Technology & Finance
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Steve Ballmer on the Hot Seat with Walt Mossberg at D Conference
Microsoft is more nimble now than when it had 30 employees? That’s what Ballmer said. He also says that Microsoft learned a lot on Vista.
See the ZD blog.
And also check the Wall Street Journal blog—since it is the sponsor of the event. I had trouble with some of the links off the WSJ online site...but I suppose that is the Web corollary of the demo that goes down.
AMD Appoints Microsoft Alum to Board of Directors
AMD has named Frank Clegg to its board of directors.
Clegg was the president of Microsoft Canada from 1991 to 1996. In 1996, he was appointed vice president of Microsoft’s Central U.S. and Canada Region, and was then re-appointed president of Microsoft Canada in 2000, where he remained until January 2005. Under his direction, Microsoft Canada was awarded Subsidiary of the Year in 2001 and 2003 by Microsoft Corp. He joined Navanits, a Microsoft Gold certified partner, in October 2005 as chairman and director.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
TowerGroup Offers Tool to Evaluate Technology Vendors
TowerGroup has launched a new tool to help firms evaluate vendors.
The TowerGroup Vendor Selection Processor (VSP) is a software-based, analytical tool designed to streamline the scoring phase of a vendor selection initiative. The tool is used to store vendor evaluation criteria, manage scores from those engaged in the selection process, and then analyze and report the results. At the end of the process, the VSP identifies the vendor best-suited to a financial institution’s budgetary and business needs.
Taking Finance On the Road with Windows Mobile and Pyxis
Pyxis, a leader in mobile financial services, will host a Webcast at 2 p.m. June 12 with TowerGroup’s Matt Bienfang on how consistent, direct and up-to-the-minute information can help financial services professionals drive sales, provide exceptional customer service, and effectively manage clients and prospects.
Mobile Banking and Personal Investing • Comments • Trackbacks • Permalink
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Pay As You Drive Insurance? Not in the US Any Time Soon
Progressive experimented with a black box to record driving so it could offer lower rates to drivers who didn’t use their cars much. But after trials in Texas and Michigan (or was it Minnesota) the effort dropped from view, according to industry watchers who talked about the topic at ACORD.
Richard Holling, who runs the worldwide insurance practice for HP, said some German insurers are actively interested in the concept.
IBM’s P&C Solution Manager, Terry Buechner, told me that Norwich Union in the UK has licensed patents from Progressive to monitor driving. Buechner thinks the real value right now is using the boxes to better understand driving patterns overall, using anonymous data, rather than trying to figure out the behavior of individual drivers. Companies that use such data to understand drivers will be able to improve their underwriting.
Meanwhile Royal & Sun Alliance in the UK is using a device to monitor cars driven by young people—if the car is turned on between 11 pm and 5 am they are assessed £45.
As monitoring devices decline in price, they may become more prevalent.