andy whitfield spartacus: Business News

Showing posts with label Business News. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Yousendit Dropbox

Despite a smattering of bad press thanks to some security loopholes, Dropbox remains one of the most widely used services on the web, now with over 25 million users. The way they got there is simple, really: Not only were they one of the first to offer free cloud-based storage, but they streamlined the process to make storing and sharing files unequivocally easy.
Now YouSendIt, the popular service that offered a way to circumvent large attachment limits in emails, is offering their own cloud-based storage program to compete with Dropbox.
YouSendIt is offering a three-tiered plan similar to Dropbox with varying degrees of functionality (read more here). Their free plan offers 2GB of storage that can be accessed through their desktop sync app à la Dropbox and through iOS devices like the iPhone or iPad, though the current desktop version is Windows-only. Users concerned with security can utilize a pay-per-use security protection program to further safeguard their files.
In addition, users will have access to a new service that allows you to sign and send documents directly via email (meaning no messy faxes) and supports PDFs and Word docs, sort of like DocuSign. Also, you'll be able to send files from your cloud folder directly via email -- something handy that Dropbox doesn't offer. However, file sizes are capped off at 2GB with a maximum of 100 downloads per file.
Additionally, their Pro Plan is priced $5 cheaper than Dropbox's top-tier plan at $15 and offers unlimited storage versus the latter's 100GB cap. You'll have unlimited downloads, no file size limits, and additional file security built in, plus a hosted file page where others can submit documents to you.

There's also a Corporate Suite offered for companies with five users or more. Mac OS X and Android apps aren't available, but are planned to be unveiled in the coming months.
If you already have a Dropbox account it might be worth signing up to YouSendIt's the free service for the document signing alone (though it doesn't support Word 2007 .docx files; earlier versions and PDFs worked fine). If you're a heavy cloud user on Windows, their unlimited storage plan is a better deal than Dropbox, plus it has some nice additives like extra security, an inbox folder, and a direct to email tab to make actual sharing easier.

Yousendit Dropbox

Jailbreak iPhone 4.3.5

Apple launched iOS 4.3.5 with great fanfare recently. But its jailbreak has already been confirmed for iPhone 4, iPad 2 and iPod touch by Redsn0w
Apple has released one more security update for its iOS. The new update iOS 4.3.5 comes days after the release of iOS 4.3.4. Apple rolled the latter update to protect the software from JailbreakMe 3.0. But soon after its launch, hackers jailbroke the update with PwnageTool, a tethered exploit.

The new update iOS 4.3.5 has come up with a patch to shield iOS from PwnageTool. But hackers have no rest. Immediately after its launch, “MuscleNerd” of the iPhone Dev Team announced that he could jailbreak it using Redsn0w tool.

Redsn0w is another tethered jailbreak exploit. You need to tether your iDevice with a computer (both Mac and Windows) for the process of jailbreaking. But once you reboot the device, the jailbreak will be removed. That means you will have to again tether the device with a PC for jailbreaking.

Redsn0w will work on iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad original and iPod fourth generation. Interestingly, it won’t again run on iPad 2, the device JailbreakMe 3.0 could jailbreak.

The new iOS version also includes some other security patches. Apple used to bring out security updates for its iOS whenever there is a challenge from jailbreakers.

But all of Apple’s efforts to drift away from jailbreaking will again be broken by cunning hackers. The war between jailbreakers and Apple thus goes on endless.

Jailbreak iPhone 4.3.5

Mark Mobius

Dr. Mark Mobius talked to Coco Alcuaz of Business Nightly this week, discussing the local stock market, the economy, and REITS. Mobius believes that local investors should diversify abroad given the high valuations at the PSE. But he says the local economy remains attractive, considering its large consumer base, and its active trade in commodities, specifically in metals and other mining products. Mobius also believes the BIR's vision of REITS without tax incentives would kill the investment instrument before it is even launched.
Business Nightly airs on ANC at 9 p.m. weeknights.

Mark Mobius

Chevrolet Beat

The Indian unit of US based leading auto maker General Motors on Monday launched its much awaited Chevrolet Beatdiesel in the Indian market. The car comes with a starting price tag of Rs 4.29 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi), making it highly price competitive in its segment. The major competitors of the Beat Diesel in India include, Ford Figo, Maruti Ritz and Swift, Volkswagen Polo etc. The new Diesel variant of the car has till now already been receiving a strong response in the Indian market as more than 1500 units of the car have already been booked.
The car is powered by a 1.0L diesel engine which is the smallest diesel engine in GM portfolio, globally. The engine has been specially developed for markets like India by GM's Technical Centre in Bangalore in collaboration with GM Powertrain Europe. The company has indicated that it may launch a diesel version of its smallest portfolio car Spark, in near future as well.
The Beat diesel model has been priced in the range of Rs 4.29 lakh to Rs 5.45 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). It will be delivering a segment leading mileage of 24 kmpl, as per ARAI standards.
Speaking at the occasion, General Motors India President and Managing Director Karl Slym said, "This is the smallest diesel engine-powered passenger car for GM globally. We do not have any plan to manufacture this engine anywhere in the world."

The company currently produces about 6,000 units of its diesel engines monthly from its Talegaon facility in Maharashtra. At present the company sells 2,700-3,000 units of its Beat model on a monthly basis, which is expected to be increased to 4,000-5,000 units a month, once it starts delivering Beat Diesel. Moreover, the company plans to take the total number of its outlets to 300 from existing 250 dealers, by this year end.
The summary details of the New Chevrolet Beat Diesel are as follows:
PRICE EX DELHI (in lacs)
PS - 4.29
LS - 4.59
LT - 4.99
LT Option - 5.45 (ABS, alloys & air bags)
Key technical features in the new Beat Diesel include:
1.0 litre 3 cylinder XSDE SMARTECH engine
62.5 PS power and 160.3 NM torque
24 kmpl mileage
Featherlight Power Steering
Intelligent launch support system
Advanced insta torque boost
Smart engine & clutch protection
gas charged rebound tuned suspension

Chevrolet Beat

Chevrolet India

Automobile giant General Motors has launched the diesel variant of the Chevrolet Beat in India.
According to information available on the company's official website, the car will come at a price tag of Rs 4.29 lakh-Rs 5.45 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi).
"Offering a diesel engine developed for Indian consumers in our most popular model is a momentous achievement for the company," General Motors India President & MD Karl Slym told reporters here.
The website says the car comes with a new 1.0-litre engine, made exclusively for India by GM's Technical Centre in Bangalore, in collaboration with GM Powertrain, Europe, that produces a power output of 58.5 PS and a torque of 150 Nm.
The company claims that as per ARAI standards, the engine promises a mileage of 24 kmpl.
The car is available in an impressive range of nine colours. It comes with 14" stylized steel wheel, body coloured bumpers, body color tailgate handle and sporty black spoiler, claims the company.

The car comes with automatic air conditioning, tilt steering, integrated central console and dashboard and a 'best-in-segment' ground clearance of 175 mm.
Till now, the company was selling the Beat in petrol and LPG variants.
The rapidly rising demand for small cars in India coupled with substantially lower running costs of diesel vehicles has spurred car manufacturers to come out with all-new diesel models or fresh diesel variants of existing petrol-run models.

Chevrolet India

Reserve Bank Of India

Analysts seemed to be mostly caught off guard by the Reserve Bank of India’s 0.50-percentage-point increase in its short-term lending rate. The lending, or repo rate, is now 8%, while its borrowing, or reverse repo rate, is now 7%. Here are edited excerpts of what some analysts said:
The RBI should have acted more aggressively six months ago. “Clearly the recent near 10% yoy WPI? [Wholesale Price Index] readings have put the RBI on alert mode. But signs of underlying demand pressures were quite clear about six months ago when in fact global uncertainties were slightly less than now and that’s when ideally the RBI should’ve hiked more aggressively. That could in turn have prevented the need for much higher interest rates. Given the lags with which interest rates work, these ‘extra’ rate hikes are likely to have their impact felt more on 2012 activity where we expect GDP growth anyway at a bottom-end of consensus 7.5%.” – Devika Mehndiratta, vice-president, emerging markets economic research, Credit Suisse

Growth is likely to suffer. “The 50 bps rate hike was above expectations. The more important point is the fact that there is no clear indication that the RBI is at the stage of pressing the pause button. I still feel that we are at the end of rate hike cycle and any further rate hike beyond 25-50 bps is going to impact growth significantly below the trend level.
While RBI rates are around the 8% levels the bank ‘base rates’ are in the range of 9.5-10.5%. The average lending rates (for working capital and term loans) to lower than AAA corporates are between 10.5-14%. At these high interest rate levels investment demand is surely expected to get impacted as incremental capex plans of corporates would be put on hold.” – Ramanathan K., chief investment officer, ING Investment Management Pvt. Ltd.

Indian corporations are looking overseas for credit. “Recently we have seen that corporates are moving to nonbanking resources for their credit needs, especially long-term with external commercial borrowings, as dollar-denominated borrowing now costs much less compared to high interest rates in India. The ratio of bank credit and non-bank credit now stands at 51:49 for the 1^st quarter compared to 64:36 in the corresponding period [a year ago]. – D.K. Aggarwal, chairman, Sanlam Investments & Advisors

Still, the RBI should keep going. “We had argued in favor of a 50 bp hike (see for example our latest India Central Bank Watch), but we did not think that the RBI had the ‘guts’ to bring out the big guns. Thankfully, we were proven wrong. The more decisive move clearly demonstrates that inflation is the dominant concern, and that the RBI is not alarmed about the extent of moderation in the domestic economy…
The RBI sees upside risks to global commodity prices and points out that there is still an element of suppressed inflation in the economy despite the recent adjustment in domestic fuel prices, which, in themselves, will push up inflation. Moreover, the statement voiced some concerns that food inflation may not ease as much as expected given the spatial distribution of monsoon rains (as well as risks of below-normal rainfalls)…
While the 50 bp hike was an aggressive move, this is not the end of it. RBI is seriously concerned about anchoring inflation expectations and we expect that the policy (repo) rate will reach at least 8.25% this year. In this context, it’s also worth keeping in mind that a policy rate of around 8 is at best consistent with a neutral monetary policy stance. But, policy rates have to go higher than this to bring about a contractionary stance and, hence, the necessary slowdown in domestic demand. This is ultimately the policy stance that the RBI should strive for.”— Leif Lybecker Eskesen, chief economist for India & ASEAN, and Prithviraj Srinivas, economics associate, Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd.

Reserve Bank Of India

RBI

In an interview with ET Now,Srinivasan Varadarajan, Executive Director,Axis Bank, shares his views on thecredit policy. Excerpts:

In just less than three months you have seen the repo rate go up by 125 bps that is possibly the highest increase in the repo rate that we have seen. Now what do you believe that is going to do for you in terms of credit demand because it is fairly clear that you will at once again have to increase lending rates. TheRBI talking yesterday about the fact that credit growth needs to moderate further from the initial growth projection of 19% that it had stated on the 3rd of May, how are you seeing credit demand playing out over the course of the next year?

As you said the first quarter itself was much slower than the previous quarter in terms of overall credit demand that was reflected in the numbers too. So clearly with this aggressive rate hike in terms of 50 bps, I think with the banks likely to increase lending rates as cost of funds goes up, it is possible that credit demand will slow down further. And that is something which is likely to happen as we go into the next couple of quarters. One thing in terms of the 50 bps rate hike itself is concerned, I think the end state in terms of where RBI would stop is something basically going to be data driven, but the faster the rate hikes happened the quicker we will get there.

With the RBI they have cut the FY12 bank credit growth projection to 18% from the previous 19% this is any which way slowdown from the earlier 22%, how does that impact you right now?

As I said in terms of pipeline demand it has been slower in the first quarter and that is reflected in the non-food credit numbers. Going forward with this aggressive rate hike and possibly tight liquidity conditions prevailing that would anyway would have come down in terms of overall demand and what RBI is trying to calibrate is what they expect to see on the back of these rate hikes. So I would think credit demand as RBI has projected it would be slower than what we saw in the first quarter and overall bank credit demand accordingly would be 18%, our base projecting. And we need to see in terms of the lending rate rises over the course of the year and how it sort of flows through the system.

If at all this continues and there is an expectation that the RBI has pointed that out as well that there will be future rate hikes, from a corporate stand point corporate borrowings implications on the same?

The corporates have been waiting and watching in terms of overall climate outside of India, it has been fairly uncertain and fairly volatile. Even within India in terms of overall real interest rates clearly are not so high and therefore corporate investment should not slacken. I think the level of interest rates to play role in terms of the mindset of the corporate and as the level of interest rates in terms of absolute level continues to inch higher or go higher quite sharply. Corporate is going to wait and watch and therefore investment demand is likely to slow.

RBI

In an interview with ET Now,Srinivasan Varadarajan, Executive Director,Axis Bank, shares his views on thecredit policy. Excerpts:

Repo Rate

The Reserve Bank of India's move to raise repo rate by 50 basis points comes as a shock for the real industry as the burden on account of increased rates of interest will hit the developers as well as home buyers, says Lalit Kumar Jain, National President CREDAI.
"The cost of funding is going be higher as banks are bound to increase their lending rates," Jain, who is also the chairman and managing director of Mumbai-Pune realty firm Kumar Urban development (KUL), said.
The industry, he said, is facing a crunch and the fund gap over the next five years alone would be as high as USD 70 billion. "The RBI announcement, therefore, could be detrimental to the growth of the industry and economy," he added.
Estimates are that the housing that is required in the current five-year Plan is 24.6 million and it is 37 million in the next five-year Plan and the country would need USD 3.2 trillion for this. Funding gap in housing will be around USD 70 billion in the next five years among the existing developers alone.

The material costs have already gone up by over 35% and the wages have doubled over the past three years. "Any increase in the rate of interest will, thus, be counterproductive and my fear is that it will give rise to inflation instead of curbing it," Jain pointed out.
The multiple effect of this is that buyers would continue to be wary of fulfilling their dream houses and developers would find it difficult to tap funds at reasonable rates of interest.
Jain appealed to the RBI Governor to see the reality of the day that both buyers and developers are under a tremendous stress and they need immediate relief.
With the ever increasing cost of inputs, couple with the rise in cost funding, would make affordable housing and the much touted "housing for all" a far cry, he added.
He called for a close coordination among various government departments such as finance, housing, urban development, commerce and environment to ensure that the real industry that supports over 200 other industries comes back into full swing to restore the speedy growth of the economy.
He drew the government's attention to the reforms suggested by CREDAI that are aimed at bringing down prices and increasing GDP growth.
He warned of an economic disaster and chaotic urban explosion, if corrective measures are not taken.

Repo Rate

Monday, July 25, 2011

Efiling Of income Tax Return

The Income tax India 2011 situation has displayed an interesting stat: despite a slowing economy in the country, tax collection has gone up. The news arrives upon the year-long celebration of "150 years of taxation" by the I-T department of India.

While income tax e-filing has become one of the necessary evils that many Americans dread each year. It seems the same way in other countries, including India, where about 10 percent of the population meets the minimum threshold for taxation. This has the I-T department of the country happy over how much taxes are being collected.

A recent event at Law Bhawan, Sector 37 of Chandigarh addressed the latest taxation news, with current and retired members of Income Tax Department, Advocates' Bar Association and Employee Provident Fund Association in attendance.

The Chief Commissioner of the North West Region of I-T, Jaspal Singh, noted that "thirty percent of the collected taxes are devolved back to the states." Singh didn't elaborated on the other 70 percent, but noted that tax collection has gone up to its highest growth percentage in all of India. The bad news is that the first quarter of tax collections saw a decline in tax refunds being given out. Still, this news has I-T happy to the point they will even be giving out "tax lessons " to school children. It's better to get started early, right?

It seems no matter which area of the world you live in, two things are inescapable: death and taxes. However, with many people struggling to find a job these days, those that are making a taxable income are probably thankful that they have an income.

Efiling Of income Tax Return

DTE

After several conference calls with DTE Energy during last week's power outage that affected as many as 6,000 Ferndale homes and businesses, Ferndale Mayor Dave Coulter requested a representative from the utility come to a City Council meeting and explain to the city's customers what exactly happened.
The outage began about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday and lasted through 6 a.m. Saturday during a weeklong heat wave that put a strain on the region's power system.
"After a series of (calls) with DTE over our blackout, I talked about communication and asked them to send someone to Monday's council meeting to explain to the residents what happened," Coulter said.
DTE Energy has said the outage was heat related. After several days of 90-plus degree weather, DTE said one of the two transformers at the West Nine Mile and Dover substation faltered. During this malfunction, DTE attempted to shift the power from the first transformer to the second. The stress from the new workload proved to be too much, according to DTE, and the cable that brought the electricity into the substation blew.
DTE then had to shut down the substation, cutting power to about 6,000 homes and businesses in Ferndale at 2:30 a.m. Saturday to repair the cable.
By 6 a.m. Sunday, DTE said the cable had been repaired and power was fully restored to Ferndale. In an unrelated incident, DTE said, a wire fell from a transformer in southwest Ferndale later Sunday evening and about 200 homes were subject to power outages and brownouts.

Coulter said he wants to get two things from DTE: "I want a full explanation of when went wrong," he said. "Then I want to hear how to prevent it in the future."
Tonight's meeting with DTE is the first step, Coulter said. "I expect to get the first part," he said. "But I expect DTE to work with us to prevent this in the future."
DTE will provide a written report of what happened during the outage, he said.
The DTE representative will present a presentation of the incident at the beginning of the meeting. Coulter has asked the representative to stay to answer any specific questions residents and businesses may have. "It won't be a debate," Coulter said. "But if (residents) have a specific question, like a rebate on a bill, I've asked DTE to address those."
The meeting starts at 7:30 p.m. at City Hall.