IPTV and Gadgets

I found two more site that has practical information on IPTV and its contents. One is btelevisions.com anf another is tvunetworks.com. It is prety new to me.
If you have anybody tried it, please let me know what you think. It seems a little bit different from TV or downloaded media files.... more

IPTV, how close we are?

My Friend mentioned IPTV this morning and got very excited to own a station. I was not sure if it is that easy like to own your domain name. I did some surfing on the web and found some informations on it.

Here is one of them. Following Article is from engadget.com and written by Darren Murph. To original article Also there will be a Forum in London next March on this, FYI.
"We know, it was a year ago yesterday that we had this very same conversation, but apparently, cable companies aren't heeding the advice of analysts. According to yet another study, this time by ABI Research, "cable providers will soon be faced with a serious bandwidth crunch" as more and more individuals look to online gaming, video-on-demand, and IPTV for enjoying their precious moments of leisure. Compounding the problem is the growing demand for more HD channels in the lineup, and considering that the satellite operators are already raising the bar, cable carriers can only play dumb for so much longer. Stan Schatt, VP and research director for ABI Research, was quoted as saying that "digital switching is key" to releasing some of the strain on current infrastructures, and while we aren't ones to believe that the influx of online TV delivery will debilitate the internet (or cable providers), something seemingly has to give -- and soon."

Google Labs India: A present from Google to India

8/20/2007 06:48:00 AM
Posted by M T Raghunath and Gokul Nath Babu Manoharan, Software Engineers


"Keeping up with the spirit and celebrations of India's 60th year of Independence, we present to you a new platform that showcases our favourite ideas for Indian users: Google India Labs. Enthusiastic bloggers noted our initial announcement on 15th August; now here's the full story."

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How much should it cost to build a networking website?

By overlooking project leads site like designquote.net or getafreelancer.com , I noticed that there are quite a number of proposal requests related to networking site like Myspace.com or Facebook.com. It seems like a big trend in the market.

Myself as a programmer, I wonder how much it would cost to build a site like that. It cannot be done by one programmer and one computer for sure. Just without thinking further, I can count things that are related so easily. It would require eye-appealing design, trendy functions, huge database system and middle ware to swallow all the information, not to mention of nice and steady servers. You cannot forget all the human resources to perform all that.

One of my colleague is saying 75,000 to 100,000. But that is just the planning and building it. So, not sure how much would be the best guestimate but for sure it is not an easy project for few thousand dollars.

See some projects on designquote.net

What is the real problem with Skype?

***Shaun Nichols in California, vnunet.com 20 Aug 2007
VoIP provider Skype said that the massive outage that crippled its service last week was due to a surge of users logging on after installing the latest Microsoft security update. more

***Skype blames deficient networking algo for service disruption
Russell Shaw from ZDNet Aug 19 2007
Just received this statement from Skype about the current sign-on outage:

Apologies for the delay, but we can now update you on the Skype sign-on issue. As we continue to work hard at resolving the problem, we wanted to dispel some of the concerns that you may have. The Skype system has not crashed or been victim of a cyber attack. We love our customers too much to let that happen. This problem occurred because of a deficiency in an algorithm within Skype networking software. This controls the interaction between the user’s own Skype client and the rest of the Skype network.”more

“Rest assured that everyone at Skype is working around the clock — from Tallinn to Luxembourg to San Jose — to resume normal service as quickly as possible.”

Quick diagnosis, customer and media communication and of course, quick and enduring fixes are the benchmarks for how telecommunications companies manage service disruptions such as this,

The IPhone Is Internet Explorer 4 All Over Again

By Scott Gilbertson on Wired

Facebook, Netvibes and Meebo all launched new iPhone-optimized versions of their sites this week, and all three of them are very nice. But wasn’t one of the promises of the iPhone that it offered “a real web browser?” If that's so, why all the iPhone-optimized sites? And why are these sites being optimized for the iPhone specifically and not just “mobile optimized?”

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Google updates its Robots.txt and Meta Tags features

Changes on Robots.txt for a better recognition for site maps.

"Today, Google has improved its Robots.txt analysis tool to better recognize sitemap declarations and relative URLs.
Google's new and improved version of the robots.txt file now tells a site owner or webmaster whether the sitemap's URL and scope are valid.

According to Google, overall testing can also be done against relative URLs with a lot less typing.

Line reporting is also better too. Webmasters now will be told of multiple problems per line if they exist, unlike Google's earlier versions which only reported the first problem encountered.

Google has also made other general improvements to the robots.txt analysis tool and its overall validation."

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Photo for the day

Outer Banks Sunset
2007-08-13
By Nick Noble

Isn't it just beautiful and mysterious. Love it.

more Nick Noble photos

Removing Unwanted Elements-photoshop tutorial

As always Santosh Setty has a great tool for photoshop tips.
Here is one of the latest posting on how to remove unwanted elements.

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Google Proxy Hacking: How A Third Party Can Remove Your Site From Google SERPs

I ran into a surprising article today that was written by Dan on www.seofaststart.com. I also spotted the same contents on searchengineland.com. If you ever wondered why your site suddenly invisible on Google, you might want to read the article.

"In June of 2006, while working to resolve some indexing issues for a client, I discovered a bug in Google's algorithm that allowed 3rd parties to literally hack a web page out of Google's index and search results. I notified a contact at Google soon after, once I managed to confirm that what we thought we were seeing was really happening."

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PhotoWorks Adds Storefronts for Users to Sell Work

Mashable posted an article about Photoworks where you can share your photo and now even sell!

"PhotoWorks, the photo sharing site, has added storefronts to its service, letting you sell your images to site visitors.

The storefront works with a regular shopping cart model. For each user that has a storefront, you can browse through the images and products that they have placed for sale, and purchase the ones you’d like. For photo books in the storefronts, you can flip through the pages to see what’s inside. It looks as though you can currently only sell photo books in the storefront feature."
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Apple Unveils New iMac

by Jason Schramm on AppleWatch says about new Mac. I also went to appleinsider and saw lots of photos. Looks really good.

Apple today unveiled an all new all-in-one iMac line featuring 20- and 24-inch widescreen displays encased in aluminum and glass enclosures. The entire new iMac line features the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors and a new, ultra-thin aluminum Apple Keyboard, built-in iSight video camera for video conferencing and iLife ’08. The 20-inch iMac now starts at just $1,199, $300 less than the previous 20-inch model, and the 24-inch iMac starts at just $1,799, $200 less than the previous 24-inch model.

The new iMac features highly recyclable and durable materials including scratch-resistant glass and professional grade aluminum. The power-efficient iMac also meets the stringent new Energy Star 4.0 requirements.
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A Number Of Google Doodles

By Nathan Weinberg
It seems pretty fun to see their logos to respond to world's events and anniversaries.

South Korea’s Independence Day:


Google also ran this logo for India’s Independence Day:


Google China ran this Doodle in recognition of the one-year countdown to the Beijing 2008 Olympics:


They also ran this logo for the Swiss National Festival:


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Insanely crowded pool, What is this for??

The Trends in Japan blog posted an amazing photo taken yesterday at the Tokyo Summerland wave pool. Follow the link to see the whole photo and an insane video of the wave pool in operation.
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getting a compliments from clients

Recently I found a testimonial from one of our clients how much he was satisfied with our services. These comments always cheer us up no matter what. Special thing about this testimonial was that he mentioned about my coworker, Joe who is in charge of client relations. While I was reading it, I felt that Vexcom accomplished a lot with designquote.net, a lead service site. It earned good reputation with its superb services and also a bond with co-workers because the service system is not only working by one person nor the program itself. It needs a lot of team work like checking the seriousness of the projects and explanations on how to find a right job and how to get a better quotes in price and quality wise. Since all these team work spun together well, Joe can get great compliments. Warm applause for Joe and to ourselves.


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Official Google Blog: Google search privacy: Plain and simple

This video takes about 5 mins. It was worth to watch to me.

Do you have a Nokia phone?

Nokia recalls batteries; at risk to explode




"In the advisory, Nokia said the battery was manufactured by Japan’s Matsushita Battery Industrial Co. between December 2005 and November 2006. The BL-5C battery is one of 14 used by Nokia. The advisory comes amid a spate of issues with batteries in laptops and other electronic devices."

Nokia 1100, Nokia 1100c, Nokia 1101, Nokia 1108, Nokia 1110, Nokia 1112, Nokia 1255, Nokia 1315, Nokia 1600, Nokia 2112, Nokia 2118, Nokia 2255, Nokia 2272, Nokia 2275, Nokia 2300, Nokia 2300c, Nokia 2310, Nokia 2355, Nokia 2600, Nokia 2610, Nokia 2610b, Nokia 2626, Nokia 3100, Nokia 3105, Nokia 3120, Nokia 3125, Nokia 6030, Nokia 6085, Nokia 6086, Nokia 6108, Nokia 6175i, Nokia 6178i, Nokia 6230, Nokia 6230i, Nokia 6270, Nokia 6600, Nokia 6620, Nokia 6630, Nokia 6631, Nokia 6670, Nokia 6680, Nokia 6681, Nokia 6682, Nokia 6820, Nokia 6822, Nokia 7610, Nokia N70, Nokia N71, Nokia N72, Nokia N91, Nokia E50, Nokia E60

I have never thought a cell phone battery can be explode. These thing remind me the thoughts of science and and how it is used.... a Long time issue of scientists..
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40 IN 5000 OUT

It looks like a pretty good deal.
I do come to the site and see lots of projects available that you can work on.
There are no fishing involved because DQ is checking on every project by phone most of the time and see if the project is a serious deal or not. I wanted to see some more about the projects but I found this testimonial.

"I bought $40 in credits and within 3 days my company had contracts worth more than $5,000. DesignQuote.net has allowed me to focus on development of projects rather than hunting down work. Instead of going out looking for jobs, I have clients who have projects in hand and ready to hear what we can do for them. I can review the job and decide which clients I want to go after. This service changes the way my team works. Thanks DQ!"
To the nal

Official Google Blog: Cookies: expiring sooner to improve privacy

Cookie and security! Google is talking about their cookie and the new policy.

We are committed to an ongoing process to improve our privacy practices, and have recently taken a closer look at the question of cookie privacy. How long should a web site "remember" cookie information in its logs after a user's visit? And when should a cookie expire on your computer? Cookie privacy is both a server and a client issue.

On the server side, we recently announced that we will anonymize our search server logs — including IP addresses and cookie ID numbers — after 18 months.

Official Google Blog: Cookies: expiring sooner to improve privacy

Microsoft game boss to join EA

Moore leaves Microsoft during a spate of Xbox 360 carnage, with a $US1.5 billion bill for console repairs.

SAN FRANCISCO - Microsoft has announced that the head of its gaming business, Peter Moore, will leave the company to join Electronic Arts Inc, the world's biggest video game publisher.to the original story

Harry Potter: Now in (Ask)3D

By Carla Borsoi from Ask.com Blog


Quote from Ask.com Blog
"I admit it, I'm a huge Harry Potter fan-- looking for the best in fan sites, news, and rumors. And this is a BIG month for us muggles. The seventh and final installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, comes out on July 21st, the movie of the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix arrives in theaters today (July 11th), and finally, Harry has a birthday on July 31st (coincidentally also author J. K. Rowling's Birthday)." To Original

Unusual Lawsuit with a flight

Photo: Andrew Speaker

SEAN FARRELL from Yahoo News reported a unusual news today on Yahoo.
Just to thought about it make me wondering for a sec for after read the article, it leads me to lot of thinking. Since I have be in a flight for a long time soon, this news makes me nervous.To original

May I Suggest... From Yahoo

Here is little talk about how to use Yahoo search more effective.
It is suggesting terms and phrase that are related to the words that you are entering.
It is a pretty cool function. Also you can see what other people search with the words in the suggestion list.

For more

WiMAX is crap? what do you say?

I read this article from theBrowser

WiMAX is crap. That’s my summation of the sentiment expressed by Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm (QCOM). During Stephanie Mehta’s panel, “Who Moves the Bits?” he predicted that the long-distance wireless standard is headed nowhere fast. “If you look at the WiMAX experiment in Korea, you’ll see that only a few thousand people are using it — and those are probably the friends and family of the people who rolled it out. It’s not a good technology.”

There are pretty interesting comments. Click here to see them

Best uses of Flash from google's view

Thursday, July 05, 2007 at 3:15 PM
Written by Mark Berghausen, Search Quality Team.

I found this site from one of the official Google Blog. It explains the best use of Flash from search engine's view. Please click the link below to see the detail.

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Best uses of Flash

Now, about Dollars

I found this another article on bloomberg.com. This article talks about our dollar value fall and falling Yen.
" July 12 (Bloomberg) -- The yen fell to a record low against the euro as rallying global stocks signaled investors were taking on risky bets, including so-called carry trades.

Japan's currency pared a gain versus the dollar on speculation investors resumed selling the yen to fund carry- trade purchases of assets in countries with higher yields. The Bank of Japan kept its key interest rate at 0.5 percent today, the lowest among"
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Tokyo shares close lower ahead of Fukui speech, BoJ rate freeze ignored - UPDATE

by kaori.kaneko@thomson.com


Japanese Yen has fall and the market shows worries. Some of reporters are showing concerns that Dollar might fall further, too. Here is one of the articles from Forbe.

TOKYO (Thomson Financial) - Japanese share prices closed lower Thursday as selling in late trade wiped out the gains made in the morning session on the back of Wall Street's rebound overnight and the slightly weaker yen.

Spam of the Devil

Some random bits scribbled by Jeremy Zawodny


My spam box had this devil number the other day. how about you?

To original

Former first lady Lady Bird Johnson dies at 94

By CLAUDIA FELDMAN
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle


Lady Bird Johnson, former first lady, smiles in 1989.

In Google News, there was a news on loss of the nation.
Here is some of the story
"Lady Bird Johnson, a former first lady, a Texas legend, a woman who used the humble wildflower to teach an entire nation to treasure and preserve the environment, died today of natural causes at her home. She was 94." more

Photo for the day

by Tyler E Nixon from his website http://wink.nixone.com

Don't know very much about photos but I do like the angle of it
Hope you guys enjoy it, too. more

Google Hiring At A Very Specific Pace

By Nathan Weinberg



Just by looking at it, it is amaizing the rates are matching exactly fit together. It is pretty ideal for a company doing business this way.
Here is what Nathan from Blog News Channel says more

Designsponge

by Kristi Sword

I found this blog today and the author has a great art works.
See more art works on DesignSponge

Yahoo Celebrates "Ultimate Connection" Search Marketing Awards

SearchEngineLand Posted an Yahoo award. It is called "Ultimate Connection Search Marketing Awards" Here is the story.
"Yesterday, the Yahoo Search Marketing team honored three small business owners at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ as part of the Yahoo! Ultimate Connection Contest. Of over 10,000 applicants, five finalists were chosen, and of those five, three special individuals, Glen Halliday of Kids Crooked House, Mike Willner of AlphaGrip, and Melissa Belland of Made in Heaven by Missy were selected as winners."
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E3 extravaganza

After watch the Movie "Transformer", it is pretty exciting to see the game is going to be available. Here are more on the games and reports on it on Yahoo.more

Official Google Blog: Overview of our accessible services

Official Google Blog posted a blog for their accessible services.
It is good to see all the services that they have as a list cause there so many of them now.
The List and more
* Web Search: Result pages include headers to delineate logical sections.
* Accessible Search: Promotes results that are accessible.
* Book Search: Full-text access to public-domain works.
* Gmail: A simple yet functional HTML mode that works well with screenreaders.
* Gmail Mobile: A lightweight user interface that is also speech-friendly.
* Google Maps: Easy-to-use textual directions.
* Calendar: A functional, yet speech-friendly user interface.
* Audio Captchas: All services that use Google Accounts provide an audio alternative for the visual challenge-response tests that are used to distinguish humans from machines.
* Mobile Transcoder: A mobile lens for viewing the web that produces accessible views.
* Google Video: Allows uploaded videos to contain captions/subtitles in multiple languages for viewers who are hearing-impaired or unfamiliar with the original language.
* Google Talk: IM clients inside a web browser can pose accessibility challenges, but the use of the open Jabber API means that Google users can choose from a variety of Jabber clients, many of which work well with adaptive technologies.
* Web APIs: Many Google services offer high-level web APIs that aid in authoring mashups; this provides a means for creating highly customized accessible views.
* 1-800-GOOG-411: Here's an exception to the rule that we deliver most things through a web browser. Our experimental Voice Local Search service lets anyone who can speak into a phone search for a local business by name or category; get connected to the business free of charge; get the details by SMS if you’re using a mobile phone. (Just say "text message".)
Official Google Blog: Overview of our accessible services

Old people dig Facebook, too

As recently as late May, The Browser’s Fortune colleague Adam Lashinsky posed the question in his must-read Go West blog: Will anyone over 25 really embrace Facebook, the social networking site that began life as a way for college students to communicate with each other? This was on the heels of Facebook’s announcement that it was opening itself up to programmers and innovators of all kind. Lashinsky wrote: “My hunch is that adults are finding out about Facebook and then inviting everybody they can think of. But will they actually visit the site and see who is ‘poking’ them? I seriously doubt it.”
To Original

Scott's iPhone Story: great summary as a IPhone user

"This past Saturday, I went to my local Apple store, Woodfield Mall, Schaumburg Illinois and bought an 8GB Apple iPhone.
What drove me to get up early and get to a store before it opened?

Last December my Sony Clie organizer died. I was in need of a new device. I started to look at new Palm PDAs and cellphones that had built-in organizer features. I looked at Palm-based devices, Blackberry and even Windows Mobile (but not for very long). To make a long story short, too many friends told me about too many bad stories with their various devices. I also heard that Apple would be introducing a phone next year. Full disclosure: I'm a very happy Apple user (iMac, MacBook Pro, iPod, even a Newton MessagePad, which I still have). So what should I do? "

To Original Story

MSN Live Earth Streaming A Success

by Nathan Weinberg

"MSN streamed the Live Earth concert even this past weekend, and by all accounts it was a success. Microsoft claims it connected more than 10 million streams, the most simultaneous viewers of any online concert ever. The worldwide audience tuned in to see concerts in New York, London, Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, Hamburg and acts including The Police, Genesis, Bon Jovi and Madonna, Kanye West, Kelly Clarkson, Black Eyed Peas and Jack Johnson."

To Original
Steve Lamb's Blog
liveearth.msn.com

Google Pays $625 Million For Postini

By Nathan Weinberg


Google Inside Section from Blognewschannel.com posted a comment on Google's aqusition of postini.com. As Nathan Weinberg mentioned I also was very surprised that it would cost that much to get it. Good luck to Google and Postini!
To Original

Official Google Australia Blog: Google Australia celebrates NAIDOC Week

Quote from Google blog
"You have undoubtedly noticed today's Google doodle on the Google Australian homepage. It's in recognition of NAIDOC Week which is an annual celebration of the continuation of Australia's ancient Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and the contribution made by Indigenous people to Australia. NAIDOC stands for "National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee". Historically, there was only the one day of celebration. Now a whole week is set aside to celebrate our Indigenous cultures (you may see the Australian Aboriginal Flag and the Torres Strait Islander Flag on Government buildings)."
Official Google Australia Blog: Google Australia celebrates NAIDOC Week

Yahoo! Answers: 10 million strong and growing

"At around 5:30 am on Sunday, May 7th, almost precisely five months since we launched, a user posted the 10 millionth answer on the service. This is a big day for us, and we�ve decided to celebrate by coming out of beta, and beginning the integration of Answers into our core search services." To original

One blogger's mind

It is always challenging to pick a subjects and how honest you can be and how far you can go with your personal stuff.
Here is a blogger Andreas's quote
"I just spent three hours on writing the most personal and honest blog post I have ever written. I have written similar personal posts a couple of times before, but I have never published any of them. Instead, I save them in my private offline diary. But I was really close to posting this one, and I am actually planning to do it once I've got a chance to read (and edit) the post with a clear mind and some time for reflections."
To Original

Site24x7: Website Monitoring

Cool System to watch over your site 24X7.

Here is the original article link.

Place for the day

It has such a deep blue color for the sky and the ocean.
It feels so live.. I tried to make it show here but not showing. Please follow the link.
by Heath
more photos by Kylie

Photo for the day

by Tyler E Nixon "Lost Highway"

more photos

Official Google statement: Google and health care

After all the heat from the discussion on Michael Moore's film "Sicko" and Google's idea with health system, Missy Krasner, Product Marketing Manager of Google posted a her opinion. Here is the link.
Michael Moore and Health system VS Google and health care

Official Google Blog: All aboard

7/02/2007 01:01:00 PM Posted by Wesley Chan, Product Manager

Google now acquired GrandCentral.
It seems like a smart move to get the next generation's communication method.
Here is the detail.Official Google Blog: All aboard

one of my favorite blog has a interesting story

A real-world troll story by Scobleizer
"The Nokia trolls are here. They are almost as annoying as Apple trolls back in the 1990s. It’s always interesting behavior when you piss off someone’s "product religion.”
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The iPhone is business media’s Paris Hilton

I found this article on Fortune Blog.
It is pretty smart and funny way to see it. iPhone is really everywhere on media in Business and IT section. Here is the quoted comments
"The Browser now understands how the folks at television news organizations like CNN (part of the CNN/Money family) feel when they privately complain about leading the news with stories about Paris Hilton. They know the story is overhyped and lacks the value of other news, but they struggle with the fact that viewers seem to love it, even demand it.
The iPhone is our Paris Hilton."

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U.S. healthcare industry: Google wants to protect you from Michael Moore’s Sicko

Posted by Dan Farber

Here is a interesting posting from ZDNet.
"Taking a break from reading the wall-to-wall iPhone coverage on TechMeme, I ran across a post from Lauren Turner, who works for Google as an account planner selling ads to the healthcare industry. In the post on what is called the Google Health Advertising blog, but only contains two posts, she assures potential advertisers that Google can help protect them from the negative impact of Michael Moore’s just released film “Sicko,” which does to the U.S healthcare system what Fahrenheit 9/11 did to the Bush administration."more

Ellison: Oracle to continue acquisition spree

Posted by Dan Farber @ 10:23 pm

"During the Q4 earnings call Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said that his company is not going to slow down its acquisitions binge. Oracle has acquired more than 30 companies in the last five years, including five in the last quarter, led by Hyperion for $3.3 billion. “I expect the pace to continue,” Ellison said."
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iPhone reviews: Not perfect, but worthy of the hype

Posted by: cpinho
Wordpress.com's flash and apple watch section posted review and a related link on iPhone.
" iPhone reviews: Not perfect, but worthy of the hype by ZDNet’s Dan Farber — Yesterday I wrote about Steve Jobs making an all-in bet on the iPhone. Now the first reviews are in from those seeded by Jobs with the device. The verdict was universal, at least among the three reviewers (who don’t want to be viewed as contributing to the hype, but were clearly enamored of.." more

More details of Avaya from Forbe

As you see it in the image above, the share went up high and gave Silver Lake-TPG(who is buying Avaya) a pretty good deal.more

Avaya Agrees to Buyout

Avaya agrees to be acquired by Silver Lake Partners and TPG Capital for about $8.2 billion, or $17.50 per share cash. Avaya provides communications systems equipment to businesses, government agencies, and other organizations.more