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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella the most successful tech CEO after Apple’s Steve Jobs?

12Feb

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Technology

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella the most successful tech CEO after Apple’s Steve Jobs?

[ad_1] Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has been in the news virtually throughout the whole of the last year and 2024 has started with a bang too. This is courtesy of the major strides the company has taken in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) where its big bet on Sam Altman-led OpenAI has meant that Microsoft is virtually leading the race against rival tech titans with Google, Meta Platforms, and Amazon playing catch up. And the biggest rival of them all, Apple, is yet to start the race. With AI set to transform the world in every way imaginable and some ways that are still to be thought-up, the leadership in this space would itself have ensured Nadella's place at the top of the best tech CEOs ever list after Apple founder Steve Jobs.However, there is more to it. Success, in Nadella...

Microsoft and the UK CMA Open a Nasty Can of Worms

16Oct

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Technology

Microsoft and the UK CMA Open a Nasty Can of Worms

[ad_1] Microsoft Corp.'s victory over US trustbusters seeking to end its $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard Inc. was a big moment on Tuesday — but London was where the software giant landed the bigger win.The UK's Competition & Markets Authority, which initially blocked the deal in April, has said it's open to considering “proposals … to restructure the transaction” that would address its concerns. That's not how the British antitrust process usually goes — and the ramifications are far reaching. There's a standard recourse for merging parties facing a CMA veto: appeal. Microsoft had initiated the process and that's now been put on hold. How might things move forward? We're in unprecedented territory for big M&A in the UK. To re-cap, the CMA found that Microsoft's owner...

Microsoft and the UK Both Need to Admit Mistakes

15Oct

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Technology

Microsoft and the UK Both Need to Admit Mistakes

[ad_1] The long-awaited green light from the UK competition watchdog for Microsoft Corp.'s $69 billion takeover of games publisher Activision Blizzard Inc. should prompt some self-criticism all round. The UK reached a good outcome but in a needlessly drawn-out and volatile manner. Microsoft's inappropriate public berating of the UK was reputationally damaging for the software giant and, worse, British politicians gave the impression of being swayed by it. The regulator, the regulated and the government have lessons to learn.Having blocked the transaction outright in April, the Competition and Markets Authority on Friday celebrated a revised deal put forward by Microsoft as good news for cloud gaming — the area where the world's leading regulators agreed the deal as initially structured ...

The Amazon antitrust lawsuit is likely to be a long and arduous journey for the FTC

11Oct

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Technology

The Amazon antitrust lawsuit is likely to be a long and arduous journey for the FTC

[ad_1] Amazon is heading into one of its biggest sales events of the year — Prime Day — with a lawsuit hanging over its head that accuses it of preventing sellers from hawking their merchandise at lower prices on other sites.The Federal Trade Commission's long-awaited antitrust case is the agency's most aggressive move yet to tame the market power of Amazon, a company that's become synonymous with online shopping and fast deliveries. Under chair Lina Khan, the agency hasn't been shy about taking big swings against some of America's biggest companies and testing the limits of competition law to reverse what many of her supporters see as decades of weak antitrust enforcement. But that approach has also led to some high-profile setbacks, most notably in the FTC's bid to block Microsoft's t...

How the Microsoft-Activision Deal Came Back From the Dead

23Aug

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Technology

How the Microsoft-Activision Deal Came Back From the Dead

[ad_1] If Microsoft Corp. completes its acquisition of Activision Blizzard in the coming months, the $69 billion deal will go down as one of the biggest comeback stories in the history of mergers.By this past April, the gaming industry's biggest acquisition ever appeared doomed. US regulators had filed a challenge to the takeover and their counterparts in the UK had blocked it outright. But Microsoft resurrected the purchase earlier this summer, deploying what amounted to a bluff that pitted US and UK regulators against each another. And on Tuesday the UK agreed to open a fresh probe of the transaction, following an offer from Microsoft to sell the cloud rights of current and future Activision games released over the next 15 years to Ubisoft Entertainment SA. If the transaction clears t...

Microsoft’s Potential Acquisition of Activision Blizzard: What This Means for Gamers

19Jul

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Technology

Microsoft’s Potential Acquisition of Activision Blizzard: What This Means for Gamers

[ad_1] The sun finally came out for Microsoft. On 11 July, Judge Jacqueline Corley ruled in favor of the Redmond, Washington-based company in its dispute against the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over the purchase of Activision Blizzard, one of the world's largest video game developers. An appeal by the FTC to temporarily halt the deal was denied by an appellate court late last week.With these decisions, the tech giant is now one step closer to closing the $69 billion acquisition deal, which was first announced back in January 2022. The court's decision removes the hurdle of the FTC, however, across the pond, Microsoft still faces pushback from regulators in the United Kingdom who argue that the deal could stifle competition in the cloud gaming market. And Microsoft is re...

Roblox Grapples With Employee Demands for More Diversity

18Jul

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Technology

Roblox Grapples With Employee Demands for More Diversity

[ad_1] In the spring of 2021, the staff at video-game juggernaut Roblox Corp. gathered for an all-hands meeting over the video conferencing app Zoom. An employee submitted by text a question to executives about why there were so few women at the top ranks of the company. According to multiple people in attendance, the company's co-founder and chief executive officer David Baszucki accepted the query at the virtual get-together and responded by saying that Roblox has a very high bar in hiring.Several of the women there said they found the comment dismissive, but not surprising. In public and private forums, the 60-year-old Baszucki and his deputies often noted that the goal of the San Mateo, California-based company was to “hire the best people.” Three of the 15 current or former female ...

Good news for Call of Duty players on PlayStation

17Jul

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Technology

Good news for Call of Duty players on PlayStation

[ad_1] Microsoft and Sony have inked an agreement to keep the popular game franchise, Call of Duty, on the PlayStation platform. This announcement comes after Microsoft's planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard.The gaming chief of Microsoft, Phil Spencer, tweeted yesterday, "We are pleased to announce that Microsoft and @PlayStation have signed a binding agreement to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard. " Addressing concerns and ensuring consumer accessThe goal of this announcement by the software giant is to address concerns from regulators. They were worried that the merger would make games from Activision, including the widely-loved Call of Duty shooting game franchise, exclusive only to Xbox. Microsoft's President, Brad Smith, said, "...

What challenges does Microsoft’s $69 billion Activision deal face?

14Jul

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What challenges does Microsoft’s $69 billion Activision deal face?

[ad_1] The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Thursday asked an appeals court to temporarily stop Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of video game maker Activision Blizzard, hours after a federal judge rejected a similar request.The deal is facing varying responses around the world from regulators. WHAT IS THE ACTIVISION DEAL?Microsoft announced the Activision bid in January last year to boost its firepower in the booming videogaming market, take on leaders Tencent and Sony, and lay the base for its investment in metaverse and digital spaces which are made more lifelike by the use of virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR). To quell antitrust concerns Microsoft, which owns Xbox, in February said it is ready to offer rivals licensing deals but it would not to sell Activision's lucr...

Playstation 6 and Next-Gen Xbox expected to debut in 2028, reveal Court documents

26Jun

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Technology

Playstation 6 and Next-Gen Xbox expected to debut in 2028, reveal Court documents

[ad_1] Sony's Playstation consoles have garnered a significant fanbase in India, with gamers appreciating their impressive gaming capabilities. While the Playstation 5 (PS5) remains a popular choice among gamers, recent findings from court documents accessed by IGN suggest that the next generation of Playstation and Xbox consoles may make their debut as early as 2028.In a legal case regarding Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard in a US court, the tech giant stated its expectation for the official release of the next generation gaming consoles in 2028. This projection indicates that successors to the current generation, including the PS5 and Xbox X and S, could potentially arrive after an eight-year interval. The information regarding the upcoming consoles was revealed in docu...