News for Sunday, 4 May 2008

Today, Microsoft surprisingly withdrew its bid for Yahoo on after having raised it to 46 billion USD last Friday, and agreed that a hostile bid for the Internet company do not make sense.
Details and explanation were described in a letter sent by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang.
Yahoo officials reacted and expressed their pleasure with the end of the Microsoft bid. At the same time, Microsoft indicated that it will proceed with its Web advertising strategy, while Steve Ballmer was expressing its concern about further Yahoo-Google partnerships, naming it "the dominant search provider". A weird comments coming from a company known for having built its business on a well-known monopoly... Monopoly does not seem to be good for business when you are not owning it according to Redmond's Giant standard...
For sure, the future will be interesting, with the opened and growing collaboration between Yahoo and Google on web Ads, and the future offer from Microsoft, it will probably be the beginning of a serious war for the control of the juicy online advertising monopoly.

The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a non-partisan research and educational institute – a think tank – whose mission is to formulate and promote public policies to advance technological innovation and productivity internationally, in Washington, and in the states; unveiled its 2008 International Broadband ranking. By examining OECD nations through statistical analysis and defining representative parameters (household penetration, price, speed) the ITIF intends to provide a better view of the success full broadband development and usage in those countries.
Thanks to its household penetration South Korea ends first in front of Japan which offers the fastest and cheapest broadband. Behind those 2 asian nations, we find 5 EU countries (Finland, Netherlands, France, Sweden and Denmark) followed by Iceland and Norway. USA ranks 15th due to slow broadband and high price.
If you wish to spot your country in this ranking, you can look at the official report here.

Apple extended the deadline for registering to the WWDC which will take place from June 9th to 13th in San Francisco.