4 July 2012: Microsoft writes off $6.2 billion and South Korea gender equality

Microsoft writes off $6.2 billion: Blamed on performance of online services division. Paid $6.3 billion to acquire digital advertising agency aQuantive in 2007, growth and profitability lower than expected. Failed to gain foothold in smartphone market, CEO Balmer announced Slate computers two years ago that never materialised two months before Apple iPad was released, Online search and advertising investments not paid off.  Xbox and Kinect are bright spots. [CR: $6.3 billion for a digital agency? Sounds like a bargain.] (Brian Corrigan)

Dell to purchase Quest Software for $2.4 billion. Quest was founded in 1987, has $US857 million in annual sales, sells software t manage databases, protect information, and simplify access to data.  Looking to be an end to end solutions company across SME and enterprise. Dell’s profit fell 33% to $US635 million, mobile and desktop computer sales down 6%. [CR: Perhaps Dell will fare better?] (Evelyn Rusli)

South Korea gender diversity: South Korea is Asia’s fourth largest economy, only 50% of women 15 years or older were working last year. Female participation with higher education is lowest of the 34 members of the Organisation for Co-operation and Economic Development. Royal Bank of Scotland: South Korea working age population to contract by 2016, curbing growth by 1.7 percentage points to 2.5% by 2050. Women in OECD countries earn on average 16% less than men, women earn 39% less than men in South Korea. 1.9South Korean boardrooms made up of 1.9% women. (Eunkyung Seo)

US Information Security Oversight Office said government spent more than $US11 billion to protect secrets last year, double the cost a year ago. [CR: I wonder if they have twice as many secrets, or how additional channels such as social media or WikiLeaks impact the costs?]

Thousands of anti-pollution protestors in China halted the construction of a copper plant, lobbed bricks at government offices and were dispersed by police with tear gas. [CR: Reference previous story on China air pollution.]

19 June 2012

Fairfax changes: SMH and The Age to move to compact size in March. To close printing presses in Sydney and Melbourne in 2 years, saving $44M in annual costs, taking out $234M in costs by 2015. Cutting 1900 jobs, 20% of total workforce. 380 positions will be from editorial.  Will adopt a “digital first” editorial model.  Sold 15% stake in NZ online business Trade Me for $160M to reduce net debt to $800M. [CR: Expect a tsunami of new bloggers in the market]

Gillard government finally finalised definition of the word “flood” for insurance companies. [CR: So take that, you stupid dictionary.]

Apps impacting taxi industry: Apps Ingogo and GoCatch make it easier to pre-book owner-driver hire cars, bypassing taxi industry. [CR: Potential industry suffering from limited competition resulting in lack of innovation, risking diminished market share. If you view yourself as the product or service you sell, you will be obsolete. They do not sell taxi rides, they facilitate getting people from A to B, just like video stores do not rent DVDs, they lease entertainment experiences.]

Water conservation still a global issue: UN receives support from 45 CEOs, including Levi and Coke. 800 million people worldwide do not have safe drinking water, 2.5 billion lack access to sanitation. Water demand will outstrip supply by 40% by 2030. [CR: Pondering the world I am leaving for my kid...]

$13,115 pot of face cream: Shiseido to release a 50-gram jar of face cream costing $13,115. $263 per gram (gold is $51.30 per gram). Each container made up of 30 layers of crystals and three platinum rungs. [CR: After reading the story above, I ask what we invest in]

St George to launch Pay to Mobile payment feature that will allow customers to send money via SMS. To compete against ComBank’s Kaching and ANZ’s goMoney. Will not offer Facebook payments or NFC like ComBanks. Kachin limited to iOS, Pay to Mobile available cross-device. In May, 18,662 downloaded the iOS app, 5,637 downloaded Android, 494 Windows, 33 Blackberry. [CR: Blackberry who?]

Quote from Macquarie Bank’s head of wealth management technology Stephen Dunn: Institudions need to let go the historic need to develop their own apps and solutions. “We have to partner. If we don’t all we’re going to do is provide bank accounts and technology companies are going to provide the servicing. For us it’s about time to market and so what we need to do is partner”.

Microsoft IE 10 which ships with Windows 8 to ship with new Do Not track (DNT) feature turned on (other browsers have it as an option to turn off).  DNT is a browser-based feature that allows users to tell advertisers they do not want to be followed.  Association of National Advertisers say it will not show fewer advertisements, but less relevant advertisements, consumers will be worse off [CR: You would say that].   Google relies almost solely on advertising. [CR: Clever, hurting Google in an indirect way, while being seen as a benefit to the consumer]

Intel says Android slow on fast chips: “Google’s Android OS is so poorly designed and so poorly implemented by mobile phone handset makers that the dual-and quad-core processors found in most high-end Android phones can actually run slower than single-core processors. [CR: While this may be inflammatory, keep in mind the c-suite audience of the Fin Review. Also be aware a few pages back St George says they cannot ignore 25% of their users on Android. Message to the market is to do Android, but manage expectations on a popular yet fragmented and still immature platform]