Andrew Mason, CEO and founder of Groupon, has just been replaced by Executive Chairman Eric Lefkofsky and Vice Chairman Ted Leonisis, who will take over the new position of Office of the Chief Executive.

They will serve as interim co-CEOs while they hunt for a replacement to take over permanently.

Here’s the official Lefkofsky quote from the release:

On behalf of the entire Groupon Board, I want to thank Andrew for his leadership, his creativity and his deep loyalty to Groupon. As a founder, Andrew helped invent the daily deals space, leading Groupon to become one of the fastest growing companies in history. Groupon will continue to invest in growth, and we are confident that with our deep management team and market-leading position, the company is well positioned for the future.

This decision comes fresh on the heels of a rough morning, in which Groupon lost a quarter of its market value after an incredibly underwhelming Q4 earnings report.

But Groupon’s troubles have extended much further back than that, and most of the pressure has fallen on Mason. There was a push in the past few months to replace Mason at the helm, and stock dropped by double digits when Groupon’s board kept Mason around.

However, a Hedge Fund investment saw Groupon’s stock rise 11 percent in November, only to drop again after this morning’s report.

Mason just tweeted the following, which seems to have broken Jottit:

For Groupon Employees: jottit.com/v5wux/ (Apparently, sharing oranges is necessary but insufficient #leadership)

— Andrew Mason (@andrewmason) February 28, 2013

Here’s the entirety of his memo:

People of Groupon,
After four and a half intense and wonderful years as CEO of Groupon, I’ve decided that I’d like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding – I was fired today. If you’re wondering why… you haven’t been paying attention. From controversial metrics in our S1 to our material weakness to two quarters of missing our own expectations and a stock price that’s hovering around one quarter of our listing price, the events of the last year and a half speak for themselves. As CEO, I am accountable.
You are doing amazing things at Groupon, and you deserve the outside world to give you a second chance. I’m getting in the way of that. A fresh CEO earns you that chance. The board is aligned behind the strategy we’ve shared over the last few months, and I’ve never seen you working together more effectively as a global company – it’s time to give Groupon a relief valve from the public noise.
For those who are concerned about me, please don’t be – I love Groupon, and I’m terribly proud of what we’ve created. I’m OK with having failed at this part of the journey. If Groupon was Battletoads, it would be like I made it all the way to the Terra Tubes without dying on my first ever play through. I am so lucky to have had the opportunity to take the company this far with all of you. I’ll now take some time to decompress (FYI I’m looking for a good fat camp to lose my Groupon 40, if anyone has a suggestion), and then maybe I’ll figure out how to channel this experience into something productive.
If there’s one piece of wisdom that this simple pilgrim would like to impart upon you: have the courage to start with the customer. My biggest regrets are the moments that I let a lack of data override my intuition on what’s best for our customers. This leadership change gives you some breathing room to break bad habits and deliver sustainable customer happiness – don’t waste the opportunity!
I will miss you terribly.
Love,
Andrew

Mason has been the founder and CEO of Groupon since its inception in 2008, led it through a $750 million IPO, and struggled to maintain momentum as the daily deals business began to flounder.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

You’re a new startup on the tech scene in Europe, perhaps you’re a brand new entrepreneur. One day you get an email saying you’ve been shortlisted as a finalist for a “prestigious” award, putting you in the “Top 200″ in Europe, out of “hundreds of applications”. Of course, hungry for exposure, you jump at the chance only to be told that you’ll be charged $3,000 to pitch to investors and attend the awards. This is the experience of many startups that have contacted us about the Red Herring 100 Europe Awards. We decided to put the concerns about the respectability of the awards to the organizers, who deny charges from startups that the event is now a revenue-raising exercise, lacks respectability in the marketplace and is trading on Red Herring’s long-lost past as an editorial force.

For those of you unaware of the history, Red Herring was a print/online technology business magazine, which flourished during the dot com boom, and circulated globally. With the dot com bubble bursting, the magazine ceased publication in 2003 but was re-launched in late 2004 under publisher (and now chairman) Alex Vieux (pictured) and editor-in-chief Joel Dreyfuss, but it again ceased print publication in 2007. It had an online-only magazine until 2011 – today it has a skeleton editorial product with ‘news’ going up barely three times a week. However it continues to run the Red Herring 100 technology startup awards, which occur annually in Europe (Amsterdam), North America (Monterey) and Asia (in Vietnam). These days the Red Herring operation is run from an office suite in La Jolla, California. Vieux is a former Le Monde journalist and launched the now defunct ETRE technology investment conference with fellow US journalists in 1990.

Clearly, Red Herring had a brand that the marketplace deemed editorially valuable as a third party validation of technology startups. However, many startups have contacted TechCrunch to complain that the exact same scenario played out in our opening paragraph has happened to them when have been approached to participate in the Red Herring 100 Awards. For a tech startup – most of the time pre-revenue – to spend such a large amount of money is a big commitment, so we decided to look into Red Herring’s claims that the awards deliver on their promise.

Of concern is the fact that during our enquiries we found little evidence that hundreds of startups – Red Herring claims 500 applied last year – had applied to the awards of their own volition. Indeed, the vast majority of startups we’ve spoken to about this say they only looked at the event after being cold-called by Red Herring either by phone or email or both.

We also found that it was only when a startup expressed interest in attending they were told of the $3,000 fee. Red Herring however says it is transparent about the fees involved.

Additionally, we found only a tiny number of VCs and CEOs taking any interest in the awards as a method to assess a startup.

These supportive VCs and CEOs tend to be predominantly based in, or are from, France. Alex Vieux, the publisher and chairman of Red Herring, is originally French. We have found no evidence to suggest that the fact that Mr Vieux is French has had any improper influence upon the participation of French VC’s and CEO’s in the Awards.

We put the following concerns to Vieux.

• That the Red Herring 100 Europe Awards no longer have the reputation they had, are worthless, and are not worth the $3,000 that is asked of entrants, especially cash-strapped startups.

• That they are run with a scant interest in building the tech startup eco-system and appear to be a gratuitous and blatant revenue raising exercise rather than a prestigious event which can gain a startup traction amongst investors.

• That there is no credibility in the selection process anymore.

• That the awards are not transparent and do not publish judge’s names.

• And the awards are trading on a long lost reputation.

Despite failing to provide us with a list of judges other than Vieux himself, Red Herring insists the awards are transparent.

It said its ‘disclosures’ about the awards are listed here and the criteria here.

These pages link to a detailed form. This requires applicants to submitted intimate company information such as EBITDA and CAGR.

The submission form itself makes no mention of a fee, though it does link to a page which says “The fee to attend an event, which is run autonomously from the publication, is fully disclosed and agreed upon by all companies.”

Vieux told us: “Over the past two decades, the process has been improved and continues to be improved at all levels: sourcing and identification of start-ups; selection process and criterion; communication to the start-ups, etc.”

Vieux says judges comprise of “former or current Red Herring journalists or associated with the editorial process at the Red Herring with significant credentials,” though he omitted to name names or point us to a published online list of judges.

Defending the $3,000 fee he said Red Herring “scouts over 800 companies on each continent, and many of these are rejected when we feel they do not meet the criteria. Last year, there were more than 500 completed submissions. Like many other high-end conferences, with high-end meals and parties for 2-3 days, and with extensive networking opportunities a top-tier audience of VCs, corporate VCs, investors and other CEOs, there is an entrance fee. This is fully disclosed.”

Although the ‘awards’ in effect run across two days of networking and pitch sessions, there is little information about how this works on the awards pages other than general references to meeting CEOs and VCs.

However, startups we spoke to which had been asked to participate said the fee was only disclosed at the final stages of the process.

Vieux says that the high entrance fee was decided upon when in 2003 “to avoid sponsorships from corporate and VCs… because we wanted to distance ourselves from conflicts of interests. We believe it is difficult to impartially judge companies when some of them might already be in your portfolio – or compete with a company in the portfolio.”

From the outside, the process sounds rigorous.

Red Herring says it reviewed 500 fully completed submissions in 2012 and 2013 from Europe. It also says that startups “deemed to have met the criteria for consideration” are contacted by email by Red Herring to set up a 30-minute phone conversation. These conversations cover all sides of the company’s business and plans. That email, says Red Herring, “includes a link which clearly indicates the existence of a fee”.

Vieux says that this is far better than awards where “applicants must pay a fee before even knowing if they meet the basic criteria”.

TechCrunch is currently unaware of a startup awards, or any event, that operates in Europe in this way.

Vieux told us “there is never a fee unless someone chooses to attend the conference, which also includes a presentation slot in front of top investors. Many companies have become funded as a result of these meetings, even some who did not receive a Top 100 award.”

He says “The fact that many companies or entrepreneurs who received – or even competed for – a Red Herring 100 award come back again and again with their new companies also speaks greatly to the value of this conference and award competition.”

As part of our research into whether startups are applying for the awards independently based on its alleged reputation or whether they are simply responding to the offer of paying to attend the awards, we tweeted from both the twitter accounts @mikebutcher (51,000 followers) facebook.com/mikebutcher (96,000 subscribers) and @TCEurope (38,000 followers). We asked the question: “Who of you out there has actually entered your startup (*without* prompting) into The Red Herring 100 Awards?”

Of the 6 directly relevant responses we got back, here are 5 representative examples:

Brian Porter @poornerd:
“@mikebutcher I entered my startup for the Red Herring 100 Awards 10 years ago…”

Nikos Moraitakis @moraitakis:
“@mikebutcher a few years ago we were “invited” to participate; it looks very much like a “pay for a badge” affair – not very credible imho”

Atilla Torgay ‏@atillatorgay:
“@mikebutcher I have. For the Red Herring Top 100 Asia. The event was good organized, I met interesting entrepreneurs and some VC’s.”

Paul Allen @PaulieA:
“@mikebutcher not many I’d wager. all the joys of being upsold to / hassled before getting the opportunity of using a badge on your website”

Hillel Fuld @HilzFuld:
“@mikebutcher I have. A few years ago. We won ”

According to Vieux, “dozens of conference participants every year, winners or not, have sent us letters and emails to let us know that they received significant value from the presence at the show.”

While it’s possible that Red Herring may well have received submissions to the awards without contacting companies direct, this suggests that the “500″ submissions Red Herring claims to regularly garner for the awards are prompted by ‘cold calling’ and a sales pitch rather than favorable industry buzz.

One startup founder contacted by Red Herring was asked to pay to participate. He told us: “This guy Alex Vieux, called me up and basically made me pitch the business to him. He then told me how amazing we were, how he was best mates with all our investors.” The founder in question spoke with his investors and told us that this was not the case.

The founder went on: “Of the 800+ applications they had for the awards, we’d been selected as a top 200 company. He [Vieux] then goes on talk about an amazing award ceremony in Amsterdam with top-notch guest speakers etc. and then right at the last minute, he says (very much in passing) that it’s going to cost $3,000 to attend. Why $3000 i asked? That’s ridiculous! His rationale: “Having VC’s sponsor the event leads to back scratching behind close doors and results in the investors putting lots of pressure on Red Herring to give awards to companies whose VC funds paid for the most expensive lunch” etc. From the sounds of things (and from what I’ve read online), in my honest opinion this guy is just moving from country to country trying to take advantage of young, cash strapped start ups like us. What a dick.”

Another startup founder we spoke to had this to say: “I think they are basically selling an award without any meaning. It is supposed to be a start-up award with great legacy, but these days it is really just a paid certificate. The interesting thing is that skimming through all their e-mails from 2010, I grew aware that they didn’t write anything about money anywhere and they did not leave any attachments (it was all online forms). Don’t know whether they want to hide the evidence that they charge participants in the selection, but it certainly might give you the impression that they are a bit sneaky about it.”

Serial entrepreneur Andrew Scott (founder of The Taploid and Rummble) told us on the record: “Rummble was on the Red Herring 100 but we didn’t pay the ticket to go to the event. That was 5 years ago now. I think if anything their presence has faded since then. Arguably some mainstream press may still rate them, but I don’t feel they’ve been taken seriously by the core tech community for a while.”

We spoke to a former employee of Red Herring in Europe who was involved in events, but who asked to remain anonymous.

He said he had “spoken to few of my colleagues who also left over the years and we cannot understand why people still go to an ‘Alex Vieux event’. Red Herring was a great brand when Tony Perkins had it.”

In Europe the former employee said “there is no credibility in the selection process anymore. But apparently, there are still firms willing to pay to get the award. It seems to be based on past reputation and not knowing (or caring) about what’s happening behind the curtain. It probably says more about the state of early-stage firms trying to gain traction. Good networking events are still important. But I think ethics are equally important.”

We asked Mt Vieux to respond to this critical article about the awards, but he did not.

In defending the awards, Vieux said the efficacy of the awards in identifying companies capable of significant exits had been born out by the awards given to companies which went on to further success, including “Baidu to Renren in Asia, Spotify, Daily Motion, Shazam, Privalia and Skype in 2003.”

Asked if he could provide examples from 2012′s awards, Vieux said he could provide “feedback from CEOs who have enjoyed the conversation and the impact of those exchanges and said in writing.” Red Herring has a testimonials page with glowing references and claims all are from 2012 Top 100 Events in the US, Europe and Asia.

Subsequent to our enquiries Vieux said he would ask companies that had been satisfied by the Red Herring Awards to contact TechCrunch with supporting statements. We were emailed by four companies, which defended the Red Herring 100 awards.

Michel Dahan of the Paris-based Banexi Ventures told us that he had taken part in ETRE (organised by Vieux) in 1990 and that “I have personally attended the conference for a couple of decades….Since 2003, we have taken part in the Red Herring Europe Top 100 events specially catering to start ups from over thirty nations… We will not stress enough how much Mr. Vieux and Mr. Alpenia have done for the European VC industry and for its start ups. They work very hard and we value their knowledge and network.”

Yann Chevalier, CEO of France-based Intersec.com says “In 2012, we were contacted by Red Herring. We were skeptical at first. But we went to Amsterdam. We won Red Herring Europe Top 100 2012. Intersec has crossed the $100m milestone. Red Herring discovered our company and has helped us constantly and consistently since then. We have learned a lot through Red Herring. We have met with extraordinary peers. They do an excellent job for entrepreneurs in Europe.”

Julien Dahan, CEO of Neocasesoftware.com (with offices in France, UK and the US) says his company, a human resource management SaaS software, was selected for the Red Herring Europe 2011 Top 100. He says he was “quite impressed by the quality and the candor of the speakers. It surpassed my expectations because I met with entrepreneurs from other European countries and we shared our experiences…thanks to Red Herring contacts we have met our US VCs.”

Yves Sisteron, Managing Partner of LA-based GRP Partners (which includes high profile VC Mark Suster) , told us “Our partnership has attended Red Herring events since 1999… and we find it very useful. We come across many successful projects at different stages, from Series A to late stage… we believe that it definitely helps the ecosystem and we will continue attending Red Herring Top 100 events in the future.”

Finally, we asked, Vieux a point blank question: If a startup that is selected for the Red Herring 100 does not pay the $3,000 to attend, can it still win the awards and appear in the Top 100 listing? We also asked him to provide examples from the past where this had happened.

At the time of publication Mr. Vieux had not responded to this question.

Disclosures: Technically, TechCrunch competes with Red Herring on content and events. Mike Butcher is the Founder of The Europas Tech Startup Awards, free-to-enter one-night-only awards ceremony and party, where the most expensive ticket in 2013 was €200 and the cheapest €75. A list of judges is published annually.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

CES today issued a press release announcing that DISH’s Hopper with Sling technology built-in is the “Best of Show” after all, an honor it will share with existing winner the Razer Edge for the 2013 show. The decision follows the revelation that CNET was ordered to remove the Hopper from consideration after CNET parent company CBS asked them to. CBS is currently involved in litigation with DISH over Hopper functionality.

Along with the granting of the award, CES also announced that it will launch an RFP seeking a new partner for the “Best of CES” awards “soon”, since it isn’t confident that relationship with CNET will continue to be beneficial for the CES brand.

“CES has enjoyed a long and productive partnership with CNET and the Best of CES awards,” CEA SVP of Events and Conferences Karen Chupka said in the release.  “However, we are concerned the new review policy will have a negative impact on our brand should we continue the awards relationship as currently constructed.  We look forward to receiving new ideas to recognize the ‘best of the best’ products introduced at the International CES.”

The DISH Hopper with Sling can record and play back programming within a 24 hour window after its airing, without commercials, which is the source of CBS’s legal dispute with DISH. CEA joined up with other tech organizations last week to file a brief in support of DISH around the Hopper, as the company is clearly eager to distance itself from the editorial decision made by CNET and its parent company, which came under fire from other media organizations (ours included) and tech industry watchers alike.

CEA came out in strong support of the DISH Hopper in a statement from Gary Shapiro included in the release:

We are shocked that the ‘Tiffany’ network which is known for its high journalistic standards would bar all its reporters from favorably describing classes of technology the network does not like. We believe that the DISH Hopper DVR is fully covered by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios Inc. The simple fact is making television easier to watch is not against the law. It is simply pro-innovation and pro-consumer.

The fallout for CNET has already resulted in the departure of Greg Sandoval from the network, who resigned his post, citing a loss of confidence in CBS’s commitment to editorial independence as his reason for leaving.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Samsung has announced that it will drop all of its standard essential patent infringement cases against Apple in Europe, according to the manufacturer. Blooomberg reports that Samsung says it’s doing so “in the interest of protecting consumer choice” in a statement, saying it believes “it is better when companies compete fairly in the marketplace.”

The injunction requests had also sparked an antitrust investigation from the European Union into whether or not Samsung was in violation of standard-essential patent licensing agreements, which require that holders of said patents provide them to competitors under fair and reasonable terms.

This is a development that goes in Apple’s favor in the ongoing legal battle between the two companies, in contrast to Samsung’s win earlier as a U.S. court denied injunctions against a number of the Korean company’s products, while also throwing out Samsung’s request for a new trial.

Samsung has not fared all that well with its efforts around standard-essential patents thus far in pursuing legal action against Apple, and in fact, with the heat the cases have incurred from regulatory bodies, the situation was likely causing more harm than good. The EU launched its formal investigation into how Samsung is using its standard-essential patents and dealing with competitors back in January 2012, based on the injunction requests Samsung put forward in 2011 in countries including Germany, the Netherlands, France, Italy and the U.K. While dropping these injunction requests doesn’t necessarily make that investigation go away, it certainly stands a good chance of making Samsung appear compliant with the EU’s licensing requirements.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

The USPTO has issued a preliminary notice indicating that the famous ‘Steve Jobs’ patent, which describes basic multitouch technology including scrolling, might be invalid, according to a first Office action uncovered by FOSS Patents. The ruling is very early, however, and Apple still has two months to make an initial response and a number of appeals before the patent in question might finally be rendered invalid. Many news outlets are talking about the effect this may have on ongoing court cases, but looking at the details, it’s much too early to even be thinking about the effect such a decision would have on ongoing court battles between Samsung and others.

The patent is an iconic one, but just one that Apple uses among hundreds of others related to multitouch tech in its legal proceedings, including those against Motorola and Samsung. And aside from the fact that it is still only one among a number of patents that Apple claims have been infringed by other smartphone OEMs, it’s also true that, at this stage, a first Office action like the one issued by the USPTO is far from the final word on things. In fact, once a reassessment of a granted patent is allowed — as it was in this case — this kind of rejection of claims is actually pretty common.

This particular reexamination request was rejected once before in 2010, but once granted, chances were in its favor that some kind of rejection of the patent claims would come back. First Office actions often include a rejection of some or all claims asserted in a patent, and some sources suggest that patent examiners tend to favor an approach that errs on the side of the arguments made initially by the party that filed the complaint, since they aren’t getting the original patent filer’s input during their first pass. This is also an ex parte reexamination, which means that the complaining party won’t be involved in the rest of the reexamination process, while Apple will have the opportunity to defend its original claim.

Apple has previously had another patent, related to the rubberband snapback effect of movable content on touchscreens, declared invalid in a similar preliminary decision by the USPTO. In both cases, there are still plenty of steps left to take before any of the ongoing legal proceedings are affected, and even if Apple does lose the patents in question, don’t expect much of a change to its overall patent strategy in terms of court cases related to its remaining intellectual property arsenal.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

In ongoing legal proceedings in California, Apple has added six new devices to its patent infringement claims against rival Samsung, getting them in late Friday evening ahead of a deadline on changes to the scope of the complaint. The new additions essentially cover just about every piece of Samsung hardware now available in the U.S. market, with modifications that also account for recent software updates.

The new hardware added to the suit late on Black Friday includes the Samsung Galaxy S III with Android Jelly Bean, the Samsung Galaxy Note II, the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1, the Galaxy Tab 8.9 Wi-Fi with Ice Cream Sandwich, the Samsung Rugby Pro and the Galaxy S III Mini, which we reported last week is available via Amazon in the U.S. despite not being officially released with any carrier partner as of yet.

This latest addition of products comes after Samsung had requested to add the iPad mini, 4th generation iPad and 5th generation iPod touch to the mix. The judge in the case had set a deadline of Friday, November 24 for amendments made to the complaints for the trial, which is set to be heard in March, 2014. Both sides clearly wanted to be their complaints to be as wide-reaching as possible, despite the fact that any of these devices likely either won’t be on sale when a decision comes down, or won’t be all that important to either company’s product line. There are other benefits to be had, here, including setting broad precedents and ensuring that both companies can claim more in retroactive damages should a decision go their way.

Apple was awarded $1.05 billion in damages this past summer, as compensation for infringement by a number of devices that were likewise not central to Samsung’s business at the time. Apple’s clearly hoping for a repeat performance this time around, and is casting as wide a net as possible to help increase the impact of a ruling in their favor.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

How young will the casualties become in the ongoing war against online piracy? You sadly have to wonder, when you learn that a 9-year old girl’s laptop was seized by Finnish police in a raid on her family home, following a complaint by the CIAPC anti-piracy group which had ISPs block The Pirate Bay in Finland. The raid followed a request that the girl’s father pay up around €600 to settle potential piracy charges without prosecution, according to Torrentfreak.

The father in the case ignored the requests, which led to police showing up on his door this past Tuesday morning. His daughter appears to have been the culprit behind some illegal download activity, having browsed first Google and then The Pirate Bay looking for pop star Chisu’s latest album. According to the father, that search didn’t surface any usable files, so the two went to a brick-and-mortar retail store the next day and paid cash for the physical album instead.

If there’s anything more ridiculous than the image of a squad of policemen making a 9-year old girl hand over the laptop, consider also that this particular laptop was adorned with images of Winnie the Pooh and crew. And that in parting, police reportedly suggested that next time, the father just hand over the €600 (which can’t help but sound like protection money in this context).

The EFF in Finland has taken this as a particularly poignant example of how out-of-hand the anti-piracy measures have gotten in Finland. And the artist involved, Chisu, has spoken out against the action, apologizing to her 9-year old fans and directing them to free streaming content from her albums on Spotify.

Obviously, this is a wacky outlier example of what can go wrong when net neutrality goes wrong and ISPs give up information on their users. But the possibility that a young child is able to get copyrighted content via sites like The Pirate Bay shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone these days. These likely aren’t the kind of scare tactics CIAPC wants to employ, but it might not be able to avoid doing so if things continue to progress the way they have been.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Intel today announced that CEO Paul Otellini will retire in May. In a press release, the company said that Otellini will take his leave at the company’s annual stockholder meeting in May, with the stated intent of easing the management transition during the next 6 months. Otellini has been CEO of Intel since mid 2005, and saw annual revenue grow from $38.8 billion to $54 billion through the end of 2011, but some crucial failures in mobile and a changing revenue picture might have led in part to this decision.

“I’ve been privileged to lead one of the world’s greatest companies,” Otellini was quoted as saying in the press release. “After almost four decades with the company and eight years as CEO, it’s time to move on and transfer Intel’s helm to a new generation of leadership. I look forward to working with Andy, the board and the management team during the six-month transition period, and to being available as an advisor to management after retiring as CEO.”

Intel has managed to become the processor of choice for essentially all desktop and mobile computing, and even managed to get Apple to switch away from its PowerPC processors to Intel chips in 2005. But the company was notoriously slow to act when the mobile market began to emerge, and continues to have next to no presence on smartphone platforms, where ARM-based designs created by competitors like Qualcomm are the standard. Intel’s most recent quarterly results paint a much different picture than the period highlighted in its press release, with the company reporting modest results and projecting a very conservative outlook.

Intel hasn’t been the luckiest with mobile efforts. In recent years, it saw webOS collapse after initially partnering with HP on some of those efforts. And then Nokia dropped MeeGo, and Intel announced it would go it alone, but the company recently seems to have given up on that pursuit as well. Intel’s mobile processor efforts have been overall not very successful, despite reports from a couple of years ago that had the PC chipmaker talking tough about going head-to-head with ARM.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

In a court filing this week spotted by Bloomberg, Apple indicated that it is “interested in resolving its dispute with Motorola completely and agrees that arbitration may be the best vehicle to resolve the parties’ dispute.” Motorola Mobility had discussed the possibility of arbitration back on November 5, when a federal judge tossed a case Apple had filed saying Motorola was abusing standards-essential patents.

Google said in a letter to Apple filed with the court that it, too would like to explore “constructive dialogue” to resolve the patent issues between the two companies in a letter dated November 13 and also filed with the court, writing on behalf of Motorola Mobility, which is now a Google subsidiary. The issues in question deal with standards patents specifically, which relate to the basic operation of smartphones, and without which neither company could likely field competitive devices. They don’t address every patent involved in the ongoing fight between Apple and Motorola – in fact, none of the patents Apple has cited in a separate complaint with the ITC are considered essential. But Apple’s wording in this filing indicates it might be interested in finding a broadly applicable licensing agreement that applies across the patent portfolio of both companies.

Much of the motivation behind Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility, which closed in May 2012, was thought to be due to Motorola’s ownership of many early and essential patents that could help Google fend off Apple’s attacks on Android in courts around the world. The patent theory is supported by the fact that up until now, we haven’t seen Google make much direct use of Motorola’s hardware manufacturing capabilities, since the company hasn’t yet produced any Nexus hardware and continues to operate essentially like any other Android OEM.

Apple has recently indicated a willingness to work out licensing arrangements with its patent litigation opponents, setting up a broad licensing agreement with HTC with a 10-year active window. An agreement resulting from arbitration with Motorola would indicate that rather than being an isolated case, Cupertino might indeed be growing tired of squabbling over IP with its mobile industry rivals.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

The Wall Street Journal has released a report with updated information about why Apple decided to part ways with two senior executives, including former iOS SVP Scott Forstall and former SVP of Retail John Browett. The WSJ says that both executives were in fact asked to leave by Apple, following “missteps and management tensions” in their roles at Apple.

Forstall, according to the report, refused to personally sign his name to a letter of apology for Apple’s Maps in iOS 6, which is likely the same letter the company issued from CEO Tim Cook. Forstall reportedly wanted to take a different approach, without an apology, in the same way that Apple tackled the issue a few years ago with the iPhone 4′s antenna.

As for Browett, the WSJ says that one of the crucial incidents around his departure was that he oversaw the staffing formula that earlier this year which led to early reports that Apple was firing a number of retail employees due to cut hours, action misinterpreted as a sign of retail weakness by some in the media.

Other sources cite similar causes for the departure of the two executives, including Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky, who added that Apple’s slow growth of retail operations in China, as well as issues with initial public reception of Siri and its “beta” label, likely caused a lot of tension. Lashinsky also claims to have heard that Forstall refused to sign the apology letter for maps, something the WSJ later reported as coming from “people familiar with the matter.”

Daring Fireball’s well-connected John Gruber also noted in his analysis of the change that “the whole iOS 6 Maps thing” was a “potential factor” working against Forstall, and added also that his taste in design (the famous skeuomorphic apps are reportedly Forstall’s doing), as well as his management style.

The WSJ report goes into more detail on that score, too, saying that Forstall recently sent iOS software team members an email suggesting the group wasn’t tackling big picture issues lately. He’s also said to have expressed negative sentiment about the change in leadership direction follow Cook’s ascension to the CEO role.

Clearly, both departures were caused by a number of factors, and not any single misstep, but these new late-breaking reports at least add some basis from which to understand one of the most significant shakeups in the history of Apple corporate management.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch