Tuesday, 6 May 2008
Yahoo shares up on hope of talks with MS, Google deal
Investors are anticipating that Yahoo may give in to pressure from its largest shareholders to reconsider Microsoft's $47.5 billion offer, and noted conciliatory comments from its chief executive, Jerry Yang.
Alternately, Yahoo could strike a pact to outsource some of its search listings to Google to boost its performance. The two are hammering out the details of a potential deal and sharing their plans with antitrust regulators, said a person close to Google.
"There are definitely big accounts stepping in and buying Yahoo on the assumption they will get back to the table," said RBC Capital Markets analyst Ross Sandler. "If they don't, you have one other out, which is the Google outsourcing (deal)."
Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang told media on Monday that he had "mixed feelings" about events over the weekend, when talks broke down, and was still open to negotiations. "If they have anything new to say, we would be open," he said. "I am more than willing to listen."
Microsoft had sweetened its offer to $33 per share, but walked away from talks on Saturday after Yang held out for a price of $37 per share.
Yang's softer stance came as two of Yahoo's largest shareholders told The New York Times they would have been happy with a deal at $34 per share.
"I am extremely angry at Jerry Yang and at the so-called independent board," Gordon Crawford, portfolio manager for Capital Research Global Investors, the largest Yahoo shareholder with some 16 percent of stock, told the newspaper.
Crawford's sway over media companies is legend. In 2002, he mounted a campaign to force the resignation of AOL Time Warner Chairman Steve Case, the architect behind one of the worst corporate mergers of its era. Case resigned in January 2003.
Bill Miller of Legg Mason Inc, which owns about 7 percent of Yahoo shares, said he was disappointed the two companies didn't reach a deal and was surprised Microsoft walked away.
Deadline for proxy fight
In an apparent effort to contain a shareholder revolt, Yahoo on Monday set its annual meeting for July 3. It said May 15 is the deadline to nominate board candidates, giving dissident investors just over a week to launch a proxy fight.
"If you lose the goodwill of some of the largest shareholders, which seems to have happened, we would expect a bloodless coup with Jerry being invited to step aside," said Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay.
Yahoo shares rose $1.49 cents to $25.86, partially recovering from a 15 percent drop on Monday. Microsoft rose 1.6 percent to $29.54. Despite the renewed optimism, a Microsoft executive cast doubt on the idea that talks could resume.
Jean-Philippe Courtois, president of Microsoft International, told media in London that the company has moved on from Yahoo and will focus on its own strategy to be a leader in Internet services.
Asked if that was the end with Yahoo, he replied, "Absolutely, that's the end of the story. We are moving on because our strategy is very clear."
Google deal
Microsoft courted Yahoo to capitalize on the rapidly growing market for Internet advertising, one that has long been served by Yahoo's search, e-mail and Web communities.
It is also trying to fend off the expansion of Google, which has made inroads into Microsoft's home turf with a portfolio of Web based-applications, e-mail and messaging.
A Google deal would boost Yahoo's operating performance in the near term, but runs the risk of regulatory scrutiny over an alliance between the Internet's top two players.
"If it turns out that Google was just being used to thwart Microsoft, I think investor reaction will be very negative," Lindsay said.
In a letter to Yang over the weekend, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer warned that any deal between Yahoo and Google would be difficult to unravel and would preclude an agreement with Microsoft.
Yang told media the company would take care to structure any such efforts to "preserve as much (as possible) long-term flexibility for Yahoo, both operationally and strategically."
Source
Secrets Behind Ancient Mesopotamia Culture
Mesopotamia (from the Greek meaning "The land between the two rivers")[1] is an area geographically located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, largely corresponding to modern Iraq[2], northeastern Syria,[2] southeastern Turkey,[2] and the Khūzestān Province of southwestern Iran[3][4].
Commonly known as the "Cradle of civilization", Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian Empires. In the Iron Age, it was conquered into the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which gave way to the Achaemenid Empire. It mostly remained under Persian rule until the 7th century Islamic conquest of the Sassanid Empire.
History
Mesopotamian history extends from the emergence of Urban societies in Southern Iraq in the 5th millennium BC to the arrival of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC (which is seen as the hallmark of the Hellenization of the Near East, therefore supposedly marking the "end" of Mesopotamia). A cultural continuity and spatial homogeneity for this entire historical geography ("the Great Tradition") is popularly assumed, though the assumption is problematic. Mesopotamia housed some of the world's most ancient states with highly developed social complexity. The region was famous as one of the four riverine civilizations where writing was first invented, along with the Nile valley in Egypt, the Indus Valley in the Indian subcontinent and Yellow River valley in China (Although writing is also known to have arisen independently in Mesoamerica and the Andes).
Mesopotamia housed historically important cities such as Uruk, Nippur, Nineveh, and Babylon as well as major territorial states such as the Akkadian kingdom, Third Dynasty of Ur, and Assyrian empire. Some of the important historical Mesopotamian leaders were Ur-Nammu (king of Ur), Sargon (who established the Akkadian Kingdom), Hammurabi (who established the Old Babylonian state), and Tiglath-Pileser I (who established the Assyrian Empire).
"Ancient Mesopotamia" includes the period from the late 6th millennium BC until the rise of the Achaemenid Persians in the 6th century BC. This long period may be divided as follows:
- Chalcolithic:
- Ubaid period (ca 5900 BC–4000 BC)
- Uruk period (ca 4000 BC–3100 BC)
- Jemdet Nasr Period (ca 3100 BC–2900 BC)
- Early Bronze Age
- Early Dynastic city states (ca 2900 BC–2350 BC)
- Akkadian Empire (ca 2350 BC–2193 BC).
- Third dynasty of Ur ("Sumerian Renaissance" or "Neo-Sumerian Period") (ca 2119 BC–2004 BC)
- Middle Bronze Age
- Early Assyrian kingdom (20th to 18th c. BC)
- First Babylonian Dynasty (18th to 17th c. BC)
- Late Bronze Age
- Kassite dynasty, Middle Assyrian period (16th to 12th c. BC)
- Iron Age
- Syro-Hittite or Neo-Hittite regional states (11th–7th c. BC)
- Neo-Assyrian Empire (10th to 7th c. BC)
- Neo-Babylonian Empire (7th to 6th c. BC)
- Achaemenid Persian Empire (6th-4th c. BC)
Dates are approximate for the second and third millennia BC; compare Chronology of the Ancient Near East.
The Development of Writing: clay tokens in hollow balls
Pre-cuneiform pictographic writing, late fourth millennium BC:
Cuneiform:
Cylinder seals:
Law Codes (Hammurabi, c.1750 BC)
Cylinder seals:
Law Codes (Hammurabi, c.1750 BC)
A Ziggurat:
Warfare and the rise of monarchy: The "Standard of Ur" (2600 BC)
A worshipper:
Religion: votive offering from Lagash
The Propaganda of Victory: Naram-Sin, c.2250
The First "Empire" in History: Sargon of Akkad, 2370 BC
The costs of monarchy: the "Great Death Pit" of Ur
Gudea, "Big Man" of Lagash
The lugal, "Big Man"
The source of his power: loyal soldiersSource
See World's largest photo Here
First European confirmed to be 1.2 millions old.Click Here
First European confirmed to be 1.2 millions old.Click Here
See House on a Mango Tree Here
Historic Photos of London Zoo (12 Rare Pics)
According to BBC, the history of London Zoo is revealed in images published online for the first time. Sweet and funny vintage photos are now on Funtasticus too.
First European confirmed to be 1.2 millions old.Click Here
See House on a Mango Tree Here
Swiss bank UBS to cut 5,500 jobs
The Swiss bank UBS plans to cut 5,500 jobs after suffering a $10.9 billion first quarter loss due to the US sub-prime mortgage crisis.
The seven percent job loss will include as many as 2,600 positions at the securities division, the company said in a Tuesday statement.
UBS also said it planned to sell a $15 billion portfolio of sub-prime mortgages to a newly created fund managed by BlackRock Inc by the end of June.
Chief Executive Officer Marcel Rohner told analysts he expected 'tough business conditions', which has so far caused $38 billion of markdowns at the company, to continue, forcing the bank to 'manage costs, resources and capacity very actively'.
UBS, Europe's biggest victim of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, had earlier announced 1,500 job losses, which, together with the latest staff cuts, represent an 18-percent reduction of the company's workforce since mid 2007.
Other leading companies have also announced job cuts due to the US credit crunch, which has led to markdowns and losses of $319 billion.
Citigroup Inc, which has suffered almost $41 billion from the sub-prime crisis, cut about 15,200 jobs while Merrill Lynch & Co reduced 5,220 positions.
Source
New BBC3 show to ask people to go to work naked
Talk about dressing down. A new BBC3 show will ask people to go to work naked!
The show Naked Office plans to have cameras following fully clothed employees at work and gauging their views on nudity.
Some will be asked to pose for life-drawing classes to see how comfortable they feel in the buff in public.
And, every now and then, the firm’s staff will all be asked to come to work in the buff for an event called Naked Friday.
The basic idea behind the whole plot is to look at people’s attitudes to nudity, body image and the role clothes play in office hierarchy.
In a letter inviting companies to take part in Naked Office, producers assure potential participants the project would be a “very productive day as well as a day to remember.”
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