HP to buy Palm

Important shakeout in the technology market. HP has agreed to purchase Palm for around $1.2bn.

It does not surprise me. Palm is a brand that lost its mojo some years ago - I still remember having a couple of basic Palm PDAs to take control of my agenda and contacts - and that has failed to keep up with the changing times.

PDAs have evolved for the most part into today's smartphones and Palm has been kicked in the butt by other manufacturers such as Apple or RIM. Not even the release of the Pre - the latest generation smartphone which generated a lot of buzz and some good reviews at the time of its launch in 2009, and in which the company had placed all its hopes - was able to turn the situation around.

HP is still a leading player in printers, laptops, desktops, servers and business services, though it has also lost the battle in the increasingly popular area of portable devices.

By acquiring Palm HP secures some interesting patents and IP in general - including Palm's webOS - that might result in interesting products in the portable devices space. Time will tell if this is a good move.

...y la sangria continua

Hoy le ha tocado a Espana y, confirmando los peores presagios, S&P ha reducido su rating y lo ha puesto a la par de grandes potencias mundiales como Eslovenia. Y en perspectiva negativa, asi que cualquier cosa puede pasar...

Y esto en una jornada en que por ejemplo Iberdrola y BBVA han presentado unos resultados que han batido las estimaciones de los analistas.

Contadictorio o no, el IBEX35 otro 3% abajo.

Los mercados tiemblan

Solo dos lineas para constatar el golpe que se ha pegado el IBEX35 hoy, a sumar a las de la ultima semana. 800 puntitos de nada.

La bajada de rating por S&P a Grecia a nivel de bonos basura, la bajada de rating a Portugal y el riesgo de contagio de todo este maremagnum financiero a economias como la espanola y la irlandesa (he ahi los  spreads por ejemplo con la deuda alemana) no dejan indiferente a nadie. No puedo sino entender a Merkel, que se niega a meter la mano en la caja porque si para ayudar a quienes no hacen sus deberes.

No soy ningun experto en bolsa pero si esto se cae por el precipicio espero esta vez estar ahi para pillar algo del rebote, que la ultima vez me pillo con el bolsillo lleno de telaranas.

The need for early-stage investors

On April 15 Istanbul hosted EBAN's (European Trade Association for Business Angels, Seed Funds and other Early Stage Market Players) 10th Annual Congress, including the 5th Annual Award Ceremony to the best business angels operating in Europe over the past year.

It is funny to see that a year ago I was attending the 9th Annual Congress, which took place in Madrid, representing the Revista Espanola de Capital Riesgo. I remember it was a quite interesting day with some presentations about the status of VC and angel investing in Europe. The global economy, the Spanish one in particular, had already taken a hit but, at least in Spain, the situation is even gloomier a year later.

On the day where we have known - thank to an involuntary leak by the national statistics authority -  that unemployment in Spain has surpassed 20%, becoming an entrepreneur becomes the only alternative for a lot of people who have gone down the unemployment road.

In a time of crisis like the one we are living early-stage investments play - or should play - an important role in supporting entrepreneurs with the courage to start potentially good businesses. Plus it is also a fact that by investing in such uncertain times investors are able to obtain lower valuations which might result in higher future returns.

In any case, governments should be legislating to provide a more favorable framework for these investments. All tools - not just tax raises and public expenditure cuts and some recurring others - should be put in place to help us get out of this situation. This is particularly interesting to note at a time where there is a global push for increasing financial regulation, including that of alternative investments by means, for instance, of the proposed AIFM Directive.

Nuevo talento

Me gusta mucho el cine y ver caras nuevas de vez en cuando, no a los mismos de siempre. Hay que apostar por el nuevo talento, asi que cuelgo los links a una serie de cortos en los que ha participado Nacho Diezhandino, gran amigo y aun mejor actor. Son cuatro en total e incluyen remakes de escenas de peliculas como Breakfast at Tiffany's y The Godfather.

http://www.ecam.es/multimedia/ver.php?id=2193

http://www.ecam.es/multimedia/ver.php?id=2192

http://www.ecam.es/multimedia/ver.php?id=2188

http://www.ecam.es/multimedia/ver.php?id=2183

http://www.ecam.es/multimedia/ver.php?id=2182

Se aprecia que estan bien rodados. De hecho cuentan con el aval de la Fundacion de la Escuela de Cinematografia y del Audiovisual de la Comunidad de Madrid (ECAM).

Que los disfruteis!

iAd: Apple entra en la batalla de la publicidad en el movil

Hace unos dias Apple presento su nuevo sistema operativo para el iPhone, el denominado IPhone OS4, que incluye diversas mejoras como la posiblidad de multi-task (utilizar varias aplicaciones a la vez) o la de organizar las distintas aplicaciones en carpetas. Pero lo que mas me llamo la atencion fue la presentacion de iAd, una nueva plataforma que permitira incluir publicidad de calidad (video, etc.) en las aplicaciones creadas por los desarrolladores. Un incentivo mas para desarrollar mas y mejores aplicaciones para el ecosistema iPhone.

Pero mas alla de todo esto, lo importante es que Apple se mete de lleno en la pelea por los dolares y los euros derivados de la publicidad, algo que al dia de hoy es practicamente un territorio propiedad de Google.

La perspectiva es en todo caso diferente. Mientras Google concentra su publicidad (y por tanto los ingresos) en las busquedas, Steve Jobs se centra en el uso por los usuarios de las aplicaciones. Tiene sentido. Atacar a Google en un ambito como el de las busquedas en el que es el lider destacadisimo probablemente sea una batalla abocada al fracaso (que se lo digan a Microsoft y Yahoo). Por otro lado, la popularidad de la App Store y de sus aplicaciones para el iPhone las convierten en un activo por explotar.

Os adjunto el link a la pagina de Apple donde podeis ver el keynote de Jobs sobre diversas cuestiones (iAd comienza hacia el minuto 44 del video y, por cierto, las cifras que maneja sobre la base del uso actual de aplicaciones y del numero de iPhones vendidos - 1.000 millones de anuncios al dia - son bastante impresionantes. Indicar igualmente que Apple planea entregar a los developers el 60% de los ingresos derivados de la publicidad).

En un momento en que se empieza a intuir cada vez mas la lucha por convertirse en el sistema operativo de referencia (yo apuesto sobre todo por iPhone y Android y en menor medida RIM, Windows y Symbian, en este orden), los ingresos derivados de las aplicaciones para moviles no hacen esa lucha sino mas interesante todavia.

On Foursquare

I have been taking a look at Foursquare over the past half an hour. Foursquare is one of the new "hot" things going on in the social networks arena in the US. It is a geo-location service that allows you to get information and recommendation about places in the area where you are at some point and also rewards your participation (e.g. you can get badges, points).

You can link up Foursquare with Facebook and Twitter to spot those friends who are using it. Well, out of my 500+ friends on Facebook only seven actually use Foursquare. This obviously means that it has not gone mainstream yet and it remains to be seen if it is here to stay.

So I have created an account, I have signed in, downloaded my Blackberry app... and I am unable to sign in on my cell. Another bug on my Storm. I feel like it is a problem with the device's GPS, which does not work well...so a geo-location service such as Foursquare does not work properly. Or maybe it is just some other thing... It had been some time without saying: looking forward to switching to Android or iPhone.

Hiding my IP address

The other day I finally did some research to be able to access sites located outside of Spain - I am mostly interested in the US - that require users to be within the country where the site is located. In other words, I pretty much wanted to access Hulu and the American tv networks, be able to use Boxee and so on.

It was so easy. I can't believe it took me so long to do so. I just downloaded a VPN application called Hotspot Shield which, based on the grounds of protecting your privacy when surfing, hides your IP and prevents the site you are trying to visit from blocking your access.

I have not used it much yet but it does work and the only downside appears to be that it slows down your connection. Nonetheless, you can put it to sleep anytime you want and you can then surf without hassle.

Pretty cool.

AOL shutting down Bebo

Posting from my bberry again. I have read these week that AOL might be shutting down Bebo, the social network it acquired a couple of years ago for more than $800 million. Bebo was at the time a leading social network, mostly in the UK.

With social networks still working on getting their biz models to work, it seems to me like in the end it will be about Facebook and someone else (not many), along the lines of what happens with Google in search.

Too bad for AOL. Things are not working that well despite its cost cutting efforts. I still remember interviewing with them not long ago in NYC... Bebo was then one of the most valued and promising assets for them. Not any more...

The most shocking thing, though, is that at the start of the internet era AOL acquired Time Warner (so called merger of equals...where the small fish got the big one).

On short-selling

I'm currently reading "Too big to fail" by Andrew Ross Sorkin, about the 2008 financial crash. A short quote that caught my eye regarding short selling and the recent comments (by Spanish ministers, Telefonica's CEO Alierta and others) about such practice hitting the Spanish stock markets.

"For the last several weeks, Lehman has been complaining about short-sellers. Academic research and our experience indicate that when management teams do that, it is a sign that management is attempting to distract investors from serious problems" (David M. Einhorn, chairman and co-founder of Greenlight Capital, a renowned hedge fund, 3 months before Lehman's collapse).

Self explanatory...
----------------------------
Posted from my Blackberry

Piracy in Spain

Earlier this week, the LA Times argued that Sony Pictures might be thinking about closing its DVD business in Spain. Word says that the other big studios might follow. Sad as it is, I do understand it.

Spain has climbed to the third spot in the world ranking of piracy, after South Korea and China. In absolute terms, which is insane considering that we are roughly 45 million people.

According to different sources the number of DVDs sold or rented in Spain in 2009 dropped by 30%, compared to 2008. On the flipside, the number of illegal downloads jumped from 132 million in 2006 and 350 million in 2008, according to the data of the studios. The studios further report that sales of DVDs in Spain generate three to ten times less income than in the UK or Germany. Likewise, the number of DVD rental businesses has dropped dramatically in Spain over the recent years.

It is clear to me that big media players have not adapted yet to the new times. Or at least not around the world (for instance, I keep reading about new iPad deals cut between Apple and content distributors for the US... but what will happen outside of the US? See my post from February 3 on geographies). People share and consume content in a different way. Is it that hard to understand? The music business had to learn this the hard way but it seems to be on the track to recovery. Motion picture industry should pay more attention to everything going on around it.

But having said the above, there is no justification for what is going on in Spain. And the more I think and talk about it, the more assured I am that it is something cultural. I do not trust all those people shouting out there about "sharing" content on P2P platforms. But when I talk to more educated people, a majority of them seems to also believe that P2P users are not stealing content. And it really amazes me.

In this context, in my view, 'sharing" is just a way to justify "stealing". Period. You "share" a movie with someone at the other side of the P2P application and  you do not buy or rent the movie any more. That's reality. It worries me that people do not want to see this, but it worries me even more that people do really think that they actually doing something legal.

A number of legal measures are being analyzed by the Spanish government in order to regulate further these activities. The minister of culture is being attacked by lots of associations of internet users claiming that things are fine the way they are now. Culture of cheap (i.e. free) perks?