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Posts Tagged ‘providence’

Facebook has been pitching for a new round of funding these last few months to bridge itself to an IPO sometime in the future. We’ve known that since October, when (former) CFO Gideon Yu was in Dubai. In December CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company was open to raising new money but only at the previous $15 billion valuation set by Microsoft.

But we’ve heard more recently that the company has been pitching hard for new cash at a much reduced valuation, hoping for at least $4 billion. And some investors are biting, but not at that price. A source with knowledge of the possible transaction tells us that Providence Equity Partners (who are also investors in Hulu) and General Atlantic have submitted term sheets at “around $2 billion” valuations.

Will Facebook take the expensive new money from Providence or General Atlantic? They may be forced to. They’re burning as much as $20 million a month in cash and are dealing with ridiculous growth. They likely have less than two years runway left, and possibly significantly less if they continue to add new users by the tens of millions that are currently flocking there every month.

The cost of taking money at such a low valuation is higher than it appears. In addition to the direct dilution to stockholders from the new money, old investors at the $15 billion valuation may need to be made whole. Venture rounds traditionally include anti-dilution provisions that give investors more stock if the company raises new money at a lower valuation. Those anti-dilution provisions are heavily negotiated and can end up anywhere from full protection (which is very rare) to no protection at all (which is also very rare). It’s likely that there will be some form of additional dilution, possibly a lot of it, from the $375 million Facebook has raised at that valuation.

As an interesting side note, Providence was heavily involved in the $15 billion round, and submitted a term sheet in the $10 billion range or higher at that time. The big rumor is that Facebook convinced Microsoft that the competition was Google, not a private equity firm, and it helped close the deal at a much higher rate. If there is truth to these rumors, and we believe there is, Providence dodged a big bullet by waiting patiently for the market to come down.

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Apple makes a lot of great products. In fact, I’d say that the percentage of products it makes that are great is higher than that of just about any other large company. But one product it makes is absolutely awful: The Mighty Mouse.

My first encounter with one was a couple years ago when I bought an iMac and the Mighty Mouse came with it. I used it for several months before I became fed up with it and ditched it in favor of — yes — a Microsoft mouse. But I recently bought another Apple computer and got another Mighty Mouse with it. This time, I opted for the wireless Bluetooth version thinking it might be a better than the wired one. Wrong. If anything, it’s worse.

Let’s go over the problems. First of all, the thing is shaped quite oddly. While it looks nice and can work for both left and right-handed users, people don’t have hands shaped like pebbles. There are a lot of natural contours on the insider of the hand, and the Mighty Mouse neglects them for a stylish look.

Second, the side buttons that you are supposed to squeeze to activate are almost non-functional. The problem is that it takes entirely too much pressure to click them. As a result, every time I click the side buttons I hear the Mighty Mouse’s plastic creak under how much pressure I’m applying — but I have no choice. In all the combined months that I’ve used the Mighty Mouse, I can probably count the number of times that I’ve actually used these side buttons because of this.

The third problem pertains directly to the wireless Bluetooth edition of the Mighty Mouse. Not only does it eat through AA batteries like no other, it simply loses the connection with my machine for no apparent reason every so often. You might not think it’s a huge deal — but just imagine being in the middle of doing something important and having absolutely no mouse support. I’ve had to learn some keyboard shortcuts just because of that. And I’ve tried it on multiple machines — same result.

Fourth, the all-white mouse gets dirty as hell. Granted, I’m a heavy computer user, but there is no reason why a mouse should be covered in grime every other day, to the point where I have to clean it. Yes, I shower, and yes I wash my hands. The thing just picks up a crazy amount of dirt, both on its bottom and on its top. And that directly relates the the device’s biggest problem.

By far the worst part about the Mighty Mouse is its top track ball. While it’s nice that the thing can move in any direction, because of that, the ball accumulates much more dirt than regular mouse scroll wheels. And once it gets clogged up enough (which you can’t see mind you because it’s all inside), it is completely unusable. The ball still moves, but nothing happens on screen. If you own a Mighty Mouse long enough, you’re going to run into this problem. Any web search or Twitter search will reveal thousands of users with the same issue.

Apple indicates the solution is easy: Take a clean cloth doused in water and hold the Mighty Mouse upside down and “vigorously” rub the ball. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesnt. But because you have to unplug or unpair the mouse to clean it, you often are stuck in a back and forth cycle of unhooking and hooking back up to clean the thing and see if it works. And even when it does work, you’re just going to have to do the same thing again in a week or two. It’s frustrating beyond belief.

And I think Apple knows the device isn’t very good. It’s been filing patents for a while now for a new type of mouse that incorporates multi-touch elements on its surface. That’s exactly what it needs, because this track ball on the top just isn’t cutting it. It’s odd that all mice in the 199s had trackballs on the bottom, but everyone moved away from that because they would get so dirty, so quickly. But for some reason, Apple decided it would be a good idea to put the exact same type of ball on the top of the mouse.

I’m anxiously awaiting the future where everything is touchscreen and we don’t have to deal with mice or physical keyboards anymore. But until that day comes, the least Apple — a company which prides itself in the quality of its products — can do is give us a decent mouse with its computers. Or at least don’t patronize us by calling this mouse “mighty.”

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