A “cash-rich split-off” strategy may be one of multiple potential actions in what is considered to be a “global chess game” related ownership of Yahoo as well as its investments. About a dozen companies are believed to look for favorable positions.

Expected candidates certainly are supposed to be eyeing Yahoo’s popular network of sites and advertising business. However, the major investments in Yahoo Japan and Alibaba have provided further levels of complexity. In order to avoid paying taxes on share sales, it would be necessary for Alibaba to create a new subsidiary. Its stock would have to be swapped instead of being sold outright.

Negotiations are ongoing, but it is still unclear if Yahoo has to be sold entirely or divest a part or all of its assets.

The new build does not have the offline caching option and leads to worries that Google could have lost the rights to store music offline. The feature may be temporarily disabled for a certain build or may be waiting for certain conditions before coming online.

Another leak is related to the yet unofficial Google + 2.0. The mix includes interface changes, while the chat system may be changed too. Messenger, recently renamed from the original name of Huddle, seems to refer to chats as chords.

It is not clear why Google did change the name only a few weeks after the earlier change. Some legal issues like the possible conflict with Windows Live Messenger or Facebook Messenger may represent the primary incentives.

In a few weeks, after Google and Samsung will reorganize for the introduction of their Galaxy Nexus, Android 4.0 is expected to arrive. An extra large, dual-core phone and operating system are expected to come together as soon as the end of October or the beginning of November.

Google Music 4.0

Google+ 2.0

All this gain was exclusively at Windows’ expense. Although still being in clear majority, to 92.44 percent, it was down by exactly as much as Apple’s gain.

Mac’s uptick was visible in browser share, where Safari reached 5.02 percent. Internet Explorer showed one of the most spectacular month-to-month drops it ever had, loosing about a whole point of web share and touched a new relative low at 54.39 percent. Google Chrome grew faster than Safari and hit 16.2 percent.

Microsoft had a certain success in promoting browser adoption. Internet Explorer 9 was showing one of the fastest adoptions related to windows 7 browsers with 20.97 percent, being second to its immediate predecessor with 31.6 percent.

Another win for Apple was mobile share, defying market share trends. After a decline in August, iOS bounced back and reached a new high at 54.65 percent of the whole mobile space. Although growing, Android hit just a fraction of what apple succeeded, at 16.26 percent. Both systems were mainly gaining at the expense of owners of feature phones who were upgrading to smartphones.

As for Apple’s success in mobile, it may have been once more helped by students and demonstrates again the influence non-iPhone devices have. Recent data shows Android in a two to one leading position in smartphones, but students are rather supposed to have an iPod touch or an iPhone. Android has only few viable MP3 players and is hardly struggling to compete against Apple’s iPad in tablets.

Desktop OS share

Desktop Browser Share

Windows 7 Browser Share

Mobile OS Share

Brian Waring, UK and Ireland Marketing VP, suggested that it would be useful not only for encouraging relaxation or work in stores, but this may also play an important role in the 2010 Summer Olympics taking place in London, where millions of people will be visiting and will most likely turn to a Starbucks in order to get online.

As with North American stores, British stores don’t currently have a time limit, even if those who have to stay for a long time are encouraged to buy a drink or some food out of courtesy.

Microsoft, the software giant, offers communications using Windows Live Messenger; the new deal is expected to bring more customers to Microsoft’s Office and Windows software, along with Windows Phone hardware. Skype allows users to hold text, voice and video chats, as well as free chats of any type between two Skype users.

However, concerns arose that through this deal, Microsoft would interrupt Skype support on Android and iPhone platforms. Google has also been bidding for Skype, but stopped at $4 billion.

Ma stated that the Alibaba group is very interested in Yahoo, as the group is as important to Yahoo as Yahoo is important to Alibaba. As Ma said, all those interested in Yahoo have talked to Alibaba representatives.

Jack Ma said that he wanted to buy the whole company, but recognized that the process was very complicated and numerous interested parties were involved.

Yahoo is now reviewing its operations as a consequence of the sacking of the CEO Carol Bartz. One of the current options to take into consideration is to sell the company. The first company which declared publicly its intention of acquiring Yahoo was Alibaba.

According to Yang, the Yahoo! board is conducting a wide-range review of the operations of the company in order to see what was providing better value for the shareholders. Yang claims that the company has now over 680 million users and holds nine of the best properties in the United States.

The most recent intention of selling Yahoo! arrives after just three years since Microsoft made a bid for the company for $44.6 billion. The bid was rejected when Jerry Yang, who was a fan of Apple, was at the top of the company. It was claimed, at hat moment, that the rejection of the deal was provoked by the value of the offer, which significantly undervalued Yahoo’s worth. Under the stewardship of Bartz, Yahoo! signed a deal for a search engine with Microsoft, meant to drive more users to Yahoo!.

Currently, it is not clear if Microsoft is still interested in buying Yahoo!.

The platform is supposed to be more flexible than other alternatives like Zite or Flipboard. Publishers could use a web application for packaging their articles and optimizing their aspect. The application was initially thought to be made for the iPad and Android 3-based tablets, but it seems it would also support the iPhone as well as Android phones and others.

Articles can be linked with tables of contents or customized areas, including video or other media formats.

There is no known release date, but the Propeller is expected to come soon. It would have to compete with a “social publishing” system of Facebook, supposed to show at the f8 conference. Google may keep its application free and would fold in some sharing features like Google + and +1.

The ad system may contribute to addressing a common concern regarding curated tablet reading applications like Flipboard, where there are never ads as a main rule. This situation has led to complains of some sites about their usual web ads being stripped away. Flipboard has even imagined a more formal system but has to bring it to life. In case Propeller would insert targeted ads, it could determine an increase in the appeal for publishers, but could also alienate readers who were appreciating uninterrupted read or were concerned about their privacy.

The resolution was opposed by Democrats who argued that such a decision would threaten both innovative technologies in the United States and real jobs. By proposing the order, the FC had argued that a chance was needed for young Internet-only companies to be able to provide new voice and video services without being menaced by carriers that use blocks and throttling in order to discourage competition.

The measure still needs Senate approval, but the Republican gesture supporting large corporations is mostly symbolic and has no chance since the Obama administration had declared it would veto this resolution if it passed.

In judging whether the resolution has any weight or not, a few elements are to be considered. The FCC has cited unambiguous Congressional statements that gave it responsibility concerning certain aspects of the Internet, but Republicans have mentioned that several quoted clauses were not forms of authorization.

Regulations issued by the FCC are usually light and deliberately skirt around common carrier rules that are meant to regulate landline phones, which would require fair treatment and potential price regulation.

The service is expected to go live in 2012 if the Board of Commissioners signs onboard. As the company said, Google Fiber would also be available in other cities. It is already present in Stanford’s campus as a trial.

Last year in February, the project was detailed and is meant to represent a live, real-word test of the future high speed connections to the Internet. A connection with a 1Gbps speed is tens of times faster than the best internet connections in the United States and also has sufficient bandwidth for streaming both 3D video and other real-time tasks supposed to come during the next years.

Possibilities like remote education, real-time telemedicine or video conferencing at perfect quality standards have all been mentioned. The event has been celebrated by Governor Sam Brownback who nominated March 30 as being Google Day in his state.

Ironically, news of this project came at the moment North Carolina’s Congress approved a law that prevented municipally run projects. The state Senate has yet to discuss the bill, but it was the outcome of repeated attempts made by telco lobbyists at CenturyLink, Time Warner Cable and AT&T to discourage competition. Cities like Wilson and Salisbury have been building programs of fiber optic Internet supposed to be much cheaper and faster than any private service, but they have been considered by telecom companies as possible threats that would imply network upgrades as well as lower prices form their part.