Tech stocks: Yahoo, Microsoft on front burner
Tech investors were mostly focused on Yahoo’s $1.1 billion acquisition of the micro-blogging website Tumblr, which the Internet portal confirmed Monday.
Yahoo shares were up 0.5% to just over $26.60 a share in morning trading.
Apple shares were up 2.4% to about $444 a share. The PC and gadget maker reported record-breaking retail revenue per visitor online as sales on its app store recently topped 50 billion.
Share of Microsoft were up 0.15% to almost $35 on speculation that the software giant may purchase all of book retailer Barnes Noble. It already owns a 17% stake in the Nook e-reader division of Barnes Noble.
Facebook shares fell 1.8% to under $26 after reports
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Video games face challenge from mobile
Conventional wisdom tells us that, in the event of a zombie apocalypse, we have two options: Collect as many weapons as possible — the explosive kind, preferably — and stage a futile, dramatic last stand, or, alternatively, make a run for it — a desperate (and inevitably fruitless) search for someplace safe.
This topic is frequently explored in video games. Last year’s The Walking Dead won numerous game-of-the-year awards, while Capcom’s Resident Evil remains an icon of the genre, having spawned nearly two dozen game titles and four Hollywood productions, with a fifth on the way.
But while zombie business may be booming, game companies are facing an apocalypse of their own, as the cloud, social
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5 steps to protect your small business from hackers
(Editor’s note: One of many proof points that small businesses are being heavily targeted by cybercriminals comes from Verizon’s 2013 Data Breach Investigations Report, in which three-quarters of the cases investigated occurred at companies with 100 employees or less. In this guest essay, Tim Francis, Enterprise Cyber Lead for Travelers Bond Financial Products, offers small business owners a few pointers.)
There is little doubt that small businesses face a growing cyberthreat – and hackers are not showing any signs of letting up. Through even more sophisticated means, hackers are finding ways to attack businesses, sometimes forming syndicates of like-minded criminals to share information and new techniques.
Knowing the most common ways data breaches can occur and learning how to mitigate those risks can go a long way
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Yahoo pledges ‘not to screw up’ Tumblr deal
Yahoo confirmed Monday it is buying social media platform Tumblr for $1.1 billion and “we promise not to screw it up,” CEO Marissa Mayer blogged on her Tumblr page.
The pledge is a direct acknowledgment of the Internet giant’s spotty record as a start-up acquirer. The Tumblr deal will boost Yahoo’s audience 50% to more than 1 billion monthly visitors (about 700 million for Yahoo and 300 million for Tumblr for now), the company estimates. Just as important, Yahoo is scrambling to regain the hip factor it once enjoyed and to show investors the deal can increase profits and revenue.
Yahoo shares were up 0.7% to about $26.70 Monday, a positive
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Yahoo confirms $1.1 billion Tumblr purchase
SAN FRANCISCO —Yahoo is buying online blogging forum Tumblr for $1.1 billion as CEO Marissa Mayer tries to rejuvenate an Internet icon that had fallen behind the times.
The deal announced Monday represents Mayer’s boldest move yet since she left Google 10 months ago to lead Yahoo’s latest comeback attempt. It marks Yahoo’s most expensive acquisition since the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company bought online search engine Overture a decade ago for $1.3 billion in cash and stock.
Yahoo is paying all cash for Tumblr, dipping into some of its remaining stash from a $7.6 billion windfall reaped last year from selling about half of its stake in Chinese Internet company Alibaba Holdings. Taking over Tumblr will devour about 20% of the $5.4 billion in cash that Yahoo had in
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