the mother of all big screens, an assemblage of 32 flat-panel displays massed into 300 square feet of video overload. Read more of this post

How to Get Over Your Inaction on Big Data

How to Get Over Your Inaction on Big Data

by Phil Simon  |   11:00 AM February 24, 2014

It’s common to see surveys, polls, and reports showing that “most” organizations are embracing big data. For instance, a 2013 Gartner survey found that 64% of enterprises were deploying or planning big data projects, up from 58% the year before. Read more of this post

Snapdeal, the EBay of India, Sees Plenty of Room to Grow

FEBRUARY 21, 2014, 5:27 AM

Snapdeal, the EBay of India, Sees Plenty of Room to Grow

By MARK BERGEN

BANGALORE – Snapdeal and Flipkart, India’s two largest online marketplaces, are frequently recipients of honorific, hopeful nicknames. They are, respectively, called the eBay and Amazon of India. Read more of this post

Broadcasters Warn They May Reconsider Offering Free TV

Broadcasters Warn They May Reconsider Offering Free TV

Arguments Against Aereo Laid Out in Supreme Court Filing

AMOL SHARMA And SHALINI RAMACHANDRAN

Feb. 24, 2014 5:25 p.m. ET

Television broadcasters said in a filing with the Supreme Court that the continued operation of online-video service Aereo Inc. could force them to reconsider offering as much free, over-the-air TV programming as is now available.

In the filing, broadcasters laid out their arguments in their legal case against Aereo, which streams TV station signals to consumers for a monthly fee without the permission of broadcasters. The startup says its technology facilitates people’s legal right to watch over-the-air TV free of charge. Read more of this post

WhatsApp chief sets course for 1bn users

February 24, 2014 9:10 pm

WhatsApp chief sets course for 1bn users

By Daniel Thomas in Barcelona and Tim Bradshaw in San Francisco

Just days after selling WhatsApp for $19bn to Facebook, Jan Koum arrived at a Barcelona mobile industry conference to deliver a further shock to a telecoms industry already nervous about the strengthened competition from its low-cost messaging platform. Read more of this post

Groupon clones ditch business model

Groupon clones ditch business model

Tuesday, Feb 25, 2014

Victoria Ho

The Business Times

AS MORE Groupon clones fall by the wayside, another Singapore contender is turning away from the voucher model to e-commerce.

Three-and-a-half-year-old StreetDeal is one of the oldest in the local group-buying scene and the third largest here, after Groupon and Deal.com.sg. Read more of this post

China’s Internet: Gilding the Cyber Cage; The Chinese internet is dominated by three firms-Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent-often referred to as the “BATs”

China’s Internet: Gilding the Cyber Cage

with one comment

This essay originally appeared in the December 2013 issue of the China Economic Quarterly.

Cognitive dissonance is helpful in trying to understand the Chinese internet. China’s virtual town square remains crowded and rambunctious—even as members of the Public Security Bureau mingle in the throng and grab those who step too far out of line. Read more of this post

What’s up for Alibaba’s mobile app strategy?

What’s up for Alibaba’s mobile app strategy?

4:06pm EST

By Denny Thomas and Paul Carsten

HONG KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) – Billionaire Jack Ma’s Alibaba, the dominant force in China’s $1.6 trillion e-commerce market, may already have lost a battle with rival Tencent for the world’s biggest mobile market.

While Alibaba Group Holding Ltd dominates in e-commerce, Tencent Holdings Ltd has taken over China’s smartphone screens with its WeChat, or Weixin, social messaging platform. Read more of this post

Securities Regulators Go Big on Big Data

February 21, 2014, 5:13 PM ET

Securities Regulators Go Big on Big Data

EMILY CHASAN

Senior Editor

U.S. securities regulators are making greater use of big data, using economists and data-driven decisions to improve examinations, monitor market risks, complete stress tests and select enforcement cases. Read more of this post

Facebook WhatsApp Messaging Service Written in ‘Exotic’ Erlang Language; “It’s not a language that is taught in school”

February 24, 2014, 4:39 PM ET

Facebook WhatsApp Messaging Service Written in ‘Exotic’ Erlang

By Clint Boulton

If you can get past the jaw-dropping $19 billion Facebook Inc.FB +3.19% paid for WhatsApp, one of the interesting aspects of the company is that the engine that makes its message software purr is written in Erlang. The programming language is designed to support real-time communications for millions of concurrent users. Little known outside of telecommunications, the decades-old language boasts a feature that allows developers to alter code without shutting down the system. CIOs running their company’s mobile application efforts may want to take note. Read more of this post

Facebook’s Zuckerberg: WhatsApp Worth More Than Its Price Tag; CEO Says WhatsApp Is Rare Platform That Could Reach One Billion Users; I Thought Facebook’s WhatsApp Deal Was Crazy. Then I Did Some Math

Facebook’s Zuckerberg: WhatsApp Worth More Than Its Price Tag

CEO Says WhatsApp Is Rare Platform That Could Reach One Billion Users

SAM SCHECHNER

Updated Feb. 24, 2014 3:01 p.m. ET

BARCELONA— Mark Zuckerberg has a message for doubters of Facebook Inc.FB +3.19% ‘s acquisition of mobile-messaging service WhatsApp: $19 billion was cheap.

The Facebook chief executive said Monday that the five-year-old mobile application was worth more than Facebook agreed to pay for it last week, because the app is a rare platform that has the potential to reach over a billion users. Read more of this post

Chinese Banks Match Tech Firms in Race for Deposits; Funds Offering About 6% Returns Compete With Products From Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu.

Chinese Banks Match Tech Firms in Race for Deposits

Funds Offering About 6% Returns Compete With Products From Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu.

Feb. 24, 2014 6:19 a.m. ET

BEIJING—Chinese banks are trying to take on innovative tech companies that have set up successful investment funds in a contest that is reshaping China’s banking industry.

A number of banks, including big state-owned lenders as well as smaller ones, have launched a flurry of investment products to compete with the money-market funds introduced by their tech-sector rivals. Read more of this post

WhatsApp will add free voice-call services for its 450 million customers later this year, laying down a new challenge to telecom network operators just days after Facebook Inc scooped it up for $19 billion

WhatsApp to add voice calls after Facebook acquisition

5:12pm EST

By Leila Abboud and Eric Auchard

BARCELONA (Reuters) – WhatsApp will add free voice-call services for its 450 million customers later this year, laying down a new challenge to telecom network operators just days after Facebook Inc scooped it up for $19 billion.

The text-based messaging service aims to let users make calls by the second quarter, expanding its appeal to help it hit a billion users, WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum said at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Monday. Read more of this post

China’s mobile payment war escalates; In the war between Tencent and Alibaba for China’s emerging mobile payment market, cab-calling services have become the slightly unexpected battlefield

China’s mobile payment war escalates

By Xinhua writer Wang Wen

HANGZHOU, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) — In the war between Tencent and Alibaba for China’s emerging mobile payment market, cab-calling services have become the slightly unexpected battlefield.

Smartphone apps Didi (Tencent) and KuaiDi (Alibaba) are competing for the custom of those Chinese people who hail a cab through their online services. Read more of this post