Seattle office would suit Gates

Excerpts from the blog

A thought on Microsoft's plans for a new Seattle office, being announced today: I wonder if it will include headquarters-type offices for executives and board meetings.

That would make things convenient for the company's chairman, who is dividing his time between Microsoft and the Gates Foundation, which is building its headquarters not far from the apparent location of Microsoft's new Seattle office.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is now on Eastlake Avenue, but it's developing a campus on the parking lots just east of Seattle Center. That's only four or five blocks from the area where Microsoft is expected to be headed.

Microsoft's Seattle office would also be more convenient for meetings with visiting A-list executives and government officials, who tend to stay at downtown hotels and travel by bus and limo to the Redmond campus.

Merger call

San Diego-based Telanetix is paying $34.9 million in cash and stock for AccessLine Communications in Bellevue, one of the early players in Internet telephony.

All 115 of AccessLine's employees will be retained, said Chief Executive Doug Johnson, a McCaw Cellular veteran who has run the company since 2002 and will continue with the merged company.

The Bellevue office will now focus on developing voice products and provide administrative support for the merged companies.

"We believe that we found a partner in Telanetix that allows us to continue and complete the dream of delivering this hosted VoIP product to the SMB marketplace," he said.

AccessLine seemed like a potential gold mine after it was founded in 1986 and raised more than $109 million from investors who saw the direction telecommunications was heading.

Now it's a hugely competitive industry with companies big and small offering a wide range of IP-based telecom services.

Telanetix offers telepresence products that compete with Cisco, and Microsoft is moving aggressively into VoIP, or voice over Internet Protocol.

After Johnson became chief executive, he refocused the company from a provider of hosted services to a VoIP company targeting small to mid-size businesses.

In 2006 AccessLine had gross sales of $24.3 million and expects sales of $2 million a month by the end of 2007.

Telanetix said the acquisition will allow it "to target AccessLine's substantial customer base, which is already thriving on an IP Platform.

Telanetix will now be able to offer their customers voice, data and video simultaneously over ubiquitous IP networks.

Chalk one for Amazon

Just days after a fallout with Apple, ending its iTunes distribution deal, NBC Universal announced Tuesday that its video content will instead be sold through Amazon.com.

NBC shows such as "The Office" and "Heroes" are now available through Amazon's Unbox download service, the companies announced. Episodes of "30 Rock," for instance, are available for $1.99 and a full season costs $32.49.

Starting Sept. 10, it will also provide free downloads of pilot episodes of NBC's new shows such as "Bionic Woman."

Universal movies have been distributed via Unbox for a year now, the companies noted in the release, so the TV content deal builds on an existing relationship.

NBC's quote in the release sounds like a dig at iTunes:

"With the addition of NBC Universal TV content to Amazon Unbox, fans now have the ultimate convenience for enjoying their favorite shows whenever or wherever they want," said Jean-Briac Perrette, president, NBC Universal Digital Distribution.

"This further expands our long-standing relationship to bring a robust content offering to the marketplace in a variety of ways that will benefit the consumer and, at the same time, protects our content."

I wonder if Amazon is luring content owners from iTunes, or if content owners are just shopping around for a better deal.

This material has been edited for print publication.

Brier Dudley's blog appears Thursdays. Reach him at 206-515-5687 or bdudley@seattletimes.com.