| Startups Rush to Pave Way for Web Video
The intended recipient gets an e-mail with a link. Clicking it starts the download, which pulls the chunks together from the network of user computers like a squid pulling in its tentacles. In other words, Squidcast itself doesn't need to devote computers or buy bandwidth to transfer user's files. It will finance the service by showing short video ads to the recipients while they download. "If someone attempted to do this as a hosted platform they would simply go out of business," Putterman said. "It can't be done and that's why it hasn't been done." Atlanta-based Asankya Inc. is trying to solve the same problem, but for Hollywood rather than home movies. CEO Scott Ryan puts the current cost of distributing an HD movie online at about $3. Considering movies rent for $4 to $5 and the creators have to be paid, there's no real money in it for distributors.
McAfee, Inc. to Secure E-Commerce Through Acquisition of ScanAlert ...
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- McAfee, Inc. (NYSE: MFE) today announced a definitive agreement to acquire the privately-held ScanAlert, Inc., creators of the fast-growing HACKER SAFE(R) Web site security certification service, for approximately $51 million in cash up front and with an earn-out of up to an additional $24 million if certain performance targets are met. The acquisition will extend McAfee's leadership position in Web security, and will help to guide the more than 116 million U.S. consumers who shop online to safe e-commerce Web sites. "Consumers are expected to spend nearly $160 billion dollars this year on products and services online, providing personal credit card information to e-commerce Web sites, many of which have traditionally been under-protected," said Dave DeWalt, chief executive officer and president of McAfee.
Yair Landau: Sony's digital driver
Yair Landau could not have timed the start of his Hollywood career any better. After a brief stint in investment banking, the Stanford MBA arrived at what was then Columbia Pictures Entertainment in 1991, soon after the venerable studio had been acquired by Sony. "I joined as the leading global consumer electronics company was making its foray into entertainment," Landau says. "I view the trajectory of my career as building a bridge between a hardware company and an entertainment company. And that bridge is really built on digital technology, both for production and distribution." Starting in the studio's finance department, he moved on to corporate development and strategic planning and in 1999 formed a new Sony division designed to bring digital artists, technologists and production software engineers together in the creation of digital entertainment.
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