FUTURISTIC GROOVES

With $50M raised, Nicira disrupts Cisco and Juniper Networks with network virtualization

ron — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:40:52 +0000

Network virtualization start-up Nicira is coming out of stealth mode today and it has an impressive set of customers who evidently believe that it can disrupt the likes of Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks. The idea is to become a company that can offload data networking demand as needed in the age of cloud computing. [...]

A New Net

ron — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:27:04 +0000

A startup called Nicira is launching a product today with the audacious goal of making all Internet services smarter, faster, and cheaper. With his startup, Nicira, Martìn Casado intends to make Internet services slicker by rewriting some of the rules of computer networking. The crux of that supposedly unworkable idea was to take away the [...]

Can Made in China stay competitive?

ron — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:44:24 +0000

While rising wages and tightening credit lines have led some manufacturers to move outside southern China, others are choosing stay and move up the value chain to remain competitive. Josh Noble visits two factories that have been operating in Guangdong for over 30 years to find out how they are shifting up market [video].

Inside Johnson & Johnson’s Innovation Shop

ron — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 06:38:34 +0000

J&J is seeding small, high-risk ventures through RedScript Ventures, a two-year-old accelerator program. A huge health-care company like Johnson & Johnson requires a steady stream of innovation, but that’s getting harder and harder to create. So the 125-year-old company is getting more aggressive at mining ideas from outside. It’s seeking out very early ventures that [...]

The Year on the Web

ron — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 06:21:34 +0000

Social networking grew up in 2011, becoming more of a fundamental underpinning of the Web. We’ve been living in the age of social media for a long time, but 2011 was the year that all the information we share online began to accrete into something greater than the sum of its parts. It is creating [...]

The Venture Capital Winners of 2011

ron — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 09:49:44 +0000

Did someone say economic slump? Not in Silicon Valley. The initial public offerings of LinkedIn (LNKD) and Groupon (GRPN) brought billion-dollar paydays* to venture capital firms New Enterprise Associates, Sequoia Capital, and Greylock Partners, while Kleiner Perkins Caufield & is expected to profit handsomely from Zynga’s IPO on Dec. 16. For venture firms that missed [...]

Technology 2012: Virgin territory

ron — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:52:36 +0000

In some parts of the new digital world, it is obvious who is in charge. Google rules in search; Facebook in social networking; Amazon in retail. These territories are still being fought over: Microsoft’s Bing is attacking Google in search, Google is attacking Facebook in social, and so forth. But these are all large, relatively [...]

The Personal Computer Is Dead

ron — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 10:26:04 +0000

Power is fast shifting from end users and software developers to operating system vendors. The PC is dead. Rising numbers of mobile, lightweight, cloud-centric devices don’t merely represent a change in form factor. Rather, we’re seeing an unprecedented shift of power from end users and software developers on the one hand, to operating system vendors [...]

BRICs at 10

ron — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 10:08:34 +0000

So, was he right? Ten years ago Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs looked at four growth economies – Brazil, China, India and Russia – put their first letters into an acronym, and the Brics (as a concept) were born. So how have they fared? What if you invested in the Brics ten years ago – [...]

Hong Kong: still the great mall of China

ron — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 10:06:28 +0000

Is Hong Kong losing its allure as a launching pad for foreign brands looking to tap into the Chinese market? The decision by Gap to set up shops in Shanghai and Beijing in 2010 before making its debut in Hong Kong last week certainly seems to suggest that some foreign businesses have no qualms about [...]

Protect And Attack: Lenovo’s New Strategy

ron — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 13:50:21 +0000

Once an unlikely rival for HP and Apple, Chinese computer maker Lenovo has grown and adapted as quickly as its homeland. Now, with a savvy blend of East and West, it’s poised to be China’s first global brand. Lenovo is a company the likes of which we’ve never seen. It is a product of Communist [...]

What Is Sony Now?

ron — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 06:43:00 +0000

At 69, Sir Howard Stringer’s time as CEO of the unwieldy electronics giant is running out. Can he and heir apparent Kazuo Hirai turn it around? Sony has been trying to adapt to the Internet Age for at least a decade, yet remains a gargantuan and unwieldy manufacturer, with 168,200 employees, 41 factories, and more [...]

Russian internet biggest in Europe; will earnings follow?

ron — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 20:15:54 +0000

The moment Mail.ru and Yandex investors have been waiting for has arrived: Russia, at long last, has finally surpassed Germany to become the largest internet market in Europe. According to comScore, the research firm, Russia had 50.8m internet users in September versus 50.1m users in Germany. And, luckily for those who bought into Russian internet [...]

HTC’s Anti-Apple Strategy Wins U.S. Market

ron — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 09:17:21 +0000

HTC has become the top seller of smartphones in the U.S. with a strategy that’s precisely the opposite of Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s. Where Apple is secretive, HTC is open. Where Apple is exclusive, HTC works with all carriers. Where Apple is proprietary, HTC is collaborative. Where Apple customizes for no one, HTC customizes for everyone. [...]

Indonesia is next for Asset Managers

ron — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 22:09:33 +0000

Mirae Asset Global Investments Co., South Korea’s second-largest money manager, is considering an acquisition of an Indonesian asset-management company to tap rising affluence in the Southeast Asian nation. Mirae Asset Global Investment is betting on higher income levels in Indonesia, whose middle class grew by 62 percent from 2003 to 2010, according to World Bank [...]

Buffett Broadens Portfolio by Spending $23.9B In Quarter

ron — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:48:20 +0000

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. invested $23.9 billion in the third quarter, the most in at least 15 years, as he accelerated stock purchases and broadened the portfolio beyond consumer and financial-company holdings. Buffett, 81, drew down Berkshire’s cash as Europe’s debt crisis and Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the U.S. pushed stocks to their [...]

Amazon’s Disruptive Growth Strategy

ron — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 22:14:23 +0000

This year Amazon invested heavily in disruptive-growth opportunities — and investors were not pleased. On Tuesday, Amazon.com reported third-quarter earnings that fell far short of Wall Street’s expectations. Its earnings were down 73% from the quarter a year earlier and it missed the analysts’ consensus estimate of $0.24 per share by nearly a dime Amazon [...]

For Google, a New High in Deal-Making

ron — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 22:05:38 +0000

With 57 completed deals under its belt this year, Google has already smashed its 2010 record of 48 acquisitions — and it is only October. According to a filing submitted on Wednesday, Google announced it had spent $1.4 billion in the first nine months of 2011 on acquisitions. That tally includes its $151 million purchase [...]

Samsung’s new phones will have flexible screens

ron — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 21:42:44 +0000

Samsung‘s new mobile device lineup will feature flexible screens starting in 2012, the company announced today. In its quarterly earnings call, Samsung’s vice president of investor relations, Robert Yi, told investors, analysts and press, “The flexible display we are looking to introduce sometime in 2012, hopefully the earlier part. The application probably will start from [...]

That was fast: Samsung topples Apple as top smartphone maker

ron — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 21:40:15 +0000

Samsung has now become the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer, leaping past Apple, which held the title for just one quarter. For Samsung, success not only came from Android, but also from Bada, its platform for inexpensive smartphones. In August, Bada appeared to be selling better than Windows Phone worldwide. Those numbers will only continue to [...]

India: outpacing China by 2013?

ron — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 05:36:56 +0000

After months of bad news flow – high inflation! interest rate hikes! corruption! high petrol prices! weak currency! – India is finally getting some good news, even if it’s a good two years off. In 2013, according to an Ernst & Young report released Monday, India will grow at 9.5 per cent, bouncing back from [...]

Roubini: Goodbye China, hello Indonesia

ron — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 05:31:37 +0000

If economist Nouriel Roubini was a betting man, he’d be cashing out of China and doubling down on Indonesia. On his first trip to south-east Asia’s largest economy, Roubini argued the case for countries with growth models like Indonesia, where nearly two-thirds of GDP is domestic consumption, rather than China, at roughly one third and, [...]

Klout raising new $30M round at a $200M valuation

ron — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 21:39:16 +0000

Klout, the startup best known for its ability to measure a person’s online influence, might be raising a new, third round of investment that would significantly add to the company’s total funding and valuation. Klout works by measuring a person’s activity on a variety of social networks such as Twitter, Facebook LinkedIn Google+ and others. [...]

China: growing taste for European M&A

ron — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:16:51 +0000

Chinese companies are increasing their appetite for corporate acquisitions in Europe. As Jamil Anderlini writes in today’s FT, the Rhodium Group, an economic consultancy, predicts Chinese groups will invest up to $1,000bn in overseas acquisitions over the next decade, with a big slice of this investment heading to Europe. In the past decade, China has [...]

Shopping by phone at South Korea’s virtual grocery

ron — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:57:08 +0000

Online shopping is nothing new, especially in plugged-in South Korea. But one company says it’s going further. It’s testing out a virtual supermarket in a public place. At Seolleung underground station in Seoul, there’s a row of brightly lit billboards along the platform, with hundreds of pictures of food and drink – everything from fruit [...]

KKR Said to Seek Up to $6 Billion for Second Asia Buyout Fund

ron — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 22:21:41 +0000

KKR & Co., the U.S. buyout firm co- founded by Henry Kravis, is seeking as much as $6 billion for its second Asian buyout fund, according to a person with direct knowledge of the plan. The firm, based in New York, is planning to wrap up the first round of fundraising by the middle of [...]

Seven billion and counting

ron — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:32:31 +0000

On October 31, earth will gain its seven billionth inhabitant, according to official UN population projections.Of course, the data are not really accurate enough to predict the arrival of human number 7bn to the nearest day, or even year, but the symbolic moment has aroused an upsurge in the debate around “overpopulation” that has ebbed [...]

Beyond BRICS – FT’s emerging markets hub

ron — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:16:11 +0000

Should the Brics bail out the eurozone? Has Chinese growth stalled? Does it pay to play golf in Vietnam? The FT beyondbrics hub is the place to find out. A news / blog hybrid, it brings together news and views from over 40 correspondents across the emerging markets world [Read more].

Meet the young innovators who are changing the world

ron — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 06:27:38 +0000

Each year Technology Review honors 35 innovators under 35 who are tackling important problems in transformative ways. Candidates come from around the globe, some from regional TR35 competitions run by TR’s international editions. Find the ranking here. Selecting Technology Review’s yearly list of 35 innovators under the age of 35 is a difficult but rewarding [...]

The hottest new internet companies are growing up outside the USA

ron — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 06:09:02 +0000

High-value financings for venture-backed private internet and digital media companies seem to be happening at a rapid pace. Dropbox, Tumblr, AirBnB, Foursquare, and Spotify have all raked in big fundings and attained record valuations in recent months. Meanwhile, public investors are decidedly less sanguine. The Nasdaq Composite index is flat for the year – and [...]