Author Archive for Lorraine Salazar

GPhone aims to conquer mobile net

Miguel Helft
October 11, 2007, New York Times

For more than two years, a large group of engineers at Google have been working in secret on a mobile-phone project.

As word of their efforts has trickled out, expectations in the tech world for what has been called the Google phone, or GPhone, have risen, the way they do for Apple loyalists before a speech by Steve Jobs.

But the GPhone is not likely to be the second coming of the iPhone and Google’s goals are very different from Apple’s.

Google wants to extend its dominance of online advertising to the mobile internet, a small market today but one that is expected to grow rapidly. It hopes to persuade wireless carriers and mobile-phone makers to offer phones based on its software,…

Internet telephony pioneers stumble

Last updated 10:01am (Mla time) 10/03/2007, Philippine Daily Inquirer

NEW YORK–In spite of its global popularity, Internet telephony (VoIP), which is almost free for users, has not become a gold mine for its pioneers such as Skype and Vonage.

Popular online auction firm eBay, which bought Skype two years ago for $2.6 billion, affirmed that message in a costly way earlier this week when it devalued the once-darling firm, knocking $1.43 billion off its value.

The accounting move was long anticipated.

“We are glad to see eBay admit that it overpaid for Skype and that much-hyped synergies have not yet materialized to any large extent,” said global financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald.

“We have struggled with the economics of the Skype transaction relative to the financial expectations for the business.”

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