Sat Feb 16, 2013 2:18pm EST

n">(Reuters) - AllThingsD, the widely read technology blog run by Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, has begun discussions with owner News Corp about extending or ending their partnership, sources familiar with the situation told Reuters.

According to these sources, AllThingsD's contract with News Corp expires at the end of the year. One of the sources said Swisher and Mossberg have to deliver a business plan by next week to Robert Thomson, the former Wall Street Journal managing editor who will helm News Corp's publishing unit as CEO after it is spun off.

The fact that AllThingsD's contract is up this year is well known, and sources said the website is receiving a lot of "inbound interest" from potential buyers parallel to its talks with News Corp.

Among the names mentioned as having reached out to AllThingsD were Conde Nast, where Swisher recently signed to work as a contributing writer for Vanity Fair, and Hearst.

Sources also speculated that former Yahoo and News Corp executive Ross Levinsohn might be looking at the website given his new role as Chief Executive of Guggenheim Digital Media, which comes complete with "significant capital to acquire and invest in new media companies." The private equity shop already owns Billboard, Hollywood Reporter, and Adweek.

AllThingsD has reported that AOL expressed interest in acquiring it in the past, but said those talks "were preliminary at best."

Calls to AllThingsD were referred to a News Corp representative who declined comment. A Conde Nast representative declined comment. Calls to Hearst were not immediately returned. Calls and emails to Ross Levinsohn were not returned.

While AllThingsD is recognized as the brainchild of Swisher and Mossberg, News Corp actually owns the website and its name. However, according to provisions in their contract, Swisher and Mossberg have approval authority over any sale, the first source said.

Technically, News Corp could retain the AllThingsD name in the event of a sale, forcing Swisher and Mossberg to start a new venture under a different brand name. But historically in these types of situations a deal is usually worked out to allow the founders to take the company name with them as part of a settlement.

Sources described the website and conference business combined as profitable. It has grown into a technology industry must-read, and features a popular conference division known for snagging A-list corporate executives for intimate interview sessions. Apple's Steve Jobs, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and virtually every other major technology executive has spoken at the D Conference, as it is known.

Earlier this week, AllThingsD's well-regarded media writer, Peter Kafka, led a media-centric conference for the website that included panels with Intel's Erik Huggers, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino, and Netflix's programming boss Ted Sarandos, among others.

The website has two more conferences on the docket for this year: a mobile one that was postponed until April due to Hurricane Sandy, and the main D Conference in May.

Sources described the relationship between News Corp and AllThingsD as amicable but stressed.

"Like all partnership, there could be more cooperation between the two," said one source. "There is tension between AllThingsD and the Wall Street Journal, for example."

As a result of management changes, over the last few years the website has reported to numerous News Corp executives, among them Gordon Crovitz, Les Hinton, and now Lex Fenwick and Robert Thomson.

Should the two sides reach a deal on a new contract, AllThingsD would be included as part of the publishing unit in the News Corp split.

(Additional reporting by Jennifer Saba; Editing by David Gregorio)

(This story corrects the 10th paragraph to show source said website is profitable in combination with conference business, instead of website is profitable. Corrects spelling of Erik Huggers name in paragraph 11 to Erik, from Eric)

View the original article here

1 of 4. A visitor tries Apple Inc's iPad at an electronics store in central Seoul January 18, 2013. Sharp Corp has nearly halted production of 9.7-inch screens for Apple Inc's iPad, two sources said, as demand shifts to its smaller iPad mini.

TOKYO/SEOUL | Fri Jan 18, 2013 3:48pm EST

TOKYO/SEOUL (Reuters) - Sharp Corp has nearly halted production of 9.7-inch screens for Apple Inc's iPad, two sources said, possibly as demand shifts to its smaller iPad mini.

Sharp's iPad screen production line at its Kameyama plant in central Japan has fallen to the minimal level to keep the line running this month after a gradual slowdown began at the end of 2012 as Apple manages its inventory, the industry sources with knowledge of Sharp's production plans told Reuters.

Sharp has stopped shipping iPad panels, the people with knowledge of the near total production shutdown said. The exact level of remaining screen output at Sharp was not immediately clear but it was extremely limited, they said.

Company spokeswoman Miyuki Nakayama said: "We don't disclose production levels."

Apple officials, contacted late in the evening after normal business hours in California, did not have an immediate comment.

The sources didn't say exactly why production had nearly halted. Among the possibilities are a seasonal drop in demand, a switch to another supplier, a shift in the balance of sales to the mini iPad, or an update in the design of the product.

Macquarie Research has estimated that iPad shipments will tumble nearly 40 percent in the current quarter to about 8 million from about 13 million in the fourth quarter, although Apple's total tablet shipments will show a much smaller decrease due to strong iPad mini sales.

APPLE SHARES

Any indication that iPad sales are struggling could add to concern that the appeal of Apple products is waning after earlier media reports said it is slashing orders for iPhone 5 screens and other components from its Asian suppliers.

Those reports helped knock Apple's shares temporarily below $500 this week, the first time its stock had been below the threshold mark in almost one year.

Apple, the reports said, has asked state-managed Japan Display, Sharp and LG Display to halve supplies of iPhone panels from an initial plan for about 65 million screens in January-March. Apple is losing ground to Samsung, as well as emerging rivals including China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp.

NO BIG CHANGE AT OTHER MAKERS

In addition to Sharp, Apple also buys iPad screens from LG Display Co Ltd, its biggest supplier, and Samsung Display, a flat-panel unit of Samsung Electronics.

Both LG Display and Samsung Display declined to comment.

A source at Samsung Display, however, said there had not been any significant change in its panel business with Apple, which has been steadily reducing panel purchases from the South Korean firm.

A person who is familiar with the situation at LG Display said iPad screen production in the current quarter had fallen from the previous quarter ending in December, mainly due to weak seasonal demand that is typical after the busy year-end holiday sales period.

Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu said some of the product cutbacks at Sharp are probably seasonal.

"The March quarter is almost always weaker than the December quarter," he said, adding that Apple also consolidates suppliers of certain components during quarters with weaker demand. "The Korean manufacturers are more efficient and typically have lower costs."

Apple's iPad sales may have also suffered amid a weak Christmas shopping period that hurt other consumer gadget makers as well.

CROWD OF RIVAL PRODUCTS

Apple also faces stiffening competition in tablets from a growing crowd of rival products from makers including Samsung with its Galaxy and Microsoft Corp's Surface. A consumer shift to smaller 7-inch screen devices, which Apple responded to late last year by launching its iPad mini for $329, are adding pressure.

BNP Paribas expects the iPad mini will eat into sales of the full-sized iPad, with the mini rise to 60 percent of total iPad shipments in the January-March quarter.

Looking to cut into Apple's market share in the smaller segment are Amazon.com Inc with its Kindle and Google Inc with its Nexus 7.

CEO Tim Cook, who is credited with building Apple's Asian supply chain, has overseen several gadget launches, including the iPhone 5, the latest iPad models and the iPad mini during his first year, is under pressure to deliver the kind of product innovations that wowed consumers during Steve Jobs' tenure to keep his company's profit growth stellar.

Sharp, which also supplies screens for the iPhone, has been working with its main banks on a restructuring plan after posting a $5.6 billion loss for the past fiscal year. To secure emergency financing from lenders including Mizuho Financial Group and Mitsubishi Financial Group it had mortgaged its domestic factories and offices including the one building screens for Apple.

In December, Qualcomm Inc agreed to invest as much as $120 million in Sharp and the two companies said they would work to develop new power-saving screens.

(Additional reporting by Poornima Gupta in San Francisco; Writing by Tim Kelly; Editing by Ken Wills and Richard Chang)

View the original article here

Sun Dec 30, 2012 6:33pm EST

n">(Reuters) - A major Iranian partner of Huawei Technologies offered to sell at least 1.3 million euros worth of embargoed Hewlett-Packard computer equipment to Iran's largest mobile-phone operator in late 2010, documents show.

China's Huawei, the world's second largest telecommunications equipment maker, says neither it nor its partner, a private company registered in Hong Kong, ultimately provided the HP products to the telecom, Mobile Telecommunication Co of Iran, known as MCI. Nevertheless, the incident provides new evidence of how Chinese companies have been willing to help Iran evade trade sanctions.

The proposed deal also raises new questions about Shenzhen-based Huawei, which recently was criticized by the U.S. House Intelligence Committee for failing to "provide evidence to support its claims that it complies with all international sanctions or U.S. export laws."

At least 13 pages of the proposal to MCI, which involved expanding its subscriber billing system, were marked "Huawei confidential" and carried the company's logo, according to documents seen by Reuters. In a statement to Reuters, Huawei called it a "bidding document" and said one of its "major local partners," Skycom Tech Co Ltd, had submitted it to MCI.

The statement went on to say, "Huawei's business in Iran is in full compliance with all applicable laws and regulations including those of the U.N., U.S. and E.U. This commitment has been carried out and followed strictly by our company. Further, we also require our partners to follow the same commitment and strictly abide by the relevant laws and regulations."

In October, Reuters reported that another Iranian partner of Huawei last year tried to sell embargoed American antenna equipment to Iran's second largest mobile operator, MTN Irancell, in a deal the buyer ultimately rejected. The U.S. antenna manufacturer, CommScope Inc, has an agreement with Huawei in which the Chinese firm can use its products in Huawei systems, according to a CommScope spokesman. He added that his company strives to comply fully with all U.S. laws and sanctions.

Huawei has a similar partnership with HP. In a statement, the Palo Alto, Calif., company said, "HP has an extensive control system in place to ensure our partners and resellers comply with all legal and regulatory requirements involving system security, global trade and customer privacy and the company's relationship with Huawei is no different."

The statement added, "HP's distribution contract terms prohibit the sale of HP products into Iran and require compliance with U.S. and other applicable export laws."

Washington has banned the export of computer equipment to Iran for years. The sanctions are designed to deter Iran from developing nuclear weapons; Iran says its nuclear program is aimed purely at producing domestic energy.

CLOSE LINKS

Huawei and its Iranian partner, Skycom, appear to have very close ties.

An Iranian job recruitment site called Irantalent.com describes Skycom as "a leading telecom solution provider" and goes on to list details that are identical to the way Huawei describes itself on its U.S. website: employee-owned, selling "solutions" used by "45 of the world's top 50 telecom operators" and serving "one-third of the world's population."

On LinkedIn.com, several telecom workers list having worked at "Huawei-skycom" on their resumes. A former Skycom employee said the two companies shared the same headquarters in China. And an Iranian telecom manager who has visited Skycom's office in Tehran said, "Everybody carries Huawei badges."

A Hong Kong accountant whose firm is listed in Skycom registration records as its corporate secretary said Friday he would check with the company to see if anyone would answer questions. Reuters did not hear back.

The proposal to MCI, dated October 2010, would have doubled the capacity of MCI's billing system for prepaid customers. The proposal noted that MCI was "growing fast" and that its current system, provided by Huawei, had "exceeded the system capacity" to handle 20 million prepaid subscribers.

"In order to keep serving (MCI) with high quality, we provide this expansion proposal to support 40M subscribers," the proposal states on a page marked "HUAWEI Confidential."

The proposal makes clear that HP computer servers were an integral part of the "Hardware Installation Design" of the expansion project. Tables listing equipment for MCI facilities at a new site in Tehran and in the city of Shiraz repeatedly reference HP servers under the heading, "Minicomputer Model."

The documents seen by Reuters also include a portion of an equipment price list that carries Huawei's logo and are stamped "SKYCOM IRAN OFFICE." The pages list prices for HP servers, disk arrays and switches, including those that already are "existing" and others that need to be added. The total proposed project price came to 19.9 million euros, including a "one time special discount."

The proposed new HP equipment, which totaled 1.3 million euros, included one server, 20 disk arrays, 22 switches and software. The existing HP equipment included 22 servers, 8 disk arrays and 13 switches, with accompanying prices.

Asked who had provided the existing HP equipment to MCI, Vic Guyang, a Huawei spokesman, said it wasn't Huawei. "We would like to add that the existing hardware equipment belongs to the customer. Huawei does not have information on, or the authority to check the source of the customer's equipment."

Officials with MCI did not respond to requests for comment.

In a series of stories this year, Reuters has documented how China has become a backdoor for Iran to obtain embargoed U.S. computer equipment. In March and April, Reuters reported that China's ZTE Corp, a Huawei competitor, had sold or agreed to sell millions of dollars worth of U.S. computer gear, including HP equipment, to Telecommunication Co of Iran, the country's largest telecommunications firm, and a unit of the consortium that controls TCI.

The articles sparked investigations by the U.S. Commerce Department, the Justice Department and some of the U.S. tech companies. ZTE says it is cooperating with the federal probes.

TCI is the parent company of MCI.

(Additional reporting by Grace Li and Chyen Yee Lee in Hong Kong and Marcus George in Dubai; Edited by Simon Robinson)

View the original article here

The Google logo is seen as Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt speaks at a promotional event for the Nexus 7 tablet in Seoul September 27, 2012.

WASHINGTON | Fri Oct 12, 2012 6:32pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The majority of top decision-makers at the Federal Trade Commission believe that an antitrust case should be brought against Google Inc, meaning the search giant could soon be headed into tough negotiations, three people familiar with the matter said.

Four of the FTC commissioners have become convinced after more than a year of investigation that Google illegally used its dominance of the search market to hurt its rivals, while one commissioner is skeptical, the sources said.

All three declined to be named to protect working relationships.

Two of the sources said a decision on how to proceed could come in late November or early December.

A long list of companies has been complaining to the FTC, arguing that the agency should crack down on Google.

Companies rarely talk publicly about their dealings with the FTC, but consumer reviews website Yelp and comparison shopping website Nextag have both complained about Google during open hearings in Congress.

Google rivals specializing in travel, shopping and entertainment have accused Google, the world's No. 1 search engine, of unfairly giving their web sites low quality rankings in search results to steer Internet users away from their websites and toward Google products that provide similar services.

Computer users are overwhelmingly more likely to click on the top results in any search. The low ranking often forces companies to buy more ads on Google to improve their visibility, one source said.

Google has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Asked about any discussions with the FTC, Google spokeswoman Niki Fenwick said: "We are happy to answer any questions that regulators have about our business." The FTC declined to comment.

During a congressional hearing in September 2011, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt denied that the company manipulated its search results. "May I simply say that I can assure you we've not cooked anything," he told the Senate Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel.

COMPLAINTS PILE UP

The one source said the FTC commissioners have given weight to other complaints that Google refuses to share data that would allow advertisers and developers to create software to compare the value they get on Google to advertising spending on Microsoft's Bing or Yahoo.

In a related issue, the FTC is looking at Google's handling of valuable patents, which are determined to be essential to smartphones. The agency is trying to determine if they are licensed fairly and whether patent infringement lawsuits are used to hamper innovation.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in mid-September that he expected a decision in the case by the end of the year. European regulators are conducting a similar antitrust probe.

If the agency finds that Google broke the law, the FTC and Google could hammer out a settlement that resolves the issues or, if settlement negotiations fail, the matter could end up in a lengthy, expensive court fight.

The FTC announced in April that it had hired high-powered Washington lawyer Beth Wilkinson to lead the probe. The hiring was seen as a sign that the FTC was contemplating filing a lawsuit against Google.

This is not the first run-in that Google has had with the agency.

In August, Google was forced to pay $22.5 million to settle charges it bypassed the privacy settings of customers using Apple Inc's Safari browser. The practice was in violation of a 2011 consent decree with the FTC over a botched rollout of the now defunct social network Buzz.

(Reporting By Diane Bartz; Editing by Karey Wutkowski and Tim Dobbyn)

View the original article here

NEW YORK | Fri Oct 12, 2012 5:32pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Genworth Financial Inc (GNW.N) plans to sell two of its businesses, including its wealth management business, in an effort to raise capital, according to three sources familiar with the situation.

The Richmond, Virginia-based company wants to sell its Pleasant Hill , California-based wealth asset management business, which has over $20 billion in assets under management and sells its portfolios through about 6,000 third-party advisers around the country.

The sources also said Genworth is looking for a buyer for Altegris, its San Francisco-based alternative investments provider with $3.36 billion in client assets. The sources wished to remain anonymous because they were told about the deal in confidence. Genworth bought Altegris in 2010 for $35 million, plus additional performance-based payments.

Genworth is working with Goldman Sachs & Co (GS.N) as the banker for the deal, said one of the sources, who estimated that if the two businesses were sold together they could be valued at about $400 million.

A Genworth spokesman declined to comment. A Goldman spokeswoman also declined to comment.

A number of private equity investors and potential strategic buyers are looking at the books of the businesses, two of the sources said. It is unclear if both units will be sold to the same buyer, they said.

Genworth, once a part of industrial conglomerate General Electric, is shopping the businesses as it faces increased scrutiny from ratings agencies, largely due to losses in its mortgage business.

On Thursday, Standard & Poor's lowered Genworth's credit rating to BBB- from BBB, putting it just a notch away from junk territory.

Moody's Investors Service Inc has said it is conducting a review for a potential downgrade of the company's senior unsecured debt rating.

Most of Genworth's troubles stem from its U.S. mortgage-guaranty unit, which has accrued about $2 billion in operating losses since 2008, but recently, things have started to look better.

Genworth reported net income of $76 million, or 15 cents per share, in the second quarter, compared with a net loss of $136 million, or 28 cents a share, a year earlier. Net operating losses from the firm's mortgage insurance unit narrowed to $25 million, from $255 million in the comparable period last year.

S&P said it was lowering its rating "to reflect the low earnings level for the organization ... and the difficulty it will face expanding margins globally in the weak economy."

In a statement responding to the S&P downgrade, Genworth said it is "pursuing a number of strategic and financial actions designed to improve returns on capital, simplify our mix of businesses, strengthen capital generation, and increase financial strength and capital flexibility."

The company said it would provide further details about this effort in its third-quarter earnings call on October 31.

In April, the insurer sold its tax and accounting financial adviser unit to California-based Cetera Financial Group.

At the time, the company said the sale would allow it to focus more on "its core turnkey asset management businesses."

Genworth is a Fortune 500 company that sells insurance as well as wealth management services. It bought its turnkey asset management platform, which was called AssetMark Investment Services, in 2006 and merged it with Genworth Financial Asset Management to form Genworth Financial Wealth Management.

Given Genworth's financial situation, it might make sense to offload the wealth management unit because providing turnkey asset management - which involves putting together customized portfolios and handling the back-office functions for financial institutions and advisories - has become increasingly competitive, said Alois Pirker, a research director at Boston-based Aite Group, which studies wealth management trends.

More companies are asking providers to allow them to keep the management of the investments in-house, while having the providers oversee the performance reporting, he said.

This results in less revenue for the providers because they don't collect fees for managing the money, Pirker said.

"It's a tough business to succeed in unless you have the investment dollars," he said.

(Reporting by Jessica Toonkel; editing by John Wallace, Carol Bishopric, Gary Hill)

View the original article here

Diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi speaks with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter (not pictured) during a joint news conference in Khartoum May 27, 2012.

WASHINGTON | Thu Aug 9, 2012 7:23pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi is expected to replace Kofi Annan as the U.N.-Arab League joint special envoy for Syria barring a last-minute change, diplomats said on Thursday.

The former Algerian foreign minister, who has a long history as a diplomatic troubleshooter, will have his work cut out for him in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad is using his security forces to try to crush a 17-month-old pro-democracy rebellion.

Annan, a former U.N. secretary-general and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said last week he would step down as the special envoy because he was unable to do his job with the U.N. Security Council hopelessly deadlocked over Syria.

Brahimi's appointment could be announced as early as next week but the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there are sometimes last-minute changes if a key government has concerns about the choice or the candidate has misgivings.

Brahimi, 78, has served as a U.N. special envoy in a series of challenging circumstances, including in Iraq after the U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, in Afghanistan both before and after the end of Taliban rule and in South Africa as it emerged from the apartheid era.

Syria, however, may present an unusually vexing assignment, in part because international action to try to end the violence has been stymied by the disagreements between the five veto-holding permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

While the council united in April to approve the deployment of 300 monitors to Syria to observe a failed ceasefire as part of Annan's peace plan, Russia and China vetoed three other resolutions that criticized Syria and threatened sanctions against Damascus.

In announcing his resignation, Annan explicitly blamed "finger-pointing and name-calling" at the Security Council for his decision to quit, but suggested his successor may have better luck.

Assad's forces have killed more than 15,000 people since March of 2011 in a sustained effort to end the anti-government rebellion, some Western leaders say. Damascus says the rebels have killed several thousand members of its security forces.

Assad has suffered a series of blows in recent weeks, including the defection of his prime minister, Riyad Hijab, on Monday and the assassination of four of his top security officials last month.

He named a new prime minister, Wael al-Halki, on Thursday as government forces pushed rebels back from a strategic district in Aleppo, Syria's commercial hub and largest city.

In accepting Annan's resignation, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon thanked him for having taken on "this most difficult and potentially thankless of assignments."

A spokesman for Ban, who is expected to formally name Annan's successor, was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting By Arshad Mohammed; additional reporting by Michelle Nichols at the United Nations. Editing by Christopher Wilson)

View the original article here