Judging by various reports on the current state of its brand new desktop OS, Leopard, Apple as a company is still pretty stretched with iPhone-related work. That shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone: the mobile space requires constant and rapid innovation, and new product development. However, I’m not sure the company is really sweating its assets in terms of moving forward optimally, especially when it comes to the forthcoming iPhone SDK.

The iPhone is a fantastic start in the mobile phone business for Apple, even if the sales figures are beginning to look a little disappointing (see the recent price cut). The product itself, though, is great: talk to pretty much anyone that’s bought an iPhone, and you’re find they all really love it. Now, the challenges for Apple are to: take the iPhone world-wide (e.g. it can’t do Chinese character sets yet); launch a family of iPhones with different form factors; and , of course, update to the original iPhone.  And, of course, they have to sort out the mess of a business model they’ve created (see the huge percentage of iPhone customers that want to circumvent Apple’s model). It’s a huge amount of work.

In the last few days, there has been a huge storm with Java developers complaining that, in Leopard, Apple hasn’t delivered to developer expectations in terms of for Java on the Mac. Now, although all the freaking out is a probably little premature, it’s clear that the Java team at Apple is under-resourced. I have to wonder whether or not Steve Jobs understands just what a great job his software engineers have done with Java for the Mac. They’re a great asset to Apple, and it’s a capability the company simply isn’t making the most of. Apple’s Java team, with just a little more investment, could have done a great job of Java on iPhone. So, just as Apple’s Java engineers do a great job of making it possible to write Java applications that look and feel like native apps on Mac OS X, so I believe they could have done with apps on iPhone.

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Apollo Health Street (AHS), the healthcare BPO arm of Apollo Group, plans to sell 15 per cent stake in the company through an IPO to raise $70 million. This values the Hyderabad-based company at almost $470 million, according to a report in The Economic Times. The IPO is expected in Q1 2008The company will come out with its initial public offer (IPO) in the first quarter of 2008.

Maxwell Mauritius, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Temasek, and One Equity Partners, have invested $7.5 million in Apollo Health Street. The company had recently bought US healthcare BPO Zavata for $170 million. The IPO is to retire the debt in the deal which comes to about $120 million.

The equity contribution from Apollo was $25 million, while One Equity Partners (the investment arm of JPMorgan Chase & Co) and Temasek Holdings invested a combined $25 million. The debt of $120 million was raised from Bank of India and Barclays Capital.

As I noted in the earnings preview earlier this week, Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) was going to be under pressure from narrowing margins, and that is exactly what happened, pushing its third quarter profit down by 10%.Analysts had expected to see the world’s largest oil company to show earnings of $1.75 per share for the quarter, but with the tighter margins, Exxon’s earnings were only able to come in at $1.70 per share. Net income was $9.41 billion. This is down from $10.49 billion, or $1.77 per share during the third quarter last year.Rising oil prices are typically considered to be a blessing for big oil companies, but the opposite side of the equation is that they result in tighter refining margins, and that is exactly what happened to Exxon Mobil this time around. Also adding to the company’s decline were gasoline prices, which fell by around 6% during the quarter.This is only the first time since 2002 that the company has posted two consecutive quarters of profit declines. In the premarket, early morning traders are pushing the stock down 1.6% in reaction to today’s earnings news.
Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last two years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor’s Observer. DISCLOSURE: Mr. Fowlkes owns and/or controls diversified portfolios of long and short stock and option positions that include holdings in XOM.

A terrific product to upsell and a “must have” for your shelves is the Anti-Fog and Anti-Static Lens Cleaner. The cleaner is a special product designed specifically for sunglasses. It’s an incredible product which is sure to fly as an additional purchase to the sunglasses. Or it could be something that you give to your customers as a recommendation when they make their purchase, that they’ll want to purchase this as well. It’s sure to be a hit and is well worth it at a little over $1.40 per unit - with two dozen per pack. You’ll definitely get a return on your investment for stocking this item.

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Now that the Federal Reserve Board lowered the interest rate, it looks like we’re seeing the last of the 5.3% APY savings accounts, which appear to be a dying breed. I personally expect even these to disappear shortly; after all, why offer rates in the 5s when other banks are touting rates in the 4s quite happily?

This makes me sad and nostalgic for the better savings-rate days of yore, but also prods me into taking action.

I was mightily happy with the 6% interest rate I’d enjoyed on my FNBO Direct account up until September 28th of this year, when the company cheerfully announced their plummet to 5.05% APY.

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Apparently, the Fort Point Channel is out, and East Cambridge is in.

According to the Globe:

NorthPoint, a new minicity under construction in East Cambridge, is being sold, and its buyer is Archon Group, the real estate arm of the investment bank Goldman Sachs …

… The price was more than $175 million.

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More than a mortgage calculator, House Math will tell you what your home is worth as an investment, comparing it to what you’d make if you invested the money in other ways instead. (via Get Rich Slowly)

The wording of the text on the site seems geared toward influencing you not to buy a house. For example, my own equivalent rent was in the negative numbers. It took a couple of reads for me to figure out that meant I was making money.

But even if you know you’re in the market for a home, the site is worth a look. House Math also details the additional costs involved in buying and selling a house, which we like to ignore when we think about how much profit is made on a home.

While it’s difficult to predict at what percentage your home or your investments will increase, make a good guess and check out the graphs. The monthly cost vs. sell time graph can estimate when you’ll get the most overall value by selling (market fluctuations wouldn’t be accounted for in this model, except as they affect interest rates and the percentage your house will gain each year). And there’s another that tells you how much more you’ll save each month, the more you negotiate your price down at the outset.

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Strange Bedfellows contest

Badlands Blue thinks they found a good strange bedfellows item with a report on MoveOn.org teaming up with some "Right-Wing Bloggers" to attack Fox News’ property rights.

I think I can top that with a George Soros company giving contributions to Republicans:

WellCare was a slow-growing Florida company until 1992 when its owner, Dr. Kiran Patel, sold it to a New York investment group led by financier George Soros. The bankers hired Todd Farha, an aggressive Harvard MBA, to transform the company. Under his leadership, WellCare’s earnings have increased eight-fold and the company’s investors and executives like Farha have profited handsomely from appreciation in its stock.

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The Chicago Sun Times reports today that the White Sox are going on a recruiting visit, and their target is Torii Hunter. He’ll be inducted into the Arizona Fall League Hall of Fame next week, along with White Sox outfielder Jermaine Dye, and GM Kenny Williams has planned a meeting with Hunter in Phoenix.

It’s one thing for the Twins to lose Hunter to free agency. But imagine facing him 18 times a year. Remember this hit against White Sox catcher Jamie Burke? Imagine Hunter barreling around third next year, and his new target is Joe Mauer.

The White Sox would have to make the money work, however, and the article gives insight into their thinking:

Hunter would seem to make sense at $15 million a year if the sides can work out the number of years. He already reportedly turned down a three-year, $45 million offer from the Twins because he wanted a five-year deal.

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The generally accepted methods for investing are diversification, asset allocation and Modern Portfolio Theory. But take it from someone who is much smarter than I that this is a bunch of hokum! Read
The Black Swan

, an excellent book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s, former dean’s professor in sciences of uncertainty at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. In his book, Taleb offers compelling reasons that refute the academic approach to investing.

My approach to investing also differs radically from what passes for conventional wisdom. I believe the financial services industry has done a wonderful job of making investing in the stock and bond markets seem much more complicated than it really is. Of course, if the truth were known — that investing is really quite simple, why would you need an expensive broker or advisor?

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Estão abertas as inscrições para o Programa de Trainee 2008 do Santander, que tem como objetivo, preparar jovens para contribuir no direcionamento estratégico da instituição. Ao todo, são 25 vagas nas áreas de Investment Banking, Asset Management e Business & Products e as inscrições devem ser feitas até 2 de novembro.
Os selecionados trabalharão nos centros administrativos do Banc…

Post publicado no blog Sobre Administração

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Veja todo os textos de Gustavo Periard

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CISSE 2005, the World’s first Engineering/Computing and Systems Research E-Conference was the first high-caliber Research Conference in the world to be completely conducted online in real-time via the internet.

CISSE received 255 research paper submissions and the final program included 140 accepted papers, from more than 45 countries. The whole concept and format of CISSE 2005 was very exciting and ground-breaking. The powerpoint presentations, final paper manuscripts and time schedule for live presentations over the web had been available for 3 weeks prior to the start of the conference for all registrants, so they could pick and choose the presentations they want to attend and think about questions that they might want to ask. The live audio presentations were also recorded and are part of the permanent CISSE archive, which includes all power point presentations, papers and recorded presentations.

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The most popular entries for 10/31/2007 out of 281 entries made in 131 blogs in the Creative Weblogging network yesterday.
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 Screens Galore
House of Nintendo

Gaming & GamblingDragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 is shaping up to be quite an amazing looker, it has to be said. And if you don't believe me, 1UP has a massive gallery of recent screenshots to smack you down.

If you haven't heard much about the game yet, Game News has the lowdown:"Improving upon last year's hit 3D fighting experience, Dragon Ball… Read it all

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Cafe Evoke’s Future in Bozeman, Montana

What is our future here? We hope bright and successful. As I have been talking about over the past few weeks, we are in the process of figuring out what the future of Cafe Evoke Catering is. We have had a great time in Bozeman but things are not picking up very quickly.

What makes this a hard decision is that we have only been in business for a year and a half - much shorter than we really need to break even or really get our roots set in Bozeman. The problem is that we are way behind projections as far as profitability and with no change visible in the immediate future, we are forced to begin looking for other options - basically putting one of our exit strategies to use.

Did I think we would have to do that this early in the life of Cafe Evoke Catering? Not at all. I think I am a visionary. I like to think about the impact of our business, how success it will be, how it will be a way to serve people and get the word out about quality coffee and how so many hands are in the process.

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Maybe there was a terible fact pattern but the fact is that Debby and Richard of Coffee Beanery are destroyed financially because of their good faith investment in a Coffee Beanery Cafe.

How can you justify the malice of CB who would sell a flawed concept with a fifteen- year term of contract and the requirement for a 15-year lease while knowing that the cafe concept hardly ever, if ever, succeeded? Do you approve of the SBA guaranteeing loans on high-risk franchises, or do you not care because if the lender, either the SBA or the other lender sources, has good collateral, it is only the franchisee who fails amd even in failure, the franchisee has fed the economy?

The fact is that D&R were in court already and that they cooperated with the AG Investigation of CB who did negotiate a Rescission that required D&R to give up their private right of action under Maryland law if they accepted the Rescission, This turned out to ba a trap and while you say they were mistaken to believe that their case was a slam dunk, the CB violations of the Maryland UFOC were more than a technical violation of the UFOC. We can know this because if they were merely technical violations, the CB franchisor would have gone to “traffic school” under Maryland’s rehab program and would not have agreed to undergo a Rescission.

The question is, was the trap set for them? Was Mr. Cantone dealing with them in good faith or was he establishing policy concerning rescission for the State of Maryland to comply with federal regulatory policy? You do remember, don’t you Richard, that the CB Rescission was the ONLY Rescission from Maryland that required the franchisee to give up their right of action under Maryland’s franchise statute if they accepted the Rescission. You don’t find that strange, Richard?

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The House has just passed the Trade and Globalization Assistance Act, H.R. 3920 by a vote of 264-157. The bill would overhaul the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program – expanding opportunities for job training to transition workers into 21st Century jobs to take advantage of increasing globalization. The White House has issued a veto threat on the bill.

The bill extends TAA job training and health benefits to service workers who lose their jobs due to global trade and covers more manufacturing workers. It dramatically improves TAA health care benefits and strengthens job training benefits so that workers have a real opportunity to strengthen their skills for good-paying jobs. The bill explicitly prohibits undocumented workers from receiving any TAA benefits or services.

It also creates new benefits and tax incentives for industries and communities that have experienced manufacturing job losses, promotes long-needed reforms in unemployment benefits, and strengthens notification of workers laid off in plant closing or in mass layoffs. As our nation moves forward with expanded trade, this is a first step to ensure that it won’t be at the expense of American workers.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “For a long time, unfortunately Mr. Speaker, trade policy has focused more on opening new markets and has dismissed the real consequences faced by those who lose their jobs, as well as their communities across the America that are hard hit. Democrats recognize that our economic future rests with our ability to open new markets for US goods, especially since our markets already are largely open to our trading partners. However, the status quo is not working and we must do much more to help American workers to compete and thrive in the increasingly competitive global market. That is the purpose of this important legislation before us, the Trade Adjustment Assistance bill.”

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“If tomorrow is about to end would you dare tell me that you care?”

I usually do not eat when I get up until break in university, right after first class. in which case I buy myself something to eat, either a sandwich, a cookie or a snack.

One of my friends was standing by the university’s entrance. I went up to say hi to him, then a kid comes up and begs for money to buy food. I ignored him and before I know it, my friend says “You’re so selfish.”

That made me stare at him for like 5 minutes and get pissed. I mean at the end of the day… I’ve given that kid a lot until today, I swear… I usually empty my pockets from all coins I have. and now I don’t like my so-far-called friend anymore.

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Eddie Sáenz of Edinburg addresses several hundred voters on Thursday, October 25, during his campaign kick-off for state representative, House District 40, which includes all but southwest Edinburg, La Joya and Sullivan City in western Hidalgo County, Edcouch, Elsa, La Villa, and San Carlos in eastern Hidalgo County, and northern Hidalgo County. Sáenz, a Democrat, is portraying incumbent Rep. Aaron Peña, D-Edinburg, as loyal to the Republican Party, criticizing Peña for helping keep a Republican in power as Texas Speaker of the House. “Our great state senators and South Texas representatives need a partner working with them in Austin. We need to elect a Speaker who is for everyone,” Sáenz said. “That is why I am committing to stand with the Democratic Caucus, and support a Democrat for Speaker that we can all stand behind.” See story later in this posting.

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This article comes with the kind permission of Australasian Investment Review – (AIR) You can subscribe for their free newsletter at www.aireview.com.au

Contrast: FGL, SGB

November 01st. 2007 - Australasian Investment Review – (AIR)

Foster’s Group shareholders are a stoic lot.

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