HighEndBuzz

IAC to Buy Ask Jeeves for $1.85 Bln

Can't say I saw this one coming.  Analysts say the deal is a steal at a 17% premium (at 15x cash-flow vs. Google and Yahoo who trade at 23x).  But at $1.85 Bln the spending is just beginning in order for Ask (#4 in the search market) to start competing with the big boys.

Don't forget the partnership with Google ends in 2007 (75% of revenues come from the paid search relationship). Barry Diller knows what he's doing (he's a really, really, smart guy) and this addition to his conglomerate puts Ask on the map for good.  As you know I was a bit disappointed by Ask's recent acquisition of Bloglines.  This new move actually strengthens that acquisition.  I still think it's going to be a long road for these guys.  I don't know if the IAC culture (they are huge you know) is moving at the same pace, or if the rest of the conglomerate will agree on the Ask platform providing the focal point for expedia.com , hotels.com, lendingtree, etc.

With this deal Ask is here to stay and over time will be able to provide the competition needed in the search industry, especially at the virtually under-tapped local level. 

Question:  Are "old media" guys the future of the new media?

Website is launched

To us it's a big deal although in the grand scheme of things, our simplified website launch isn't going to move any mountains.  Our goal was to clearly state our value to our clients and then highlight our core services with the end result hopefully leading to a call or email.  The guys at Olive & Company did a great job in a short timeframe.

This officially takes us out of "stealth" mode (actually warm market only mode) and moves us into the game.  Can you tell we're excited?  We completed a very important POC with a client who recently signed a deal for the entire year. 

Larry's at it again

You've got to hand it to Larry Ellison, he's a man that knows what other people want (and then grabs it for himself).  His recent $500M+ bid for Retek wouldn't have shown up anywhere but the Minneapolis Star Tribune if it weren't for the recent PeopleSoft grab and snatch.

You've got to wonder what the Germans are thinking right now.  It looks like they're being backed into a corner on this one.  Retek had revenues of about $174M but what's more important for Oracle is the customers; BestBuy, Kohls, Halmark, Gap, Tesco in the UK.  Many of these customers are large Oracle shops (BestBuy comes to mind with their rather large Oracle data warehouse). 

One funny note is Larry's comment: "We have the largest applications business in North America, and we intend to defend that position,".  It should have read "We have the largest redundant applications business in North America money can buy, and we intend to defend that position,"

One thing I must say about this one is that Retek has some very good people.  I wish them all the best.  I wonder who's going to grab Lawson?...Siebel anyone?

Google Desktop Search

All I can say is WOW!

Well I guess I can say more.  I installed desktop search on my Dell Latitude today and after 3 hours of  indexing over 70,000 files and emails I was thoroughly amazed.  I'm writing this on my iBook so I can't talk to this real-time as I left my laptop in the office, but it reminds me of Quicksilver on steroids.  I say this because it did wonders inside outlook.  That's right, it indexed my entire mailbox.  All I need to do now is search for a topic "surveys" and it pulls up all files from my mail and files store that have "surveys" in it.  This is one of those Internet apps I would pay real money for right now.

More to come...