In which I star in my very own video game November 6, 2011 Being inside your own video-game sounds like fun. Unless that game is Tetris; then you’d be locked inside an endless cycle of rotating blocks, falling towards you at ever increasing speeds. I had a dream about it once. The Tetris music still brings me out in a cold sweat. So when I was asked to [...]
Quitting at the top is a very rare occurrence November 2, 2011 CHIEF executives stepping down for health reasons are a rare breed, despite their gruelling schedules and the intense pressure mounted on them. Andy Hornby’s departure from Alliance Boots less than a year after accepting the job shocked the business world. Executive chairman Stefano Pessina later revealed Hornby was suffering from stress and had probably returned [...]
Keep a cool head – put a lock on greed November 2, 2011 AS ANY elite athlete will tell you, timing is everything. It is just as true for investing. When you get in and out of a market is often vital for returns. As Warren Buffett – before his foray into advising the US government on taxation policy – said in a sage piece of advice: “Be [...]
Q&A November 2, 2011 Q.WHAT IS THE CLOUD? A.Instead of accessing files from your hard drive, you are accessing files remotely. Cloud email is simply the way you’ve always accessed your webmail or Hotmail or Gmail. Cloud computing is taking that idea and extending it to everything you traditionally keep on your hard drive such as documents and pictures. [...]
Houellebecq’s bizarre new novel is (almost) brilliant November 2, 2011 THE MAP AND THE TERRITORY BY MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ Heinemann , £17.99 THE arcane title of this book should serve as a fair warning to the reader familiar with Atomised, Platform and other cult Houellebecq novels. While those books are driven by sexual desperation and erotic tragedy (alongside the usual heaping helpings of profound dystopia), The [...]
Tax crackdown targets foreign home owners October 31, 2011 WEALTHY UK residents with foreign property will come under increased pressure to make sure their tax returns are in order, after Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs launched a crackdown on undeclared assets. HMRC said yesterday that a new team of investigators will target around 200,000 so-called affluent taxpayers, some of whom it believes may be [...]
Samsung will target rivals in M&A spree October 31, 2011 SAMSUNG chief executive Choi Gee-sung yesterday fired a warning shot to rivals General Electric and Philips, saying he will he will aggressively target acquisitions in their sectors to compensate for his flagging chip business. He said he will target growth industries including solar cells, LEDs, biopharmaceuticals and medical equipment to complement his firm’s booming smartphone [...]
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is much more than a bookseller: He’s the Everyman entrepreneur October 30, 2011 WITH the Kindle Fire, Amazon.com chief executive Jeff Bezos is showing the world that he’s much more than an online retailer. The original Kindle, released in 2007, was the first piece of electronic hardware Amazon ever produced, and it revolutionised the electronic book business. Wall Street analysts expect Amazon to sell about 26m Kindle devices [...]
Samsung overtakes Apple in smartphone market October 28, 2011 Samsung Electronics Co overtook Apple Inc as the world’s top smartphone maker in the July-September period with a 44 percent jump in shipments, and forecast strong sales in the current quarter in a clear warning to its rivals. Samsung only entered the smartphone market in earnest last year, but its sales have skyrocketed thanks to [...]
Sony buys out Ericsson JV October 27, 2011 SONY has called time on its European joint venture with Ericsson, taking full control of their telecoms business for €1.05bn (£920m). Sony Ericsson has struggled to gain traction in a fiercely competitive smartphone market dominated by the likes of Apple and Samsung. The business will now become part of Sony’s consumer division. Analysts expect much [...]