Another Missing Person:Silicon Valley Girl Disappears

Once again,the eye of truth is seeking answers.A Silicon Valley teenager,Sierra LaMar,15,has gone missing from her Morgan Hill,California home.A bag of her clothing and her cellphone were found tossed by the roadside.
As readers may know,we have been informed of the cases of two other young Hispanic women,who turned out to have been murdered in Los Angeles in the past 12 months.Los Angeles is 320 miles from the LaMar home in Santa Clara County.That doesn't mean there is any connection with Sierra's case.
Sierra could not be tracked by search dogs beyond the end of her driveway in Morgan Hill,raising the possiblity that someone drove off with her.Her bus driver didn't see her the day she went missing.We pray for her safe return as soon as possible.
The connection we do know is,our search for justice for all these women will go forward,no matter how busy it gets.

Ballmer's Search View

Steve Ballmer,CEO of Microsoft,expressed his vision of the search world at the recent SMX event in Santa Clara,California.Google got to search first,Mr.Ballmer admitted.There's a value to incumbency.The truth is,we do have an ambition to grow.I guarantee you,search is gonna be an ever-growing share of Microsoft's profits.
The dynamics of business model competition are fascinating,Mr.Ballmer believes.There are a whole set of innovations still to come around business models.We've got seven or eight big businesses,plus a lot of our customers.I'm generally working on things that are in an intersection.We've got great people actually driving the search team.They have really improved,and there's always a new frontier.
We have a great partnership with Twitter.Whether we need to own the company or not I think is less clear.I'm more of a consumer than an author when it comes to the real time type of service such as Twitter.Facebook wants to be an independent company.A great collaboration would be best both for the searcher and for us,Mr.Ballmer said,wearing a burgundy sweatshirt over his blue button down.
We've got a lot of great stuff in the user experience.We've got to consolidate and drive taking action.We want to make sure we take care of the breadth of our experience in different countries over the next couple of years.The biggest opportunity in search is really helping people get done what they're trying to get done.It shouldn't be that hard to call up data.I'd like data assembled for me.We're all gonna have to go further and further down that path,the Microsoft CEO observed.

Swedish Firm Rounds Out Sun Micro

The best thing I can do is publish the story I wrote,because it remains true.The companies I mentioned are open for business today,regardless of share prices.That should tell you something about today's flash in the market.Sun Microsystems(JAVA) has purchased Swedish firm MySQL for one billion dollars.MySQL is a vendor of open source database software.Its customers include Google(GOOG),You Tube,IKEA and Facebook.The software itself is free,but integration and maintenance services for it are not.It is with these that Sun,which has a deep commitment to the open source concept,intends to make a profit.MySQL provides platforms for the Web economy,and the Web's enabling of cost reductions and efficiency are making the Internet very attractive to consumers and businesses,according to Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz.MySQL gives peace of mind to customers.The acquisition of MySQL make's Sun's Solaris the only operating system with database software.Together with Java technology,Solaris and MySQL give Sun a fuller circle of software products to complement its breadwinner server systems.Prior to acquiring MySQL,Sun relied on Oracle(ORCL) for databases.The open source concept championed by Sun is both more economical and flexible for Internet companies.Given these advantages,Sun expects to meet or exceed analysts' expectations for its fiscal second quarter earnings and revenue,which will be reported on January 24.Sun has seen 7% bookings growth,with real strength in Asia,Africa and the Middle East.Its products are in the right phase of their life cycles to generate profits as great as,or greater than,expected.Shares of the Santa Clara,California firm were among the best performers in last week's dismal market.

Sun Micro Faces East

Sun Microsystems(JAVA)is expecting double digit growth in China sales within the next fiscal year.It is providing new products to Asia as the market in the U.S. and U.K. decline,hit by slowing economic growth and the credit crunch.By the fourth quarter,Sun is expecting a 4% increase in profits,and a 10% increase within three years.Kohlberg Kravis Roberts,a private equity firm,has made a large purchase of Sun Micro corporate bonds,which amounts to a big vote of confidence.Sun is the fourth largest producer of server computers.With the aggressive development of virtualization and online telephony,Sun's products will be in growing demand.Sun's earnings rose to .09 cents a share,versus an estimate of .05 cents.Revenue in the software segment was up 6%.Revised profit was 329 million dollars.With the striving for efficiency,its Solaris operating system is especially relevant.The big search and internet companies are likely to demand Sun's products.Sun's expanded margins took the cost of doing business down.With much cash on hand,the company is on the lookout for good acquisitions.The KKR position is not CEO Johnathan Schwartz's focus;his focus is growing Sun,which posted its third consecutive quarterly profit.The firm is based in Santa Clara,California.