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| | | May 2, 2004
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Sunday, May 2, 2004 |
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Google files for IPO
It's finally here. Google's going public, the most hotly anticipated initial public offering (IPO) since the late 1990s, turned out to be largely unanticipated. The Internet search start-up which ousted web behemoths like Yahoo! from the top spot with a technology that ranked web pages has apparently decided to employ the same method for ranking the investment public.
On Thursday, Google filed for an IPO, seeking to raise $2.7 billion in a rare, auction-style process. The company did not disclose the number of shares it plans to sell nor their selling price, thus making the evaluation of the company impossible to make before the auction is complete. Still, Google will issue two classes of shares with different voting rights, a move which will leave the company's founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, with strong decision-making authorities, even after the search giant goes public.
As indicated in the company's statement, Google plans to carefully adjust in the stock market, avoiding unsubstantiated hype as much as possible. In the late 1990s, technology companies were prone to generating extraordinary attention from investors which later proved to be outright deleterious.
Yet true to its roots, Google's IPO came with its geeky features. The exact figure sought to be raised in the auction process is $2,718,281,828, the product of $1 billion and the base "e" of the natural logarithm, a function widely used in calculus. The company also released an "Owner's Manual for Shareholders", a document written by the company's founders, outlining its long-term objectives and its core business practices.
At the same time, the public offering served as the first revelation about Google's finances, previously kept secret. In 2003, Google's revenue was $961.9 million which resulted in a profit of $105.6 million, the third consecutive profitable year.
More from: AP (via InformationWeek) | CNET News.com 1 2 3 4 5 | Computerworld 1 2 | eWeek 1 2 | InformationWeek | International Herald Tribune | InternetNews.com 1 2 3 | The New York Times | NewsFactor | Reuters 1 2 3 | TechWeb | The Washington Post 1 2 3 4 | Wired News
Microsoft delays Windows XP service pack
Microsoft has decided to slightly delay the release of Service Pack 2 for its Windows XP operating system. The software giant originally expected to release the update package by the end of June, but reports say the company will delay the release by at least a month.
Windows XP Service Pack 2 includes all security and software updates unveiled since Service Pack 1, enhances system security and includes some new features such as a pop-up blocker for Internet Explorer.
In recent months, Microsoft has shifted significant portions of its staff working on the development of Windows. The software maker is increasingly weary of its products' security woes and the slow progress on Longhorn, the next major Windows operating system. The company, however, has made the strategic choice of improving the security of its current products and releasing an interim Windows version before the long-awaited Longhorn debut.
More from: CNET News.com | Computerworld | CRN | VNUNET.com
U.S. bans Internet access taxation
The U.S. Senate decided Thursday to ban state and local taxes on Internet connections for four additional years. The bill called the Internet Tax Non-Discrimination Act passed with overwhelming majority.
The newly enacted moratorium fell short of making the prohibition of Internet access taxation permanent, a decision already taken by the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill also allows for 17 states which have begun taxing dial-up and high-speed Internet connections to continue levying those taxes for several more years.
More from: CNET News.com | Computerworld | InternetNews.com | InternetWeek | The Washington Post
In Other News...
 U.S. federal authorities arrested and charged two men for criminal offenses under the CAN-SPAM Act, legislation aimed at battling the flood of unsolicited commercial e-mail. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charged the two with illegally sending spam messages without the appropriate opt-out features and valid sender identities.
Apple Computer celebrated the first birthday of its iTunes online music store. As a birthday present, the company released an improved version of the software and tweaked some of its user policies. Customers will now be able to share songs with two additional computers, but will be able to burn a song on a CD no more than seven times (previously ten). Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, hailed the iTunes music store a success. The company is currently selling songs at the pace of about 2.7 million a week.
Barnes&Noble.com was fined $60,000 by New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer for exposing sensitive customer data, including names and billing addresses, due to a technical design flaw. The attorney general has also required that the online book seller establish a security program to monitor and audit how customer information is handled by the e-commerce company.
On May 1, BASIC, the most widely used computer programming language, turned 40 years. In 1964, two Dartmouth College professors and two of their undergraduate students successfully ran two BASIC-written applications on teletype terminals located in the basement of a college campus building.
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