TechCrunch
Bezos Finally Closes Sale On The Washington Post
In the same way you or I would close on a nice little bungalow in an up-and-coming part of town, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has just privately closed on the Washington Post, the newspaper equivalent of a nice little bungalow in an up-and-coming part of town.
The Washington Post reported on its own sale, noting that Bezos formally signed on the line which is dotted on Tuesday night.
What Bezos has in mind for the 136-year-old paper is unclear but it is the first time in 80 years that the organization has left the hands of the Graham family. Bezos, whose retail prowess must now translate into a finer understanding of media growth and expansion, faces a paper with a daily circulation of 474,767 and a creaking pay-per-view model online.
This is a fascinating move by Bezos and he should be lauded for his unique decision not to, say, spend $250 million on a boat or a sports team and instead invest in one of our national treasures. Where the WaPo heads now, however, is anyone’s guess.
iPad Mini With Retina Display To Be In Short Supply At Launch, Reuters Reports
Apple is rumored to be planning the rollout of new iPads in time for the holidays, and there are a couple of different models potentially in the pipeline, including an iPad mini with a high-resolution Retina display. That Retina mini may be in very short supply before the new year, however, according to a new report from Reuters.
Reuters cites sources working in Apple’s supply chain as providing info that suggests is just now ramping up production on a Retina iPad mini, leading to a strong likelihood that there will be relatively few available during the holiday shopping season. Apple still plans to unveil the device this month, according to those same sources.
The Retina mini will be supply constrained at launch because of delays of unknown reasons, the sources say, but one believed it might have something to do with Apple placing extremely tight requirements on its suppliers in terms of power draw for panels used in the device. The display on any mobile is a huge source of battery drain, and Apple typically either matches or improves on the battery life of previous devices when it launches new ones, even in the case of those sporting more power-hungry high-resolution Retina displays. If it is putting Retina into the new iPad mini, it won’t sacrifice the tablet’s long-lasting battery life to do so.
Apple’s Retina mini will be available in large quantifies only next year, and Reuters’ sources couldn’t say for sure whether the Mac maker would hold off on a retail launch entirely until 2014, or offer up only limited numbers of the devices before the end of the year.
At the same time, the supply chain sources said Apple is putting pressure on suppliers to reduce costs (again, not a very surprising request coming from Apple), and that could result in an iPad mini model with just 8GB of storage, which would be positioned as an entry-level device with the potential to come closer to matching the Kindle Fire and other low-cost Android devices in markets like Asia where cost is seen as a limiting factor for continued iPad growth.
Apple probably still won’t hit the $200 mark or even get all that close, and an 8GB version does seem like strange direction for it to take the iPad line. Supply constraints are nothing new for Apple device launch; the iPhone 5s is currently facing similar issues, and basically every new Apple hardware launch is preceded by these kinds of reports of supply issues.
My take is that we’ll see Apple unveil and start selling an iPad mini with Retina display in time for the holidays, irrespective of any potential supply issues. Stock outages are a given, and people will likely have to line up or order far in advance in order to secure them, but these types of leaks seem more a way to control consumer expectation than any kind of sign of real trouble in Apple’s production pipeline.
Monsanto Acquires Weather Big Data Company Climate Corporation For $1.1B
Good morning everyone. Today’s big acquisition, a huge agritech exit: Bio tech company Monsanto has bought Climate Corporation for approximately $1.1 billion. While the Monsanto press release says $930 million, we’re hearing from investors that the actual price is past the $1 billion mark because part of the all cash deal is still in escrow.
Here is my invite to the media call at 8am that proves this. And here is a link to the press release on the Monsanto home page.
Good morning,
Monsanto just announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire The Climate Corporation for $930M. The full press release and supporting information is available on http://www.monsanto.com.
The acquisition will combine The Climate Corporation’s expertise in agriculture analytics and risk-management with Monsanto’s R&D capabilities, and will provide farmers access to more information about the many factors that affect the success of their crops.
We would like to invite you to join us later this morning for a call related to today’s announcement. We’ll use this call to provide details about the announcement and then have an opportunity to take some of your questions.
David Friedberg, chief executive officer of The Climate Corporation and Monsanto’s executive vice president of global strategy, Kerry Preete will provide an overview of the announcement.
Climate Corporation is backed by Founders Fund, Khosla,Google Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures and Atomico. The company uses machine learning in order to predict the weather and other essential elements for agribusiness. Monsanto focuses on providing seeds, biotechnology traits and crop production products for farmers around the world. The company will continue to operate as the Climate Corporation, and Monsanto will leverage its big data expertise to optimize farming globally.
The COO of Climate Corporation Greg Smirin tells me that the acquisition is an ideal fit for both companies, “As we all know, the weather is becoming more extreme. We found that we had kindred spirits with the folks at Monsanto. The data science that we have developed can be applied to improve production immensely.”
Here’s an interview with Climate Corporation CEO, and ex-Googler, David Friedberg while we update this post.

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