News and Analysis to 15th July 2005
25 years for Worldcon
Bernie Ebbers, Worldcom founder, aged 63, has received a
25-year jail sentence for causing the biggest bankruptcy in US history. He
built the company from nothing to the second biggest US Telecoms player in 15
years. Unfortunately for him he confused Worldcom with his own wallet, and
extracted $11bn for his own personal use. The accounting and auditing industry
are very likely to apply for Bernie’s beatification, given that he is one of
the founders of the very lucrative corporate governance market.
Intel hosts official EU visit
The world’s largest chipmaker recently played host to a
series of raids by EU antitrust officials. A number of manufacturers and
distributors also received a surprise visit. Rival AMD is at the root of this
antitrust campaign, which has been running for 5 years, claiming that Intel has
been offering rebates to its customers to encourage them not to consider AMD as
an alternative. Apparently 3 confused looking blue masked men in dark body
suits were seen leaving the backdoor of Intel’s offices via what appeared to be
flying surf boards.
HP attracts Dell boy
HP reversed the talent flow recently by acquiring Dell’s
CIO. This is quite a coup as Randell Mott is no ordinary CIO. He is responsible
for automating Dell’s supply chain, which has enabled the direct-selling PC
giant to drive down prices to rival-weeping levels, yet still make a profit.
Perhaps even more impressively he performed the same act at Wal-Mart. HP
resellers may want to consider their long-term business plans.
Accenture chases Asian tigers
In what appears to be a sign of the new world order,
Accenture is planning to hire up to 30,000 new employees in China, India and
the Philippines. The innovative talent acquisitor already has 19,000 employees
offshore. This news will no doubt cause problems for offshoring rivals such as
Wipro who already have a challenge in retaining their own staff. This talent
war will spiral up the cost of labour, which in turn will make offshoring less
attractive particularly if potential customers are looking solely for low cost
software and services.
Mobile services suffer in London bombings
All the major mobile vendors suffered capacity problems
during the recent bombing atrocities in London. These access problems made it
difficult if not impossible to access loved ones throughout the day. Vodafone
had to reserve capacity for use by the emergency services. The problem had a
knock on effect on fixed line operators. The UK Government has the power to
commandeer civilian telecoms infrastructure in the event of an emergency.
Hopefully this terrible event will cause the emergency services to review their
mobile requirements during an emergency, particularly in respect to secure
communications and interoperability between the different emergency services.
Very big Mac
Apple’s profits soared with quarterly earnings jumping from
$61m for the same quarter one year ago to $320m. The ubiquitous iPod and the
new Macintosh operating system are to blame. Analysts feel that the iPod is
having a halo effect on Apple’s ‘traditional’ computer range. An accessory that
some would like to see is a wireless iPod volume control device. This could be
sold to both iPod and non-iPod users. The latter may find the device useful for
regulating the decibels emitted from the former, who in some cases are
determined to ensure the wider world is conscious of their eclectic and urbane
musical tastes.
G 100 gle
Search engine, email and potential alternative Internet
player Google has entered the top 100 companies ranking list, based on stock
market value according to the FT. Its value at the time of ranking was $81bn
and is up from 279th place to 95th. GE was first and
Microsoft third. Notably Sun dropped out of the top 100.
