1999– Priceline filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and its Expedia travel service. The suit outlined how they violated U.S. patent number 5,794,207, “Method and Apparatus for a Cryptographically Assisted Network System Designed to Facilitate Buyer-Driven Conditional Purchase Offers.” The two sites come to terms in 2001, in where Microsoft pays a fine.
1997– MCI was under a bid to be purchased by British Telecommunications. Worldcom came in and outbid BT to snag up the company. What made this the coup de grace is it would make Worldcom the #2 telecom provider, under AT&T. The $37 Billion dollar merger would finalize on November 10th. Then, September 1998 – MCI Worldcom would officially launch. This all crumbled in 2002 when Worldcom filed for bankruptcy.
I was an employee of Worldcom and had been since its original namesake LDDS. At the time we were awestruck.
2011 – Netflix CEO Reed Hastings made one of the biggest blunders of 2011 when he announced not only was the DVD section of Netflix getting a new name, but also that section was up for sale. Qwikster brought a lot of attention rapidly for two reasons – 1. It was close to Amway’s spin-off Quixster, and 2. Qwikster used to be the twitter handle of a pot-smoking Elmo character. Since then, Hastings apologized and the company reeled back the statement. However, it was not before they lost 2/3 of their stock and over 800,000 subscribers. Currently, their stock is at $57 a share (from $295 back in July 2011).
1995 – The National Cash Register Company (NCR) Started in 1884 with Point of Sales registers. The company deals in all types of POS, but had financial problems. In 1991, AT&T purchased NCR for $7.4 billion. NCR has been the only AT&T acquisition that retained their original name. on Sept. 201995 AT&T would spin NCR back into it’s own company due to the antitrust issues put forward
2008 -Sarah Palin succumbed to a hacker in a different way – through her Yahoo! email. The infiltrator gained access by using common information to reset the password. David Kernell then posted her email and new password on 4chan.org under the alias “Rubico”. It showed that by using common information to set up an account, it could also turn into a “back door” for someone who would know that information.
Red Hat is a Linux distribution and a vendor. They are on the S&P 500 company list for it. Founded in 1993, this company has provided a more professional type of open source software – giving pay support and Enterprise editions for IT pros. CEO Bob Young brought the company to this point. They filed for IPO in 1999. It turned out to be one of the largest Wall Street Gains in history. They put up 900,000 shares of common stock. Red Hat spiked at $136 a share, but is currently at $57
Also, Palm released the Palm VIIx and Vx handheld computers. VIIx was $449 and the Vx was $399.
2013 – Jeff Bezos puchased the Washington Post for $250 million dollars. The deal was officially finalized on October 1, 2013. Later, in an article in Forbes, Bezos admits he was talked into the purchase.
The Washington Post is a separate entity from Amazon.
2002 – The Internet2 – Otherwise known as the Abilene Network – deploys Internet Protocol v.6. The switch from IPv4was to give a network layer that could include packet-switched internetworks. This increases the IP addresses available.
Focused on members’ technology needs since 1996, Internet2 provides a collaborative environment for U.S. research and education (R&E) organizations to solve common technology challenges, and develop innovative solutions in support of their educational, research, and community service missions. Activating the same partnerships that produced today’s Internet, our members are forging the future Internet through community, an unsurpassed innovation platform, and trans formative, above the-network services and applications.
Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought.That was the first book Amazon sold on July 16th, 1995. The company ran from their garage in Bellevue, Washington. 3 SPARC machines was all they had and a cool little mechanism that rung a bell every time a book was sold. The business model was set to make profit in 5 years. It was a good thing, because that may have helped it survive the dot com bubble.
17 years later, Amazon is going strong. Purchases of companies like WOOT! and Zappos!, along with the introduction of Kindle e-reader and Amazon Prime, the company is one of the largest resellers of product on the web.
2000 – IBM unveiled the ASCI White – their fastest computer yet. This supercomputer was based on IBM’s commercial RS/6000 SP computer. 512 computers were connected to make this supercomputer. over 8 million processors, 5 Terabytes of memory and 160 TB of disk storage.
The computer was completed on this day in New York, and would go on-line on August 15, 2001 at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.