BANGALORE: The first ever BJP government in the south will be sworn-in on May 28 with the party almost getting a majority, party sources said here. (Watch interactive map)
B S Yeddyurappa will take oath as Chief Minister, the sources said but refused to share further details.
The party, on the verge of winning 111 seats, just two short of the magic figure 113 required for a simple majority, said it has the support of four Independents out of the seven who are close to victories. ( Watch: BJP claims Karnataka )
The sources declined to name the Independents who would back the BJP government remarking "they are our rebels".
The election process ends by May 28 on the day the Commission was expected to notify the constitution of the 13th Legislative Assembly in Karnataka.
BJP was racing ahead to get close to majority in the 224-member Karnataka Assembly by bagging 71 of the 119 seats for which results were declared on Sunday.
The Congress won 35 seats and led in 37 constituencies while JD(S) remained a distant third bagging ten and leading in 21 seats. In the previous elections, BJP and Congress had won 79 and 65 seats respectively while JD(S) got 58.
Others and Independents won three seats and were leading in seven.
Former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy of JD(S) won Ramanagaram seat for the second consecutive time beating his nearest BJP rival M Rudresh. Congress's Mamata Nichhani, daughter of former Chief Minister Ramakrishna Hegde was in the third position.
Former minister and Congress heavyweight R V Deshpande lost the Haliyal seat to JDS's Sunil Hegde by a margin of 5,425 votes.
BJP Chief Ministerial nominee B S Yeddyurappa, former Chief Minister N Dharam Singh (Congress) and KPCC President M Mallikarjun Kharge were among others who maintained comfortable leads over their respective rivals.
Congress RPT Congress MP Ambareesh (Srirangapatna) and former Deputy Chief Minister M P Prakash of Congress (Harappanahalli) were the prominent candidates who were behind.
In Kumta, Dinakar Keshav Shetty of JD(S) won by a slender margin of 20 votes against his nearest Congress rival.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Fuel hike inevitable, inflation crosses 8%
The government may increase petrol and diesel prices next week, officials said on Tuesday as state-owned oil marketing companies mounted pressure for a steep hike in retail prices of the auto fuels.
“It (the price rise) is inevitable,” Petroleum Secretary M. S. Srinivasan said after a meeting with chief executives of oil companies. “The situation is alarming.”
The Petroleum Ministry has sought a hike of Rs 10 per litre of petrol and Rs. 5 per litre of diesel. But officials said the government would opt for a moderate increase as inflation has already crossed 8 per cent and elections in several states are due later this year.
Price data released on Friday put inflation at 7.82 per cent for the week ended May 10, but revised figures for previous weeks showed that it had already crossed 8 per cent in March.
The government is likely to issue more oil bonds and cut custom and excise duties on crude and oil products. It may also allow raising the borrowing limits for oil PSUs, a petroleum ministry official said.
Although global crude prices have almost doubled in the past year, the Indian government has not allowed oil companies to pass on only a fraction of it to consumers. “A decision needs to be taken immediately,” Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said.”
“It (the price rise) is inevitable,” Petroleum Secretary M. S. Srinivasan said after a meeting with chief executives of oil companies. “The situation is alarming.”
The Petroleum Ministry has sought a hike of Rs 10 per litre of petrol and Rs. 5 per litre of diesel. But officials said the government would opt for a moderate increase as inflation has already crossed 8 per cent and elections in several states are due later this year.
Price data released on Friday put inflation at 7.82 per cent for the week ended May 10, but revised figures for previous weeks showed that it had already crossed 8 per cent in March.
The government is likely to issue more oil bonds and cut custom and excise duties on crude and oil products. It may also allow raising the borrowing limits for oil PSUs, a petroleum ministry official said.
Although global crude prices have almost doubled in the past year, the Indian government has not allowed oil companies to pass on only a fraction of it to consumers. “A decision needs to be taken immediately,” Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said.”
Stocks cap brutal week with sell-off
NEW YORK -- The stock market closed out a dismal week with another sell-off Friday as investors pondered whether share prices are heading toward more bruising losses after Memorial Day.
A fresh pickup in oil prices and a drop in existing-home sales capped a week in which burgeoning optimism about the economy yielded suddenly to fears of inflation and diminished consumer spending.
BLOG: The spring rally's in trouble, but how much trouble?
The Dow Jones industrial average slumped 145.99 points, or 1.2%, to 12,479.63. For the week, it declined 3.9% and is now down 12% from its record high last in October. But the blue-chip index remains up 6.3% from its low set in March when credit-crisis anxiety hit a peak.
The sell-off fixed the spotlight clearly on next week, with analysts saying the market's performance in the days immediately after the long weekend could go a long way toward setting its tone for much of the summer.
Continued selling could feed on itself and signal that a longer-term pullback was underway, while a flat or up market would indicate that the downward pressure is contained, they said.
"It's going to be an important week because it's either going to reinforce what happened this week and set a trend or it's going to wipe out" the losses, said Paul Hickey, co-founder of investment research firm Bespoke Investment Group in Harrison, N.Y. "It's going to tell us whether it's just a short-term blip or something more."
The market's near-term health is likely to continue to hinge on oil prices. After easing on Thursday, oil resumed its climb, finishing back above $132 a barrel. Already depressed airline and automobile stocks were pummeled.
"Oil, because it's such a front-page story all of a sudden, is going to drive the short-term market," said John Buckingham, chief investment officer at Al Frank Asset Management in Laguna Beach.
Some investors have feared a so-called double dip in which the market's rally from its March lows proves to be only a temporary respite within a sustained bear market.
But optimists contend the market was due for a breather after a 10-week recovery.
"We were probably a little overdue for some sort of short-term pullback, which was exacerbated by the news of the week," Buckingham said.
Volume has been light throughout the market's recent rally as well as this week's pullback, giving ammunition to both bulls and bears.
The housing market shows no sign that it will be generating positive news. The real estate industry reported that sales of existing homes fell 1% in April while the median home price sank 8% nationwide and inventories swelled 10.5%.
Shares of home builders slid on the report. D.R. Horton retreated 36 cents, or 2.7%, to $13.04. Los Angeles-based KB Home sank $1, or $4.7% to $20.52. An S&P index of home builder stocks is down 16% for the week.
Among the day's market highlights:
* The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 18.42 points, or 1.3%, to 1,375.93, and the Nasdaq composite index slid 19.91 points, or 0.8%, to 2,444.67. The Russell 2,000 index of smaller-company stocks fell 8.91 points, or 1.2%, to 724.10. For the week, the S&P gave up 3.5%, the Nasdaq lost 3.3% and the Russell 2,000 shed 2.3%.
* Declining issues outnumbered advancers by about 7 to 3 on the New York Stock Exchange.
* Government bond yields fell as investors sought the perceived safety of Treasury securities. The yield on the benchmark 10-year T-note fell to 3.84% from 3.91% late Thursday. The dollar fell, while gold prices rose.
* Shares of Ford Motor sank 29 cents, or 4.1%, to $6.87 after the automaker said Thursday that it probably wouldn't return to profitability next year as it had promised. General Motors stock tumbled 83 cents, or 4.5%, to $17.60, its lowest level in 26 years.
* Airline stocks continued the slide they began after American Airlines parent AMR said Wednesday that it was cutting flights and adding fees to cope with rising oil prices. US Airways Group tumbled $1.04, or 20%, to $4.18. United Airlines parent UAL dropped 7.7%; Northwest Airlines lost 32 cents, or 5%, to $6.02; and AMR fell 24 cents, or 3.7%, to $6.32.
* Anheuser-Busch investors had reason to toast its shares after they hit an all-time high on reports that Europe's InBev was moving toward a $46-billion bid for the St. Louis-based brewer, whose stock jumped $4.03, or 7.7%, to $56.61.
* Shares of Pacific Sunwear of California slumped $1.16, or 11%, to $8.95 after the Anaheim teen-apparel retailer said Thursday that its annual earnings would be shy of estimates.
* Gap slid 35 cents, or 2%, to $17.94 after the retailer's sales in its latest quarter fell short of Wall Street's expectations.
* Foot Locker jumped $1.46, or 12%, to $13.54 after reporting better results than analysts had forecast.
* In overseas markets, key stock indexes declined 1.5% in Britain, 1.8% in Germany and 1.9% in France. Shares advanced 0.2% in Japan.
A fresh pickup in oil prices and a drop in existing-home sales capped a week in which burgeoning optimism about the economy yielded suddenly to fears of inflation and diminished consumer spending.
BLOG: The spring rally's in trouble, but how much trouble?
The Dow Jones industrial average slumped 145.99 points, or 1.2%, to 12,479.63. For the week, it declined 3.9% and is now down 12% from its record high last in October. But the blue-chip index remains up 6.3% from its low set in March when credit-crisis anxiety hit a peak.
The sell-off fixed the spotlight clearly on next week, with analysts saying the market's performance in the days immediately after the long weekend could go a long way toward setting its tone for much of the summer.
Continued selling could feed on itself and signal that a longer-term pullback was underway, while a flat or up market would indicate that the downward pressure is contained, they said.
"It's going to be an important week because it's either going to reinforce what happened this week and set a trend or it's going to wipe out" the losses, said Paul Hickey, co-founder of investment research firm Bespoke Investment Group in Harrison, N.Y. "It's going to tell us whether it's just a short-term blip or something more."
The market's near-term health is likely to continue to hinge on oil prices. After easing on Thursday, oil resumed its climb, finishing back above $132 a barrel. Already depressed airline and automobile stocks were pummeled.
"Oil, because it's such a front-page story all of a sudden, is going to drive the short-term market," said John Buckingham, chief investment officer at Al Frank Asset Management in Laguna Beach.
Some investors have feared a so-called double dip in which the market's rally from its March lows proves to be only a temporary respite within a sustained bear market.
But optimists contend the market was due for a breather after a 10-week recovery.
"We were probably a little overdue for some sort of short-term pullback, which was exacerbated by the news of the week," Buckingham said.
Volume has been light throughout the market's recent rally as well as this week's pullback, giving ammunition to both bulls and bears.
The housing market shows no sign that it will be generating positive news. The real estate industry reported that sales of existing homes fell 1% in April while the median home price sank 8% nationwide and inventories swelled 10.5%.
Shares of home builders slid on the report. D.R. Horton retreated 36 cents, or 2.7%, to $13.04. Los Angeles-based KB Home sank $1, or $4.7% to $20.52. An S&P index of home builder stocks is down 16% for the week.
Among the day's market highlights:
* The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 18.42 points, or 1.3%, to 1,375.93, and the Nasdaq composite index slid 19.91 points, or 0.8%, to 2,444.67. The Russell 2,000 index of smaller-company stocks fell 8.91 points, or 1.2%, to 724.10. For the week, the S&P gave up 3.5%, the Nasdaq lost 3.3% and the Russell 2,000 shed 2.3%.
* Declining issues outnumbered advancers by about 7 to 3 on the New York Stock Exchange.
* Government bond yields fell as investors sought the perceived safety of Treasury securities. The yield on the benchmark 10-year T-note fell to 3.84% from 3.91% late Thursday. The dollar fell, while gold prices rose.
* Shares of Ford Motor sank 29 cents, or 4.1%, to $6.87 after the automaker said Thursday that it probably wouldn't return to profitability next year as it had promised. General Motors stock tumbled 83 cents, or 4.5%, to $17.60, its lowest level in 26 years.
* Airline stocks continued the slide they began after American Airlines parent AMR said Wednesday that it was cutting flights and adding fees to cope with rising oil prices. US Airways Group tumbled $1.04, or 20%, to $4.18. United Airlines parent UAL dropped 7.7%; Northwest Airlines lost 32 cents, or 5%, to $6.02; and AMR fell 24 cents, or 3.7%, to $6.32.
* Anheuser-Busch investors had reason to toast its shares after they hit an all-time high on reports that Europe's InBev was moving toward a $46-billion bid for the St. Louis-based brewer, whose stock jumped $4.03, or 7.7%, to $56.61.
* Shares of Pacific Sunwear of California slumped $1.16, or 11%, to $8.95 after the Anaheim teen-apparel retailer said Thursday that its annual earnings would be shy of estimates.
* Gap slid 35 cents, or 2%, to $17.94 after the retailer's sales in its latest quarter fell short of Wall Street's expectations.
* Foot Locker jumped $1.46, or 12%, to $13.54 after reporting better results than analysts had forecast.
* In overseas markets, key stock indexes declined 1.5% in Britain, 1.8% in Germany and 1.9% in France. Shares advanced 0.2% in Japan.
Reliance Petroleum Limited (Public, BOM:532743)
Reliance Petroleum Limited is an India-based company. The Company has been formed to set up a greenfield petroleum refinery and polypropylene plant to be located in a special economic zone (SEZ) in Jamnagar, Gujarat, Western India. The proposed refinery and polypropylene plant will be located adjacent to the existing refinery and petrochemical complexes of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL). The refinery will have a total atmospheric distillation capacity of approximately 580 kilo barrels of crude oil per stream day and also a 0.9 million tons per annum polypropylene plant. The Company has entered into an agreement with Bechtel France S.A.S (Bechtel) to license the technology for the major process units of the refinery and polypropylene plant. Bechtel will also provide engineering, project management and other construction services for the Company.
3rd Floor, Maker Chambers IV 222 Nariman Point
Mumbai, 400 021
India
+91-22-22785214 (Phone)
+91-22-22785111 (Fax)
Company website:
http://www.reliancepetroleum.com/
News Releases, Investor Relations, Financial Information, Corporate History/Profile, Executives, Products/Services
Key Stats & Ratios
Quarterly
Annual
(2008) Annual
(TTM)
Net Profit Margin - - -
Operating Margin - - -
EBITD Margin - - -
Return on Average Assets - - -
Return on Average Equity - - -
Employees 98 - -
Related Companies
Name Name Exchange Symbol Last Trade Change Mkt Cap
Reliance Industries Limited Reliance Industries Limited BOM 500325
Reliance Industries Limited (Parent) Reliance Industries Limited (Parent)
Reliance Petroleum Limited (Parent) Reliance Petroleum Limited (Parent)
Bharat Oman Refineries Limited Bharat Oman Refineries Limited
Chennai Petroleum Corporation Limited Chennai Petroleum Corporation Limited BOM 500110
Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd(P) Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd(P)
Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited BOM 500104
Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd. Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd. BOM 500109
Tamilnadu Petroproducts Limited (P) Tamilnadu Petroproducts Limited (P)
Tamilnadu Petroproducts Limited Tamilnadu Petroproducts Limited BOM 500777
News
Reliance Petroleum Intraday Buy Call
TopNews - May 22, 2008
SC exempts Reliance Petro from customs duty on imported cranes
Economic Times - May 16, 2008
Hold Reliance Petroleum: Bose
Moneycontrol.com - May 14, 2008 - Related articles »
Reliance Petroleum may go beyond Rs 200 Moneycontrol.com
Enter in Reliance Petroleum at Rs 145: VK Sharma
Moneycontrol.com - May 12, 2008
Reliance Petroleum has strong base at Rs 160: Bhambwani
Moneycontrol.com - May 12, 2008
A Chakraborty positive on Reliance, RPL
Moneycontrol.com - May 12, 2008
Reliance shares pull Sensex down 344 pts
Asian Age - May 9, 2008
Reliance, RPL down sharply on fears of Govt control
Hindu Business Line - May 9, 2008
View all news »
Officers and directors
P. M.S. Prasad > Chief Executive Officer, Manager, Non Independent Non-Executive Director
Ramesh Kumar Damani > Compliance Officer, Company Secretary
Mukesh D. Ambani > Non Independent Non-Executive Chairman of the Board
Age: 51
Yogendra P. Trivedi > Lead Independent Non Executive Director
Officer Since: 02/25/2006
Age: 78
Hital R. Meswani > Non-Independent Non-Executive Director
Officer Since: 02/25/2006
Age: 39
Joffery Reney Pryor > Non Independent Non-Executive Director
Officer Since: 01/15/2008
Mahesh P. Modi > Independent Non-Executive Director
Age: 67
Full list on Reuters »
Blog Posts
Rising Oil Prices & RPL
shashank.tikekar - 21 hours ago - Dalal Street Community For Traders & Investors For Discussing...
With Oil prices souring new high & predicted to touch $200, what r the future prospects for Reliance Petroleum?
21-MAY-2008 (23:32:54): marketnovice: INTRA DAYS (14 messages)
May 21, 2008 - www.vfmdirect.com
abhay_somkuwar: ideas for short term: positive bias: alsthom projects, aptecht, reliance petroleum, bharat forge negative bias: allahabad bank, unitech.
Discussions
Reliance Power over-priced?
Living Off Dividends - Jan 17, 2008 (1 post)
I think the indian stock market is dropping over the past few days as ...
What Should we expect from RPL !!
TUTU - Jan 16, 2008 (1 post)
Hi All, I think RPL will commssion Jamnagar refinary after few ...
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=india&restype=company
Pappu - Dec 23, 2007 (1 post)
...
More discussions »
3rd Floor, Maker Chambers IV 222 Nariman Point
Mumbai, 400 021
India
+91-22-22785214 (Phone)
+91-22-22785111 (Fax)
Company website:
http://www.reliancepetroleum.com/
News Releases, Investor Relations, Financial Information, Corporate History/Profile, Executives, Products/Services
Key Stats & Ratios
Quarterly
Annual
(2008) Annual
(TTM)
Net Profit Margin - - -
Operating Margin - - -
EBITD Margin - - -
Return on Average Assets - - -
Return on Average Equity - - -
Employees 98 - -
Related Companies
Name Name Exchange Symbol Last Trade Change Mkt Cap
Reliance Industries Limited Reliance Industries Limited BOM 500325
Reliance Industries Limited (Parent) Reliance Industries Limited (Parent)
Reliance Petroleum Limited (Parent) Reliance Petroleum Limited (Parent)
Bharat Oman Refineries Limited Bharat Oman Refineries Limited
Chennai Petroleum Corporation Limited Chennai Petroleum Corporation Limited BOM 500110
Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd(P) Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd(P)
Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited BOM 500104
Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd. Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd. BOM 500109
Tamilnadu Petroproducts Limited (P) Tamilnadu Petroproducts Limited (P)
Tamilnadu Petroproducts Limited Tamilnadu Petroproducts Limited BOM 500777
News
Reliance Petroleum Intraday Buy Call
TopNews - May 22, 2008
SC exempts Reliance Petro from customs duty on imported cranes
Economic Times - May 16, 2008
Hold Reliance Petroleum: Bose
Moneycontrol.com - May 14, 2008 - Related articles »
Reliance Petroleum may go beyond Rs 200 Moneycontrol.com
Enter in Reliance Petroleum at Rs 145: VK Sharma
Moneycontrol.com - May 12, 2008
Reliance Petroleum has strong base at Rs 160: Bhambwani
Moneycontrol.com - May 12, 2008
A Chakraborty positive on Reliance, RPL
Moneycontrol.com - May 12, 2008
Reliance shares pull Sensex down 344 pts
Asian Age - May 9, 2008
Reliance, RPL down sharply on fears of Govt control
Hindu Business Line - May 9, 2008
View all news »
Officers and directors
P. M.S. Prasad > Chief Executive Officer, Manager, Non Independent Non-Executive Director
Ramesh Kumar Damani > Compliance Officer, Company Secretary
Mukesh D. Ambani > Non Independent Non-Executive Chairman of the Board
Age: 51
Yogendra P. Trivedi > Lead Independent Non Executive Director
Officer Since: 02/25/2006
Age: 78
Hital R. Meswani > Non-Independent Non-Executive Director
Officer Since: 02/25/2006
Age: 39
Joffery Reney Pryor > Non Independent Non-Executive Director
Officer Since: 01/15/2008
Mahesh P. Modi > Independent Non-Executive Director
Age: 67
Full list on Reuters »
Blog Posts
Rising Oil Prices & RPL
shashank.tikekar - 21 hours ago - Dalal Street Community For Traders & Investors For Discussing...
With Oil prices souring new high & predicted to touch $200, what r the future prospects for Reliance Petroleum?
21-MAY-2008 (23:32:54): marketnovice: INTRA DAYS (14 messages)
May 21, 2008 - www.vfmdirect.com
abhay_somkuwar: ideas for short term: positive bias: alsthom projects, aptecht, reliance petroleum, bharat forge negative bias: allahabad bank, unitech.
Discussions
Reliance Power over-priced?
Living Off Dividends - Jan 17, 2008 (1 post)
I think the indian stock market is dropping over the past few days as ...
What Should we expect from RPL !!
TUTU - Jan 16, 2008 (1 post)
Hi All, I think RPL will commssion Jamnagar refinary after few ...
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=india&restype=company
Pappu - Dec 23, 2007 (1 post)
...
More discussions »
Google widens search lead over Yahoo; Microsoft, AOL, Ask.com decline
Google Inc. extended its share of Internet searches in April to 61.6 percent, while Yahoo Inc. sites and the other major search engines saw slight declines between March and April, according to comScore's April search rankings.
Google's share of Internet searches rose 1.8 percent from March to April, from 59.8 percent in March to 61.6 percent.
Yahoo, meanwhile, the target a possible proxy fight and of a takeover bid by Microsoft earlier this month, saw its share decline 0.9 percent, from 21.3 percent to 20.4 percent of searches.
Following Yahoo were Microsoft Corp.'s sites, down to 9.1 percent of searches in April from 9.4 percent in March; AOL LLC, down to 4.6 percent from 4.8 percent; and Oakland-based Ask.com, down to 4.3 percent of searches from 4.7 percent in March.
Searches beyond the core domain, such as map searches and searches for user-generated videos, were not included in the numbers.
The rankings also reported that Americans conducted 10.6 billion searches on the core search engines, a 2 percent decline from March. More than 6.5 billion core searches were conducted on Google, followed by 2.2 billion on Yahoo sites and 961 million on Microsoft sites. AOL saw 491 million searches, and Ask.com saw 458 million, according to comScore.
Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT)walked away earlier this month from its offer to buy Sunnyvale-based Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) for $33 a share, or about $47.5 billion. Yahoo said it would take a minimum of $37 a share.
Reports since have said Microsoft in considering other deals with Yahoo that would not be a complete takeover. The software giant is looking for ways to better compete with Mountain View-based Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).
Investor Carl Icahn has also begun a proxy battle to force a sale of Yahoo, and has compiled a slate of directors he wants to have take over at the company.
Google's share of Internet searches rose 1.8 percent from March to April, from 59.8 percent in March to 61.6 percent.
Yahoo, meanwhile, the target a possible proxy fight and of a takeover bid by Microsoft earlier this month, saw its share decline 0.9 percent, from 21.3 percent to 20.4 percent of searches.
Following Yahoo were Microsoft Corp.'s sites, down to 9.1 percent of searches in April from 9.4 percent in March; AOL LLC, down to 4.6 percent from 4.8 percent; and Oakland-based Ask.com, down to 4.3 percent of searches from 4.7 percent in March.
Searches beyond the core domain, such as map searches and searches for user-generated videos, were not included in the numbers.
The rankings also reported that Americans conducted 10.6 billion searches on the core search engines, a 2 percent decline from March. More than 6.5 billion core searches were conducted on Google, followed by 2.2 billion on Yahoo sites and 961 million on Microsoft sites. AOL saw 491 million searches, and Ask.com saw 458 million, according to comScore.
Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT)walked away earlier this month from its offer to buy Sunnyvale-based Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) for $33 a share, or about $47.5 billion. Yahoo said it would take a minimum of $37 a share.
Reports since have said Microsoft in considering other deals with Yahoo that would not be a complete takeover. The software giant is looking for ways to better compete with Mountain View-based Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).
Investor Carl Icahn has also begun a proxy battle to force a sale of Yahoo, and has compiled a slate of directors he wants to have take over at the company.
Cellphone Pioneer Struggles to Stay Relevant
Neeraj Choubey has not worked at the troubled cellphone maker Motorola for seven years. But from the number of calls and e-mail messages Mr. Choubey, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, has gotten in recent weeks, you would think he had never left his old colleagues.
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Motorola
World War II Handie-Talkie from Motorola’s predecessor.
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Times Topics: Motorola Inc.
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Motorola
The first cellphone: Motorola’s DynaTAC, at about two pounds, introduced in 1983.
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Andrew Gombert/European Pressphoto Agency
Motorola’s new phones, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
“People I have not heard from in eight years are adding me on LinkedIn,” said Mr. Choubey, referring to the professional networking site used, in part, by job seekers. “I’m getting calls from people I haven’t talked to in ages. Everyone, it seems, is looking at other options.”
Morale is just one of many problems facing Motorola these days. Mobile phone sales continue to plummet. A parade of executives has left the corporate suite, including the company’s chief of strategy and technology, who resigned last week. And despite the recent détente with the activist investor Carl C. Icahn, whose representatives now sit on Motorola’s board, analysts and restive shareholders are wondering how soon — if at all — Greg Brown, the chief executive, can revive Motorola’s fortunes.
To many investors and employees, Mr. Brown has yet to articulate a strategy for turning around the pioneering communications company, which popularized the handheld two-way radio, called a Handie-Talkie, during World War II and, in 1983, created the world’s first commercial portable cellular phone.
“The question is, ‘What is the game plan?’ ” said Walter Piecyk, a managing director at Pali Research, an independent research firm in New York. “Motorola needs to decide what it wants to be. You can’t just keep saying, ‘I promise to come out with better phones.’ That is not enough these days.”
Mr. Brown, who became chief executive five months ago after his predecessor, Edward J. Zander, resigned under pressure, contends his plan is simple: restore Motorola’s lost reputation as the premier maker of mobile phones in the United States.
But in an interview, he said that executing is harder than he imagined when he took the job.
Motorola’s reversal of fortune has been striking. The Schaumburg, Ill., company shipped about 27 million handsets during the first quarter of 2008, putting its share of the global market below 10 percent — a plunge from its 22 percent market share in 2006, when its Razr flip phone was a top seller.
Already, Mr. Brown said, he has taken several steps to ease Motorola’s pain. The biggest: his March decision to spin off the mobile devices unit to make it easier to recruit a chief executive to run it. Mr. Brown, meanwhile, would oversee the company’s other businesses, which include television set-top boxes and computing and communications equipment.
The split was expected by Wall Street, particularly because Mr. Icahn advocated for it last year. But some analysts said the problems facing the mobile phone division would remain the same for it as a standalone company.
Motorola needs to better differentiate itself, much as Research in Motion has done with the BlackBerry e-mail device and Apple has with the iPhone, said Roger Entner, a senior vice president at IAG Research. Even Nokia, the volume leader in cellphone sales worldwide, is positioning itself as a maker of phones geared as much for entertainment as for calling.
With Motorola, “no one knows what is in the design pipeline,” said Mr. Entner. “It’s like a black hole.”
Mr. Brown acknowledged that Motorola has lagged behind its peers, largely because it was never able to come up with a successor to the Razr. But the company is responding, he said, preparing cellphones with more touch-screen functions to appeal to Asian customers. Motorola is also designing less costly mobile phones with third-generation technology, known as 3G, which it hopes to announce soon.
The new products could be helpful to Motorola, said Mr. Piecyk, particularly if they are sold in Latin America, India and China, where cellphones are the main way many consumers access the Internet. Still, the analyst cautioned, Motorola would have to sell a lot of the new models to affect its bottom line.
Motorola said last month that it suffered a net loss of $194 million, or 9 cents a share, for the first quarter, which ended March 29. In the year-ago quarter, the company lost $181 million, or 8 cents a share. Revenue fell 21 percent to $7.45 billion.
Motorola also has something of an image problem with its customers, particularly wireless carriers like Verizon Wireless and AT&T that got burned when the company did not deliver promised phones on time.
Mr. Brown said Motorola would be more careful not to hail new products unless it can deliver them. “We want to be thoughtful about not pre-announcing and making broad declarations before products are ready for delivery,” he said. Perhaps the trickiest challenge facing Mr. Brown, though, is how to motivate a work force that has been battered by layoffs. Many have watched the company’s reputation plummet from one of the most revered in the industry to an also-ran.
“There is no shortage of smart people there,” said Jeffrey K. Belk, a former senior vice president for strategy at Qualcomm, who worked closely with Motorola executives. “What is changing is the environment around them.”
Mr. Entner put it more bluntly: “That company suffers from a culture of failure.”
Like many analysts, Mr. Entner does not blame Mr. Brown for today’s misfortunes. He said that the previous chief executive, Mr. Zander, should have been more aggressive in addressing the company’s misfortunes, including doing more to come up with a successor to the Razr.
But it is Mr. Brown’s job to come up with a new vision to inspire the company’s about 66,000 employees — and keep them from fleeing to rival cellphone makers and startups.
And that hasn’t been easy. One former longtime Motorola executive, who declined to be named because he still had relationships there, said he had left because he believed the company lost its way. “I had concerns about the strategic vision. They remain.”
Mr. Brown said he has sought to address employees’ concerns. Recently, Motorola’s mobile devices division held a “town hall” meeting at company headquarters. Members of the new products team showed employees what they might see in 2009. While they did not unveil new phones — for fear the news would be leaked — they showed certain functions that designers and engineers would include.
But in the interview, Mr. Brown said, “We don’t want to rely on a single hit product to get us back, which has been the case in the past.”
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World War II Handie-Talkie from Motorola’s predecessor.
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Times Topics: Motorola Inc.
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The first cellphone: Motorola’s DynaTAC, at about two pounds, introduced in 1983.
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Motorola’s new phones, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
“People I have not heard from in eight years are adding me on LinkedIn,” said Mr. Choubey, referring to the professional networking site used, in part, by job seekers. “I’m getting calls from people I haven’t talked to in ages. Everyone, it seems, is looking at other options.”
Morale is just one of many problems facing Motorola these days. Mobile phone sales continue to plummet. A parade of executives has left the corporate suite, including the company’s chief of strategy and technology, who resigned last week. And despite the recent détente with the activist investor Carl C. Icahn, whose representatives now sit on Motorola’s board, analysts and restive shareholders are wondering how soon — if at all — Greg Brown, the chief executive, can revive Motorola’s fortunes.
To many investors and employees, Mr. Brown has yet to articulate a strategy for turning around the pioneering communications company, which popularized the handheld two-way radio, called a Handie-Talkie, during World War II and, in 1983, created the world’s first commercial portable cellular phone.
“The question is, ‘What is the game plan?’ ” said Walter Piecyk, a managing director at Pali Research, an independent research firm in New York. “Motorola needs to decide what it wants to be. You can’t just keep saying, ‘I promise to come out with better phones.’ That is not enough these days.”
Mr. Brown, who became chief executive five months ago after his predecessor, Edward J. Zander, resigned under pressure, contends his plan is simple: restore Motorola’s lost reputation as the premier maker of mobile phones in the United States.
But in an interview, he said that executing is harder than he imagined when he took the job.
Motorola’s reversal of fortune has been striking. The Schaumburg, Ill., company shipped about 27 million handsets during the first quarter of 2008, putting its share of the global market below 10 percent — a plunge from its 22 percent market share in 2006, when its Razr flip phone was a top seller.
Already, Mr. Brown said, he has taken several steps to ease Motorola’s pain. The biggest: his March decision to spin off the mobile devices unit to make it easier to recruit a chief executive to run it. Mr. Brown, meanwhile, would oversee the company’s other businesses, which include television set-top boxes and computing and communications equipment.
The split was expected by Wall Street, particularly because Mr. Icahn advocated for it last year. But some analysts said the problems facing the mobile phone division would remain the same for it as a standalone company.
Motorola needs to better differentiate itself, much as Research in Motion has done with the BlackBerry e-mail device and Apple has with the iPhone, said Roger Entner, a senior vice president at IAG Research. Even Nokia, the volume leader in cellphone sales worldwide, is positioning itself as a maker of phones geared as much for entertainment as for calling.
With Motorola, “no one knows what is in the design pipeline,” said Mr. Entner. “It’s like a black hole.”
Mr. Brown acknowledged that Motorola has lagged behind its peers, largely because it was never able to come up with a successor to the Razr. But the company is responding, he said, preparing cellphones with more touch-screen functions to appeal to Asian customers. Motorola is also designing less costly mobile phones with third-generation technology, known as 3G, which it hopes to announce soon.
The new products could be helpful to Motorola, said Mr. Piecyk, particularly if they are sold in Latin America, India and China, where cellphones are the main way many consumers access the Internet. Still, the analyst cautioned, Motorola would have to sell a lot of the new models to affect its bottom line.
Motorola said last month that it suffered a net loss of $194 million, or 9 cents a share, for the first quarter, which ended March 29. In the year-ago quarter, the company lost $181 million, or 8 cents a share. Revenue fell 21 percent to $7.45 billion.
Motorola also has something of an image problem with its customers, particularly wireless carriers like Verizon Wireless and AT&T that got burned when the company did not deliver promised phones on time.
Mr. Brown said Motorola would be more careful not to hail new products unless it can deliver them. “We want to be thoughtful about not pre-announcing and making broad declarations before products are ready for delivery,” he said. Perhaps the trickiest challenge facing Mr. Brown, though, is how to motivate a work force that has been battered by layoffs. Many have watched the company’s reputation plummet from one of the most revered in the industry to an also-ran.
“There is no shortage of smart people there,” said Jeffrey K. Belk, a former senior vice president for strategy at Qualcomm, who worked closely with Motorola executives. “What is changing is the environment around them.”
Mr. Entner put it more bluntly: “That company suffers from a culture of failure.”
Like many analysts, Mr. Entner does not blame Mr. Brown for today’s misfortunes. He said that the previous chief executive, Mr. Zander, should have been more aggressive in addressing the company’s misfortunes, including doing more to come up with a successor to the Razr.
But it is Mr. Brown’s job to come up with a new vision to inspire the company’s about 66,000 employees — and keep them from fleeing to rival cellphone makers and startups.
And that hasn’t been easy. One former longtime Motorola executive, who declined to be named because he still had relationships there, said he had left because he believed the company lost its way. “I had concerns about the strategic vision. They remain.”
Mr. Brown said he has sought to address employees’ concerns. Recently, Motorola’s mobile devices division held a “town hall” meeting at company headquarters. Members of the new products team showed employees what they might see in 2009. While they did not unveil new phones — for fear the news would be leaked — they showed certain functions that designers and engineers would include.
But in the interview, Mr. Brown said, “We don’t want to rely on a single hit product to get us back, which has been the case in the past.”
MICROSOFT VERSES GOOGLE
SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft said Friday that it was ending a project to scan millions of books and scholarly articles and make them available on the Web, a sign that it is retrenching in some areas of Internet search in the face of competition from Google, the industry leader.
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Times Topics: Microsoft CorporationThe announcement, made on a company blog, comes two days after Microsoft said it would focus its Internet search efforts on certain areas where it sees an opportunity to compete against Google. On Wednesday, Microsoft unveiled a program offering rebates to users who buy items that they find using the company’s search engine.
Some search experts said Microsoft’s decision to end its book-scanning effort suggested that the company, whose search engine has lagged far behind those of Google and Yahoo, was giving up on efforts to be comprehensive.
“It makes you wonder what else is likely to go,” said Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of the blog Search Engine Land. “One of the reasons people turn to Google is that it tries to be a search player in all aspects of search.”
Mr. Sullivan said that the number of people using book search services from Microsoft and Google was relatively small, but it included librarians, researchers and other so-called early adopters who often influence others. These users are now likely to turn to Google with increasing frequency, he said.
Both Microsoft and Google have been scanning older books that have fallen into the public domain, as well as copyright-protected books under agreements with some publishers. Google also scans copyrighted works without permission so it can show short excerpts to searchers, an approach that has drawn fire from publishers.
Microsoft’s decision also leaves the Internet Archive, the nonprofit digital archive that was paid by Microsoft to scan books, looking for new sources of support. Several major libraries said that they had chosen to work with the Internet Archive rather than with Google, because of restrictions Google placed on the use of the new digital files.
“We’re disappointed,” said Brewster Kahle, chairman of the Internet Archive. Mr. Kahle said, however, that his organization recognized that the project, which has been scanning about 1,000 books each day, would not receive corporate support indefinitely. Mr. Kahle said that Microsoft was reducing its support slowly and that the Internet Archive had enough money to keep the project “going for a while.”
“Eventually funding will come from the public sphere,” Mr. Kahle said.
Some libraries that work with the Internet Archive and Microsoft also said they planned to continue their book-scanning projects.
“We certainly expect to go on with this,” said Carole Moore, chief librarian at the University of Toronto. “Corporate sponsors are interested in whatever works for their commercial interests and their shareholders. Long-term preservation is not something you can look to the commercial sector to provide. It is what research libraries have always done.”
Microsoft acknowledged on its blog that commercial considerations played a part in its decision to end the program.
“Given the evolution of the Web and our strategy, we believe the next generation of search is about the development of an underlying, sustainable business model for the search engine, consumer and content partner,” Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s senior vice president for search, portal and advertising, wrote on the blog.
Microsoft said it had digitized 750,000 books and indexed 80 million journal articles.
Google, which works with libraries like the New York Public Library and those at Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan and Oxford, said it had scanned more than a million books. It plans to scan 15 million in the next decade. Google makes the books it scans freely available through its search engine but does not allow other search engines to use its database.
“We are extremely committed to Google Book Search, Google Scholar and other initiatives to bring more content online,” said Adam Smith, product management director at Google
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Related
Times Topics: Microsoft CorporationThe announcement, made on a company blog, comes two days after Microsoft said it would focus its Internet search efforts on certain areas where it sees an opportunity to compete against Google. On Wednesday, Microsoft unveiled a program offering rebates to users who buy items that they find using the company’s search engine.
Some search experts said Microsoft’s decision to end its book-scanning effort suggested that the company, whose search engine has lagged far behind those of Google and Yahoo, was giving up on efforts to be comprehensive.
“It makes you wonder what else is likely to go,” said Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of the blog Search Engine Land. “One of the reasons people turn to Google is that it tries to be a search player in all aspects of search.”
Mr. Sullivan said that the number of people using book search services from Microsoft and Google was relatively small, but it included librarians, researchers and other so-called early adopters who often influence others. These users are now likely to turn to Google with increasing frequency, he said.
Both Microsoft and Google have been scanning older books that have fallen into the public domain, as well as copyright-protected books under agreements with some publishers. Google also scans copyrighted works without permission so it can show short excerpts to searchers, an approach that has drawn fire from publishers.
Microsoft’s decision also leaves the Internet Archive, the nonprofit digital archive that was paid by Microsoft to scan books, looking for new sources of support. Several major libraries said that they had chosen to work with the Internet Archive rather than with Google, because of restrictions Google placed on the use of the new digital files.
“We’re disappointed,” said Brewster Kahle, chairman of the Internet Archive. Mr. Kahle said, however, that his organization recognized that the project, which has been scanning about 1,000 books each day, would not receive corporate support indefinitely. Mr. Kahle said that Microsoft was reducing its support slowly and that the Internet Archive had enough money to keep the project “going for a while.”
“Eventually funding will come from the public sphere,” Mr. Kahle said.
Some libraries that work with the Internet Archive and Microsoft also said they planned to continue their book-scanning projects.
“We certainly expect to go on with this,” said Carole Moore, chief librarian at the University of Toronto. “Corporate sponsors are interested in whatever works for their commercial interests and their shareholders. Long-term preservation is not something you can look to the commercial sector to provide. It is what research libraries have always done.”
Microsoft acknowledged on its blog that commercial considerations played a part in its decision to end the program.
“Given the evolution of the Web and our strategy, we believe the next generation of search is about the development of an underlying, sustainable business model for the search engine, consumer and content partner,” Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s senior vice president for search, portal and advertising, wrote on the blog.
Microsoft said it had digitized 750,000 books and indexed 80 million journal articles.
Google, which works with libraries like the New York Public Library and those at Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan and Oxford, said it had scanned more than a million books. It plans to scan 15 million in the next decade. Google makes the books it scans freely available through its search engine but does not allow other search engines to use its database.
“We are extremely committed to Google Book Search, Google Scholar and other initiatives to bring more content online,” said Adam Smith, product management director at Google
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