A search found not many female tech CEO's. According to this article, "Safra Catz has been one of Oracle's presidents since 2004 and started her second stint as CFO this year. Sheryl Sandberg is COO of Facebook after being a VP at Google. Linda Sanford is a Senior VP at IBM for enterprise computing. Weili Dai is co-founder and VP of Marvell Technology Group."
There is a big crop of women entrepreneurs in tech (some are here) that are in their 20's and in ten years are going to be kicking some serious butt. I hope I am around to see it.
Good luck to Marissa Mayer!
*(And in politics but that's a different rant.)
]]>Although analysts suggest that Motorola has left the iDen technology behind, NII uses the iDen network in Latin America. There is enough of a subscriber base to look at investing in improving that technology. To do a forklift upgrade to the iDen network would be expensive -- it means replacing all radios and handsets. I don't know how much upgrading you can do on that spectrum though, especially when Nextel is losing some of that spectrum in the US. That's why a nationwide safety network makes more sense.
"Sprint included a letter to Keith Cowan, an executive in charge of strategy and development, offering him a $1 million bonus for "the strategic resolution of the iDen network."" - Nice bonus! Hey, Keith, call me!
]]>Icahn is busy messing around with Motorola. He owns most of the debt at XO -- and won't allow a re-finance which would actually help XO. I understand that he is a Corporate Raider looking to make big buck as fast as possible, but how about helping America out, Carl? By screwing every company you touch, you aren't helping anyone but yourself.
Your kind has not helped the economy one bit. Have you ever actually built anything? Or do you just use companies as Arbitrage pawns for your hedge fund games?
At Wikipedia, these are the companies that Icahn has a hand in: "He has taken substantial or controlling positions in various corporations including: RJR Nabisco, TWA, Texaco, Phillips Petroleum, Western Union, Gulf & Western, Viacom, Uniroyal, Dan River, Marshall Field, E-II (Culligan and Samsonite), American Can, USX, Marvel Comics, Revlon, Imclone, Federal-Mogul, Fairmont Hotels, Kerr-McGee, Time Warner and Motorola." How many of those companies are doing well or still exist?
Icahn actually states that Microsoft could do more with Yahoo: "I and many of your shareholders strongly believe that a combination between Yahoo and Microsoft would form a dynamic company and more importantly would be a force strong enough to compete with Google on the Internet." Ha! Microsoft search, Ask.com, Infoseek, AltaVista, et al have all tried to make a dent, but most couldn't even make a dent in Yahoo let alone Google.
One reason: Google is simple and clean. Y! and MSN are cluttered portals with screaming ads. Another reason: Google is a verb. Yahoo never reached that status even when they were buying big media advertising.
Icahn's proposed board is a collection of pirates that have never run anything more than hedge funds. The exception is Mark Cuban, who made his fortune selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo before the bubble burst -- or Cuban would just be a footnote in history. So basically the new board will come in, buy up stock, sell it to MS at a premium, bank the mullah, and then watch Y! disappear. Sad.
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