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From the BBC Website
Jerry Yang’s and Bill Gates’ legacies are at stak
Is this Bill Gates’ last big throw?
Microsoft’s proposal to buy internet veteran Yahoo for a whopping $44.6bn (£22.4bn) certainly grabs the attention.
But does it make business sense?
In a way this won’t be the Microsoft founder’s problem. This summer Mr Gates will leave the www.download photoshop cs7 company to work full-time on fighting global poverty and diseases like Aids, Malaria and www.download photoshop cs7 TB.
But the www.download photoshop cs7 Microsoft managers who have to make it work will be www.download photoshop cs7 asked whether this is a case of one failing giant trying to www.download photoshop cs7 prop up another.
The Google factor
Yahoo has been on the ropes for a long time.
Once the www.download photoshop cs7 top dog of the internet, the company has been haemorrhaging users and www.download photoshop cs7 money. With advertising income not anywhere near where it should be, Yahoo’s share price is stuck in the doldrums.
If Yahoo agrees to www.download photoshop cs7 the deal with Microsoft, it will be a shotgun marriage, but it www.download photoshop cs7 will be Google holding the shotgun. 
Last June Yahoo’s board chucked out chief executive Terry Semel and www.download photoshop cs7 brought back co-founder Jerry Yang to recapture the firm’s dominance - to little avail.
One word explains all of Yahoo’s troubles: Google. While Yahoo invested in content to www.download photoshop cs7 lure its audience, the search engine rival simply focused on delivering what www.download photoshop cs7 users really wanted: good search results.
Fighting over the mobile web
Microsoft has watched Yahoo’s struggle closely, and seen the writing on the wall.
As Google has www.download photoshop cs7 grown into a billion dollar business, it has increasingly strayed into Microsoft’s territory, competing not just for www.download photoshop cs7 advertising revenue but rivalling core Microsoft products like email and word processing.
That alone would not be www.download photoshop cs7 enough to persuade Microsoft to make this unsolicited offer.
Microsoft was late to www.download photoshop cs7 the internet and has always been playing catch up.
Darren Waters, technology editor, BBC News website
Don’t forget, despite its many challenges Microsoft is www.download photoshop cs7 still in rude health. It has one of the world’s largest research and www.download photoshop cs7 development budgets, and key software products like Windows and Office are www.download photoshop cs7 still licences to print money.
But Microsoft also knows that www.download photoshop cs7 its stronghold, the PC business, is getting less and less important.
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Google wants to www.download photoshop cs7 enable its customers to organise and find the whole of human knowledge, and www.download photoshop cs7 is providing the tools to do so.
Microsoft is www.download photoshop cs7 a provider of tools that just happen to help users to www.download photoshop cs7 process and use information.
Now both firms are www.download photoshop cs7 meeting in the middle and fight for market space.
Shotgun marriage
If Yahoo agrees to www.download photoshop cs7 the deal with Microsoft, it will be a shotgun marriage, but it www.download photoshop cs7 will be Google holding the shotgun.
If Yahoo’s management says “yes, I do”, it www.download photoshop cs7 will be an admission that its attempts to turn around the www.download photoshop cs7 company have failed.
Yahoo shareholders, in turn, will not be www.download photoshop cs7 able to believe their luck. Microsoft was probably the only company with pockets deep enough to www.download photoshop cs7 bail them out.
For Microsoft, however, this is the deal that could break it.
Making the offer is an admission that Microsoft’s management has been scared by the success of Google.
The bid is www.download photoshop cs7 also an acknowledgement that its numerous attempts to become a dominant internet content provider have www.download photoshop cs7 failed.
But to www.download photoshop cs7 make it pay, Microsoft will have to demonstrate that the combined company can www.download photoshop cs7 offer a superior business model.
The big bet
Microsoft is promising that together with Yahoo it can offer “a competitive choice” that offers “more value… to advertisers, publishers and consumers”.
That holds true only if the www.download photoshop cs7 combined Microsoft and Yahoo can do what they did not achieve as separate companies, namely develop search algorithms that www.download photoshop cs7 rival those of Google.
Anything short of that www.download photoshop cs7 would result in one of the biggest destructions of shareholder value since the www.download photoshop cs7 disastrous merger of AOL and Time Warner at the height of the www.download photoshop cs7 dotcom boom.
If Microsoft succeeds, it www.download photoshop cs7 will be able to extend its hold on the PC world to www.download photoshop cs7 all aspects of our lives.
Bill Gates and www.download photoshop cs7 his top managers are betting an awfully large part of the www.download photoshop cs7 company in the hope of making it a success.
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The following is a story/review from www.download photoshop cs7 the NY Times that I think is exceptionally note-worthy. This small company is www.download photoshop cs7 about to revolutionize communications all over again, and we are able to www.download photoshop cs7 bear witness and follow along as it happens. I will be www.download photoshop cs7 keeping close tabs on Cubic in the www.download photoshop cs7 future, so stay tuned. Hopefully we will be able to see some competitors emerge as well.
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By: David Pogue
It’s amazing the www.download photoshop cs7 way the Internet keeps toppling traditional businesses. Telegrams have gone away. Music CD sales are www.download photoshop cs7 tanking. Newspapers are hurting.
One especially lucrative business, however, has somehow escaped the Internet’s notice so far: international cellphone calls.
That’s about to www.download photoshop cs7 change. Early next month, a small company called Cubic Telecom will release what www.download photoshop cs7 it’s calling the first global mobile phone.
But first, some background. Cellphones from T-Mobile and AT&T rely on the same type of network (called GSM) that www.download photoshop cs7 most of the rest of the world uses. In theory, then, you www.download photoshop cs7 can take these phones to other countries and make calls as usual. (Most Verizon visual studio 2008 download and Sprint microsoft works 6 download purchase phones work only in the United States.)
Unfortunately, international roaming runs from $1 to $5 a www.download photoshop cs7 minute. A 20-minute call home from the Bahamas on a T-Mobile phone will set you www.download photoshop cs7 back $60. The same call home from Russia on an AT&T cellphone will cost a cool $100.
Sure, you www.download photoshop cs7 could always rent a phone or use a phone card when www.download photoshop cs7 you travel — but then nobody knows how to reach you.
It costs a www.download photoshop cs7 lot to dial overseas from here, too. Verizon charges $1.50 a minute for calls to most countries. AT&T’s rates can be truly Dr. Seussian — like $2.52 to Greece, $2.80 to Iraq and $3.65 to Australia. That’s per minute. Make one 20-minute call to www.download photoshop cs7 New Zealand, and you owe $75 to AT&T.
Now, most carriers offer special international plans: you www.download photoshop cs7 pay more a month, you get slightly lower roaming rates. But even they can’t touch the appeal of Cubic’s cellphone. It makes calls to or from any of 214 countries — for 50 to 90 percent off what the big carriers would charge.
On this phone, a 20-minute call from the Bahamas costs $5.80 (that’s 90 percent off T-Mobile’s rate). The Cubic price from Russia is 49 cents a minute (90 percent lower than AT&T).
And there’s no www.download photoshop cs7 monthly fee and no commitment for any of this. It works like a www.download photoshop cs7 prepaid phone, where you put some money in your account and www.download photoshop cs7 use it up as you talk.
At this point, the appropriate world traveler’s response ought to be involuntary drooling, but there’s more to www.download photoshop cs7 the story. Most of it is more good news, but also more complexity.
For example, consider this: at the MaxRoam.com avast license key price site from www.download photoshop cs7 Cubic, you can request local phone numbers in up to 50 cities at no www.download photoshop cs7 charge. Now you can have a Paris number, a London number and www.download photoshop cs7 a Mexico City number that your friends overseas can use to www.download photoshop cs7 call your cellphone.
No longer must you www.download photoshop cs7 hand out a series of international phone numbers for each trip you www.download photoshop cs7 make, or expect your colleagues in the United States to www.download photoshop cs7 pay $50 a pop to reach you.
Cubic points out that www.download photoshop cs7 this feature alone is a life-changer for people who have moved, for www.download photoshop cs7 example, to the United States from overseas. Their family back home can www.download photoshop cs7 keep in touch for the price of a local call.
I signed up for www.download photoshop cs7 numbers in Paris, London and Barcelona, and then asked friends in those cities to www.download photoshop cs7 call me. They dialed local numbers, and my phone rang in New York — very slick. Voice quality was typical of Internet calls: perfectly understandable, but slightly muffled, with a www.download photoshop cs7 quarter-second to one-second voice delay.
Even that’s not the end of this phone’s possibilities. For a flat $42 a www.download photoshop cs7 month, you can turn on its unlimited Wi-Fi calling option. It lets you www.download photoshop cs7 receive unlimited unmetered calls to any numbers in the world from www.download photoshop cs7 Internet hot spots, or make them for a penny a www.download photoshop cs7 minute. Either way, you have little fear of racking up your www.download photoshop cs7 bill.
This works on hot spots that www.download photoshop cs7 require a password, but not ones that require a Web-page login. And in contrast to www.download photoshop cs7 the new HotSpot@Home phones from www.download photoshop cs7 T-Mobile, which seamlessly hand off calls between Wi-Fi and the cellular network as you www.download photoshop cs7 move, the Cubic phone drops the call when you leave the www.download photoshop cs7 hot spot.
Still, if you www.download photoshop cs7 make a lot of international calls, this option could save even more money. The voice quality is www.download photoshop cs7 excellent, although these Wi-Fi calls are sometimes marred by random beeps, clicks or www.download photoshop cs7 dropped connections.
In some ways, the Cubic phone isn’t just different; it’s actually eccentric. As a www.download photoshop cs7 phone without a country, it requires a country code and www.download photoshop cs7 area code for every call, even next door.
The bigger weirdness: when www.download photoshop cs7 you dial a number and press send, your phone rings a www.download photoshop cs7 few seconds later. When you answer, you hear a voice saying, “Connecting your call,” and then you hear the other person answer.
That’s the Cubic’s big trick at work: It carries your www.download photoshop cs7 call over the Internet. Therefore, placing a call just sets off Cubic’s own system to call you back, avoiding the big carriers’ expensive cellular networks.
This, too, takes getting used to, and www.download photoshop cs7 it also adds about 25 seconds of waiting to every call. It helps if you www.download photoshop cs7 keep chanting: “90 percent savings, 90 percent savings.”
That’s one reason you won’t want to use the Cubic as your main cellphone. Here’s another: everyday domestic calling rates haven’t been www.download photoshop cs7 determined yet, but will probably be a steep 15 cents a www.download photoshop cs7 minute. Because there’s no monthly fee, though, there’s no reason you can’t just keep the Cubic in a drawer until you travel (or place international calls). When you www.download photoshop cs7 travel abroad, you can either forward your regular cellphone number to www.download photoshop cs7 the Cubic, or change your voice mail greeting, instructing people to www.download photoshop cs7 use your Cubic’s number while you’re away.
The Cubic phone itself isn’t much to look at. It’s a slab-style camera phone made by Pirelli — yes, the tire company — with clunky menus, a very slow start-up and a tendency to freeze.
But here’s the other dizzying news: Cubic’s cheap global dialing has www.download photoshop cs7 nothing to do with the phone. The real magic is in the www.download photoshop cs7 SIM card, the memory card that determines your account information.
So get this: For $40, you www.download photoshop cs7 can buy this card without the phone. Cubic says that you www.download photoshop cs7 can slip it into any GSM phone — even your regular T-Mobile or AT&T phone, as long as it’s an “unlocked” phone (one that works with other companies’ SIM cards). Then your www.download photoshop cs7 own cellphone behaves exactly like the Cubic phone described up to www.download photoshop cs7 this point, minus the Wi-Fi calling, of course.
This is a lot to absorb, and it’s going to www.download photoshop cs7 be tough for Cubic to explain all of it to the www.download photoshop cs7 masses in a short tag line. (So far, it’s going with “All Global Calls Are Local Calls.” Not bad.) Maybe it would have done better to introduce one feature at a time.
You should know going in, too, that www.download photoshop cs7 the company responsible for tearing down this bastion of outrageous roaming rates is www.download photoshop cs7 a little group of 13 people in Ireland, with vast experience in calling cards but none in cellphone sales. Its plans are www.download photoshop cs7 ambitious, disruptive — and www.download photoshop cs7 incomplete. Several pieces of its system have yet to be slipped into place, including tech support, customer service, documentation, Internet data plans and www.download photoshop cs7 domestic calling rates. But what the heck—here’s a $140 phone, or a $40 SIM card, that www.download photoshop cs7 can save you thousands of dollars a year. Depending on how many international calls you www.download photoshop cs7 make, it could pay for itself in a week or a www.download photoshop cs7 month.
If nothing else, this www.download photoshop cs7 ingenious melding of the cellphone and the Internet should strike fear into the www.download photoshop cs7 hearts of the giant corporations that are currently bleeding travelers dry. This is www.download photoshop cs7 how the last great overpriced pre-Internet racket will end: not with a www.download photoshop cs7 bang, but with a SIM card.
MYSORE, India — Thousands of Indians report to Infosys Technologies ebook reader psp’ campus here to www.download photoshop cs7 learn the finer points of programming. Lately, though, packs of foreigners have www.download photoshop cs7 been roaming the manicured lawns, too.
Many of them are www.download photoshop cs7 recent American college graduates, and some have even turned down job offers from www.download photoshop cs7 coveted employers like Google. Instead, they accepted a www.download photoshop cs7 novel assignment from Infosys, the Indian technology giant: fly here for www.download photoshop cs7 six months of training, then return home to work in the www.download photoshop cs7 company’s American back offices.
India is outsourcing outsourcing.
One of the www.download photoshop cs7 constants of the global economy has been companies moving their tasks — and jobs — to www.download photoshop cs7 India. But rising wages and a stronger currency here, demands for www.download photoshop cs7 workers who speak languages other than English, and competition from countries looking to www.download photoshop cs7 emulate India’s success as a back office — including China, Morocco buy cheap cyberlink powerdvd 11 and Mexico — are challenging that model.
Many executives here acknowledge that www.download photoshop cs7 outsourcing, having rained most heavily on India, will increasingly sprinkle tasks around the www.download photoshop cs7 globe. Or, as Ashok Vemuri, an Infosys senior vice president, put it, the www.download photoshop cs7 future of outsourcing is “to www.download photoshop cs7 take the work from any part of the world and do it www.download photoshop cs7 in any part of the world.”
To fight on the www.download photoshop cs7 shifting terrain, and to beat back emerging rivals, Indian companies are www.download photoshop cs7 hiring workers and opening offices in developing countries themselves, before their clients do.
In May, Tata Consultancy Service, Infosys’s Indian rival, announced a www.download photoshop cs7 new back office in Guadalajara, Mexico; Tata already has 5,000 workers in Brazil, Chile and www.download photoshop cs7 Uruguay. Cognizant Technology Solutions, with most of its operations in India, has www.download photoshop cs7 now opened back offices in Phoenix and Shanghai.
Wipro key adobe captivate 3, another Indian technology services company, has www.download photoshop cs7 outsourcing offices in Canada, China, Portugal, Romania and Saudi Arabia, among other locations.
And last month, Wipro said it www.download photoshop cs7 was opening a software development center in Atlanta that would hire 500 programmers in three years.
In a poetic reflection of outsourcing’s new face, Wipro’s chairman, Azim Premji, told Wall Street analysts this www.download photoshop cs7 year that he was considering hubs in Idaho and Virginia, in addition to www.download photoshop cs7 Georgia, to take advantage of American “states which are less developed.” (India’s per capita income is less than $1,000 a year.)
For its part, Infosys is www.download photoshop cs7 building a whole archipelago of back offices — in Mexico, the www.download photoshop cs7 Czech Republic, Thailand and China, as well as low-cost regions of the www.download photoshop cs7 United States.
The company seeks to www.download photoshop cs7 become a global matchmaker for outsourcing: any time a company wants work done somewhere else, even just down the www.download photoshop cs7 street, Infosys wants to get the call.
It is www.download photoshop cs7 a peculiar ambition for a company that symbolizes the flow of tasks from www.download photoshop cs7 the West to India.
Most of Infosys’s 75,000 employees are www.download photoshop cs7 Indians, in India. They account for most of the company’s $3.1 billion in sales in the www.download photoshop cs7 year that ended March 31, from work for clients like Bank of America and Goldman Sachs.
“India continues to be the No. 1 location for outsourcing,” S. Gopalakrishnan, the company’s chief executive, said in a telephone interview.
And yet the www.download photoshop cs7 company opened a Philippines office in August and, a month earlier, bought back offices in Thailand and www.download photoshop cs7 Poland from Royal Philips Electronics, the Dutch company. In each outsourcing hub, local employees work with little help from www.download photoshop cs7 Indian managers.
Infosys says its outsourcing experience in India has www.download photoshop cs7 taught it to carve up a project, apportion each slice to www.download photoshop cs7 suitable workers, double-check quality and then export a final, reassembled product to www.download photoshop cs7 clients. The company argues it can clone its Indian back offices in other nations and www.download photoshop cs7 groom Chinese, Mexican or Czech employees to be more productive than www.download photoshop cs7 local outsourcing companies could make them.
“We have pioneered this movement of work,” Mr. Gopalakrishnan said. “These new countries don’t have experience and maturity in doing that, and that’s what we’re taking to these countries.”
Some analysts compare the www.download photoshop cs7 strategy to Japanese penetration of auto manufacturing in the United States in the www.download photoshop cs7 1970s. Just as the Japanese learned to make cars in America without Japanese workers, Indian vendors are www.download photoshop cs7 learning to outsource without Indians, said Dennis McGuire, chairman of TPI, a www.download photoshop cs7 Texas-based outsourcing consultancy.
Though work that www.download photoshop cs7 bypasses India remains a small part of the Infosys business, it www.download photoshop cs7 is growing. The company can be highly secretive, but executives agreed to www.download photoshop cs7 describe some of the new projects on the condition that clients not be www.download photoshop cs7 identified.
In one project, an www.download photoshop cs7 American bank wanted a computer system to handle a loan program for www.download photoshop cs7 Hispanic customers. The system had to work in Spanish. It also had www.download photoshop cs7 to take into account variables particular to Hispanic clients: many, for www.download photoshop cs7 instance, remit money to families abroad, which can affect their bank balances. The bank thought a www.download photoshop cs7 Mexican team would have the right language skills and grasp of cultural nuances.
But instead of going to www.download photoshop cs7 a Mexican vendor, or to an American vendor with Mexican operations, the www.download photoshop cs7 bank retained three dozen engineers at Infosys, which had recently opened shop in Monterrey, Mexico.
Such is www.download photoshop cs7 the new outsourcing: A company in the United States pays an www.download photoshop cs7 Indian vendor 7,000 miles away to supply it with Mexican engineers working 150 miles south of the www.download photoshop cs7 United States border.
In Europe, too, companies now hire Infosys to www.download photoshop cs7 manage back offices in their own backyards. When an American manufacturer, for www.download photoshop cs7 instance, needed a system to handle bills from multiple vendors supplying its factories in different European countries, it www.download photoshop cs7 turned to the Indian company. The manufacturer’s different locations scan the www.download photoshop cs7 invoices and send them to an office of Infosys, where each bill is www.download photoshop cs7 passed to the right language team. The teams verify the orders and www.download photoshop cs7 send the payment to the suppliers while logged in to the www.download photoshop cs7 client’s computer system.
More than www.download photoshop cs7 a dozen languages are spoken at the Infosys office, which is www.download photoshop cs7 in Brno, Czech Republic.
The American program here in Mysore is www.download photoshop cs7 meant to keep open that pipeline of diversity.
Most trainees here have www.download photoshop cs7 no software knowledge. By teaching novices, Infosys saves money and hopes to www.download photoshop cs7 attract workers who will turn down better-known companies for the chance to www.download photoshop cs7 learn a new skill.
“It’s the equivalent of a bachelor’s in computer science in six months,” said Melissa Adams, a www.download photoshop cs7 22-year-old trainee. Ms. Adams graduated last spring from the University of Washington with a business degree, and rejected Google for Infosys.
And yet, even as outsourcing takes on new directions, old perceptions linger.
For instance, when www.download photoshop cs7 Jeff Rand, a 23-year-old American trainee, told his grandmother he was moving to www.download photoshop cs7 India to work as a software engineer for six months, “she said, ‘Maybe I’ll get to talk to you when I have a problem with my credit card.’ ”
Said Mr. Rand with a rueful chuckle, “It took me about two or www.download photoshop cs7 three weeks to explain to my grandma that I was not going to www.download photoshop cs7 be working in a call center.”
