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China GDP up 9.75 per cent
Beijing:
The Chinese National Bureau of Statistics has said that
its economy has grown 9.7 percent in the first three months
of this year. Chinese leaders have set a growth target
of 7 per cent for the year.
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US Chamber of Commerce lashes out at
critics of outsourcing
Washington DC: The US Chamber of Commerce in a
report to members of the Congress and the administration
has pointed out the significant benefits to the US economy
from foreign multinationals operating in the United States
compared to the relatively small number of American jobs
that are moved offshore.
The
Chamber has said, "Protectionism is a poor substitute
for innovation." According to the chamber, government
market interference would not only stifle competition
and drive up costs but in all likelihood eliminate more
jobs than are ever likely to be outsourced. It has also
warned that protectionism could result in violations of
trade agreements, which could start a trade war. It has
squarely pointed out that 'political needs' have taken
over the issue.
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Manugistics
and IBM in alliance
Rockville,
Md.: Manugistics has announced that it has entered
into an alliance with IBM to help customers optimise their
demand and supply chains through a combined software,
hardware, and services offering. This offering will enable
the clients of the two companies to collaborate and to
respond to changes throughout the demand and supply chain
with the speed that today's business demands.
Under the agreement, IBM will promote Manugistics' demand
and supply chain solutions worldwide across all major
industries with a particular emphasis on retail, consumer
packaged goods (CPG), government and high technology markets.
The effort will involve IBM's Sales and Distribution,
Software, Hardware and its Business Consulting Services
organizations. The companies will field combined teams
to develop, market, sell and deliver solutions globally.
Manugistics' solutions will leverage IBM's database and
middleware offerings, including DB2 and their WebSphere
application server. Manugistics' J2EE-based applications,
running on IBM infrastructure, will enable customers to
develop and implement collaborative demand and supply
chain solutions with more flexibility and at a lower cost.
In addition, the joint solutions will enable clients to
take better advantage of new technologies such as radio
frequency identification (RFID) and business process management
to quickly respond to supply chain changes.
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AMD
Q1 sales jump 73 per cent
Sunnyvale, USA: AMD has reported sales of $1.236
billion with an increase of 73 percent from the first
quarter of 2003, and an increase of three percent from
the fourth quarter of 2003. According to the company its
flash memory and microprocessor businesses delivered solid
sales results, especially in Asia Pacific and Latin America.
AMD said that it continues to increase its market leadership
position in the wireless handset and embedded markets
on the strength of its Spansion Flash memory solutions.
Adoption of its leading AMD64 platform continued to accelerate
with processor unit volume shipments more than doubling
quarter on quarter.
Responding to strong enterprise demand, HP and Sun Microsystems
have shipped AMD's Opteron processor-based servers for
the first time. AMD says that HP and Sun have joined IBM
and Fujitsu-Siemens in offering AMD Opteron processor
solutions for the server and workstation markets. The
AMD Opteron processor has seen strong adoption in diverse
vertical segments including financial services, web infrastructure,
government, pharmaceutical, petrochemical and digital
content creation. AMD will be initiating volume 90nm production
in the second quarter and expects to deliver products
in the third quarter of 2004.
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Nokia
and HP to deliver 'Visual Radio'
Palo Alto, USA: HP and Nokia have announced an
agreement to market the first mobile service that enables
mobile phone users to receive FM radio broadcasts synchronized
with interactive visuals and text on their handsets. Nokia
had announced the "Visual Radio" concept in
October 2003 and has now teamed with HP to bring the innovative
service to market globally. Visual Radio enables users
to view real-time information on the phone display while
simultaneously enjoying live FM broadcasts of their favourite
radio programs.
The service allows easy participation in listener competitions
and promotions, and allows users to easily purchase ring
tones and other digital content associated with their
favourite music and artists. Visual Radio also delivers
these benefits to traffic and weather reports, talk radio
and sports broadcasts. Nokia is the first mobile handset
maker to offer mobile phones that support the Visual Radio
technology.
The
company also plans to make the Visual Radio technology
available to other handset manufacturers. Under the terms
of the agreement, Nokia will provide and continue to develop
the Visual Radio technology that it has created. HP will
sell the solution to mobile operators and FM radio stations
worldwide, as well as provide installation, consulting
and integration support. In addition, HP will host and
manage the Visual Radio service using standards-based
HP platforms. Visual Radio is expected to be initially
available in select countries this summer. Nokia plans
to introduce new Visual Radio-enabled handsets to support
the rollout of the service.
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iProspect
survey confirms search engine loyalty Watertown,
USA: iProspect, the search engine marketing firm has
said that results from a recent survey indicate that 56.7
percent of Internet users use the same search engine or
directory when they are looking for information, and another
30.5 percent of web users have a few specific search engines
they use regularly. A small amount of web users, 12.8
percent, said they use a different search engine each
time, depending on what they are looking for at that moment.
This shows that search engine loyalty truly exists across
a vast (87.2) majority of web users. The iProspect Search
Engine User Attitudes survey results also revealed that
specific search engines have more loyal users than others.
Looking at the loyalty rate within the top search properties,
according to Market Share, Google has a loyalty rate with
its users of 65.8 percent, Yahoo! has a loyalty rate of
55.2 percent, MSN has a loyalty rate of 53.7 percent and
AOL nets 48.6 percent loyalty from its users. Additionally,
iProspect found that 91.8 percent of respondents would
modify and re-launch their search using the same search
engine after being dissatisfied with the first three pages
of results returned by their initial search. This figure
is up significantly from the 71% figure recorded in a
similar iProspect survey fielded in June, 2002. This suggests
that over time users have developed even more confidence
in their search engine of choice than in their own ability
to create a query that will return their desired results.
Along with discovering search engine preferences among
Internet users, iProspect also found that there is significant
adoption of search engine tool bars. Surprisingly, 49.3
percent of respondents have at least one search tool bar
installed in their browser. Looking at specific search
engine tool bars, 22 percent of respondents said they
had installed the Yahoo! tool bar, 19.7 percent had installed
the Google tool bar, and 17.4 percent of users said they
had installed the MSN toolbar into their browser. The
iProspect Search Engine User Attitudes Survey was developed
through a partnership between iProspect, WebSurveyor,
Strategem Research and Survey Sampling International (SSI).
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American Business Awards 2004
New
York: Hailed as "the business world's own Oscars"
by the New York Post (September 22, 2002), the American
Business Awards are the first national, all-encompassing
business awards program honouring great performances in
the workplace.
Nicknamed "the Stevies" for the Greek word "crowned,"
winners will be announced during presentations on Monday,
May 10, at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers in New
York City.
More than 800 nominations from companies of all sizes
and in virtually every industry were submitted for consideration
in more than 40 categories. Members of the Awards' Board
of istinguished Judges and Advisors and their staffs will
select Stevie winners from among the finalists. The Board
includes business luminaries such as Rich Karlgaard, publisher
of Forbes, Bruce Nelson, chairman and CEO of Office Depot,
marketing gurus Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Anthony
Robbins, Chairman and CEO of The Anthony Robbins Companies,
Drew Schutte, publisher of Wired Magazine, Jeffrey Tarr,
chairman & CEO of Hoover's Inc., and Donald Trump,
chairman, president and CEO of The Trump Organization.
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