dimeperclick.com

He was also known for his wild parties often thrown at his Orange County mansion that sported several touch-screen, wall-mounted computers, a hidden wooden panel in the study that opened to a secret underground tunnel to a gym, a sports bar, a wine cellar, a recording studio, and a basketball court.

•&nbsp In or around 2001, Nicholas distributed and used controlled substances during a flight on a private plane between Orange County and Law Vegas, causing marijuana smoke and fumes to enter the cockpit and requiring the pilot flying the plane to put on an oxygen mask.

Details of his raucous lifestyle started to come out after a disgruntled employee filed a lawsuit against him alleging he patronized prostitutes and drug dealers.

Broadcom co-founder and former CEO Henry T. Nicholas III is facing two federal indictments that allege conspiracy and securities fraud related to options backdating, as well as numerous drug violations.

I think it’s fair to say after this latest news, he’s the epitome of a PR nightmare.

The indictment also names Broadcom’s former chief financial officer, William J. Ruehle, who faces conspiracy, securities fraud, and other charges. He is not charged with drug violations.

•&nbsp Beginning in 1999, and continuing through 2005, Nicholas and other co-conspirators conspired to distribute MDMA (ecstasy), cocaine and methamphetamine; and, to maintain places, namely, the Rodeo Residence, the Warehouse, the Telescope House, and the Turnberry Condo, for the purpose of distributing and using controlled substances.

The San Francisco Chronicle has reported that Nicholas was in custody after turning himself in to FBI agents in Santa Ana, Calif. Nicholas and Ruehle were scheduled to appear in court later Thursday, the newspaper’s Web site said.

In a somewhat prophetic proclamation, Nicholas proudly said in a 2004 interview with the Orange County Weekly that he was “a media relations nightmare.”

•&nbsp Nicholas directed co-conspirators and associates to invoice him for controlled substances using various code words, including “supplies,” “party favors,” “refreshments” and “E” (ecstasy).

Last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Nicholas, Henry Samueli, David Dull, and Ruehle in a civil suit, accusing them of fraudulently backdating stock options that resulted in more than $2 billion of restated expenses. In May, Samueli and Dull both went on a leave absence from their roles as CTO and general counsel, respectively. Samueli also stepped down as chairman, according to a company press release.

The federal indictments, unsealed on Thursday, include a total of 25 counts against Nicholas. According to an Associated Press report, the charges include conspiracy, securities fraud, false certification of financial reports, filing false statements with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, wire fraud, and conspiracy to distribute and acquire controlled substances.

While the options backdating issue is certainly nothing to sneeze at, the drug allegations are definitely more titillating and, quite frankly, much more bizarre.

•&nbsp Nicholas spiked the drinks of others with MDMA (ecstasy) without their knowledge, including the drinks of technology executives and representatives who worked for Broadcom’s customers.

Mark Saylor, a spokesman for Nicholas, referred the Associated Press to another spokesman, who said that lawyers for the Broadcom co-founder had no comment.

Here’s a sampling of some of the allegations from the indictment highlighted in a Wall Street Journal law blog:

•&nbsp Nicholas hired prostitutes and escorts for himself and customers, representatives, and associates of Broadcom.

Nicholas, 48, served as CEO and president from Broadcom’s inception until he resigned in 2003. A billionaire since the company had gone public in 1998, he had always been a larger-than-life character with a personality that matched his 6-foot-7-inch physique. He was known for his bold and often outrageous predictions for the communications market and for Broadcom in general.

The deal, which could be valued at around $27 billion, is at a sensitive stage and could fall through over the next few days, the newspaper reported.

Verizon Wireless currently has the strongest network in terms of quality and customer base. It’s highly profitable and has low levels of turnover, so there’s no real reason the company needs Alltel. It seems to be doing just fine on its own. Still, a major move by Verizon could spark even more consolidation in the cellular market.

But that said, Verizon Wireless is the most likely competitor to acquire Alltel. The two companies both use the CDMA (code division multiple access) cellular technology. And they also share a similar technology road map. Earlier this year, Alltel said it would use a next-generation wireless technology called LTE to build its 4G network, the same technology Verizon has said it will use to build its 4G network.

Verizon Wireless was among the companies that considered buying Alltel last year when the company first started shopping itself around. And rumors had circulated back in 2005 that Verizon was interested in purchasing the regional cell phone operator. Both times the company didn’t make its move.

T-Mobile and AT&T are unlikely bidders for the company since they use a different technology called GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications).

A takeover of Alltel by Verizon Wireless would create the largest cell phone operator in the country with some 80 million subscribers. AT&T, which is currently the nation’s largest cell phone provider, reported at the end of last quarter that it has 71.4 million customers. Verizon Wireless, jointly owned by Verizon Communications and U.K.-based Vodafone Group, would gain customers mainly in the Midwest and South where Alltel operates.

Alltel was sold only last year for $27.5 billion to the buyout arm of Goldman Sachs and private equity firm TPG Capital. And, according to the Journal, the banks that financed the deal, including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Barclays, and Royal Bank of Scotland Group, still owe about $24 billion in loans and bond financing. But the firms see a sale to Verizon as a way to cut their losses on the financing. The article said a person familiar with the deal said the banks would get a nominal return on their investment.

A merged company of this size would no doubt be scrutinized by regulators in the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission. And it’s likely that Verizon would have to divest some of its assets in markets where the companies overlap.

As for any other potential buyers, Sprint Nextel, the other CDMA carrier in the U.S., is in no position to make a big acquisition like this one. The company has seen its subscribers and profits plummet since the failed merger with Nextel in 2005. In fact, some analysts speculate that Sprint Nextel is also on the auction block. The company has already spun off its WiMax division to combine it with Clearwire’s network assets. And rumors have floated around that German-based Deutsche Telekom has been eying it, although this seems highly unlikely.

Verizon Wireless is taking another look at buying regional wireless operator Alltel, according to a story published Wednesday afternoon by The Wall Street Journal.

After a few days with a teaser site, Microsoft has gone live with dozens of videos from its project, in which Vista skeptics were shown a new Microsoft operating system, code-named Mojave. After giving their take (almost all positive), the participants were told that it was actually Vista they were being shown.

Then, as you know, they are told it’s actually Vista and are all surprised.

“It always crashes,” a third says.

“It’s totally different than what I had heard,” one participant said.

“Wow,” one said.

Microsoft has put up dozens of the videos, including, to their credit, at least one of a person who remained skeptical. For what it’s worth, the Microsoft people I spoke with said they were actually looking for more negative stuff and just didn’t have the footage.

In the initial video, Microsoft shows a collection of reactions from participants who were asked about their Vista impressions.

“The speed is incredible,” another said.

So I told you about Microsoft’s Mojave Experiment last week. Now it is your chance to weigh in on just how compelling the footage is.

One of the Mojave participants talks about her Vista experience on the Mojave Experiment Web site, which went live on Tuesday.

Now, as I and others have pointed out, there is a huge difference between seeing what amounts to a short demo of an operating system and actually having to install new software, work with existing devices, and do the kinds of everyday computing tasks we all do. In addition, the videos are edited, so one has to believe Microsoft when it says it wasn’t cherry-picking the clips it included.

That said, it seems to me that Microsoft is still better off using voices of people it has convinced, as opposed to its default tactic, which is to try to tell everyone that they are wrong.

This should finally turn the tide.
Some people will bite, sure.
No way.

News.com Poll Conversion rate
Will the Mojave videos convince anyone to get Vista?

The software maker did put up some aggregate statistics, saying that of 140 participants, 94 percent rated Vista higher after seeing it, with none actually reducing their score. The participants’ average pre-Mojave rating for Vista was 4.4, with the average rating after seeing Vista as Mojave was 8.5.

“I wouldn’t touch the thing,” one said.

Then, they are shown a new version of Windows, code-named Mojave.

View results

“It’s horrible,” another says.

(Credit:
CNET News)

The newspaper consortium includes 11 major newspaper companies, including the Hearst Newspapers, MediaNews Group, and E.W. Scripps.

Zillow.com, which in November 2007 teamed up with a consortium of newspapers to carry their listings on its real-estate site, has now expanded that deal to include the sale of ads on each other’s sites.

“This partnership allows advertisers with our papers to reach not only local real-estate consumers who live in particular markets, but also consumers who may be moving to particular markets, via their searches on Zillow.com,” Lincoln Millstein, a Hearst Newspapers senior vice president, said in a statement.

Under the Zillow Advertising Network agreement, the consortium’s advertisers can tap into Zillow’s user base of more than 5 million unique monthly visitors, while Zillow’s advertisers will have access to readers of the newspapers’ online real-estate content.

The launch of the advertising network comes at a time when the real-estate industry is facing a steep decline in home prices, driven by a tightening credit crunch.

Energy and environmental policy were certainly not the top topic of the president-elect’s public statements, given the pressing nature of the economic crisis and executing the transition between administrations.

“The president-elect will move quickly on climate change,” Jason Grumet, a high-level Obama campaign’s lead energy and environment adviser, told a conference on carbon trading last week.

“It means investing $150 billion to build an American green-energy economy that will create 5 million new jobs while freeing our nation from the tyranny of foreign oil and saving our planet for our children,” Obama said.

In addition to spending on energy infrastructure, Obama’s energy plan calls for incentives for energy efficiency, a national renewable energy mandate for utilities, a low-carbon biofuels standard, and a cap-and-trade system for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Obama: It’s more important. It may be a little harder politically, but it’s more important.

Addressing the question of a bailout for cash-strapped U.S. automakers, Obama said that giving them government money with conditions is the best policy.

But Obama’s recent statements, as well as those from his advisers, indicate that energy remains a high priority. The idea is that an energy policy focused on clean technologies can address environmental problems while stimulating the economy.

Interviewer Steve Kroft asked whether cutting oil imports was less important now that the price of oil has plummeted from $147 a barrel earlier this year to under $60.

Obama: Well, because this has been our pattern. We go from shock to trance. You know, oil prices go up, gas prices at the pump go up, everybody goes into a flurry of activity. And then the prices go back down and suddenly we act like it’s not important, and we start, you know filling up our SUVs again.

Meanwhile, in his weekly radio address on Saturday that was broadcast as a video online, Obama reaffirmed his plans for long-term investments on green energy.

He said that allowing the U.S. automakers to collapse would be a disaster but that handing them a blank check won’t solve the problem. Instead, he said that the various stakeholders need to come up with a plan for a “sustainable auto industry.” From the interview:

Obama said a consensus exists among policymakers that a stimulus package is required to prop up the deteriorating economy.

And, as a consequence, we never make any progress. It’s part of the addiction, all right. That has to be broken. Now is the time to break it.

So my hope is that over the course of the next week, between the White House and Congress, the discussions are shaped around providing assistance but making sure that that assistance is conditioned on labor, management, suppliers, lenders, all the stakeholders coming together with a plan (for) what does a sustainable U.S. auto industry look like? So that we are creating a bridge loan to somewhere as opposed to a bridge loan to nowhere.”

The anxious auto and clean-energy industries have received positive signals from President-elect Barack Obama in the past two days.

In an interview with 60 Minutes broadcast on Sunday, Obama said he intends to pursue a government stimulus package that includes investments to promote clean technologies, even though oil prices have fallen dramatically during 2008.

Kroft: Why?

Google was the dominant site to watch videos in the United States in March.

People in the United States watched about 11.5 billion videos online in March, and Google extended its dominance in the area, according to new figures released Monday.

Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock in 2006. It’s working on new YouTube ad technology, Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said last week, to try to make more money from the video site.

Rivals are far, far behind: Fox Interactive Media, with 4.2 percent share; Yahoo with 2.9 percent, Viacom with 2.2 percent; and Microsoft with 2.1 percent.

(Credit:
ComScore)

The total number of videos watched grew 13 percent since February 2008 and 64 percent since March 2007, the Web analysis firm said.

Google’s sites served up 38 percent of the total videos watched, and YouTube accounted for 98 percent of Google’s tally, ComScore said. Google gained 2.6 percentage points of market share since February.

“It’s fair to say we’re disappointed we’re not able to go after the operating margin targets we set two years ago,” Lehman said. “It would be damaging to the long-term health of the company to hit an arbitrary number.”

In after-hours trading, Sun’s stock dropped $2.48, or 15 percent, to $13.85.

Update 4:02 p.m. PT: I corrected the revenue Sun reported for the quarter. It was $3.266 billion. Update 3:11 p.m. PT: I added more detail on Sun’s employee total and after-hours trading.

In addition, Lehman stepped back from a financial goal it set in 2007 after declaring Sun had “turned the corner.” The company then had aimed for operating margin, a measure of profitability, of 10 percent for fiscal 2009, but Lehman said on Thursday that Sun now is aiming for “at least 7 percent.” Lehman blamed the economy, but the figure also was reduced because of MySQL operational costs.

The server and software company on Thursday announced grim results for its fiscal third quarter, which ended March 30, that showed declining revenue and a swing to a net loss.

“The U.S. economy presented Sun with significant challenges in the third quarter, masking our progress in developing nations and economies across the world,” said Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz in a statement.

Sun Chief Financial Officer Mike Lehman also said the company will cut 1,500 to 2,500 jobs. The company had 34,400 employees at the end of the quarter.

Sun reported a net loss of $34 million, or 4 cents per share, a decline from net income of $67 million in the year-earlier quarter; the figure includes charges of about 4 cents per share from the acquisition of open-source database company MySQL. Revenue decreased $17 million to $3.266 billion, a notch below the $3.4 billion expected by analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.

IBM, Intel, and Google have been immune to the economic slowdown, but Sun Microsystems wasn’t.

TechCrunch is reporting that Charles River Ventures, a venture capital fund that focuses on Web start-ups, is trying to find a hot company through Facebook. According to the report, the firm is running ads on the popular social network saying it can “help…by investing in great entrepreneurs and big ideas.”

Ringful, a start-up that focuses on connecting the Web to mobile phones, launched a new Facebook app Friday called Voicetag, which lets users send voice-mail messages from their mobile phone to friends or groups in Facebook. To send a message, Voicetag requires the user to choose a friend and input his or her mobile phone number. Once complete, Voicetag calls the user and records their voice message. The recipient then receives a notification from Ringful, which includes a link to play the message. Voicetag is free and available now in Facebook’s App archive.

Amazon.com posted its biggest holiday season sales in history, the company reported Friday. According to data it compiled from witnessed sales, over 6.3 million items were ordered on December 15, its “peak” day, representing 72.9 items ordered per second. It shipped 5.6 million units that day, as well. Amazon shipped products to more than 210 countries and more than 99 percent of orders were sent in time to meet holiday deadlines worldwide. The Samsung 52-inch 1080p LCD HDTV with RED Touch of Color was the top-seller in consumer electronics, followed by the 8GB
iPod Touch and the Acer Aspire One.