eldavojohn writes “RedHat went to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals asking for limits on software patents yesterday. They have not uploaded their full brief yet on the web, but promise to post it soon. Here’s a tidbit: ‘Given the litigation risk, some open source companies, including Red Hat, acquire patents for the sole purpose of asserting them defensively in the event they’re faced with a future lawsuit. Red Hat also provides open source intellectual property protections through our Open Source Assurance Program that protects our customers and encourages them to deploy with confidence. Our strategy is a prudent one and mitigates the risk of patent lawsuits, but it would be unnecessary if the system itself were fixed.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Filed under: Design, World wide web, Video, Web services, Yahoo!, web 2.0

If there’s one thing we know about Flickr users, it’s that their not shy about sharing their thoughts. Shortly after Microsoft made an offer to buy Flickr’s parent company Yahoo!, images mocking the deal started showing up all over the site. And now that Flickr has added the capability for uses to upload short videos, a huge group of Flickr image-only purists has formed a “NO VIDEO ON FLICKR!!!” group.

Over 6,000 members have already joined the group, and more than 1600 have signed a petition asking for the new feature to be removed.

Basically, their argument is that there are plenty of places for people to upload and share videos. What’s made Flickr special is its focus on images. Of course, anyone can filter out videos from their search results just by clicking on the advanced search options. It would be nice if the feature were more prominently placed, but why ask Flickr to alter its search bar when you could just try to incite a riot?

[via Thomas Hawk]

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Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services, Yahoo!

Yahoo! could be preparing to launch a Google Analytics competitor. The huge Y has acquired Tensa Kft, makers of IndexTools.

Yahoo! will integrate IndexTools with its current analytic tools to help build the company’s advertising network. The services will first be available to members of the Yahoo! ad network, but eventually the company plans to build a system that’ll let third party developers “monitor and optimize the traffic performance” of web applications.

The deal is expected to close in the first half of the year. The terms of the acquisition weren’t released.

[via TechCrunch]

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House Financial Services Committee
Considers measures on banks and banking, economic stabilization, insurance, international finance, and securities. Membership, schedule, bills and summaries, hearings transcripts

On the internet Banking
Welcome to our World wide web Banking service. You must have an account with us to use this system. If you have an account and would like to sign up, click the ENROLL

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Advice and bank reviews. Basic banking information. How to select a bank, which accounts are ideal, bank CD tips, and information on getting a loan. Visit About.com for useful

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Welcome to Commerce Bank - America’s Most Convenient Bank Live Customer Service 24/7 1-888-751-9000 | 1-800-YES-2000 Telephone Banking Service

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checking accounts, home equity lines and loans, savings options, money markets, certificates of deposit (CDs), mortgages, student loans, credit cards, debit cards, on the internet banking

Personal Banking - RBC Royal Bank
We’re continuously working to identify ways to serve you better, to simplify your banking affairs, and to minimize your cost of borrowing.

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Synovate Award: Global Finance: TD Canada Trust rated ” Best On the internet Banking ” in customer service in 2007 among the country’s five major banks. TD Canada Trust rated ” Ideal

Wells Fargo Home Page
Begin here to bank and pay bills on the internet. Wells Fargo provides personal banking, investing services, small business, and commercial banking.

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Filed under: Major movement, Earnings reports, Good news, Competitive strategy

The country’s largest mattress manufacturer, Sealy Corporation (NYSE: ZZ) posted 1Q 2008 numbers that, while not all that good were superior than expected. This caused investors to bid up the stock 6.5% to close at $7.56 today.

Overall, net sales declined 5% to $392 million in 1Q 2008. The decline would have been much more massive were it not for a 15% increase in international sales. Sales by unit volume were off by over 10% but the average selling price per unit declined by much less.

Like many companies, Sealy has been hit by big costs increases in raw materials, particularly steel and foam. The company has kept a tight rein on expenses and reduced its debt by 1% to $795 million. Management recently voted to suspend the dividend. Generally not a good idea to save money at the expense of investors.

Interim CEO Larry Rogers believes the company will return to long-term growth and profitability by concentrating on specialty bedding products. This is a fancy industry term for mattresses with a price tag over $1,000. Sealy plans to introduce new Posturepedic specialty bedding products throughout 2008. At least, anxious investors can get a good night’s sleep to face the latest economic news the next day.

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Filed under: Good news, Competitive strategy, Google (GOOG), Dell (DELL), Wal-Mart (WMT)

Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) has announced that its entire corporate headquarters is now running on “green energy,” as the personal maker continues to become one of the most ecologically-conscious companies on the planet. It has competition in the retail sector, though, from Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and world wide web search king Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG).

All 2.1 million square feet of Dell’s Round Rock, Texas headquarters facility is now powered by renewable energy sources — no fossil fuel burning is present. To get there, Dell has about 40% of its headquarters power needs supplied by a gas-to-energy plan from leading waste disposal company Waste Management, located in nearby Austin. The other 60% of its power needs comes from wind energy supplied by TXU Energy.

Paul Bell, President of Dell Americas, stated “Powering an entire campus with green power, in partnership with these two leading companies, is an important step in becoming the greenest technology company on the planet and the right thing to do for our shared earth.” He’s right, and Dell is expected to save about $2 million per year on energy costs alone with the green conversion of its Texas-based facilities — along with cutting carbon dioxide emissions at the same time. That’s what being green is all about.

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Filed under: Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, McDonald’s (MCD), Clorox Co (CLX), General Mills (GIS), Procter and Gamble (PG), Wendy’s Intl (WEN), Burger King Hldgs (BKC)

McDonald (NYSE: MCD) has issued a press release recently concerning the use of cellphone coupon marketing. The fast-food juggernaut wants its consumers to have the ability to snag a coupon whenever they desire and by
hooking up with a company called Cellfire, McDonald’s is hoping it can establish a relationship with some of the
hip texters out there.

Cellphone users who download the Cellfire app can then text a certain number and receive a special code good for a specific offer. According to the release, McDonald’s fans can take advantage of a free iced coffee promotion through April 27 in certain locations in Utah, Wyoming, and Nevada.

McDonald’s knows we’re an on-the-go society, and it obviously wants to leverage the fact that mobile devices are no longer just for speaking — we text, we play games, we surf the net, and, as I recently observed, we have the ability to even shop on Amazon on our cells (I say “we,” but I should point out that I don’t own a cell phone, believe it or not). However, as I said in my previous post, I’m not so certain that Amazon’s text-shopping service will take off.

In this case, though, I think consumers might indeed be apt to send a swift text and save some cash at their favorite fast-food joint. It’s a simple protocol that just might inspire a significant amount of users to cease at their local Mickey Dee’s establishment while running here and there. Certainly a lot of the youthful demographic will be targeted with this initiative.

I see the merit in this experiment. According to a Brandweek piece, consumer companies such as Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), Clorox (NYSE: CLX) and General Mills (NYSE: GIS) are also interested in coupon distribution via cellphones.

Obviously, traditional methods of distributing coupons won’t disappear, but cell-phone marketing seems to me to be a great way to market to the youth and anyone who’s away from home. Fast-food entities such as Burger King (NYSE: BKC) and Wendy’s (NYSE: WEN), in addition to McDonald’s, will benefit from an exploration of the limits of cell-phone targeted coupons.

Disclosure: I don’t own shares in any of the companies mentioned here; positions can change at any time.

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Filed under: Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Starbucks (SBUX), Videos

When your business is struggling with the competition and your stock price down, it’s time to focus on the fundamentals that got you the leg up when you first started. At least that’s what Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) seems to be thinking these days. Click below for video.

Interested in maybe hearing your voice on the BloggingStockCast? Leave a comment for the show by calling 567-226-4583 and leaving a message!

(I apologize for the temporarily wrong number on the video, the phone number handling the video there died! I’ll get it right with tomorrow’s BloggingStockCast -Tobias)

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Filed under: Products and services, Launches, Competitive strategy, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ)

Hewlett-Packard Corp. (NYSE: HPQ), the world’s largest personal maker, has released its smallest laptop Computer ever. The new Mini-Note from HP weighs in at just over two pounds, but can run Microsoft Corp.’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Windows Vista or a freely-available Linux operating system. That distinction is important since HP is making the Mini-Note available in a slew of configurations — from $500 or so to over $1,200.

HP apparently sees a bright future in the miniature notebook, and will be competing with the Taiwanese computer maker Asus, which released the tiny Eee Personal computer last fall. Even though small notebooks, known as ultra-portables, have been around for years, this new Mini-Note is even smaller. Striking a balance between a smartphone and a full laptop, it will be interesting if the popularity of Asus’s miniature PC offering will carry over into HP’s new product, which is being offered in many flavors. That alone will make the Mini-Note more competitive.

HP’s Mini-Note will have one defining characteristic — a nearly full-size keyboard. Stuffing in a keyboard that’s 92% the size of a normal keyboard laptop is no small feat of course, but the screen resolution and weight are nothing to sneeze at either. HP says that “We think the U.S. market will be extremely interested in this,” which is probably true for early gadget adopters, students (due to price) and road warriors where weight rules. Could this type of product become a mainstream laptop seller? HP will give it the ideal shot it can.

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Filed under: International markets, Deals, Live coverage, Competitive strategy, Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Russia, Middle East

Usually, when sovereign funds put money into a company it is simply a financial investment. Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) might have unlocked something more. According to The Wall Street Journal: “Dell said it is in talks with a government-owned entity in Dubai about establishing a joint venture to further increase the personal-computer maker’s sales in the Middle East.” In other words, the computer company will get value well beyond cash.

For Dell, it is a brilliant move that shows government funds can do more than just write checks. The Personal computer market in the Middle East is huge and growing very rapidly.

The US company might have found a template for improving its market share around the world through forming joint ventures with local pools of capital. Dell’s growth in many markets has been injured by the improvement of share by Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), and the rise of large computer companies Lenovo and Acer out of China. All of these companies need to improve their business in growing markets, like the Middle East and Asia, if they want their earnings to move up.

If the Dell venture in Dubai works, it would be wise to look to sovereign funds in Russia, China, and Singapore for similar deals. Dell’s market share in many of these regions is in trouble. Who superior than the locals to help them?

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24wallst.com.

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