mergertech

We are officially in the age of the stock photo. Last month, Microsoft announced that it would discontinue its popular "Clipart" feature in Microsoft Office Suite, and replace it with a search engine to find licensed images for users to insert under fair use guidelines.

With the acquisition of Tumblr, however, Yahoo might have a window to bigger and better prospects in the coming years. Google alum Mayer was seen as a game-changing choice when she was hired, and has made steady progress for Yahoo with an aggressive series of acquisitions. Tumblr is, in many ways, the jewel in the Yahoo crown with by far the greatest visibility of all its properties.

On this blog, we've discussed the importance of securing branded domain names, social media handles and other calling cards that can keep your marketing efforts airtight. A high-profile example of overlooking this step in the branding process is newly announced Republican presidential candidate, Carly Fiorina.

"When deciding whether Google should spend millions or even billions of dollars in acquiring a new company, its chief executive, Larry Page, asks whether the acquisition passes the toothbrush test: Is it something you will use once or twice a day, and does it make your life better?" reports David Gelles of The New York Times. "The esoteric criterion shuns traditional measures of valuing a company like earnings, discounted cash flow or even sales."

"As of today, HelloGiggles will be part of Time Inc., the same company that brings you People, Entertainment Weekly, InStyle and a ton of other magazines and media you know and love. By partnering with Time Inc., we hope to promote the work of our amazing contributors on an even bigger platform, to showcase young talent and reach more readers than ever, and to expand the HG community in cool, new, exciting ways."

A major draw for the launch of HG was the fact that one of its founders is indie film and music celebrity, Zooey Deschanel. The initial burst of interest surrounding the site was akin to the attention received by other lifestyle blogs with famous backers. While you may not have a network television star on speed dial, other types of earned media and cross-promotion can help get the word out about your blog from the beginning.

In an industry where there is a new blockbuster device, app, service or platform every other week, staying relevant for the long haul can be challenging. On this blog, we recently discussed the Dell-EMC merger, the largest ever of its kind, which further repositions Dell as a leader in workplace tech. Western Digital and SanDisk are two other old-school tech entities that recently turned to M&A as a solution to achieve their next goals.

"The acquisition brings together two powerhouses in the data storage space," writes USA Today. "SanDisk was founded in 1988 originally under the name SunDisk. Seven years later, the company went public, trading on the Nasdaq exchange at $10 a share. The company is best known for its line of memory cards and USB flash drives used for storage."

DeWolfe denied the offer. Later on, Zuckerberg tried to sell the company once again, this time for $750 million. Yet, to MySpace's modern-day chagrin, this second offer was once again turned down. Many still report that this denial led to MySpace's decline in popularity as it failed to invest heavily in the social media portion of its design and instead channeled its work into its music sharing and listening features.

Many, after this announcement, are left wondering why was this deal made. Business Insider reports that even though EMC still is profitable in the area of data-storage, it could face perilous waters ahead. Most of this uncertainty is due to the increasing number of companies that are sending their data to the cloud through giants such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon.

Many tech industry companies are beginning to get antsy. This feeling stems from two recent major mergers that were announced just in the past few weeks. The first involves two competing semiconductor companies, Western Digital and SanDisk, where the latter company was acquired in a $19 billion merger.

Meanwhile, one phenomenal acquisition that has the tech industry talking is the merger of computer industry giant Dell with data storage giant EMC. This monumental acquisition, to the tune of $67 billion, has caused tech firms to begin shifting, looking for new ways to expand and succeed in their highly competitive marketplace.

Founded by New Girl actress Zooey Deschanel in 2011, the popular upbeat women's blog HelloGiggles (HG) has been purchased by TIME Inc. for a reported $20 million. The move is designed to capitalize on the unique content HG provides female readers seeking a life-enhancing, positive outlook on issues like culture, style and the workplace.

"EMC is a behemoth of a corporate IT business," he writes. "It is among the largest providers of storage hardware in the world. It also makes servers and owns security company RSA, which is known for its hard-to-crack SecurID tokens. And its most prized possession is its 81% stake in VMware - the company that rules the world of virtualization software that allows businesses to run various operating systems on their devices."

Blogging may seem time consuming, perhaps more than it's actually worth. That's why it can become a team effort: While there's a high premium placed on founders' blogs, input from your finance, tech and marketing leaders can also provide a good window into how your company operates and approaches its work.

"I am excited about this big step forward in our company ambition to reinvent productivity and business process, and how it will deliver new value to our customers with organizational analytics," he explained. "We expect to launch an early preview program for Delve Organizational Analytics within the next month, and general availability of the initial release of the integrated Office 365 service by the end of this calendar year."

It was recently announced that AOL has acquired Millennial Media, a mobile ad network that places advertisements on tablet and smartphone screens. As AOL continues its progress from mail and browsing platform of the early internet into a fully-fledged content producer, the ability to effectively place ads is critical to expansion.

Airbnb has been a leader in lodging for travelers. Rather than paying for the service and amenities of hotels, consumers have listed and rented their own apartments for out-of-towners to enjoy. This week, it was announced that the company has acquired Vamo, a service that helps in the process of booking trips with stops in multiple cities. This adds another level of convenience to the Airbnb service offerings, which primarily focus on listing and discovering vacancies.

Travel is one of the first industries the internet can take credit for disrupting. Gone are the days of travel agencies with professionals whose job it is to find, book and manage your vacation and business trip plans.

This wouldn't be a problem if it weren't likely or even inevitable that Google will launch an Uber challenger. Similarly, Apple has recently purchased MapSense, a startup that analyzes location data, to help improve its Maps application. Long seen as a distant quality rival to Google Maps, Apple's Maps technology has significant room for improvement before it becomes a serious threat to Google's geography and directional dominance.