Saturday, 11 October 2008

A Decentralised Motor Industry

The motor industry needs to evolve. In Southampton, UK, Ford is considering closing the factory that produces it's Transit vans and relocating to Turkey. Many people rely on the factory for employment.

The future doesn't have to be bad for anyone made redundant though. The silver lining is that former employees of motor manufacturing companies can work together to produce their own vehicles, either own-branded or on behalf of, and funded by, another manufacturer. They have the relevant experience, after all. A small group of people in the Midlands could produce the engine, another group in Southampton could produce the shell. This is how businesses should work within the network economy.

Imagine being part of a company, owned by 30,000 people including yourself, that produces vehicles in the homes/sheds of it's employees/shareholders! Imagine building a gearbox and then sending it on to someone living in the next City to have it tested and added to a vehicle. Your parts could create a new vehicle or they could be sold to a parts retailer. Profits shared between the owners of the company, who also happen to be it's employees. The co-operative may be the perfect business for the network economy.

Friday, 8 August 2008

BT creates life!

British Telecommunications PLC is hoping to create the first Artifical Intelligence based network system.

The proposed system will repair itself and will enable the group to cut costs.

Sounds good!!

Monday, 18 February 2008

Yahoo! says no!!

Yahoo! has said no to Microsoft after the takeover bid earlier this month. The company said that Microsoft's bid undervalued it's shares, the price of which will keep rising. AOL Time Warner has put forward a proposal for a merger of AOL and Yahoo! to keep it (Yahoo!) out of Microsoft's hands.

Yahoo! shares may be almost full-priced now, the shares won't keep rising for long and there won't be many more opportunities for people to make a profit from the shares other than from the dividends.

Lara Croft's National Treasure

SCI Entertainment, the company behind the extremely successful Lara Croft: Tomb Raider films, should produce a film that combines Tomb Raider with the National Treasure films. Both films total two in number and by creating a combined third one they become intertwined and make a double trilogy that will earn both SCI and Disney substantial revenues from the film and the inevitable games.

From a successful collaberation will come more opportunities for both companies to make more money. Shares in SCI are worth buying just because of the value of their brands, ie Lara Croft:Tomb Raider and Kane & Lynch.

Friday, 1 February 2008

The Battle for ITV

The newspapers are all adding their pennys worth into the debate over whether Rupert Murdoch's BSB should have been allowed to keep the 17% stake in ITV or if they should have just never been allowed to go above 7%.

It seems our own Sir Richard Branson is buying up ITV shares and may be taking it over. Sir Richard is an excellent businessman who has built up one of the best known brands from nothing, he started selling records when he was 17! Definitely a great role model for budding entrepeneurs.

If Sir Richard was successful in obtaining ITV then the Virgin Group would be one of Britain's most successful media conglomerates with interests in tv, radio, broadband and publishing. To add more value to the Group I think he needs to launch a Social Networking site, he could give access to films and tv programmes to people, they could also let him know what they think of his products/services.

ITV and Virgin are good buys, buy up shares because they are going to keep rising.

Sunday, 27 January 2008

Google looking at Malaysia for it's server farms

Google is looking at Malaysia as a possible site for the Worlds largest server farm. The company is looking at Malaysia aswell as India and Vietnam to site their servers.

Malaysia has it's own 'silicon valley' called the Multimedia Super Corridor which was launched about a decade ago and such a large investment by Google Yahoo! would be a major boost to Malaysias economy and make it a global player in the Network technologies industry.

Sunday, 13 January 2008

Shares of SCI drop 50% after talks collapse

SCI, the company behind the successful Lara Croft games, has seen the value of it's shares drop down 54% to 26p after it called off potential merger talks due to bids being too low.

Eidos Interactive, a subsidiary of SCI Entertainment Group PLC, produced the Lara Croft series of games and sold over a million of its Kane and Lynch games since November 2007. The shares in such a company should be acquired by everyone because, due to the 'crash' it is currently undervalued and the rights to the Lara Croft brand alone could be sold for tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions.

http://corporate.sci.co.uk/

Jeff Stewart reassures his fans

Jeff Stewart, the much loved PC Reg Hollis on The Bill, has responded to his fans following the incident of last week.

After Jeff Stewart was told his contract with The Bill will not be renewed, many of his fans have petitioned to have him returned to the show. After the response from his many fans any production company that hires him will have a great fan base immediately to build upon for their own programmes.

Maybe having PC Hollis transfer to another station because a relative is ill and he wants to be near them would be a good idea, this could then form the storyline for a new Police drama on another channel with the star as the main character.

Thursday, 10 January 2008

Yahoo! showcases new open mobile platform

Yahoo has recently been showcasing its new service - an open mobile platform - called Yahoo! Go - that allows outside developers to add their applications to it.

The company demonstrated the new service in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and the company's co-founder David Filo has said that it will be launched soon.

Yahoo! shares are an excellent buy, the company is very ambitious and the share price will continue to rise over the next year as more services and products are launched.

Tuesday, 8 January 2008

The Economist publisher considering social networking site launch

The Economist Group, the UK Economics-based publishing group, may launch their own social networking site.

Having access to, and control over, a social networking site means The Economist magazine could have it's own focus groups so they'll be able to undertake market research any time they like without having to recruit people to ask questions. The value to the group of launching such a site would be increased within the first two years as other publishers try to emulate their success and fail thus pushing more people towards the site owned by The Economist group.

Tuesday, 1 January 2008

Fox sells TV stations

Twentieth Century Fox has sold eight American TV stations for $1.1bn (£555m). It is believed to be selling off non-core businesses to concentrate on it's online businesses and the Wall Street Journal which it recently acquired.

The stations were purchased by the company Oak Hill Capital.

EMAP sells it's business magazines division

EMAP has sold it's business magazines division to a consortium comprising APAX and Guardian Media Group. The two companies acquired the business through their joint venture company Eden Bidco.

It has been reported that the companies have decided to merge their new acquisition with APAX's Incivisive Media subsidiary and GMG would own 30% of the new merged entity.

Eden Bidco purchased 41.95m shares for 931p and this was announced on Christmas Eve. The shareholders are going to have a good New Year!

It looks like the rest of the EMAP Group may be broken up soon and sold off to maximise profits with other companies buying up shares and pushing up the prices getting ready to either sell their now highly priced shares or take over the Group.