Carol Bartz’s ouster is giving companies from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) the chance to buy Yahoo! Inc.’s earnings virtually for free.

Yahoo, the most-visited U.S. Web portal, fired Bartz on Sept. 6, after less than three years as chief executive officer. Once an $80 billion company, Yahoo has fallen 89 percent as it lost Internet users and advertising revenue to Google Inc. (GOOG) and Facebook Inc. Bartz, hired after Yahoo rejected a $47.5 billion offer from Microsoft in 2008, failed to stem the declines and left the company with just $16 billion in market value.

While Yahoo’s revenue has declined in the past two years, its cash and investments in Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan Corp. (4689) account for about 80 percent of the company’s capitalization, according to Gabelli & Co. Putting Yahoo up for sale could entice Alibaba Group Chairman Jack Ma, who may want to regain the stake he sold six years ago, as well as Microsoft and AOL Inc. (AOL), according to Jefferies Group Inc. Continue Reading

We’re shy. We Canadians, I mean.

We’re not lacking in pride. We’re a proud nation but we tend to shy away from the showy flashy braggy big-shotty approach like our cousins to the south. We like to think we’re above all the chest pounding bravado that seems to drown US product in its own must-haveness.

This is one of our classier country-wide characteristics. That is, when we’re meeting people or if we’re members of a diplomatic mission.

Where it sort of gets in our way is in our homegrown productions. Namely, our web series.

While Canadian creators have been working on making some good web series, typically on the ‘spare time’ wages of its creators, the US is surpassing us in corporate sponsorship of web series.

This means that while our creators, writers and directors are delivering quality web series between day job shifts, our US counterparts are buying homes, cars and building their professional careers on their web series. Continue Reading

Updated. Hulu has been approached by a potential buyer and is now contemplating whether it should sell, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday afternoon. The paper reported that Hulu’s board is now considering whether it should enter negotiations or solicit bids from other prospective buyers. There’s no word yet on who made the offer, other than a tweet from CNBC correspondent Julia Boorstin who said she has learned that “it’s not Google who made the offer.”

So who is it? Here are a few candidates, and our take on it: Continue Reading

[In this interview, 343 Industries franchise development director Frank O'Connor explains the path forward for Microsoft's platform-defining mega-franchise Halo, including its organic growth into a transmedia powerhouse and what the passing of the torch from Bungie really means.]

The Halo franchise can quite literally be thanked for growing the Xbox platform into what it is today. While plenty of right moves have been made by Microsoft, the earliest and most crucial one — that one that made the system relevant to its original core supporters — was signing Bungie’s shooter franchise as an exclusive for the console.

When the original Xbox released in 2001, Halo: Combat Evolved was there to provide a justification for its existence in a way no other game in the first party lineup could manage. Continue Reading

Inside the Xbox

Microsoft, best known for it’s successful Windows line of PC operating systems, makers of the Xbox360 and now apparently webseries producers.

That’s right, Microsoft have a webseries. Maybe two. The webseries’ are based around the X360, the Kinect and games, demos, gameplay tips and competitions. The hosts are quite charismatic and aren’t too hard on the eyes. The episodes themselves aren’t too long, running at around 4-5 minutes each, and seem to be slightly entertaining. Entertaining is always good, but they do try to remain informative.

Like on the latest episode of ‘The Kinect Show’ the host lady – Bridgit O’Neill – shows us a hint on operating the kinect from a seated position. It looks awkward, but it would benefit many gamers. They have other series, like ‘The Family Show’, and various other videos and gameplay footage.

The video’s are available on the Inside Xbox homepage and from your Xbox360 dashboard (if you’re connected to LIVE).