0.28 â All three of the boys are back for another week of Talking Tech. They kick things off with âoldâ news of Rupert Murdochâs $5bn bid for Dow Jones. Duncan gives us his thoughts on the deal which is about the data, not the publishing business.

2.42 â Kevin compares the Dow bid with Reutersâ M&A talk. He thinks more people will enter the bidding for Dow Jones while Mark looks at Murdochâs News Corp empireâs make up and wonders if a bigger synergy is at work?

3.55 â No. Duncan thinks the Dow Jones is a jewel in Murdochâs crown with no bigger picture. Duncan compares the cost of the print paper with the cost of the Dowâs data feed (3:200 in his estimation).

4.58 â Mark brings up Nortelâs Q1 results but heâs more interested in the bullish nature of CEO, Mike Zafirovski, in the AGM that the markets picked up on. Duncan takes a deep dive into the numbers and reveals a small, but trending, improvement.

7.36 â Mark is skeptical of the telecom space in general, not just of Nortel. Duncan thinks the telecom space isnât just volatile â itâs a market in decline due to the technological efficiencies developed in the last boom.

9.13 â Kevin is also skeptical and wonders how Nortel can differentiate itself in the market. He also thinks it is a second tier player after the distracting accounting problems. If you didnât know, Cisco, Erikson, Alcatel and Lucent are the top tier companies.

10.03 â Duncan shifts gears to the Microsoft-Yahoo! M&A chatter. Mark thinks Microsoft is a good acquirer of software but their acquisition record in other areas isâspotty. He is curious how two such big companies can integrate.

11.44 â Kevin thinks it shows how badly Microsoft missed the boat in online advertising. He calls it two online search garbage trucks colliding. Microsoft doesnât get any synergies from the deal, just users. While Google is looking to merge their on- and offline search, Microsoft and Yahoo! are simply trying to get people to use their engines.

13.38 â Mark brings up âThe Curveâ, RIMâs new pro-sumer device. Kevin thinks the market is ripe for any smart phone above the $250 price point but doesnât think it has the cache of an iPhone.

14.33 â Duncan thinks this will herald a goldrush of smart phones. He points out that a success for RIM or Apple will be 7 million units while a success for Nokia needs to be 100m units.

15.30 â Mark reminds us that the Blackberry isnât about the handset; itâs about the data plan. Kevin chimes in on the massive cost of data in Canada vs. the U.S.

Audio or text comments for Mark, Kevin and Duncan can be emailed to heytalkingtech@gmail.com.

Our announcer is the lovely Amber Mac and the music is No Mojo by Anthony Stauffer and Holy Smoke which is available on the pod safe music network.