Tuesday, April 26, 2011

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SuccessFactors Buys Enterprise Learning Management Software Plateau For $290M Top
On the heels of buying enterprise learning startup Jambok, the company has acquired another learning management software developer- Plateau Systems. SuccessFactors will pay $145 million in cash plus $145 million in stock for Plateau, for a total of $290 million. Plateau Systems’ Learning Management Systems is generally usually used by Human Resources departments for the management and delivery of learning and training across organizations. Plateau Systems's Talent Management Suite includes applications for learning management, performance management, career and succession planning and compensation management. Plateau currently brings more than 350 customers to SuccessFactors, including General Electric, the U.S. Air Force and Capital One. Based on initial estimates, the combined companies will have more than 15 million users. After the deal closes, Plateau’s SaaS based LMS will be integrated directly into SuccessFactors’ BizX suite. The acquisition price is fairly high for SuccessFactors, whose largest acquisition to date has been social enterprise software company CubeTree for $50 million. But clearly, SuccessFactors sees tremendous potential in aligning its business with human capital management. CrunchBase Information Plateau Systems Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Amazon's Sales Up 38 Percent To $9.86B in Q1, Net Income Down 33 Percent Top
E-commerce giant Amazon just reported first quarter 2011 result, posting $9.86 billion in the first quarter, which is up 38 percent from the same quarter in 2010. Unfortunately, Amazon’s net income decreased 33% to $201 million in the first quarter, or $0.44 per diluted share, compared with net income of $299 million, or $0.66 per diluted share, in first quarter 2010. Amazon says that excluding the $144 million favorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales would have grown 36% compared with first quarter 2010. Analysts expected 60 cents per share, on sales of $9.53 billion. Operating cash flow increased 9% to $3.03 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $2.78 billion for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2010. Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos said this in a release: In the last 90 days, we announced Kindle with Special Offers, Kindle Library Lending, Audible audiobooks on Kindle, Appstore for Android, Amazon for Windows Phone 7, Checkout by Amazon in both Germany and the U.K., a Kindle Store in Germany, Cloud Drive, Cloud Player, and Prime Instant Video – just to call out a few of the things we’ve been working on…We love inventing on behalf of customers and have never been more excited about the long-term opportunities. Amazon also revealed a few stats about its business (although no Kindle numbers yet). The U.S. Kindle Store now has more than 900,000 books, and since the launch of the Amazon Android App store, “customers have already downloaded millions of apps from the Amazon Appstore for Android.” North America segment sales, representing the Company’s U.S. and Canadian sites, were $5.47 billion, up 45% from first quarter 2010. International segment sales, which includes the Company’s U.K., German, Japanese, French, Chinese and Italian sites, were $4.39 billion, up 31% from first quarter 2010. Excluding the favorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, sales grew 27%. Worldwide Media sales grew 15% to $3.96 billion. Excluding the favorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, sales grew 13%. Worldwide Electronics and Other General Merchandise sales grew 59% to $5.59 billion. Excluding the favorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, sales grew 57%. CrunchBase Information Amazon Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Disaster: Playstation Network User Data Compromised, Names, Addresses, Maybe Credit Cards Top
Sony has finally released a status update about the Playstation Network, which has been down since April 21. And it sounds like things couldn’t be much worse. Sony says that “certain PSN and Qriocity service user account information was compromised” during an illegal intrusion between April 17 and April 19. Among the personal data that was accessed: name, address, email, birthdate, PSN network login/password, PSN handle, PSN password security answers, and possibly credit card information . Sony explains that “While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility.” Wow. There has been rampant speculation since the network went down over what the cause was, with one leading theory stating that Sony was trying to stave off hackers who were attempting to pirate games and movies. But it looks like the damage is far worse: with this information, the hackers could easily make purchases using your personal information. Oh, and Sony waited a week before they told everyone that the data was compromised. Wonderful. Sony is encouraging people to “remain vigilant” in reviewing their credit card accounts, and helpfully provides contact information for the US. credit bureaus in case you want to request a fraud alert. In addition to that, you’ll want to change the password of any account that uses the same one as your PSN login (or even the same security question). Oh, and if you still care, Sony expects to have PSN service back up “within a week”. Here’s a portion of the announcement: We greatly appreciate your patience, understanding and goodwill as we do whatever it takes to resolve these issues as quickly and efficiently as practicable. Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained. For your security, we encourage you to be especially aware of email, telephone, and postal mail scams that ask for personal or sensitive information. Sony will not contact you in any way, including by email, asking for your credit card number, social security number or other personally identifiable information. If you are asked for this information, you can be confident Sony is not the entity asking. When the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services are fully restored, we strongly recommend that you log on and change your password. Additionally, if you use your PlayStation Network or Qriocity user name or password for other unrelated services or accounts, we strongly recommend that you change them, as well. CrunchBase Information Playstation Network Information provided by CrunchBase
 
VMware Acquires Online Presentation Application SlideRocket Top
VMware has just announced the acquisition of online presentation application SlideRocket. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. SlideRocket, which has raised $7 million in funding, is a cloud-based online presentation application that produces slideshows that rival PowerPoint. More than 20,000 customers and 300,000 users leverage Slide Rocket to more effectively build, deliver and share presentations. Slide Rocket integrates authoring, asset management, delivery and analytics tools in a single hosted environment that allows you to quickly create presentations, store, tag and search your assets, collaborate with your colleagues, securely share your slides in person or remotely and measure the results. The site also supports web-based conferencing that allows users on different computers to view the same presentation simultaneously and includes a marketplace, an "iTunes For Presentations," that allows users to purchase assets for their projects For VMware, the acquisition of SlideRocket is an investment in bringing business software to the cloud. Brian Byun, VP and general manager at VMware said in a release: VMware is at the forefront of building the core cloud computing infrastructure and enables users to gain ever greater value from cloud-based solutions. SlideRocket's cloud-based architecture, innovative design, and strong integration with other cloud applications and services have transformed a decades-old business productivity software and redefined the way we consume and communicate information. Th isn’t VMware’s first purchase of a cloud startup. The company bought cloud based authentication system TriCipher and IT performance analytics company Integrien last August.
 
WITN: Can Tony Hsieh Deliver Happiness -And A Ready-Made Community – To Downtown Las Vegas? [TCTV] Top
After a brief hiatus, Why Is This News? is back! In this week’s episode, Paul checks in from his Las Vegas hotel room to discuss Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh’s plans to regenerate downtown Las Vegas by moving the company’s HQ into the former City Hall. In fact, there’s far more to Hsieh’s plan than that, as Paul explained over on the Huffington Post . In the video below, Paul waxes lyrical about Hsieh’s plans, while Sarah plays devil’s advocate, asking why Hsieh and Zappos will succeed where so many bigger companies – Google, Yahoo et al – have failed.
 

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