Every day, the Fortune staff spends hours poring over tech stories, posts, and reviews from all over the Web to keep tabs on the companies that matter. We’ve assembled the day’s most newsworthy bits below.
“The PC industry’s inability to significantly innovate, and its overreliance on a business model predicated on driving volume through price declines, are finally impacting the industry’s ability to induce new replacement cycles.” — Gartner Research director George Shiffler (Fortune)
- George W. Bush stopped by Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto for an hour-long live Q&A with social network CEO Mark Zuckerberg to chat about everything from his new book, Decision Points, to his dog, Barney. When asked why he chose Facebook of all outlets, Bush simply replied, “Because you’ve got a lot of people paying attention to you, and I’m trying to sell books.” (San Jose Mercury News)
Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Online shoppers came out in droves for “Cyber Monday,” with early estimates indicating sales gains of 20% compared to the same time last year.
- Did Google offer Groupon $5.3 billion? If so, that would make the potential acquisition the company’s largest acquisition ever. With 20 million subscribers, Groupon’s revenues are said to be upwards of $50 a month and the company itself recently reached a valuation of $1 billion. (BoomTown)
- Star tech analyst Mary Meeker, once dubbed the queen of the Net in the late 1990s for analyzing the prospects of tech companies, will leave Morgan Stanley to join Kleiner Perkins as a partner. “We’re at the beginning of another great wave of tech innovation and I am incredibly excited by the opportunity to help the next generation of Internet technologies and leaders,” said Meeker in a statement. (Fortune)
- Dissatisfied with the offered price, Seagate has ended talks of a potential private-equity buyout and will buy back $2 billion worth of its own shares. (Digital Trends)
- Microsoft reports moving more than 2.5 million Kinect hands-free controllers since it launched 25 days ago, which for comparison’s sake, is roughly twice as fast as it took the iPad to sell that many. (ReadWriteWeb and Microsoft)
- Microsoft is in the early stages of planning a new online subscription-only console TV service offered by devices like its Xbox console. Though it’s not expected for another 12 months, the company is exploring packaging options like a “virtual cable operator” that would deliver content over the Internet for a monthly fee and/or selling individual channels like HBO or Showtime. (Eurogamer)
- News Corp COO Chase Carey revealed in an interview that the company is willing to give MySpace an undisclosed amount of time to become profitable but remains open to the idea of a sale or partnership. (Reuters)
- One recent study surveying mobile phone users in the U.S., Britain, China, Germany, Spain and Brazil found that 75% of smart phone owners could switch over to another mobile OS when ever they upgrade. (TechSpot)
- IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo predicts Android will pretty much own the European mobile market, surpassing even Symbian, next year. (Fortune)
- Lending further credence to the belief that the iPad is becoming the “Mac for the masses,” comes reports that Apple sold 8.8 iPads per hour per store on Black Friday. (Fortune)
