Today: As rumors fly that Google (GOOG) is entering a bidding war with Facebook over traffic mapping app Waze, new reports surface that Yahoo (YHOO) has entered bidding for streaming video service Hulu. Also, HP shares fall back to earth, and Netflix (NFLX)
A Google sign is seen at a Best Buy electronics store in this photo illustration in Encinitas, California April 11, 2013. REUTERS/Mike Blake ( © Mike Blake / Reuters )
readies for big weekend.The lead: Rumors fly over big acquisition bids by Google and Yahoo
As much of the country spent Friday looking forward to Memorial Day weekend barbecues and sleeping in on Monday, two of Silicon Valley's largest tech companies were reportedly hard at work on major acquisitions, with Google eyeing traffic app Waze and Yahoo bidding for streaming video service Hulu.
Waze, the Israeli-owned, Palo Alto-based crowd-sourced traffic mapping service, is reportedly seeking more than $1 billion, according to a Bloomberg News report, which said Mountain View-based Google
is prepared to enter a bidding war against Facebook to acquire the company. Bloomberg said the acquisition talks are still very preliminary, and Waze may decide to walk away, stay private and instead seek venture capital funding to expand its services. Apple (AAPL) was rumored to be interested in buying Waze earlier this year, but Bloomberg's sources said it's not involved in the latest discussions.Google already has the leading online and mobile mapping service, but absorbing Waze's 47 million users and social elements could remove a potential rival from the game, and perhaps more importantly, keep it out of the hands of Facebook, which Google sees as perhaps its No. 1 competitor. "Sometimes the best offense is defense," an unnamed source familiar with the situation told Reuters.
Greg Sterling of Searchengineland said such a move could mean the end of the popular app. "If Waze
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer speaks during an announcement that Yahoo acquired the Tumblr blogging site in order to upgrade its Flickr site, in New York, May 20, 2013. Yahoo announced a $1.1 billion deal for blogging site Tumblr aiming to help Yahoo to tap into the younger, active online user base at Tumblr. EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images (EMMANUEL DUNAND)
were to be acquired by Google it's quite likely that over time the service would lose vitality and value for its users. In the end . . . Waze the brand would probably disappear and be absorbed into Google Maps," he wrote.Others though, think the price may be too high for Google. "I can't really see much sense in a Google acquisition, especially not at a price that's close to what we're talking about," Marcus Thielking, co-founder of the mapping service Skobbler, told Reuters, saying the move would be "shortsighted."
Meanwhile, reports emerged Friday that Yahoo, fresh off its $1.1 billion purchase of Tumblr, had submitted a formal bid for Hulu, the Netflix-like streaming video service owned by News Corp., Walt Disney and Comcast. Reuters reported the Sunnyvale-based Internet giant had entered the bidding along with Time Warner Cable, DirecTV, KKR and Silver Lake. An amount was not reported, but Hulu is reportedly worth between $1 billion and $2 billion.
CEO Marissa Mayer has made it clear that she intends to bolster Yahoo's mobile offerings and regain a coolness factor, and streaming popular TV shows certainly fits that strategy. "Video is migrating to the Internet," Gabelli & Co. analyst Brett Harriss told Bloomberg News. "Hulu is a great platform to use as a base to build an Internet video business."
Yahoo's bid to purchase a majority stake in Europe's largest streaming video service, DailyMotion, was scuttled last month by the French government.
Expect to hear more about these two potentially blockbuster bidding wars in the coming weeks. Google shares fell $9.47, or 1.07 percent, to $873.32. Yahoo rose 31 cents, to 1.19 percent, to $26.33.
Silicon Valley market report: HP falls back to earth, Netflix gears up for big weekend
Wall Street posted its first losing week in the past month, but stocks rallied from deeper losses early in the trading day to close nearly unchanged. The Dow Jones industrial average was the only of the major indexes to finish in positive territory, edging up 0.06 percent thanks to Procter & Gamble, which rose 4 percent after announcing former CEO A.G. Lafley would return to lead the company. The Nasdaq and Standard & Poor's 500 each lost less than 0.1 percent, and the SV150 index dipped 0.25 percent.
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Facebook fared the worst among Silicon Valley tech companies, with each falling more than 2.5 percent on the day. Facebook's fall largely came in response to word that Google was entering the bidding for Waze, while HP's drop can be attributed to a return to reality. On Thursday, a day after posting earnings that beat diminished expectations, its shares hit a 52-week high and had its second-best-performing day (up 17 percent) in the past 45 years. Still, there are many who believe the Palo Alto company may be shrinking its way to profitability and CEO Meg Whitman has a long way to go in her turnaround efforts.
On the positive side, Los Gatos streaming video leader Netflix gained 1.13 percent on high expectations for the coming weekend, as it launches the long-awaited fourth season of "Arrested Development." Fifteen new episodes will launch at midnight Sunday, and the return of the cult comedy is expected to give a significant boost -- at least in the short term -- to Netflix's subscription numbers.
Silicon Valley tech stocks
Up: Apple, eBay (EBAY), Cisco (CSCO), Gilead, Yahoo, Juniper, Netflix
Down: Google, Oracle (ORCL), Intel (INTC), HP, VMware, Facebook, LinkedIn
The SV150 index of Silicon Valley's largest tech companies:: Down 3.18, or 0.25, to 1,268.80
The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index: Down 0.28, or 0.01 percent, to 3,459.14.
The blue chip Dow Jones industrial average: Up 8.60 or 0.06 percent, to 15,303.10.
And the widely watched Standard & Poor's 500 index: Down 0.91, or 0.06 percent, to 1,649.60.
Check in weekday afternoons for the 60-Second Business Break, a summary of news from Mercury News staff writers, The Associated Press, Bloomberg News and other wire services.
A Google sign is seen at a Best Buy electronics store in this photo illustration in Encinitas, California April 11, 2013. REUTERS/Mike Blake ( © Mike Blake / Reuters )readies for big weekend.The lead: Rumors fly over big acquisition bids by Google and Yahoo
As much of the country spent Friday looking forward to Memorial Day weekend barbecues and sleeping in on Monday, two of Silicon Valley's largest tech companies were reportedly hard at work on major acquisitions, with Google eyeing traffic app Waze and Yahoo bidding for streaming video service Hulu.
Waze, the Israeli-owned, Palo Alto-based crowd-sourced traffic mapping service, is reportedly seeking more than $1 billion, according to a Bloomberg News report, which said Mountain View-based Google
is prepared to enter a bidding war against Facebook to acquire the company. Bloomberg said the acquisition talks are still very preliminary, and Waze may decide to walk away, stay private and instead seek venture capital funding to expand its services. Apple (AAPL) was rumored to be interested in buying Waze earlier this year, but Bloomberg's sources said it's not involved in the latest discussions.Google already has the leading online and mobile mapping service, but absorbing Waze's 47 million users and social elements could remove a potential rival from the game, and perhaps more importantly, keep it out of the hands of Facebook, which Google sees as perhaps its No. 1 competitor. "Sometimes the best offense is defense," an unnamed source familiar with the situation told Reuters.
Greg Sterling of Searchengineland said such a move could mean the end of the popular app. "If Waze
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer speaks during an announcement that Yahoo acquired the Tumblr blogging site in order to upgrade its Flickr site, in New York, May 20, 2013. Yahoo announced a $1.1 billion deal for blogging site Tumblr aiming to help Yahoo to tap into the younger, active online user base at Tumblr. EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images (EMMANUEL DUNAND)were to be acquired by Google it's quite likely that over time the service would lose vitality and value for its users. In the end . . . Waze the brand would probably disappear and be absorbed into Google Maps," he wrote.Others though, think the price may be too high for Google. "I can't really see much sense in a Google acquisition, especially not at a price that's close to what we're talking about," Marcus Thielking, co-founder of the mapping service Skobbler, told Reuters, saying the move would be "shortsighted."
Meanwhile, reports emerged Friday that Yahoo, fresh off its $1.1 billion purchase of Tumblr, had submitted a formal bid for Hulu, the Netflix-like streaming video service owned by News Corp., Walt Disney and Comcast. Reuters reported the Sunnyvale-based Internet giant had entered the bidding along with Time Warner Cable, DirecTV, KKR and Silver Lake. An amount was not reported, but Hulu is reportedly worth between $1 billion and $2 billion.
CEO Marissa Mayer has made it clear that she intends to bolster Yahoo's mobile offerings and regain a coolness factor, and streaming popular TV shows certainly fits that strategy. "Video is migrating to the Internet," Gabelli & Co. analyst Brett Harriss told Bloomberg News. "Hulu is a great platform to use as a base to build an Internet video business."
Yahoo's bid to purchase a majority stake in Europe's largest streaming video service, DailyMotion, was scuttled last month by the French government.
Expect to hear more about these two potentially blockbuster bidding wars in the coming weeks. Google shares fell $9.47, or 1.07 percent, to $873.32. Yahoo rose 31 cents, to 1.19 percent, to $26.33.
Silicon Valley market report: HP falls back to earth, Netflix gears up for big weekend
Wall Street posted its first losing week in the past month, but stocks rallied from deeper losses early in the trading day to close nearly unchanged. The Dow Jones industrial average was the only of the major indexes to finish in positive territory, edging up 0.06 percent thanks to Procter & Gamble, which rose 4 percent after announcing former CEO A.G. Lafley would return to lead the company. The Nasdaq and Standard & Poor's 500 each lost less than 0.1 percent, and the SV150 index dipped 0.25 percent.
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Facebook fared the worst among Silicon Valley tech companies, with each falling more than 2.5 percent on the day. Facebook's fall largely came in response to word that Google was entering the bidding for Waze, while HP's drop can be attributed to a return to reality. On Thursday, a day after posting earnings that beat diminished expectations, its shares hit a 52-week high and had its second-best-performing day (up 17 percent) in the past 45 years. Still, there are many who believe the Palo Alto company may be shrinking its way to profitability and CEO Meg Whitman has a long way to go in her turnaround efforts.
On the positive side, Los Gatos streaming video leader Netflix gained 1.13 percent on high expectations for the coming weekend, as it launches the long-awaited fourth season of "Arrested Development." Fifteen new episodes will launch at midnight Sunday, and the return of the cult comedy is expected to give a significant boost -- at least in the short term -- to Netflix's subscription numbers.
Silicon Valley tech stocks
Up: Apple, eBay (EBAY), Cisco (CSCO), Gilead, Yahoo, Juniper, Netflix
Down: Google, Oracle (ORCL), Intel (INTC), HP, VMware, Facebook, LinkedIn
The SV150 index of Silicon Valley's largest tech companies:: Down 3.18, or 0.25, to 1,268.80
The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index: Down 0.28, or 0.01 percent, to 3,459.14.
The blue chip Dow Jones industrial average: Up 8.60 or 0.06 percent, to 15,303.10.
And the widely watched Standard & Poor's 500 index: Down 0.91, or 0.06 percent, to 1,649.60.
Check in weekday afternoons for the 60-Second Business Break, a summary of news from Mercury News staff writers, The Associated Press, Bloomberg News and other wire services.