2008 04-24 MediaBytes: YAHOO - MICROSOFT - APPLE - PATERSON - NEWS CORP - PIVOT

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Yesterday, YAHOO’s Jerry Yang said, “We will not enter into any deal that does not recognize the full value of this company.” Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer answered, “If Yahoo!’s shareholders like it, that’s great. We are prepared to go forward without a merger.” Steve, if you’re going to bluff, you’ve got to work on your delivery. By the way, we’ve got an opening in our Thursday night poker game, we’d love to have you.

APPLE INC. said second-quarter profit rose 36 percent, more than analysts estimated. Net income advanced to $1.05 billion, or $1.16 a share. Most of the upside came from sales of Macs, as opposed to iPod or iPhone sales. Anyone with a MacBook Pro knows why.

New York Gov. David Paterson opened the Tribeca film festival by signing the NYS production tax credit bill into law. The bill increases the 10% credit for film & tv production to 30% in NYS, with an additional 5% added for productions shot in NYC. Extended through 2013, the deal is sure to make New York State a very attractive location for producers.

According to testimony, NEWS CORP hired a hacker to develop pirating software to sabotage the DISH Network. In a corporate espionage lawsuit between News Corp’s NDS Group and the DISH Network, hacker Christopher Tarnovsky testified to having developed pirating software to help secure DirectTV. However, DISH Networks lawyers claim News Corp hired Tarnovsky, one of the worlds best hackers, to hack DISH’s satellite network, steal codes and flood the market with pirated software that brings premium channels to TV converter boxes. Tarnovsky claims the whole thing is a big conspiracy.

COMCAST, TIME WARNER and COX are quietly disabling SPRINT’s PIVOT service. The four companies invested a total of $400 million dollars in Pivot, a quadruple play system that combined voice, video, internet and wireless services to combat the telco triple play offerings. Introduced a year ago, Pivot has failed to catch on with consumers.