Pakistan Maintains Facebook Ban

 

The Pakistani government lifted a ban on video-sharing website YouTube after the company took down "blasphemous" footage but retained a temporary ban on social-networking site Facebook imposed earlier this week, the country's telecommunications regulator said Thursday.

But a YouTube spokeswoman said Thursday afternoon that the video site is still being blocked there.

Access to YouTube, which is owned by Google Inc., was cut earlier in the day but restored after the San Bruno, California, company had "taken off from their website highly offensive blasphemous footage," the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority said, without specifying what content sparked the ban.

Facebook remained blocked after the Lahore High Court ruled on Wednesday that authorities should shut the site down until May 31.

The High Court was ruling on a petition brought by the Lahore-based Islamic Lawyers Forum, which was protesting a Facebook page called "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!"

Facebook, based in Palo Alto, California, hadn't taken down the Facebook page as of late Thursday. On Wednesday, Facebook said the content didn't violate its terms but added that it understood it may not be legal in some countries, the Associated Press reported.

The creators of the page, which has more than 90,000 followers, say in a personal-data entry that the site isn't meant to be disrespectful to Muslims but is challenging extremists who have threatened violence against people because of their depiction of Muhammad. These include Dutch newspaper Jyllands-Posten and the U.S. animated television series "South Park."

Depictions of Muhammad are offensive to many Muslims, including moderate followers of the faith. Islam proscribes idolatry and traditionally Islamic art has been based on calligraphy and architecture, not portraiture. A rival Facebook group, "AGAINST 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!'" had more than 100,000 followers late Thursday.

In Pakistan, public protests have broken out in recent days against the Facebook page. But many Pakistanis have questioned putting a blanket ban on Internet sites.

Other nations, including Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation, have tried and failed to block offensive pages on YouTube and Facebook in recent years as users can find ways around bans. Pakistan has implemented limited bans on Internet content in the past, including YouTube.

Jawaid Abdul Ghani, chairman of the Punjab Information Technology Board in Lahore and a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the Facebook ban could have been limited to specific pages.

"You can shut down bits and pieces, not entire highways," Mr. Ghani said.

Pakistan's government had ordered Internet providers to block the page earlier this week as protests mounted. But the lawyers' petition called for the entire Facebook site to be blocked in retaliation for allowing the post.

The dispute is the latest between non-Muslims who say depicting Islam's prophet is a matter of free speech, and critics who say it is unnecessary provocation.

The best-known incident was in 2005 when Jyllands-Posten published a cartoon of Muhammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a burning fuse.

SAP agrees to buy Sybase for $5.8 billion

 

SAP AG said Wednesday it's agreed to buy Dublin, Calif.-based Sybase Inc. for roughly $5.8 billion, as the German software giant seeks to revamp its culture and compete more effectively with acquisitive rival Oracle Corp.

SAP said in a statement that it will make a tender offer for Sybase at $65 a share, a 44% premium over the shares' thee-month average price. Sybase shares have historically never traded above $55 a share on a split-adjusted basis, a mark they reached in 1994.

In after-hours trading, Sybase shares rose 15% to $64.65, while U.S.-traded shares of SAP fell nearly 1% to $44.50.

Shares of Sybase had surged earlier Wednesday, following a Bloomberg News report of the impending merger announcement.

SAP and Sybase said the deal will be made using SAP's cash on hand, and a 2.75 billion euro ($3.47 billion) loan facility. Sybase will operate as a standalone unit, and its management team will remain in place.

"This is huge," SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott said during a conference call, adding that the merger is "about accelerating growth for both businesses." With the acquisition, SAP is gaining mobile technology, and so-called "in-memory" database technology -- raising questions about how SAP will position it in relation to Oracle's database software.

While Sybase's board has approved the merger, and the companies expect the deal to close in July, analysts say competing bids for Sybase could yet emerge.

"There could be other bidders," said Cowen & Co. analyst Peter Goldmacher, though he added that Oracle is less likely to make an offer than others. "I always though H-P made sense" as a Sybase suitor, Goldmacher said, referring to Hewlett-Packard Co.

H-P recently bought Palm Inc., which has a mobile operating system that could be complementary to Sybase's mobile infrastructure, Goldmacher said.

McDermott had said in March that as SAP is looking to overhaul operations, it could seek to make significant acquisitions.

That was something of a departure for SAP, which had largely relied on internal growth, while rival Oracle has pursued a strategy of frequent, sizable acquisitions.

Altimeter Group analyst Ray Wang said SAP's purchase of Sybase "signals their seriousness to acquire key, innovative technologies."

Wang said that, in addition to mobile and database technology, SAP is also gaining "access to the financial services market in China," where Sybase has a significant presence.

Sybase has partnered with SAP in the past, to provide business software to mobile devices. That partnership was announced in March of last year.

"We wanted something much more serious," McDermott said.

SAP currently provides Oracle with a significant chunk of revenue, as it supports Oracle database software alongside its business software applications.

Longer-term, Wang said, that may be phased out, in favor of Sybase's technology -- which could lend SAP an extra edge in competition with Oracle.

"At some point, you need to put an end to that," Wang said.

However, McDermott cautioned that SAP's support for Oracle's database "should continue," adding, "We'll continue to support openness and choice."

Cowen's Goldmacher said SAP will likely have little choice but to continue supporting Oracle's database with its products. "Customers want Oracle," he said.

SAP surprised investors in February by announcing that former CEO Leo Apotheker was stepping aside after serving only seven months on the job.

SAP is now run by co-CEOs McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe, who have cited a need to change the company's culture and foster better execution.

The company has struggled to with its "Business ByDesign" product, an on-demand service aimed at mid-sized businesses that has experienced delays, for example.

SAP has also recently faced criticism of its decision in 2008, in the midst of a recession, to raise maintenance fees for customers.

SAP guns for Oracle with deal for database underdog

 

Business software firm SAP AG, which has derided Oracle Corp.'s acquisition strategy in the past, is now taking a page from its rival's success and gunning for it at the same time.

In its deal to pay $5.8 billion for Sybase Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!sy/quotes/nls/sy  , an underdog in the database software market, SAP /quotes/comstock/13*!sap/quotes/nls/sap , the biggest player in business software applications, seems to be going after Oracle in its core market.

At the end of 2008, the most recent year data is available, Oracle /quotes/comstock/15*!orcl/quotes/nls/orcl was the Number One player with a 28.2% share of the $2.2 billion database software market, while Sybase had an 8.5% share, according to IDC.

Over the past several years, Oracle has grown beyond its core database business and expanded into software applications, SAP's domain, by making a series of what many analysts and even rivals believe are astute acquisitions.

SAP is touting the deal for Sybase as a corporate mobile applications play, but new licenses in Sybase's database business still grew slightly faster than in the mobile business in its last quarter. SAP also partners with Microsoft Corp. /quotes/comstock/15*!msft/quotes/nls/msft  and IBM Corp. /quotes/comstock/13*!ibm/quotes/nls/ibm , for database offerings to its corporate customers, so it is likely downplaying the fact that it is buying a company that also develops database software.

"I see this as a very risky move for SAP," said Bruce Richardson, chief strategy officer for Infor, a privately held business software applications developer based in Alpharetta, Georgia. "While it does give SAP some strength in financial services, the mobile market is very early in its evolution."

For its part, Oracle declined to comment. Richardson said SAP's move could fuel a bidding war for Sybase, or even for SAP itself.

But for now, it's pretty clear who is having the last laugh.

"I'm waiting for the juicy Larry quote," Richardson said, referring to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. "He's got to love having SAP show up at a gunfight with a squirt gun."