Replies to post #1850 on Alphabet Inc (GOOG)

[SeriousMoney]

Google says no plan to up stake in China's Baidu
Reuters, Monday December 19, 11:41 am ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - Web search leader Google Inc. (NasdaqNM:GOOG - News) said on Monday it may not raise its small stake in China's top search engine Baidu.com (NasdaqNM:BIDU - News), even as competition rises in the fast growing sector.

"We have a very small stake in the company, which is a strategic investment that was made a while back, but as far as I know there aren't any plans beyond that," Daniel Alegre, the director of international Websearch & Syndication, told reporters on the sidelines of a conference.

Google owns 2.6 percent of Baidu, and was believed to be seeking to boost its stake prior to the Chinese company's hugely successful initial public offering in August.

The comments come after Baidu's chief executive said last month that the company planned to remain independent, and was not interested in finding a major foreign investor.

In contrast, rival Yahoo Inc. (NasdaqNM:YHOO - News) paid $1 billion for 40 percent of Chinese Web auctioneer Alibaba.com earlier this year, taking on eBay (NasdaqNM:EBAY - News) and Baidu.com as it extends its reach in the world's second-biggest Internet market.

Google for its part hired former Microsoft Inc. (NasdaqNM:MSFT - News) executive Li Kaifu and Johnny Chou, an executive at former local telecoms heavyweight UTStarcom (NasdaqNM:UTSI - News), to spearhead its China operations.

"We are focused on building products that are very tailored to the Chinese market and tapping into the tremendous engineering pool that China has," said Google's Alegre.

Google also has partnerships with local Internet companies like NetEase.com Inc. (NasdaqNM:NTES - News).

With Internet users expected to hit 120 million by the end of this year, China could surpass the United States in five years.

http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/051219/media_china_google.html?.v=2

[SeriousMoney]

Japan Seeks Guidance on Search Engine
AP, Monday December 19, 1:39 pm ET
Japan Enlists Tech Cos., Universities to Decide if Nation Should Launch Internet Search Engine

TOKYO (AP) -- Japan's government is enlisting top technology companies and universities to determine whether the country should launch its own Internet search engine, an official said Monday, as powerhouses such as Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. dominate the market.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will convene a study group consisting about 20 Japanese electronics companies and universities on Internet search engines, said Fumihiro Kajikawa, a ministry official in charge of information policies.

The group will hold the first meeting Friday and plans to put together an interim report by March and a final report by July, he said.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., NTT Corp. and Tokyo Universities are among the participants, according to Kajikawa. Electronics makers Fujitsu Ltd., Hitachi Ltd. and NEC Corp. will also join.

"The group will look into issues including whether Japan will start its own search engine," he said.

The group plans to look into developing a search engine for pictures, the official added.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper reported Monday that the government plans to spend tens of millions of dollars for a three-to five year project to develop a search engine beginning in fiscal 2007.

The report said that Japan wants to come up with its own version of search engine to catch up with the American companies that receive high profits from online ad revenues.

Kajikawa could not confirm the report.

"It is not that we want to play against (Google and Yahoo). We are thinking of something that's unique to Japan," he said.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/051219/japan_internet.html?.v=2

[SeriousMoney]

High-Speed Internet Over Power Lines Could Serve Millions

By DIONNE SEARCEY and REBECCA SMITH
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 19, 2005; Page B1

In a deal that could pose a new threat to cable and phone companies, Current Communications Group LLC and TXU Electric Delivery, a unit of TXU Corp., said they plan to offer high-speed Internet over electric power lines to more than two million customers in Texas.

The move marks the biggest deployment of broadband over power lines in the U.S.

Customers who subscribe will be able to plug a device about the size of a cellphone into an electrical outlet and connect a cable from their computer for Internet access that is capable of speeds that are faster than some popular Internet plans from cable and phone companies. Current said it hasn't determined how much it will charge for the new service, but it is scheduled to be offered before the end of 2006.

Cable and phone companies have been competing furiously for high-speed Internet customers as more people switch from sluggish dial-up modems to faster broadband. Providers of broadband over power lines have generally been dismissed as insignificant players with immature, costly technology.

But Current's rollout to a wide swath of customers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and elsewhere in Texas is a sign that the technology is more than a fad. The service will be offered in TXU's traditional utility territory in North Texas, which has overlap with areas now served by Time Warner Inc. and Charter Communications Inc. as well as AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., which are spending billions of dollars to upgrade their networks with fiber.

Under the terms of the agreement, TXU, the biggest utility company in Texas, will sign a 10-year contract for $150 million to use Current's technology to get instantaneous alerts about outages and to gather information about its electrical system. The technology eventually could be used to read meters and even to remotely shut off or turn on power, eliminating utility jobs. TXU has been engaged in a wide-ranging effort to build new businesses and cut costs. It has been one of the utility sector's top stock performers for the past two years.

Current, a private company controlled by the family of chairman William Berkman, plans to raise more than $100 million from its investors, which include Google Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Liberty Associated Partners LP of which John Malone's Liberty Media Corp. is a limited partner. TXU Corp. will also become an equity holder. Current could market the service itself or team up with another service provider to sell it. Also, it could reach agreements with Internet phone, video and wireless providers to bundle the broadband with other services, a popular marketing strategy used by cable and phone companies.

Broadband over power lines, or "BPL," has had technical difficulties, and ham-radio operators have objected to spectrum interference. (Current says its service doesn't interfere with ham radio.) But the technology is regarded as a potentially powerful tool that could reshape all sorts of businesses in addition to utilities and Internet service. Because any electric outlet becomes a two-way communications portal, it could give regular appliances a communication capability. Soda machines, for example, could tell a distributor when they're running low on cans, changing restocking routes.

The idea of using power lines to send Internet signals to homes has been around for years. Electrical wiring is ubiquitous, eliminating the need to install new cables. Electricity travels at a far lower frequency than the Internet signal, so the two generally don't interfere with each other. The service is being explored through pilot projects by several investor-owned utilities, including Cinergy Corp., a Cincinnati-based utility, and it has received a full deployment by a customer-owned utility in Manassas, Va. Current last year started offering the service to about 50,000 customers in Ohio along wires owned by Cinergy.

Early efforts in general have been hampered by the cost of the equipment needed to move a signal down power lines, a lack of reliability and regulatory issues. For example, special equipment must be installed at each of thousands of transformer points. New semiconductor chips and other new technology already have improved the speed and lowered the price of modems that plug into wall sockets. The new modem costs about $25 wholesale, but it's unclear whether Current will charge customers for the device.

There also are regulatory hurdles since the transmission and distribution systems that form the backbone are regulated assets and utilities must seek approval to use them in this new way. Texas became the first state this year to pass a law permitting utility holding companies to set up separate concerns, funded with shareholder dollars, that would make the investments and reap the rewards, insulating utility customers from a possible costly boondoggle. But in most states, utilities would be expected to share profits or savings with rate payers, reducing incentive for utilities to pursue a broadband strategy.

Top officials at the Federal Communications Commission have expressed support for such power-line services because they could expand the availability of high-speed Internet access to rural communities that the big providers ignore because of the cost of establishing service in areas with low concentrations of users.

In suburban Washington, D.C., Current has set up a home to conduct demonstrations of its power-line broadband. Among the 5,000 people who have visited include FCC chairman Kevin Martin, former FCC chairman Michael Powell, Richard Russell, technology adviser at the White House and members of Congress.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113496015165026111.html?mod=yahoo_hs&ru=yahoo