BlackBerry crash due to tech upgrade problems
New York: A few days after a lengthy outage in its BlackBerry e-mail service, telecom company Research In Motion issued an explanatory note on e-mail saying that a minor software upgrade had crashed the system.

The company said the outage from Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning was triggered by "the introduction of a new, non-critical system routine" designed to optimize the cache, or temporary memory, on the computer servers that run the BlackBerry network.

The failed upgrade apparently set off a domino effect of glitches, which the company referred to as "a compounding series of interaction errors between the system's operational database and cache."

It said a "failover process" to switch to a backup system "did not fully perform to RIM's expectations." That led to a delay in restoring service and "processing the resulting message queue."
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Who will head Fidelity Investments?
Boston: Ellyn McColgan, 53, seen as the rising star at Fidelity Investments, a family-run company, was promoted on Thursday to oversee distribution and operations after five years at the helm of company's fast-growing brokerage business.

McColgan will share her role with Abigail Johnson the daughter of chairman and chief executive Edward Johnson, 76, whose family built Fidelity over six decades and controls 49 per cent of the Boston firm.

The reshuffle comes after the 23-year veteran Robert Reynolds decided to retire as vice chairman and chief operating officer. There has been intense speculation over who CEO Ned Johnson will pick as his successor.
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New tech breakthroughs to come from Asia: Gates
Baoa: New Technological breakthroughs will come from Asia, according to Microsoft Corp chairman Bill Gates.

He said the quality of the work being done at Microsoft's research centres in Asia was among the best in the world -- to the extent that the company was planning to more than double the staff at its campuses in Beijing and Shanghai.

Gates referred to a survey in the United States in which many respondents had said the 'next Bill Gates' would come from Asia.

Gates was speaking towards the end of a trip to China during which he announced plans to offer a software package called Microsoft Student Innovation Suite for $3 to governments purchasing and giving Windows-based computers to primary and secondary students.

The initiative is part of Microsoft's goal of doubling the number of computer users to 2 billion by 2015.
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Citigroup to expand in China
New York: Citigroup Inc. is ramping up growth in China to increase exposure to the world's fastest-growing economy, a top executive for the largest U.S. bank said.

William Rhodes, Citigroup's senior vice chairman and international officer, said growth will depend in part on China's ability to create "more balance" for domestic and international lenders.

Citigroup in November led a consortium that won control of China's Guangdong Development Bank for $3.1 billion and is in talks to raise its stake in Shanghai Pudong Development Bank to 19.9 percent from less than 5 percent at present.

Citigroup's chief executive Charles Prince has said growth in China is crucial to his goal to generate 60 percent of overall revenue in international markets.

In the first quarter, Citigroup's revenue from international operations stood at $11.06 billion, or 43.5 per cent of its $25.46 billion total. Citigroup operates in more than 100 countries.
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