Facebook and WhatsApp-what's up with that

Facebook is acquiring mobile messaging service WhatsApp for 19 billion dollars.It is a cross-platform mobile messaging app which allows you to exchange messages without having to pay for it.It works with Android,iPhone,BlackBerry,Windows Phone and Nokia.It may also be downloaded to your PC via DownloadApper.com.There is a nominal subscription charge of one dollar a year.The Mountain View,California company was founded in 2009 by CEO Jan Koum and Brian Acton.*
CNBC's tech analyst John Fortt commented on the move,saying we're in this interesting land grab period for mobile and social.Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spent 10% of his company for this.That's a lot.It has no revenue raising opportunity.Its users are mostly in the emerging markets and are not willing to pay much more.It's gigantic.A couple of bucks a year in some of these countries is a lot of money.
I don't say it's a bad move.It's a move to increase scale,to take out a potential competitor.Facebook and WhatsApp have it cut out for them to scale it and make it succeed financially.There are lots of different ways to look at the strategic value of something like this,and we won't know for a couple of years how good it was.Facebook investors never got to go to WhatsApp and look into it,Fortt pointed out.*
His colleague,CNBC Contributor Jon Steinberg,added that the rules have changed,and you have to take bold moves.WhatsApp is way bigger than Twitter.With this move,Facebook is now diversified.
Everyone in the Valley has been talking about this company for months.Everybody wanted to buy this company.Shareholders should bear in mind that Zuckerberg made a good move that was an expensive move,but they should be glad they have a CEO willing to take bold action in a rapidly changing field.*
Facebook might not make much money off the move initially,but that doesn't mean they had a choice if they want to stay in the big leagues of mobile and social media.*
Facebook(FB)

MasterCard's Move;Cisco's Issue;Home Depot

MasterCard has announced a ten for one stock split;an 83% dividend increase;and a 3.5 billion dollar stock buyback.Retail investors don't want to buy just one share of MasterCard for 200.00,CNBC analyst Jim Cramer pointed out.It's well-run.These guys are not lightweights.*
Citigroup has issued a buy recommendation on Alcatel-Lucent,and a sell on Cisco Systems.I think people are starting to recognise there is a management problem at Cisco.The analysts are giving up.It was the biggest darling;now it's a hated stock.CEO John Chambers isn't going anywhere,however.He and Cisco are revered in the Silicon Valley.*
Home Depot is a great company and CEO Frank Blake is a fabulous operator.I love the stores.Frank Blake is the great hard goods merchant of our day.You bet against Home Depot,I think you're making a big mistake.That stock should not be down,said CNBC's popular author and host Jim Cramer,who has a law degree and roots for the Philadelphia Eagles.*
Alcatel-Lucent(ALU),Cisco Systems(CSCO),MasterCard(MC),Home Depot(HD)

Joy Covey,Helped Grow Amazon.com

Joy Covey,a high school dropout who rose to become a formative leader of Amazon.com,was killed Wednesday,September 18 in San Mateo County,California.She was struck by a minivan while cycling downhill on Skyline Boulevard near Portola Valley and was pronounced dead at the scene,a California Highway Patrol spokesman said.She was fifty years old.
The brilliant and beautiful blonde had been named to Fortune magazine's Most Powerful Women in Business 1999.The daughter of a doctor and a nurse,she dropped out of San Mateo High School in her freshman year,but passed the high school equivalency exam and graduated from Cal State Fresno in 1982 at age 19,when she passed the CPA exam,scoring second best in the nation.She worked for accounting firm Arthur Young LLP before attending Harvard,from which she earned her MBA and JD degrees in 1989.
Ms.Covey worked in Silicon Valley as chief financial officer for audio software firm Digidesign,Inc.,shepherding it through its IPO and eventual sale to Avid Technology,Inc. before accepting the CFO position at the fledgling Amazon.com in Seattle in 1996.At the time,it had only 150 employees.Her special role at Amazon was to help founder Jeff Bezos recruit senior management and be the firm's Wall Street liaison,sharing the money-losing company's vision with nervous investors.This freed Bezos to focus on the retailer's all-important customer experience.
A multimillionaire from her Amazon stock options compensation,Covey resigned from the rat race in 2000 to pursue her interests in extreme sports and the environment,earning her pilot's license and becoming a trustee and Treasurer at the Natural Resources Defense Council.She was appointed to the board of JetBlue Airways in 2003.
Ms.Covey is survived by her son Tyler,eight.Our sincere condolences to her friends and family.

Should You Invest in Tesla Motors

Tesla Motors is s Silicon Valley company that produces fully electric vehicles that get high marks for drivability.It was co-founded by leading engineer Elon Musk.Tesla trades as a tech company,forward-looking,according to Ben Kallo,Senior Analyst at RW Baird.They'll eventually have to produce some earnings to back up the steep share price,when they demonstrate they can build a car for the average consumer at a price of about 32,000 dollars.They need a cheaper battery pack.Right now,Tesla produces performance cars that go for about 100,000.*Tesla holds an 8% share of the US luxury car market and showed an 8% improvement in gross margins.I'm at a 118 price target on the stock-meaning it is presently overpriced.It closed at 147.95,up 0.39%,in Monday after hours trading.*Tesla has built a brand with a loyal following that is spreading like wildfire,Mr.Kallo concluded.*Based in Palo Alto,California,Tesla has 31 stores and service centers worldwide,and is on the road in 37 countries.Two models are currently available,the Roadster and the Model S.The Model X utility vehicle will be available in 2014,the company says.*Tesla Motors(TSLA)

The Big Shift:Hewlett-Packard's Bet

CEO Leo Apotheker(pronounced "Ahpotayker")is moving Hewlett-Packard to an IBM model of software and services,says Scott Kessler,head of tech research at Standard&Poor's.It's gonna be uphill.It's gonna be very difficult to sell the pc business.Can they really be competitive in software?
HP is saying they don't want to be in pcs,tablets or smartphones.They are selling the Web OS operating system.HP is known at its core for its printer business.It's really gonna be a challenge to unload that.
This really is a sea change in tech.Google is getting into hardware,while HP is leaving it.These moves will have impacts for years to come,although attention has been focused on the financial markets recently,Mr.Kessler observed.
Carly Fiorina,who led HP from 1999-2005,thinks the current board has a lot of diverse experience and luminaries from the Silicon Valley.The board made a serious and substantial decision about the future.HP is a company with a very deep core competency in managing complexity.
HP is the largest tech company in the world,with more than 100,000 employees.The CEO is never the company;he is the leader of the company.It's all about the people and the systems and the culture of the company.Preparing a company for the future sometimes requires making a big bet.HP has been buying software companies.This isn't a totally new development,but they're making a big bet on unstructured data.
It's up to the people at HP to explain this and make it work.Anytime the stock drops like that,it places pressure on people-there's no question.They are doubling down in the enterprise space,former CEO Carly Fiorina pointed out.
UBS has cut its rating on HP from buy to neutral,lowering its price target to 26.00.
Hewlett-Packard(HPQ),International Business Machines(IBM)