Some Important Yahoo! Details Buried In Thompson's Compensation Agreement

The next 6 weeks should hold a lot of drama for Yahoo!, as we see its board try and make the case why they shouldn't be thrown out.

Read the full Forbes post

Sphere: Related Content

The Difference Between a Tech "Greenfield Gorilla" and a "Nichey Nancy"

Is Your Tech Company a Greenfield Gorilla or a Nichey Nancy?

Read the full Forbes Post

Sphere: Related Content

The Worst Tech Decision in the Last 10 years: Selling PayPal

While it's easy to take the money when it's flashed in front of you, PayPal's decision to not stay independent is the dumbest one in tech from the last 10 years.

Read the full post on Forbes

Sphere: Related Content

Don't Forget About Alipay - the PayPal of China

Alipay is the forgotten child in Alibaba Group. Yahoo! investors should pay more attention, as it's currently worth about $23 billion on its own.

Read the full Forbes post here.

Sphere: Related Content

Video: Watch Out Visa And Mastercard, Apple Is Coming For You

Contributor Eric Jackson says Apple (AAPL) has its eye on getting into the mobile payments market thanks to Near Field Communication technology. They could be a major threat tobig credit card companies and EBAY's PayPal unit.

Wed 02/16/11 12:08 PM EST -- Eric Jackson

Stocks in this video: V | JPM | EBAY | AXP | BRCM | BAC | NXPI |AAPL | MA

Sphere: Related Content

Why NFC Could be Another Game-Changer for Apple

By Eric Jackson02/16/11 - 08:00 AM EST

NEW YORK (TheStreet ) -- When you're a $330 billion market cap company, you need big things to move the needle. Apple (AAPL_) knows that.

Look at Microsoft (MSFT_). It has the hottest thing in gaming right now with its Kinect gesture control device. It sold 8 million units in the first quarter of its availability, blowing away expectations. It's going through huge upgrade cycles right now in Windows 7 and Office. Yet, the stock is trading down, since announcing its earnings last month.

When Apple announced iPad a year ago, most of the initial coverage focused on its name. (Remember that?) Many skeptics remained -- until they started using one and found out they couldn't live without one.

This is classic Steve Jobs. Don't ask customers what they want. Why? Because they don't know what is possible to create in the future. Instead, give them something they've never experienced but which will be a "must have" once they touch it.

From Apple's viewpoint, iPad was going fill a critical middle-ground between iPhone and the Mac. And if they could create a new product category from nothing, that would create a "meaningful" amount of revenue for them.

The analysts totally blew their job of estimating how big iPad would be last year before it went on sale. Shaw Wu of Kaufman Bros. said in March that he thought they would sell 2 million iPads for the year. The uber-Apple bull, Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray, said in March they would sell 2.8 million in 2010 (though he upped his estimate to 6.2 million by June). Katy Hubert of Morgan Stanley and David Bailey of Goldman Sachs were the most bullish of the analysts, who thought that Apple could ship 6 million iPads for the year. In the end, Apple shipped over 14 million tablets.

So, what are the experts missing at the moment about Apple? The company has a number of irons in the fire at the moment and several could develop into major areas for the company. But I'm most interested in what they're going to do in the area of Near Field Communications (NFC). NFC is a technology that -- after merchants install necessary point-of-sale hardware -- will allow users to pay using their mobile phone rather than a traditional credit or debit card.

.......

[** This post is an excerpt of the full article, which is available on TheStreet.com by clicking here. Free Site.**]

Sphere: Related Content

Video: Betting on eBay: China Watch

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Contributor Eric Jackson details how PayPal's expansion into China will affect its parent, eBay, and whether investors should buy in.

Wed 01/19/11 06:00 AM EST -- Eric Jackson & Brittany Umar

Stocks in this video: YHOO | AMZN | EBAY | AOL | MSN | BKS |GOOG

Sphere: Related Content

Why Tesla Is the Next Webvan

By Eric Jackson08/18/10 - 06:59 AM EDT

Every 10 years ago, the smart folks in Silicon Valley select some inefficient industry that is run by dummies which they are going to set straight and end up revolutionizing. Ten years ago, there were smart entrepreneurs (with Internet backgrounds) with even smarter venture capitalists behind them who started a company called Webvan designed to revolutionize buying groceries. People would no longer go to a bricks-and-mortar store, they said, they'd buy all their groceries online.

After raising hundreds of millions of dollars and going public, Webvan failed. The smart Web entrepreneursoverlooked some basics about running a grocery business -- online or offline -- like needing to have big expensive distribution centers. Maybe if they'd had some grocery execs in the fold (on the management team or board) they might have thought of that "key success factor" for operating in that industry. But before their failure, if you'd asked them about bringing in some industry talent, their response had been: we're trying to recreate this industry so we don't want to tie ourselves down to the old ideas that have failed.

Ah, how important it is to balance "fresh eyes" to look at industry challenges anew with "gray hair" wisdom that can tell you which potholes to avoid stepping into.

In Silicon Valley, with lots of money, ego, and talent, you can will a lot of companies into reality -- especially if they are able to capture some exciting buzz. However, success breeds lots of arrogance. Webvan was Exhibit A of how that arrogance can result in a high-profile failure.

There's another Webvan-like company that just went public a few weeks ago and is heading for the same kind of ignominious failure by the end of 2012: Tesla Motors (TSLA).

Tesla shares many similar characteristics with Webvan. The company was founded in 2003 with the view of providing the world's leading electric cars. You could argue that they've been losing money ever since. The company is set on revolutionizing the auto industry.

By 2004, they needed cash and found Elon Musk, a PayPal co-founder with cash in his jeans since eBay(EBAY) acquired it. Musk, 39, is now Chairman, CEO, and Product Architect of Tesla. He has an explicit employment contract which will keep him in that role until the end of 2012.

The company -- thanks to Musk's involvement, his worthwhile mission of creating non-fossil fuel powered cars, and the pixie dust he brought of his past PayPal success -- found it easy to raise money in Silicon Valley. They attracted investments from Google(GOOG) co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, eBay co-founder Jeff Skoll and a host of well-know VC firms. Most people are familiar with its racy Roadster -- currently Tesla's only car with a list price of over $100,000.

........

[** This post is an excerpt of the full article, which is available on TheStreet.com by clicking here. Free Site.**]

Sphere: Related Content

What MSFT Must Say Today

Microsoft (MSFT) is the Ebay (EBAY) of a month and a half ago. Tossed to the trash heap by the market, thought of as a has-been.

That was where EBAY say in early March, yet it's now up over 60% in 6 weeks or so. What changed for EBAY? They held an analyst day in late March and did a much better job that previously in laying out the case for the future growth of their businesses -- especially for PayPal. They also delivered some solid earnings yesterday to back up the talk that there's a real future here

Which brings us to MSFT. They've done a terrible job in selling the growth prospects of their 5 business segments. Because of their ham-handed handling of it, they've made investors think that MSFT's future prospects hinge on whether they can do a deal (any deal) with Yahoo (YHOO) -- they don't.

It's tough to do in an earnings call, but MSFT tonight (at 5:30pm ET) needs to retell its long-term story again, which can include significant growth from here. This isn't a dinosaur (at least, it doesn't have to be). This is a company with one of the best balance sheets in business which it could use to make some very interesting acquisitions -- yet they've been gun-shy to do so and, when they have (think aQuantive or the Facebook investment), they've overpaid. Steve Ballmer needs get us excited with a real story and a real strategy.

Their decision to withdraw guidance at last January's earnings call further reinforced perceptions that this is a company that is no longer growing -- it is and it will. More than most companies, MSFT does have pretty good visibility into its businesses for the next couple of quarters. It should provide guidance during today's call to give investors more comfort. That will be a bullish sign for the stock.

It goes without saying (given some other comments I've made in this column) that Steve Ballmer should be on the call -- and I'd be shocked if he wasn't, given investor concerns these days.

Of course the most important thing they can do is deliver some strong numbers and guidance for the rest of the year. With some of the positive PC numbers out of IDC last week, it would be nice to hear them talk up the June quarter for Client.

Originally published in RealMoney.com on 4/23/2009 2:49 PM EDT

Sphere: Related Content

EBAY and PayPal

I agree with Jim Cramer's comment earlier about EBAY. A big financial institution should buy this company, in order to get the PayPal crown jewel.

EBAY's been such a mish-mash for so long with all these various web companies flung together. They could and should be sold off. The Skype business unit could be quickly sold back to the original founders by a financial company that didn't care about getting back the $1.7B in value which is sitting on EBAY's books. MSFT, GOOG, and YHOO would be interested in the web assets. Ticketmaster (TKTM) should look at Stubhub.

I went back to the EBAY March analysts' day replay this morning and it's really compelling when you start to look at PayPal. Donahoe said it's the most misunderstood part of EBAY and he's right (and he's responsible for that). PayPal does have the chance to be the only dominant payment player in the online merchant space going forward. No credit risk, multiple relationships with financial institutions and merchants. It would be a compelling asset for any large player like a V, MA, or AXP.

Originally published in RealMoney.com on 4/23/2009 2:22 PM EDT

Sphere: Related Content

eBay's Ticker Might Be 'PYPL' in Three Years

Christa Quarles, the Thomas Weisel Partners analyst who covers eBay (EBAY), had a throwaway line about yesterday's earnings from the auction and payment company: "We like to joke that they are changing the ticker symbol to PYPL."

She's referring to the large and growing part of PayPal within the eBay empire. Even as eBay's core auction or marketplace business saw revenue drop 18% in the last quarter to $1.22 billion, the PayPal division grew revenue 11% to $643 million.

At the recent analysts' day a few weeks back, eBay CEO John Donahoe and PayPal President Scott Thompson both clearly spelled out how the PayPal group was poised to dominate the world of online payments for years to come: Think the online equivalent of Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA).

Donahoe even went so far to say, the "opportunity at PayPal is bigger than the opportunity at marketplace."

Today, Visa trades at a forward P/E of 18 times, Mastercard is at 13 times and eBay is at 10 times. eBay has roughly the same market cap as Mastercard. I'm not a fan of quick fixes, but there's a compelling argument to make for changing eBay's name to PayPal with a PYPL ticker.

It doesn't make sense to do this today perhaps, but it will soon. PayPal is the core to an eBay turnaround in the next couple years.

Originally published in RealMoney.com on 4/23/2009 12:09 PM EDT

Sphere: Related Content