Category Archives: Technology

Facebook Valued More Than Russia’s Largest Oil Company

Investment firm General Atlantic is going to purchase 0.1 percent of world’s largest social network Facebook. The deal may push the price of the network up to $65 billion, but the transaction requires approval from Facebook at first. The company has been showing an impressive growth during the recent years. In the middle of 2009, the deals with its shares were concluded on the base of the company cost of $10 billion.

General Atlantic announced an intention to purchase the shares from several former Facebook employees. The deal has not been closed yet. According to CNBC, the deal boosted the cost of the social network 30 percent up. At the end of January of 2011, the company was valued at $50, when Goldman Sachs placed Facebook shares worth $1 billion among its clients, the Vedomosti wrote. (more…)

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T-Systems Streamlines Desktop Deployment With Windows 7 Enterprise

*Global services provider delivers improved IT security, mobility and deployment costs to customers*

REDMOND, Wash. — March 9, 2011 — Deutsche Telekom AG subsidiary TSystems International GmbH today announced it is migrating its managed desktop services to Windows 7 Enterprise. The decision to move 250,000 managed seats to Windows 7 was part of the company’s decision to standardize desktop deployment on the latest information technology, which will provide increased security, reduced costs and greater productivity to Deutsche Telekom PC users around the world. (more…)

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Web Use Doesn’t Encourage Belief in Poltical Rumors, But E-mail Does

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Despite the fears of some, a new study suggests that use of the internet in general does not make people more likely to believe political rumors.

However, one form of internet communication – e-mail – does seem to have troubling consequences for the spread and belief of rumors.

“I think a lot of people will be surprised to learn that using the internet doesn’t necessarily promote belief in rumors.  Many people seem to think that’s self-evident,” said R. Kelly Garrett, author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University. (more…)

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IBM Invests US$38M in Cloud Computing Data Centre to Address Asia Pacific Growth

*New facility based in Singapore extends IBM’s global cloud delivery capabilities to meet growth market cloud needs of businesses in Asia Pacific*

SINGAPORE, – 07 Mar 2011: IBM today announced a US$38M investment in a new IBM Asia Pacific Cloud Computing Data Centre in Singapore, which will provide businesses with solutions and services to harness the potential of cloud computing. The new facility will extend IBM’s globally-integrated cloud delivery network with centres in Germany, Canada and the United States; and 13 global cloud labs, of which seven are based in Asia Pacific – China, India, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore. 

Scheduled to launch in April, the Centre will make available IBM’s comprehensive cloud services and technology portfolio via the company’s cloud delivery infrastructure. These services are designed to enable clients to reap the benefits of business and IT transformation; increase flexibility and agility; accelerate time to market; reduce costs; and increase security and compliance of public cloud environments.  (more…)

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comScore Reports January 2011 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share

Google Android Captures #1 Position in Smartphone Market

RESTON, VA, March 7, 2011 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released data from the comScore MobiLens service, reporting key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending January 2011. The study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers and found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 24.9 percent market share. Google Android took the lead among smartphone platforms with 31.2 percent market share, after two short months in second place.  (more…)

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Cloud Computing: Making Rain From Blue-Sky Thinking

*Microsoft cloud solutions help customers cut costs, generate new revenue streams and provide added services to end users*

REDMOND, Wash. — March 3, 2011 — This week’s edition of Businessweek includes a story about the shift taking place in the development and deployment of applications and services by using cloud computing to cut costs, streamline IT management and respond more quickly to changes in end-user demand. Microsoft is cited as one of the companies taking the lead in this area and in moving organizations from their existing operations and services to the cloud and taking advantage of increased efficiency and new opportunities along the way.

To be sure, the economic gains that are possible through cloud computing are significant – one customer saw a reduction in IT management costs by three-quarters, in part from moving to Windows Azure. But cloud computing has the potential to expand beyond the realm of budget line items to that of lines of software code, creating new tools and services that lead to new computing experiences, expanded business opportunities, better services for customers, and, ultimately, new jobs and economic growth. (more…)

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Emerging Auto Insurance and Aggregator Sites Attracting Meaningful Share of Online Auto Insurance Market

*comScore Releases Expanded Online Auto Insurance Benchmarker Covering More Insurers and Aggregator Sites* 

RESTON, VA, March 4, 2011 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today announced the availability of an expanded competitive set of insurers and aggregator sites for its online auto insurance benchmarker. In Q4 2010, these additional sites accounted for 724,000 submitted quotes, making up 8 percent of quotes submitted online. 

“The online auto insurance market has been dominated by only a handful of insurers over the past few years, with GEICO and Progressive comprising over 50 percent of all quotes submitted online,” said comScore director Susan Kleinman. “But as more consumers look to the Internet to shop for insurance policies, there is an opportunity for more insurers to break into the online market.”  (more…)

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