Kelly Black

Broadcom isn’t looking for a slice of the semiconductor pie. The company has been slaving in the kitchen this year in an effort to establish itself as the Mrs. Smith of chipmakers. It’s strategy is simple. Don’t waste precious time in a fast moving industry organically building a smorgasbord of technology offerings. Buy them instead. […]

Oy vey! Larry Ellison is at it again. This time, the shenanigans revolve around the eleventh hour firing of Pier Falotti, Oracle’s executive VP of overseas operations in Geneva, Switzerland. With just four days until his remaining $10 million worth of options were set to vest as part of a lucrative stock options package, Falotti […]

It seems Netscape and parent America Online have a little egg on their faces. But AOL suits are sticking to their pat “totally without merit” response to a federal class action lawsuit that claims the eight hundred pound gorilla’s Netscape sibling compromised consumer privacy with its SmartDo wnload browser add-on. If that sounds awfully familiar, […]

Following their announced $6.8 billion merger, shares of both Phone.com and Software.com soared Wednesday, with Software.com climbing 32% and Phone.com up nearly 17%. The multibillion dollar merger marks a first mover mega-consolidation in the burgeoning wireless Internet market, and investors jubilantly cheered the marriage proposal. The two wireless infrastructure players will each own approximately 50% […]

Lately, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has been more opinionated than Judge Judy at high noon, delivering blow after blow to domain prospectors panning for Internet gold. Despite the sleazy nature of cyber-squatting on a famous trademark with the intention of selling it to the highest bidder at a later date, my feeling is […]

In the first public call for American colonies to declare their independence from Britain, Thomas Paine wrote of summer soldiers and sunshine patriots. The famed pamphleteer referred to men who fought in the Revolution who, when Winter arrived, scurried on home. In other words, when the proverbial cow chip hits the fan, you’ll find out […]

Ford Motor is throwing its brick-and-mortar weight around with its lawsuit against Fremont-based Model E filed late last month. With just a cursory glance at the facts related to the case, Ford’s argument might hold some water; but the automobile maker, one way or the other, will walk away empty-handed. At issue is Ford’s claim […]

While the late nineties awarded venture capital sugar daddies a license to mint money, the new millennium has come calling like a deal with the devil gone bad. Everyone wondered aloud when the cycle would start to ease, but few anticipated the utter collapse that would steal the wind from even the hottest VC’s sails. […]

Surfing along the information superhighway the other day, I came across a handful of dated clippings from the Net’s earlier years. I got a kick out of the good old days, and I thought readers might too. While not exactly ancient history – in Internet time, it’s a throwback. The landscape is constantly shifting like […]

When the company initially climbed into the new issues pipeline earlier this year, America Online Latin America (proposed symbol AOLA) looked poised to crack the IPO piqata wide open. But after some eleventh hour reshuffling just ahead of its debut, the AOL and Cisneros Group joint venture shows signs of having been stricken with a […]

Here’s a real knee-slapper. Time Warner carted out its so-called open access letter of intent with Juno Online Services yesterday like a well-orchestrated dog and pony show. The cable giant showed best that it’s making little effort to give ‘the little guy’ access to its pipes beyond pandering to government regulators who are turning up […]

Dear Kelly, Regarding your story about [the] Go2Net and InfoSpace merger, I heard on ON24.com that the Go2Net brand will be folded after the merger. Do you know if this is true? (In response to: “Two Portals Better Than One“) Thanks, Dave G. Somewhere in cyberspace Dear David, Sad but true. Following the closing of […]