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Interesting but confused on the conclusion... If the real story is that Yahoo bought the technology to summarize articles from SRI International, who partly ow

Interesting but confused on the conclusion... If the real story is that Yahoo bought the technology to summarize articles from SRI International, who partly owned Summly -> why did Summly's owners make 30 million?

lingben 14y ago
do you seriously expect coherent thought or real journalism from BI?
- taopao 14y ago
  No, I expect top 10 lists, press releases, and slideshows!
citricsquid 14y ago
The article isn't clear but could it be that Summly has a licensing deal with SRI for their "summarisation technology" and Yahoo wants to take full ownership of that "summarisation technology" and the licensing deal Summly has means that's not possible for Yahoo to do? For example Summly could have the only (maybe exclusive?) 5 year license on whatever... so Summly is acquired by Yahoo and now Yahoo has the only license and full ownership? Would Yahoo acquiring the licensed SRI technology allow them to void any existing licenses?
Notre1 14y ago
Exactly. I came here looking to see if anyone else had a good idea of what theory this article was trying to express. I think the author is trying to infer that Yahoo agreed to buy Summly, so that SRI could liquidate their equity in Summly. Maybe, SRI saw Summly as a loser and as part of their negotiations with Yahoo, they asked Yahoo to turn this loss position into a win. So, maybe, then that $30M price was really $20M as part of the SRI deal and then $10M for assets and aqui-hire talent of Summly itself. Acquiring Summly seems to have been an almost incidental side effect of a deal Yahoo made with SRI for a piece of "summarization technology." A source tells us that Yahoo has "agreements in place" with SRI for "knowledge transfer," and the acquisition of IP, code, and technology. Until Yahoo bought it, SRI International held equity in Summly.
- UK-AL 14y ago
  Eh, surely just paying that acquisition money directly to sri would be a better win?
  - samstave 14y ago
    Maybe that would be too overt. Maybe they needed to get a way to get a license with SRI that didn't look like a me too act and also nullify existing licenses. If SRI actually had equity in Summly, then this is a way to pay off SRI, grab the license for Summly and potentially get SRI to make a change to its licensing agreement with other companies in Yahoo's best interest. However, I thought that Apple wholly owned SRI, which would make my speculation BS...

lingben 14y ago

do you seriously expect coherent thought or real journalism from BI?

taopao 14y ago
No, I expect top 10 lists, press releases, and slideshows!

citricsquid 14y ago

The article isn't clear but could it be that Summly has a licensing deal with SRI for their "summarisation technology" and Yahoo wants to take full ownership of that "summarisation technology" and the licensing deal Summly has means that's not possible for Yahoo to do? For example Summly could have the only (maybe exclusive?) 5 year license on whatever... so Summly is acquired by Yahoo and now Yahoo has the only license and full ownership? Would Yahoo acquiring the licensed SRI technology allow them to void any existing licenses?

Notre1 14y ago

Exactly. I came here looking to see if anyone else had a good idea of what theory this article was trying to express. I think the author is trying to infer that Yahoo agreed to buy Summly, so that SRI could liquidate their equity in Summly. Maybe, SRI saw Summly as a loser and as part of their negotiations with Yahoo, they asked Yahoo to turn this loss position into a win. So, maybe, then that $30M price was really $20M as part of the SRI deal and then $10M for assets and aqui-hire talent of Summly itself. Acquiring Summly seems to have been an almost incidental side effect of a deal Yahoo made with SRI for a piece of "summarization technology." A source tells us that Yahoo has "agreements in place" with SRI for "knowledge transfer," and the acquisition of IP, code, and technology. Until Yahoo bought it, SRI International held equity in Summly.

UK-AL 14y ago
Eh, surely just paying that acquisition money directly to sri would be a better win?
- samstave 14y ago
  Maybe that would be too overt. Maybe they needed to get a way to get a license with SRI that didn't look like a me too act and also nullify existing licenses. If SRI actually had equity in Summly, then this is a way to pay off SRI, grab the license for Summly and potentially get SRI to make a change to its licensing agreement with other companies in Yahoo's best interest. However, I thought that Apple wholly owned SRI, which would make my speculation BS...