The 9 most surprising facts about the Facebook IPO
It's official: Facebook, the world's most famous internet company, is about to go public. In a move expected to net the social networking giant a cool $5 billion, Facebook shares will be available for purchase this May under the ticker symbol FB.
It's a little surprising that Facebook is "only" raising $5 billion — previous suggestions put the figure as high as $10 billion. Nevertheless, that will still make Facebook's IPO the largest in internet history; significantly bigger than Google's. And while Facebook is raising $5 billion, the company itself could be worth as much as $100 billion.
But while those facts may be surprising, they're hardly the most surprising aspects of the Facebook IPO. Because Facebook had to file a prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission — essentially, a public advertisement explaining why you should buy Facebook stock — we've learned a heck of a lot about America's newest public company over the past few hours: Read more...
Death of IE6 still greatly exaggerated, says browser hit squad
Internet Explorer 6 dead? In your dreams, Microsoft, in your dreams.
Redmond broke out the dancing shoes and did a twirl on IE6's grave in January, citing data that showed its once-celebrated, now-hated browser had slipped below 1 per cent US market share. The decline followed some determined pushing by, of all people, Microsoft.
The software giant was handing out praise along with slices of cake to celebrate.
One problem: the aforementioned data, gathered by Net Applications, counts browsers running on Joe Netizen's PC. It doesn't count enterprise users. Read more...
French court lays le smackdown on Google Maps
A French court has found Google Maps guilty of unfair competition and ordered the Chocolate Factory to pay a fine and damages to a French mapping firm.
Bottin Cartographes had complained to the court that Google France and its parent Google were creating a dominant position for themselves in the market by providing their web-mapping services to businesses for free.
The commercial court in Paris agreed with Bottin and ordered the search giant to pay €500,000 (£415,600) in damages and interest and a €15,000 (£12,470) fine.
Bottin provides its maps for a fee and said that Google was undercutting it with its crazy free map strategy, which it would then change once it had gained control of the market. Read more...
Facebook unsure it can enter China because of government regulations
China, one of the world's largest Internet markets, could be out of reach of Facebook because of the Chinese government's strict censorship policies, the company said in its filing on Wednesday for an initial public offering (IPO).
The company however continues to "evaluate entering China."
Analysts do not expect conditions to get favorable soon for Facebook in China. The market, which already has popular homespun social networking sites, is also moving to Twitter-like microblogs.
"China is a large potential market for Facebook, but users are generally restricted from accessing Facebook from China," the filing said. "We do not know if we will be able to find an approach to managing content and information that will be acceptable to us and to the Chinese government," it added. Read more...
What Facebook’s IPO means for users
Facebook's decision to become a public company is seen as a bellwether for Web 2.0 stock offerings, but what will it mean for the social networking giant's 800 million users, and for the companies that build third-party apps for the site?
Facebook filed for its initial public offering (IPO) Wednesday afternoon, a move expected to raise it between $5 billion and $10 billion. But it also means Facebook will come under greater public scrutiny, and it's likely to face intense pressure from investors to keep growing its business each quarter.
Married to your desk? 5 tips for a better relationship
Here's a sobering statistic: With a 40- to 45-hour work week, many Americans spend about 25% of the year on the job. For those of us who stare at computer screens all day, that amounts to more than 2,000 hours with our keisters glued to chairs. In less technical terms, we're practically married to our desks.
For as many hours as we whittle away at our workstations, though, most of us put surprisingly little thought into optimizing our offices. Quick: When's the last time you actually stopped to think about how efficient your physical workspace is? If you're anything like me, the answer is probably "never."
Workstation optimization can make a significant difference in your ability to get things done. Believe me: I've slowly but surely been making changes to my own humble office, and with each adjustment, I've noticed more productivity and less time wasted (unintentionally, at least -- my midday YouTube-browsing habit shows no signs of subsiding).
The best part: It doesn't take much to do a workstation tune-up. Here are five simple tips to get you started. Read more...
Business is booming for ‘malware as a service’ merchants
They are well organized. They pay close attention to product quality, working hard to make it effective and scalable. They are all about customer service, providing after-sales support. They even solicit the help of their customers in product development.
All admirable qualities. But all in the service of theft.
They are malware merchants; in the business of helping others steal from legitimate businesses and innocent consumers. And they have evolved to the point where they operate much like the legitimate software industry. It is possible to buy malware from what amounts to an app store, or to contract for malware as a service (MaaS).
"The life cycle of [malware] products is the most amazing aspect," writes Pierluigi Paganini, a certified ethical hacker and founder of Security Affairs in Italy, in an article posted this past week on Infosec Island. "From design to release to after-sales support, each stage is implemented in every detail with care and attention." Read more...
Facebook files for highly anticipated IPO
Facebook filed papers Wednesday to become a public company, revealing financial information that attests to the social network's phenomenal growth.
The IPO is the most anticipated public offering in a decade, with the company looking to bring in $5 billion in investment.
Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs and three other financial firms are underwriting the deal, according to papers filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The publicly available version of the SEC filing does not give a proposed date for the IPO. Facebook has not yet released its expectations for the initial stock price. Read more...
Clues about HP’s Gen8 servers leaked
Hewlett-Packard has let slip some details on its website about its upcoming Proliant Gen8 servers ahead of their official launch.
The pages list basic details of single- and dual-socket BL, ML and DL Gen8 servers, which will be based on Intel's upcoming Xeon E5 processors.
One system, the single-socket ProLiant BL460c, is a small-form-factor server based on Intel's E5-2650L processor.
Some servers will have HP's latest networking, I/O, storage and management capabilities, according to results that show up during a search of HP's website. The pages the results are supposed to lead to have been removed from the site. Read more...
Is the cloud really cheaper?
That there is growing company demand for cloud or software-as-a-service solutions should come as no surprise.
Finance and IT professionals, facing the need for greater computing power for everything from operational management to hedge accounting are understandably tempted by SaaS, given the cloud's relatively low startup costs and the fact they may lack the skills needed to build their own analytic solutions.
And the corporate migration to the cloud is in fact proceeding apace, with nearly one-third of organizations polled in a Gartner research study responding that they either already use or plan to use cloud SaaS offerings to augment their core business intelligence functions. Read more...