SAP Enhances Its Cloud by Acquiring Ariba for $4.3 Billion

The deal is SAP’s second of similar size in recent memory. The first one unleashed a series a deals by rivals Oracle and Salesforce.com.
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100 Most Valuable Brands: Apple Tops Again; Nokia Disappears

The tech industry dominates Millward Brown’s annual survey.
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Nokia Hopes Pair of Cheap Phones Will Help Regain Some Ground in Emerging Markets

The Nokia 110 and 112 both promise basic Internet access, free games, and connections to Facebook and Twitter, for under 40 euros.
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Stalking the Elusive Cord-Cutter: Pay TV Grew Last Quarter (Again)

It’s easier than ever to get what you want to watch without paying for TV. But you’re still doing it.
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HootSuite Adds Industrial-Strength Social Media for Corporate Teams

It used to be that the social media department at any given company was one person with a Twitter account. Now there are teams of dozens. HootSuite wants their business.
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SAP Backs Outlook as Profit Rises

SAP AG Wednesday reiterated its outlook for double-digit revenue growth in the full year as the world’s largest business-management software maker reported a 10 percent rise in net profit despite weak sales in North America and some European markets.

Bombs Away! Web Ads Miss Their Target, All the Time.

The Internet is supposed to give advertisers pinpoint accuracy. But they’re still throwing away half their money.
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Spotify Says It Goes Better With Coke (Updated)

No iPad app, though.
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Facebook Not Sleepless in Seattle

Now that the ribbon has been cut and the finger sandwiches have been devoured, Facebook’s new Seattle office is open for business.
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Turf War in SOMA: Klout vs. Kred

Klout and Kred, which both measure social influence, have a lot in common — including the location of their offices in the same old shoe warehouse in San Francisco’s trendy tech district.
The Klout and PeopleBrowsr offices are in the same double-wide former shoe warehouse on Bryant St. in SOMA.

Demand Media Adds a Dash of Social to Its Ads, With Help From Facebook and Twitter

Demand competes with Mark Zuckerberg for ad dollars. But it can also use his service to give itself a boost.
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Nokia’s Strategy Comes Into Focus in Barcelona

At an event in Barcelona, Nokia adds a new low-end Lumia 610 and the 808 Pure View, a Symbian smartphone with an impressive 41-megapixel camera.
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Resonate Raises $22 Million for “Values” Ads

Ad tech firm Resonate has a simple pitch: It says it can figure out what different groups of Internet users care about, and where to find them on the Web.
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Netflix, Whitney Houston and the Great Streaming Video Outrage That Didn’t Happen

That story about an evil Hollywood studio pulling “The Bodyguard” away from Netflix, so it could sell more DVDs? “Completely bogus.”
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Visa Places Bet on New Approach to Payments With Rare Investment in TrialPay

Visa, Greylock’s Reid Hoffman and others are pouring $40 million into TrialPay, which helps companies like Facebook, Gap and Fandango increase sales through the use of incentives.
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SAP Names New Marketing VP, One With a History

SAP’s new senior vice president for marketing was once the central figure in a full-blown ad-industry scandal.
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Where Did Nine Million Cable Subscribers Go?

According to a new Deloitte survey, a staggering nine percent of the population say they cut the cord recently. Say what?
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Seven Questions for Mike Gregoire, CEO of Taleo

In the wake of SAP’s $3.4 billion deal to acquire SuccessFactors, rival Taleo is suddenly the company everyone is talking about.
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After SAP-SuccessFactors Deal, the Cloud Is a Different Place

Mainstream enterprise software companies like SAP and Oracle have finally acknowledged that the shift to the cloud is real.
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SAP to Acquire SuccessFactors for $3.4 Billion

Having promised to get serious about cloud-based applications, software giant SAP has just acquired one of the more successful up-and-coming cloud companies out there.
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VeriFone’s CEO Explains Why It Spent $1 Billion on Acquisitions for a New Payments Strategy

CEO Doug Bergeron says VeriFone has spent more than $1 billion in acquisitions to take advantage of emerging technologies, such as mobile payments, on a global basis.
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NetSuite Sales Surge, Making for a Good Day in the Cloud

After reporting record-setting quarterly results, NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson talks about the the state of the cloud business and what he likes about competing with SAP.
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Seven Questions for SAP Co-CEO Bill McDermott

SAP’s co-CEO talks about extending into the cloud and working with the uncertainty of the European debt crisis.
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Thoughts on the First Day of Apple’s Era Without Jobs

Today Apple faces its first full day without Steve Jobs. His greatest legacy may be the potential that still lies ahead.
Many people found young Hong Kong designer Jonathan Mak's illustration poignant.

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Nokia Aims Software At Low-End Phones

Nokia Corp., having abandoned its ambition to develop a high-end operating system, is shifting its programming efforts toward creating software for its low-end phones, according to people familiar with the matter.