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Latest News
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Written by Admin
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Wednesday, 11 February 2009 |
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Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are known for their eternal optimism, which prevails even when their start-ups face near-death experiences. Elon Musk, the chief executive of electric car start-up Tesla Motors, is one such entrepreneur.
After each major bump in the road for Tesla, rumors swirl that the company will not make it. In the last year, it has kicked out one C.E.O., given up on raising $100 million in venture capital and delayed production of its next car, the Model S sedan.
Yet in a letter to customers and potential customers on Wednesday, Mr. Musk said Tesla is right on track. The company will be profitable by mid-year, unveil a prototype of the Model S in March, open new showrooms for its Roadster sports car and likely get a loan from the federal government to produce the Model S, Mr. Musk wrote.
He also signaled that Tesla is growing its side business of building electric powertrains for other car companies. That has been the only part of Tesla’s business that is profitable. In January, the company signed on to build battery packs for Daimler electric Smart cars. “The deal is likely to be the first in a series of strategic partnerships between Tesla and other auto manufacturers to engineer and produce electric cars,” Mr. Musk wrote.
Despite all the hype around Tesla, it has so far delivered only 200 Roadsters and has been losing money. Still, Mr. Musk insisted that the Roadster business will also be profitable by the summer. Though some people have canceled their orders because of financial difficulties, Mr. Musk said Tesla has orders for 1,000 more cars and a wait list through November.
Tesla originally estimated that each Roadster would cost $65,000 to produce but later determined that it actually cost $140,000 to produce. Tesla has since decreased the production cost, and it has increased the price tag for buying one to $109,000.
Tesla raised $40 million in convertible debt in December. “It appears highly likely that Tesla will meet the goal promised to those investors of becoming profitable by mid-year,” Mr. Musk wrote.
The comparatively affordable Model S is having more trouble. Its production has been repeatedly delayed and is now slated for 2011, but that is dependent on a $350 million, low-interest Department of Energy loan, for which Tesla has applied. Mr. Musk wrote that the D.O.E. informed Tesla that it expects to disburse funds in four to five months, but Tesla has not yet gotten confirmation that it will receive any funds, said Tesla spokeswoman Rachel Konrad.
Even if the money comes through, Tesla does not have a place to build the Model S plant. Though it announced in September that it would build the plant in San Jose, Calif., Tesla is now negotiating with other cities. That is because the D.O.E. gives preference to companies building plants on previously developed land, and the space in San Jose does not meet that criteria, Ms. Konrad said. Once Tesla raises money and finds a site, it will take 24 to 30 months to start producing the car, she said.
Mr. Musk is convinced that once people see and drive Tesla cars, they will be eager to become customers. Tesla has signed leases to open showrooms in Chicago and London later this year and is finalizing leases in four other cities. “After all, what’s the point of driving another exotic sports car when it is slower than a Tesla and damages the environment?” he wrote. Recommend this article... |
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Latest News
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Written by Admin
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Monday, 27 October 2008 |
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If Microsoft doesn't purchase all of Yahoo or at least their search business by 2010, they'll be getting out of the online ad business, according to analysts at Cowen and Company. In a research note released today, analysts Kevin Kopelman and Jim Friedland have concluded that Microsoft's respectable third quarter earnings are still troubling for Microsoft's online ad business: None of Microsoft's online initiatives have gained traction and we do not believe the company's current strategy will result in a change in the status quo. We estimate that the OSB unit will have a 7-8 percent drag on Microsoft's earnings in FY2009. As the economy slows, we believe pressure will increase on the company
to focus on profitable initiatives.
Microsoft's online services business (OSB) grew 15 percent in the third quarter (compared to Google's 31 percent growth and Yahoo's 9 percent), but the company's OSB is operating with a loss of $480 million on revenues of $770 million. After Microsoft's offer to purchase Yahoo this summer was rejected, Microsoft has stated that it is no longer interested in the portal. However, as Yahoo's search partnership with Google languishes in a Justice Department antitrust investigation, Yahoo's prospects are looking more grim. If the deal fails, Yahoo may be available at a price far lower than Microsoft originally offered. And Friedland and Kopelman seem to think that Microsoft's online advertising hopes are contingent on some sort of Yahoo partnership. As they see it, Microsoft has three options over the next 18 months: they can purchase a 100 percent stake in Yahoo, acquire Yahoo's search business, or exit the online ad business. Even the company's exit is tied up in Yahoo. They see a possbile exchange of MSN/Live.com for a minority stake in Yahoo. Recommend this article... |
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Latest News
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Written by Admin
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Monday, 27 October 2008 |
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I have to confess, I haven’t paid much attention to Opera Software until recently. The Norwegian company has been an also-ran in the browser market for 13 years. On Friday, I had a chance to sit down with its co-founder and chief executive, Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner. I can’t say that I’m convinced that Opera is now poised to take the Web by storm, but his take on the browser world makes good sense and paints a picture of a future with browsers everywhere. As a company, Opera focuses on areas where Internet Explorer and Firefox are hardly to be found. Some 80 percent of its business is browsers for mobile phones and other devices that aren’t computers. It has relatively few users in the United States. Its PC browser is particularly popular in central and eastern Europe. One reason is that the browser is optimized to run on old computers with slow connections. Mr. von Tetzchner said the main reason that Opera has not done better in the United States is that it had to compete first with Microsoft and then Firefox, both of which gave browsers away free. Opera struggled for a business model, trying shareware, paid downloads, and display advertising, none of which proved to be popular. Since 2005, it has been giving an ad-free browser away free. Now it earns money from search engines, which pay for traffic from its search box. Mr. von Tetzchner wouldn’t go into detail, but he said these add up to more than $1 per user per year. The future of browsers on computers is going down two paths, he said. There are more features to help users organize their information, such as a new service that helps synchronize bookmarks among several computers and phones. On the other hand, Mr. von Tetzchner echoes the view of Google and many others, that the browser is becoming the platform for applications. Some Web standards that are emerging will permit more functions for standalone applications, including storing information on local computers, displaying more sophisticated graphics and receiving notifications from remote servers. Recommend this article... |
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