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Should Carbonite have postponed its IPO?

Let's say you're a boat builder. You've built a beautiful boat. It's called the SS Carbonite. It took years, but it's finally done. You've planned the launch for months, and both you and the person who bought the boat are excited to set it afloat. But on launch day, a storm blows in. The wind is whipping, the sea roiling. Only the crazy storm-watchers are out at the docks. Your boat is sea-worthy, but to launch in these conditions will be tricky and dangerous. What do you do?

If you built Carbonite, the online backup company that filed its IPO papers back in May, you launch anyway.

Congratulations, you've just turned what should have been an exciting celebration into a ghoulish spectacle. The few people not huddled indoors waiting for the storm to pass watch your launch. It doesn't sink! But it does take on some water.

Carbonite (Nasdaq:CARB), which went public today, initially expected to raise $122 million in its IPO, raised instead just $62.5 million. And that was in part because it launched into the middle of a hurricane.

As Don Reisinger reported earlier, Carbonite CEO David Friend says, "I'm not so concerned about the stock price today. I'm more concerned what the stock price will be a year or two years from now."

I'll grant that it's the job of a public-company CEO to maximize stock price for his shareholders, but until the moment the company went public, his job was to maximize return for his earlier-stage investors. And at that, he appears to have cost early investors 50 percent of their projected returns. … Read more

High-speed rail to get $336 million more from feds

Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on Wednesday announced his office is dispersing an additional $336.2 million in funds toward the massive U.S. high-speed rail public works project underway.

This time, the money is going for the trains themselves.

Including this latest release, $782 million has been dispersed for purchasing 33 locomotives and 120 bi-level train cars for California, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington.

The federal government has now allocated a total of $10.1 billion, set aside via the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009, for the introduction of high-speed rail as well as updates … Read more

Netflix now tone-deaf on public perception

Reed Hastings sure can't be accused of sugarcoating anything.

Yesterday, the Netflix CEO and his company made a few more statements about a planned price increase that has many customers accusing the company of greed and threatening to quit the service.

After Netflix announced the increase on July 12, some had predicted that the blistering customer response would force managers to recognize it had erred and re-evaluate its decision. On the contrary, in the most recent statements, the company sounded full of confidence and even cheerful about the financial benefits the price increase would offer Netflix.

Whether or not Netflix has good reason to raise prices, the company has demonstrated that it doesn't know how to deliver bad news. Two weeks ago, Netflix left it to a little-known manager to announce prices were going up in a blog post. Netflix informed customers that starting in September it would do away with a popular $10-per-month subscription plan that offered DVD rentals as well as unlimited access to the company's streaming-video library. Subscribers will have to pay for streaming and DVDs separately and each costs $7.99 per month, or $15.98 per month for both.

The message was a "a disaster," says Howard Belk, co-CEO and chief creative officer at Siegel + Gale, which advises companies on their brand strategies and customer experience. "The tone was wrong, the quantity of information was too little, and it came out of left field. The message didn't reflect any value to their customer base." … Read more

Arizona lawmen hit a third time by hackers

For the third time in a week, hackers have released information pilfered from compromised online accounts of Arizona law enforcement officers.

Under the "AntiSec" umbrella, the combined Anonymous-LulzSec hacker group is targeting government agencies, financial institutions, and other high-profile targets. AntiSec first released e-mails, phone numbers, passwords, and other information belonging to the Arizona Department of Public Safety on June 23. The hackers said they are targeting the police organization to protest "racial-profiling anti-immigrant" policies, specifically SB1070, which makes it a crime to be in Arizona without documentation proving United States residency.

Earlier this week, AntiSec … Read more

IPO values Zynga at $15 billion to $20 billion

Zynga, the online gaming company behind FarmVille and CityVille, plans to file documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering as early as tomorrow, CNBC is reporting.

The San Francisco company plans to raise between $1.5 billion and $2 billion in a filing that would value the company at between $15 billion and $20 billion, according to the CNBC report.

While the Zynga filing has been expected, it would add to an already frothy lineup of Net start-ups looking to cash in on lofty valuations for tech companies. Earlier this month, daily-deals company Groupon filed papers … Read more

Industrial buildings across U.S. to go solar

The Department of Energy has issued a $1.4 billion conditional loan guarantee to fund a massive project that would install solar panels on unused industrial roof space across the U.S.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced yesterday that support for Project Amp would come from American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 funds.

The project's aim is ambitious, with a goal of installing 733 megawatts' worth of photovoltaic solar panels across 28 states within the next four years. Once complete, the Project Amp solar panels are expected to generate enough electricity to power over 88,000 U.S. … Read more

Pandora IPO debacle: Shares plunge following debut

Pandora's high-profile initial public offering has turned into a nightmare as shares fell through the $16 pricing floor today.

The online radio company priced its IPO at $16 a share on Tuesday night. From there, Pandora rocketed north of $22 yesterday. (Shares closed at $17.42 yesterday.) That price turned out to be a sweet spot to short-sell Pandora. Shares today cratered 24 percent, closing at $13.26.

We've noted all the problems with Pandora, but the chart says it all. For Pandora's sake, let's hope it doesn't wind up in CBS News' dot-com IPO hall of shame.… Read more

Pandora, a good service but poor investment

Pandora is one of the Web's most popular and beloved music services, and smart investors shouldn't go anywhere near the company's stock.

Shares of the profitless radio service began trading today on the New York Stock Exchange as part of an initial public offering, the latest technology play with a questionable business model to test the public equity markets.

In early morning trading, Pandora, which trades under the ticker symbol P, was up 28 percent to $20.37 a share but then began to level off. Investors began pulling back not long after and the stock closed the day at $17.42, up 8 percent. According to Bloomberg, Pandora sold 14.7 million shares yesterday at a price of $16 a share, giving the company a valuation of $2.6 billion. Pandora isn't worth $2 billion and here's why: … Read more

Spectrum reform, public safety network move forward in Senate

The Senate Commerce Committee voted Wednesday to approve legislation aimed at resolving long-standing issues for mobile broadband users, both public and private.

Co-sponsored by Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) and Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tx.), S. 911, the "Public Safety Spectrum and Wireless Innovation Act," had wide bipartisan support, passing the committee by a vote of 21-4. (A current version of the bill is not available online, pending several amendments approved during the markup.)

A key provision of the proposed law would authorize the Federal Communications Commission to hold "voluntary incentive auctions" both to … Read more

SF utilities agency warns of potential breach

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is warning its customers that their personal data may have been exposed in a recent breach, an SFPUC spokesman told CNET today.

SFPUC noticed a few weeks ago that an unsecured server that was storing customer data also had some viruses on it, according to spokesman Tyrone Jue. It's unclear how the server got infected with the viruses, he said, adding that "it looked like someone had found an open port on the server and dumped a bunch of viruses on it."

A file on the server contained customer names, account … Read more