Technology & Finance
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Green Tech -- Not Very Fast
Interesting comment from a tech vet at a recent conference --Uptime Institute seems to be recycling people and commentary and the firms represented don’t seem interesting in taking action to reduce power consumption.
Strange, because the answers aren’t far away—virtualization, moving to dual- or multiple-core computers, using infrared tech from HP, IBM and others to improve air flows in data centers and reduce power consumption…
Could it be that back office facilities folks have discovered what back office financial services folks learned years ago about standards work—it can go on forever, and offers a great opportunity to go to meetings in nice places...why rush to achieve a solution?
A Nordea exec at Swift some years ago challenged bank execs to see how much they were spending each year on sending their people to standards meetings. Perhaps they ought to see what they are spending on green initiatiives that are more talk than action.
YouTube Gives Candidates a Chance to Speak - For Better or Worse
Prompted by Lee Gomes in the WSJ today, I have spent an hour on http://www.techpresident.com...and it has been fun…
One post says YouTube gives the candidates a chance to reach beyond 7-second TV sound bites to hear the candidates speak. Great site—and Lee’s Portal’s column is worth checking as well.
Television is scarce media, and for decades the sound-bite has been shrinking. In the 1968 presidential election, the average network soundbite was 42 seconds. By 1988, it had shrunk to 9.8 seconds, according to Daniel Hallin of UCSD, and in 1996, according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs, to just 7.2 seconds.
But when it comes to online video, the opposite is clearly happening. Here’s a rough, back-of-the-envelope calculation of how YouTube is expanding the time candidates have to speak for themselves, using Barack Obama’s YouTube channel.
All told, Obama’s videos have been viewed more than 23 million times in all--and that’s not counting partial views, since YouTube only reports a full viewing as a “view.” (This number has almost quadrupled since the beginning of the year, by the way.) His campaign has uploaded more than 700 video clips, and adds several more a day.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Oliver Wyman Acquires Celent
This is an interesting move.
Oliver Wyman, the international consulting firms that seems to float around the edges of financial services (or perhaps that’s just my perception) has acquired Celent, the financial tech research and consulting firm founded by Octavio Marenzi after he left Meridien.
His former colleagues must be looking on with interest—are any still left at Financial Insights?
“Celent is a well-regarded firm with a team of high-quality professionals. Its expertise in the strategic application of information technology to the financial industry complements our existing work in that area and will enhance our offering to clients,” said Alan McIntyre, a Managing Director for Oliver Wyman. “Celent’s industry-leading research and publishing business is second to none and will be a strategic asset for Oliver Wyman as we seek to provide the best possible advisory services to our clients in the financial services industry.”
Celent recently lost its lead insurance analyst, Matthew Josefowicz, who went to join Novantas, but otherwise it seems to have been doing very well.
Marenzi said “Joining Oliver Wyman puts the strength of a global leader behind us and gives us new access to the most respected expertise in financial services strategy and risk management. The value of the research and consulting services we provide will be enhanced by our affiliation with Oliver Wyman.”
Good work all around, I would say.
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Reed Elsevier to Acquire ChoicePoint for $4.1 billion
Reed Elsevier, a leading publisher and information provider has reached an agreement to acquire ChoicePoint a provider of technology and information-based risk mitigation products in the United States. The enterprise value of the all-cash transaction is valued at approximately $4 billion (USD), based on an offer of $50 per share.
“The acquisition of ChoicePoint represents a major further step in the building of Reed Elsevier’s risk management business and in the development of our online workflow solutions strategy” said Sir Crispin Davis, Reed Elsevier’s Chief Executive Officer. “The market growth in risk information and analytics is highly attractive and ChoicePoint brings important assets and market positions that fit well with our existing business and, in combination, can be leveraged to provide enhanced products for customers.”
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Property Ain’t What It Used to Be
Our generation, says Nicola Horlick, CEO at Bramdean Asset Management, thought of property as a way to save. At retirement, you could downsize and live off the proceeds. Now university grads come out of school laden with debt, and to get a foot on the property ladder they acquire even more debt.
“I don’t think they will se the same increase in property prices.” Not to mention that with a mortgage 5X income they will have a very hard time saving. The huge increase in property prices has created a huge problem for the US and Europe, she said during a SIFMA conference in London last week.
Although, I think, it may be less so in the US where fast-growing regions with very loose property development regulations still provide three-bedroom houses for $200,000 or so. Developers can always buy up some land on the outskirts and build some more. It might not be pretty, but it is affordable.
If you want to live in New York, Boston, or San Francisco, where both geography and tough regulations restrict housing supply, it’s going to be very expensive.