Posted by George Hex
Business
Thursday, May 19th, 2011
IBM Get Analytics
The Armonk, N.Y. International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) has developed new software to assist users in quickly analyzing data from sources like the Internet. IBM also announced that in light of the fact data is growing in diversity and volume, it plans on investing $100 million to research additional technology and services that will aid businesses manage and use this data.
Businesses like IBM, EMC Corp. (EMC) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) are increasing their investment in analytics exponentially due to the volumes of data generated by the Internet and mobile technology like smartphones. By 2015, IBM estimates that the analytics industry could be worth $200 billion.
IBM has invested more than $1 billion in research around analytics software and has spent $14 billion on 24 acquisitions over the past five years. The company hopes organizations will integrate their software and services to analyze data and are shooting for the analytic response time to be in the subsecond range.
The new software, based on the open-source software Hadoop, will offer scalable software and other packages to analyze streaming data. IBM also debuted 20 services that allow predictions based on analytics. The new analytics software that IBM has developed is called InfoSphere BigInsights. The software allows users to analyze both structured and unstructured data. Another IBM package called InfoSphere Streams allows users to analyze streaming data such as Twitter Tweets, blog posts, Facebook and stock market data allowing organizations to disseminate real-time patterns or trends.
Posted by George Hex
Business
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
Students Turn To Prostitution
The Berlin Studies Center is reporting that one in three university students in Berlin would consider turning to the sex industry as a way to pay for their education.
Prostitution is legal in the German capital city of Berlin and the report by the Berlin Studies Center concentrated on the cities of Berlin, Paris and Kiev to perform their study.
The findings are that the students in Berlin were the highest group to answer that prostitution is indeed a viable means of employment to pay for their education. The report found that of the students surveyed in Paris, France, 29.2 percent of students would work in the sex industry. In Kiev where the same question was asked of their students, 18.5 percent of their participants would consider work in the sex industry.
Additionally, of the 3,200 Berlin students surveyed, 4 percent indicated that they had already done some sex work. In the study, sex work includes not only prostitution, but erotic dancing and Internet shows. As far as gender criteria, the number of men who said they would consider employment in the sex industry was about equal to the number of women asked the same questions.
Student prostitution is often report in Berlin, but there was little empirical data that broadcast the relationship between students engaging in sex work to the education policy.
Eva Blumenschein, one of the study’s authors and a 26-year-old student at Humboldt University in Berlin told Reuters that, “The main motivation of students to turn to prostitution were the financial incentives, namely the high hourly wages.”
Berlin recently reformed their educational policy aimed at accelerating programs at the University. Blumenschein hypothesizes that this may contribute to students’ willingness to enter the sex industry. “It’s possible that because educational reforms have increased student workloads, they have less time to earn money,” she said. “Coupled with higher student fees, in this instance, leads students into prostitution.”
Posted by George Hex
Business
Monday, May 16th, 2011
Apple Ten-Year Anniversary
The first Apple Store began almost ten years ago in the United States at Tysons Corner Center in Virginia near Washington, D.C. They have grown to more than 300 stores and are a retail giant in the consumer electronics industry. The Cupertino, California Company will celebrate the Apple retail store’s tenth anniversary on May 19th.
There was much criticism in the Apple Store business model when it was first presented. The consumer electronics market was stringent. You purchased your hardware and gadgets at electronics and big-box retail stores which sold a plethora of different manufacturers. Consumers compare and choose their items among the competition. The critics of the Apple Store model questioned whether consumers would patronize a retail store that sold only one brand.
Apple ignored the critics and forged ahead, gambling that picking up extra overhead would pay off. The store locations focus, as their electronics do, on style and presentation. Ticonderoga Securities, who studies and do reports on the company reported that by the end of the 2010 fiscal year, Apple had opened 317 retail stores, 233 in the United States and 84 in Europe, Asia and other countries. Their flagship store in New York City is open 24 hours a day and located on stylish Fifth Avenue.
But how about profitability? According to Ticonderoga, the stores earned roughly $3.2 billion, about 13% of Apple’s total sales, in 2010. The store is able to generate enormous buzz over their products by providing high-profile launches in the new stores. As far as the brand goes, selling only Apple products in the Apple retail stores provides the company high levels of control.
Apple, through their retail stores, is able to not only control their products but their image as well. According to Brian White, an analyst at Ticonderoga, “Apple, as you know, likes to control their environment — they do it with their PCs and other products … because they think they can do it better,” he said. “The stores look the same. They feel the same. They’re generally in the same type of upscale areas. You can control the quality and the experience.”
Apple, so far, has not announced if they have any plans to or how the stores will celebrate their upcoming tenth anniversary.
Posted by George Hex
Business
Monday, May 16th, 2011
Companies Ready For Cloud
More than 60% of organizations are planning to “embrace cloud computing over the next five years” in the hopes that it will increase their “competitive advantage” according to a global study by IBM.
But in light of recent outages of Sony’s online network and Amazon’s EC2 cloud service fail, is this technology both robust enough to power and secure enough to protect your business?
At the internet security firm F-Secure chief research officer Mikko Hypponen, issues a warning to both consumers and companies that when they “move into the cloud, you get lots of benefits, but at the same time you lose control of your data… you have to blindly trust the vendor.”
Mr. Hypponen asserts that it is crucial for companies and consumers to focus on keeping their email accounts secure because hackers are the afforded the opportunity to see all of your registration emails and have the ability to intercept requests for password resets and profile or financial information.
“Whether we like it or not, cloud is here to stay, because the benefits are clearly larger than the risks,” says Mr Hypponen. “During the first years of this major shift [to the cloud] we will see more problems, but we will also learn, and the systems will get more secure.”
The key to having a successful cloud-based business is careful planning and having key risk assessment that focuses on what they specifically need in a cloud system. Multiple cloud service providers and infrastructures that work in tandem with each other, such as sharing data between the company’s own servers and the cloud, may provide businesses the fortitude they need to circumvent any security or outages issues.
“People will want to bulk up their cloud strategy,” says Paul Maritz, chief executive of virtualization software company VMware. “It’s unlikely that they will want to depend on a single [cloud] provider.”
Posted by George Hex
Business
Monday, May 16th, 2011
Google Chromebooks For Business
Google made a vehement bid to convince reporters and analysts that its Chromebooks were tools for business by unveiling Citrix business apps store for its Citrix Receiver virtualization tool, which provides a connector between the Chrome OS and standard Windows apps.
In addition, Google announced two new Chromebooks, from Acer and Samsung. The $429 (Wi-Fi only) and $499 (Wi-Fi and 3G) Samsung Series 5 and $349 Acer Chromebooks will ship in June.
Those customers also answered a key question about Chromebooks: is it worthwhile to buy a Chromebook that’s more expensive than a Windows netbook? Google asserts that even though Chromebook is more costly than a Windows netbook, their Chromebook outshines their less expensive competitor’s products.
Google also announced their subscription program for businesses, governments, and schools. The service would require these entities to pay a per-user fee of $28.00, buying hardware and associated management services for a period of three years in exchange for their Chromebooks for business plan which will offer devices, a centralized Web console, support, warranty and replacements, and automatic hardware upgrades. Chromebooks for schools and government use will be priced at $20 per user.
Google executives also displayed their notebook, configured with a basic management console and brought it online in just minutes. Although requiring a three-year license commitment seems like a lengthy contract requirement, Google said the term was heavily debated according to Rajen Sheth, the group project manager for Chrome for Business. “We were originally thinking that we’d go with an even shorter term.” But after averaging the average lifespan of a hardware device, Google decided a three-year required term on their contract kept the best interests of their customers in mind. “We wanted to continue to make the software and hardware better and better and better, and then once to get to the point that you run out of room, you get a new piece of hardware,” Sheth said.
Posted by George Hex
Business
Friday, May 13th, 2011
Panera Model A Success
Declaring their pay-what-you-want nonprofit cafes a success, Panera Bread (PNRA) plans to open more of their Panera Cares cafes.
The business model is in place in three locations in the United States: Dearborn, Michigan, Clayton, Missouri and Portland, Oregon. The way the restaurant works is customers place their orders as they would in the regular Panera Bread restaurants, however the cashiers in Panera Cares tell the customers the “suggested” payment amounts for their items. Customers can then follow the suggested price for the food items or pay whatever they want to and put the money in a donation box.
The money that Panera Cares takes into the donation boxes is donated to charities. Panera Bread plans to open a new Panera Cares cafe every three months according to The Associated Press. Panera said that 60% of their customers pay the amounts their cashiers suggest. One-fifth of Panera customers pay more for their meals with the other one-fifth of customers paying less.
Panera reported to The Associated Press there was an occasion when three college students received $40.00 worth of food for their donated amount of $3.00, but there was also a time that one Panera customer paid $500.00 for a single meal. Since the Panera Cares restaurants are run out of Panera’s own charitable foundation, the money the cafes take in don’t contribute or take away from their profit restaurants. But it is obvious their civic-minded business concept is contributing to the brand’s reputation as shares of Panera Bread have soared 60% to $122.34 a share after the announcement.
Panera’s founder Ronald Shaich said that the café in Clayton, Moissouri has the obvious support of the community behind the idea, “From the day it opened, the community has just gotten stronger and stronger in their support of this.” The restaurant averages $100,000 in sales each month and monies are used to provide job training for at-risk youths in the community.
Posted by George Hex
Business
Thursday, May 12th, 2011
Warner Music Group
With the acquisition of the Warner Music Group by billionaire Len Blavatnik nearing, the Russian-born immigrant has a long rags-to-riches history making his worth at an estimated $10 billion.
Blavatnik built his fortune in oil and metal companies according to Forbes Magazine after coming to America when he was a teenager in 1978. Mr. Blavatnik earned his master’s degree from Columbia University and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
While the fortune the former penniless immigrant amassed since he came to the United States is vast, his history with the chemical company Lyondell is less than sparkly.
In 2007, Blavatnik’s and his holding company Access Industries staged a buyout of Lyondell which led to bankruptcy less than two years after the purchase. Len Blavatnik and Access Industries are being sued by Lyondell’s creditors. The suit alleges that after Access Industries incurred huge amounts of debt in Lyondell’s name, the business became insolvent. Court documents also allege that Blavatnik and other employees mismanaged the business causing the Lyondell to become “undercapitalized and to incur debt beyond their ability to pay.” The case is set to go to trial in October.
But Mr. Blavatnik, who made a fortune with the privatization of the Russian economy after the Soviet Union fell, has had a number of successful deals to his credit. You don’t become a billionaire if all you make are bad deals. Lyondell has emerged from bankruptcy and reported $660 million in earnings for the first quarter of 2011. Blavatnik still owns an estimated 15% stake in the company.
Forming Access Industries in 1986, he holds large stakes in more than a dozen companies, including the Warner Music Group and one of Russia’s largest oil companies, TNK-BP. Blavatnik sat on the board of Warner Music Group from 2004 to 2008.
Posted by George Hex
Business
Wednesday, May 11th, 2011
Visa’s Digital Wallet
Start With increasing saturation and tighter regulations of United States credit and debit card markets, San Francisco-based Visa, Inc., is focused on new technology to promote growth.
The world’s largest credit and debit card processing network is unveiling its new digital wallet that will enable consumers to pay for merchandise online or over the telephone replacing traditional cards.
The Visa network is working with several large banks throughout the world to develop the wallets. Partners are said to include PNC Financial Services, Regions Financial, BB&T Corporation, US Bancorp, Toronto Dominion’s TD Bank and the United States branch of Barclays PLC.
On the consumers end, the digital wallet will store the bank customer’s credit and debit card information. The wallet can be used for both Visa and other credit and debit cards.
Online merchants will have to put a button on their websites to enable customers to click through to their Visa digital wallets. The account information fields will then automatically populate and consumers will not have to enter their account information manually for any online purchases once they login to the wallet.
The Visa network is set to unveil the digital wallet in the United States and Canada in the fall of 2011.
The United States mobile payment market is a high potential market that banks, mobile phone networks and credit and debit card networks are all trying to cash in on. Targeted at consumers who utilize the browsers on their smartphones to purchase things online, the mobile payment developers are also eager to develop infrastructure to enable consumers to purchase merchandise in brick-and-mortar shops using their phones.
Posted by George Hex
Business
Sunday, May 8th, 2011
Hackers Left Calling Card
Sony has discovered a file left behind during the investigation into their PlayStation security breach by a hacking group known as Anonymous.
Sony described in a letter to the United States House of Representatives that a file named “Anonymous” was left by the hackers who broke into the servers of Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) Sony’s game development and distribution branch. Sony reported that the file contained the words “We Are Legion” which is the regular tag line used by Anynonymous.
The hackers gained the information of 24.6 million users of Sony’s SOE services. Included in the information breach are 20,000 credit card and bank account numbers. The SOE attack occurred on Sunday night and was discovered during the course of investigating the earlier breach that occurred on April 20th that affected 77 million accounts on Sony’s PlayStation Network and Oriocity services.
Although both attacks, SOE and PlayStation and Oriocity, took place in the same time frame, Anonymous has not been accused of the PlayStation Network attack yet. In addition, Anonymous launched a denial-of-service campaign against Sony to retaliate for the company’s lawsuit against George Hotz, the 21-year-old who created a jailbreak of Sony’s PS3 consoles.
There have been no reports by the major credit companies of any fraud that could be related to the attacks. Sony plans to slowly bring some of its network services back online in the coming days and is said to offer their users some sort of compensation for their inconvenience in the form of credits or games.
Posted by George Hex
Business
Saturday, May 7th, 2011
Walmart Bad For Business
A study at Loyola University in Chicago studied the economic effects that Wal-Mart had on smaller local businesses. They tracked the economic consequences of local business when a West-Side Chicago Wal-Mart opened in the area. Loyola found that 82 local businesses closed around the giant retailer.
Wal-Mart prides itself on the notion that it creates jobs when it comes into the neighborhood. The findings of the study contradict their idea of job creation. Wal-Mart is able to under-sell the local businesses which creates job loses.
Perhaps sensitive to the findings and what they could do to their “job creation” image, Wal-Mart is campaigning to change the perception the public may have of the big-box giant stomping on the little guy.
The company has decided to create smaller looking stores in metro areas instead of building their supercenters found throughout the United States South and West. It is speculated that Wal-Mart, in an effort to align themselves with more customers, are trying to appeal to customers that don’t necessarily shop for and purchase items in bulk.
What they’re going for is an appeal to the customer that may pop into the store for one or two special items and not necessarily the once a week shopper who leaves the store with three carts full of merchandise.
But instead of fostering harmony with local business, this business concept could still end the smaller mom and pop stores. While they could achieve the closeness with the customer that they’re looking for, local business would still suffer since Wal-Mart would still offer the competitive prices they’re known for.
Wal-Mart embarked on a massive public relations campaign targeting the citizens of a market they desperately want to get into: New York City. They hit the streets doing massive door-to-door campaigning, employed the efforts of the New York PR firms that ushered Home Depot and Ikea into the city, used taxi TV and Facebook advertising.
