Archive for November, 2007

Here is the India’s 40 richest list from forbes. Thanks to a roaring Bombay stock market and strong rupee .For the first time all India rich listers are billionaires.

Here is the list

1. Lakshmi Mittal
2. Mukesh Ambani
3. Anil Ambani
4. Kushal Pal Singh
5. Azim Premji
6. Sunil Mittal
7. Shashi & Ravi Ruia
8. Ramesh Chandra
9. Kumar Birla
10. Tulsi Tanti
11. Savitri Jindal
12. Anil Agarwal
13. Gautam Adani
14. Grandhi Rao
15. Adi Godrej
16. Uday Kotak
17. Indu Jain
18. Shiv Nadar Continue reading…

• World’s top super model Gisele Bündchen , announced that now she prefers to be paid in euros rather than dollars. Almost simultaneously, the Chinese central bank predicted that the dollar is likely to lose its status as the world’s leading currency.

• The most important country in the world for the United States isn’t Great Britain, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Russia or Iraq, it is China.
• The Americans receive shipments of Chinese-made television sets, toys and underwear which amounts to about $5 billion every week. The central bank in Beijing already holds currency reserves of $1.4 trillion.
• With the rise of the Asian economies — Japan, then China and now India, US economy has suffered one dramatic setback after another.
• The United States, a once-proud exporting nation, became the world’s biggest importer. In only 15 years, from 1992 to 2007, the US balance of trade deficit has surged from $84 billion to $700 billion.
• Within a single generation, the world’s biggest lender US has become its biggest borrower.
• What is the difference between the US government in 1941( Pearl Harbor attack ) and the administration in Washington today? Perhaps there is none.

read the full story at BW

Mercer ranked Microsoft India at the top of its 10 Best Companies to Work for in India 2007 list, which is dominated by domestic IT giant Infosys in 2006. The study was jointly conducted by Mercer with Business Today and international market research firm Taylor Nelson Sofres.

The Top Ten Best Companies to Work for in India 2007:

1. Microsoft India
2. Mindtree Consulting
3. Johnson and Johnson
4. Sapient
5. Infosys

Continue reading…

Remember that last independent business intelligence company, Cognos? It’s now going to be IBM’s software unit.

IBM said on Monday it would buy Canada’s Cognos Inc for $5 billion, snapping up the last major independent maker of business intelligence software. This followed SAP’s deal to buy Business Objects last month for $7 billion, and Oracle’s acquisition of Hyperion Solutions for $3.3 billion in April.

The software giant’s $5 billion acquisition of Cognos shows how difficult it is becoming for midsize software companies to survive on their own.

End of best-of-breed companies ?

The software industry, once populated by hundreds of so-called best-of-breed companies, is now dominated by a handful of giants, including Microsoft , IBM, SAP, and Oracle, with vast portfolios of products.