Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker talks about Community Eye, the city’s new video surveillance and gunshot detection system being used to fight crime in an eight-square mile area. More details and the transcript at TechCrunch.
I spoke to Powerset CEO and cofounder Barney Pell and Microsoft Live Search Group Program Manager Ramez Naam today about the Powerser/Microsoft acquisition. Total talk time is around 35 minutes, and the full transcript is at TechCrunch.
Skype is getting a major, much-needed upgrade: Skype 4.0. President Josh Silverman calls it the “biggest new release in Skype’s history.” The new software client, which which will be released here in beta tomorrow (for Windows only), takes up the whole screen. Video is front and center.
Read more here.
I interviewed former Speaker of the House Newt Gringrich this morning about his goals with American Solutions, which now has a Silicon Valley office. We also spoke about a number of technology issues, and his thoughts on the upcoming presidential election. More on TechCrunch, along with the full transcript of the conversation.
Total talk time is just over 30 minutes.
Citi’s Internet Analyst Mark Mahaney has been at the center of the Microsoft/Yahoo takeover battle since the beginning. On February 2, a day after the Microsoft bid, Mahaney gave his reasons why he believed the deal had just a 60% chance of happening.
Mahaney also estimated (on February 2) that a search advertising outsourcing arrangement with Google could boost Yahoo cash flows by 25% and suggested that the financial markets were underestimating the probability of such a deal (he was right, as we learned two months later).
Later Mahaney updated his estimate based on new data and said a Google deal could increase cash flows “more than $1 billion a year,” a 50% gain in cash flow from 2007.
Last Friday, in anticipation of the expiration of the Microsoft deadline for Yahoo action on the bid, Mahaney made a new set of predictions: 45% chance of a merger at a price somewhat higher than the initial bid, a 40% chance that Microsoft will go hostile, a 10% chance that Microsoft walks away, and a 5% chance for deal at the original bid to be accepted. That means he thinks a deal in some form is 90% likely, up from his 60% chance on February 2.
Given how consistently right Mahaney has been in his analysis, Erick and I reached out to him today to pick his brain on the deal. The podcast is below, and a transcript has been posted on TechCrunch.
Key takeaways:
The most interesting exchange came at the end, when I steered away from what Mahaney thought would happen, and asked him what he would do if he were Microsoft CEO SteveBallmer: walk from the deal, or go for it aggressively. Mahaney didn’t hesitate in his answer:
Arrington: So if you’re Steve Ballmer, do you walk from this deal or go after it aggressively?
Mahaney: You go after it aggressively. You know what it’s like to see businesses increasingly concentrate on one provider. The longer you wait to attack that provider, the worse your odds. You can’t walk away.
There are very few people outside of Microsoft who know the company’s business as well as Mahaney. If he says Microsoft needs Yahoo, I’m not going to disagree.
As part of our election series, I spoke to Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett Packard and the newly announced Victory Chairman for the Republican National Committee.
We’ve spoken with most of the top presidential candidates over the last few months to get their on record position on ten key technology issues (Ron Paul, Barack Obama, John McCain, John Edwards, Mitt Romney, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich). On January 29, just prior to Super Tuesday, we made our presidential endorsements based on these interviews and reader voting.
Senator McCain is now the definite Republican candidate, and he’s staffing up to try and win the election. Bringing on seasoned business leaders like Fiorina is a good move. The question is, will her technology experience help the campaign cut into the big lead that Barack Obama has both in leveraging technology to spread his message and get donations, as well as defining appropriate policies on tech issues.
More at TechCrunch, including a transcript of the conversation.
Last week we fit in a long interview with Rob Hawley at the nationally syndicated Dishin Digital about our Tech President endorsements. Other media coverage of the endorsements is here.
Two things I like about radio - you have a lot more time to express your ideas v. a quick tv spot, and you don’t have a camera staring at you, making you nervous.
More on TechCrunch.
We were not able to schedule time with Congressman Ron Paul, a Republican candidate for president in 2008, until after we made our presidential endorsements this morning. No worries, though. Dr. Paul took the user voting portion of the endorsements in a landslide, although we endorsed rival John McCain over him in the editorial portion of the endorsements.
We’ll have a transcript up shortly at TechCrunch.
The Crunchies are tonight. Alice 97.3 mentioned it on air today during their morning show, which is no. 1 rated in this market. The event is this evening, see you all there!
Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich was too far behind in the polls to get invited to today’s ABC/Facebook presidential debate - he was cut along with Duncan Hunter and Mike Gravel. Instead, we scheduled time to talk with him about his positions on technical policies, something we’ve already done with Barack Obama, John McCain, John Edwards, Mitt Romney and Mike Gravel.
Unfortunately we didn’t get past the niceties before Kucinich abruptly pulled the plug on the interview, said goodbye and hung up. There’s not much content here, but he does briefly address his position on the atomic bomb, the internal combustion engine and NASA, and notes that he’s had a lot of support from the Internet. At the end of the interview he promises to reschedule. Something tells me he won’t be able to do that before he pulls out of the race. After coming in dead last in Iowa and polling “NA” in other states, I have a feeling he may not be around for long.
More at TechCrunch, including a transcript of the conversation.
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