First-Round Borders Bids Were Called for This Week dealReporter says via the Financial Times that “first-round bids for Borders were due on Monday, 9 June, two people familiar with the process” said. One of those two sources added that “Barnes & Noble is conducting due diligence, but is far from establishing whether it will competitively bid for its largest retailer rival.” They note that “Borders is continuing its strategic review, which a third person familiar claimed had originally received 30 inbound expressions of interest.” Plus, “publishers are unlikely to greet a merger of the two largest retailers in the industry […]

Amazon Down Again A company that monitors web performance, Keynote, reported that Amazon’s site “suffered sporadic outages” again yesterday lasting for at least an hour. The company says “probes also found problems with the British Amazon.co.uk site, but other country-specific sites appeared to be functioning,  Keynote’s automated probes were able to reach the main Amazon.com site as little as 30 percent of the time. Even when the monitors did reach the site, they faced delays.” The Register cites “speculation that it was under a denial of service attack.” They note that “Friday’s outage coincided with a sustained attack on the […]

The Next Great Migration This week we begin the third (and last) of this year’s big technology/platform migrations as we set up and test a new service for sending out the daily Lunch mails. To establish the new system properly — which will mail from a fresh, dedicated IP address, and should help the newsletters get through to your inbox reliably — we need to transition over a number of days. And we want to test the new system as we go to ensure that it improves your service. So for the next week or two, it’s likely that you […]

Zagat Calls Off Sale The Zagats announced that their company is no longer for sale. They note in the announcement: “We have been very pleased with the strong interest that we have received in the Zagat brand and our unique multi-media business model. While we considered some very attractive options, given our company’s strong performance and continued momentum, and in light of the current economic climate, we have decided to continue to grow our business organically.” The company says it will “ramp up its investment in key initiatives to accelerate the growth of its Internet and mobile products and services, […]

Friedman to Leave Harper: Murray Takes Over Jane Friedman is leaving her position as ceo of HarperCollins, in advance of the expiration of her employment contract this November. She says in a statement issued by News Corporation, “My 10 years at HarperCollins have been far and away the most rewarding of my career and so it was not easy to make the decision to step down.” Company president Brian Murray will take over at the company. He says in the announcement, “I am looking forward to working with my colleagues to invest in and grow our publishing businesses around the […]