GOOG Up Strong In A Flat Market The major equity averages are sideways even after the spike in May factory orders. Equities have rallied for five straight days for a 5.6% gain on the S&P. Shares of GOOG are up strong, nearly 2%. Upcoming catalysts include second calendar quarter results released in July; continued
Android momentum in the smartphone and tablet markets; regaining ground in China; updated software, adoption and media partners for
Google TV; the roll-out of
Google Music; and progress in other newer initiatives (social networking, location-based services, mapping, gaming, Chromebooks, etc.). The stock trades at approximately
11x Enterprise Value / EBIT, inexpensive relative to peers and historical trading levels.
Chrome Gains Market Share While Internet Explorer Falls, Again (Reuters) Google's Chrome Web browser has grabbed more than 20% global market share, while
Microsoft's long-time leader Internet Explorer (IE) has slipped below 50%, according to StatCounter.
That's pretty staggering. Just two years ago, Chrome was at 2.8%. Despite all the hoopla about IE9, Internet Explorer's share, as measured in usage, declined (again) in June to 53.7% from 54.3% in May and 55.1% in April.
Read » FTC Ringing In The Microsoft Antitrust Anniversary With By Interrogating Google (CNet) Ten years ago this week, an appeals court upheld Microsoft's conviction for monopolizing the PC operating system market. History seems to be repeating itself. By uncanny coincidence, news broke last week that the FTC had begun an antitrust investigation into Google's business practices. Even if Google today were the monopolist Microsoft supposedly was a decade ago, it doesn't follow that another drawn-out antitrust battle and cumbersome consent decree will actually benefit consumers.
Read » Google Is Not Microsoft And Anyone Who Says Otherwise Is An Idiot
(The Huffington Post) It's official. The FTC served Google with subpoenas. Some of Google's critics analogize Google's conduct today to that of Microsoft's during the 1990s when Microsoft clearly dominated the operating system market. That sounds appealing but it could not be more wrong:
What's the harm to consumers? Is this really a monopoly? Who is being handicapped, if anyone? Where are the bad acts? Google is not like Microsoft. Google's conduct today is not like Microsoft's conduct during the 1990s. The markets in which Google competes are vibrant, competitive and rapidly evolving.
Read » As Reported Last Week, Google Still In Very Preliminary Talks To Buy Hulu (The Los Angeles Times) Hulu has begun meeting with potential buyers including Google, Microsoft and
Yahoo to drum up interest in a sale, said these people, who requested anonymity because the discussions are confidential. The Internet powerhouse has hired Hollywood veterans to make inroads. The possible acquisition of Hulu would give Google a bigger role in Hollywood and an opportunity to gain more mainstream programming, which Google could use to entice online viewers to watch longer. A Google deal might set off alarm bells with antitrust regulators however, which is not exactly what they need at this point.
Read » Google+ Shows That Google Still Doesn't Understand Social (Quora) And Google's early release of Google+ demonstrates why. First, let's dispel some
Facebook myths:
Facebook is increasingly pushing its users to be more public. Wrong. Facebook does not offer you control over your privacy. Wrong. Now let's turn our focus to what Google+ has created:
On Google+, people whom you have not friended can comment on your public posts. Weird. On Google+, strangers consider it perfectly normal to insert themselves into a conversation between you and your friends any time you make a public post. The core failure here is that Google does not understand privacy in a social context.
Read » Google Loses Out In Nortel Patent Sale (Various via techDygest) Nortel Networks has auctioned off its remaining 6,000 patents and patent applications for a cash purchase price of $4.5 billion to a consortium including
Apple and Microsoft. Google, which started the stalking horse bidding by offering Nortel $900 million for the patents back in April, missed out on the sale.
This is really bad for Google, because it has the weakest patent portfolio of any major mobile company.
Read » Microsoft And Baidu Team Up Against Google (Bloomberg) Microsoft and
Baidu agreed to bolster their Internet-search partnership in China as the companies seek to gain users from Google in the world’s biggest Internet market. The agreement will let Baidu users see English search results generated by the Bing technology to users in China. A service jointly offered by the companies will start this year.
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