Staff Writer - itbusinessdirect

Japan e-commerce giant to buy Viber for $900-M

February 14, 2014March 3, 2016 Staff Writer

TOKYO – Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten Inc, controlled by billionaire Hiroshi Mikitani, will buy call and messaging app provider Viber Media Inc for $900 million in a deal that would more than double the number of users in its digital empire. Rakuten offers services from financing to shopping to online video on its e-commerce platform, the largest in Japan. But in the face of a shrinking population and weak consumer spending at home, Mikitani is trying to re-invent Rakuten as a one-stop-site for a global audience. Privately held Viber, run…

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Comcast buys rival Time Warner Cable for $45bn

February 13, 2014March 3, 2016 Staff Writer

Comcast has confirmed a deal to acquire Time Warner Cable for about $45bn (£27bn), creating a company that could control three-quarters of the US cable industry. Comcast will pay about $159 per share for its rival in an all-stock deal. The deal comes after Time Warner Cable rejected a $60bn bid from Charter Communications last month, calling their offer “grossly inadequate”. However, any merger is likely to face tight scrutiny from US regulators. Time Warner Cable has been the subject of an eight-month takeover battle by smaller cable operator Charter…

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Why did Target take so long to report data security breach?

February 7, 2014March 3, 2016 Staff Writer

The Target data breach affecting 40 million of the retailer’s credit and debit cards stems back to Nov. 27, two days before Black Friday. So why are we just hearing about it now, three weeks later? Blame protocol. Although it might seem like ages to affected consumers, in the scheme of data breaches, even three weeks is a pretty quick time frame to spot a breach and notify customers, said Will Pelgrin, president and chief executive of the Center for Internet Security. “No matter how quickly an entity notifies you,…

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Satya Nadella Is Officially Microsoft’s New CEO

February 4, 2014March 3, 2016 Staff Writer

Microsoft has made official what we all pretty much expected: Its new CEO, replacing Steve Ballmer, is Satya Nadella. Nadella has spent 22 years at Microsoft, and was previously Microsoft’s Executive Vice President of Cloud and Enterprise. Nadella also takes a position on Microsoft’s Board of Directors. Nadella is credited with being a key leader in moving the company towards cloud services, around products including Bing, Xbox and Microsoft Office. His time at MS oversaw a period of huge growth for Microsoft Business Services, too, growing that segment of the…

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What Africa’s Billionaire Aliko Dangote told the World Economic Forum in Davos

January 30, 2014June 2, 2016 Staff Writer

Africa has many entrepreneurial people with the capacity to be successful in business, but access to financing for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) remains a major challenge. So said Nigerian-born Aliko Dangote, believed to be the continent’s richest man, today during a session titled ‘Africa’s Next Billion’, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He explained that while Africa offers a large enough market for SMEs, borrowing costs are generally too high. “If you are going to borrow money at 20% and above, it might be very, very tough…

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Businesses’ biggest barrier to implementing their big data strategy is identifying what data to collect

January 29, 2014 Staff Writer

KPMG Report: Going beyond the data: achieving insights from data and analytics Long before the term big data first appeared in 1997, organizations were already struggling to make sense of all of the information piling up in their databases and warehouses. But over the past five years, the focus on big data has started to shift: today the issue is no longer about owning the most data but rather about how to gain the most insight from that data and – in turn – how to convert those insights into…

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Wall Street: The U.S. will borrow less money this year than at any time since 2008

January 27, 2014 Staff Writer

Wall Street Dealers See Treasury Sales Falling to Six-Year Low By Susanne Walker The U.S. will borrow less money this year than at any time since 2008, validating the nation’s decision to go deeper into debt to combat the financial crisis as faster growth shrinks the deficit, Wall Street’s biggest bond dealers say. The government will sell $717 billion of notes and bonds on a net basis, 14 percent less than last year, according to a survey of primary dealers which are obligated to bid at Treasury auctions. Issuance has fallen…

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US playing catch-up in Africa

January 27, 2014January 28, 2014 Staff Writer

African consumer spending is projected to rise from US$860 billion in 2008 to US$1.4 trillion in 2020. No other region in the world boasts such numbers. ADDIS Ababa, the rapidly modernising capital of Ethiopia, is on track to host the tallest building in Africa by 2017. That landmark building, which will boast 99 floors of offices and hotel rooms, has a distinctly un-African name: Chuan Hui International Tower. The tower, together with a host of other skyscrapers in the city – including the US$200 million (S$255.7 million) African Union headquarters…

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‘.brands’ become reality as first branded gTLD delegations take place

January 24, 2014January 24, 2014 Staff Writer

This weekend ‘.brands’ became a reality with Monash University making a little bit of history, becoming the first such application to be delegated to the DNS root. In October, WTR reported on the delegation of the first new gTLD applications to the root zone. These related to IDN applications, and subsequent delegations (and sunrises) have centred on generic strings. The announcement that Monash University’s branded TLD is now live, then, is notable for making ‘.brands’ a reality. In its application, the Australian University states that registrations in the TLD will…

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