Exclusive: Eyeing Yahoo deal, Alibaba may take HK unit private (Reuters)

HONG KONG (Reuters) ? Chinese e-commerce group Alibaba plans to take private its Hong Kong-listed unit, two sources familiar with the matter said, as part of a complex deal that would strengthen founder Jack Ma's control and give key stakeholder Yahoo cash and a direct stake in one of Alibaba's operating businesses.

Alibaba Group, the online business-to-business group set up in 1999 by former tour guide and now billionaire Ma, plans to buy back most of the 40 percent stake in it that Yahoo bought for around $1 billion in 2005.

Under the plans being discussed, Alibaba Group would use bank loans and cash plus an asset swap to buy back about a 25 percent stake, leaving Yahoo holding 15 percent, the sources said. The U.S. group's 40 percent holding is worth an estimated $13-$14 billion, based on recent deal valuations.

Alibaba Group, one of the three leading players in the world's biggest Internet market, plans to pay a third of the consideration through a stake in one of its operating assets - making a deal tax-free for Yahoo - and the rest, around $6 billion, in cash, the sources said. It is looking to raise a loan of about $3 billion to help fund the deal.

The sources said taking Alibaba.com private was just one of the proposals being discussed, and was not a pre-condition of any Yahoo deal. Any final agreement could be several weeks away, they added.

Alibaba Group's plans are part of an overall deal being discussed by Yahoo, the Internet pioneer which is under pressure from its investors to turn around a lackluster performance. Last month, Yahoo appointed Scott Thompson as CEO to replace Carol Bartz who was fired in September, and co-founder Jerry Yang quit the company.

Yahoo shareholders are frustrated at stakeholders' apparent indecision over how to handle investments in Alibaba and other Asian assets.

"Alibaba.com's share price has been quite bumpy since its listing. Probably taking it private will make it more flexible for the group to do the transformation that it's going through," said Wendy Huang, head of regional Internet and media research at RBS in Hong Kong.

Trading in Alibaba.com shares was halted on Thursday pending an announcement regarding its parent. Alibaba.com, which is around 73 percent-owned by Alibaba Group, has a market value of nearly $6 billion, making the remaining stake in it worth around $1.6 billion.

Alibaba.com is the most likely operating unit in which Yahoo may be offered a stake, one of the sources said. Both parties have an understanding on this arrangement, but have not signed any formal deal yet, the source added.

Other Alibaba Group assets that could be used in a swap deal with Yahoo could include Taobao.com, often dubbed "China's e-Bay," Taomall, Yahoo (China) and Alipay, an e-payment business, sources said, adding Yahoo would get to choose which assets it wants.

The sources declined to be identified as the discussions were private. An Alibaba Group spokesman declined to comment.

Sources previously told Reuters that under a "cash rich split" plan being discussed, Yahoo would effectively transfer most of its 40 percent Alibaba stake back to the Chinese company, and all of its more than one-third stake in Yahoo Japan to Softbank Corp in return for cash and assets.

Shares in Softbank jumped more than 4 percent to a 5-week high of 2,319 yen on Friday. Softbank has an indirect stake of 31-32 percent in Alibaba.com as it holds close to a third of Alibaba Group and owns 58 percent of Alibaba Japan.

Yahoo had also entertained separate proposals from private equity firms TPG and Silver Lake about minority investments in the company, but those offers fell short of Yahoo's expectations.

(Additional reporting by Stephen Aldred, Kazunori Takada, Saeed Azhar, Melanie Lee, Chyen Yee Lee and Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Ian Geoghegan)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120210/bs_nm/us_alibaba_yahoo

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Droid 4 Launches on Verizon (ContributorNetwork)

The Verizon Droid line of smartphones has been the carrier's flagship since its launch in 2010. With "Droid Does" commercials, which emphasized the things an Android-powered smartphone could do that the iPhone couldn't, it turned the gadget made by Motorola into one of Apple's first real competitors.

A lot of the things mentioned in those first ads, like multitasking and copy and paste, are now a part of the iPhone's design. And the iPhone 4S has features like Siri and the Retina Display, which are exclusive to Apple and aren't on Android smartphones. The Droid 4 has a number of improvements, though, which set it apart from both the iPhone and earlier Droid models.

4G LTE wireless radio

The 4G radio only works in select markets, which are connected by Verizon's 4G LTE network. Where it works, however, Droid 4 owners will have connection speeds (and Internet browsing speeds) much faster than on the iPhone or earlier Droids.

The downside of a 4G radio is that it uses a lot of power, so Android "superphones" which are 4G-equipped are huge to accommodate the extended battery needed (and usually have poor battery life anyway).

Hardware keyboard

This is nothing new to fans of Verizon's Droid lineup, which has featured both portrait (BlackBerry-style) keyboards and landscape-mode sliders since its earliest days. The iPhone still lacks a hardware keyboard, however, and is unlikely to have one anytime soon, aside from letting you pair it with Bluetooth wireless keyboards.

The Droid 4's slider keyboard isn't an ordinary one. It has five rows, complete with a dedicated number key area, and is edge-lit so that you can see the keys in the dark. It's similar to the one on the earlier Droid 3, in other words, but is paired with ...

Upgraded under-the-hood specs

The Droid 4 has double the memory of the earlier Droid 3, with 1 GB instead of 512 MB. This means more web browser tabs can be open at once, as well as making it faster to switch between recently-opened apps. It also has a faster 1.2 GHz processor, instead of the Droid 3's 1 GHz.

The rear-facing camera has the same 8 megapixel rating and ability to shoot 1080p HD video as on the Droid 3. But the front-facing camera is now 1.3 megapixels and able to record 720p video, letting others video chat with you in HD instead of blocky VGA (640x480) resolution.

No Ice Cream Sandwich ... yet

The Droid 4 won't ship with the latest version of Android, called Ice Cream Sandwich, which was featured on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus (also on Verizon). Ice Cream Sandwich brought a full graphical overhaul and numerous smaller updates. It will probably be upgraded later this year, however.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120210/tc_ac/10948266_droid_4_launches_on_verizon

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Big Data Takes the Guesswork out of Managing Sales | Business 2 ...

Getting one?s arm around sales is a persistent challenge that plagues every CEO, CRO and sales leader; the numbers just keep moving around.? Tracking a pipeline can be like driving across the Golden Gate Bridge on a foggy morning, which is about every morning.? One day the pipeline is strong, the next day panic has set in as it looks like sales will miss its number, followed the next day by claims ?it?s OK, we?re good.?? ?What?s really going on is guesswork.?? Despite automation like CRM, SFA, and ERP systems, analytics, and Sales Operations teams engaged in sophisticated analysis, it is still guesswork.

Sales remains a black box.

Ever know a sales person that doesn?t ?manage? their pipeline? They don?t report on some potential sales opportunities, underreport others, and on occasion are overly optimistic as they manage how their leaders perceive their pipelines.? This makes the head of sales? job hard as they try to optimize their team?s productivity, and it has a ripple effect from finance to marketing.? The way most sales leaders manage this lack of visibility is to add layers of managerial oversight, daily reporting, frequent detailed account and pipeline reviews, and to generally micromanage the whole process.?? According to Jim Burleigh, CEO of?Cloud9, a SaaS sales forecasting solution vendor, ?CRM systems do next to nothing to help the manager do this.? Spreadsheets are the state of the art tool to help sales managers.?

What was an inefficient process in prior economic cycles will become a major stumbling block to success in the fast paced, transparent world of social business.? Prospects and buyers are no longer dependent on marketing and sales for advice, best practices and help in solving their business problems. In fact, most B2B buyers would rather not ever talk to a sales rep.? And they don?t have to anymore.?? Buying today is social, trust-based, transparent and self-directed.? Buyers don?t need marketers to tell them they have a problem nor is Sales? advice welcome.?? Burleigh sums it up well by saying ?buyers tend to educate themselves and don?t want the supplier spin.?

So how does a sales leader take the guesswork out managing the revenue number?

Becoming a social business redefines Sales? role. Buyers have expectations about doing business with a company shaped by interactions with marketing content, comments made on social media, participation in webinars, etc.? Consistent buyer experience through the Buyers? Journey translates into trust.? ?Part of Sales? new role is to ensure the buyer experience is consistent.?? ?Sales need to participate in the attraction and education activities which have been traditionally marketing responsibilities,? said Burleigh. ?In social business that partnership between Marketing and Sales extends beyond leads to shaping the end-to-end lifecycle experience of buyers.?

Driving revenue in the social era can only come from better execution and win rates.? Burleigh sees two big trends in 2012 that will help Sales be successful in the social era:?Social selling?and big data.

?Traditional CRM systems are of little help in executing better on pipelines,? shared Burleigh.? ?Social technologies can give Sales richer information and better access to enterprise buyers.?? Social maps, like?www.reachable.com?orwww.branchit.com?, enable sales to leverage referral selling and identify more touch points in prospect accounts.?? Burleigh makes the case that ?the traditional annual sales training ritual of putting a rep through their Nth version of some methodology training from a new vendor, that is in reality the same as the last methodology from another vendor is part of the problem.? Driving better execution in the social economy comes from deeper, actionable insight into patterns, not from repeatedly drilling into sales reps how to fill out account planning forms.? To drive increased output from sales teams, managers rely on their insight to identify risk and weak spots in their teams.

?Sales managers drive performance through their insight which is based on pattern recognition,? shares Burleigh. ?Their insight allows them to identify risk, bogus deals and underperformers.? The manager takes action on that insight to improve the outcome/output of their team.? CRM systems do not provide insight; actionable insight into patterns only comes from Big Data apps.?

Big data?tools and applications enable Marketing and Sales to spot changes in buyer behavior and sales cycle patterns at macro and micro levels.? Knowing that a buyer is about to disengage from a sales cycle, based on past patterns of behavior, enables a sales manager to either quickly disqualify the opportunity or get it back on track to win. ?Being able to spot a change in a sales rep?s performance enables contextual coaching ?to be delivered when it can have the most impact, in near real-time.? That?s a more effective strategy than ?one size fits all? sales training or the quarterly termination of the bottom ten percent of the sales force.

Companies that manage by focusing on changes in business patterns have a valuable early warning system; a core success factor for social businesses. These companies are able to respond faster and smarter. Cloud9?s newIntelligent Forecasting Suite?includes tools to incorporate management judgment, multi-dimensional forecasting, and granular assessment of forecast risk. ?Marketing can use big data tools to identify ways to improve marketing ROI by fine tuning alignment of content and programs with changing buyer expectations.?? These same insights enable Marketing to teach sales reps how to have more successful and informed conversations with prospects.

Burleigh shared that he?s seen customers ?look at patterns between marketing leads and closed business to spot which campaigns and content produces easier to close leads.?? ?The same level of insight happens when sales management can link sales activities and sales tools to closed deals by vertical, company size, territory and sales rep?, said Burleigh. ?A Sales leader?s day is now radically different. Instead of figuring out what is real in the pipeline, they spend their time enabling and acting as advocates for the right buyers.?

Here are 7 tips on taking the guesswork out of managing sales:

1. Match your selling processes to how your buyers want to buy.
2. Clean up your data otherwise you?re insights will be wrong, and that?s more costly.
3. Optimize your campaign-to-cash processes.
4. Automate everything to free up Sales time to spend with buyers.
5. Build Sales Ops to act on big data insights versus building complex spreadsheets
6. Train sales on how to make that first call more successful by leveraging social media.
7. Invite Marketing to use your big data application to improve the quality of your leads.

The result is a level of predictability that has been lacking for decades and frees sales leaders to do what they?re suppose to ? lead and build enduring, profitable customer relationships.

Author: Cristine Crandell????

Christine Crandell is president of New Business Strategy in Scotts Valley, California, a strategy and marketing consulting firm that helps B2B organizations worldwide accelerate their growth.? She is speaker and writer on B2B marketing issues as well as a blogger for Forbes.com?. View?full?profile

Source: http://www.business2community.com/marketing/big-data-takes-the-guesswork-out-of-managing-sales-0127412

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Does a Single-Owner C or S Corporation Offer Better Protection for ...

Because of some highly-publicized legal cases concerning single member LLCs, and courts not upholding the asset protection rules, we?re seeing strategists suggest you use a corporation, or an LLC taxed as a Corporation instead to hold certain assets. However, there are some strong downsides to that method, from both a legal standpoint and a tax standpoint.

From a tax standpoint, here?s the problem with C Corporations, and LLC-Cs: they don?t receive capital gains tax treatment. You?ll pay tax at the full corporate rate on any profits realized from the sale of an asset.

There?s no easy way if you decide to pull assets out of a C Corporation. They come out at fair market value, meaning the difference between the value when it went in, to when it came out, is taxable, again at C Corporation rates. And, if the only purpose of the C Corporation is to hold that asset, you?ve just taken away its reason for existence. You may wind up having to dissolve the Corporation, which means anything left inside comes to you as a liquidating dividend ? and that gets taxed at your personal rate.

Life is a little better for assets in an S Corporation, or an LLC-S, but it?s still not a great choice. You won?t pay ordinary tax rates when you sell an asset to a third party, but if you pull the asset out for any other reason you?ll still pay tax on the difference between the original value and the current fair market value.

Could you avoid all this by simply selling your ownership and leaving the entity intact? Sure ? if you can find someone to buy your problem. Most of the time though, a buyer only wants the assets and doesn?t want your whole entity.

From a legal standpoint, it?s not good either. If you have used a Corporation (not an LLC-C or LLC-S), then by moving into a Corporation you surrender the whole idea of Charging Order protection. The protections granted to LLCs are NOT granted to Corporations (except in Nevada, where S Corporation shares are protected by statute). That means your shares in a C or S Corporation are not safe from a judgment creditor. They could be seized and taken away from you. Once you lose control over your company?s stock, there is nothing to stop a judgment creditor from voting your shares in favor of liquidating the corporation?s assets to pay its debt.

Now, if there are enough other shareholders willing to vote against the proposal and together they out-vote your creditor, they may be able to save the corporation?s assets. But, on the other hand, if you are a corporation of one, or have majority control, your creditor can and will use this method to satisfy its judgment.

So, it?s not just because of the taxes that we recommend holding appreciating assets in an LLC. Not only is this business structure more tax-friendly, it?s more litigation-friendly, too.

There are many variables when you?re structuring a business. That?s why it?s hard to go through a quick-service website. Unless you talk to someone who?s got some knowledge and experience on both the tax and the legal side, it?s hard to know what you don?t know. And that can leave you vulnerable.

Got questions? Contact us! We?re here for you.

---

Related posts:

1. 3 Ways to Blow Your Corporate Asset Protection
2. A Simple (and Expensive) Mistake Corporation Owners Make
3. What?s the Difference Between an S Corporation and a C Corporation?
4. California Issues New Tax Clarification on Single Member Nevada/Delaware/Wyoming LLCs
5. Common Stock or Preferred Stock ? What?s the Difference?

Source: http://www.smartbusinessincorporation.com/blog/does-a-single-owner-c-or-s-corporation-offer-better-protection-for-an-asset-protection-llc/

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4 Crafts To Make For Christmas Gifts | My Crochet Tips

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012 at 5:01 pm ?

Many people prefer to make crafts for Christmas gifts. Just as many people wish to receive the crafts made by family and friends. Craft makers can tailor crafts as Christmas items for individuals who are receiving them.

Present recipients have their own unique personalities, hobbies, and their own favorite things they enjoy. That is where the tailoring of the crafts comes in.

Hand made Christmas ornaments, bookmarks for those who learn, handmade books of reminiscences shared with pictures, and calenders have at all times been standard craft Christmas gifts. They make every of those specific crafts from the center of the giver.

Christmas Gift Craft Thought One: Christmas Ornaments

Cross Stitched Ornaments

Cross stitched ornaments are one of the easiest ornaments to make. They?re small and take little time to make. A number of patterns are useable for the cross stitching. The cross stitching may be positioned in small, light-weight frames that dangle or positioned inside clear ball ornaments.

Clear Ball Ornaments

With the clear ball ornaments, the crafts are endless. Craft makers can beautify the clear ball ornaments with paint pens, beads, ribbons, coloured paper on the inside, full of beads, confetti, and various other items.

The clear ball ornaments can have various Christmas objects, similar to holly and ivy, Santa?s or elves, drawn on them with the paint pens. Then may have the beads and ribbons glued on the skin the ball. The ribbons and beads will also be used to fill the inside the ball. The little Christmas ornaments which can be found on sprigs will be taken off and positioned contained in the ball. The concepts are endless with this craft.

Christmas Present Craft Thought Two: Residence Made Books

Variation One: Residence Made Books

Hand-crafted books will be constructed from reminiscing of days gone past with relations and friends. For instance, there is a friend you could have known for a lot of years. Write a brief story of all the nice instances the two of you had together. Make the outer cover of the guide to fit into the persona of the friend.

Variation Two: Residence Made Books

The house made ebook could be made with variation one with footage of the events the two of you shared One may additionally make a handmade ebook of journeys and occasions with relations with the enjoyable occasions that everyone shared.

Christmas Reward Craft Concept Three: Bookmarks

Bookmarks for individuals who like to read are a well-liked strategy to go. Bookmarks could be cross stitched, made with magnets with photos added to them or created from hair pins with beads or other small objects attached.

Christmas Present Thought 4: Dwelling Made Calenders

Home made calenders might be tailor-made for even the finickiest of present receivers. Every month can have an image of the receiver?s favourite issues, akin to kittens, puppies, flowers, etc. Also, it can be personalized much more with households birthdays and anniversaries.

These are only 4 craft ideas for Christmas items, but the ideas for crafts as Christmas presents are unlimited and priceless. It is never to late to make a craft present for somebody you know and love.

This post is written by Jason Young, he is a web enthusiast and ingenious blogger who loves to write about many different topics, such ascellular country coupons. His educational background in journalism and family science has given him a broad base from which to approach many topics, includingchegg couponand many others. He enjoys experimenting with various techniques and topics likeclickinks coupon codeand has a love for creativity. He has a really strong passion for scouring the internet in search of inspirational topics.

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Source: http://mycrochettips.com/blog/other-hobbies/7128-4-crafts-to-make-for-christmas-gifts

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German court upholds ban of Samsung's older tablet (Reuters)

FRANKFURT (Reuters) ? Samsung Electronics lost a bid to overturn a ruling barring its local unit from selling its Galaxy 10.1 tablets in Germany, handing a symbolic legal victory to Apple Inc in efforts to keep its lead spot in the tablet computer market.

A higher regional court in Duesseldorf, Germany, said on Tuesday that Samsung may not sell the older version of its Galaxy tablet in Europe's biggest economy.

Apple is fighting several rival makers of smartphones and tablet PCs in courts worldwide over intellectual property.

Its battle with Samsung, whose tablets are based on Google Inc's Android software, has been especially bitter, with the Galaxy range of devices seen as among the biggest challengers to Apple's mobile products.

Apple has claimed the Galaxy line of mobile phones and tablets "slavishly" copied the iPhone and iPad and has sued the Korean company in the United States, Australia, Japan and Korea as well as in Europe.

In September, Apple won a temporary injunction barring Samsung Germany from selling the Galaxy 10.1 tablet in most of Europe, as the court found the overall design of the tablet was too similar to Apple's iPad.

Since then, several countries including the Netherlands, the United States and Australia have decided to allow Samsung to sell the Galaxy tablet.

Samsung, which is Apple's supplier as well as a competitor, has been trying to have the German decision overturned while also seeking other means to fight Apple.

It redesigned the Galaxy Tab 10.1 for the German market only and named it Galaxy Tab 10.1N to get around the sales ban.

Apple challenged the reworked version but a German court last month rejected Apple's claims in a preliminary judgment. A final ruling in that cases is expected on February 9.

Samsung also counter-sued Apple in Germany, claiming infringements of mobile technology patents. A court in Mannheim has ruled against Samsung in cases concerning two of the patents and is due to decide on a third on March 2.

(Matthias Inverardi; Writing by Maria Sheahan and Ludwig Burger)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/applecomputer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120131/tc_nm/us_samsung_apple

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Video: Is this the most negative GOP primary season ever?

Passengers sue cruise line for $460 million

Calling an initial compensation offer ?insulting,? an attorney representing Costa Concordia passengers announced Tuesday details of a $460 million civil lawsuit against the owner of the wrecked cruise ship, The Guardian reports.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/46210759#46210759

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