Pressmart says it turned down Google overtures

Hyderabad based Pressmart Media Ltd, a company that generates and maintains e-papers for global and Indian newspapers and magazines, says it has turned down an acquisition bid by Internet search engine firm Google Inc.

Last week, Pressmart raised $6 million (Rs 27.8 crore today) in private equity funding from US-based venture capital companies Draper Fisher Jurvetson and NEA-Indo US Ventures. The company plans to use the funds to open marketing offices in the US, the UK, Singapore and Dubai to expand its international client base.

Pressmart chief executive Sanjiv Gupta said Google executives approached the company in early March, expressing an interest in Pressmart and its licensed technology.

The Hyderabad company owns patented technology for digitizing newspapers and making them searchable on the Internet while preserving the same-as-in-print feel.

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Microsoft faces new browser foe in Google

This time, Microsoft's opponent is Google, a familiar foe.

On Tuesday, Google will release a free Web browser called Chrome that the company said would challenge Microsoft's Internet Explorer, as well as the Firefox browser.

The browser is a universal doorway to the Internet, and the use of Internet software and services is rapidly growing. Increasingly, the browser is also the doorway to the Web on cellphones and other mobile devices, widening the utility of the Web and Web advertising. Google, analysts say, cannot let Microsoft's dominant share of the browser market go without a direct challenge.

Google already competes with Microsoft in online search and Internet advertising. They both make operating software for cellphones. Google is increasingly competing with Microsoft head-on in software that handles basic productivity like word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and e-mail programs.

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Google couple goes missing

Mr Hari Shankar, wildlife photographer of Google, and his wife, Mrs Roshni Mukherjee, are missing after the fire mishap in Gautami Express.

The couple, who reside in the city, was travelling in S-10 coach and was not found in hospital after the mishap.

Members of their families in Hyderabad tried to ring their mobile phones, but there was no response.

Neither could the railways helpline provide any details. Friends and colleagues have rushed to the accident spot in Warangal to trace their where abouts.

Mr Hari Shankar was travelling to Rajahmundry in Gautami Express to take photographs of wild animals in forest area of East Godavari district. His wife, who is working as a senior executive of AdWords, also accompanied him in the trip.

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Nokia sees half of cellphones with GPS in 2010-12

Nokia plans to add navigation to half of the phones it sells within a few years to find new revenue streams amid decreasing handset prices, a senior official at the world's top cellphone maker said.

Michael Halbherr, the head of Nokia's location-based activities, told Reuters he remains comfortable with Nokia's year-old goal for seeing up to 50 percent of its phones equipped with global positioning system (GPS) chips in 2010 to 2012.

"We are planning to ship 35 million GPS units this year," Halbherr said, adding "and many more location-enabled phones that use cell-towers to orient themselves on the map".

"You will see few 'E' or 'N' Series phones without GPS," he said.

Last year Nokia sold 437 million phones, and it expects the volume to grow more than 10 percent this year. It sold 38 million phones in its multimedia range "N Series" and some 7 million "E Series" business phones.

GPS chips use orbiting satellites to pin point the where abouts of a phone user, thereby enabling a host of location-based services. SiRF Technology Holdings Inc is the world's largest maker of GPS chips.

Last October, when unveiling an $8.1 billion offer for U.S. based digital map supplier Navteq , Nokia said it would have tens of navigation-enabled phones on the market by end-2008.

It sells five models with built-in GPS and has unveiled four more which will ship in the coming months.

Halbherr said his company's GPS phone strategy goes far beyond the phones themselves.

It's part of a comprehensive strategy to make location-enabled, context-aware phones available across its product line, he said.

Beyond phones specially equipped with location-finding technology, all Nokia phones stand to benefit as GPS phone users move about and effectively update Nokia Maps in real time for other phone users.

"Location will ultimately be in every device," Halbherr declared, not just the half of phones with special GPS chips.

In addition to GPS chips, Nokia's strategy involves pushing Wi-Fi enabled devices that use local wireless network antennas to achieve more or less the same location-awareness in these devices. Even phones without GPS or Wi-Fi can use local cellphone towers to identify their position on maps, he noted.

Nokia Maps, first introduced in early 2006, will come out with a version 2.0 for phones worldwide later this month.

Halbherr mocks the current rush by Internet companies such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to deliver all their services as centralized, Web-based services over the network, rather than using the growing powers of the device in users' hands.

"I believe memory and computation speed will grow faster than bandwidth," he said. "I am not a believer in cloud computing."

"All the American navigation solutions are basically server based, which overloads the network and degrades the consumer experience," Halbherr said, referring to both Internet map services and companies specializing in car navigation.

Microsoft, Yahoo could reach weekend deal: sources

Microsoft Corp and Yahoo Inc are making last-minute efforts to seal a deal before Microsoft takes its Yahoo bid hostile or abandons it altogether, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Microsoft may raise its offer, now worth $42.2 billion, by a few dollars per share from an initial $31 per share to complete a deal as soon as this weekend, a person familiar with Microsoft's thinking said.

But talks are at a "sensitive stage" and a deal is not certain, sources familiar with the situation said.

Investors bet an agreement was likely, sending Yahoo shares up 7 percent to $28.67 on the first news of significant contact between the sides since Microsoft's deadline for its initial offer expired last Saturday.

"My sense is Microsoft is considering raising their price to the mid-$30s," said a San Francisco-based portfolio manager who owns both Yahoo and Microsoft shares, but would not be identified due to a company policy regarding shares that are actively traded.

Yahoo had previously refused to enter formal negotiations with Microsoft, saying the initial price it made public in February did not properly value Yahoo's search and display advertising technology, or its overseas holdings.

Every dollar added to the per-share price amounts to about $1.4 billion extra for the total deal at current prices, and Microsoft shareholders have questioned how much higher the company should go.

"If it's $35 or less, I think it's fine," said the portfolio manager, whose company owned 21.2 million shares of Microsoft and 1.93 million Yahoo shares as of the end of December.

NO QUICK EMBRACE

A deal could give Microsoft a stronger foothold in its battle with Internet search leader Google Inc, which is rapidly expanding into the software maker's own turf with new Web-based applications.

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer indicated on Thursday he might sweeten the bid after weeks of saying publicly that his offer was fair as it stood.

"I know exactly what I think Yahoo is worth to me, exactly," Ballmer said at a meeting with Microsoft employees. "I won't go a dime above, and I will go to what I think it's worth if that gets the deal done."

Yahoo executives have repeatedly said the company was not averse to a deal with Microsoft at a higher price.

But in a sign of its reluctance, Yahoo has courted a possible deal with Time Warner Inc's AOL division and a search advertising partnership with Google.

Yahoo is still in talks on an alternative to the Microsoft bid, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

For its part, Microsoft has made clear it will not wait much longer. Ballmer said on Thursday that walking away was one of three options, along with striking a friendly deal or launching a hostile bid, and to expect an announcement shortly.

Microsoft shares fell 0.5 percent to close at $29.24. Yahoo shares closed at $28.67, up nearly 7 percent on the day.

Yahoo seeks AOL tie: Microsoft talks to News Corp

Yahoo Inc, which was widely believed to be running out of alternatives to accepting Microsoft Corp's takeover offer, has become a target of two warring camps of technology giants and their media allies, sources said on Wednesday.

News Corp is considering joining Microsoft in a bid for Yahoo which would bring in News Corp's MySpace online social hangout and create a more formidable rival to Internet juggernaut Google Inc, newspaper reports said.

But Yahoo, which announced earlier on Wednesday it plans to test Google search ads alongside Yahoo Web search services, is closing in on a deal with Time Warner to merge with its AOL unit, several sources told Reuters.

The game of musical chairs among the titans of the Internet follows two years of on-again, off-again talks to strike industry-reshaping mergers among different configurations of the same players.

Google, unaccustomed to being back footed by its rivals, is considered a secondary player unlikely to enter the merger bidding as its growing dominance in Web search and search-based advertising could be blocked by competition regulators.

"The whole situation seems to be very unstable," said Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay, adding that Microsoft's bid for Yahoo precipitated a cascade of offers.

"There are so many pent-up moves for consolidation but it's hard to say what moves will be successful," Lindsay said.

Reports were sketchy on exactly how a Microsoft deal with News Corp might be structured, making Wall Street analysts reluctant to speculate on which combination might prove the superior offer.

But several agreed that Yahoo has regained some of the negotiating momentum it appeared to have lost with Microsoft.

Yahoo's talks with Time Warner are getting near to a deal that would fold AOL's business, excluding its legacy dial-up Internet access operations, into a combined Yahoo company, a person familiar with the talks said. Such a deal would value AOL at $10 billion, the person said.

Yahoo would receive cash from Time Warner in exchange for 20 percent of a combined Yahoo-AOL, the source said. Other sources confirmed the outlines of the talks but provided no further details.

The Wall Street Journal cited sources saying Yahoo would use the Time Warner cash and other funds to buy back several billion dollars worth of Yahoo stock at a price somewhere in the middle of the range between $30 and $40 a share.

The New York Times reported that Microsoft had begun talks to bring News Corp in on its effort to acquire Yahoo.

This combination would bring together three of the biggest Web site publishers on the Internet: Yahoo, Microsoft's MSN and News Corp's MySpace, creating a formidable counterweight to Web pacesetter Google, but also drawing antitrust scrutiny.

Yahoo said it was beginning a two-week test on whether it can use Google to sell ads alongside Yahoo Web search services. The initial test is small, covering only 3 percent of Web searches performed on Yahoo, the companies said.

But sources familiar with the talks said the tests could lead Yahoo to a broader deal in which it lets Google sell search advertising for it in order for Yahoo to concentrate on online brand ads. Lindsay has estimated that, by turning over search ad sales to Google, Yahoo could boost its revenue by 10 percent and free up money to invest in stronger businesses.

Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said Yahoo and Google would consolidate more than 90 percent of the search ad market in Google's hands. Herb Kohl, the Democratic head of the U.S. Senate antitrust subcommittee, chimed in to say he was watching Yahoo's deal closely to ensure it does not harm competition.

Microsoft had threatened on Saturday to launch a hostile bid for Yahoo and could lower its offer in about three weeks if it does not get a deal from Yahoo, a Web pioneer which argues it is worth more than Microsoft's $42 billion bid.

Any of the combinations, or another yet to be determined, would fundamentally change the Web. Major players have been circling each other as the first decade of growth in the Internet market has begun to slow dramatically.

The talks with News Corp, which previously had discussed working with Yahoo as a counter to Microsoft's unsolicited bid, are at a sensitive stage, the New York Times said. The Wall Street Journal called those talks "serious".

Microsoft, News Corp, Time Warner, Google and Yahoo all declined to comment on the talks.

Terms of the proposed Microsoft-News Corp union are still being worked out, the New York Times said. News Corp would likely contribute its Fox Interactive Media unit, which owns MySpace, and possibly cash to a partnership with Microsoft as part of a Yahoo acquisition, the newspaper said.

Google & Yahoo May Be Looking To Buy Rediff

Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. are vying to buy Rediff.com India Ltd., the Hindustan Times reported citing an unnamed source.

The paper said the potential takeover could value the Mumbai, India-based news, entertainment, shopping and search site (NASDAQ:REDF) at close to $1 billion.

In addition to Mountain View-based Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Sunnyvale-based Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO), the paper said Time Warner Inc.'s (NYSE:TWX) America On Line unit may be a suitor.

Besides the Web site, Rediff.Com India limited publishes two weekly newspapers aimed at Indian-Americans, India Abroad and India in New York.

Google notebook access from anywhere

Inveterate note takers cum net browsers can now make use of a new product available online Google notebook.

It accompanies you unobtrusively when you browse the Net and is at hand when you want to note down, clip or paste anything.

You can do it without leaving the site you are browsing.

The notebook may prove to be useful for students, researchers and those diligent types who like to scribble. The content can be organised in terms of subjects. It all looks very neat and tidy.

You can also decide to share it online with your friends or publish it as a webpage after a while.

And there is no need to worry about losing the notebook, since it is kept secure in a Google server.