Zynga confirms it hired EA’s Jeff Karp as marketing and sales chief

Confirming previous reports, Zynga verified that it poached another Electronic Arts executive. Jeff Karp, who was formerly executive vice president at EA Play, has joined Zynga as chief marketing and revenue officer.

Under his new role, Karp will oversee all aspects of marketing at the social gaming company, which has been able to recruit a number of traditional video game executives in part because of its fast growth and upcoming initial public offering.

Before Karp, Zynga hired away John Schappert, the former No. 2 executive at EA. Karp will also optimize and drive revenue with game studios and oversee international sales.

AT EA, Karp was in charge of the label that is home to the billion-dollar properties such as The Sims, SimCity, Spore and MySims. (EA Play now falls under the management of EA executive Frank Gibeau, who aslo manages the company’s sports and hardcore games). At EA, Karp had to manage tasks such as setting the roadmap for development studios, defining the product plan, managing the profit and loss statement, and delivering the games to audiences around the world.

Karp was also a leader in the EA Games label and held a variety of positions at EA over 11 years.

As we’ve noted before, Zynga has been successful at raiding EA’s talent pool in part because it has considerable market potential, even though it’s a private firm. Zynga can hand out shares of the company in the form of stock options, and those options could become extremely valuable if Zynga goes public, as it has announced it plans to do. This could be a powerful motivator for EA executives.

Other former EA executives who have joined Zynga are Steve Chiang, Mark Skaggs and Colleen McCreary. Of course, EA still has more than 7,000 employees, while Zynga has closer to 2,500, so not everyone is jumping ship. But when company leaders leave, it’s worth noting.

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Tags: EA Play, The Sims

Companies: Electronic Arts, Zynga

People: Jeff Karp

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Zynga confirms it hired EA’s Jeff Karp as marketing and sales chief

Confirming previous reports, Zynga verified that it poached another Electronic Arts executive. Jeff Karp, who was formerly executive vice president at EA Play, has joined Zynga as chief marketing and revenue officer.

Under that role, Karp will oversee all aspects of marketing at the social gaming company, which has been able to recruit a number of traditional video game executives in part because of its fast growth and upcoming initial public offering.

Before Karp, Zynga hired away John Schappert, the former No. 2 executive at EA. Karp will also optimize and drive revenue with game studios and oversee international sales.

AT EA, Karp was in charge of the label that is home to the billion-dollar properties such as The Sims, SimCity, Spore and MySims. (EA Play now falls under the management of EA executive Frank Gibeau, who aslo manages the company’s sports and hardcore games). At EA, Karp had to manage tasks such as setting the roadmap for development studios, defining the product plan, managing the profit and loss statement, and delivering the games to audiences around the world.

Karp was also a leader in the EA Games label and held a variety of positions at EA over 11 years.

As we’ve noted before, Zynga has been successful at raiding EA’s talent pool in part because it has considerable market potential, even though it’s a private firm. Zynga can hand out shares of the company in the form of stock options, and those options could become extremely valuable if Zynga goes public, as it has announced it plans to do. This could be a powerful motivator for EA executives. Other former EA executives who have joined Zynga are Steve Chiang, Mark Skaggs and Colleen McCreary. Of course, EA still has more than 7,000 employees, while Zynga has closer to 2,500. Not everyone is jumping ship. But when company leaders leave, it’s worth noting.

Next Story: Skype purchasing GroupMe to ramp up group?communications
Previous Story: Why HP needs to merge with?SAP

Tags: EA Play, The Sims

Companies: Electronic Arts, Zynga

People: Jeff Karp

View the original article here

Disabling the iOS Beta 5 Apple installs and developer of accounts on sales of device Slots? [Update: the old betas expire?]

Since late last night, MacRumors has received some reports of users who have seen their devices running different beta versions of iOS 5 closing down and returning to the mode of activation. Reports have been sporadic, with some users suggesting that beta previous versions may simply have been expiring and was disabled by Apple.

But, according to a report from Karthik.K (via AppleInsider), deactivations appear to be an effort by Apple to crack down against the registered developers who have been selling them additional beta slots to provide access to beta versions 5 iOS non-developers. Developers who have sold their locations are apparently reports that Apple has closed their accounts on the violation of the terms of the company developer, limiting facilities beta iOS for devices of the developer for testing purposes. Many of my developer friends have reported that Apple has sent an e-mail warning who said that they have identified the developer to sell its slots for some users get the overview at the beginning of iOS.

And Apple began closing the accounts of developer to sell the slots and also reported the UDIDs associated with this account of dev, thus making the 5 unusable iOS device.

Many developers have received this letter and immediately prohibited their developer program account.

Once Apple locks your iOS device, the phone will come in the mode of initial configuration, asking you to connect to a WiFi network. And nothing happens more than that.

Apple allows developers to register up to 100 devices to a single developer account, which costs $ 99 per year. Each developer can submit a list of unique identifiers of the (UDIDs) device to be registered under their account, and some users have taken to sell these sites of device non-developers for $5-10 each to pay for their own developer access and to make a small profit. To go even further, full Web sites even arose to facilitate the direct sale of these locations.

Because of these beta slot sales, access to the iOS 5a was relatively large open, facilitating the important disclosures on the operating system mobile generation despite many details technically being covered by agreements of non-disclosure between Apple and its developers.

It is unclear why it took Apple long to crack down on the behaviour, such as the sale of slots beta was a secret de polichinelle for some time. iOS 5 is set for a public release some time this "fall", with the general consensus being that it should appear alongside the iPhone 5 in September or October.

Update: most of those they were affected by the issue of the Bill note that they were running Beta 1 or 2 of the beta version of iOS 5, which have expired. We have received scattered reports of users to Beta 3 and 4 Beta affected, but those who may be erroneous. Therefore, the issue may simply be expiring early beta versions as we assumed from the outset.

We are always seeking reports more users on iOS Beta 3 or 4 current Beta which can confirm affected.

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