Apple working to bring iPhone to Japan

Consumer tech giant is negotiating with Japan's top mobile phone carrier, but they're said to be at odds over how much subscriber revenue Apple should get.

Apple Inc. is negotiating with Japan's top mobile phone carrier to launch the iPhone in Japan, though the cut of subscriber revenue that Apple wants has been a sticking point, according to a report published Tuesday.

NTT DoCoMo spokesman Shuichiro Ichikoshi said company President Masao Nakamura met recently with Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs. Shuichiro declined to comment further.

The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, reported Tuesday that Jobs and Nakamura discussed launching the iPhone in Japan.

Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) has said it plans to launch the device in Asia in 2008 but has not provided details.

NTT DoCoMo (DCM) had nearly 53 million subscribers and commanded more than half of Japan's mobile phone market at the end of September, but has struggled to add new users in recent months amid fierce competition from KDDI Corp. and Softbank Corp., (SFTBF) which have slashed rates and launched aggressive sales promotions.

Apple and NTT DoCoMo are still negotiating the terms of a deal, with one stumbling block being Apple's demands to receive the same percentage of subscriber revenue from NTT DoCoMo that it receives from other carriers, according to the Journal.

If a deal with NTT DoCoMo falls through, Apple is also talking with Softbank, according to the report.

Apple spokeswoman Jennifer Bowcock declined to comment.

The introduction of the combination iPod-cell phone-Internet surfing device to the world's second-largest economy would be a tremendous boon for Cupertino-based Apple, which hopes to sell about 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008.

Apple has sold more than 1.4 million iPhones since they went on sale June 29 in the United States. Subsequent launches in Europe have boosted sales and sparked a legal fight over Apple's exclusive use of T-Mobile, part of Deutsche Telekom AG (DT), as its wireless provider in Germany.

Apple's strategy thus far has been to pick an exclusive mobile operator for each region: AT&T Inc (T, Fortune 500). in the United States, O2 in Britain, T-Mobile in Germany and France Telecom's Orange wireless arm in France.

Last month, the chairman of China Mobile, China's biggest mobile services operator with nearly 350 million subscribers at the end of September, revealed the company was in talks with Apple to bring the iPhone to China.
(Source money.cnn.com)

Cuban: Quieter and moving closer to Cubs

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has toned down his act as he tries to convince baseball's powers to let him buy a storied

How do you get famous NBA bad-boy owner Mark Cuban to shut up and play nice? Simple: Dangle in front of him the chance to buy one of the most attractive franchises in sports.

Two sources familiar with the sales process of the Chicago Cubs confirmed to CNNMoney.com that Cuban is one of a handful of bidders who have been cleared by Major League Baseball to look at the Cubs' books.

Cuban has been identified as one of the bidders for the Chicago Cubs for many months. Now, as he moves closer to the endgame, the Dallas Mavericks owner has become the model of decorum that NBA Commissioner David Stern probably never thought he'd live to see.

Cuban and the other bidders who have been approved to see the financials - including J. Joe Ricketts, the founder of TD Ameritrade (AMTD), and John Canning, chairman of private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners - are still waiting to see the books from the Cubs' current owners, the media conglomerate Tribune Co. (TRB, Fortune 500)

Estimates are that the Cubs could bring between $750 million to $1 billion, and the price would go even higher if the deal includes the company's interest in cable networks that carry the teams' games. Wrigley Field could bring in hundreds of millions of dollars more. It thus is poised to be the richest sale in U.S. sports franchise history, dwarfing the bargain-basement price of the $280 million Cuban paid for the Mavericks in 2000.

The Tribune Co., which is selling assets as part of its own sale to Chicago real estate developer Sam Zell, announced Wednesday that it expected to complete the sale of the team in the first half of 2008. A successful bidder might not be identified even by the start of spring training.

The outspoken Cuban once said the head of officiating in the NBA was not qualified to run a Dairy Queen. He also has been hit with a series of fines by the league for his comments.

But he hasn't been fined since June 2006, when his comments about officiating in the NBA finals that his Dallas Mavericks lost cost him $250,000. And his other public comments are far milder than you would expect from him.

When he stopped by CNN the other day, he wouldn't say word one about his interest in the Cubs or baseball, or even comment on the general economics of the sport compared to the salary-capped NBA. And he had almost nothing but good things to say about the NBA leadership.

He said if he had to give a letter grade to the way the business side of the league is being run, he'd give it a B-plus. When I suggested that was a better grade than you'd give someone unable to manage a Dairy Queen, he grimaced and said he wasn't grading the quality of officiating. But he also clearly wasn't about to go down that road again.

"That was six years ago," he said about the Dairy Queen comment.

And while he'd like to see the NBA step up domestic marketing, particularly in the offseason, he raved about the league's overseas growth and online offerings.

"I think internationally, we're perfect," he said.

Even his famously noisy blog has quieted down, at least as it relates to the NBA. The former dot-com billionaire might criticize Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), YouTube and peer-to-peer technology. But the only criticism of the NBA on blogmaverick.com in the last month questions why Maverick player Devin Harris isn't on the All Star ballot, not the type of thing that will get folks in NBA offices upset.
Mark Cuban wants a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Cuban was at CNN to talk about Seats for Soldiers, a charity he's involved with that gives court-side seats to U.S. servicemembers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. That night he showed up at the Mavericks-Knicks game at Madison Square Garden and even passed up an opportunity to take a shot at the Knicks' troubled management when asked by local sportswriters.

All of this is likely the result of the realization that unlike his 2000 purchase of the Mavs, when his dollars did all the talking that matters, his effort to buy the Cubs will at least partly depend on whether he is deemed acceptable by baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and the other baseball owners.

Rival bidder Canning is a minority owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, the club that Selig used to own. And Canning has been described in other reports as a longtime friend and business partner.

Cuban probably has the dollars he'll need to buy the Cubs. Forbes estimates his net worth at $2.6 billion. What he also has to show is that he has the temperament that MLB will want to see.

He's never going to be confused with some low-profile team owners. He does blog and e-mail with fans. He appeared on "Dancing with the Stars" this fall. He still gets excited when watching a game at courtside.

Just don't expect to see him live up to the more outrageous parts of his reputation, at least for the next few months.
(Source money.cnn.com)

Google invades wiki territory

Search giant's upcoming service, "knol," will pose a challenge to nonprofit Wikipedia.

Google is working on a new Internet encyclopedia that will consist of material submitted by people who want to be identified as experts and possibly profit from their knowledge.

The concept, outlined late Thursday in a posting on Google's (GOOG, Fortune 500) Web site, poses a potential challenge to the nonprofit Wikipedia, which has drawn upon the collective wisdom of unpaid, anonymous contributors to emerge as a widely used reference tool.

Google is calling its alternative "knol" - the Mountain View-based company's shorthand for a "unit of knowledge."

For now, submissions are by invitation-only as Google fine-tunes the system, but the Internet search leader said it will eventually publish articles by all comers.

"There are millions of people who possess useful knowledge that they would love to share, and there are billions of people who can benefit from it," Ubi Manber, Google's vice president of engineering, wrote in the company's posting about the new service. "We believe that many do not share that knowledge today simply because it is not easy enough to do that."

Since it was founded on the same knowledge-sharing premise six years ago, Wikipedia has compiled 2.1 million English-language articles as well as millions more in dozens of other languages. The topics cover everything from Albert Einstein's theory of relativity to video games, such as "Beavis and Butt-head in Virtual Stupidity."

Wikipedia attracted 56.1 million U.S. visitors in October, making it the eighth most popular Web site, according to comScore Media Metrix. Google's properties, which include video-sharing site YouTube, drew 131.6 million U.S. visitors, second only to Yahoo Inc.

In a Friday interview, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales downplayed Google's latest move. "Google does a lot of cool stuff, but a lot of that cool stuff doesn't work out so great," he said.

Google's flops include a service that used to hire researchers to track down hard-to-find answers for befuddled Web surfers. The feature never took off in its four-year existence, prompting Google to pull the plug last year.

While Google tinkers with its encyclopedia, Wales already is poised to invade Google's turf with a Wikia search engine scheduled to debut later this month. The search engine will be operated by Wikia Inc., Wales' for-profit venture.

The Googlepedia, as some observers are already calling the new offering, will differ from Wikipedia by identifying who wrote each article and striving to reward the authors by giving them a chance to make money from Google's lucrative advertising network.

Critics say Wikipedia's cloak of anonymity has made its articles more vulnerable to mischief and other abuses that have led to inaccuracies.

Citizendium, an Internet encyclopedia launched earlier this year, also insists on identifying the writers of its articles. But, unlike Google, Citizendium relies on a collaborative editing process to verify the accuracy of its articles.

"Google will not serve as an editor in any way, and will not bless any content," Manber wrote. "All editorial responsibilities and control will rest with the authors."

Google is hoping to keep the contributors honest by allowing visitors to rate the entries and leave comments.

That won't be enough, predicted Larry Sanger, Citizendium's editor-in-chief who also helped start Wikipedia.

"Knol is apt to produce precisely the same sort of uneven content, with many of the same abuses, that Wikipedia has," Sanger wrote in a posting on Citizendium's site. "Without actual editors, the same sort of problems about misleading and damaging information are apt to plague knol."

Google, which is expected to earn more than $4 billion this year, also wants to make money off its encyclopedia. Although the resource will be available for free just like Google's search engine, the company wants to place ads related to the topics covered on each page.

The advertising is an option being left up to the person submitting an article. Google is trying to persuade the writers to participate by guaranteeing they will receive a "substantial" share of the revenue.

The profit incentive could turn Google's encyclopedia into a magnet for articles about highly commercial subjects instead of more academic topics, Wales predicted. "You may see an awful lot of articles about Viagra."
(Source money.cnn.com)

African Leaders Refuse to Accept EU's Trade Deal

Most African leaders have stood together at the 2nd European Union (EU)-Africa Summit and refused to accept the EU´s proposed Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) signing instead interim trade agreements.

The summit which was attended by 67 heads of states from the two continents concluded on Sunday with the signing of the Joint Strategy set out by Africa and the EU, minus the initially proposed EPAs.

Heads of states including President Thabo Mbeki and Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade refused to accept Economic Partnership Agreements set out by the European Union and asked that different trade agreements be negotiated.

"We are not talking any more about EPAs, we've rejected them...we're going to meet to see what we can put in place of the EPAs," President Wade told reporters on the second and final day of an EU-Africa summit in Lisbon.

Mr Wade dismissed pressure for new trade deals by 31 December, when a waiver by the World Trade Organization on preferential trade arrangements for developing countries expires.

Instead, by the close of the summit, interim economic agreements were put in place for signing in order to make sure that trade between the continents would not be disrupted by 1 January 2008.

At the press conference, only two heads of states from Africa were left to sign those agreements, according to the President of the EU Commission, Jose Barroso.

"What we are now initialing are not the EPAs, the discussion around the EPAs is ongoing, we understand the difficulties that exist when it comes to a new system of trade," he said.

He added that the formulation of the interim trade agreements was a good illustration of the spirit of partnership between the two continents.

Mr Barroso said the summit had resulted in eight concrete partnerships on peace and security, climate change and migration, amongst others.

"I now expect political leaders from the two continents to match their commitments," he said.

Mr Barroso added that climate change and good governance were also key issues that had been discussed at the summit along with trade.

Speaking on Saturday President Mbeki highlighted the need for good governance and human rights and said there was a great need to address the issue of migration.

"We continue to face challenges relating to governance in Africa, as this is the case with other regions of the world," President Mbeki said.

"However, to put the matter frankly, by far, the biggest challenge we face in terms of implementing our programmes on good governance and human rights is the issue of resources."

President Mbeki, current mediator between the Zimbabwean ruling party and main opposition, also said German Chancellor Angela Merkel was out of touch with the political situation in Zimbabwe after she criticised Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe at the start of the summit.

Ms Merkel told leaders present that the situation in Zimbabwe was damaging the new image of Africa.

Meanwhile, Mr Barroso commended President Mbeki on the job he was doing as mediator in Zimbabwe.

Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates said the summit was an extraordinary event and the fact that it was held was evidence that both continents had been able to overcome the impasse which had bogged them down over the last few years.

Mr Socrates said the summit was a milestone for Africa and the EU and a Lisbon Declaration would definitely result from the meeting.

He said all goals that had been set were achieved for the summit.

"We have adopted a joint strategy, an action plan and a monitoring mechanism - an agenda for which we will face the challenges," said Mr Socrates.

He added that there would definitely be another meeting soon and that Libya had already offered to host the next such summit.

African Union chairperson, Ghanaian President John Kufuor agreed with Mr Socrates saying that regular meetings were very important.

He also said the summit will mark a radical change in the relationship between Europe and Africa.
(Source allAfrica.com)

GM dominates 'Car of the Year' nominee list

General Motors products capture four of six nominations in two categories for prestigious auto journalists' award.

General Motors looks like it's on track to win both the Car and Truck of the Year awards at the 2008 North American International Auto Show in Detroit next month.

The list of finalists for the awards was announced Wednesday and GM makes two out of the three products nominated for each award.

A sweep would be the second in a row for GM (Charts, Fortune 500). At the the 2007 show, it took both awards with the Saturn Aura and Chevrolet Silverado.

The nominees for 2008 North American Car of the Year are the Cadillac CTS, Chevrolet Malibu and Honda Accord. The Accord is a product of Honda Motor Co. (Charts)

Nominees for the Truck of Year are the Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid and Mazda CX-9. Mazda is controlled by Ford Motor Co. (Charts, Fortune 500)

The winners are selected by a jury of 47 automotive journalists from the United States and Canada representing a range of media outlets including Fortune magazine, Edmunds.com, Road & Track and Chicago Tribune.

To be eligible, vehicles must be "all new" or "substantially redesigned" from the previous model year. The journalists selected the three cars and three trucks from a field of 13 cars and 15 trucks.

There will now be a second round of votes to select the two winning vehicles from among these six.

The winners will be announced Jan. 13 at the North American International Auto Show, also known as the Detroit Auto Show.

A GM sweep would mark the third year in a row in which one company won both awards. In 2006, Honda won both with the Civic and Ridgeline. That was the first time any company had done so since the awards began in 1994
(Source money.cnn.com)

Toyota debuts robo-maestro

The Japanese automaker plans to make robots a core business, taking on the likes of Honda and Fujitsu.

Compared to a virtuoso, its rendition was a trifle stilted and, well, robotic. But Toyota's new robot plays a pretty solid "Pomp and Circumstance" on the violin.

The five-foot-tall all-white robot, shown Thursday, used its mechanical fingers to press the strings correctly and bowed with its other arm, coordinating the movements well.

Toyota Motor Corp. has already shown robots that roll around to work as guides and have fingers dexterous enough to play the trumpet.

Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe said robotics will be a core business for the company in coming years. Toyota will test out its robots at hospitals, Toyota-related facilities and other places starting next year, he said. And the company hopes to put what it calls "partner robots" to real use by 2010, he said.

"We want to create robots that are useful for people in everyday life," he told reporters at a Toyota showroom in Tokyo.

Watanabe and other company officials said robotics was a natural extension of the automaker's use of robots in manufacturing, as well the development of technology for autos related to artificial intelligence, such as sensors and pre-crash safety systems.

Watanabe presented a vision of the future in which wheelchair-like "mobility robots" - also displayed Thursday - would offer "bed-to-bed" services to people, including the elderly and the sick, just like cars take people "door-to-door."

In a demonstration, a man got on the mobility robot, a motorized two-wheeled chair, then scooted around. Toyota showed how the moving machine could go up and down slopes and go over bumps without upsetting the person sitting on the chair because the wheels could adjust to such changes.

The Japanese government has been recently pushing companies and researchers to make robotics a pillar of this nation's business.

Toyota, maker of the Prius hybrid and best-selling Camry sedan, has been a relative latecomer in robots compared to its domestic rival Honda Motor Co., as well as other companies, including Hitachi (Charts), Fujitsu and NEC.

Honda has been working on robots since 1986, recognizing the technology as critical for its future in delivering mobility for the future. It is showing the latest technology in its own robot - the Asimo humanoid - next week.

Asimo - which stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility and is play on the Japanese word for "legs" - first became available for rental in 2000. It's considered one of the world's most advanced humanoids. Seen often at Honda and other events, it can walk, even jog, wave, avoid obstacles and carry on simple conversations.

The 51-inch-tall bubble-headed Asimo looks like a real-life child in a white space-suit, as it has grown smaller and lighter in size with innovations over the years.

Trying to one-up its rival, Toyota has been aggressively beefing up its robotics team. In August, it announced that it was teaming up with Sony (Charts), which discontinued its Aibo dog-like robot last year, to develop an innovative, intelligent, single-seat vehicle.

Toyota said it is working with universities and its group companies to speed up robotics development, but ruled out a collaboration with Honda for the time being.

Toyota Executive Vice President Takeshi Uchiyamada said technology that Toyota has developed in industrial manufacturing and automotive engineering will "spiral up" into robots.

"We hope to create a robot that highlights Toyota's strengths," he said.

Also Thursday, the automaker showed its Robina robot, a legless robot-on-wheels, which has already been working as a guide at Toyota's showroom at its headquarters since earlier this year.

In the demonstration, Robina, which has a head shaped like a bobcut hairstyle, interacted smoothly with a person, including carrying on a simple dialogue. It also showed how it could sign its name in script holding a fat felt-tip pen with its three fingers.

"I am 120 centimeters tall and how much I weigh is a secret," the robot said clearly in a feminine voice. "I know a lot about the Prius."

Koji Endo, auto analyst with Credit Suisse in Tokyo, said it was still unclear whether Toyota's robotics will bear fruit as a real business. But he praised Toyota for trying to branch into new sectors, noting it's likely to produce innovations that will in the long run be a plus for its auto business.

Besides robots, Toyota has a housing operation and is carrying out research in biofuels. Honda is also expanding outside autos, including a jet business, and has long had a motorcycle unit.
(Source money.cnn.com)

Sony bringing back the 'wow factor'

After telling reporters that the company has fixed its financial problems, CEO Howard Stringer reveals plans for PS3 Network, OLED TVs, but no robots.

Planned networking services for the PlayStation 3 video game console are a key part of Sony's new drive for innovation, Chief Executive Howard Stringer said Tuesday.

Stringer, who took over as Sony's chief executive in 2005, also said televisions using new panels called OLED and the Rolly music player with robotics technology were strong products that showed Sony is back after its restructuring efforts.

Such products "bring back some of the wow factor" that is a Sony trademark, he said, speaking to reporters at Sony's headquarters.

Stringer said the massive three-year cost-cutting drive he began to turn around the electronics and entertainment company had gone well, and immediate financial problems had been solved.

"The next cycle is actual innovation," he said, referring to software and other networking products he said will deliver growth for Sony.

Sony's network service, now used to download video games for the PlayStation 3, will be expanded to offer other kinds of content. He did not give details or a timetable.

Besides its core electronics business, Sony owns the Hollywood movie studio that made the "Spider-Man" series. Sony also has a joint venture in music with Bertelsmann AG that has Bruce Springsteen, Justin Timberlake and Beyonce Knowles under its labels.

Such entertainment content will likely be offered as downloads for the PlayStation 3 in Sony's effort to catch up with U.S. companies like Apple (Charts) and Microsoft (Charts, Fortune 500), which dominate in software. But Stringer said the network service will be open to outsider content.

When Welsh-American Stringer took the helm at Sony, the company - once a symbol of innovation with its Walkman line of personal stereos - had been stumbling, falling behind in flat-panel TVs and digital music players.

The three-year turnaround plan that Stringer engineered - which included massive job cuts, plant closures and dropping of unprofitable businesses -- will be completed in March next year.

The company has sold off part of its stake in its financial unit, which had a bank and insurer. Sony has also sold to Toshiba its advanced computer chip operations for making the "Cell" chip for the PlayStation 3.

Stringer talked proudly about the OLED TV and Rolly.

Sony began selling this month in Japan the world's first television for the commercial market with an organic light-emitting diode display, or OLED. The 11-inch display on the TV called XEL-1 measures just 3 millimeters, or 0.12 inches, thick, and delivers clear vivid images.

Rolly, which went on sale earlier this year, is a rolling dancing, egg-shaped music player that flaps its lid-like ends and flashes lights.

Stringer made clear he planned to stay on as chief executive and steer the next three-year plan.

"Am I going to be here for the next three years? And the answer is, 'Yes,"' he said.

Stringer was also upbeat about Sony's recent operations, saying that PlayStation 3 sales were going strong worldwide, boosted by price cuts and helped by a shortage of the rival Wii console from Nintendo.

As many as 200,000 PS3 machines were selling a week in Europe, while 40,000 to 50,000 PS3s were selling a week in Japan, Stringer said.

Stringer acknowledged it was still unclear which next-generation video platform will emerge the winner, although he said Blu-ray disc, the standard Sony backs, appeared to be ahead of the competing HD DVD format, backed by Toshiba and others.

Hollywood studios' response has been mixed in releasing films in either format or both.

"We have momentum," he said. "But that's all we have at the moment."

Stringer said Sony (Charts) has no plans to revive its robots business, such as the Aibo pet robot, because of the big investment required and competition against Toyota Motor Corp (Charts)., Honda Motor Co (Charts). and others.

"You always have to pick your bets," he said. "We made the decision two and a half years ago when we were confronting negative margins in the electronics company that if something had to go in the short term, that was it."
(Source money.cnn.com)

Universal Sets Music Free On Imeem

The beleaguered music industry is beginning to show more enthusiasm for free, advertising-supported business models. The latest sign: Universal Music Group has agreed to provide its songs to online social network imeem.

Imeem now boasts deals with all four major record companies, including Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group (nyse: WMG - news - people ) and EMI Group, all of which have already inked deals with the social network.

It's a sharp turnaround from earlier this year, when none of the majors were willing to sign on to imeem's new ad-supported interactive service. In fact, Warner sued imeem, arguing that by allowing its members to upload and share MP3s of Warner music, it was infringing on its copyrights.

But in July, Warner dropped its suit and struck a partnership with imeem under which the major label allowed free, full-song streaming of its music in exchange for a cut of imeem's advertising revenue. Sony-BMG Music reached a similar deal with imeem in September, followed by EMI in October and now Universal. A source familiar with the Universal pact said the label is also receiving a small payment each time one of its songs is streamed.

Fueling the shift is the music industry's continuing struggle with sliding sales of compact discs, which still account for the vast majority of their recorded-music sales. Revenue from paid music downloads continues to grow, but isn't close to making up the difference.

Imeem isn't the first ad-supported music service to gain the support of all four major labels. Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI have also been making their music available to ad-supported music downloading service Ruckus. Ruckus had an early advantage over other services in securing the majors' cooperation because it targeted colleges and universities, where illegal music downloading is a particularly serious problem.

Whether imeem succeeds will depend on how robust a community it can build on its site. It claims to have 19 million users; deals with major labels and leading independent music companies will help it grow that audience further.

In the meantime, imeem says it has signed advertising deals with major marketers such as Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ), Nike (nyse: NKE - news - people ), Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) and Toyota (nyse: TM - news - people ). Imeem's label partners are also beginning to explore promotional opportunities on the site. For instance, Warner Music has created an imeem page to promote the release of Mothership, a new Led Zeppelin greatest hits collection. Warner has posted a selection of live concert videos on the page and is holding a Zeppelin trivia poll contest.

When imeem members upload songs and videos by partner-label recording artists, other users can stream them in full. For the moment, imeem has an advantage over News Corp. (nyse: NWS - news - people ) social-networking giant MySpace, where Universal has restricted its song and video clips to 90 seconds, citing the absence of a licensing deal. Universal also filed a copyright infringement suit against MySpace in 2006.

In a statement, Universal Music Chairman and Chief Executive Doug Morris made it clear why his company was treating imeem and MySpace differently.

"Imeem has developed an innovative way to make our artists' music a central part of the social-networking experience," Morris said. "More importantly, they've done so the right way--by working with [Universal] to provide an exciting musical experience for consumers, while ensuring that our artists are fairly compensated for the use of their works."
(Source forbes.com)

The Business Of Basketball

You could not blame basketball fans for thinking the National Basketball Association is in big trouble. Just look at the news that has dominated the headlines the past several months. Ratings for the NBA Finals between San Antonio and Cleveland hit an all-time low. One of the league’s biggest stars, Kobe Bryant, went public with demands to be traded from the Los Angeles Lakers. A betting scandal involving a referee has scarred the league’s image. Seattle filed a lawsuit against the SuperSonics to prevent the team from leaving town. The scandalous New York Knicks, a vital market for the NBA, have proven to be completely inept both in a court of law and on the court.

But numbers compiled by Forbes tell quite a different story. The value of the typical NBA franchise rose 6% this year, to $372 million, as the Knicks became the first basketball team worth $600 million. NBA teams posted an average profit (in the sense of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of $9.8 million, on revenues of $119 million. This is the highest income since Forbes began tracking basketball team finances 10 years ago.

The NBA's financial success is a result of three components: a steady increase in gate receipts; bigger TV deals, despite sagging ratings; and a collective bargaining agreement that tightly controls spending on players.
By The Numbers: The NBA's Most Valuable Teams

Ticket sales are not sexy--like streaming basketball games on the Internet or opening up offices in China--but they still pay the bills for teams. The NBA remains a gate-driven league. Gate receipts for the league rose 6% last season to $1.2 billion. At 33% of the league's $3.6 billion in revenue, it represents the NBA's largest revenue stream; national broadcast deals are next up at $1 billion or 28%. Last season, the league set an attendance record with 21.8 million fans, filling arenas to 92% capacity.

TV execs hoped LeBron James' first trip to the NBA Finals would goose falling ratings. But the 2007 Finals, which featured two small-market teams and a four-game sweep, proved to be a ratings disaster. The record-low rating of just 6.2% audience share was 27% lower than the previous year's Finals rating.

Yet two weeks after the Finals wrapped, the NBA and ESPN, ABC and TNT announced an eight-year, $7.4 billion extension to the agreement set to expire after the 2007-2008 season. It was a record both in terms of length and dollars for a national NBA TV deal, representing a 21% monetary increase over the current contract. The networks justified the increased payout by pointing to the value of the digital rights in the agreement. Networks continue to lust after sports programming because sports remain one of the few Tivo-proof options on television.

The NBA has had a salary cap for more than 20 years. It is a soft cap though, and usually exceeded by teams--only two team payrolls are below the cap this season. Starting with the 2001-2002 season, a new system was put in place as a result of a collective bargaining agreement between owners and players. This system rewarded owners who kept spending on players in check. Last season the Charlotte Bobcats and Utah Jazz both went from showing a loss to posting a profit thanks to a $6.3 million check from the league for keeping player spending under control.

One component of the new system is an escrow tax. The escrow tax is designed so that teams only spend 57% of league-wide revenues on player salaries. Last season, players contributed 9%, or $177 million, of their $2 billion salary haul to an escrow account. That money is split between owners and players, so total player salaries and benefits are reduced to 57% of league-wide revenue. Last season, owners divvied up $155 million of the escrow account, while $22 million went back to the players.

The second component of the system is a luxury tax. The luxury tax threshold is proving to be much more important than the salary cap number, as teams are loathe to pay the tax. Teams must pay one dollar in tax for every dollar they spend on players over a certain threshold--last season, it was $65.4 million. The tax is a double-whammy in that tax-paying teams are ineligible to receive distributions from the tax revenues collected. Five teams paid the tax last year, with the Knicks leading the way with a $45 million tax bill. The other four taxpaying teams chipped in $10 million.

The Knicks, like the New York Yankees in baseball, are its league's most valuable franchise, but still managed to post the biggest operating loss in the NBA last year. The reasons are similar: Both teams spend big money on players and are looking to build asset values of their teams as well as media properties. The Knicks spent $166 million on players last season, including luxury taxes, and lost $42 million--the $18.5 million severance for coach Larry Brown didn't help the bottom line either. In contrast, the Chicago Bulls spent $59 million on players and earned a profit of $59 million.

Several former bottom-feeding teams in the NBA saw big gains in our 2007 valuations. The Cavaliers, who rode on LeBron James' back to the NBA Finals, are now worth $455 million, up 20%. The Cavs also gained as a result of a new cable deal with FSN Ohio, worth $25 million a year on average--more than double the old contract. The agreement kicked off last season.

The Toronto Raptors' value jumped 18%, thanks to a surging Canadian dollar and better play on the court, where the team's win total went from 27 to 47. The Golden State Warriors value rose 16% thanks to improved play, and the value of the Orlando Magic increased 14% to $322 now that a new arena for the team has been approved.
(Source forbes.com)

Detroit flexes its muscle

The day before lawmakers in Washington agreed on a plan to dramatically increase average fuel economy requirements for car companies, Chrysler Corp. had a little announcement of its own.

The company announced pricing for the Dodge Challenger coupe, which will hit American roads this summer with a 425-horsepower, 6.1-liter, V8 engine. The $37,995 price-tag doesn't include an expected gas-guzzler tax that could add as much as $2,100 to the final figure.

General Motors won't be far behind with itsresurrected Chevrolet Camaro expected to go on sale early next year. For its part, Ford is following up on its 500-horsepower Shelby GT500 with the 540-horsepower Shelby GT500KR. (Official fuel economy estimates are unavailable for these cars because they are not yet in production. Based on comparisons with current models, overall fuel economy will probably be in the mid-teens.)

This may raise the question: What in the green world are these companies thinking?

Actually, if you keep your eye on the big picture, it's not as crazy as it might seem.

(Source money.cnn.com)

Get the lowest price on anything

Before you plunk down hard-earned cash, you can quickly see which stores are offering the best deals.

In the world of brick-and-mortar retailing, finding the best price is often a simple matter of driving to Costco or Wal-Mart.

But in Web world, hundreds of retailers and mom-and-pops are fighting one another, and your fellow shoppers have battleground intelligence to share.

When you're on a bargain hunt

Hit the "Hot Deals" forums at FatWallet.com and SlickDeals.net. Though both sites have a particular emphasis on pricey electronics, users regularly uncover and post discounts that run past 50% of the retail price on all sorts of items.

A recent post on SlickDeals pointed shoppers to a 50%-off sale at Kohls.com.

Another alert user followed up with a coupon code - think of it as the clip-out coupon of the digital world - to give another 20% off when entered in the checkout window. If you got in on the deal, you could have walked away with a $60 pair of casual shoes for $24 plus tax and shipping. The catch: The better the deal, the quicker the forum's users will wipe out a Web site's inventory.

When you're researching a product

Check out the reviews on Amazon.com. Pay particular attention to posts written by users who have a badge under their names designating them a "top reviewer." You can be more confident that their reviews are legitimate and not written by a seller.

You want a critical mass of reviews - at least 25 or so.

Another good source of customer reviews: Epinions.com.

Once you know what you want

Start at comparison shopper PriceGrabber.com. Search for your item and you'll get back quotes from major retailers and small outfits. Make sure you disclose your zip code, so the site can factor in tax and shipping.

Note the two or three lowest listed prices, then go to SlickDeals' coupons section and check to see whether any discounts are available that would cut your price further.

If you're truly industrious, you can earn a small rebate on your purchase by buying through the Cash Back section of Ebates.com or FatWallet.com. Merchants pay those sites a commission, which they share with you. Expect to save another 1% to 5%, depending on the store.
(Source money.cnn.com)

RIP Facebook?

A lot of people say that Facebook has jumped the shark. That’s flat out wrong. In fact, Facebook is now being devoured by the shark. There’s so much blood in the water, it’s attracting other sharks. And if Facebook’s not careful, one of them is bound to come along and finish it off. I’ve never seen anything like it in the annals of fast-rising tech companies that fail.

The really weird part of this story is that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with Facebook. It works as well as it ever has, and many of the people who use it (my kids for instance) are unaware of the worsening situation about its privacy-invading Beacon social ads scheme that tracks people’s web-surfing habits even when they’re not on the site. That’s bound to change. The market is fickle, something better is in the wings, and as soon as it arrives, the alienated and angry mob will race to it. Delphi’s errors begat Prodigy and its errors begat AOL, which was crushed by the Web.

What’s surprising here is the speed with which this thing is coming undone — and the ease with which it could have been avoided. What’s harming Facebook - perhaps to a terminal degree - is enormously bad PR. For a social media company, these folks don’t understand the first thing about communication; they have alienated the press by being arrogant, aloof and dishonest. Their idea of press relations is sending a stupid message to a What’s New at Facebook Group that directs you to another website for a canned statement.

And it is killing them. That bad press extends from the blogosphere to mainstream media. No one who writes about Facebook likes it anymore. And while that might seem insidery — who cares what the press thinks? — it’s having dire repercussions. For one thing, advertisers care what the press thinks. Bad press is causing advertisers to jump ship. And that’s begetting even more bad press. It’s the opposite of a virtuous circle; it’s an economy being undone.

It could have all been avoided with a smart adult running things. Facebook has no old hands in its corner, no advisers to tell the kids how to behave. Netscape had its Jim Barksdale, Google (GOOG) its Eric Schmidt. This company has no one babysitting it. And watching it now is like watching an unattended child play with a pack of matches in a wooden house.

Facebook’s problems are well known. They started when young Zuckerberg stood up and made preposterous statements to Madison Avenue — who let him say that stuff? What genius wrote those immortal lines and had such a tin ear for how it would play? The situation worsened when the company compounded its hubris with lies. Its ongoing contempt for the press and disregard for the First Amendment doesn’t help. And now, it has no one in its corner that anyone in the media trusts.

Facebook has turned all the people who rooted for it into a lynch mob. In the space of a month, it’s gone from media darling to devil. The most interesting thing about Facebook right now is who will replace it.

(source Josh Quittner money.cnn.com)

Motorola Investors Say Brown May Not Restore Cachet

Greg Brown takes over the top spot at Motorola Inc. boasting 25 years in the technology industry and a resume stacked with operations expertise. That's precisely why some investors wanted someone else.

The decision last week to replace Ed Zander with Brown, Motorola's current president, continues a tradition of leaders who know how to run the mobile-phone maker's manufacturing and distribution. Shareholders may have preferred a chief executive officer who can excite customers and employees with new products that juice up sales.

Zander, a former engineer, couldn't do that and Brown, trained as an economist, may have the same problem, said Joan Lappin, a fund manager who had called for Zander's ouster.

``I don't see him as a person who is going to come in and razzle-dazzle the troops,'' said Lappin, president of Gramercy Capital Management in New York. She sold her Motorola shares last year and isn't buying them back. ``He's kind of a bland guy.''

Zander, 60, will step down in January after he failed to produce a successful follow-up to the Razr, now three years old and Motorola's best-seller. That led to three quarters of falling sales and market share losses. Brown, 47, faces the challenge of luring customers away from Apple Inc.'s iPhone, Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry, and new music and video devices from Nokia Oyj and Samsung Electronics Co.

`Disappointed'

``There are some investors who are disappointed that they didn't bring in somebody from the outside,'' said Raimundo Archibold, an Kaufman Brothers LP analyst in New York. He recommends buying Motorola shares and owns them himself. ``This would have been an opportunity to bring in some fresh blood.''

Brown has marketing experience from his time at AT&T Inc., where he worked more than 20 years ago. He also oversaw marketing as head of four Motorola business units, spokesman Chuck Kaiser said.

In an interview, Brown said the top challenge is to ``regain the momentum'' of the handset business. ``We've got to get that organization more profitable, refresh the product portfolio.''

Motorola, in Schaumburg, Illinois, rose 32 cents to $15.97 Nov. 30 on the New York Stock Exchange after announcing the decision, and slid 19 cents to $15.78 at 9:34 a.m. New York time today. The shares had fallen 22 percent this year before today.

The stock would have advanced more had Motorola picked an outsider, said Brad Williams, an analyst at MTB Investment Advisors in Baltimore. Apple and Waterloo, Ontario-based Research In Motion have more than doubled this year. Nokia has climbed 76 percent.

While Motorola started selling a new version of its Razr device, the handset was too similar to the old design to entice shoppers, analysts said. Motorola said last month that it had sold 900,000 units of the new Razr.

IPhone, BlackBerry

``Brown is not what they're lacking right now,'' said Williams at MTB, which manages $11 billion. His company sold its Motorola shares this year. ``He is not a product-marketing type of person. Look at Apple and RIM, who have more of a consumer focus.''

Williams said he won't buy Motorola stock until the company brings out ``great new products'' and moves beyond the Razr.

At Apple, Steve Jobs continually reinvents his products with new designs and features. Sales of the iPod and iPhone have helped the Cupertino, California-based company eclipse Motorola in market value since Jobs retook the CEO job 10 years ago.

Apple's iPhone, which blends the iPod media player with a Web-browsing mobile phone, sold more than 1.4 million units in three months after its debut in June. Research In Motion, which introduced the BlackBerry Curve video and music phone in May, more than doubled its total sales last quarter. Nokia's N95 camera phone and music devices from Samsung and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd. stole sales in Europe and Asia.

Nokia's Lead

Nokia, based in Espoo, Finland, lifted its market share to 38.1 percent of unit sales in the third quarter from 35.1 percent a year earlier, according to Stamford, Connecticut-based research firm Gartner Inc. Samsung rose to 14.5 percent from 12.2 percent, while Motorola fell to 13.1 percent from 20.7 percent.

Motorola should have given ``a very careful look at external candidates'' to revitalize the company, said Paul Meeks, director of research for L.R. Burtschy & Co., a family-owned fund in Charleston, South Carolina. The fund manages $600 million and won't buy Motorola shares until Brown improves results.

``It's more of the same old, same old, with an internal instead of an external candidate,'' he said.

Operations Skills

Brown proved his operations-management skills by producing consistent earnings at Motorola's network division in a time of shrinking customer spending, said Lawrence Harris, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York.

He also arranged the $3.9 billion purchase of Symbol Technologies, the second-largest transaction in Motorola's history, and returned the automotive business to profitability before selling it for $1 billion.

Brown will need to hire new talent and build design and marketing teams to develop products that consumers want, said Robert Forman, a partner at executive search firm CTPartners in Menlo Park, California.

``Brown understands how to build things,'' he said. ``He also understands how to distribute products. There might have been another CEO that could have been more consumer-driven.''
(Source bloomberg.com)

Apple’s U.S. Market Share Now 8.1%. Or is it 6.3%?

After taking a brief October dip in advance of Leopard’s release, Apple’s (AAPL) share of the operating system market grew 3.34% in November to hit a record 6.81%, according to the results of a Net Applications survey issued today.

Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows in its various flavors continues to dominate with a 92.42% share, as measured by the Web metrics firm. Among the operating systems gathered in the “other” category are Linux (.57%), Apple’s iPhone (.09%), Sony’s Playstation (.02%), SunOS (.01%) and Nintendo’s Wii (.01%).

Net Applications’ monthly surveys do not measure market share in terms of computer systems sold. Rather, they sample data from visitors to some 40,000 websites operated by their clients. As such, their findings are probably better described as a snapshot of installed base taken from a less than random sample. But they do reflect market share trends, and it’s always interesting to compare their results with those from firms like Gartner and IDC, which track quarterly shipments.

Net Applications’ October report, for example, showed Apple with a 6.61% market share. A couple weeks earlier, IDC had calculated Apple’s domestic market share in terms of units shipped in the 3rd quarter at 6.3% while Gartner’s estimate for the same period came in at 8.1%
(source money.cnn.com)