By Douglas MacMillan Bloomberg
Social-networking website Facebook Inc. is growing faster than Google Inc.’s YouTube as a place to watch videos.
Clips generated by Facebook users were watched by 41 million people in April, more than three times as many as a year earlier, when there were 13 million. YouTube grew 25 percent to 135 million unique viewers over the same period, Reston, Virginia-based data researcher ComScore Inc. said this week.
Contending with Google in video is a step in Facebook’s bid to become the go-to website for content-sharing. It surpassed Google’s search engine in weekly hits in March, becoming the most visited site in the U.S. for the first time, according to New York-based data tracker Experian Hitwise.
A rival to YouTube poses challenges for Mountain View, California-based Google, which bought the money-losing service, with its clips of robot-riding cats, fraternity drinking games and other amateur videos, for $1.65 billion in 2006. Analyst Doug Anmuth of Barclays Capital in New York has said YouTube may see its first year of profitability in 2010. Google doesn’t break out its sales by segment.
“What people are doing now more and more is uploading their own home videos to share with friends and family,” said Colin Dixon, an analyst at Frisco, Texas-based researcher Diffusion Group. “YouTube is a very public place,” whereas Facebook may offer more privacy, he said.
Growing Popularity
Facebook, based in Palo Alto, California, has the fifth- largest audience for Web videos, ComScore said, behind properties run by Google, Yahoo! Inc., News Corp., and Vevo, the music-video site jointly operated by Sony Corp., Universal Music Group and Abu Dhabi Media Co.
Since April 2009, the social network has climbed past AOL Inc., Viacom Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Hulu, a video site whose owners include Walt Disney Co. and News Corp., ComScore said.
A report released today by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows social-networking sites are more popular for posting clips than video-sharing sites.
Among respondents to a survey conducted by the group, 52 percent of people who said they upload videos to the Web do it through sites such as Facebook or News Corp.’s MySpace. Less than half, or 49 percent, do it through video-sharing sites like YouTube and Google Video, according to the report, “The State of Online Video,” which surveyed 763 adult Internet users in the U.S. during June 2009.
Privacy Controls
There’s demand among some Web users for controls that limit who can see their videos, said Kristen Purcell, author of the report and associate director of the project, a branch of the Washington nonprofit Pew Research Center.
Thirty-nine percent of video uploaders interviewed said they don’t let anyone other than family and friends watch their clips. About as many, 35 percent, say they sometimes feel they should be more careful about the videos they post.
Chris Dale, a spokesman for Google, said uploads to YouTube “have been trending in the right direction.” He wouldn’t comment on whether social-networking sites have affected usage of the video service.
Facebook was started in 2004 and first enabled users to share videos in May 2007.
“We generally don’t comment on third-party data,” Kathleen Loughlin, a spokeswoman for Facebook, said in an e- mail.
The degree to which sites like Facebook are gaining on YouTube remains a matter of debate, according to Brett Wilson, chief executive officer of TubeMogul, an online-video distribution service based in Emeryville, California.
Of clips uploaded in the 30 days through June 2 by TubeMogul’s 180,000 users, 1.2 percent chose Facebook and 17 percent picked YouTube.
“The growth rate of Facebook is extraordinary, but the raw numbers are nowhere near YouTube,” Wilson said.
vineri, 4 iunie 2010
Jobs data likely to show burst of temporary hiring
By JEANNINE AVERSA,
The nation's employers likely unleashed a wave of hiring last month, but it probably won't be repeated.
Most of the jobs expected to have been generated in May were for census workers hired on a temporary basis by the federal government. Such hiring is expected to have peaked in May and then begin tailing off in June.
By contrast, hiring by private employers — the backbone of the economy — may have slowed down a bit in May.
All told, the Labor Department's new employment snapshot released Friday morning is likely to be seen as further evidence that the job market is healing. Yet it's still years away from normal health and from recouping the millions of jobs wiped out by the recent recession.
Employers eliminated 7.8 million jobs from the start of the recession in December 2007 through April. To fill that hole and keep up with a growing work force, the economy would need to create a net 14.3 million jobs, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. He doesn't see that happening until early 2015.
"The gap is likely to close only gradually," said Dennis Lockhart, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
The United States probably added a net total of 513,000 jobs last month, economists predict. That would be an improvement from the 290,000 jobs added in April, the most in four years. And May's figure would mark the biggest monthly gain in payrolls since more than 1 million jobs were generated in September 1983, when the country was recovering from a severe recession.
But a huge chunk of May's net job gains — perhaps 300,000 to 400,000 — could come from the government's hiring of temporary census workers.
Census hiring typically peaks in May. That ensures the government has enough door-knockers to pursue people who didn't mail back their census forms. Higher productivity among census workers and a high mail-in response rate, though, could reduce the number of census workers needed. If so, the job total would come in lower than expected.
Jobs created by private companies in May could amount to around a net 175,000. That would mark a slowing from the 231,000 private jobs produced in April.
The unemployment rate is expected to drop a notch to 9.8 percent, from 9.9 percent, helped by the hiring of census and other workers. Still, economists think the rate will move higher this summer as census hiring fizzles and more people enter the work force looking for jobs.
The unemployment rate in October hit 10.1 percent, a 26-year high. Some analysts think it could go a bit higher and peak at 10.2 or 10.4 percent by June. That's lower than some forecasts earlier this year of 11 percent.
About 125,000 new jobs are needed each month just to keep up with population growth and prevent the unemployment rate from rising.
The prospect of persistently high unemployment is likely to prevent consumers from going on the kinds of shopping sprees they typically do during early phases of recoveries. That's a key reason why this recovery isn't as energetic as those usually seen in the past.
Hiring isn't expected to be consistently strong enough to quickly drive down the unemployment rate this year. Economists think the rate will remain above 9 percent by the November midterm elections. That could make Democratic and Republican incumbents in Congress vulnerable.
Only 20 percent of Americans consider the economy in good condition, according to an Associated Press-GfK Poll conducted in mid-May.
Despite the slow healing process, the job market is in a much better state than it was last year. Employers were still slashing payrolls then — 387,000 jobs were cut just in May last year. So far this year, the economy has created a net 559,000 jobs.
"Businesses are more confident that they have the financial resources to invest and hire," Zandi said. "It isn't a straight line of improvement, but the job market is headed in the right direction."
Chrysler LLC said and Ford Motor Co. last month announced plans to hire as auto sales have risen. But others are still laying off workers. Hewlett-Packard Co. said this week it is cutting 9,000 jobs in its technology services division. And chocolate-maker Hershey Co. may cut 600 jobs.
The nation's employers likely unleashed a wave of hiring last month, but it probably won't be repeated.
Most of the jobs expected to have been generated in May were for census workers hired on a temporary basis by the federal government. Such hiring is expected to have peaked in May and then begin tailing off in June.
By contrast, hiring by private employers — the backbone of the economy — may have slowed down a bit in May.
All told, the Labor Department's new employment snapshot released Friday morning is likely to be seen as further evidence that the job market is healing. Yet it's still years away from normal health and from recouping the millions of jobs wiped out by the recent recession.
Employers eliminated 7.8 million jobs from the start of the recession in December 2007 through April. To fill that hole and keep up with a growing work force, the economy would need to create a net 14.3 million jobs, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. He doesn't see that happening until early 2015.
"The gap is likely to close only gradually," said Dennis Lockhart, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
The United States probably added a net total of 513,000 jobs last month, economists predict. That would be an improvement from the 290,000 jobs added in April, the most in four years. And May's figure would mark the biggest monthly gain in payrolls since more than 1 million jobs were generated in September 1983, when the country was recovering from a severe recession.
But a huge chunk of May's net job gains — perhaps 300,000 to 400,000 — could come from the government's hiring of temporary census workers.
Census hiring typically peaks in May. That ensures the government has enough door-knockers to pursue people who didn't mail back their census forms. Higher productivity among census workers and a high mail-in response rate, though, could reduce the number of census workers needed. If so, the job total would come in lower than expected.
Jobs created by private companies in May could amount to around a net 175,000. That would mark a slowing from the 231,000 private jobs produced in April.
The unemployment rate is expected to drop a notch to 9.8 percent, from 9.9 percent, helped by the hiring of census and other workers. Still, economists think the rate will move higher this summer as census hiring fizzles and more people enter the work force looking for jobs.
The unemployment rate in October hit 10.1 percent, a 26-year high. Some analysts think it could go a bit higher and peak at 10.2 or 10.4 percent by June. That's lower than some forecasts earlier this year of 11 percent.
About 125,000 new jobs are needed each month just to keep up with population growth and prevent the unemployment rate from rising.
The prospect of persistently high unemployment is likely to prevent consumers from going on the kinds of shopping sprees they typically do during early phases of recoveries. That's a key reason why this recovery isn't as energetic as those usually seen in the past.
Hiring isn't expected to be consistently strong enough to quickly drive down the unemployment rate this year. Economists think the rate will remain above 9 percent by the November midterm elections. That could make Democratic and Republican incumbents in Congress vulnerable.
Only 20 percent of Americans consider the economy in good condition, according to an Associated Press-GfK Poll conducted in mid-May.
Despite the slow healing process, the job market is in a much better state than it was last year. Employers were still slashing payrolls then — 387,000 jobs were cut just in May last year. So far this year, the economy has created a net 559,000 jobs.
"Businesses are more confident that they have the financial resources to invest and hire," Zandi said. "It isn't a straight line of improvement, but the job market is headed in the right direction."
Chrysler LLC said and Ford Motor Co. last month announced plans to hire as auto sales have risen. But others are still laying off workers. Hewlett-Packard Co. said this week it is cutting 9,000 jobs in its technology services division. And chocolate-maker Hershey Co. may cut 600 jobs.
Sands CEO says Las Vegas business coming back: report
Reuters
Business in Las Vegas is picking up, particularly on weekends, as the economy recovers, Las Vegas Sands Corp (LVS.N) Chief Executive Sheldon Adelson said on Thursday in an interview on the CNBC network.
The casino billionaire said the meeting business in Las Vegas wasn't helped last year by government criticism of bankers who held meetings in the famed U.S. gambling mecca.
Still, "the weekends are coming back strong and I think by next year we'll probably be 80 percent of normal for the group business," Adelson told CNBC.
Gaming revenue rose 2.4 percent on the Las Vegas Strip to $467.1 million in March from a year earlier, even as gaming revenue overall for the state of Nevada slipped 0.7 percent in the month to $912.2 million, the state Gaming Control Board reported in May.
March was the second-straight month this year that gaming revenue increased on the Vegas Strip, where Sands operates the Palazzo and Venetian resorts.
Las Vegas Sands also owns properties in Macau and opened a $5.7 billion casino resort in Singapore in April. Adelson said business in Asia "never went down" as Vegas grappled with the recession.
Adelson also told CNBC his company would like to enter Japan, saying "there's a lot of conversation in Japan about legalizing gaming."
Shares of Las Vegas Sands closed up 2.8 percent to $24.93 on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday. They have risen about 67 percent this year.
Business in Las Vegas is picking up, particularly on weekends, as the economy recovers, Las Vegas Sands Corp (LVS.N) Chief Executive Sheldon Adelson said on Thursday in an interview on the CNBC network.
The casino billionaire said the meeting business in Las Vegas wasn't helped last year by government criticism of bankers who held meetings in the famed U.S. gambling mecca.
Still, "the weekends are coming back strong and I think by next year we'll probably be 80 percent of normal for the group business," Adelson told CNBC.
Gaming revenue rose 2.4 percent on the Las Vegas Strip to $467.1 million in March from a year earlier, even as gaming revenue overall for the state of Nevada slipped 0.7 percent in the month to $912.2 million, the state Gaming Control Board reported in May.
March was the second-straight month this year that gaming revenue increased on the Vegas Strip, where Sands operates the Palazzo and Venetian resorts.
Las Vegas Sands also owns properties in Macau and opened a $5.7 billion casino resort in Singapore in April. Adelson said business in Asia "never went down" as Vegas grappled with the recession.
Adelson also told CNBC his company would like to enter Japan, saying "there's a lot of conversation in Japan about legalizing gaming."
Shares of Las Vegas Sands closed up 2.8 percent to $24.93 on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday. They have risen about 67 percent this year.
joi, 3 iunie 2010
Warren Buffett defends credit rating agencies
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has defended credit rating agencies for failing to spot the US mortgage bubble that sparked the financial crisis.
Giving testimony in New York, Mr Buffett said the agencies "made the wrong call," but added that so did everyone else, including himself.
He said the US had been in "mass delusion" for not recognising that the housing market had overheated.
The agencies gave high ratings to US mortgage-related debt that went bad.
'Deeply disturbing'
Mr Buffett, the largest shareholder of the Moody's credit rating agency, was speaking before the US Congress's Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC).
This is investigating the role of the credit rating agencies in the financial crisis in the view to introducing tougher legislation.
The agencies have been accused of giving over-generous ratings to investment packages that included US mortgage debt that subsequently turned bad when homeowners defaulted on their payments.
The European Union is also proposing a new watchdog to oversee the agencies.
"The entire American public was caught up in a belief that housing prices could not fall dramatically," said Mr Buffett.
He added that if he had known how far the US housing market would collapse, he would have sold his investment firm's stake in Moody's, which currently stands at 13%.
Moody's chief executive Raymond McDaniel admitted to the commission that his company "is certainly not satisfied" with the performance of the ratings it gave the mortgage-linked debt.
He added that it was taking steps to improve its ratings process.
However, he had earlier said in written testimony that investors should only use credit ratings as a guide, "not a buy, sell or hold recommendation".
Conflict of interest?
Rating agencies such as Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings have been criticised for conflicts of interest because their fees are paid by the banks whose deals they rate
Billions of dollars of complex debts that were given the highest "AAA" rating by Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch, went bad during the financial crisis.
FCIC chairman Phil Angelides said in his opening remarks that Moody's had profited greatly from rating mortgage-backed debts.
He noted that the firm's revenues soared from $600m (£412m) in 2000 to $2.2bn in 2007, just as the US housing market bubble had peaked.
Mr Angelides said that while the company profited, "the investors who relied on Moody's ratings didn't do very well."
The commission's vice chairman, Bill Thomas, said the aim of the inquiry was to determine whether the rating agencies were "a cause of the crisis or one of the victims".
Former Moody's managing director Jay Siegel admitted to the hearing that only 10% of the firm's employees had any direct experience working in the mortgage lending business.
Meanwhile, another former Moody's managing director, Gary Witt, criticised the role of hedge funds in the financial crisis, describing them as "wolves, hunting in packs, eating what they killed".
Mr Witt said that by contrast, the rating agencies were "scapegoats", whose primary function was "to absorb the blame for the sins of the community".
One investment fund, the Montana Board of Investments, said in written testimony to the FCIC that it would not have bought into the mortgage linked debt "without the over-inflated ratings published by the rating agencies".
"On the face of it, it seems preposterous for the rating agencies to have suggested that these complex, exotic creations were as risk-free as US government bonds," it said.
"But at the time, the board still had confidence in the rating agencies, and assumed the [investment] vehicles had been thoroughly vetted and that default risks were low."
New legislation
The Senate's draft of new financial services legislation proposes that the rating agencies should be chosen by an independent board of regulators.
It is hoped this would discourage rating agencies from providing overly-generous ratings in order to please the banks who pay them.
The Senate's proposal is, however, one of a number of differences with the House of Representatives' own version of the legislation.
These will need to be reconciled before the new law can be finalised.
Europe is also looking to reform regulation of credit rating agencies, with the European Commission announcing on Wednesday that it plans to create a new pan-European watchdog to control how they operate.
Under the proposals, banks would be forced to disclose full details on their financial transactions to all the rating agencies
Giving testimony in New York, Mr Buffett said the agencies "made the wrong call," but added that so did everyone else, including himself.
He said the US had been in "mass delusion" for not recognising that the housing market had overheated.
The agencies gave high ratings to US mortgage-related debt that went bad.
'Deeply disturbing'
Mr Buffett, the largest shareholder of the Moody's credit rating agency, was speaking before the US Congress's Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC).
This is investigating the role of the credit rating agencies in the financial crisis in the view to introducing tougher legislation.
The agencies have been accused of giving over-generous ratings to investment packages that included US mortgage debt that subsequently turned bad when homeowners defaulted on their payments.
The European Union is also proposing a new watchdog to oversee the agencies.
"The entire American public was caught up in a belief that housing prices could not fall dramatically," said Mr Buffett.
He added that if he had known how far the US housing market would collapse, he would have sold his investment firm's stake in Moody's, which currently stands at 13%.
Moody's chief executive Raymond McDaniel admitted to the commission that his company "is certainly not satisfied" with the performance of the ratings it gave the mortgage-linked debt.
He added that it was taking steps to improve its ratings process.
However, he had earlier said in written testimony that investors should only use credit ratings as a guide, "not a buy, sell or hold recommendation".
Conflict of interest?
Rating agencies such as Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings have been criticised for conflicts of interest because their fees are paid by the banks whose deals they rate
Billions of dollars of complex debts that were given the highest "AAA" rating by Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch, went bad during the financial crisis.
FCIC chairman Phil Angelides said in his opening remarks that Moody's had profited greatly from rating mortgage-backed debts.
He noted that the firm's revenues soared from $600m (£412m) in 2000 to $2.2bn in 2007, just as the US housing market bubble had peaked.
Mr Angelides said that while the company profited, "the investors who relied on Moody's ratings didn't do very well."
The commission's vice chairman, Bill Thomas, said the aim of the inquiry was to determine whether the rating agencies were "a cause of the crisis or one of the victims".
Former Moody's managing director Jay Siegel admitted to the hearing that only 10% of the firm's employees had any direct experience working in the mortgage lending business.
Meanwhile, another former Moody's managing director, Gary Witt, criticised the role of hedge funds in the financial crisis, describing them as "wolves, hunting in packs, eating what they killed".
Mr Witt said that by contrast, the rating agencies were "scapegoats", whose primary function was "to absorb the blame for the sins of the community".
One investment fund, the Montana Board of Investments, said in written testimony to the FCIC that it would not have bought into the mortgage linked debt "without the over-inflated ratings published by the rating agencies".
"On the face of it, it seems preposterous for the rating agencies to have suggested that these complex, exotic creations were as risk-free as US government bonds," it said.
"But at the time, the board still had confidence in the rating agencies, and assumed the [investment] vehicles had been thoroughly vetted and that default risks were low."
New legislation
The Senate's draft of new financial services legislation proposes that the rating agencies should be chosen by an independent board of regulators.
It is hoped this would discourage rating agencies from providing overly-generous ratings in order to please the banks who pay them.
The Senate's proposal is, however, one of a number of differences with the House of Representatives' own version of the legislation.
These will need to be reconciled before the new law can be finalised.
Europe is also looking to reform regulation of credit rating agencies, with the European Commission announcing on Wednesday that it plans to create a new pan-European watchdog to control how they operate.
Under the proposals, banks would be forced to disclose full details on their financial transactions to all the rating agencies
miercuri, 2 iunie 2010
Ethanol Fuel
Ethanol (Ethyl Alcohol or Grain Alcohol) is commonly used in alcohol. The recent surge in interest for alternative fuel sources is driving research to use Ethanol as a transportation fuel source. The articles on this page deal with this form of ethanol use. There is still a great deal of debate about the pros and cons of ethanol as fuel. Ethanol is commonly used as a fuel source additive and not as a fuel substitute.
Biodiesel Rental Cars from Bio-Beetle
Would you believe there exists a company that offers rental cars which are entirely powered by biodiesel? In support of their mission statement to be the “greenest” and “best” rental car company on the planet, Bio-Beetle Eco Rental Cars began their environmentally conscious business endeavor in 2003 with only a single car. The company was not, and still isn’t, supported by a major car manufacturer. Powered by biodiesel, each Bio-Beetle has been purchased and developed individually by the founders as funds allow. The founders of Bio-Beetle believed their business venture was a great way to demonstrate environmental consciousness and have, therefore, slowly built the foundation for the only rental car company of its kind available.
For the unacquainted, biodiesel is a clean-burning fuel that is made from 100% renewable sources. It can be used in place of standard diesel fuel as well, which as we know is made from fossil fuels and is nonrenewable. In reality, most items that call for regular diesel fuel, such as vehicles and generators, can utilize this environmentally friendly alternative. In the case of Bio-Beetle, the company utilizes 100% vegetable-oil-based biodiesel. In fact, most of the biodiesel is actually made from used cooking oil.
The process for utilizing used cooking oil to power a vehicle is quite simple. Restaurants that cook fried foods like French Fries or Fried Chicken normally operate deep fat fryers. When it is time to change the oil in these fryers, it is generally done so by a pumping company contracted by the restaurant for such purposes. The used cooking oil that is collected from the process can then be brought by the pumping company to a biodiesel processor. Once at the processor the oil is filtered and then put through a process known as Transesterification. It is a process by which the vegetable oil is mixed with an alcohol (typically methanol) and a catalyst (lye) to separate and create two important commodities: biodiesel (also known as methyl esters) and glycerin (the common ingredient in soap).
The result of this process is extremely friendly to environment, and it supports the zero-waste philosophy of the Bio-Beetle company. Yet in addition to utilizing used cooking oil, Bio-Beetle Eco Rental Cars takes it one step further, employing earth friendly coolants, synthetic engine oil and non toxic cleaners as well. And the idea is spreading, at least in terms of the company’s influence: in 2006 Bio-Beetle expanded its business beyond Maui, Hawaii and into Los Angeles, California to serve the LAX airport and vicinity. Although it may be small steps at first, Bio-Beetle is definitely showing the nation what measures it can take to help protect the planet today.
Eco-Friendly Planes Designed by MIT-Led Team on the Anvil
The NASA Research Program ‘N+3′ has thrown open a challenge for exploring the potential to develop quieter subsonic commercial planes as well as supersonic commercial aircraft that burn less fuel and pollute less. The team led by MIT are working on developing two models to meet the NASA criteria as well to accommodate the demands created by increased air traffic by 2035 A.D.
NASA’s plans:
NASA’s plans are for designing planes that have fuel-burn reduction, emissions reduction and which can take off from shorter runways. Four teams – one led by MIT, Boeing, GE Aviation and Northrop Grumman work on subsonic designs. AeroAstro faculty & students, ED Greitzer, Principal Investigator, Professor H Nelson Slator, Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation and Pratt & Whitney have jointly developed concepts and technologies to design D series and H series aircrafts that will meet the stringent criteria demanded by NASA.
D Series:
This will be the “double bubble” series to replace the Boeing 737 class aircraft conceived with reconfiguring the traditional tube and wing structure. Resembling two soap bubbles joined together, a wider structure was created with two side-by-side partial cylinders and engines were moved to the rear of fuselage. Using the BLI (boundary layer ingestion) technique, engines use less fuel. Because it travels 10% slower and the planes have longer and thinner wings, smaller tail, most drawbacks of this design are mitigated somewhat. Planes wider size saves time by allowing quicker loading and unloading.
Twin advantages of D Series:
There are two types of D series on the anvil:
A high tech version with 70% fuel-burn reduction.
A traditional aluminum body plane with current jet technology but on double-bubble design.
Advantages:
Use less fuel by about 50%.
Very good environmental performance.
Traditional design will help better integration with existing airport infrastructure and so save money otherwise needed to fit radically different designs.
H Series:
The 350-passenger 777 class ‘hybrid wing body’ planes will be larger but will be based on the same technology as D Series. A Triangular-shaped hybrid wing body and a wider fuselage result in improved aerodynamics while larger centre creates a forward lift and balances the plane without the need for a tail. Propulsion architectures and technology are under study still awaiting further exploration.
I Phase over:
With first phase of research and design is over, the MIT team is awaiting word about continuing into the second phase of program to meet more of NASA’s objectives. Sanction of additional funds and approval of the designs and technology identified in the first phase will be know in the next few months.
Future Plans:
Whether or not the work continues for NASA, the researchers hope to continue to develop these models, testing them and collaborating with manufacturers to make the concepts a reality.
Increase Renewable Energy Sources – Generate More Jobs
This has been the slogan that GE, one of the leading power suppliers and energy delivery technology pioneers, propagated all through the ‘Capture the Wind‘ tour across US. GE Energy, comprised of GE Power& Water, GE Energy services and GE Oil & Gas is on an all out effort to promote wind industry’s growth in USA. GE, largest supplier of wind turbines producing some 40% of US’ wind power, has been sponsoring the ‘Capture the Wind’ tour for garnering support at grass-root level for a cleaner energy in future.
They have been toting a 131-foot-long wind-turbine blade serving as a mobile petition to be signed by all supporters. This is to create awareness that promoting wind power industry will generate new jobs and make US self-sufficient in energy production. Their goal is the Wind-Power 2010 Convention at Dallas where the blade will be on display.
Texas, as the country’s largest wind power producer is hosting Wind-Power 2010 – world’s largest wind-power conference – at the Dallas Convention Centre. Along with Matt Guyette, Renewables Global Strategy Leader, GE Energy, Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert, and AWEA CEO Denise Bode attended the opening ceremony. The need for strong leadership support from federal government for focussing on development of renewable energy sources was the hot topic.
Emphasizing that wind energy is a more affordable and purer form of energy available in US, Mr. Body called for a “strong national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES)”. Mr. Guyette said, “The key message of our tour is that the people of America have the power to choose a cleaner, smarter energy future.” Congress inaction in this field was greatly regretted.
In spite of a 10-gigawatt production and 85,000 strong work force, wind power accounts for not even 2% of entire nation’s power supply. A positive approach by the congress towards long-term wind energy power policy and establishing a national level renewable and cleaner energy standard will boost power generation and employment opportunities.
Mr. Guyette quoted the examples of China and Europe and requested for quick action on the part of government to promote wind power energy sources. He expressed hopes that, “American technology and innovation, combined with strong public support, can help to drive continued growth in the wind power industry, leading to the creation of thousands of new jobs.”
They have been toting a 131-foot-long wind-turbine blade serving as a mobile petition to be signed by all supporters. This is to create awareness that promoting wind power industry will generate new jobs and make US self-sufficient in energy production. Their goal is the Wind-Power 2010 Convention at Dallas where the blade will be on display.
Texas, as the country’s largest wind power producer is hosting Wind-Power 2010 – world’s largest wind-power conference – at the Dallas Convention Centre. Along with Matt Guyette, Renewables Global Strategy Leader, GE Energy, Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert, and AWEA CEO Denise Bode attended the opening ceremony. The need for strong leadership support from federal government for focussing on development of renewable energy sources was the hot topic.
Emphasizing that wind energy is a more affordable and purer form of energy available in US, Mr. Body called for a “strong national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES)”. Mr. Guyette said, “The key message of our tour is that the people of America have the power to choose a cleaner, smarter energy future.” Congress inaction in this field was greatly regretted.
In spite of a 10-gigawatt production and 85,000 strong work force, wind power accounts for not even 2% of entire nation’s power supply. A positive approach by the congress towards long-term wind energy power policy and establishing a national level renewable and cleaner energy standard will boost power generation and employment opportunities.
Mr. Guyette quoted the examples of China and Europe and requested for quick action on the part of government to promote wind power energy sources. He expressed hopes that, “American technology and innovation, combined with strong public support, can help to drive continued growth in the wind power industry, leading to the creation of thousands of new jobs.”
Web Booms in East Europe, but Not News
By Marius Dragomir Businessweek
Internet usage and advertising are soaring in the former communist east, but online journalism isn't making money—a threat to the media industry
Ten or so years ago, when a Prague journalist disgruntled with the pressures from editors and owners he was grappling with exulted in a Czech pub over the freedom and infinite possibilities the Internet would bring, he was condescendingly told by many of his friends to come back to earth. Who could imagine that advertisers would pump their money into a platform accessed by such a limited audience back when television could freeze millions of Czech eyeballs for hours in front of Titanic or a football match?
A decade later, across the region, web sites are mushrooming, the online population is booming, and advertising euros are pouring into the Internet, helping counteract the general downturn in ad spending. But how much journalism are people consuming? Sadly, not much.
GENERATION OF GENERALISTS
The rise of the Internet, I've heard many academic voices claim, means that traditional media outlets can't profit online because they are too stubborn to get rid of their old potpourri content model. In the past, such scholars argue, newspapers threw in a bit of everything in their struggle for revenue: news articles and features alongside weather forecasts, sports, crosswords, classifieds, and naked women. This is not the way to go in today's world where specialization is gaining ground, they say.
Totally agreed. There is an increasing appetite for Internet magazines covering niche topics ranging from transportation to retail to cement manufacturing, as well as for targeted paid content demanded by all kinds of professions and groups. But general interest news still has to be free of charge and come packaged with a hodgepodge of other content to appeal to readers. At least, that's how the public at large consumes Internet content in Eastern Europe.
Overwhelmingly, generalist portals such as Seznam.cz in the Czech Republic or dir.bg in Bulgaria dominate online preferences across Eastern Europe, according to a fresh study by researchers at Warsaw-based online researcher Gemius and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Europe. Such web sites usually offer a Yahoo (YHOO)-like online diet that consists of links to organizations and retailers, web-based email services, search functions, and an aggregation of news stories picked up from all kinds of sources.
Alarmingly for the media industry, the Gemius and IAB survey – which covered 12 countries in the region – also indicated that on average, only one or two established media outlets appear among the 10 most popular web sites in each country.
Furthermore, in countries like Estonia, Hungary, and Latvia, news sites run solely by established media are completely missing from the top 10. Slovakia and the Czech Republic have healthier online media environments. In Slovakia, the web sites of the daily newspapers SME, Pravda, and Novy cas, and of the country's largest commercial TV station Markiza (CETV), all rank among the 10 most visited web sites.
In the neighboring Czech Republic, idnes.cz, operated by Mlada fronta Dnes, the largest-circulation serious daily, and Novinky.cz, a joint venture of the daily newspaper Pravo and the Seznam portal, are among the 10 most visited sites. The two attract a combined monthly total of over 5.5 million users, which is more than half the Czech population.
The potential audience for mainstream media sites is also high elsewhere. For instance, the site gazeta.pl in Poland, a portal linked with the major daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, clocks about 7.5 million monthly users.
Aside from portals, the other main category of massively-trafficked sites in the region is social networks. In every country in the study, at least one social networking site appears among the most visited web sites nationally, with Poland's find-a-classmate site nasza-klasa.pl leading at 9.2 million monthly users.
OLDIES BUT GOLDIES
Despite the dramatic growth in Internet penetration and online advertising over the past decade, Eastern Europe still lags behind its western peers. Last year, only five Eastern European countries – the Baltic states, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia – exceeded 50 percent Internet penetration. Ukraine was at the bottom of the heap, with only 18 percent of households online, according to the IAB. The same is true for online advertising spending in the region, which ranges in annual figures from a mere 2 euros per user in Ukraine to a more decent 24 euros per user in the Czech Republic.
The east also does poorly in terms of broadband access. On average, only about 15 percent of the population in Eastern Europe has a broadband connection. The lowest numbers are in Bulgaria and Croatia, where fewer than 10 broadband connections are available for every 100 inhabitants, far below the EU average of 22.5 percent, as measured by the European Competitive Telecommunications Association.
However, recent years' sustained growth of Internet use heralds rosy days for the online market in Eastern Europe. Since 2007, the Internet penetration in the region has grown by an average of 32 percent a year, much of it broadband, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). At the same time, online advertising spending has been growing in the past two years at annual rates of over 50 percent. In 2009, some 15 percent of all ad money in tech-friendly Estonia went to the Internet; elsewhere, though, the figure is still under 10 percent.
The online audience is also growing more mature and wealthy. Youth up to 24 years of age still account for the largest share of Internet users in the region, but their share is constantly declining, while rates are rising for those who grew up in the 1990s and are now entering their prime earning years.
We have good indications of what the future will bring to the Internet in Eastern Europe, but it's still difficult to say what it will mean for online journalism. What is clear is that the next five or so years will be a crucial period for the online media to win readers. This means investment. Without it, in several years, the Internet in most of the region might turn into a news-free web
Internet usage and advertising are soaring in the former communist east, but online journalism isn't making money—a threat to the media industry
Ten or so years ago, when a Prague journalist disgruntled with the pressures from editors and owners he was grappling with exulted in a Czech pub over the freedom and infinite possibilities the Internet would bring, he was condescendingly told by many of his friends to come back to earth. Who could imagine that advertisers would pump their money into a platform accessed by such a limited audience back when television could freeze millions of Czech eyeballs for hours in front of Titanic or a football match?
A decade later, across the region, web sites are mushrooming, the online population is booming, and advertising euros are pouring into the Internet, helping counteract the general downturn in ad spending. But how much journalism are people consuming? Sadly, not much.
GENERATION OF GENERALISTS
The rise of the Internet, I've heard many academic voices claim, means that traditional media outlets can't profit online because they are too stubborn to get rid of their old potpourri content model. In the past, such scholars argue, newspapers threw in a bit of everything in their struggle for revenue: news articles and features alongside weather forecasts, sports, crosswords, classifieds, and naked women. This is not the way to go in today's world where specialization is gaining ground, they say.
Totally agreed. There is an increasing appetite for Internet magazines covering niche topics ranging from transportation to retail to cement manufacturing, as well as for targeted paid content demanded by all kinds of professions and groups. But general interest news still has to be free of charge and come packaged with a hodgepodge of other content to appeal to readers. At least, that's how the public at large consumes Internet content in Eastern Europe.
Overwhelmingly, generalist portals such as Seznam.cz in the Czech Republic or dir.bg in Bulgaria dominate online preferences across Eastern Europe, according to a fresh study by researchers at Warsaw-based online researcher Gemius and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Europe. Such web sites usually offer a Yahoo (YHOO)-like online diet that consists of links to organizations and retailers, web-based email services, search functions, and an aggregation of news stories picked up from all kinds of sources.
Alarmingly for the media industry, the Gemius and IAB survey – which covered 12 countries in the region – also indicated that on average, only one or two established media outlets appear among the 10 most popular web sites in each country.
Furthermore, in countries like Estonia, Hungary, and Latvia, news sites run solely by established media are completely missing from the top 10. Slovakia and the Czech Republic have healthier online media environments. In Slovakia, the web sites of the daily newspapers SME, Pravda, and Novy cas, and of the country's largest commercial TV station Markiza (CETV), all rank among the 10 most visited web sites.
In the neighboring Czech Republic, idnes.cz, operated by Mlada fronta Dnes, the largest-circulation serious daily, and Novinky.cz, a joint venture of the daily newspaper Pravo and the Seznam portal, are among the 10 most visited sites. The two attract a combined monthly total of over 5.5 million users, which is more than half the Czech population.
The potential audience for mainstream media sites is also high elsewhere. For instance, the site gazeta.pl in Poland, a portal linked with the major daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, clocks about 7.5 million monthly users.
Aside from portals, the other main category of massively-trafficked sites in the region is social networks. In every country in the study, at least one social networking site appears among the most visited web sites nationally, with Poland's find-a-classmate site nasza-klasa.pl leading at 9.2 million monthly users.
OLDIES BUT GOLDIES
Despite the dramatic growth in Internet penetration and online advertising over the past decade, Eastern Europe still lags behind its western peers. Last year, only five Eastern European countries – the Baltic states, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia – exceeded 50 percent Internet penetration. Ukraine was at the bottom of the heap, with only 18 percent of households online, according to the IAB. The same is true for online advertising spending in the region, which ranges in annual figures from a mere 2 euros per user in Ukraine to a more decent 24 euros per user in the Czech Republic.
The east also does poorly in terms of broadband access. On average, only about 15 percent of the population in Eastern Europe has a broadband connection. The lowest numbers are in Bulgaria and Croatia, where fewer than 10 broadband connections are available for every 100 inhabitants, far below the EU average of 22.5 percent, as measured by the European Competitive Telecommunications Association.
However, recent years' sustained growth of Internet use heralds rosy days for the online market in Eastern Europe. Since 2007, the Internet penetration in the region has grown by an average of 32 percent a year, much of it broadband, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). At the same time, online advertising spending has been growing in the past two years at annual rates of over 50 percent. In 2009, some 15 percent of all ad money in tech-friendly Estonia went to the Internet; elsewhere, though, the figure is still under 10 percent.
The online audience is also growing more mature and wealthy. Youth up to 24 years of age still account for the largest share of Internet users in the region, but their share is constantly declining, while rates are rising for those who grew up in the 1990s and are now entering their prime earning years.
We have good indications of what the future will bring to the Internet in Eastern Europe, but it's still difficult to say what it will mean for online journalism. What is clear is that the next five or so years will be a crucial period for the online media to win readers. This means investment. Without it, in several years, the Internet in most of the region might turn into a news-free web
AT&T Puts Caps On iPhone Data Usage As Mobile Video's Rise Taxes Networks
AT&T (NYSE:T - News) on Wednesday shook up pricing for smart phone and tablet PC users, ending unlimited data plans for new customers that buy Apple's (NMS:AAPL) iPad and iPhone.
AT&T also lowered rates for subscribers that consume less Internet content, possibly spurring a new round of price-cutting.
The announcement comes as Apple is expected to unveil its newest iPhone on Monday, at the start of its annual developer's conference.
The new iPhone reportedly will have "tethering" capability, meaning it can be used as a wireless modem to connect to laptop computers or other devices.
AT&T's move comes roughly six months after the telecom carrier ignited a consumer backlash by suggesting that it was mulling ways to curb network usage by data-hungry subscribers.
Now, AT&T is the first carrier to press ahead "with what is likely to be a rapid industrywide transition to tiered pricing for wireless data," said Craig Moffett, an analyst at Bernstein Research.
The pricing change applies only to smart phones and the iPad, not laptops with wireless broadband. Verizon Wireless, co-owned by Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ - News) and U.K.-based Vodafone (NMS:VOD), has signaled that it plans to shift to a tiered, meter-based billing system when it launches a fourth-generation, LTE data network, expected in the second half of this year.
AT&T and other phone companies have struggled to meet surging data demand, despite investing billions of dollars each year in their wireless networks. AT&T has been pummeled at times with complaints over poor network performance in markets such as New York and San Francisco.
The company, however, has claimed that about 2% of iPhone users are wireless hogs, downloading tons of data and clogging the wireless network.
Wednesday, AT&T said it will charge new customers that buy iPhones or Apple iPad tablet PCs $25 per month for 2 gigabytes of data, with higher prices if usage exceeds that amount. AT&T says existing iPhone and iPad customers can switch to the $25 monthly, 2 GB plan as well. AT&T has charged $30 a month for unlimited data since June 29, 2007, when Apple rolled out its first iPhone.
AT&T says the great majority of iPhone subscribers use less than 2 GB, but mobile users are accessing more video and other high-bandwidth content, so switching plans could be a gamble for users. And it's likely the unlimited data plan attracted many buyers of the iPhone and especially the iPad, which many owners use to view video and other high-bandwidth content.
AT&T has been the exclusive U.S. provider of service for the iPhone and iPad, though Verizon Wireless has been in talks with Apple.
AT&T's shift to usage caps could ease Internet consumption, but it and other wireless carriers are expected to have to continue to spend heavily to improve their networks.
Some analysts say AT&T's move should usher in a more profitable business model for carriers as smart phone usage proliferates. Smart phones, including BlackBerrys made by Research In Motion (NMS:RIMM) and handsets based on Google's (NMS:GOOG) Android operating system, accounted for 34% of new handset sales in the first quarter, says market tracker NPD.
Shares in AT&T, down about 12% in 2010, rose 1.85% on Wednesday. Shares in Verizon Communications and Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S - News) also rose.
AT&T's strategy may increase price competition at the low-end, some analysts say.
Besides the $25 2 GB plan, AT&T says it will charge new customers $15 per month for 200 megabytes of data. If subscribers go over that limit, AT&T will tack on $15 for another 200 megabytes.
T-Mobile USA, owned by Germany's Deutsche Telekom (NYSE:DT - News), recently rolled out new rate plans that charge $25 for 200 megabytes of data. Verizon offers a $10 monthly data plan for 25 megabytes.
"Other operators will follow with cuts to their data plans and (we) would not rule out a family plan data rate being offered," wrote Walter Piecyk, an analyst at BTIG Research, in his company blog.
On the high end, analyst Moffett says he does not expect Clearwire (NMS:CLWR), which operates a high-speed data network, to lower its prices.
AT&T says 98% of its smart phone customers consume less than 2 GB of data monthly, while 65% use less than 200 MB.
AT&T and most wireless carriers limit data usage for laptops to 5 GB per month. Buyers of the new iPhone will have to pay $20 extra a month for tethering to laptops.
While most wireless users today gobble up less than 2 GB of data a month, new services could shift usage patterns. Google is poised to deliver more Web video to Android phones. Sprint is touting video calls with its new HTC EVO phone, the first 4G phone on the U.S. market.
AT&T aims to get in front of exploding data traffic, says Tim Horan, an Oppenheimer analyst.
"We are not sure what drove the specific timing other than probably very high-end iPad and iPhone users continuing to pressure (AT&T's) network ...," Horan wrote in a research note.
AT&T also lowered rates for subscribers that consume less Internet content, possibly spurring a new round of price-cutting.
The announcement comes as Apple is expected to unveil its newest iPhone on Monday, at the start of its annual developer's conference.
The new iPhone reportedly will have "tethering" capability, meaning it can be used as a wireless modem to connect to laptop computers or other devices.
AT&T's move comes roughly six months after the telecom carrier ignited a consumer backlash by suggesting that it was mulling ways to curb network usage by data-hungry subscribers.
Now, AT&T is the first carrier to press ahead "with what is likely to be a rapid industrywide transition to tiered pricing for wireless data," said Craig Moffett, an analyst at Bernstein Research.
The pricing change applies only to smart phones and the iPad, not laptops with wireless broadband. Verizon Wireless, co-owned by Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ - News) and U.K.-based Vodafone (NMS:VOD), has signaled that it plans to shift to a tiered, meter-based billing system when it launches a fourth-generation, LTE data network, expected in the second half of this year.
AT&T and other phone companies have struggled to meet surging data demand, despite investing billions of dollars each year in their wireless networks. AT&T has been pummeled at times with complaints over poor network performance in markets such as New York and San Francisco.
The company, however, has claimed that about 2% of iPhone users are wireless hogs, downloading tons of data and clogging the wireless network.
Wednesday, AT&T said it will charge new customers that buy iPhones or Apple iPad tablet PCs $25 per month for 2 gigabytes of data, with higher prices if usage exceeds that amount. AT&T says existing iPhone and iPad customers can switch to the $25 monthly, 2 GB plan as well. AT&T has charged $30 a month for unlimited data since June 29, 2007, when Apple rolled out its first iPhone.
AT&T says the great majority of iPhone subscribers use less than 2 GB, but mobile users are accessing more video and other high-bandwidth content, so switching plans could be a gamble for users. And it's likely the unlimited data plan attracted many buyers of the iPhone and especially the iPad, which many owners use to view video and other high-bandwidth content.
AT&T has been the exclusive U.S. provider of service for the iPhone and iPad, though Verizon Wireless has been in talks with Apple.
AT&T's shift to usage caps could ease Internet consumption, but it and other wireless carriers are expected to have to continue to spend heavily to improve their networks.
Some analysts say AT&T's move should usher in a more profitable business model for carriers as smart phone usage proliferates. Smart phones, including BlackBerrys made by Research In Motion (NMS:RIMM) and handsets based on Google's (NMS:GOOG) Android operating system, accounted for 34% of new handset sales in the first quarter, says market tracker NPD.
Shares in AT&T, down about 12% in 2010, rose 1.85% on Wednesday. Shares in Verizon Communications and Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S - News) also rose.
AT&T's strategy may increase price competition at the low-end, some analysts say.
Besides the $25 2 GB plan, AT&T says it will charge new customers $15 per month for 200 megabytes of data. If subscribers go over that limit, AT&T will tack on $15 for another 200 megabytes.
T-Mobile USA, owned by Germany's Deutsche Telekom (NYSE:DT - News), recently rolled out new rate plans that charge $25 for 200 megabytes of data. Verizon offers a $10 monthly data plan for 25 megabytes.
"Other operators will follow with cuts to their data plans and (we) would not rule out a family plan data rate being offered," wrote Walter Piecyk, an analyst at BTIG Research, in his company blog.
On the high end, analyst Moffett says he does not expect Clearwire (NMS:CLWR), which operates a high-speed data network, to lower its prices.
AT&T says 98% of its smart phone customers consume less than 2 GB of data monthly, while 65% use less than 200 MB.
AT&T and most wireless carriers limit data usage for laptops to 5 GB per month. Buyers of the new iPhone will have to pay $20 extra a month for tethering to laptops.
While most wireless users today gobble up less than 2 GB of data a month, new services could shift usage patterns. Google is poised to deliver more Web video to Android phones. Sprint is touting video calls with its new HTC EVO phone, the first 4G phone on the U.S. market.
AT&T aims to get in front of exploding data traffic, says Tim Horan, an Oppenheimer analyst.
"We are not sure what drove the specific timing other than probably very high-end iPad and iPhone users continuing to pressure (AT&T's) network ...," Horan wrote in a research note.
Australia's economic growth slows
Australia's economy grew for a fifth straight quarter in the first three months of the year, but at a slower rate than the previous quarter.
Official figures show GDP in the three months to March was 0.5% higher than in the same period last year.
Growth for the last three months of 2009 was also revised up to 1.1%, giving Australia a growth figure of 2.7% for the year to the end of March.
Finance minister Wayne Swan called the figures "another very solid outcome".
He said the continued growth of the economy demonstrated its strength relative to other developed economies.
Australia avoided falling into recession last year, thanks largely to continued demand for its natural resources from China.
But the economy has also benefited from a significant economic stimulus package.
Growth in GDP was driven by an 11.6% increase in public investment, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said.
But Mr Wayne said the withdrawal of some stimulus measures was an encouraging sign that the recovery was self-sustaining.
Investors also reacted positively, with the Australian dollar rising on the hope that interest rates would continue to rise.
On Tuesday, Australia's reserve bank opted to keep rates on hold at 4.5% following a series of increases.
Prudential abandons bid for AIA
UK insurer Prudential has scrapped plans to buy AIA, the Asian business of US insurer AIG.
The deal collapsed after Prudential failed to negotiate a lower price for AIA.
In March, Prudential agreed to buy AIA for $35.5bn (£24.6bn), but last week asked for the price to be cut to nearer $30bn after shareholder opposition.
AIG said on Tuesday that it would not "not consider" any revision to the terms of the deal.
The Prudential said it faced £450m ($653m) in costs related to the deal, including a break fee of about £152m.
Hard thinking
Prudential had sought to fund the takeover by raising £14.5bn from shareholders through a rights issue, the biggest in the UK's history.
But a number of the company's shareholders were opposed to the bid, believing the price being offered was too high.
They formed a rebel shareholder group, the Prudential Action Group, which planned to oppose the deal at a shareholder vote due to be held on 7 June.
That vote will not now be held.
Prudential chairman Harvey McGrath said the firm had taken heed of its investors wishes.
"We listened carefully to shareholders over the price and initiated a renegotiation of the terms with AIG," Mr McGrath said.
"Unfortunately, it has not been possible to reach agreement... we are therefore withdrawing from the transaction."
The collapse of the deal is expected to raise questions about the future of both him and his chief executive, Tidjane Thiam, with the company.
One of the Pru's bigger shareholders, Robert Talbot, chief investment officer at Royal London Asset Management, said some hard thinking was now needed.
"There certainly needs to be a proper review as to how the board came to the decision that this was the right deal at the right price - and who most strongly proposed that particular transaction," Mr Talbot told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
The BBC's business editor, Robert Peston, said the deal was "an important event in the history of British stock market capitalism".
"It shows that conventional investment institutions are prepared to act more like the independent owners of a business and not as absentee landlords too readily compliant with the wishes of managers," he said.
Google: We don't do Windows
Posted by Seth Weintraub
Google is phasing out its use of Microsoft's Windows on desktops, citing security concerns stemming from the recent Chinese hacking incident
It must be nice to be a Google employee. You get to work with the smartest engineers out there. You get gourmet cafeteria food and all kinds of amenities. But best of all, you aren't given some generic, locked-down PC that you aren't familiar with. You get to pick what platform you want to be on: Mac, Windows, or Linux.
Well, you were able to pick Windows, but now that option is off the table according to a story today from the Financial Times.
They get quotes from a number of employees who say the reasoning behind the move is security-related and specifically a result of the recent Chinese hacking incident...
"We're not doing any more Windows. It is a security effort"
"Many people have been moved away from [Windows] PCs, mostly towards Mac OS, following the China hacking attacks"
"Particularly since the China scare, a lot of people here are using Macs for security"
The recent Chinese hacking of Google was done through Microsoft (MSFT) Windows computers on the Google's (GOOG) corporate network.
Windows is technically still an option, but you need to have some seriously good reasons to have it on your desktop. Those reasons need to be justified to the office of Google's CIO and approved. Otherwise, it is a Mac or a Linux box.
I'd imagine that some IE browser testing machines would need to be running Windows. Also, people developing Outlook migration tools for Google Apps and developers of Windows software like Google Earth and SketchUp will need the operating system.
Obviously, Google would eventually love it if its employees used its own Linux-based desktop OS product, ChromeOS, as soon as its is ready for prime time. For now, though, Apple's (AAPL) Macs and, to a lesser extent, Linux are the answer.
But ChromeOS is the future and it seems pretty apparent that Google is heading in that direction. A few more Googler quotes:
"Before the security, there was a directive by the company to try to run things on Google products. It was a long time coming."
"A lot of it is an effort to run things on Google product," the employee said. "They want to run things on Chrome."
Google is phasing out its use of Microsoft's Windows on desktops, citing security concerns stemming from the recent Chinese hacking incident
It must be nice to be a Google employee. You get to work with the smartest engineers out there. You get gourmet cafeteria food and all kinds of amenities. But best of all, you aren't given some generic, locked-down PC that you aren't familiar with. You get to pick what platform you want to be on: Mac, Windows, or Linux.
Well, you were able to pick Windows, but now that option is off the table according to a story today from the Financial Times.
They get quotes from a number of employees who say the reasoning behind the move is security-related and specifically a result of the recent Chinese hacking incident...
"We're not doing any more Windows. It is a security effort"
"Many people have been moved away from [Windows] PCs, mostly towards Mac OS, following the China hacking attacks"
"Particularly since the China scare, a lot of people here are using Macs for security"
The recent Chinese hacking of Google was done through Microsoft (MSFT) Windows computers on the Google's (GOOG) corporate network.
Windows is technically still an option, but you need to have some seriously good reasons to have it on your desktop. Those reasons need to be justified to the office of Google's CIO and approved. Otherwise, it is a Mac or a Linux box.
I'd imagine that some IE browser testing machines would need to be running Windows. Also, people developing Outlook migration tools for Google Apps and developers of Windows software like Google Earth and SketchUp will need the operating system.
Obviously, Google would eventually love it if its employees used its own Linux-based desktop OS product, ChromeOS, as soon as its is ready for prime time. For now, though, Apple's (AAPL) Macs and, to a lesser extent, Linux are the answer.
But ChromeOS is the future and it seems pretty apparent that Google is heading in that direction. A few more Googler quotes:
"Before the security, there was a directive by the company to try to run things on Google products. It was a long time coming."
"A lot of it is an effort to run things on Google product," the employee said. "They want to run things on Chrome."
marți, 1 iunie 2010
After Disaster, Oil Service Bargains for Long-Term Investors
By David Bogoslaw Businessnews
The BP rig blowout has hammered the oil services companies that work in the Gulf of Mexico. But analysts say, in the long run, companies can benefit from new rules
Less than a year ago, when low oil prices and uncertainty about the timing of an economic recovery made investors nervous about energy bets, the oilfield services industry was the place to be, since oil producers couldn't afford not to continue drilling. Now, in the wake of what's said to be the biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history, the near-term outlook for oilfield services companies doesn't look nearly as bright. But for investors willing to stick with battered stocks such as Cameron International (CAM) or Halliburton (HAL)—for a year or two—stiffer regulations on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico could mean enhanced opportunities. And while the sector remains risky, there could be some bargains.
The near-term impact of the blowout of BP's (BP) Deepwater Horizon rig has been rough on companies working in the Gulf. On May 27, President Obama declared a six-month moratorium on all deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, which affects all wells drilled in waters deeper than 500 feet. The following day, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced tough safety and control regulations on rigs working in the Gulf. And on June 1, the Obama Administration said it was investigating whether any criminal or civil laws were violated in the rig disaster.
But since about 30 percent of the oil the U.S. consumes comes from the Gulf, it's unlikely the Obama Administration would choose to permanently ban drilling there, say some analysts. The fact that minerals royalties are a major source of federal revenue makes that option even more unlikely, according to Tim Parker, an energy analyst at T. Rowe Price (TROW).
Earnings Impact
The ban on deepwater drilling is sure to hurt oil services companies' earnings for the second half of 2010 and for the full year. Parker expects earnings to be reduced by 5 percent to 10 percent on the low end and 10 percent to 15 percent on the upper end. The impact might be worse if companies don't trim their cost structures, says Parker, who expects them to move personnel around to manage expenses.
Still, Parker sees this as a short-term money issue. "If you have a one-year time horizon, you'll be very happy owning these stocks," he says. "You could own these things for the next two years and get them cheap for the next six months."
In a research note for FBR Capital Markets (FBCM) on May 27, Rob MacKenzie estimated that Transocean's (RIG) earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) for 2010 would drop by up to 14 percent if the deepwater permit moratorium were extended by six months and all its deepwater rigs working in the Gulf of Mexico went idle after its current wells for roughly another five months of downtime. Diamond Offshore's (DO) 2010 EBITDA would decrease by up to 28 percent under the same scenario. The financial impact of the drilling ban could be reduced if the rigs were hired to drill sidetrack wells, or secondary wellbores drilled away from the original hole, which are exempted from the drilling permit moratorium, or if rigs were moved to projects in other geographic regions, he wrote. MacKenzie reaffirmed his outperform rating on Transocean and market perform rating for Diamond Offshore.
Moving a rig to Brazil, the drilling region closest to the Gulf, would result in the loss of a month's worth of revenue for an operator, while a move to West Africa would cause an even longer disruption in revenue, says Geoff Kieburtz, an analyst at Weedon & Co. in Greenwich, Conn.
Contractor Uncertainty
There's additional uncertainty for contractors if other operators take a cue from Cobalt International Energy (CIE), which on June 1 invoked the force majeure provision under its drilling contract with Diamond Offshore for a rig that was ready to start drilling an exploratory well in the Gulf. That means that revenues which contractors believed were locked in may not be if the operators refuse to pay, citing events beyond their control.
Of the big four multi-service companies, Baker Hughes (BHI) is most exposed to the Gulf of Mexico, where it generates a bigger portion of its total revenues relative to other regions, says Will Riley, co-manager of the Guinness Atkinson Global Energy Fund (GAGEX). "If you can get over the fact that earnings will be weak this year, the outlook for next year looks good," he says.
These companies' balance sheets are generally strong, so they can withstand short-term earnings pressure, Riley says. His fund, which manages $95 million in assets, has maintained both its direct and indirect exposure to the Gulf. While he doesn't own shares of Noble Group (NE) or Ensco International (ESV), two other companies that are active in the Gulf, he believes both would be good bargains fairly soon.
More risk-averse investors might want to avoid companies directly exposed to the Gulf of Mexico, but most stocks in the multi-services group have potentially fallen too far and will "require serious attention" fairly soon, says Riley.
Revenue Boost
Ironically, the stricter safety regulations the Interior Dept. is calling for will likely increase oil services companies' revenues in the long term as some of the services they aren't currently required to provide will be mandated in the future, says Parker of T. Rowe Price. Enhanced safety procedures could include stronger control systems such as a cement bond log, which gauges the quality of a cement bond on a well's exterior casing by measuring variations in the acoustic signal traveling down the casing wall between a transmitter and receiver. "[Currently], you don't have to do that for every job." Halliburton is one of the leading providers of this service.
Another gainer from new rules might be Cameron International, which made the blowout preventer, or BOP, installed on the Deepwater Horizon rig. The company probably won't be held liable for the Apr. 20 explosion, since the various problems with the blowout preventer that may have caused its malfunction aren't the result of a product defect or design flaw, Gabelli & Co. said in a May 25 research note. Cameron, with about a 40 percent share of the BOP market, "will be a beneficiary of a new equipment cycle to increase safety standards" for offshore drilling. Blowout preventers represent an estimated 10 percent to 15 percent of Cameron's annual revenue, the note said.
One recommendation from the Interior Dept. is that every floating rig in the Gulf would have to have redundant shear rams—the part of the blowout preventer that cuts through drill pipe and forms a seal against well pressure—as a backup safety measure. Although the Deepwater Horizon rig did have two shear rams, that isn't a typical configuration, says Weedon's Kieburtz. Multiple shear rams would boost equipment sales for Cameron and the other leading BOP manufacturer, National Oilwell Varco (NOV), he adds.
Aftermarket Maintenance
Cameron and National Oilwell would also benefit from increased aftermarket activity if new regulations require the original blowout preventer manufacturers to have a hand in maintenance after sales to contractors. Transocean had done all the maintenance on the blowout preventer involved in the Deepwater Horizon incident since buying it from Cameron in 2001.
Shares of other drilling equipment manufacturers, such as FMC Technologies (FTI) and Dril-Quip (DRQ), have dropped considerably since the oil spill, making them more attractive to investors willing to take a risk. Riley says he's always believed they were relatively expensive stocks to own, but for investors who can get comfortable with valuations, the new regulatory environment should boost these companies' sales.
Two other names in the industry, Oceaneering International (OII) and Subsea 7 (S8J:GR), which manufacture underwater remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs—the tethered robots that function as oil producers' eyes and hands on the ocean floor—stand to gain from improved operating capabilities in ROVs that may be required as a result of the BP disaster, says Parker at T. Rowe Price.
The BP rig blowout has hammered the oil services companies that work in the Gulf of Mexico. But analysts say, in the long run, companies can benefit from new rules
Less than a year ago, when low oil prices and uncertainty about the timing of an economic recovery made investors nervous about energy bets, the oilfield services industry was the place to be, since oil producers couldn't afford not to continue drilling. Now, in the wake of what's said to be the biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history, the near-term outlook for oilfield services companies doesn't look nearly as bright. But for investors willing to stick with battered stocks such as Cameron International (CAM) or Halliburton (HAL)—for a year or two—stiffer regulations on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico could mean enhanced opportunities. And while the sector remains risky, there could be some bargains.
The near-term impact of the blowout of BP's (BP) Deepwater Horizon rig has been rough on companies working in the Gulf. On May 27, President Obama declared a six-month moratorium on all deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, which affects all wells drilled in waters deeper than 500 feet. The following day, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced tough safety and control regulations on rigs working in the Gulf. And on June 1, the Obama Administration said it was investigating whether any criminal or civil laws were violated in the rig disaster.
But since about 30 percent of the oil the U.S. consumes comes from the Gulf, it's unlikely the Obama Administration would choose to permanently ban drilling there, say some analysts. The fact that minerals royalties are a major source of federal revenue makes that option even more unlikely, according to Tim Parker, an energy analyst at T. Rowe Price (TROW).
Earnings Impact
The ban on deepwater drilling is sure to hurt oil services companies' earnings for the second half of 2010 and for the full year. Parker expects earnings to be reduced by 5 percent to 10 percent on the low end and 10 percent to 15 percent on the upper end. The impact might be worse if companies don't trim their cost structures, says Parker, who expects them to move personnel around to manage expenses.
Still, Parker sees this as a short-term money issue. "If you have a one-year time horizon, you'll be very happy owning these stocks," he says. "You could own these things for the next two years and get them cheap for the next six months."
In a research note for FBR Capital Markets (FBCM) on May 27, Rob MacKenzie estimated that Transocean's (RIG) earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) for 2010 would drop by up to 14 percent if the deepwater permit moratorium were extended by six months and all its deepwater rigs working in the Gulf of Mexico went idle after its current wells for roughly another five months of downtime. Diamond Offshore's (DO) 2010 EBITDA would decrease by up to 28 percent under the same scenario. The financial impact of the drilling ban could be reduced if the rigs were hired to drill sidetrack wells, or secondary wellbores drilled away from the original hole, which are exempted from the drilling permit moratorium, or if rigs were moved to projects in other geographic regions, he wrote. MacKenzie reaffirmed his outperform rating on Transocean and market perform rating for Diamond Offshore.
Moving a rig to Brazil, the drilling region closest to the Gulf, would result in the loss of a month's worth of revenue for an operator, while a move to West Africa would cause an even longer disruption in revenue, says Geoff Kieburtz, an analyst at Weedon & Co. in Greenwich, Conn.
Contractor Uncertainty
There's additional uncertainty for contractors if other operators take a cue from Cobalt International Energy (CIE), which on June 1 invoked the force majeure provision under its drilling contract with Diamond Offshore for a rig that was ready to start drilling an exploratory well in the Gulf. That means that revenues which contractors believed were locked in may not be if the operators refuse to pay, citing events beyond their control.
Of the big four multi-service companies, Baker Hughes (BHI) is most exposed to the Gulf of Mexico, where it generates a bigger portion of its total revenues relative to other regions, says Will Riley, co-manager of the Guinness Atkinson Global Energy Fund (GAGEX). "If you can get over the fact that earnings will be weak this year, the outlook for next year looks good," he says.
These companies' balance sheets are generally strong, so they can withstand short-term earnings pressure, Riley says. His fund, which manages $95 million in assets, has maintained both its direct and indirect exposure to the Gulf. While he doesn't own shares of Noble Group (NE) or Ensco International (ESV), two other companies that are active in the Gulf, he believes both would be good bargains fairly soon.
More risk-averse investors might want to avoid companies directly exposed to the Gulf of Mexico, but most stocks in the multi-services group have potentially fallen too far and will "require serious attention" fairly soon, says Riley.
Revenue Boost
Ironically, the stricter safety regulations the Interior Dept. is calling for will likely increase oil services companies' revenues in the long term as some of the services they aren't currently required to provide will be mandated in the future, says Parker of T. Rowe Price. Enhanced safety procedures could include stronger control systems such as a cement bond log, which gauges the quality of a cement bond on a well's exterior casing by measuring variations in the acoustic signal traveling down the casing wall between a transmitter and receiver. "[Currently], you don't have to do that for every job." Halliburton is one of the leading providers of this service.
Another gainer from new rules might be Cameron International, which made the blowout preventer, or BOP, installed on the Deepwater Horizon rig. The company probably won't be held liable for the Apr. 20 explosion, since the various problems with the blowout preventer that may have caused its malfunction aren't the result of a product defect or design flaw, Gabelli & Co. said in a May 25 research note. Cameron, with about a 40 percent share of the BOP market, "will be a beneficiary of a new equipment cycle to increase safety standards" for offshore drilling. Blowout preventers represent an estimated 10 percent to 15 percent of Cameron's annual revenue, the note said.
One recommendation from the Interior Dept. is that every floating rig in the Gulf would have to have redundant shear rams—the part of the blowout preventer that cuts through drill pipe and forms a seal against well pressure—as a backup safety measure. Although the Deepwater Horizon rig did have two shear rams, that isn't a typical configuration, says Weedon's Kieburtz. Multiple shear rams would boost equipment sales for Cameron and the other leading BOP manufacturer, National Oilwell Varco (NOV), he adds.
Aftermarket Maintenance
Cameron and National Oilwell would also benefit from increased aftermarket activity if new regulations require the original blowout preventer manufacturers to have a hand in maintenance after sales to contractors. Transocean had done all the maintenance on the blowout preventer involved in the Deepwater Horizon incident since buying it from Cameron in 2001.
Shares of other drilling equipment manufacturers, such as FMC Technologies (FTI) and Dril-Quip (DRQ), have dropped considerably since the oil spill, making them more attractive to investors willing to take a risk. Riley says he's always believed they were relatively expensive stocks to own, but for investors who can get comfortable with valuations, the new regulatory environment should boost these companies' sales.
Two other names in the industry, Oceaneering International (OII) and Subsea 7 (S8J:GR), which manufacture underwater remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs—the tethered robots that function as oil producers' eyes and hands on the ocean floor—stand to gain from improved operating capabilities in ROVs that may be required as a result of the BP disaster, says Parker at T. Rowe Price.
German jobless rate falls and retail sales rise
German unemployment fell sharply in May, data from the national labour agency showed on Tuesday, while retail sales picked up as Europe's biggest economy pushed on despite the eurozone financial crisis.
The unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent of the workforce, the lowest rate since December 2008, from 8.1 percent in April.
"In these difficult times, the labour market has provided good news," Labour Minister Ursula von der Leyen said in Berlin, before noting that repercussions of the economic crisis last year "have remained limited."
Across the 16-nation eurozone however, unemployment reached a record of 10.1 percent in April, with almost 16 million people out of work, the European Union said in Brussels.
Germany had more good news to report meanwhile, as the national statistics office said shoppers headed back to the high street in April, pushing up retail sales for the first time this year.
They gained a seasonally-adjusted 1.0 percent from March, in line with analysts' forecasts, the Destatis office said.
Export-orientated Germany has been pressured by European Union neighbours to boost domestic consumption and help those who do not manage to achieve Berlin's constant trade surpluses.
The end of a harsh winter along with factors such as the German government's short-work programme and a pick-up in crucial exports have helped the country weather the storm battering peripheral eurozone countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain.
Berlin's latest unemployment figure was the lowest May reading since 1992 and the 11th monthly decline in a row.
The seasonally-adjusted number of jobseekers fell by 45,000 or nearly three times more than a forecast of 17,500 compiled by Dow Jones Newswires.
"Successful labour market reforms, the government's famous crisis tool of short-work schemes and companies' prudence have made the labour market the bright spot of the recession," ING senior economist Carsten Brzeski noted.
German officials have subsidised shorter working hours so companies did not have to lay off as many workers amid the country's worst post-war recession, and can be brought back to full-time status as orders for German wares bounce back.
That means fewer new workers are likely to be hired now, but also that "the latest level of joblessness is now only slightly higher than at the end of the previous economic boom," noted IHS Global Insight senior economist Timo Klein.
"It still has to be called a jobs miracle that the largest post-war recession by far has only led to a short-lived spike in joblessness," he said.
The recent substantial drop reflects a true rise in demand for labour," and added that prospects for the jobs market "continue to remain favorable for the time being."
The biggest question mark is whether efforts to redress government finances and uncertainty generated by the eurozone's fiscal crisis will weigh on growth later this year, economists said.
CDC Software earnings outlook misses forecast
Business software maker CDC Software Corp. indicated Tuesday that earnings in 2010 and 2011 would be lower than what Wall Street was expecting, but revenue would be higher.
CDC Software said it expects to earn $1.15 to $1.25 per share in 2010, excluding certain items, on adjusted revenue of $220 million to $230 million. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters were looking for earnings of $1.27 per share and $219 million in revenue.
For 2011, the software maker forecasts earnings of $1.35 to $1.45 per share, excluding items, on $245 million to $255 million in adjusted revenue. Analysts have been predicting earnings of $1.48 per share and $238 million in revenue.
CDC Software cited strong sales in its software-as-a-service business, which sells customers access to programs running on servers operated by CDC, rather than the traditional software licenses for programs that customers install and maintain on their own.
But the company has made several recent acquisitions as it expands the software-as-a-service part of its business, which it said will weigh on results in the near future.
"As a result, we believe that we will recognize less revenue up front compared to our traditional license model, and will also be realizing more expenses in R&D, sales and marketing and other integration-related costs," Bruce Cameron, president of CDC Software, said in a statement.
The company said its 2010 guidance also reflects possible effects of two to three "significant" potential acquisitions.
Shares fell 26 cents, or 3 percent, to $8.28 in early afternoon trading.
CDC Software said it expects to earn $1.15 to $1.25 per share in 2010, excluding certain items, on adjusted revenue of $220 million to $230 million. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters were looking for earnings of $1.27 per share and $219 million in revenue.
For 2011, the software maker forecasts earnings of $1.35 to $1.45 per share, excluding items, on $245 million to $255 million in adjusted revenue. Analysts have been predicting earnings of $1.48 per share and $238 million in revenue.
CDC Software cited strong sales in its software-as-a-service business, which sells customers access to programs running on servers operated by CDC, rather than the traditional software licenses for programs that customers install and maintain on their own.
But the company has made several recent acquisitions as it expands the software-as-a-service part of its business, which it said will weigh on results in the near future.
"As a result, we believe that we will recognize less revenue up front compared to our traditional license model, and will also be realizing more expenses in R&D, sales and marketing and other integration-related costs," Bruce Cameron, president of CDC Software, said in a statement.
The company said its 2010 guidance also reflects possible effects of two to three "significant" potential acquisitions.
Shares fell 26 cents, or 3 percent, to $8.28 in early afternoon trading.
Economy strengthens behind building, manufacturing
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
The economic recovery gained strength on the biggest rise in construction spending in nearly a decade and the 10th straight month of expansion for the manufacturing sector.
Temporary government incentives fueled most of the construction spending increases in April. Industry spending rose 2.7 percent with gains in all major sectors, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.
In a separate report Tuesday, the Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing executives, said its manufacturing index dipped slightly in May from a nearly six-year high in April. But the 59.7 reading for May was well above the 50 level that indicates expansion.
Export orders rose last month despite the debt crisis in Europe that threatens to spread.
"The European fiscal crisis doesn't appear to have harmed the prospects of U.S. manufacturers, at least not yet," wrote Paul Ashworth, senior U.S. economist with Capital Economics.
The news was welcomed on Wall Street. Stocks erased early losses after the two reports signaled a lift in the economic recovery. The Dow Jones industrial average rose about 40 points in midday trading after sliding in early trading.
Construction spending was boosted by a homebuyer tax credit, which helped residential construction surge 4.4 percent in April. The tax credit expired at the end of April.
Government spending also rose on the strength of federal support. The 2.4 percent increase was aided by the economic stimulus program that Congress passed in February 2009. State and local spending jumped 2.3 percent and federal spending rose 2.9 percent.
The other major sector, nonresidential construction, climbed 1.7 percent. That marked the first advance in this category since March 2009. The strength in April came from gains in private sector work on communications projects and power generation facilities. Construction of office buildings and the category that includes shopping centers fell in April.
Commercial building projects have suffered in the weak economy through rising loan defaults and tighter credit. That has made it harder for developers to get financing.
Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, said the spike from the homebuyer tax credit is likely to fade now that it has expired.
He discounted the unexpected rise in nonresidential activity and said it could possibly be revised away next month.
"These numbers are hugely unreliable ... and we expect a downward revision next month," he said.
Homebuilders have expressed optimism that construction will keep improving even with the expiration of the homebuyer tax credits.
Luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers Inc. reported last week that it had a narrower loss in its latest quarter and had seen a surge in new home orders. The company said the strength in orders was holding up in May even though the homebuyer tax credits had come to end.
PulteGroup Inc., the nation's largest homebuilder, reported in early May that it had been able to reduce its loss for the first quarter and expected to be profitable this year. That would mark a major turning point for the company, which has posted losses in 14 consecutive quarters.
In the manufacturing report, the group's employment index, which measures employers' willingness to hire, rose 1.3 percentage points to 59.8. That was the highest level since May 2004.
New orders, a gauge of future production, were unchanged at 65.7. "We haven't lost much in the way of momentum," said Norbert Ore, chairman of the ISM's manufacturing survey on a conference call. "The manufacturing sector continues to move ahead."
The economic recovery gained strength on the biggest rise in construction spending in nearly a decade and the 10th straight month of expansion for the manufacturing sector.
Temporary government incentives fueled most of the construction spending increases in April. Industry spending rose 2.7 percent with gains in all major sectors, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.
In a separate report Tuesday, the Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing executives, said its manufacturing index dipped slightly in May from a nearly six-year high in April. But the 59.7 reading for May was well above the 50 level that indicates expansion.
Export orders rose last month despite the debt crisis in Europe that threatens to spread.
"The European fiscal crisis doesn't appear to have harmed the prospects of U.S. manufacturers, at least not yet," wrote Paul Ashworth, senior U.S. economist with Capital Economics.
The news was welcomed on Wall Street. Stocks erased early losses after the two reports signaled a lift in the economic recovery. The Dow Jones industrial average rose about 40 points in midday trading after sliding in early trading.
Construction spending was boosted by a homebuyer tax credit, which helped residential construction surge 4.4 percent in April. The tax credit expired at the end of April.
Government spending also rose on the strength of federal support. The 2.4 percent increase was aided by the economic stimulus program that Congress passed in February 2009. State and local spending jumped 2.3 percent and federal spending rose 2.9 percent.
The other major sector, nonresidential construction, climbed 1.7 percent. That marked the first advance in this category since March 2009. The strength in April came from gains in private sector work on communications projects and power generation facilities. Construction of office buildings and the category that includes shopping centers fell in April.
Commercial building projects have suffered in the weak economy through rising loan defaults and tighter credit. That has made it harder for developers to get financing.
Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, said the spike from the homebuyer tax credit is likely to fade now that it has expired.
He discounted the unexpected rise in nonresidential activity and said it could possibly be revised away next month.
"These numbers are hugely unreliable ... and we expect a downward revision next month," he said.
Homebuilders have expressed optimism that construction will keep improving even with the expiration of the homebuyer tax credits.
Luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers Inc. reported last week that it had a narrower loss in its latest quarter and had seen a surge in new home orders. The company said the strength in orders was holding up in May even though the homebuyer tax credits had come to end.
PulteGroup Inc., the nation's largest homebuilder, reported in early May that it had been able to reduce its loss for the first quarter and expected to be profitable this year. That would mark a major turning point for the company, which has posted losses in 14 consecutive quarters.
In the manufacturing report, the group's employment index, which measures employers' willingness to hire, rose 1.3 percentage points to 59.8. That was the highest level since May 2004.
New orders, a gauge of future production, were unchanged at 65.7. "We haven't lost much in the way of momentum," said Norbert Ore, chairman of the ISM's manufacturing survey on a conference call. "The manufacturing sector continues to move ahead."
Hewlett-Packard to cut 9K jobs in services unit
By BARBARA ORTUTAY
Hewlett-Packard Co. said Tuesday it will lay off about 9,000 workers in the unit that provides technology services to other businesses as the company consolidates and automates its commercial data centers.
The cuts will be made over about three years and amount to some 3 percent of HP's global work force of 304,000 employees as of October 2009, the most recent figure available. The company said it plans to replace two-thirds of those jobs, hiring 6,000 people to boost its global sales and delivery staff.
HP said the job cuts will result from productivity gains and automation in the data centers, which are clusters of computers that HP's business customers tap into to store data, run software and perform other tasks. Like most companies that offer such services, HP has data centers around the world. HP did not specify the locations of its planned cuts.
Once it completes the restructuring, HP said it will see savings of about $500 million to $700 million a year.
HP, which is based in Palo Alto, Calif., said it will take $1 billion in charges, about half of it in the current quarter and the rest by October 2013, the end of its fiscal year. The charges, which are largely for severance expenses, will be excluded from the company's adjusted earnings results.
HP, the world's biggest maker of PCs and printers and the top technology company by revenue, has been working to expand its business in other areas as PC profit margins are usually thin. To boost its services business, the company bought Electronic Data Systems, a rival of IBM Corp., in 2008, cutting 24,600 jobs as part of that acquisition.
HP said the commercial data centers will help its corporate clients run their businesses faster and more efficiently. Ann Livermore, executive vice president for HP Enterprise Business, said the company is confident its actions will "provide a foundation for growth for the next 10 years."
"We believe that these sets of actions will enable HP to grow better than the market," she said in a conference call with analysts.
Standard & Poor's equity analyst Tom Smith applauded HP's latest actions, calling them the "next step toward efficiency gains" after the initial integration of EDS.
In addition to business services, HP is also pushing into the mobile market with its planned acquisition of struggling smart phone maker Palm Inc., announced in April.
HP's shares rose 4 cents to $46.05 in midday trading Tuesday.
Hewlett-Packard Co. said Tuesday it will lay off about 9,000 workers in the unit that provides technology services to other businesses as the company consolidates and automates its commercial data centers.
The cuts will be made over about three years and amount to some 3 percent of HP's global work force of 304,000 employees as of October 2009, the most recent figure available. The company said it plans to replace two-thirds of those jobs, hiring 6,000 people to boost its global sales and delivery staff.
HP said the job cuts will result from productivity gains and automation in the data centers, which are clusters of computers that HP's business customers tap into to store data, run software and perform other tasks. Like most companies that offer such services, HP has data centers around the world. HP did not specify the locations of its planned cuts.
Once it completes the restructuring, HP said it will see savings of about $500 million to $700 million a year.
HP, which is based in Palo Alto, Calif., said it will take $1 billion in charges, about half of it in the current quarter and the rest by October 2013, the end of its fiscal year. The charges, which are largely for severance expenses, will be excluded from the company's adjusted earnings results.
HP, the world's biggest maker of PCs and printers and the top technology company by revenue, has been working to expand its business in other areas as PC profit margins are usually thin. To boost its services business, the company bought Electronic Data Systems, a rival of IBM Corp., in 2008, cutting 24,600 jobs as part of that acquisition.
HP said the commercial data centers will help its corporate clients run their businesses faster and more efficiently. Ann Livermore, executive vice president for HP Enterprise Business, said the company is confident its actions will "provide a foundation for growth for the next 10 years."
"We believe that these sets of actions will enable HP to grow better than the market," she said in a conference call with analysts.
Standard & Poor's equity analyst Tom Smith applauded HP's latest actions, calling them the "next step toward efficiency gains" after the initial integration of EDS.
In addition to business services, HP is also pushing into the mobile market with its planned acquisition of struggling smart phone maker Palm Inc., announced in April.
HP's shares rose 4 cents to $46.05 in midday trading Tuesday.
luni, 31 mai 2010
China aims to be become supercomputer superpower
By Jonathan Fildes BBC News
China is ramping up efforts to become the world's supercomputing superpower.
Its Nebulae machine at the National Super Computer Center in Shenzhen, was ranked second on the biannual Top 500 supercomputer list.
For the first time, a second Chinese supercomputer appears in the list of the top ten fastest machines.
However, the US still dominates the list with more than half the Top 500, including the world's fastest, known as Jaguar.
The Cray computer, which is owned by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, has a top speed of 1.75 petaflops.
One petaflop is the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second.
It is used by scientists conducting research in astrophysics, climate science and nuclear energy.
How fast is the Jaguar Supercomputer?
The Jaguar supercomputer performs 1,750 trillion calculations a second. How long does it take an average PC to match its performance in different time periods
By comparison, China has 24 machines in the list. Its fastest has a top speed of 1.20 petaflops, more than double the speed of its previous top supercomputer. However, it has a theoretical top speed of nearly 3 petaflops, which would make it the fastest in the world.
The fastest machine in the UK - which has 38 supercomputers on the list - is housed at the University of Edinburgh. It has a top speed of 0.27 petaflops.
"The Top 500 list definitely has an element of flag waving," said Dr Jon Lockley, manager of the Oxford Supercomputing Centre.
By comparison, China has 24 machines in the list. Its fastest has a top speed of 1.20 petaflops, more than double the speed of its previous top supercomputer. However, it has a theoretical top speed of nearly 3 petaflops, which would make it the fastest in the world.
The fastest machine in the UK - which has 38 supercomputers on the list - is housed at the University of Edinburgh. It has a top speed of 0.27 petaflops.
"The Top 500 list definitely has an element of flag waving," said Dr Jon Lockley, manager of the Oxford Supercomputing Centre.
Quick thinking
He said China was rapidly becoming a "player" in high performance computing.
Dawning, the company behind the fastest Chinese machine, is reportedly building an even faster machine for the National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin. In addition, it is also developing home-grown silicon chips to power the behemoths.
Their use of high-performance computers is really systematic of their industrial emergence," Dr Lockley told BBC News.
The machines tend to be used for industrial research, such as aircraft design and petroleum exploration.
Dr Lockley said this was becoming increasingly common around the world.
"Whenever possible, everything is done in a supercomputer," he said.
"Look at Formula One - it's getting rid of all of its wind tunnels and replacing them with supercomputers. It's the same in the aerospace industry as well.
"It means you can all the modelling in the supercomputer and then do just one real world test."
Many of the US machines, by contrast, are owned by the government and are used to monitor the nuclear weapon stockpile
The US has one other petaflop machine - owned by the US Department of Energy. Roadrunner, as it is known, held the top spot until Jaguar displaced it in 2009.
All others machines on the list run at so-called teraflop speeds.
A teraflop is the equivalent of one trillion calculations per second.
Spy machines
However, scientists are already thinking about so-called exascale machines which would be able to crunch through one quintillion (one million trillion) calculations per second.
An exascale computer has been proposed to process data from the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), a series of thousands of telescopes spread over 3,000km. The telescope will be based in either Australia or South Africa.
"At that sort of size the challenge is trying to programme the machines,"" said Dr Lockley.
"It has to be fault tolerant - you can't have a situation where an entire task falls over if one bit fails."
The top 500 list was published at the International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg, Germany.
It ranks machines by speed. However, according to Dr Lockley, determining which machine is the quickest is a difficult issue.
"It's measured against a theoretical benchmark - if you ran a real-world application you might get a very different answer".
It is also a voluntary list and therefore does not include all machines, such as those at the Oxford Supercomputing Centre and many classified machines owned by governments.
"The spooks have got some pretty big machines," said Dr Lockley
China is ramping up efforts to become the world's supercomputing superpower.
Its Nebulae machine at the National Super Computer Center in Shenzhen, was ranked second on the biannual Top 500 supercomputer list.
For the first time, a second Chinese supercomputer appears in the list of the top ten fastest machines.
However, the US still dominates the list with more than half the Top 500, including the world's fastest, known as Jaguar.
The Cray computer, which is owned by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, has a top speed of 1.75 petaflops.
One petaflop is the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second.
It is used by scientists conducting research in astrophysics, climate science and nuclear energy.
How fast is the Jaguar Supercomputer?
The Jaguar supercomputer performs 1,750 trillion calculations a second. How long does it take an average PC to match its performance in different time periods
By comparison, China has 24 machines in the list. Its fastest has a top speed of 1.20 petaflops, more than double the speed of its previous top supercomputer. However, it has a theoretical top speed of nearly 3 petaflops, which would make it the fastest in the world.
The fastest machine in the UK - which has 38 supercomputers on the list - is housed at the University of Edinburgh. It has a top speed of 0.27 petaflops.
"The Top 500 list definitely has an element of flag waving," said Dr Jon Lockley, manager of the Oxford Supercomputing Centre.
By comparison, China has 24 machines in the list. Its fastest has a top speed of 1.20 petaflops, more than double the speed of its previous top supercomputer. However, it has a theoretical top speed of nearly 3 petaflops, which would make it the fastest in the world.
The fastest machine in the UK - which has 38 supercomputers on the list - is housed at the University of Edinburgh. It has a top speed of 0.27 petaflops.
"The Top 500 list definitely has an element of flag waving," said Dr Jon Lockley, manager of the Oxford Supercomputing Centre.
Quick thinking
He said China was rapidly becoming a "player" in high performance computing.
Dawning, the company behind the fastest Chinese machine, is reportedly building an even faster machine for the National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin. In addition, it is also developing home-grown silicon chips to power the behemoths.
Their use of high-performance computers is really systematic of their industrial emergence," Dr Lockley told BBC News.
The machines tend to be used for industrial research, such as aircraft design and petroleum exploration.
Dr Lockley said this was becoming increasingly common around the world.
"Whenever possible, everything is done in a supercomputer," he said.
"Look at Formula One - it's getting rid of all of its wind tunnels and replacing them with supercomputers. It's the same in the aerospace industry as well.
"It means you can all the modelling in the supercomputer and then do just one real world test."
Many of the US machines, by contrast, are owned by the government and are used to monitor the nuclear weapon stockpile
The US has one other petaflop machine - owned by the US Department of Energy. Roadrunner, as it is known, held the top spot until Jaguar displaced it in 2009.
All others machines on the list run at so-called teraflop speeds.
A teraflop is the equivalent of one trillion calculations per second.
Spy machines
However, scientists are already thinking about so-called exascale machines which would be able to crunch through one quintillion (one million trillion) calculations per second.
An exascale computer has been proposed to process data from the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), a series of thousands of telescopes spread over 3,000km. The telescope will be based in either Australia or South Africa.
"At that sort of size the challenge is trying to programme the machines,"" said Dr Lockley.
"It has to be fault tolerant - you can't have a situation where an entire task falls over if one bit fails."
The top 500 list was published at the International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg, Germany.
It ranks machines by speed. However, according to Dr Lockley, determining which machine is the quickest is a difficult issue.
"It's measured against a theoretical benchmark - if you ran a real-world application you might get a very different answer".
It is also a voluntary list and therefore does not include all machines, such as those at the Oxford Supercomputing Centre and many classified machines owned by governments.
"The spooks have got some pretty big machines," said Dr Lockley
Euro crisis boosts sales of luxury goods overseas
By Lucy Hooker BBC News
French leather goods maker, Louis Vuitton, which opened its latest flagship store in London this week, is riding a wave of rising profits on the back of Europe's economic crisis.
While policy makers in Brussels tear their hair out, Europe's luxury retailers are quietly smiling at the fall in value of the single currency.
Since November, the euro has lost a fifth of its value against the dollar, a trend which boosts profits for companies which export to the US and the Far East.
And luxury goods companies, from watchmakers to dress designers, which source their products in eurozone countries, have seen their costs fall sharply and revenues rise.
Louis Vuitton's chief executive, Yves Carcelle, says he welcomes the fall in the euro's value.
"I honestly think, and I'm not the only one to think that, that for the last four years the euro was overvalued compared to other currencies."
Louis Vuitton is part of the world's largest luxury goods group, LVMH.
"Because we manufacture in our factories in France and Italy and sell all over the world, it's more of a breeze for us now than the squeeze we've had in the past four years," Mr Carcelle adds.
What's in store?
The new Louis Vuitton shop in London's New Bond Street showcases leather travel luggage, accessories and furniture for the French brand at prices which range from $150 to $70,000.
The UK is not a member of the euro but the pound has also fallen sharply in recent months, giving a boost to the spending power of London's many tourists and expat residents.
"We are talking about thousands of people not millions, but there is a market place that's untouched (by the downturn)," says Ben Elliot, who runs the international concierge service, Quintessentially.
They're not spending on such ostentatious things. The bling factor - that's gone to an extent. But if you just look at the financial results of businesses in that sector, they've either cut costs or the appetite for cars, holidays, and the luxury sector is back."
This week Britain's Burberry, famous for its classic check-patterned accessories, said that profits for last year rose 23%.
Richemont, Swiss owner of the Cartier and Montblanc brands, saw April sales rebound by 24% after a difficult year.
Sales have also been rising for France's Hermes and Italy's Prada.
Crisis, what crisis?
But Richemont's deputy chief executive officer, Richard Lepeu, struck a cautious note.
"What is going on in the western world is not very encouraging, look at Europe and what may happen in the US as well."
"The only piece of good news is Asia-Pacific that continues to boom
No company likes uncertainty, so the problems in Brussels are being closely watched in Paris and Milan.
"Anything that impacts consumer confidence could also have an impact on luxury demand. But so far we haven't seen that," says Dennis Weber at Evolution Securities in London.
Spain, Greece and Portugal, where the problems are most acute, are relatively small luxury markets.
And Yves Carcelle says he's sure the story will have a happy ending.
"You know Europe, we've seen through the last 60 years, we have always advanced through crisis. It's only through crisis that steps are made."
"I don't like it, but it was probably the only way to force all the governments together, to have more discipline on their budgets and on their deficits and more centralised government of the eurozone
Indian economy sees 'strong' growth
BBC news
India's economy grew at an annual rate of 8.6% in the three months to March, largely thanks to growth in manufacturing, official data has shown.
That marked an increase on the 6.5% growth seen in the previous quarter.
Analysts say the figures from the Central Statistical Organisation are likely to keep the central bank on its path of gradual rate increases.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raised interest rates in April and March as it battles high levels of inflation.
The economy for the year ending March 2010 grew by 7.4%, ahead of the RBI's January forecast of 7.2%.
'Momentum'
"I expect the current economic momentum to remain," Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said after the figures were released.
He added that he expected the economy to grow by 8.5% in the financial year to March 2011.
However, some analysts cautioned that going forward, the Indian economy could be impacted by the continuing government debt woes in Western Europe.
"If Europe's problems continue, it may cause a domino effect across the globe, weakening trade and consumer confidence again," said Mridul Saggar, chief economist at Mumbai-based Kotak Securities
India's economy grew at an annual rate of 8.6% in the three months to March, largely thanks to growth in manufacturing, official data has shown.
That marked an increase on the 6.5% growth seen in the previous quarter.
Analysts say the figures from the Central Statistical Organisation are likely to keep the central bank on its path of gradual rate increases.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raised interest rates in April and March as it battles high levels of inflation.
The economy for the year ending March 2010 grew by 7.4%, ahead of the RBI's January forecast of 7.2%.
'Momentum'
"I expect the current economic momentum to remain," Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said after the figures were released.
He added that he expected the economy to grow by 8.5% in the financial year to March 2011.
However, some analysts cautioned that going forward, the Indian economy could be impacted by the continuing government debt woes in Western Europe.
"If Europe's problems continue, it may cause a domino effect across the globe, weakening trade and consumer confidence again," said Mridul Saggar, chief economist at Mumbai-based Kotak Securities
ECB warns of more bank loan losses
By Krista Hughes and Paul Day REuters
The European Central Bank warned on Monday that euro zone banks face up to 195 billion euros in a "second wave" of potential loan losses over the next 18 months due to the financial crisis, and disclosed it had increased purchases of euro zone government bonds.
As the euro recouped losses but remained on the back foot after a cut in Spain's credit rating and China warned that the global economy remained vulnerable to sovereign debt risks, Spain assured investors it would reform its rigid labor market even if employers and trade unions cannot agree.
The ECB said euro zone banks would need to make provisions for further losses this year of 90 billion euros, and 105 billion in 2011, on top of some 238 billion euros in bad debts written off by the end of 2009. That was the first time it has given an estimate for next year.
Although total write-downs from bad loans and securities between 2007 and the end of 2010 were likely to be lower than previously expected, the ECB said in its latest Financial Stability Report, write-downs this year and next year would be still larger if heightened sovereign debt risk and the impact of government belt-tightening dragged down economic growth.
The ECB began buying up mostly Greek, Portuguese and Spanish bonds on May 3 in a contentious move to calm debt markets and support an $1 trillion stabilization package for the euro agreed by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
The central bank said in a statement it had settled 35 billion euros in bond purchases by May 28, up from 26.5 billion a week earlier. It did not detail the nationality of the debt but ECB officials have said it is mostly from south European countries hardest hit by financial market turmoil.
The ECB acknowledged in its report that euro zone debt tensions may force it to delay a phasing-out of cheap lending operations designed to help banks through the financial crisis.
After Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008, the ECB began offering euro zone banks unlimited, flat-rate loans in a bid to revive inter-bank lending and keep credit flowing to the real economy.
ECB governing council member Axel Weber, president of Germany's powerful Bundesbank, urged a tight cap on the bond buying program and said the extraordinary steps taken to ease the euro zone debt crisis posed a risk to price stability.
"The purchases of government bonds in the secondary market should not overshoot a tightly-capped limit," Weber said in a speech prepared for delivery in Mainz, Germany. He did not suggest a figure.
Spain, the fourth-largest euro zone economy, saw its credit rating downgraded a notch by Fitch Ratings agency from the maximum AAA to AA+ late on Friday after a 15 billion euro austerity program squeaked through parliament by a single vote.
Market reaction to the downgrade was limited, partly because U.S. and British markets were closed for holidays on Monday.
The euro recouped losses incurred after the Spanish debt downgrade to trade at around $1.23 but remained on the back foot as the downgrade highlighted ongoing structural weaknesses in the euro zone. The 10-year Spanish-German bond spread widened only slightly but Spanish stocks fell 0.7 percent while the index of leading European shares gained 0.4 percent.
Labor Reform
Spanish Economy Minister Elena Salgado told a conference in Madrid that the government aimed to pass a much anticipated labor market reform by the end of June with or without consensus with the unions and business representatives.
The minority Socialist administration extended the deadline for an agreement by one week from Monday but officials have said the social partners are still far apart.
The left-leaning daily El Pais said the government planned to allow companies to make greater use of cheap work contracts for a broader range of employees, reducing redundancy payments and making it easier to fire workers.
Trade unions have threatened to strike if the government imposes the reform by royal decree, a move that would set the ruling Socialists on a collision course with their traditional allies in organized labor.
In a sign of continued international concern about the impact of Europe's problems, China warned that Europe's struggle to contain ballooning debt posed a risk to global economic growth, raising the specter of a double-dip recession.
Premier Wen Jiabao, addressing business leaders during an official visit to Japan, issued his warnings a day after France admitted it would struggle to keep its top credit rating.
"Some countries have experienced sovereign debt crises, for example Greece. Is this kind of phenomenon over? Now it seems that it's not so simple," Wen said. "The sovereign debt crisis in some European countries may drag down Europe's economic recovery.
He added it was too early to wind down stimulus deployed during the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
Governments around the world ran up record debts during the $5 trillion effort to pull the economy out of its deepest slump since the Great Depression and now face a tough balancing act: how to reduce debt without choking off growth.
ECB Governing Council Member Mario Draghi warned that austerity programs by European governments could snuff out a fragile recovery unless they were coordinated internationally.
Economic sentiment in the euro zone fell in May, defying analysts expectations of a slight improvement, in part due to the wave of austerity announcements.
However, ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said the economy may expand more than expected in the second quarter.
The fact that not just fiscally weak southern European countries, but also nations such as France and Germany at the euro zone's core are under pressure to cut debt and deficits amassed during the financial crisis, is adding to concerns.
(Additional reporting by Sarah Morris in Madrid, Martin Santa and Sakari Suoninen in Vienna, Marc Jones in Frankfurt; Writing by Paul Taylor; Editing by Ron Askew and Susan Fenton)
The European Central Bank warned on Monday that euro zone banks face up to 195 billion euros in a "second wave" of potential loan losses over the next 18 months due to the financial crisis, and disclosed it had increased purchases of euro zone government bonds.
As the euro recouped losses but remained on the back foot after a cut in Spain's credit rating and China warned that the global economy remained vulnerable to sovereign debt risks, Spain assured investors it would reform its rigid labor market even if employers and trade unions cannot agree.
The ECB said euro zone banks would need to make provisions for further losses this year of 90 billion euros, and 105 billion in 2011, on top of some 238 billion euros in bad debts written off by the end of 2009. That was the first time it has given an estimate for next year.
Although total write-downs from bad loans and securities between 2007 and the end of 2010 were likely to be lower than previously expected, the ECB said in its latest Financial Stability Report, write-downs this year and next year would be still larger if heightened sovereign debt risk and the impact of government belt-tightening dragged down economic growth.
The ECB began buying up mostly Greek, Portuguese and Spanish bonds on May 3 in a contentious move to calm debt markets and support an $1 trillion stabilization package for the euro agreed by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
The central bank said in a statement it had settled 35 billion euros in bond purchases by May 28, up from 26.5 billion a week earlier. It did not detail the nationality of the debt but ECB officials have said it is mostly from south European countries hardest hit by financial market turmoil.
The ECB acknowledged in its report that euro zone debt tensions may force it to delay a phasing-out of cheap lending operations designed to help banks through the financial crisis.
After Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008, the ECB began offering euro zone banks unlimited, flat-rate loans in a bid to revive inter-bank lending and keep credit flowing to the real economy.
ECB governing council member Axel Weber, president of Germany's powerful Bundesbank, urged a tight cap on the bond buying program and said the extraordinary steps taken to ease the euro zone debt crisis posed a risk to price stability.
"The purchases of government bonds in the secondary market should not overshoot a tightly-capped limit," Weber said in a speech prepared for delivery in Mainz, Germany. He did not suggest a figure.
Spain, the fourth-largest euro zone economy, saw its credit rating downgraded a notch by Fitch Ratings agency from the maximum AAA to AA+ late on Friday after a 15 billion euro austerity program squeaked through parliament by a single vote.
Market reaction to the downgrade was limited, partly because U.S. and British markets were closed for holidays on Monday.
The euro recouped losses incurred after the Spanish debt downgrade to trade at around $1.23 but remained on the back foot as the downgrade highlighted ongoing structural weaknesses in the euro zone. The 10-year Spanish-German bond spread widened only slightly but Spanish stocks fell 0.7 percent while the index of leading European shares gained 0.4 percent.
Labor Reform
Spanish Economy Minister Elena Salgado told a conference in Madrid that the government aimed to pass a much anticipated labor market reform by the end of June with or without consensus with the unions and business representatives.
The minority Socialist administration extended the deadline for an agreement by one week from Monday but officials have said the social partners are still far apart.
The left-leaning daily El Pais said the government planned to allow companies to make greater use of cheap work contracts for a broader range of employees, reducing redundancy payments and making it easier to fire workers.
Trade unions have threatened to strike if the government imposes the reform by royal decree, a move that would set the ruling Socialists on a collision course with their traditional allies in organized labor.
In a sign of continued international concern about the impact of Europe's problems, China warned that Europe's struggle to contain ballooning debt posed a risk to global economic growth, raising the specter of a double-dip recession.
Premier Wen Jiabao, addressing business leaders during an official visit to Japan, issued his warnings a day after France admitted it would struggle to keep its top credit rating.
"Some countries have experienced sovereign debt crises, for example Greece. Is this kind of phenomenon over? Now it seems that it's not so simple," Wen said. "The sovereign debt crisis in some European countries may drag down Europe's economic recovery.
He added it was too early to wind down stimulus deployed during the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
Governments around the world ran up record debts during the $5 trillion effort to pull the economy out of its deepest slump since the Great Depression and now face a tough balancing act: how to reduce debt without choking off growth.
ECB Governing Council Member Mario Draghi warned that austerity programs by European governments could snuff out a fragile recovery unless they were coordinated internationally.
Economic sentiment in the euro zone fell in May, defying analysts expectations of a slight improvement, in part due to the wave of austerity announcements.
However, ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said the economy may expand more than expected in the second quarter.
The fact that not just fiscally weak southern European countries, but also nations such as France and Germany at the euro zone's core are under pressure to cut debt and deficits amassed during the financial crisis, is adding to concerns.
(Additional reporting by Sarah Morris in Madrid, Martin Santa and Sakari Suoninen in Vienna, Marc Jones in Frankfurt; Writing by Paul Taylor; Editing by Ron Askew and Susan Fenton)
FTSE 100 closes lower
The leading stock exchange closed fractionally lower on Friday as discouraging US consumer spending raised concerns that the pace of the economic recovery may be slowing.
The FTSE 100 index fell 0.13 percent to end at 5,188.43 points.
Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) was the most traded stock, seeing 288 million shares change hands, followed by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which saw 153 million units switch owners.
The day's best-performing security was Severn Trent, which added 39 pence -- or 3.36 percent -- to end at 1,198, followed by fellow water company United Utilities, which gained 15 pence -- or 2.86 percent -- to finish at 539.5.
Oil giant BP was the session's worst blue chip performer, losing 26 pence -- or 4.99 percent -- to close at 494.8, followed by banking group Standard Chartered, which lost 45 pence -- or 2.68 percent -- to end at 1,637.
Meanwhile, the pound fell against the euro and the dollar.
At 17:15, the pound was trading at 1.171 euros, down from 1.178 at the same time on Thursday, while sterling stood at 1.448 dollars, down from 1.455 over the same period.
The FTSE 100 index fell 0.13 percent to end at 5,188.43 points.
Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) was the most traded stock, seeing 288 million shares change hands, followed by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which saw 153 million units switch owners.
The day's best-performing security was Severn Trent, which added 39 pence -- or 3.36 percent -- to end at 1,198, followed by fellow water company United Utilities, which gained 15 pence -- or 2.86 percent -- to finish at 539.5.
Oil giant BP was the session's worst blue chip performer, losing 26 pence -- or 4.99 percent -- to close at 494.8, followed by banking group Standard Chartered, which lost 45 pence -- or 2.68 percent -- to end at 1,637.
Meanwhile, the pound fell against the euro and the dollar.
At 17:15, the pound was trading at 1.171 euros, down from 1.178 at the same time on Thursday, while sterling stood at 1.448 dollars, down from 1.455 over the same period.
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