App Makers Take Interest in Android - New York Times

One software developer, James Englert, 26, had just released his first application for Android, Google’s operating system for cellphones. When asked, he tossed out an estimate for his take from sales of the app, a simple program that shows train schedules: “$1 to $2 per day.”

The room erupted with laughter. “That’s pretty good money,” he protested over the clamor.

The others could relate to Mr. Englert’s situation because writing Android software is not yet a ticket to financial success. Even as Android sales surge — Google says it is now activating around 200,000 phones a day — the market for Android apps still seems anemic compared with that for Apple and its thriving App Store.

Experts and developers say that is in part because the Android Market, the dominant store for Android apps, has some clunky features that can be annoying to phone owners eager to make a quick purchase. For starters, Android uses Google Checkout rather than an online payment system that more people are familiar with, like PayPal. As a result, many Android developers make their apps available free and rely on mobile advertisements to cover the cost.

“It’s not the best impulse-buy environment,” said Matt Hall, co-founder of a developer outfit called Larva Labs that makes games for Android, iPhone and BlackBerry devices. “It’s hard to think of an application that you would sit there and put your credit card information in for.”

But that tide is starting to turn as Android’s popularity continues to swell and Google takes steps to smooth out some of the wrinkles. For example, the Android Market recently began showing app prices in a user’s local currency, rather than that of the developer.

“We’re still seeing the 1.0 version of the ecosystem,” said Andy Rubin, vice president for engineering at Google and a primary architect behind Android.

Mr. Rubin said there were 270,000 developers writing software for Android, and the number of programs available for download in the Android Market has swelled to more than 100,000, a threefold increase since March.

Developers can feel the shift in momentum. “I used to tell people I wrote software for Android, and they’d look at me like I had three heads,” said Michael Novak, who handles Android development at Medialets, a mobile advertising software company, and helps organize the monthly New York Android Software Developers Meetup. “That wasn’t even a year ago. Now everyone knows what it is.”

Perhaps the biggest point of friction for Android is the same thing that led to its success.

Because Google makes its software available free to a range of phone manufacturers, there are dozens of different Android-compatible devices on the market, each with different screen sizes, memory capacities, processor speeds and graphics capabilities. An app that works beautifully on, say, a Motorola Droid might suffer from glitches on a phone made by HTC. IPhone developers, meanwhile, need to worry about only a few devices: iPhones, iPods and iPads.

When Rovio, the Finnish software development company behind the popular iPhone game Angry Birds, decided to release a version for Android, the company spent months testing the game on a variety of devices to make sure it was up to par.

“It’s so fragmented,” said Peter Vesterbacka, a developer at the company. “It’s a lot more challenging than developing for one device, like the iPhone.”

In the end, he said, it was worth the trouble. The game was downloaded more than three million times in the first week. But the company, which charges 99 cents for the iPhone version and has made millions of dollars that way, chose to give away the Android version and include ads. This is in part because paid apps on the Android Market are available in only 32 countries, versus 90 for the Apple App Store, and Rovio was concerned that people who were not able to purchase the app would just pirate it.

But developers also say that charging for apps simply may not be the path to profit on Android.

“Google is not associated with things you pay for, and Android is an extension of that,” said Mr. Hall of Larva Labs. “You don’t pay for Google apps, so it bleeds into the expectations for the third-party apps, too.”

Google says it hopes to introduce a transaction feature for Android software that will allow purchases within apps, to help developers make more money.

Developers do say that the freedom of Android is a welcome alternative to Apple’s tight control. Android developers have more rein to tinker with the phone’s native functions, like the address book and the basic interface, something Apple has not always allowed. And Apple screens all apps before they can reach its store, while Google imposes no such restriction, relying on Android users to flag malicious or offensive apps.

“With Apple, you can spend months writing software only to be denied,” Mr. Novak said. “The biggest reward as a developer is getting your software out there, and quick. That makes everything else worthwhile.”

Also unlike Apple, Google does not charge developers to sell their apps in its storefront.

Developers are not abandoning iPhone for Android. Instead, they say they are slowly starting to devote more resources to Android in the hope that those efforts will pay off.

They also note that it is a lot easier to stand out in a pool of 100,000 apps versus 300,000, the current tally for Apple’s store.

“Apple’s App Store is getting overcrowded and saturated,” said Eric Metois, a freelance tech consultant who writes apps on the side for the iPhone and Android.

Mr. Metois’s first iPhone app, iChalky, featuring a dancing stick figure, has sold more than 300,000 copies on the iPhone since it was released in December 2008. His second attempt, a game called Sparticle, was not as successful.

“I poured 500 hours into my second app on the iPhone and sold virtually no copies,” Mr. Metois said. In explaining why he recently released an Android version of iChalky, he said, “There was a chance that on another emerging platform, iChalky would have a similar amount of success.”

Analysts say that if Google wants its mobile software to succeed, it will need to make sure that developers do not lose patience with Android — particularly in light of new competition, including the slate of Windows 7 phones from Microsoft and the iPhone’s inevitable expansion to other carriers in the United States besides AT&T.

Mr. Rubin said he was not worried about rivals’ tempering the momentum of Android because he believed its future would stretch past the cellphone, to tablets and other devices yet to be conceived.

“The promise of Android goes beyond one device,” Mr. Rubin said. “We’re going to see products running Android that no one has ever envisioned possible.”

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Yahoo Huddles as Firms Show Interest - Wall Street Journal

Yahoo Inc., its stock rising on news that potential suitors are exploring deals for the company, is sounding out the seriousness of the interest, people familiar with the matter say.

In recent weeks, several private-equity firms—including Silver Lake Partners and Blackstone Group LP—have been toying with the idea of taking Yahoo private, including a scenario where they join forces with AOL Inc. to acquire Yahoo, according to people familiar with the matter. The firms have discussed the scenario with AOL.

Getty Images A Yahoo billboard in San Francisco.

Yahoo stock rose 6% Wednesday in unusually active trading. Then, after news reports about the interest, the shares spiked 10% Thursday morning, before slipping back and ending the day at $15.93, up 4.5%.

The interest among financial firms is preliminary and the parties have yet to approach Yahoo about any deal, people familiar with the matter say. They cautioned that a deal would be especially difficult to pull off given the complexities involved in spinning off Yahoo's Asian assets and avoiding a tax hit.

Yahoo has asked Goldman Sachs to find out if the expressions of interest are credible and—if any approach becomes formal—what steps to take, a person familiar with the matter said. The person characterized these discussions as routine in response to market speculation.

Yahoo has an existing relationship with Goldman, which helped fend off Microsoft Corp.'s advances in 2008.

The situation compounds the management challenges facing Yahoo chief executive Carol Bartz, who has been hit with a wave of executive departures and who some shareholders and board members feel isn't acting fast enough to turn around the Sunnyvale, Calif., company.

Yahoo declined to make Ms. Bartz available for an interview.

The barriers to any deal remain high. Yahoo has a market capitalization of roughly $21 billion and even if the company sold off some businesses, the price of a deal could be higher than many private-equity firms would stomach, they said.

Private-equity firms have been discussing one scenario that would entail Yahoo selling its valuable stake in Chinese Internet giant Alibaba Group back to Alibaba. Some analysts peg the value of that 40% stake at about $10 billion. The remaining company could be merged with AOL and taken private.

Bloomberg News AOL's CEO, Tim Armstrong, left, has been focusing on generating original content to package to advertisers. He has suggested Yahoo should do the same.

Some analysts said Yahoo could end up selling that stake on its own to appease some shareholders who have long agitated for such a move.

Alibaba sounded out eBay Inc.'s interest in a deal for Yahoo in September, according people familiar with the matter, but there were never serious discussions.

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The potential suitors believe a Yahoo-AOL combination could yield big cost savings, boosting the profitability of their online advertising businesses. AOL and Yahoo both run businesses that sell graphical ads, and offer email and instant-messaging services and a range of media properties on subjects ranging from celebrity gossip to news.

AOL chief executive Tim Armstrong has said privately that he thinks Yahoo could benefit from pursuing the strategy he is pushing at AOL: focusing on generating lots of content to package to advertisers. An AOL spokeswoman declined to comment.

Analysts say a Yahoo-AOL merger could create a strong competitor in the market for online display ads, which include video, banner and interactive ads. That market is expected to be roughly $20 billion world-wide this year, but many companies believe it could grow to $50 billion over the next few years as more video content moves online.

Bloomberg News Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is under pressure to speed up turnaround efforts. The company also has suffered a recent wave of executive departures.

The market is fragmented, with no dominant player.

Yahoo and AOL both sell display ads for their own Web properties, with Yahoo on track to sell about $2 billion worth this year and AOL on track to sell $500 million, according to Marianne Wolk, an analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group.

Yahoo's Right Media display advertising exchange could also benefit from an influx of AOL inventory. The stock-market like system provides a way for advertisers to buy graphical ads across an array of websites through an auction.

—Amir Efrati contributed to this article.

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World Stem Cell Summit in Detroit sparks kids' interest - Detroit Free Press

Her eyes scrunched and focused on the vial of cells just inches from her face, Rebecca Parker took a breath and ? with a quick press of a button ? plunged the 1.5 ml of microorganisms into an orange liquid that would help clean them of cryoprotectant.

Rebecca is 7, and she?s pretty sure there are ?ummm? about 240?? cells in the body.

OK, so she might need a few more years of study before heading into a real research lab.

But she?s also one of the reasons that the World Stem Cell Summit opened in Detroit today with a public education day at the Detroit Science Center: to catch the intrigue of children and adults in the kind of science expected to draw more than 1,000 of the world?s researchers, doctors, patient advocates, and investors through Wednesday.

And though there are several sessions throughout the week geared for the public, today?s focus was designed specifically for those stepping into the topic for the first time. There were microscopes to peek at stem cells, educational packets and DVDs for teachers, and a couple of games for kids to learn more about cells.

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