E-Bay To Try Again In Japan By Using Help From Yahoo

EBay and Yahoo Japan said Tuesday that they would link up their auction sites to make cross-border bidding easier, in a deal that will give eBay, the American auction titan, another chance to woo Japanese consumers.

Shares in Yahoo Japan, owner of the nation’s biggest auction Web site, rose 3.9 percent to 56,400 yen on news of the deal.

EBay withdrew from Japan in 2002 after only two years, a rare failure for the company, after struggling to make inroads in a market where Yahoo Japan and Rakuten already operated well-established sites.

EBay and Yahoo Japan, which together have about 4 trillion yen ($36 billion) in annual successful bids, will first start a Japanese-language site on which Yahoo Japan users can bid for eBay items, spokesmen from the two firms said. The companies said they would call the site Sekaimon or “gateway to the world.”

Yahoo Japan, which estimates it has more than half of the online auction market in Japan, is about one-third owned by Yahoo and 40 percent by the Softbank Corporation. Softbank’s shares gained 2.1 percent, to 2,665 yen.

EBay has been seeking local partners to bolster its Asian operations in the face of mounting competition.

In China, it is working on a joint venture with the TOM Group’s TOM Online to compete against Alibaba.com. In Thailand, it plans to start a joint site with a domestic partner, Sanook.

Yahoo Japan said Shop Airlines, a unit of the online sales services firm NetPrice, would manage the site, payment services, customs clearance and delivery.

Google’s New Search — For Cheap, Clean Electricity

A heap of climate and energy experts have been aching for government and/or the private sector to step forward in a big way to take on the challenge of diverting the world from its expanding appetite for fossil fuels.

Google has now announced what looks like just the kind of effort they’ve all been talking about. The initiative is called Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal. Company officials said they planned to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in projects that aim to make nonpolluting technologies for generating electricity competitive with what has been the norm for the last 100 years — burning black rocks.

An initial focus will be solar thermal technology, in which arrays of mirrors heat a substance to drive a generator, something that Matthew L. Wald of The Times has written about in the continuing Energy Challenge series.

According to Google’s news release, the company is hiring engineers and energy experts to lead its research and development work, which will begin with a significant effort on solar thermal technology, and will also investigate enhanced geothermal systems and other areas. In 2008, Google expects to spend tens of millions on research and development and related investments in renewable energy. As part of its capital planning process, the company also anticipates investing hundreds of millions of dollars in breakthrough renewable energy projects which generate positive returns.

ITAA and GEIA Announce Merger Discussions

The boards of directors of the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) and the Government Electronics and Information Technology Association (GEIA) have announced that they have agreed to enter into discussions toward a potential merger of the groups’ memberships and programs in 2008.

“Today’s government technology marketplace demands convergence and commercial innovation,” said GEIA Chairman Randy Lucas. “Whether focused on electronics or IT, government or commercial markets; companies should be able to gather in one place to advance the industry and help uphold America’s position as the world’s innovation headquarters.”

“We intend to carry industry’s message to Washington with a louder and clearer voice,” said ITAA Chairman Dave Sanders. “For too long our nation’s leaders have had to sort through a complex and sometimes inconsistent series of statements and positions to understand industry’s needs — this is the first step toward solving that problem.”

The resulting organization would represent more than 380 member companies offering technology solutions to consumers and commercial companies; federal, state and local government agencies and the Department of Defense. It would combine GEIA’s business development, networking, standards and market analysis products and programs with the offerings available through ITAA’s Commercial and Public Sector Groups in public policy advocacy, business development and networking.

“GEIA’s market forecasting reports, government relations and standards programs are extremely complementary to ITAA’s offerings, particularly our leading public policy advocacy,” said Henry Steininger, incoming ITAA Chairman for 2008. “The merger of these two association leaders would clearly yield a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.”

Gene Glazar, incoming GEIA Chairman for 2008, said: “A merger also would provide our members with a new home where they can ally themselves not only with other companies serving the public sector, but also those developing cutting-edge commercial solutions for the private sector.”

Thirty-two prominent government technology contractors belong to both ITAA and GEIA, representing approximately 30 percent the organizations’ combined revenues.

About GEIA
GEIA represents companies which provide the government with electronics and information technology (IT) solutions. In partnership with its members and their government customers, GEIA studies the market for IT solutions and advanced electronics products and services for defense and civil government agencies. GEIA then produces an annual 10-Year Defense Market Forecast and a 5-year Federal IT Forecast. Through its government relations efforts, GEIA is in constant touch with key government executives, representatives of civilian and defense agencies, and the Congress. They maintain an active standards development program to provide industry with proven solutions to business process challenges. The association has become recognized nationally and internationally for its leadership and expertise on a variety of key standards. For more information, visit www.geia.org.

About ITAA
The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) provides global public policy, business networking, and national leadership to promote the continued rapid growth of the IT industry. ITAA consists of over 300 corporate members throughout the U.S. The Association plays the leading role in issues of IT industry concern including information security, taxes and finance policy, digital intellectual property protection, telecommunications competition, workforce and education, immigration, online privacy and consumer protection, government IT procurement, human resources and e-commerce policy. ITAA members range from the smallest IT start-ups to industry leaders in the Internet, software, IT services, digital content, systems integration, telecommunications, and enterprise solution fields. For more information, visit www.itaa.org. ITAA is secretariat of the World Information Technology and Services Alliance, consisting of 70 IT trade associations around the world.

New Satellite TV Receiver Choices Are As Exciting As The HDTV Itself!

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