Ever since their ecommerce partnership dissolved in acrimony five years ago, Amazon.com and Toys "R" Us have been duking it out in court. Now, Amazon seems to have encountered another setback in the long-running legal battle. According to Toys "R" Us’ annual report, Amazon lost its appeal of a New Jersey court’s 2006 order allowing Toys "R" Us to terminate the two companies’ agreement.

Toys "R" Us said Amazon lost the appeal on March 24. The toy company said its claim for monetary damages went back to the New Jersey Trial Court for consideration.

Here’s the blurb from the Toys "R" Us annual report:

On March 24, 2009, the Appellate Division affirmed the New Jersey Trial Court’s Order with respect to the termination of the Agreement and denial of Amazon’s counterclaim, but remanded to the New Jersey Trial Court for further proceedings on our claim that we are entitled to monetary damages arising from Amazon’s breach of the Agreement.

Amazon spokeswoman Patty Smith said the company had no comment on the new legal developments. A Toys "R" Us spokesman could not immediately be reached.

Amazon and Toys "R" Us teamed up in 2000 in a major ecommerce alliance. The pact was supposed to last 10 years. But the deal soured when Toys "R" Us accused Amazon of breaking an exclusivity agreement. Toys "R" Us sued, and Amazon countersued. The New Jersey court allowed the dissolution of the agreement in 2006.

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and Microsoft introduces low-end Windows Server for small biz  

Microsoft is seeking to expand the market for its flagship computer-server software with a new version of Windows Server aimed at companies with 15 or fewer users. Windows Server 2008 Foundation, as it’s known, will be available preinstalled on servers from hardware makers in 40 countries, according to the announcement this morning.

Individual computer makers will set the final prices, but Microsoft says the "modest cost" of the operating system is designed to make it more accessible to small businesses. Dell, HP and IBM are among the hardware makers that will offer WIndows Server Foundation initially, the company says.

The announcement wasn’t a surprise, having been foreshadowed by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in a recent discussion with analysts.

As reported by Ben Romano of the Seattle Times, the shift reflects the declining price of server hardware, with Ballmer acknowledging to analysts that the operating system was accounting for too much of the total price in some cases. Ina Fried of CNet News.com notes that Ballmer likened the move to offering a version of standard Windows for low-end, netbook computers.

Joe Wilcox of Microsoft Watch cites internal marketing materials positioning the new product as a competitive response to Linux.

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and Microsoft buys iPhone jailbreak platform, and other April 1 jokes  

Users of Cydia, the popular program for installing and managing unauthorized apps on jailbroken iPhones, were greeted this morning with some astonishing news.

 

"OK, don’t hate me," wrote Cydia’s creator, Jay Freeman, in a message to users. "I totally sold Cydia to Microsoft, and am now working on a .NET to Objective-C connector with the eventual goal of porting Silverlight. Apparently, Microsoft has a booth here at CTIA, and Bill Gates decided to show up in order to make the deal himself: he feels they need this to compete with Apple’s mobile strategy."

Welcome to April Fool’s Day in the technology world.

Of course, the Cydia joke is far from the only prank that will fool people today. Google, for one is legendary for its April Fool’s jokes, and it’s living up to its reputation this year with the announcement of Gmail Autopilot for automatically replying to messages.

Amazon.com gets in on the act as well, announcing that it’s rolling out a new web service called Floating Amazon Cloud Environment, or FACE. The new service uses "durable, unmanned helium-filled blimps" coated in solar cells which generate power for servers. The blimps communicate with the ground via WiMax and on-board lasers, which "double as a defense facility."

The Baltimore Sun reports librarians in southern California, fearful of the rise of electronic books, "staged a symbolic Kindle burning" in a Los Angeles park.

And, as noted by the Detroit Free Press, browser maker Opera is putting out a tool for browsing the web using facial gestures.

We’ll update this post throughout the day with any other good jokes we see. Feel free to point out more in the comments.

Update, 1 p.m.: Microsoft’s Live Search team has a good one: "We are finally unveiling our long-awaited, updated and ready-for-today’s-internet new brand: MSN Windows Live Search on kumo@microsoft.com. We’ve done lots of customer research on each component of the new brand name, so we’re sure you will like it."

Joe Tartakoff has more in a roundup over at paidcontent.org.

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The long drought continues: No IPOs in the first quarter  

It has been more than two years since a Washington technology company completed an initial public offering. And the long, hard drought doesn’t look to be ending anytime soon.

No venture-backed companies in the entire country completed an IPO in the first quarter, the first time on record that there have been two consecutive quarters without any new offerings, according to the National Venture Capital Association. The mergers and acquisition market also took a hit in the first quarter, with 56 companies selling out at an average disclosed deal value of $49.6 million. That compares to 106 deals at an average deal value of $113 million for the same period last year.

"We predicted that the venture-backed IPO market was going to get worse before it was going to get better, and we were unfortunately correct," said Mark Heesen, president of the NVCA. "Today our concerns are not limited to the zero IPO issues but have now expanded to the shrinking pipeline of companies in registration. Once we begin to see a recovery, there won’t be many companies prepared to take advantage of it, effectively extending the lackluster market until the pipeline rebuilds."

Only 26 venture-backed companies are currently registered to go public.

Venture capitalists are concerned.

"There is absolutely no public market and there hasn’t been for venture-backed companies since 1999," said OVP’s Chad Waite recently told TechFlash. Asked if the market will come back, he said: "I hope so."

UPDATE: Madrona’s Matt McIlwain — whose firm participated in one of the last venture-backed IPOs in the state with Isilon Systems — doesn’t think the IPO market will turn around anytime soon. "I think we will see very little, if any, IPO deal activity in 2009," said McIlwain. The problem is two fold. There aren’t many companies in registration to go public and the valuations are bad. McIlwain said that most growth companies are now trading at one to two times their trailing 12 month revenue multiple, which compares to three to five times in the past.

"It is not a good time from a valuation perspective," he said.

By the way, the last Washington technology company to complete an IPO? That was Clearwire, which priced on March 8, 2007. 

 

 

 

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