General Motors Co and eBay Inc are launching a test program in California that will allow consumers to negotiate with dealers and buy
new vehicles online, the companies said on Monday.
The car shopping website, gm.ebay.com, marks a departure from the way new vehicles have traditionally been sold in the United States and is aimed at helping GM recapture lost market share a month after it emerged from bankruptcy.
The online marketplace provides the No 1 US automaker with a new venue to sell new vehicles as it cuts the number of US dealerships by more than 40 percent to 3,600 by the end of 2010 as part of its efforts to return to profitability.
It also expands an existing partnership covering GM's certified used vehicles sold through eBay. Most of the vehicles sold on eBay Motors, a site that sells various types of vehicles and auto parts, have been used.
More than 225 GM dealers in California are participating in the program, which will run from Aug. 11 through Sept 8. GM said it intends to expand the program nationwide if the pilot helps it reach new customers and gain market share.
The website allows consumers to compare pricing across models and participating dealerships, negotiate prices, and arrange financing and payment. Consumers can agree to pay the advertised price or indicate the price they are willing to pay and can negotiate online with the dealer for the vehicle.
More than 20,000 new Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Pontiac vehicles will be listed initially on the site.
California, which has been dominated by import brands over the past several years, is the most populous US state and the single largest market for new vehicles. Car sales have been hit harder in California than in other states over the past quarter because of the severity of the housing market slump there.
"It's a critical market for us and critical time for the company. Anything we can do to provide exposure to the products where we are underserved is clearly good news," GM US sales chief Mark LaNeve said on a conference call. "It's been incredibly hit by the recession. We think it really needs a shot in the arm," he said.
GM's market share in California is hovering in the 13 percent to 13.5 percent range, trailing its national average of 19.5 percent. GM, which lost $82 billion over the past four years, is trying to revamp its image and win back consumer trust after completing a bankruptcy restructuring steered by the Obama administration.
GM has lost market share for years to import brands led by Toyota Motor Corp, now No 2 in the US market with a 17 percent share. A recent J.D. Power & Associates study said more than 75 percent of new vehicle buyers in 2008 used the Internet during their shopping and research process, compared with 70 percent in 2007.
The decline in US auto sales to their lowest level in nearly three decades this year has hurt automakers, parts suppliers, dealers and virtually every company in the automotive sector, including eBay.
The online auction company's gross merchandise volume, a data point closely watched by analysts that measures the total value of goods sold on eBay, has been hit in recent years as the downturn in auto sales continued.
Agencies
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Social network with Delhi University students now
Move over Facebook, Orkut. Here comes Delhi University's own networking site, Network DU. With over 2,000 registrations in just four weeks, this site is a virtual campus in which you can look for anyone and anything -- from old friends to scholarships and even information on paying guest accommodation.
Started by Honey Arora, a technical expert, Network DU has all the features of other social networking sites and more.
"Our aim is to get DU more connected through this site. In the IITs and IIMs, the alumni really help their juniors in getting internships and job placements. Network DU will do something similar. Besides friends, a student can get in touch with alumni of the university through this portal and seek help in terms of their career," Arora told IANS.
Of the 2,000 people who have registered, 1,500 are at present studying in the university while the rest are alumni. There is, however, no restriction on a non-DU member joining the network.
Arora himself is not an alumni of the university.
"I was a student of Punjab Technical University. But I, along with some others from IIT Delhi and IIM-Bangalore, zeroed in on Delhi University because I think DU is very tech-savvy," said Arora, who owns Sparks Logics, the firm which started Network DU.
With blogs, music, chat and even an online shopping link, the site gives you all that other networking sites have to offer. It also has debates raging on hot topics like "Should ragging be banned in DU?"with two students in Kirori Mal College getting arrested recently for ragging a junior.
The site also has space for classified information like contact addresses of hostels and PG accommodation around the campus. So if you are looking for a place to stay, all you need to do is log in. Besides this, it has information on the institutes in the campus, scholarships and internships.
Although he is happy with the response that the site has been getting, especially since the advertisement has only been through word of mouth, Arora said that he is planning to go to ex-DU bigwigs like Kapil Sibal and convince them to join the network.
"I am planning to go to Kapil Sibal and ask him to join Network DU and spread some good word about the site. DU has produced some of the most well-placed professionals in the country in every field. If someone like Sibal, who is active on Facebook, joins the site it will make others interested too," he said.
"However I will go to him only after we have got a stronger registration number like 5,000," Arora added.
Arora's mission does not stop at DU. He now plans to create similar networks for other universities.
"I am going to Amity University next and create a portal for their students. The officials of the private universities like Amity are very encouraging and eager to help in such initiatives.
"Money is a problem now but I am looking for investors so that I can create such networks for students of major universities of the country and then connect these networks so that the whole student community can come together in a single platform and interact," Arora said.
Agencies
Started by Honey Arora, a technical expert, Network DU has all the features of other social networking sites and more.
"Our aim is to get DU more connected through this site. In the IITs and IIMs, the alumni really help their juniors in getting internships and job placements. Network DU will do something similar. Besides friends, a student can get in touch with alumni of the university through this portal and seek help in terms of their career," Arora told IANS.
Of the 2,000 people who have registered, 1,500 are at present studying in the university while the rest are alumni. There is, however, no restriction on a non-DU member joining the network.
Arora himself is not an alumni of the university.
"I was a student of Punjab Technical University. But I, along with some others from IIT Delhi and IIM-Bangalore, zeroed in on Delhi University because I think DU is very tech-savvy," said Arora, who owns Sparks Logics, the firm which started Network DU.
With blogs, music, chat and even an online shopping link, the site gives you all that other networking sites have to offer. It also has debates raging on hot topics like "Should ragging be banned in DU?"with two students in Kirori Mal College getting arrested recently for ragging a junior.
The site also has space for classified information like contact addresses of hostels and PG accommodation around the campus. So if you are looking for a place to stay, all you need to do is log in. Besides this, it has information on the institutes in the campus, scholarships and internships.
Although he is happy with the response that the site has been getting, especially since the advertisement has only been through word of mouth, Arora said that he is planning to go to ex-DU bigwigs like Kapil Sibal and convince them to join the network.
"I am planning to go to Kapil Sibal and ask him to join Network DU and spread some good word about the site. DU has produced some of the most well-placed professionals in the country in every field. If someone like Sibal, who is active on Facebook, joins the site it will make others interested too," he said.
"However I will go to him only after we have got a stronger registration number like 5,000," Arora added.
Arora's mission does not stop at DU. He now plans to create similar networks for other universities.
"I am going to Amity University next and create a portal for their students. The officials of the private universities like Amity are very encouraging and eager to help in such initiatives.
"Money is a problem now but I am looking for investors so that I can create such networks for students of major universities of the country and then connect these networks so that the whole student community can come together in a single platform and interact," Arora said.
Agencies
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Microsoft to hire Yahoo staff for the online search business
Microsoft Corp will hire at least 400 workers from Yahoo Inc if government regulators approve the companies' proposed Internet search partnership, and Yahoo will receive $150 million to cover any unexpected costs during the switch to new technology.
The details emerged in a regulatory filing that elaborated on an agreement announced last week. Sunnyvale-based Yahoo said then that an unspecified number of its 13,000 employees would be offered jobs at Microsoft after the Redmond, Washington-based software maker assumes control of the search results and search advertising on Yahoo's Web site.
The transition is supposed to begin early next year, assuming the alliance is approved by antitrust regulators in the United States and Europe.
Microsoft will pay $50 million annually during the first three years of the 10-year contract to supplement the revenue that Yahoo will receive from the ads appearing alongside its search results. The $150 million in guaranteed payments weren't mentioned last week.
The filing said Yahoo can use the $150 million to pay for unforeseen transition costs. Yahoo's stock has fallen by about 15 per cent since it unveiled the Microsoft deal, largely because announced terms didn't include a large upfront payment.
The disclosure probably won't ease the disappointment much, given analysts had anticipated Microsoft paying $1 billion to $2 billion for access to Yahoo's search engine.
Most of the revenue from the Microsoft deal will flow from ad commissions. Yahoo will receive 88 percent of the search ad revenue during the first five years of the contract. After that, Yahoo's commission will range from 83 percent to 93 percent, depending on whether it still handles some of the ad sales in the partnership.
The main reason Yahoo decided to turn over its search engine to Microsoft was to save money. If Yahoo wants to save even more on technology, it
has the option of adopting Microsoft's online mapping service replace of its own, according to the filing.
Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz has already made it known she isn't impressed with Yahoo's online maps. As it is, transferring 400 workers to Microsoft would prune Yahoo's current payroll by about 3 per cent.
Yahoo will lay off some workers if the Microsoft deal goes through, Bartz said last week. Tuesday's filing didn't provide any layoff projections. Although it also has been jettisoning workers because of the recession, Microsoft finished its latest fiscal year end in June with 93,000 employees -- an increase of about 2,000 people from the previous year.
Microsoft is counting on the Yahoo partnership to help it reverse years of losses in its online operations and siphon some traffic -- and ad sales -- from Internet search leader Google Inc.
Yahoo's search engine is the second largest, making it the quickest way for Microsoft to gain ground on Google. Even so, Microsoft and Yahoo combined have less than 30 percent of the US search market compared to 65 percent for Google, according to comScore Inc.
To keep Yahoo happy, Microsoft will have to produce ad revenue per search that is within a certain percentage of Google's industry-leading rate. If Microsoft doesn't hit the target, Yahoo can abandon the partnership before the contract expires.
The filing didn't specify how close Microsoft has to come to Google's revenue per search. Microsoft estimates that Google gets 7 cents in ad revenue for every search, while Yahoo gets 4.3 cents and Microsoft gets 3.9 cents, according to a PowerPoint slide Microsoft mistakenly posted online.
Agencies
The details emerged in a regulatory filing that elaborated on an agreement announced last week. Sunnyvale-based Yahoo said then that an unspecified number of its 13,000 employees would be offered jobs at Microsoft after the Redmond, Washington-based software maker assumes control of the search results and search advertising on Yahoo's Web site.
The transition is supposed to begin early next year, assuming the alliance is approved by antitrust regulators in the United States and Europe.
Microsoft will pay $50 million annually during the first three years of the 10-year contract to supplement the revenue that Yahoo will receive from the ads appearing alongside its search results. The $150 million in guaranteed payments weren't mentioned last week.
The filing said Yahoo can use the $150 million to pay for unforeseen transition costs. Yahoo's stock has fallen by about 15 per cent since it unveiled the Microsoft deal, largely because announced terms didn't include a large upfront payment.
The disclosure probably won't ease the disappointment much, given analysts had anticipated Microsoft paying $1 billion to $2 billion for access to Yahoo's search engine.
Most of the revenue from the Microsoft deal will flow from ad commissions. Yahoo will receive 88 percent of the search ad revenue during the first five years of the contract. After that, Yahoo's commission will range from 83 percent to 93 percent, depending on whether it still handles some of the ad sales in the partnership.
The main reason Yahoo decided to turn over its search engine to Microsoft was to save money. If Yahoo wants to save even more on technology, it
has the option of adopting Microsoft's online mapping service replace of its own, according to the filing.
Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz has already made it known she isn't impressed with Yahoo's online maps. As it is, transferring 400 workers to Microsoft would prune Yahoo's current payroll by about 3 per cent.
Yahoo will lay off some workers if the Microsoft deal goes through, Bartz said last week. Tuesday's filing didn't provide any layoff projections. Although it also has been jettisoning workers because of the recession, Microsoft finished its latest fiscal year end in June with 93,000 employees -- an increase of about 2,000 people from the previous year.
Microsoft is counting on the Yahoo partnership to help it reverse years of losses in its online operations and siphon some traffic -- and ad sales -- from Internet search leader Google Inc.
Yahoo's search engine is the second largest, making it the quickest way for Microsoft to gain ground on Google. Even so, Microsoft and Yahoo combined have less than 30 percent of the US search market compared to 65 percent for Google, according to comScore Inc.
To keep Yahoo happy, Microsoft will have to produce ad revenue per search that is within a certain percentage of Google's industry-leading rate. If Microsoft doesn't hit the target, Yahoo can abandon the partnership before the contract expires.
The filing didn't specify how close Microsoft has to come to Google's revenue per search. Microsoft estimates that Google gets 7 cents in ad revenue for every search, while Yahoo gets 4.3 cents and Microsoft gets 3.9 cents, according to a PowerPoint slide Microsoft mistakenly posted online.
Agencies
Monday, August 3, 2009
Indian teams among finalists of Cisco Developer Contest 2009
Cisco has announced the 10 shortlisted teams from Phase 1 of Cisco’s global Developer Contest - ‘Think Inside the Box’ - which includes two Indian teams. The shortlist of teams for the final phase was from nearly 110 teams and 900 registrants from 75 countries. These ten teams will vie for 3 winning positions at the end of the final phase. This global developer contest gives developers an opportunity to build exciting Linux-based applications on the Cisco Application Extension Platform (AXP), and win a share of the $100,000 prize pool.
Suresh Kumar, Gopinath Bailur and Gokila Sudarshan, members of Team Ideate, and among the 10, have created an Application Suite for IP Telephony (ASIT). This suite is designed to bring savings to organizations by blocking unauthorized voice calls and reducing network operational costs by automating the telephony installation and verification processes.
Rajesh Kotagiri of team Enhancers designed a local Advertising Mesh Networks which is a proposal to create a platform for local advertising management using the Google AdSense network. This platform aims to create a distributed advertisement-serving platform hosted on the AXP, which will help retail stores use their existing infrastructure to display advertisements on LCD screens. The solution also enables a new revenue stream for businesses, as these advertisements would be carried over existing networking infrastructure.
The global contest ‘Think Inside the Box’ began in October 2008, and was an open challenge for engineers to stretch their imagination and create innovative prototypes with the Cisco Integrated Services Router Application Extension Platform, an open network platform. This application developer contest conducted by Cisco promotes the concept of the network as a platform, and aims to recognize outstanding implementation ideas for application development.
A maximum of three members in each team were allowed to participate and the phase 1 closed on February 27, 2009 culminating into the announcement of the 10 finalists. The entries submitted to this contest are judged by a panel of industry experts and academicians for innovation, technical complexity and overall usefulness of the product.
Finalists will develop their proposed applications on the Cisco AXP platform, and will have remote access to a Simulation Lab hosted by Cisco for developing their applications. The finalists will also present their implementations to a panel of experts comprising senior-level Cisco executives along with other industry luminaries. Three winners will be selected based on weighted judging criteria, and they will receive $50,000, $30,000, and $20,000 respectively.
Suresh Kumar, Gopinath Bailur and Gokila Sudarshan, members of Team Ideate, and among the 10, have created an Application Suite for IP Telephony (ASIT). This suite is designed to bring savings to organizations by blocking unauthorized voice calls and reducing network operational costs by automating the telephony installation and verification processes.
Rajesh Kotagiri of team Enhancers designed a local Advertising Mesh Networks which is a proposal to create a platform for local advertising management using the Google AdSense network. This platform aims to create a distributed advertisement-serving platform hosted on the AXP, which will help retail stores use their existing infrastructure to display advertisements on LCD screens. The solution also enables a new revenue stream for businesses, as these advertisements would be carried over existing networking infrastructure.
The global contest ‘Think Inside the Box’ began in October 2008, and was an open challenge for engineers to stretch their imagination and create innovative prototypes with the Cisco Integrated Services Router Application Extension Platform, an open network platform. This application developer contest conducted by Cisco promotes the concept of the network as a platform, and aims to recognize outstanding implementation ideas for application development.
A maximum of three members in each team were allowed to participate and the phase 1 closed on February 27, 2009 culminating into the announcement of the 10 finalists. The entries submitted to this contest are judged by a panel of industry experts and academicians for innovation, technical complexity and overall usefulness of the product.
Finalists will develop their proposed applications on the Cisco AXP platform, and will have remote access to a Simulation Lab hosted by Cisco for developing their applications. The finalists will also present their implementations to a panel of experts comprising senior-level Cisco executives along with other industry luminaries. Three winners will be selected based on weighted judging criteria, and they will receive $50,000, $30,000, and $20,000 respectively.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Does US lead among spam nations?
The US leads the world in the sending of spam, according to a study.
The study by IT security solutions provider Sophos showed that spam originating in Russia has dropped significantly. It also claimed that some 16.5 per cent of all spam mails sent in the second quarter of this year came from the United States.
Russian spammers - previously a highly active bunch - were only responsible for 3.2 per cent of all spam sent, which puts them in ninth place on the list.
Second place went to Brazil (11.1 per cent), followed by Turkey (5.2) and India (5.0).
Agencies
The study by IT security solutions provider Sophos showed that spam originating in Russia has dropped significantly. It also claimed that some 16.5 per cent of all spam mails sent in the second quarter of this year came from the United States.
Russian spammers - previously a highly active bunch - were only responsible for 3.2 per cent of all spam sent, which puts them in ninth place on the list.
Second place went to Brazil (11.1 per cent), followed by Turkey (5.2) and India (5.0).
Agencies
Friday, July 31, 2009
11.9 m new Indian subscribers added in June
India's telecom industry continued its robust growth story in June by adding 11.91 million new subscribers to take the total subscription base to 464.82 million, said a government statement.
The number of total subscribers in the country as on June 30, 2008 was 325.78 million.
The wireless (GSM and CDMA) segment added 12 million new subscribers, while the wireline segment witnessed a dip of 134,000 connections, the statement said.
The overall tele-density reached 39.86 percent in June 2009 as compared to 28.33 percent in the like period last year.
Broadband connections reached 6.4 million at the end of May and the total number of licences issued for Internet service providers (ISPs) is 375, the statement added.
Under the Bharat Nirman programme, public telephones were provided to 264 villages in May.
Agencies
The number of total subscribers in the country as on June 30, 2008 was 325.78 million.
The wireless (GSM and CDMA) segment added 12 million new subscribers, while the wireline segment witnessed a dip of 134,000 connections, the statement said.
The overall tele-density reached 39.86 percent in June 2009 as compared to 28.33 percent in the like period last year.
Broadband connections reached 6.4 million at the end of May and the total number of licences issued for Internet service providers (ISPs) is 375, the statement added.
Under the Bharat Nirman programme, public telephones were provided to 264 villages in May.
Agencies
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Indian Search Industry to experience stronger competition
Despite the search market in India being very small and amounting to less than $40 million in a year but the market is growing rapidly at about 33% yearly and so the Microsoft-Yahoo! deal is significant to India, Praveen Bhadada, engagement manager, Zinnov Management Consulting.
Speaking on the Microsoft-Yahoo! deal and its impact on India, Bhadada said, “Google is the dominant search engine in India and there are about 15 plus local search engines that have emerged in the last 2 years, for e.g. asklaila.com, justdial, guruji.com, mapmyindia.com, tolmolbol.com etc. covering niche areas. Unlike Baidu (search engine in China), they do not directly compete with the global giants such as Google, Yahoo or Microsoft.”
With presence of more than 35 million SMBs in India, and some of them relying heavily on search engine marketing to push their products across the globe, the
Microsoft-Yahoo partnerships can provide them a better second alternative, he said.
The rapid pace of broadband penetration in India will help both Google and Microsoft-Yahoo in the long run and help them gain larger share in markets such as India and China.
The deal will help both Microsoft and Yahoo! put a strong battle against Google, which currently enjoys more than 65% market share in the $25 billion plus global market for search engine marketing, said Bhadada.
In fact, Yahoo! globally accounts for close to 20% while Microsoft, with its new Bing search platform enjoys about 9% market share.
In the exclusive agreements, Microsoft will acquire a 10 year license to Yahoo’s core search technology and Bing will be the exclusive platform for all Yahoo! sites.
According to the official statement, Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88% of search revenue generated on Yahoo!’s sites during the first 5 years of the agreement.
He said Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!’s revenue per search in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country. “Complete integration may take anywhere between 18-24 months.”
The two will continue to compete in other common business areas such as email, web products, messaging etc.
However, dominance of Google may or may not be hampered, he said. Search major Google may be less worried with this agreement with Yahoo and Microsoft Google enjoys a big share in the market and the customer confidence is high on Google as compared to Yahoo and Microsoft. “Unless the actual number of searches increase for the user, this deal may not bring in any fruitful results for the two and the complete integration will only happen by 2011-2012 timeframe,” he said.
But some believe that the Bing platform for advertisers is relatively inferior to that of Yahoo and but alternatively, users will now have a stronger alternative that will provide them scale and if the combined search can provide users a better experience, then they may potentially eat up into Google’s share in the future.
CXOtoday.com
Speaking on the Microsoft-Yahoo! deal and its impact on India, Bhadada said, “Google is the dominant search engine in India and there are about 15 plus local search engines that have emerged in the last 2 years, for e.g. asklaila.com, justdial, guruji.com, mapmyindia.com, tolmolbol.com etc. covering niche areas. Unlike Baidu (search engine in China), they do not directly compete with the global giants such as Google, Yahoo or Microsoft.”
With presence of more than 35 million SMBs in India, and some of them relying heavily on search engine marketing to push their products across the globe, the
Microsoft-Yahoo partnerships can provide them a better second alternative, he said.
The rapid pace of broadband penetration in India will help both Google and Microsoft-Yahoo in the long run and help them gain larger share in markets such as India and China.
The deal will help both Microsoft and Yahoo! put a strong battle against Google, which currently enjoys more than 65% market share in the $25 billion plus global market for search engine marketing, said Bhadada.
In fact, Yahoo! globally accounts for close to 20% while Microsoft, with its new Bing search platform enjoys about 9% market share.
In the exclusive agreements, Microsoft will acquire a 10 year license to Yahoo’s core search technology and Bing will be the exclusive platform for all Yahoo! sites.
According to the official statement, Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88% of search revenue generated on Yahoo!’s sites during the first 5 years of the agreement.
He said Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!’s revenue per search in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country. “Complete integration may take anywhere between 18-24 months.”
The two will continue to compete in other common business areas such as email, web products, messaging etc.
However, dominance of Google may or may not be hampered, he said. Search major Google may be less worried with this agreement with Yahoo and Microsoft Google enjoys a big share in the market and the customer confidence is high on Google as compared to Yahoo and Microsoft. “Unless the actual number of searches increase for the user, this deal may not bring in any fruitful results for the two and the complete integration will only happen by 2011-2012 timeframe,” he said.
But some believe that the Bing platform for advertisers is relatively inferior to that of Yahoo and but alternatively, users will now have a stronger alternative that will provide them scale and if the combined search can provide users a better experience, then they may potentially eat up into Google’s share in the future.
CXOtoday.com
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