Commerce

Meg Whitman for HP CEO? Board eyes change

He hasn't even been around for a year, and already reports are cropping up suggesting that Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Leo Apotheker will soon be replaced.

According to reports from AllThingsD and Bloomberg, citing anonymous sources, HP's board of directors is nearing a decision to remove Apotheker as CEO, and hire former eBay CEO Meg Whitman in his place. Although both publications said that a deal is by no means in place between HP and Whitman, Bloomberg's sources said she could be named to the position initially in an interim basis.

Apotheker took over at HP in November. … Read more

Rearden Commerce scores $133 million in funding

E-commerce firm Rearden Commerce is looking to expand both the company and its Deem platform through a round of funding and a new acquisition.

The e-commerce developer announced today that it has picked up $133 million in financing from its current partners American Express and JPMorgan Chase and from new investor Citi. The company is looking to spend the influx of cash on paying off debt, generating working capital, and setting up some acquisitions.

In line with that third goal, Rearden also said that it has bought social-buying service HomeRun.com and its OfferEngine platform, an acquisition that will be … Read more

Google's Schmidt faces Senate grilling today

Google executive chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt will be speaking before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's antitrust subcommittee later today as that panel looks to determine whether Google abuses its power in online search.

Understandably, Schmidt will accentuate the positive, emphasizing why he believes Google has done so much good for the world, according to his prepared testimony.

"We believe that the FTC's inquiry will reveal an enthusiastic company filled with people who believe we have only just scratched the surface of what's possible," Schmidt will reportedly say before the Senate subcommittee in … Read more

Windows 8 developer tablets popping up on eBay

Some of the folks who received free Windows Developer tablets at Microsoft's Build conference last week are already trying to turn a tidy profit from them via eBay.

A quick search on the online auction site today for "Windows Developer tablet" scored four of the Samsung devices, each selling for a cool minimum of $2,000. Microsoft handed out the tablets as freebies last Tuesday to the more than 5,000 people who attended the developers conference at which the company demoed its upcoming OS.

Personal Capital: Mint for rich people

Pity the "affluent Americans." With financial futures too complex to be forecast or planned by Quicken or Mint, but with insufficient resources to get top-flight financial planning from a wealth management firm like Goldman Sachs, these (approximately) 15 million households are woefully underserved.

That's the start of the pitch from Personal Capital, a new financial adviser firm with a strong, free online financial management app. The founders I talked with, ex-Intuit execs Bill Harris and Jim Del Favero, told me that most financial planning tools just don't sell. Harris said, "I built a tax planning tool twice. It sold practically zero, both times."

So he's trying to build instead a "complete solution" for the connected, sort-of-high-net-worth consumer: a product that gives Mint-like ease of use and information, but with a focus on giving these users grown-up insight. In particular, Personal Capital shows you your investment allocation across all your accounts, so you can see if you're, for example, too heavily invested in U.S. stocks vs. emerging market stocks, bonds, currencies, and so on.

Google has acquired a German daily-deals provider as it tries to bolster its service to compete against a growing number of companies.

DailyDeal, which offers daily deals in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, announced on its site that it has been acquired by Google for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition came rather quickly for DailyDeal: the company was founded in December 2009.

Google's acquisition should help improve its own daily-deals service, Offers. That service, which launched earlier this year, is currently in beta. The offering, which sends deals to users each day via e-mail, is available in a small number … Read more

Chinese company to have biggest Web IPO ever?

A China-based e-commerce company is eying the biggest-ever initial public offering for a Web company, the Wall Street Journal is reporting, citing anonymous sources.

According to the Journal, Beijing Jingdong Century Trading Co. (Jingdong), which operates Chinese e-commerce site 360buy, is planning to raise between $4 billion and $5 billion in an IPO it hopes to hold in the first six months of 2012. If the company follows through on the IPO, it would dwarf Google's record-setting 2004 IPO of $1.9 billion.

Jingdong's 360buy is the Amazon.com of China. The company sells a host of products, … Read more

AmazonLocal on its way to 'Kindle with Special Offers'

Amazon's daily-deals service, AmazonLocal, will soon be arriving on the discounted Kindle and Kindle 3G with "Special Offers," the online retail giant announced today.

AmazonLocal was first introduced in June. Like Groupon, LivingSocial, and others, the service provides daily offers to subscribers. However, unlike its chief competitors, Amazon hasn't hired a full-fledged sales team to handle the service. Instead, it has inked deals with other companies, including LivingSocial, to deliver its deals to users.

AmazonLocal is available in a host of cities around the U.S., but it has a long way to go to catch … Read more

Groupon sets new date for IPO, report says

Groupon has set a new date for its delayed IPO, The New York Times reported last night.

The daily-deals provider will now offer up its shares at the end of October or toward the beginning of November, The New York Times said, citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the company's plans. In addition, Groupon will kick off an investor roadshow to promote its company to banks sometime next month, according to the Times.

Groupon filed its IPO papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June. The company said at the time that it wanted to raise $750 million … Read more

Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL to sell one another's ads

Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL are teaming up to sell one another's online ads.

Hoping to grab more of the ad dollars now spent at Google and on online advertising networks, the three companies will start selling ad inventory on one another's sites, according to AllThingsD's Peter Kafka. Specifically, the three will sell one another's "Class 2 display" ad inventory, or graphic ads that they either can't sell on their own or typically turn over to ad networks to handle.

Presenting their plan at a dinner briefing in New York City last night, the … Read more