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|By PR Newswire||
|December 12, 2012 06:00 AM EST||
ST. LOUIS, Dec. 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Amdocs, the leading provider of customer experience systems and services, today released a global research report that finds service providers are looking to offer personalized data plans and real-time visibility and control over data spending in order to improve the customer experience and better monetize 4G investments. The research also reveals that service providers currently lack the integrated charging and policy management capabilities required to enable this.
Key research findings reveal that:
As 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) becomes the standard network technology, service providers' marketing departments want to launch more advanced services and price plans
- 80 percent of respondents said their companies have either launched or are trialing LTE services
- 92 percent of respondents said their IT organizations are being asked by Marketing to enable innovative data price plans
- 63 percent of respondents plan to launch VoLTE (voice over LTE) by 2013-14
IT organizations need new capabilities in order to fulfill Marketing's wish lists
- 70 percent of respondents said their companies cannot enable innovative data price plans because of IT limitations
- 60 percent of respondents said their companies are looking to establish IT capabilities to enable personalization of data plans and promotions
- 50 percent of respondents said their companies are looking to establish IT capabilities to enable real-time user visibility and control over data plans and spending
- Almost 60 percent of respondents said it takes their companies three to six months to launch a new service; an additional 20 percent said it takes even longer
There is overwhelming consensus among service providers that charging and policy management integration is key to enabling more advanced services and price plans
- The vast majority of respondents from Europe, North America and Asia Pacific (100, 90, and 80 percent respectively) said their companies see a need to integrate charging and policy management capabilities. Forty percent of service providers in Latin America also agreed. Integration between charging and policy management allows providers to introduce personalized services that relate to the device type, service type, network status, customer location and other customer information, across all lines of business, and with real-time user visibility and control over data plans and spending.
- 75 percent of respondents said their companies are looking to manage rules for policy and charging from one location, i.e. implement a centralized product catalog
- 40 percent of respondents said their companies have either tried or are currently trying to integrate charging and policy management systems with unsatisfactory results, compared to 10 percent last year
"Our research shows that service providers' data services strategies are evolving in tandem with recognition that they need to fully integrate their charging and policy management capabilities in order to enable these strategies," said Ari Banerjee, senior analyst, Heavy Reading. "Those who recognized the importance of charging and policy integration last year, have since launched tiered and family plans and are now looking to enable even more advanced services with real-time user visibility and control capabilities. Those who weren't convinced last year about the need for policy and charging integration are much more convinced today, and therefore they are now looking to enable tiered and family plans."
"Service providers are looking to 4G to deliver service innovation beyond higher capacity and faster speeds, but need to integrate charging and policy to enable this," said Rebecca Prudhomme, vice president of product and solutions marketing at Amdocs. "The research shows they are seeking solutions which pre-integrate charging and policy systems, also including a single product catalog across both systems, to solve broken product management processes which cause time to market delays."
The research is based on 70 qualitative interviews conducted between October and November, 2012, with decision makers from both IT and marketing departments of 35 service providers. Service providers interviewed included tier-one and tier-two companies based in Europe (10), North America (10), Asia Pacific (10) and Latin America (5). This is the second research report conducted for Amdocs by leading analyst firm Heavy Reading to identify service providers' data monetization trends and challenges year-over-year. Findings of the first survey were announced in September 2011.
Amdocs offers a pre-integrated, convergent charging and policy management solution, scalable to meet the needs of the largest service providers. The Amdocs Convergent Charging software incorporates Amdocs' innovative, real-time charging technology – Amdocs Turbo Charging – and holds the industry record for real-time charging performance, demonstrating the ability to process 435 million busy hour call attempts (BHCA) measured for a customer base of 220 million, comprised of 184 million prepaid customers and 36 million postpaid customers.
- Keep up with Amdocs news and blogs by visiting the company's website
- Subscribe to Amdocs' RSS Feed and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube
For 30 years, Amdocs has ensured service providers' success and embraced their biggest challenges. To win in the connected world, service providers rely on Amdocs to simplify the customer experience, harness the data explosion, stay ahead with new services and improve operational efficiency. The global company uniquely combines a market-leading BSS, OSS and network control product portfolio with value-driven professional services and managed services operations. With revenue of over $3.2 billion in fiscal 2012, Amdocs and its workforce of over 20,000 serve customers in more than 60 countries.
Amdocs: Embrace Challenge, Experience Success.
For more information, visit Amdocs at www.amdocs.com.
Amdocs' Forward-Looking Statement
This press release includes information that constitutes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements about Amdocs' growth and business results in future quarters. Although we believe the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, we can give no assurance that our expectations will be obtained or that any deviations will not be material. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ from those anticipated. These risks include, but are not limited to, the effects of general economic conditions, Amdocs' ability to grow in the business markets that it serves, Amdocs' ability to successfully integrate acquired businesses, adverse effects of market competition, rapid technological shifts that may render the Company's products and services obsolete, potential loss of a major customer, our ability to develop long-term relationships with our customers, and risks associated with operating businesses in the international market. Amdocs may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future; however, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These and other risks are discussed at greater length in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2012, filed on December 11, 2012.
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Minister Richard Bruton announced winners of ‘Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur’ competition with €100,000 investment fund
The Minister for Jobs, Richard Bruton T.D. made the announcement in front of 360 guests at the IBYE national final, held at Google’s European Headquarters in Dublin on Sunday, December 6th 2015.
Foody, whose business is based in Glanmire and San Francisco, co-founded Ayda, a Female Health Tech company in 2015 after finishing his Masters in Biomedical Engineering Research. The company’s mobile phone app is being designed to help women track fertility levels and a wearable fertility tracker solution is also being developed, for launch mid-2016.
The Health Tech entrepreneur, who is supported by Local Enterprise Office South Cork, also took the ‘Best Start Up’ award at the competition, which attracted 1,400 competitors when it was launched by An Taoiseach and Minister Bruton earlier this year.
Supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and Enterprise Ireland, the nationwide competition is organised through the Local Enterprise Offices and forms part of the Action Plan for Jobs 2015 with an overall investment fund of €2 million awarded to county winners and national winners.
Minister Bruton also announced two other category winners at this year’s awards: the ‘Best New Idea’ award and €20,000 investment prize went to Blaine Doyle (age 24) of GlowDX in Kilkenny and the ‘Best Established Business’ award and €30,000 investment prize went to James Keogh (age 29) from Rathwood in Wicklow.
GlowDx in the ‘Best Business Idea’ category is a diagnostics company which is setting out to diagnose neglected tropical diseases more cheaply in developing countries. Winning the ‘Best Established Business’ award, Rathwood is renowned for its year-round themed events and the retail entertainment company welcomes over 250,000 visitors every year and employs nearly 200 people.
The Google award for ‘Best Online Promotion of Business’ went to Isolde Johnson of The Cool Bean Company in Dublin City, which develops a range of healthy meals under the Cool Beans consumer brand. Each of the winners will now be offered a place at the Google ‘Adopt a Startup’ programme in 2016.
Speaking at the National Final, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Mr. Richard Bruton T.D said: “On behalf of the Government, I’d like to congratulate James Foody from Ayda on being named as Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur for 2015. But more importantly, I’d like to congratulate the 1,400 young people who entered this competition through the Local Enterprise Offices and those that made it through to the local, regional or national finals. I’ve been personally inspired by the energy, commitment and ambition of these young business-people. By promoting entrepreneurship as a career choice, we can ensure that we start more businesses and ultimately create more jobs. Two thirds of all new jobs are created by start-up businesses in their first five years. We are relying on these young entrepreneurs to start-up the businesses that will create the jobs of tomorrow, and the level of ambition and innovation on show in this competition provides great hope for the future. I am determined to ensure that Government supports these amazing young entrepreneurs in every way possible on their journey.”
Sheelagh Daly of the Local Enterprise Offices congratulated the winning young entrepreneurs, saying: “We are all extremely proud of what this year’s winners and finalists have achieved. By taking part in the IBYE initiative, 450 young entrepreneurs have benefitted from mentoring, training, networking or financial assistance, which will bring practical benefits for their businesses and will increase their chances of start-up success. For anyone else who’s thinking of starting a business or planning to expand in 2016, we’re encouraging them to access the same enterprise supports through the network of Local Enterprise Offices. ”
In all, 24 finalists from 17 counties competed for the overall title and 9 of them made a live pitch to the judging panel in the final round at the Foundry in Google. This year’s judging panel included Sarah Doyle of Kinesense, Brian Crowley of the TTM Group, Colin Goulding of Google, Christine Charlton of the Local Enterprise Offices and Tom Hayes of Enterprise Ireland.
Details for all the finalists are available at www.ibye.ie and by searching #ibye on social media and YouTube. The National Final for the IBYE competition was supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, the network of Local Enterprise Offices, Enterprise Ireland and Google.

domain: news


text: Looking towards Mountain View to provide a suite of digital tools for your new business? Make sure to pen per-user costs into your ledger -- Google Apps isn't free anymore. According to Google's enterprise blog, the basic Google Apps package is being abandoned to streamline the service, offering businesses a single, $50 per user option that promises 24/7 phone support, 25GB inboxes and a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Pre-existing free customers can still hum along unmolested, of course, and the standard pricing doesn't apply to schools or universities, either. Personal Google accounts are still free too, doling out gratis Gmail and Drive access to anyone with a unique user name. The team hopes that streamlining the Apps will allow it to provide better service, possibly offering enterprise users new features on a faster timetable.


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Brand or Media House: Have you mastered demand, built trust and created an experience?
Over the last week there has been some of the most informed discussion on the future of both corporate and media content that I have consumed for a long while. It all stems from Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson article in the FT on The Invasion of Corporate News which has led to a great deal of productive commentary, not least from Matthew Ingram at Gigaom and Frederik Fillous at Mondaynote. This is my take on that debate.
Whether you are leading marketing and communications at a brand or monetization at a media house I can hazard a guess that you are worrying about the same thing. What resources should I have in my organization for success now and in the future and how do I monetize content. Instead of worrying about solving these two big issues I suggest focusing on finding answers to 3 other questions which may give you a clue about the larger strategic headaches. These would be How do we: Master demand, build trust and create experience.
Mastering the Supply & Demand Dynamic
Firstly it needs to be recognized that the opportunity to get coverage in traditional media is shrinking fast. This has been a trend that has continued at pace over the last 30 years but never more so than in the last decade with now over 4 PR people to every traditional journalist, up from 3 PRs to one journalist 10 years ago.
This trend is being fueled by 2 dynamics. The rise in importance in corporate reputation as a source of competitive advantage at companies and a fundamental reworking of business models and resource bases at media houses as many struggle with the transition from the print to digital era. That being said the demand for news and content has never been higher with Marc Andreessen suggesting in the best post of the year regarding medias future that demand has increased 100x due to the mobile revolution and prices have only contracted 10x due to the demise of print so the future is very bright for the generation of both brands and media with its resources focused on the right tasks. With this diminishing opportunity in traditional media for reputation building brands are now turning to self publishing to achieve their objectives. As Thomas Kellner a former journalist who worked at Forbes and now works for GE said in the FT piece
“People these days don’t care as much about where the story comes from as long as it tells them something.”
Whilst I don’t buy this argument in totality as I still believe there is a lot of value in being a trusted source and considerable brand equity which traditional media has built up over decades I do believe the power has switched from the supply (media) to demand (reader side). Traditional media have always stated they truly understand and only exist as they serve their audiences but no longer is the power in their editorial hands. As Matthew Ingram has stated content consumers now rule, not producers.
Whilst some traditional media will continue to argue they can be the only trusted source due to their quality, impartial and professional journalism, brands face the challenge of building trust in their editorial position. As a person who has worked in and around media houses most of my career I have never bought the impartial, balanced journalism argument. The fact is most media houses across all geographies are owned by a very small group of powerful families or individuals each with their own objectives and political and commercial motivations. Call me cynical but I believe journalism (some more than other will always be subjective and liable to influence from owners or editorial bias.
For brands however perhaps the key for building trust in the new era is to take inspiration from the most trusted media brands. For me public service media in all geographies usually have the most trusted stamp and the most global of these is the BBC.
Embodied in their charter from inception to the present day is a mission to Inform, Educate and Entertain. Brands have often mastered the inform bit, in terms of selling the products but in the self publishing world they need to seriously up their game in the education and entertainment stakes. My predication is some will succeed in this mission but many will fail and the perennial debate around native advertising, sponsored content and the “church and state” dynamics will continue to rage as content marketing matures from a brand perspective and business models are adapted on the media side.
One thing is for sure, if you want to prosper in the self publishing age, creating a WOW experience for your audience is key. This does not just involve hiring a bunch of laid off, or “soon to be laid off” journalists and tell them to create a corporate newsroom and owned media property which is an evolution of your press release archive on your website. This maybe the starting point but brands need to do much more. In my opinion there are three key fundamentals here:
- Developing a trusted editorial position with a mission to inform, educate and entertain is one step in the right direction.
- Taking a multichannel approach which crosses both the digital and physical world’s is another key element.
- Recognizing the power of story co-creation is key. A good story can come from anywhere. Engaging both your internal audience (employees) and external community (customers, partners, investors, brand fans, industry media etc) to create stories with you is vital
Add to these elements a layer of user experience (UX) thinking across technology and service offering which must constantly address the questions: Is it useful?, Is it easy to use? and Is it desirable? and you are onto a winner of creating a great experience for the content consumer.
One thing is for sure the playing field is now level. Whether you are a brand or media house, you now compete. Those who get their mix of creative, editorial, data and technology resources in proportion and organised well will win. From my observation it is legacy brands and media houses that have the biggest challenge as many of their talent bases and organisations are not fit for purpose in today’s world.
Some are doing great things though. If I were a small business owner I would prefer to go to the owned media/community platform Open Forum by American Express rather than looking at content from a business writer at a newspaper that’s for sure. On the other hand the irony is not lost on me that this post was inspired by a long form quality journalism piece feature in the FT. Both can be winners going forward if we accept that the church and state argument is now defunct. Now it’s all about meeting demand, building trust and creating a great experience.
photo credit: noahhhhhhh via photopin cc


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Sunderland proves it is anything but grim up north
Sunderland, with a population of 300,000 and once famous as the home of 65 shipyards, now has Britain’s fastest-growing business base an achievement by any standards, but one for the North East to celebrate as recession swirls through much of industry, including the city’s Nissan factory.
The city has topped a survey by Royal Mail of active businesses across the country. The Business Barometer measures the growth of business relative to the size of the existing commercial base. Sunderland showed growth of 2.6 per cent in the five months to August, compared with the same period in 2007. This is above the national average of 1.4 per cent and ahead of heavyweight economies, such as Birmingham and Manchester.
Much of the success of Sunderland,


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Find Restaurants that Accept Bitcoin in the United StatesWhether you are a beginner looking to learn what all the fuss is about, or a diehard Bitcoiner pursuing a business in bitcoins.
Earlier this week I gave a talk at CoinDesk in NYC about STEEM and my new.Our London Correspondent Nick Ayton aka the Sage of Shoreditch interviews a professional scammer, comments on the latest Ethereum meetup, new Criminal Coin ICO, and.
Bitcoin Center NYC - Investor Relations | Glassdoor
Pepper Hamilton is a sponsor of the August installment of CryptoCircle, a New York-based meetup for those interested in Bitcoin, altcoins and all things cryptocurrency.Bitcoin NYC Meetup: Thursday, October 29, 2015 at 06:30 PM Cost: Absolutely Free.NEW YORK (InsideBitcoins) — After a period of inactivity, the Bitcoin Meetup NYC is being brought out of hiatus with an event Wednesday evening.There Is Now A Bitcoin ATM In Manhattan. New York. The company is. the machine and Bitcoin in New York in general, but PYC Bitcoin is a licensed MSB.
Los Angeles Bitcoin Meetup - in Santa Monica, CA - Airbitz
New Jersey Meetup - Bitcoin Forum - Index
Colorado Bitcoin Society Meetup, Denver | Events - YelpBitcoin, bitcoin event, bitcoin meetup, Bitcoin No Boundaries, bitcoin startups, btc, demo, events, hedgeable, Hedgeable event, nyc bitcoin events,.Enjoy our new Bitcoin meetup in Rome with Riccardo Casatta and more special guests and experts in the industry.
Monthly Bitcoin Meetup | Upstate Venture ConnectThe New York City Bitcoin Meetup brings together Bitcoin users in New York City.This event is based on the Satoshi Square events in New York,. Jul 10th L.A. Bitcoin Meetup in Santa.
Bitcoin meetup 7. outlines relaxation of New York BitLicense 12 Nov Bitcoin price surges.Tone Vays, who is a prominent Cryptocurreny Trader and Bitcoiner will be giving us a presentation.
The bitcoin community gather from far and wide to get together at a myriad of conferences and meetups.Vericoin party in Bitcoin Center NYC. First Ever Vericoin Party at Bitcoin Center NYC. LinkedIn, Meetup, and Twitter.Another picture of bitcoin taking the front page in New York business and.


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Cryptocurrencies, owing to the numerous challenges they pose (among these anonymity, lack of regulation and legal frameworks for consumer protection, extreme volatility, and susceptibility to usage for illicit activities such as money laundering and tax evasion) have put governments and regulators worldwide on high alert, with countries such as the United States, India and China moving to implement restrictions, strict checks, and even outright bans, although there are, as yet, little to no clear-cut regulations for the industry.
“I had hoped that there would be some clear, simple rules and we could then get on with it”, Draper said. “But I guess there are a lot of old-school banking lobbyists trying to cling to the status quo. Years from now, governments will be judged by how well they manage this transition from fiat to crypto.”
Join in on the conversation with Alex Masters Lecky when you subscribe to CRYPTONICLES.


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Ranitidine, also known by its brand name Zantac, has recently been in the news. Zantac is a very common and popular medication used to treat heartburn and acid reflux in infants, children, and adults. Zantac is available by prescription and over the counter.
In June of 2019, an online pharmacy that conducts its own quality testing, discovered increased levels of N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) in Zantac. The company alerted the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
On September 13, 2019 the FDA announced preliminary tests found low levels of NDMA in Zantac.
So far, the FDA has not received any reports of adverse events caused by NDMA in Zantac.
What is NMDA?
- Based on animal studies and limited human studies, NDMA has been classified as a probable human carcinogen.
- NDMA may cause cancer only after exposure to high doses over a long period of time.
- NDMA is an environmental contaminant that is found in water and foods, including dairy products, vegetables, and grilled meats.
What Action Has Been Taken?
- So far, only the companies, Novartis/Sandoz and Apotex have recalled Zantac products in the United States. Zantac distributed by other companies remains on store shelves.
- As the FDA continues to investigate Zantac, more details will become available. As of now, the FDA is not calling for individuals to stop taking the medication.
- To see the latest updates from the FDA, please see: FDA Updates and Press Announcements on NDMA in Zantac (Ranitidine)
- Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid have pulled Zantac and other generic versions of the medication from their store shelves while the FDA continues to investigate.
- Health Canada has informed Canadians that it is assessing the NDMA issue and at Health Canada’s request, companies marketing Zantac products in Canada have stopped any further distribution until evidence is provided to demonstrate that the medication does not contain NDMA above acceptable levels.
What Should You Do If You or Your Child Take Zantac?
- Do Not Panic! The NDMA in Zantac products does not pose any immediate health risks.
- Set up an appointment to discuss options with your doctor. There are many other medications available besides Zantac. Patients taking prescription Zantac who want to stop taking the medication should speak to their physician about other treatment options before discontinuing the medication.
Remember, Zantac is not an essential lifesaving medicine and there are available alternatives.


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Disney Corporation halted production of its branded merchandise in Bangladesh in March over concerns about labour conditions in the country, weeks before a garment factory collapse that killed more than 500 people.
Executives from the US entertainment giant said the decision to stop sourcing products from Bangladesh was prompted, in part, by a factory fire last November which killed 123 workers.
"We felt this was the most responsible way to manage the challenges associated with our supply chain," Bob Chapek, president of Disney Consumer Products, was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile the death toll from the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka last week, has passed 500.
Another 29 bodies were pulled from the rubble of the Rana Plaza building in Savar on Thursday night, bringing the total to 507.
Scores of workers are still unaccounted for in the country's worst industrial actor.
Late on Thursday, Bangladeshi police arrested another engineer in connection with the disaster.
They say Abdur Razzak Khan acted as a consultant for Rana Plaza owner Mohammed Sohel Rana, who is suspected of illegally adding more floors to the building.
Correspondents say the arrest came as a surprise, as Mr Khan was the engineer who had warned that the complex was unsafe.
Bangladeshi media reported that he had been called to inspect the building after it developed cracks the day before the collapse on 24 April.
He appeared on a private TV station saying he had told the owners to evacuate the building because it was not safe, according to the reports.
Two other engineers are also in custody, along with the building's owner Mohammed Sohel Rana, his father Abdul Khalek and four owners of garment factories that occupied the building.
More than 2500 people were also injured in the collapse.
Some 2,437 people have been rescued so far with numerous bodies that were badly damaged or decomposed going unclaimed.
Rescuers say they do not know how many people are still missing as factory owners have not given them precise figures.BLOG COMMENTS POWERED BY DISQUS


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Disney Bans Netflix Ads On Its TV Networks
The streaming wars are heating up as the Walt Disney Company has banned any advertising from Netflix across its entertainment TV networks, according to the Wall Street Journal.
This will include all of Disney’s networks including ABC, Freeform, National Geographic, FX, Disney Channel, however ESPN will continue to run Netflix commercials.
Earlier this year, Disney had told staff that it wouldn’t accept ads from any rival streaming services, but later reversed course and found a compromise with nearly every company, except for Netflix.
This decision was based on whether it had a mutual business or advertising relationship with the companies. Since Netflix doesn’t show ads in its programs, Disney wouldn’t benefit.
Disney said in statement:
“The direct-to-consumer business has evolved, with many more entrants looking to advertise in traditional television, and across our portfolio of networks. While the initial decision was strictly advertising based, we reevaluated our strategy to reflect the comprehensive business relationships we have with many of these companies, as direct-to-consumer is one element.”
This type of ban isn’t unusual, since in the traditional TV industry, TV networks reject commercials from other networks, but have been allowing streaming companies to advertise.
With Disney set to run three different streaming services later this year, with ESPN+, Hulu and Disney+, it does make sense from their point of view to promote their own platforms and not their competitors. However both Apple and Amazon offer a different service to Disney, since they also have their own devices like tables and streaming boxes, which Disney wants to have its apps and services available on.
Earlier this month Netflix has warned investors that “If the available marketing channels are curtailed, our ability to attract new members may be adversely affected”.
Disney is spending a fortune getting into the streaming business this year, between buying huge chunks of Hulu and getting ready for Disney+, they are showing they are willing to take a hit from advertising to keep their viewers away from Netflix.
What do you think of Disney banning Netflix advertising?


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The fashion division of the UJA-Federation of New York had a successful fund-raiser on Thursday, raising $1.7 million.
This story first appeared in the March 10, 2014 issue of WWD. Subscribe Today.
According to Financo’s Gilbert Harrison, who chairs the fashion group, “We had over 550 people at our annual luncheon. We’ve never done this well.”
Among those in attendance from the financing, fashion and real-estate sectors were Tommy Hilfiger, Michael Gould, Colin Welch, William Susman, Stephen I. Sadove, John Pomerantz, Steven Tanger, Yehuda Shmidman and Jill Granoff.
The honorees were Laurence C. Leeds Jr., chairman of Buckingham Capital Management, and David Simon, chairman and chief executive officer of Simon Property Group, while Stacy London, former cohost of TLC’s “What Not to Wear,” was the emcee. The keynote speaker was Ron Prosor, the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations.
G-III Apparel Group Ltd. chairman, president and ceo Morris Goldfarb presented the award to Leeds. “I’ve known Larry for 20 years, and he’s taught me so much,” Goldfarb said. He also cited Leeds, when he was head of Manhattan Industries, before the takeover by Drexel Burnham Lambert in 1988, as the one who taught him about the “importance of brands.”
According to Goldfarb, “Larry is a social animal, but really in a good way. He knows everyone. If you need an introduction to anyone, he can make it happen.”
For Leeds, the award was both an honor and a trip down memory lane.
“There’s something scary about the concept of a lifetime award. What comes next?” Leeds asked.
Before he spoke about his tenure at Manhattan in 1955, a firm his great-grandfather started in 1857 that had roots in the men’s shirt industry, he reminisced briefly about how much life has changed over the years. “When I was a young boy, there was no television, no air-conditioning, no commercial air travel, no shopping malls and no computers,” he said.
“In 1955, a gallon of gas was 23 cents, and a basic white dress shirt at retail was between $2.65 to $2.95. Today that shirt is between $45 to $50. All apparel was made in the USA….No company in America had annual sales greater than $100 million. Cluett Peabody was only $70 million,” Leeds said.
When he joined Manhattan, it posted annual volume of $30 million. Leeds became ceo in 1974, and when he left in 1988, Manhattan had annual volume of $600 million.
“I spent 34 years at Manhattan,” Leeds said, noting that a whole team of friends and associates from his Manhattan days were in attendance at the luncheon and adding that he was “grateful for the lessons learned” at the firm.
Richard S. Sokolov, president and chief operating officer of Simon Property Group, presented the UJA award to David Simon.
Simon said in jest, “I don’t turn down leases, so if you have any complaints, go to Richard.”
He spoke about how the work of the UJA, through its affiliations and agencies, are able to provide aid to 4.5 million beneficiaries annually. Children, in particular, benefit the most, he said.
He also noted the work of Simon Youth Foundation, which was founded in 1998 by a group of Simon Property employees. The charity provides educational opportunities, career development and life skills for teens from different backgrounds who are at risk of dropping out of high school to stay in school, Simon said.


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Renewal Announcement: Coming as no surprise, Amazon announced this week that their alternate history science fiction series The Man in the High Castle will be returning for a third season. That show, based on the Phillip K. Dick novel of the same name, was the streaming service’s most-watched original series ever in its first year and then topped those numbers when it return for its second season this last December. The renewal was pretty much expected, and this one will likely stick around at least four or five seasons, if not more, to give it a binge-worthy count of episodes.
The renewal announcement also brought news that Eric Overmyer will be coming aboard as showrunner for the upcoming season. Frank Spotnitz, who had developed the show for Amazon, bowed out from those duties this past year, allegedly due to creative differences. The other executive producers tied to the show collectively acted as showrunners during the second season, but Overmyer, who previously created the well-regarded Bosh for Amazon, will take over that responsibility going forward. The first two seasons of The Man in the High Castle are available for streaming on Amazon, and the third season will bow likely in late 2017.
Read the full article at this link.


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If during the afternoon of this Thursday they tried to enter the Epic Games Store, it is likely that their mission has failed miserably and it is that for a long time that virtual store remained out of service .
The reason? Everything pointed to Lara Croft.
Despite simply stating that it was “investigating the difficulties impacting the login, purchase and download / installation of games on the Epic Games Store” in its announcement regarding the crash, there is a circumstance that might explain why the platform stopped operating.
The Epic Games Store on Thursday revealed that Tomb Raider (2013), Rise of the Tomb Raider (2016), and Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2017) will all be available for free (2019).
Since this deal allows gamers to retain the games they purchase between now and January 6, 2022 for free, a slew of Lara Croft fans rushed to the virtual shop to get their hands on them. Croft.
As a result, fans were quick to refer to the availability of Tomb Raider titles when news of the Epic Games Store’s demise spread.
Keep an eye on the Epic Games Store and make sure you don’t miss out on any freebies.


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… there’s just no question. Our adventurous department head Ronda Chaney recently took a well-deserved jaunt over to the island of Capri, after teaching the Italian fashion course (see video here) in Florence for two weeks. And it got us thinking about the many connections between Capri and fashion. If these connections aren’t immediately leaping […]
When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s Armani! There’s just something about Italian style. A group of Cañada students are learning what’s behind that certain something right now as they study fashion first-hand in Florence. For those of us not lucky enough to be with them this week, here we […]
Fashion Week in Milan is drawing to a close, after dozens of runway shows featuring Resort 2019 collections. But what is the Resort season anyway? According to Leandra Medine of Man Repeller, Resort collections are also sometimes called Cruise, Holiday or Pre-Spring, but they all take place “after fall clothes have gone on sale but […]
Cañada fashion department student and staffer Shana McCracken attended the Planet Textiles conference in Vancouver, B.C. earlier this week. We sat down with her to find out what she learned. CFD: So, you just got back from Planet Textiles. What was it all about? SM: It was pretty incredible. There were attendees from all over […]
It’s Fashion Revolution Day. Do you know who made your clothes?
This was a banner year for awards show fashions. See the fashion department picks for the best looks of 2018.
We couldn’t all be at NYFW this year. So what are the trends on and off the runway in New York, as fashion week continues …
We pay a lot for our jeans — even more when they have holes in them! What is it about denim?
Predicting fashion is both an art and a science. The pros, as well as our students, gave it their best shot before Fashion Week this year. See how they did …
What can we expect to see at NYFW in September? Industry professionals and our students make their predictions.


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As the Seattle restaurant scene churns, a couple of sad surprises top the list.
Yes, this looks like a rash of Seattle restaurant closures, but deep breaths — this many (and more) new places have debuted since we last chronicled shutdowns at the end of March. And before you email us, let’s note that the owners of these places have attributed the closures to many different factors, but none of them blamed the minimum wage.
Young American Ale House in Ballard has closed, not long at all after its pivot to a gastropub from its Middle Eastern incarnation as Golden Beetle. Its excellent poutine will be sorely missed. James Beard-Award winning chef Maria Hines says that the debt from the critically acclaimed but never-packed Golden Beetle was just too much, calling the change-up (clearly euphemistically) “a very challenging way to start out a new restaurant.” The silver lining is that she had to close even sooner than planned because, with her help, most of her staff found other jobs right away. And overall, she says, “I’ll never regret it.” Her restaurants Tilth and Agrodolce are, she says, going strong.
Dot’s Butcher & Deli has closed in Pike Place Market, so after a seemingly triumphant comeback last year, it’s R.I.P. for one of the city’s best porchetta sandwiches. Dot’s owner Miles James sincerely, movingly explained on Facebook that “it’s just me running the whole place by myself, and to make ends meet I need to be doing 3-4 times the business I am now which just isn’t feasible on my own. I thought that if I could just hold on a little longer that I’d be able to make it work but you can only go on like that for so long before you have to admit it to yourself.” Dot’s, you will, once again, be missed.
Circadia, one of the most ambitious restaurants to open in 2016, found its glitzy fine-dining concept wasn’t working downtown, and they’d very recently rejiggered slightly downmarket. Then the owners precipitously announced on Facebook that the place has closed while “we ponder our next chapter.”
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Sullivan’s Steakhouse downtown is no more. Seen, sadly, through the window after the April shut-down: a book entitled “Awake at Work: 35 Practical Buddhist Principles for Discovering Clarity and Balance in the Midst of Work’s Chaos” and a blank to-do list. Asked for an explanation, Texas-based Del Frisco’s Restaurant Group sent the less-than-explanatory response “We regularly evaluate our restaurant portfolio and chose to close the Sullivan’s Steakhouse on Union Street in Seattle. We appreciate the dedication of our team members and the patronage of our many guests that have dined at the restaurant over the years.”
New York Pizza Bar & Grill has closed its restaurants in Seattle, Tacoma, Burlington, Everett, Renton, Bellingham and Lynden after declaring bankruptcy and owing about $2 million dollars, The Bellingham Herald reports. The newspaper quoted a memo that the owner sent to his employees saying that the chain’s lower Queen Anne location was its downfall. “Almost immediately the (Seattle restaurant) store started losing $5,000 a week, and we fought on to try different ways of marketing it, executing the model etc. to no avail. The store did not make money a single month it was open stretching from 2011-2017. We opened other locations after Seattle, but were never able to dilute the losses the store was generating.”
Serious Pie‘s branch located inside Starbucks’ Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room on Capitol Hill is gone. Princi, the high-end Italian bakery Starbucks bought into last year, will take over the space. More details here.
Clever Bottle, the Belltown craft-cocktail bar, has closed after seven years, Seattle Met reports, with no reason given.
And, on Capitol Hill, Resto and Vaca Loca appear to have quietly closed down.
NOW CLOSED, BUT SLATED TO REOPEN
F.X. McRory’s Steak Chop & Oyster House in Pioneer Square will close its storied doors after almost 40 years on June 11, but owner Mick McHugh tells our colleague Nicole Brodeur that he’ll move into an as-yet-unspecified, nearby smaller space. The reason given: a new building owner who wants to retrofit the basement. The last night should be a hell of an Irish wake.
Metropolitan Grill downtown will close on June 19, but don’t panic: It’s just for minor renovations that should be done by mid-August. During the shutdown, the Met’s “Prime Steak selection” will be offered at Heartwood Provisions — both are owned by Consolidated Restaurants.


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Burger King share Price: Burger King India IPO listing happened at Rs 112.5 against issue price of Rs 60 today. On debut in morning, Burger King share price gained just short of 100%. However, the interest in Burger King was so much that share price raced past that figure in quick time. Many fund houses have shown tremendous interest in Burger King share and good buying has emerged in the stock after listing.
Currently, Burger King market cap is over Rs 5100 cr. Retail Investors who might have got minimum allotment during Burger King IPO, would be glad as on an investment of Rs 15000 they are getting returns of over 120% currently, which indicates that at current market price of Rs 133, they are making Rs 18000 profit. All in all, Burger King share price has been a joy to watch for those who invested in it.
Voicing his view on Burger King IPO listing today, Zee Business Managing Editor Anil Singhvi said that short term investors can keep stop loss of Rs 100 on the share price. Long term investors, the Market Guru said, can hold on to the Burger King stock. As informed by Anil Singhvi, the stock was listed in the range of Rs 110 to Rs 120.
That Burger King share price was going to rise was clear from the fact that, ahead of listing, its IPO was oversubscribed by nearly 157 times. The retail individual investors segment of the Burger King IPO was subscribed over 68 times. This indicates the confidence retail investors have on the future prospects of Burger King and they feel that the company is fairly priced at current levels to give them decent returns on the listing day. The Burger King IPO portion meant for qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) was subscribed close to 87 times and non-institutional investors 354 times. The Burger King IPO included a fresh issue of shares worth Rs 450 cr.
Burger King India Limited is one of the fastest-growing international QSR chains in India during the first five years of its operations based on the number of restaurants.
The Burger King IPO Price band of the issue was Rs 59 – Rs 60. Bid lot of the issue will be 250 shares and the multiple thereof. The size of the issue was Rs 810 cr.
As the national master franchisee of the Burger King brand in India, the company has exclusive rights to develop, establish, operate and franchise Burger King branded restaurants in India. The company’s master franchisee arrangement provides them with the ability to use Burger King’s globally recognized brand name to grow its business in India while leveraging the technical, marketing and operational expertise associated with the global Burger King brand.


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Start the conversation
VRX stock has crashed 82% in the last six months, and Valeant is giving shareholders another headache today (Monday).
It was revealed this morning that Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. (NYSE: VRX) increased the price of one of its drugs by 100%, and the Valeant stock price is down over 8% in intraday trading.
We've been pointing out Valeant's problems for the last year – in fact, we've made a 700% profit from them — and we think the company's woes will continue. But before we get to that, here's the news that's plaguing VRX stock today…
In August 2015, Valeant purchased female libido drugmaker Sprout Pharmaceuticals Inc. for $1 billion. Before the acquisition, Sprout was selling its female libido pill, Addyi, for $350 to $400 for 30 tablets. After the purchase, Valeant raised the price to $800 to $850 for 30 tablets. That was a 112% increase.
As part of the merger agreement, Valeant also stated it would spend $200 million for marketing, research, and development for 2016 and half of 2017.
But Sprout shareholders believe Valeant isn't holding up its end of the bargain…
In a letter sent to Valeant on March 14, Sprout shareholders requested materials showing the drugmaker can fulfill its obligations moving forward. According to Bloomberg Business, the shareholders are also seeking assurance that Valeant will keep a sales force of 150 to distribute the drug.
Why the VRX Stock Price Has Further to Fall in 2016
Money Morning Global Credit Strategist Michael Lewitt called Valeant Pharmaceuticals the poster child for putting profits before principle.
On Oct. 15, Lewitt released a report where he stated Valeant represents everything wrong with the markets. Lewitt warned that Valeant's debt and risky business model were a recipe for disaster. He recommended our readers buy $50 puts (selling a stock at a specific price on a specific date) for March 18 on Oct. 30, which provided profits of 700%.
It's true that the drugmaker will replace J. Michael Pearson as CEO, but that doesn't mean Valeant is ready to change its predatory business philosophy anytime soon…
You see, Valeant's business model simply isn't sustainable. Valeant purchases companies through large chunks of junk bonds, fires the majority of the employees to cut costs, and then raises the prices of the drugs it acquired (just like it did with Sprout and Addyi).
In fact, Valeant purchased Salix Pharmaceuticals in April 2015 and raised a diabetes drug made by Salix from $896 to $10,000.
Sprout shareholders' concerns over Valeant not spending enough on marketing, research, and development should also sound alarm bells for investors. Valeant is known for only spending 3% of its money from sales on research and development, while most drug companies spend 15% to 20%, according to Lewitt.
And that's not the only red flag for VRX stock…
Valeant had to announce at the end of February that its top-selling drug, Xifaxan, is facing competition from pharmaceutical giant Allergan Plc. (NYSE: AGN). Allergan sought permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to sell a generic competitor to Xifaxan. The gastrointestinal drug had $975 million in sales in 2015, according to The Wall Street Journal.
If Allergan does receive permission to produce a competitor, that will be a huge loss in sales from just one product for Valeant.
It may appear that VRX stock is trading at a major discount, but Valeant is still a company that you want to stay as far away from as possible…
Investment Opportunity: Overvalued biotech stocks like Valeant will get hit the hardest in the upcoming "Super Crash" Michael's predicted. His Sure Money readers are getting the updates they need to protect themselves and take profits as stocks dive lower. Click here to receive Sure Money yourself at no charge, and you'll get his Super Crash report, too.


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Apple has won yet another court ruling over Samsung in a hearing in the Northern District of California. Judge Lucy Koh, who has overseen much of the U.S.-based patent suits from both sides, has just dished out a ruling against the Korean company, declaring that Samsung has infringed upon patents pertaining to Apple’s AutoComplete keyboard functionality.
AutoComplete is something that all iOS users will be familiar with. Although some iPhone and iPad owners curse AutoComplete for changing words erroneously and turning legitimate sentences into nonsense, there’s no doubt that variations of this very Apple invention have been emulated by other companies.
Although it may sound ridiculous to some, Apple owns the rights to the feature, particularly its ability to show both the typed word and suggestions to AutoComplete said word if it hasn’t been typed correctly. Thus, Samsung’s devices, which run on Android, are in infringement of Apple’s patents, and unless Samsung can counter with an argument that refutes this patent in the trial in the spring, yet another heavy fine could ensue.
Judge Koh also pointed out to Samsung that one of its multimedia synchronization patents is in fact not valid, to add insult to injury, and although these cases between two of tech’s biggest names has grown somewhat cumbersome, neither party shows any sign of letting things lie.
It’s worth noting that these rulings are all a part of the pre-trial process. Both Apple and Samsung’s CEOs have done the customary sit-down-and-try-and-work-things-out charade to no effect, and with Samsung having already had one of its patents thrown out and declared to have infringed upon one of Apple’s, things aren’t looking good for the Galaxy maker.
The trial kicks off on March 31st, but already, Apple is sitting in a rather favorable position. Both sides had five patents each heading into the trial, but already, Samsung is looking like the underdog.
Since most software on Samsung devices is created by Android maker Google, the search giant will no doubt be dragged into this dogfight at some point. But as we’ve learned from past litigation, Apple will go for Samsung first, and if it can have a pop at Google for dessert, it will do so.
With Apple’s big win back in 2012, it’s interesting to see where this ruling will take the battle. It’s also worth noting that both Apple and Samsung CEOs have agreed to meet outside of court to calm things down, but keeping today’s decision in mind, it doesn’t seem as though things are going to slow down that easy.
You can follow us on Twitter, add us to your circle on Google+ or like our Facebook page to keep yourself updated on all the latest from Microsoft, Google, Apple and the Web.


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The Barn, Somerset, announces expansion plans
Somerset beauty salon The Barn has announced plans to relocate and expand in 2014. The three-treatment room salon, owned by Kelly Hooper, will move to a new site four miles away, which is currently being renovated.
The new salon, which will also be in a converted barn, will have five treatment rooms and a relaxation room, and Hooper says it will be an upgrade from the existing salon, with a more luxurious finish. It is currently set to open in summer 2014.
Hooper also plans to launch The Barn’s own product range, to coincide with the relaunch of the salon. The range will include body and bath products, oils, candles and rooms fragrances, and Hooper says that it will be “natural, with a Thai edge”, in line with The Barn’s brand. “It’s all about the little touches with us,” Hooper said.
Hooper also hopes to open a city salon in Bristol, focused on skin mapping, express treatments and retail, although she says plans for that are on hold until after relaunch of The Barn next summer.


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Betbazar, the global entertainment ecosystem that connects providers with their respective operators and platforms, has added Platipus Gaming to its portfolio as it continues to expand its next-gen offering with the addition of casino titles.
Platipus is an international development studio specialising in innovative and unique HTML5 games for the online gaming market. The supplier provides premium games to the world’s most respected and acclaimed online casino operators.
One of the key elements of Platipus` product is attention to detail in the design, as the company aims to deliver an unforgettable experience of sublime artwork complemented by absorbing animation, splendid sounds, and captivating gameplay.
Already proven as a player favourite across the continent, the deal will make Platipus Gaming’s premium content available to Betbazar’s extensive catalogue of operator partners across European, LatAm and other global markets.
The partnership follows Betbazar’s recent rebrand and product overhaul as it continues to expand its next-gen offering to serve a wide variety of tier-one operator brands.
Originally focused on sports betting, Betbazar has greatly enhanced its ecosystem in recent months to encompass casino and other next-gen gaming solutions as demand for its products by tier-one operators continues to surge.
Commenting on the deal, Stanislav Mykhailov, Sales Director at Betbazar said: “At Betbazar we pride ourselves on matching operator and supplier demand better than anyone else. We know the customer, we know the market, and we know exactly how to provide a wide range of products to entertain and engage players.
“We have an enormous number of leads created by our top business development team that we continue to grow by the day, and this will benefit Platipus Gaming hugely as they continue to grow.
“With a truly immersive gaming experience, Platipus Gaming offers some highly innovative titles and we look forward to improving our ecosystem by continuing to boost our casino portfolio to attract the next generation of player.”
Vladyslav Garanko, Chief Marketing Officer at Platipus added: “Betbazar is a company that has consistently thought outside the box in recent years, and we are delighted to be part of their entertainment ecosystem as we continue to grow in Europe and global markets.
“We work incredibly hard at developing innovative, eye-catching content and this deal will ensure a much larger audience gets to enjoy our products.”
With a client roster including Bet365, Parimatch, BetVictor, Fortuna and William Hill, Betbazar has proven key to driving incremental revenue and digital transformation for the industry’s leading operator brands.
Unafraid to invest in companies that it sees potential in, Betbazar digs deep into their clients’ pain points, figuring out where they could be stronger and presenting a solution relevant to them based on their vast industry experience across multiple verticals.


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This follows the opening of the company’s first vertical farm in Lincolnshire six years ago, and more recently, its dedicated innovation centre in Bristol in 2022.
The new Jones Food Company site, based near Lydney and coined the 'JFC2', is its largest site with a growing space is 14,448sqm (3.6 acres).
It uses 100% renewably sourced energy to grow crops vertically. This includes basil, coriander, flat leaf parsley, dill, green and red lettuce, Baby Leaf Pak Choi, Bulls Blood, Mizuana, Komatsuna (Japanese Spinach), and Baby Leaf Cress (a variety of watercress).
Speaking on the opening, its founder and chief executive officer, James Lloyd-Jones said the farm represents “a coming of age for agricultural technology in the UK”.
He added: “We have now cracked the code for accessible, sustainable, premium food being grown all-year round, at a super-competitive price. Commercial success in this sector has always been the challenge, but this farm smashes it.”
Raising the difficulties of vertical farming, he went onto say that while there is a place for small, urban vertical farms, size, scale and affordability will be how the ‘vertical revolution’ triumphs.
“Technology and sustainability, when married at this kind of scale, revolutionise food production, combat climate change, ensure food security, address labour issues and maximise efficiency. It’s a win-win-win-win.”
While a lot of vertical farms have been focused on lights when it comes to energy saving and were not so long ago in the headlines around their vulnerability to electricity prices, JFC’s head of growing, Glyn Stephens, said temperature and humidity are more of a focus for them.
“Temperature and humidity control are where the real energy guzzle has traditionally been; this is why it's been a core focus for us opening this new site, its small changes and learnings from JFC1 [first site] that mean this system now accounts for a much smaller proportion of our energy usage,” Stephens explained.
He continued: “Irrigation is another massive innovation in this farm and the system in JFC2 is boundary-pushing, ground-breaking, utterly unique and another key brick in how we deliver premium product, at a great price, at scale.
“These aren’t small steps, they are giant leaps which allow us to put ‘vertical farming and profitability’ into the same sentence for the first time!”
Ocado, which has been a long-term partner of the vertical farming business (since 2019) has assisted with the development of JFC's farms, including investments of both cash and technical know-how.
"The recent launch of the salads into Ocado Retail is a natural extension of this relationship," Lloyd-Jones told Food Manufacture.
Ocado's CFO, Stephen Daintith, added that this latest investment represents a significant step forward in an exciting space: “At Ocado Group, we are passionate about the long-term potential of vertical farming for both the food industry and for the environment.
“We are confident in JFC's leadership and on their ability to execute on their vision - we look forward to supporting them on the way ahead."
JFC2’s output now includes supplying own-label herbs, as well as the company’s own Homegrown range of mixed salad bags and Lēaf, its range of sauces and salad bags.
In other news, we hear from some food and drink producers on how they're taking on emissions to hit net zero targets. Read the exclusive article here.


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Mid-market furniture retailer Dwell has laid out plans to reach up to 60 stores and 20 concessions in the next five years.
Aamir Ahmad, managing director of the 12-store retailer, said: “We have a road map of where we want the stores to go. The market is still favourable to tenants so it is a good time to acquire stores.”
In the year to January 2010, Dwell recorded “fairly flat” like-for-likes and revenue “slightly up” on the year before.
“We had a much stronger second half compared with the first,” said Ahmad, who added that Dwell is running double-digit up on a like-for-like basis in the year to date. “The January Sale went very well, although the snow was a pain.”
He added that Dwell’s sales “did not fall off a cliff” during the cold snap in January, as it is “protected by the internet and mail order”, which accounts for half the retailer’s sales.
He said the expansion of Dwell - which will next month debut on London’s Tottenham Court Road, a destination for furniture shoppers, in a former The Pier store - depends upon finding the right stores. It is also in discussions to open a shop in Kingston upon Thames.
Dwell expressed interest in acquiring the UK arm of Habitat when it was put up for sale last year, and Ahmad said he would consider other opportunities to acquire a “complementary UK furniture retailer”.
He said: “We will expand the business organically through our own funding. We want to grow within our own resources, we want to be prudent.”
Dwell this month hired Harrods head of own-brand products Robyn Clifford as its buying and merchandise director. At the end of last year Dwell drafted in Kurt Geiger and T J Hughes chairman Neil McCausland as its chairman and Harveys’ Simon Tutt as its financial director.
“These three big hirings have completely transformed the business,” said Ahmad, who added that Clifford will introduce “more excitement and newness” into the Dwell offering.


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RELUCTANT STAGE MOM Biggest Fans
Putting on a showbefore a liveaudience is a thrill for any performer. But, to look out in that sea of facesand find someone familiar gives it an extra punch. It means so much to these young actors and... Posted on 2/17/12 at 1:04 AM
Tens of thousands of jubilant Los Angeles Lakers fans flooded downtown Wednesday, creating a tidal wave of purple and gold while celebrating the storied franchise’s 15th NBA title with a high-energy parade and rally paid for by the city’s movers and shakers.
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In late January, Hangzhou was struck by a freak snowstorm thick enough to snarl its major thoroughfares, paralyze its airport and postpone its trains. While many residents took the day off, cars kept flowing onto E-Commerce Drive, where the Alibaba Group, China’s most famous internet startup, is headquartered. Many of the company’s 8,000 workers faced a slushy slog to get to work, but by 10 a.m. the halls were bustling. Outside, employees hurled snowballs at the bronze Mongolian warrior who stands, naked and stoic, in the center courtyard. Everyone in sight looked to be in the cheeriest part of their mid-20s.
Inside, in the global sales division bullpen, a false summer prevailed. From every cubicle sprouted a bouquet of plastic sunflowers and real bamboo (distributed by HR to symbolize growth), and salespeople nodded aggressively as they pitched membership in the company’s premium exporter certification program to overseas suppliers. When a sale closed, managers swung wooden clackers in the air to celebrate. Most were smiling; few were sitting down.
It all reinforced Alibaba’s public image of youth, high morale and slick techno-idealism. But in another salesroom in the same complex, a group of around 100 salespeople for the group’s B2B flagship trade platform Alibaba.com (1688.HK) were busily sabotaging that image by helping criminals defraud foreign merchants, producing the worst public relations disaster of the company’s history.
“Essentially what happened was, sales staff were colluding with what appears to be professional criminals to create false business licenses that got around the China Gold Supplier (CGS) program’s authentication and verifications system,” said Linda Kozlowski, director of international corporate affairs for Alibaba.com, in a telephone interview with China Economic Review. The criminals created around 2,300 storefronts on Alibaba’s trading platform from which they advertised popular consumer electronics goods at “unbelievably low prices,” she explained; when a seller overseas placed an order, the crooks kept the money and shipped nothing.
Alibaba managers publicly announced preliminary results of their internal investigation on the day this magazine prepared to go to print; a criminal investigation is underway. In the same text, the company announced that charismatic Alibaba founder and chairman Jack Ma had accepted the resignations of Alibaba.com COO Elvis Lee and CEO David Wei, who was interviewed at length for this story (the internal investigation revealed no wrongdoing by either). The head of human resources who oversaw the hiring of the guilty sales staff, Deng Kangming, has been demoted.
Fraud among suppliers is nothing new in China, and the money involved – US$1.7 million – is relatively minor by corporate standards. Kozlowski said that the amount was so small that Alibaba wasn’t even legally obligated to disclose the news under Hong Kong Stock Exchange rules. “We could have tried to sweep this under the rug,” she said.
Coming from an organization as publicly idealistic as Alibaba, however, that may not be enough. The scandal aggravates existing problems, gives comfort and encouragement to the company’s multiplying competitors, and annoys investors already disappointed by Alibaba.com’s stock performance. It also supports arguments that the basic viability of Alibaba’s strategy – toward international trade in particular – is flawed.
As for its mission, Alibaba presents itself as the champion of the Chinese business underdog: the big guy behind the little guy. But as parts of the company turn to serve multinational corporations, corporate value statements emphasizing small businesses look increasingly nostalgic.
Most at risk is the company’s unique culture, its mixture of Western and Chinese, dot-com and traditional, international and local; the plastic sunflowers, the real bamboo, and all the free energy the group could expect from employees who thought they were signing up at a different kind of company. On February 21, 2011, the golden youth of the Alibaba Group came to an abrupt end.
The way we were
Alibaba has always prided itself on its unique corporate culture, and still does. “We’re not a private company and we’re not a state-owned enterprise,” Ma said at a press conference in Beijing in January. “We’re a social company … We don’t want to become an empire.”
The uniqueness extends to the way it operates, which some find off-putting. Brian Wong now heads global sales for Alibaba.com (his division was not involved in the CGS scandal). He was the first American to join Alibaba in 1999, back when it was 50 people working out of two residential apartments, but he quit within two years in exasperation.
“When I first came to the company, I thought the place was chaotic,” Wong said. Raised in Palo Alto, California, he was unimpressed by a corporate environment in which strategic restructurings were tolerated, and even encouraged, twice a year. “The normal human being is not meant to keep up with that rate of change.”
Wong returned to the US, went to business school and took a job at a more conventional operation. Less than two years later he was back at Alibaba, having learned to appreciate what once appeared to be chaos for nimbleness. “Alibaba has to reinvent itself on a regular basis … [It] is successful because of what I originally thought was a flaw.”
Today, Alibaba is restructuring again: Jonathan Lu, CEO of the group’s domestic consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer (C2C and B2C) business Taobao.com, adds Alibaba.com to his responsibilities.
In the beginning, of course, everything was simpler, and “chaos” was easier to manage. Jack Ma, a former schoolteacher and serial entrepreneur, conceived of the idea for Alibaba.com when searching for the term “Chinese beer” on a US search engine. He couldn’t find anything, so he built a website that was little more than a bilingual online telephone directory for US importers looking for Chinese suppliers. The business plan, if simple, was elegantly so, and compelling enough to convince a group of institutional investors including Goldman Sachs (GS.NYSE) and SoftBank (9984.TYO) to put up US$25 million.
It was a good investment. A year after fundraising was complete, Alibaba.com was already turning a profit. Small- and medium-sized traders flocked to the platform. With an exploding user base and rapid revenue growth, all run out of a few racks of servers, Alibaba.com went on to list in Hong Kong in 2007 for US$1.7 billion.
It was the biggest internet IPO since Google (GOOG.NASDAQ), but the after-party was short-lived. One year later, the global economic crisis decimated trade volumes, and Alibaba.com’s stock took a decimal point off its value. It has since recovered to trade between HK$12-18 (US$1.54-2.30). Even so, in late February shares in Alibaba.com still traded around 50 times earnings, indicating high growth expectations. The company has a market capitalization of nearly US$10.5 billion, 56.7 million registered members, 8.2 million storefronts and total revenues that reached US$607 million in the first nine months of 2010.
The first victory encouraged Ma to widen the scope of his mission. “Originally we just cared about a very small field, e-commerce, focused on B2B,” said Jane Jiang, one of Alibaba’s original founders and a former student of Ma’s. “But through the years, I think the vision of Jack and the vision of this company changed.”
Just two months before Jiang spoke to China Economic Review in Hangzhou, she had taken over the trust and fraud team, in part to investigate a strange spike in complaints. Jiang al
luded to the difficulty of the investigation during the interview: “Sometimes you can see people are fraudsters, but sometimes it’s unclear: There’s no proof, there’s just one buyer’s complaint,” she said. “Over 99% of suppliers, including the China suppliers, are good people.”
This 99% figure became a staple of Alibaba’s defense during the scandal: Only 2,300 out of nearly 750,000 users came under investigation. But the changing vision Jiang talked about – which came to include domestic trade, cloud computing, logistics and training – may have meant managers had that much less attention to pay to troubles at the flagship.
Kozlowski emphatically rejects this interpretation, arguing that there is no causal link between organization size and corruption.
Whether the fraud issue ends up being a storm in a teacup or not, some wonder how much growth the future holds even if verification issues are sorted. Global Sources (GSOL.NYSE), a US-based company that also specializes in matching Chinese suppliers with Western importers, is the company most likely to benefit from Alibaba’s troubles. It is much smaller than Alibaba.com and handles far fewer transactions. Wei said he doesn’t consider Global Sources a competitor, and Global Sources also says the area of overlap is small. But the company’s model is in competition with Alibaba’s, and the two firms do compete for suppliers – in fact, pricing for their respective supplier membership programs is quite similar.
According to a former employee who requested anonymity, Global Sources was once very concerned about Alibaba.com’s dominance at the low end of the market. In addition to lowering prices, it also created a product, Global Sources Direct, which competed for smaller-volume orders with Alibaba.com’s AliExpress site. It also claimed that its verification system was more robust than Alibaba.com’s – a claim lent weight by the CGS scandal.
More relevant is that Global Sources attained success largely by steering clear of the online model. Craig Pepples, Global Sources’ president of corporate affairs, explained the company’s reasoning: “Everybody gets extremely excited about e-commerce, but online shopping in China currently represents 2% of the total retail value. In the US it’s 4%. And it’s large retailers doing the importing.”
Dealing with the small suppliers and customers, even online, drove costs up without doing much for revenues, he said. “Everybody thinks, ‘Click here, everything is so easy online.’ Actually it’s not.
“‘I need this model, I need the casing to be red, the packaging needs to be in German and can I get 20,000 of them?’ That’s a lot of questions, and what if they are coming from a sample hunter in Nigeria?”
Instead, Global Sources has focused on providing real-world services like directories, trade shows and print advertisements in magazines, from which it earns the majority of its revenues. To investors, the results are far superior to Alibaba.com’s. Global Sources stock is up 75% over the last six months (compared with a 22% increase in the Dow Jones Industrial Average), trading at around half Alibaba.com’s multiple.
Turloch Mooney, editor-in-chief at Supply Chain Asia Magazine and occasional contributor to China Economic Review, agrees. Alibaba.com, he said, is going after a difficult-to-serve and risky niche market.
“Is it going to work? I really can’t say. I can say that the big volumes and big value are with the big companies and the enormous trade shows. Unless there are methods to ensure quality and consistency and timeliness and customer service, I think [Alibaba.com’s model] will struggle to work for quite a long time.”
There are also remaining technology hurdles. Pepples said that attempts to use trade software to facilitate transactions failed due to massive customizations required by large clients. For this very reason, Alibaba.com does not handle transactions at present, and its current major software initiative, AliCloud, does not have any cloud-based transaction platform in the works.
Height and weight
To be fair to Alibaba.com and David Wei, stock prices and business performance are not the same thing. This “niche” produced US$393 million in revenues in the first half of 2010, more than three times as much as Global Sources, and that at a higher profit margin. Even before the scandal broke, Wei was working on improving the CGS program.
While the scandal was only made possible by criminal collusion with staff, other problems in the CGS program were structural. When the financial crisis hit, for example, Wei made deep cuts in membership fees: “We believed e-commerce could help Chinese exporters to survive the financial crisis,” he said. “We tripled the supplier base in three years. But the philosophy was not triple the numbers, but triple the survival of our exporters.”
But as the crisis receded, Wei doubled membership fees again. “First we grow height, which is customer numbers. Then we turn to service [which is] weight. It was best to acquire e-commerce customers during the downturn, then increase fees when commerce went up.”
Some analysts hated the move. Paul Wuh, an analyst at Samsung Securities, bashed Wei’s decision and downgraded the stock. “We think it is too early in the development of e-commerce in China and for Alibaba to [slow subscriber growth] and focus on mining its existing paying customers to grow its earnings,” he wrote in an investor note.
Subsequent events showed Wuh’s logic to be exactly backwards: The company already had 2,300 CGS members too many. In an ad-driven model, in which more users mean more revenue, Wuh’s logic made sense. But Alibaba.com’s revenues come entirely from membership fees and value-added services (VAS), which have much higher cost structures than hosting advertisements. Adding a new CGS member adds the cost of third-party verification, which events have shown is critical to credibility.
The fact that Wei appeared to have been on the right track is cold comfort now, especially to shareholders. But the disaster does validate a decision made previously by the group to move into the domestic market, without which Alibaba.com would be facing a far bleaker scenario.
Around 2002, the rapid growth in Chinese domestic internet usage caught the interest of US-based e-commerce firms eBay (EBAY.NASDAQ) and PayPal, which eBay acquired late that year. At the time, the Alibaba Group had a negligible domestic e-commerce presence. But Ma was also looking at the domestic market, and he realized he had to act.
“Jack Ma is very smart,” said Hans Tung, partner at venture capital firm Qiming Ventures (Qiming has invested in popular online retailer Vancl). “EBay had just bought [mainland e-commerce platform] Eachnet, and he saw that if ignored, the connection between eBay and Eachnet could eventually hurt Alibaba. So he used the money generated by Alibaba.com to invest in Taobao.”
The Taobao project, along with PayPal clone AliPay, may have begun as a defensive reaction, but quickly became much more than a hedge. Taobao is now the market leader in Chinese C2C transactions and is moving into the B2C space though Taobao Mall, which already handles one million transactions a day. AliPay is the most popular online payment method by far in China. In 2010 the group overtook Google to become the second-largest seller of online ads in China after Baidu (BIDU.NASDAQ), according to a report by Analysys International, and these ad revenues are entirely thanks to the domestic initiative: Alibaba.com hosts no advertisements.
The success of Taobao and AliPay also cleared the way for Alibaba.com to start serving domestic consumers by adding related products like 1688.com, a B2B platform for domestic trade. The ultimate idea was to knock down the barriers between the subsidiaries to help trade flow s
eamlessly: small Chinese entrepreneurs selling knickknacks through Taobao into AliExpress, which channels them through Alibaba.com’s new US acquisitions Vendio and Auctiva, which in turn feed them into the eBay marketplace – and then the other way around. “They are almost trying to create a cross-border version of eBay which includes China,” said Pepples of Global Sources. “It’s a wonderful vision.”
So far the strategy has paid off, and it means that the Alibaba Group doesn’t need to panic about the CGS affair. But complacency is also inadvisable, and CEO Lu will have his hands full in the coming year.
The challenge with C2C and B2C businesses is the opposite of difficulties with international B2B ventures. It’s not that they are difficult to implement; quite the opposite, competitors are proliferating. “All you need to do is buy a server and you are a peer of Taobao,” Ma joked at a press conference.
Or rather, half-joked. Taobao’s first-mover advantage still allows it to dominate the C2C market in China. But companies like Baidu and Tencent (0700.HK) already have lots of servers and users, and they are increasingly likely to take a shot at Taobao.
B2C, on the other hand, is crowded already, and this is also where the growth is. “Even though C2C transactions still make up 80% of all transactions [in China], B2C is growing faster,” said Tung of Qiming. “C2C is growing 40% [per year], B2C is growing 100%.”
Unfortunately, Taobao only launched Taobao Mall in 2008. Not only are there a host of competing websites, including 360Buy, Dangdang (DANG.NYSE), and Amazon (AMZN.NASDAQ) through its Chinese subsidiary Joyo, there are also the brands themselves to consider – some of which would rather create their own websites and sell direct.
This is not a show-stopper for Taobao; it also sells its mall system as a non-branded backend service. Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo, owned by Fast Retailing (9983.TYO) runs both a storefront on Taobao and uses Taobao to power its independent site. But there are philosophical considerations. Alibaba was founded on the principle of helping the underdog, the entrepreneur, the small business. Uniqlo is none of those things; it is part of a US$15 billion Japanese conglomerate with 93 subsidiaries and 808 stores.
Journalists who tour the Alibaba Hangzhou campus are frequently taken through the famous “monitoring room.” It’s sparse, with cement walls, a very high ceiling and no furniture – add pews and it would be a chapel. In a way it already is: Visitors and employees come to genuflect before an intimidating wall display tracking the state of e-commerce throughout the group’s subsidiaries, in real time.
Maps and moving charts show popular search terms, product categories, and transactions as they are fed into the system (“john_wang is searching for ball bearings”). One map shows transactions as arrows landing on cities, where they make brief round ripples – the bigger the order volume, the wider the ripple. A line graph tracks macroeconomic data; a closer glance reveals that Taobao maintains its own internal consumer price index, the “TBI.”
The room is slick, and meant for show. But it is also an important reminder of Alibaba’s fundamental strength: information. This company has more data about more companies, consumers, products, and product trends than almost anyone else, and all in one place. Even the scandal produced more information. Alibaba analyzed the data and discovered a pattern from which it developed a new search algorithm to detect fraudulent activity – perhaps one day fraud trends will also be tracked in the monitor room.
If this last suggestion sounds absurd, it’s not. Alibaba may be disappointing some watchers as it sheds its original small-business focus to work with giants like Uniqlo, but the company appears to be turning toward a new corporate value: transparency.
This might seem a calculated retreat, but Alibaba.com had already implemented strong transparency requirements in its highly detailed financial reports, and the company deserves credit for breaking the story of CGS fraud itself.
In a passionate letter to employees, sent directly after the scandal broke, Jack Ma laid down the law: “If we do not face up to reality and find the courage to take painful action, Alibaba will no longer be Alibaba and our pursuit of our 102-year dream and mission will become nothing but a joke!”
Kozlowski said Ma was using the fraud investigation as an opportunity to instill the company’s value system more deeply in employees, and to teach them what transparency and idealism really mean in a corporate environment.
“Part of the reason we are hanging ourselves out to dry a bit is to communicate with our employees through our openness to the public,” she said. A 15-year veteran of the PR industry, she said she came to Alibaba because she believed in its commitment to honesty.
“A lot of American companies wouldn’t be this transparent. You might not believe this, but I actually feel pretty proud.”
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With 1,100 of the nation’s 9,000 breweries right here in the Golden State, Californians have plenty of reason to be proud. And it’s not just quantity: California breweries consistently win far more medals at the Great American Beer Festival and the World Beer Cup than any other state.
That’s one of the reasons SF Beer Week was launched all those years ago — so we could celebrate and share our beer culture. The last two years have been tough on the brewery industry, of course. So last year, the Bay Area Brewers Guild partnered with six other regional brewers guilds and the California Craft Brewers Association to create a statewide, virtual California Craft Beer Week.
SF Beer Week returned earlier this year with live beer events that included five small mini-galas, instead of the usual large-scale opening festivities. Now California Craft Beer Week is back, too, with live events scheduled for July 15-24 throughout the state.
In addition to the events, a special collaboration beer — dubbed the “CCBA Brewers Collaboration” and crafted at breweries throughout the state — will be released with proceeds used to help struggling breweries. More than 20 breweries have pledged to make the beer to date. Other local collaborations are coming together, too, and more than 100 beer-centric events are scheduled.
Among those events is one of my favorites: the Session Beer Fest hosted by Drake’sBrewing and Bike East Bay at 1 p.m. July 23 at Snow Park, near Oakland’s Lake Merritt. They used to put on this festival at the brewery years ago; now they’re bringing it back.
It’s a showcase of session beers, brews that are full-flavored, but lower in alcohol than the typical pint. The festival includes a free concert in the park, along with a DJ, and more than 25 breweries pouring. (Admission is free; you’ll need to purchase tickets to sample the beer.)
Other fun-sounding events around the Bay Area during California Craft Beer Week include “Tasty Teaze: A Burlesque + Drag Brunch” at Greater Purpose Brewing in Santa Cruz, a chess night at Ocean View Beer Works in Albany, a Spent Grain Bread Making Class at Shadow Puppet in Livermore, and several comedy nights at local breweries.
Find the full lineup at cacraftbeerweek.com.


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The students in the Landscape Operations Program have had the opportunity to practise newly acquired skills off site once again this year. They have found the experience enriching and definitely prefer the ‘hands on’ approach to learning.
Some comments from this year’s group:
‘Really enjoyed it, a good way to give a brief idea of working in the real world.’
‘Good sense of reality. It isn’t a guessing game anymore. You become aware of the realities of working with clients.”
‘The hands on experiences are great to help me understand the concepts.’
Besides getting out to landscape, on October 16th our class visited the Expo FIHOQ 2013, which is a trade show dedicated to ornamental horticulture and green space professional in Quebec. The event featured over 300 exhibitors from all sectors of the industry and allowed students to be introduced to all sectors of our trade. From machinery and equipment, to hand tools, from plant material to amendments, from lighting to pavers and stone, the students could view, discuss and obtain information from industry suppliers.
Look for the CVCEC Landscape students at a location near you!
Deborah Dohman (Landscaping teacher)


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The Taiwanese Ratings Board has once again come up trumps, it leaked the console versions of DiRT Rally last week and now we have official confirmation from the Codemasters that the game is on the way. It will launch on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and get a physical release on PC on April 5th 2016.
“The launch on Steam early access has been a resounding success. We want to thank the community for their valuable feedback and support which has guided our development for the past eight months, resulting in a 92% positive user score. We are now ready to launch the final version of the game on PC.” said Frank Sagnier, CEO Codemasters “Following this success on PC and a vocal demand from consumers, we are delighted to announce that Dirt Rally will be available on consoles on April 5th 2016.”
Source: Press release


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DJI might be the first name you think of when it comes to consumer-grade gimbals and drones. They come with pretty fair price tags on the regular, but several times a year, the company likes to put on the sale. And while the Black Friday and Christmas sales it put on last year eclipse this Valentine's Day one in size, you can still save a chunk of change on some neat gear.
Deals are active through 8:59pm PST on Friday, February 14, for the Osmo Pocket gimbal-stablized mini-camera, the Osmo Action camera, the Osmo Mobile 3 gimbal, its combo accessories kit, and the entry-level Tello drone along with its kit. Sales prices have remained the same from the two previous sales as mentioned. You can also grab these deals at other retailers listed below.
- Osmo Pocket
- Osmo Action (all purchases come with an extra battery)
- Osmo Mobile 3