INTERNET
Google consolidates clouds
Google is consolidating its various cloud businesses into a single group to be led by Diane Greene, a cofounder and former chief executive of software maker VMware Inc, as the search giant seeks to diversify its sales from its bedrock advertising business. The reorganization, announced on Thursday in a blog post, brings Google for Work, Cloud Platform and Google Apps into one organization, led by Greene, who has served on the company’s board for three years. Urs Holzle, the company’s senior vice president of infrastructure, said on Wednesday that he wants Google’s cloud services to make more money than its ad products by 2020. Advertising products generated almost 90 percent of revenue in the most recent quarter for Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc, while sales from its work, cloud and apps businesses are categorized as “other” revenue.
INTERNET
Zuckerberg gives US$20m
Facebook Inc billionaire Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday said that he and his wife are donating US$20 million to help get high-speed Internet service to US classrooms. The money is being given to non-profit group Education Super Highway to help with its mission, the Facebook cofounder and chief executive said in a post on his page at the social network. Most schools in the US are connected to the Internet, but fewer than half have high-speed broadband connections, Zuckerberg said. Last month, Zuckerberg and his wife revealed plans to start a private school in a hardscrabble Silicon Valley town, mixing education with healthcare. Distribution of the money is being spread over five years, with initial grants going toward initiatives for providing computers and Internet access in public schools, as well as training teachers and enlisting parents.
INTERNET
Yahoo urged to scrap plan
Activist investor Starboard Value is urging Yahoo Inc to scrap a planned spinoff of its lucrative stake in Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) and sell its own Internet business instead. The demand, outlined in a Thursday letter to Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer and the company’s board, represents a reversal for Starboard. The New York hedge fund last year began pressuring Mayer to spin off Yahoo’s Alibaba stock into a different company to avoid paying future taxes on the gains on its original investment of US$1 billion. Yahoo’s stake in Alibaba is worth US$30 billion, far more than its main business of showing ads on its Web sites and mobile applications. Starboard wants Yahoo to hold on to Alibaba because of the uncertainty raised by the Internal Revenue Service’s refusal to guarantee the spinoff would qualify for a tax exemption.
SPORTS APPAREL
Nike to buy back stock
Nike Inc, coming off its most profitable year ever, plans to buy back US$12 billion of stock and split its shares two-for-one. The new four-year buyback plan is to take effect when the US$8 billion authorization is completed, which is expected to occur before the end of the current fiscal year, Beaverton, Oregon-based Nike said on Thursday in a statement. The stock split is to be in the form of a 100 percent stock dividend payable on Dec. 23 to holders as of Dec. 9. The announcement comes after the company said last month that it would boost annual sales about 60 percent to US$50 billion by 2020, helped by growth in its women’s and online businesses.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last