SiliconBeat

It’s a diplomat’s job to reach for the impossible.

Thus is should come as no surprise that Japan’s ambassador to the United States Ichiro Fujisaki should dream the impossible dream.

He spoke at Stanford University this week about the importance of incorporating strong environmental measures in the world’s economic recovery from the tough recession. He also made a pitch for Japan’s bullet train technology in a country now looking to expand its rail transportation service.

Fujisaki, who has been posted in Paris, London and Geneva, became dreamy as he recalled the year he studied at Stanford University. 

In addition to the “precious” friendships he developed in Palo Alto, the diplomat also fell in love with one of the area’s great wonders — its weather.

“It’s beautiful,” he said. “I wish the capital of the United States was here.”

He surely is not alone in his dreams, especially as the sweltering Washington D.C. summer approaches. 

   How do each of our participants feel about Web 2.0 tools like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter in their job searches? How do YOU feel about them? Read the rest of this entry »

This report just in from Kris Rowberry, one of our Pink Slip 2.0 job-seekers, taken to cold-calling to find work with charter-jet managers he used to work with at the airport in San Jose:

Dai came out twice to “harass” me at the airport, where he made me feel like a celebrity being followed by TMZ. I even got a new call sign on the radio, “480, ‘Hollywood.’” He also came along with me on one of three “Cold Call” driving sessions where I researched aircraft I worked with, and then personally dropped off my credentials at the address listed. Funny thing - they’re sometimes not that easy to find! (What a surprise, lol!)

Novellus Systems, the San Jose chip-equipment maker that reported a $66.4 million loss for its 2009 first quarter as its sales fell 69 percent, has decided it won’t be needing the $150 million in credit it had arranged through Bank of America, according to a regulatory filing.

The company, which spent $1.7 million reducing its workforce during its most recent quarter on top of the $6.9 million it spent during the fourth quarter of 2008, was able to add Read the rest of this entry »

Aryx Therapeutics, the the Fremont biopharmaceutical whose shares were slammed last July when Procter & Gamble pulled out of a partnership in developing Aryx’s drug to treat chronic constipation and abdominal pain, filed its proxy today ahead of its May 20 annual meeting.

In February 2008 the board’s compensation committee established Read the rest of this entry »

Apple Chief Operating Officer Timothy Cook Cook dampened expectations today that Apple might enter the low-end netbook market, which has boosted computer sales globally during the downturn.

He spoke out more forcefully against the category than he had in the past.

“When I look at what is being sold in the notebook space today, I see cramped keyboards, terrible software, junky hardware, very small screens — just not a consumer experience, not something we would put the Mac brand on,” he said during the company’s quarterly earnings conference call with analysts. “It’s a segment we don’t play in.”
Cook also said Apple’s iPod Touch and iPhone — which are basically pocket computers — address some of the reasons consumers are buying netbooks.
However, he seemed to leave the door open to an Apple netbook-type device, at least a crack. “If we find a way where we can deliver an innovative product that really makes a contribution, then we will have some interesting ideas in this space,” Cook said.
Needham & Co. analyst Charles Wolf speculated that Apple is possibly working on a device modeled after the iPod Touch with a larger screen.
Apple, though, is not in a race to the bottom.
“They are not going to start dropping prices to generate sales. If they did, it would destroy their margins,” Wolf said. “If Apple addresses the netbook space, they will move up.”

   One of our three job-seekers has proven by far to be the most stubbornly prodigous of the bunch. Elise Sandusky, the laid-off bookeeper from South San Jose, tells me this week that she’s now applied for 1,700 jobs online. But wasn’t it Einstein who defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”? Read the rest of this entry »

Glu Mobile, the San Mateo maker of games for mobile phones, filed details today of its plan to offer its employees the opportunity to trade in their underwater options for new ones priced to reflect the stocks current trading value, which as of Wednesday’s close was 59 cents per share.

Glu is offering to exchange options for any employee in the U.S. and the United Kingdom — except for its executive officers and directors on its board — that are priced at $1.25 or more.

For options priced from $1.25 to $1.99, the company is offering a one-for-one exchange for shares to be priced in about a month. The exchange ratio gets progressively smaller as the option strike price grows higher, up to a one-for-four exchange on any options priced at $5.95 or more.

In December, Glu Mobile reported that it’s chief executive, Greg Ballard, had requested a 25 percent cut in his $375,000 salary, which basically undid the pay raise he’d received the year before. The news was delivered the same day the company announced it would be making an unspecified cut in the number of its employees. Glu had 550 employees as of Feb. 28, up from 417 the year before.

Part of that increase came from Glu’s $38.8 million acquisition of mobile-game publisher Superscape in March 2008. Glu wrote off all of the goodwill related to that transaction at the end of December.

Update: Oracle briefly addressed the question in a letter to customers released Thursday, which states, “MySQL will be an addition to Oracle’s existing suite of database products.”

News that Oracle is buying Sun broke just as 1,800 or so database programmers and open-source aficionados were gathering this week in Santa Clara for the annual MySQL Conference and Expo. Ironically, a lot of the buzz at last year’s conference focused on Sun’s recently completed $1 billion acquisition of MySQL, and how the popular open-source database program would fare under Sun’s leadership.

 This year, attendees are wondering about the future of MySQL under Oracle. “This is sending the MySQL community reeling,” blogged developer Bill Karwin. “Everyone’s talking about whether this change is good for MySQL.”

The same is probably true for fans of Java and other open-source software that Sun has promoted. But there’s particular concern among some who fear Oracle will view MySQL as a rival to its own flagship Database program, and quietly strangle it.

But RedMonk analyst Michael Cote says Oracle has reasons to keep MySQL alive. MySQL is used by many on-line businesses and is popular among developers who use it to create new Web start-ups, while Oracle customers tend to be larger, established corporate and government entities. He suggested MySQL could introduce Oracle to new markets and also serve as an entry-level product for customers who might eventually graduate to Oracle’s more expensive lines.

It’s worth noting, as former MySQL executive Marten Mickos pointed out in an interview with the Merc last year, that Oracle already owned InnoDB, a component of MySQL, and had continued to license its use after Sun bought MySQL.

Meanwhile, IBM announced Wednesday that it will license technology from another open-source database provider, EnterpriseDB, which it says will make it easier for IBM customers to run applications originally written for Oracle’s Database.

Last week, Silicon Image doled out 450,000 stock options divided among  four executive and, in an unconventional twist, vesting on the lion’s share of the awards won’t take place until the fourth year, according to a regulatory filing Tuesday.

Ten percent of the restricted stock will vest on Read the rest of this entry »