Market Doesn’t Get the Yahoo-Microsoft Deal
The New York Times has a story this afternoon about how the market is interpreting the Yahoo-Microsoft search deal as a huge win for Microsoft and a loss for Yahoo. Yahoo’s stock fell 12% on Wednesday and another 3.6% on Thursday.
For those who don’t know, Microsoft rolled out a new search engine called Bing. It’s not perfect yet, but I’m a fan so far. I use it about half the time.
I haven’t used Yahoo Search for years. It just didn’t give me the results I wanted like Google did or Bing often does.
The way the deal is structured, Yahoo is basically selling its search business to Microsoft and using the Bing engine for search results. Rather than selling it for an upfront fee, they’re getting 88% of the revenue generated from search on Yahoo. This is a premium — these kinds of fees are usually in the 60s.
Frankly, this might be a good deal for Yahoo. Most tech guys will say, you have to own the technology or you lose what makes you unique as a company. That may well be true in this case, and some smart people have said it.
That being said, focus is important in a company. This deal lets Yahoo step back from trying to be a tech company and focus more on being an Internet media company and building on their #1 position there (Yahoo.com is still the most visited site on the Internet).
It’s hard to say where I come down on that. We’ll know soon enough.
I’m just wondering if they thought of structuring the deal differently. They each are contributing different things to the deal: Yahoo’s 20% market share and ad sales force, and Microsoft’s superior technology. What if you merged that together and ended up with Bing being owned 50-50 by both companies? Less guaranteed revenue for Yahoo, but more potential long term value.
I’ll tell you this: if the market thought Yahoo still owned a piece of the search asset, it’s stock wouldn’t be down since the deal’s announcement.
It will take a few years, but we’ll find out eventually whether the market was right or wrong. What do you think about this deal?
Mr. President, What’s the Rush?
Mitt Romney has a great opinion piece in USA Today this morning on the health care reform plan. Remember, as Governor of Massachusetts, he passed health care reform that has insured 98% of their citizens. It’s a good read.
No other state has made as much progress in covering their uninsured as Massachusetts. The bill that made it happen wasn’t a rush job. Shortly after becoming governor, I worked in a bipartisan fashion with Democrats to insure all our citizens. It took almost two years to find a solution. When we did, it passed the 200-member legislature with only two dissenting votes. It had the support of the business community, the hospital sector and insurers. For health care reform to succeed in Washington, the president must finally do what he promised during the campaign: Work with Republicans as well as Democrats.
Massachusetts also proved that you don’t need government insurance. Our citizens purchase private, free-market medical insurance. There is no “public option.” With more than 1,300 health insurance companies, a federal government insurance company isn’t necessary. It would inevitably lead to massive taxpayer subsidies, to lobbyist-inspired coverage mandates and to the liberals’ dream: a European-style single-payer system. To find common ground with skeptical Republicans and conservative Democrats, the president will have to jettison left-wing ideology for practicality and dump the public option.
Tami Uhler
The Auburn Journal says that Tami Uhler going back to work for Placer County is raising concerns and has a union boss complaining of nepotism.
The problem with a charge of nepotism is that it implies that Tami wouldn’t have gotten that job without Kirk’s help. That’s not just a huge leap — it’s demonstrably false.
I wrote this comment on the AJ site:
This “controversy” is pretty ridiculous. Anybody who knows Tami Uhler knows — no offense to Kirk — but she didn’t get her qualifications from Kirk. She was a deputy district attorney for Placer County, and a darned good one, when they got married back in 95 or 96.
Show me an unqualified person getting a job on the basis of who their spouse is, and I’ll be the first to call it nepotism. That’s not anywhere close to the same galaxy as Tami Uhler.
Tami has enough of a reputation and history with Placer County that I have no doubt there is no nepotism, unfair hiring practices or anything of the sort going on. Seriously, if Kirk wasn’t a supervisor and she called up her old colleagues, they would have hired her on the spot to fill that role because of her qualifications.
I wonder whether that union boss’s wife will appreciate his assumption that women get their skills and qualifications for a job via marriage.
Sierra College Prof: Iranian protests are rooted in tumultuous past
Sierra College Adjunct Professor Shadieh Mirmobiny pens a very well-written and informative piece about the protests for freedom and human rights in Iran. It’s worth remembering that this is a country with a lot of history.
Watching the post-election rallies in Iran develop into violent protests, I was taken back 31 years to the student uprising in 1978 at the beginning of the Iranian Revolution.
The presence of Iranians in great numbers on the streets protesting in unison with their fists raised brought back a great deal of mixed emotional memories of sadness, fear, anger and shattered hopes. I could not help but to compare these two crucial moments in the recent history of Iran to which rarely one generation has been a witness.
Photo Credit: SacBee / AFP
Sierra College to Launch Wi-Fi Across Every Campus
A huge step forward for our students begins with the fall semester: Sierra College launches wi-fi everywhere across all of our campuses. This project was funded by the Sierra College Foundation, through a fundraising drive spearheaded by a number of community leaders.
When the new Sierra College semester begins Aug. 31, students and their laptops will be free to roam.
The Sierra Community College Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the Rocklin-based college district, raised $210,000 in four months this spring to provide wireless Internet service for every student with a laptop at the community college system’s four campuses in Rocklin, Roseville, Grass Valley and Truckee.
The money was raised entirely by the foundation, with contributions from Wells Fargo, the United Auburn Indian Community and the Nevada County Coordinating Council and other groups, said Executive Director Sonbol Aliabadi.
The project stemmed from a survey completed about two years ago that asked students to rank a list of their needs. Wireless Internet was near the top of the list, Aliabadi said.
It’s an exciting accomplishment. Big kudos to Sonbol and her team!
Disqus
If you didn’t notice already, I switched this blog to the Disqus comments system a few days ago. It went off without a hitch, and imported all of my WordPress comments nicely.
Now, there’s all sorts of cool commenting functionality. You can tweet comments, or log in with Facebook, or set up a Disqus profile (coming from someone who hates setting up profiles: it takes 3 seconds, really). And I don’t get any spam or lame marketing e-mail with Disqus.
One really cool feature: when you comment on the blog and someone responds, you’ll get an e-mail with their response. All you have to do is click reply and type in your response, and your reply will instantly be posted here. How cool is that?
I first learned about Disqus from their venture capitalists, specifically Fred Wilson at Union Square Ventures. His blog is avc.com and is a great read. So thanks Fred, and know you got yet another new user for one of your portfolio companies through your own blogging.
California Schools Lose by Forfeit
I have to say, I knew this was a constant battle in California’s K-12 educational system. I didn’t know it was actually written into the education code.
California schools may already have lost the Race to the Top.
The state isn’t likely to see any of the $4.35 billion in competitive federal grants that will be passed out as part of the American Recovery Act if legislators don’t rescind a law that prevents teachers from being evaluated based on student test scores, say federal officials.
“Any state that makes it unlawful to link student progress to teacher evaluation will have to change its ways if it wants to compete for a grant,” President Barack Obama said in a news conference Friday.
California’s education code states that a system tracking teacher data, to be online next year, is not to be used in combination with student information to evaluate teachers.
I blogged about this Obama administration initiative before. Whether you like it or dislike it, this is stunning news.
I mean, we wouldn’t want people making decent salaries with health benefits, three months of vacation and an incredible pension to have to be accountable for their job performance, would we?
First Video from Half Dome
I have 18 minutes of raw video shot on my Flip video camera during my climb of Half Dome that I want to edit together into a cohesive whole and share with you all. However, I’ve got a loaner laptop right now with half the memory my other one did, so my video editing software isn’t working.
So for now, here’s a little over a minute of raw video from the summit. You’ll be able to hear the pain of my flaring lower back injury in my voice. At that point, the final haul up the cables had really done me in, and more importantly, I was pretty worried about how I was going to safely make it down. (After all, the hike was only 50% complete!)
As it turned out, that part was easy. My perspective has improved a lot since. 
I’ll be writing a complete post on the entire experience soon. For now, check out the incredible sights from the top of Half Dome.
We’re Back!
We’re back from vacation, and as you can tell from the picture, we didn’t have any fun at all.
We rented a cabin near Yosemite with Cacey’s brother, our wonderful sister-in-law and Spencer’s three cousins. One of the first things we did was take the kids to the Sugar Pine Railroad for a barbecue dinner and train ride. Spencer is a big choo-choo fan, after all.
My brother-in-law and I did conquer Half Dome, all the way to the top. It was an experience, to say the least. Photos and video to follow shortly.
Cacey and I are both pretty well rested up and ready for a busy couple of months ahead: plenty of work, bringing Emma home, and then the holidays. Can you believe 2009 is already half over?
Vacation
I thought I should let this blog’s three loyal readers know — well, maybe a few more than that — that Cacey, Spencer and I are headed off for a few days of rest and relaxation. This will be our third vacation with my brother-in-law and his family, and we’re looking forward to it! We’ll be back at the end of next week.
The BlackBerry is going on silent, the e-mail will be ignored, and I seriously doubt you will hear much from me on the blogging, Twitter or Facebook front. (Although never say never if inspiration strikes!)
On vacation, I tend to replace blogging — and many other activities — with reading. This time, the Kindle is allowing me to bring fewer books of the dead-tree variety (only four), so my suitcase will be quite a bit lighter.
As you might guess from the picture, we’ll be near Yosemite, and conditions permitting, my brother-in-law and I are inclined to attack Half Dome. We’re still reading up and preparing, so any tips from more experienced hikers are welcome. (That being said, we are aware of the need for boots, gloves and water!)
Other than that, the plan is to sleep in as long as possible, play with Spencer and my adorable nieces and nephews, and rest up for some very busy months ahead.
Talk to you all soon!
