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Music companies gain from YouTube sale
Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft and Didier Lombard, CEO of France Telecom, have unveiled new instant message service. The new service - Orange Messenger by Windows Live neither snappy nor in French, is to be rolled out in France in December and in other countries in Europe soon afterwards.
It is compatible with Windows Live Messenger (formerly MSN) and, according to the two CEOs, fully interoperable with other IM services such as Yahoo. It will enable messages to be sent instantly, not only between personal computers but also to and from mobile phones.
Moreover, a very large number of mobile phone terminals will be compatible from the outset. 700,000 mobile phones will be able to use it at launch. During a service demonstration, live TV sourced via the Internet was playing in one window of a PC while in another the demonstrator chatted with other people sending messages from a mobile phone and another PC, completely transparently.
Our Chanukah gift guide for the weird odd special people in your life
If you've been racking your brain trying to come up with gift ideas or putting off writing up your gift list, consider some suggestions from our inaugural gift guide. For the. . . .
. . . Saba and Savta Who Have Everything
Not another T-shirt from Acapulco, my closet is already overflowing, I beg my children and grandchildren. Not another book, I have a dozen stacked up that I haven't gotten around to reading.
So what can you give saba and savta, grandpa and grandma, who've been living in the same place for 35 years, have a house full of tchotchkes and every conceivable kitchen gadget?
I don't want the latest iPhone, videogame or computer attachment. It takes me forever to figure these things out, and I'd rather spend the time swimming.
Financing for TXU deal tests debt markets
Last month, the debt markets passed their first test of the autumn with better-than-expected results. Now comes the second challenge. Six banks on Monday were starting to sell at least $11 billion in debt to finance the buyout of the Texas energy giant TXU to two private equity firms. Analysts, bankers and investors see the offering as the biggest test yet of the high-yield credit market, which nearly shut down this past summer. In what was expected to be a packed meeting Monday afternoon at the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan, banks led by Citigroup will offer $7 billion in loans and $4.5 billion to $5 billion in bonds, according to people briefed on the matter. Much is riding on a successful sale. Turmoil in subprime mortgages seeped into the market for high-yield loans and bonds, which are often used to finance leveraged buyouts.
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