Thought Beans Blog

The Yahoo & Microsoft saga continuos with Microsoft willing to go ahead with partial or a full buyout only if the current board is dismissed. MS has indicated that it would go ahead with Carl about the plans. This Microsoft-Yahoo-AOL-Google & who else is turning out to be the Good, bad & ugly of the internet. Before the Aug 1st Shareholder meeting, Jul 22 earnings is going to be a big thing for the shareholders. Yahoo says Carl is only interested in selling off yahoo to MS & has no real plans for the company.  MS beleives that if the current board is there, it would take many months before the regulatory hurdles are cleared & the board may mismanage the company.  Also the Yahoo’s plans of getting its hands on AOL before Aug 1st may be difficult. It looks like a western classic movie with who will lay their hands on whom.

 It seems InBev has won the PR war on Anheuser-Busch going by the way it is handling the PR matters. InBev is now going one step further with proposing a new set of directors for the company. Some of the names proposed include the decendents of the founder as well. Ever since the InBev details were leaked first on a blog, Anheuser-Busch has been defending itself from takeover. Anheuser-Busch, maker of Budweiser beer was offered $65 a share amounting to $46 billion. However, the offer was rejected by the company. Inbev has been pushing hard for the company.

Nokia will create Symbian Foundation once it acquires the remaining stake in Symbian Ltd, open source model for symbian based phones similar to Google’s Android open source model.  Other partners in Symbian include Siemens, Samsung, Ericsson, LG panasonic & others. This will help Nokia face the increasing competition from Apple’s iphone, Google & RIM. With this the market now is like Symbian, Google’s Android, Windows mobile OS, RIM & Apple iphone. This will help lower the development costs & increase the innovation. The board will have 10 member representation. Nokia has been paying license fees for the symbian OS to use in its mobile phones. This is a good move on the part of Nokia as the competition is hotting up in the mobile sector. As there are many mobile makers in the world bringing all of them under the same platform will help make the spread of technology easier. Millions of phones around the world have been shipped with the Symbian OS. As Nokia is the largest phone manufacturer in the world, symbian would help strengthen its position.

Sergey Brin, the Google co-founder, has booked a $5 million seat aborad the Space Adventures’ flight into space. Virginia based Space Adventures which organizes the space trip on Russian Soyuz rockets to the ISS. So for, 5 tourists have been sent to spece by the company since 2001. The company has plans to purchase its own Soyuz rocket by 2011 & Brin will be aborad this spacecraft. $5 Millions also is an investment by Sergey Brin in the company. The space travel also come with its own disadvantages like health problmes for the in experienced ones.  They will have to undergo rigorous training at the Russain center. They will also experience the zero gravity conditions.  Google is working with NASA on many space related issuses like a complex at the NASA-Ames Research Center at Moffett Field & million dollar prize for space probes.

Japanese pharma company Daiichi Sankyo is to acquire majority stake in Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. Malvinder Singh wil continue to be CEO and Managing Director & also the board chairman, once the process will be over.Both companies have announced a binding share purchase & share subscription agreement. The deal would value Ranbaxy at $8.5 billion, making this one of the biggest pharma deals of the Indian company. Post deal which is expected by March, 2009 Ranbaxy would become a subsidiary of the Japanese company. Religare Capital Markets Limited acted as the financial advisor for the ranbaxy labs. This has come as a surprise deal for the Indian Industry. While the rest of Indian corporate world is going on a buying spree abroad, Japanese companies are looking to India for the deals.

Prius, Toyota’s petrol/electric hybrid vehicle, has crossed the magical number of 1 Million units in sales worldwide. Introduced in 1997 in Japan & in US & Europe later on has been the best selling hybrid vehicle. With the recession, high gas prices, global warming & other important factors, the prius sales is at an all time high. The milege hungry customers have increased the sales of the Japanese cars worldwide. But the increase in the cost of raw materials is affecting the Japanese manufacturers. The Detroit is finding the going tough with all the 3 makers facing high energy costs, gas guzzling SUV’s, pension problems, tougher environmental rules by the US among other factors. Toyota Prius has caught the fancy of the celebrities worldwide.

The Subprime mess in the US has resulted in billions of dollars of loss & thousands jobless. The major investment & financial companies across the world have been hurt badly. It would take years to heal the problem. The new housing sales in the US have declined & the stock markets are on a roller coaster. The rising food prices have also affected the food consumption habits. The SG of France has suffered billions of dollars loss in the trading by a rogue trader. Thousands of employees are being given pink slips by the wall street firms & the economy of NYC will be affected a lot. The americans who were used to cheap credit for house mortgages are finding it tough to repay the loans & hence resulting in the subprime mess. The fire sale of Bear sterns, an 80 year old instituion to JP morgan for a very small amount shows the damage subprime has done. The federal reserve in the US has also come under huge pressure to cut the rates

Delta & Northwest have agreed for a merger creating the world’s biggest airlines subject to regulatory approvals & shareholders. The increasing fuel prices & rising inflation world over have put a dent on the  profit margins of the airlines & hence there is consolidation among the airlines industries. Northwest is buying Delta for $3 billion. They have a fleet strenght of 800 & the combined entity is valued at $11.2 billion. Airlines are increasingly finding the global economic turmoil difficult to manage. Even in the Indian airspace Kingfisher took a stake in the Air Deccan. Small airlines with no frills service are proving to be a big competitor for the big airlines & they are thinking of cutting down the costs.

The MSN’s bid for Yahoo has opened a can of worms with major players in the web like AOL, Google & News Corp all coming to the picture now. When MSN bid for Yahoo, it was like an another bidding war. With Yahoo rejecting the bid, it made way for other biggies in the web world to enter the fray. It seems Google’s CEO Eric Schimdt has also sought the advice of former investement banker who played a key role in the IPO of amazon, Netscape & others. To ward off the bid, Yahoo introduced many HR policies which would put a big hole in the packets of Microsoft. Yahoo is also mulling a plan of aliging with  AOL & testing the Google adsense ads. News Corp also entered the scene with MSN & trying for Yahoo. Congress is also considering whether yahoo’s testing of Google ads will have FTC into the picture. So the ball is in the courts of Yahoo now as to which way it will stike it. Would it be an advantage for MSN or will Yahoo stike an Ace.

The list of Top CEO, CTO, Fake CEO, Chairman, CMO & Other Blogs. The list includes the blogs by heads of many fortune 500 companies & other companies. Blogging has become a new tool for the companies to connect with the customers.

Top CEO blogs

1. http://weblogs.jupitermedia.com/meckler/ - Alan Meckler, CEO, Jupiter Media
2. http://wholefoodsmarket.com/socialmedia/jmackey - John Mackey, CEO, Whole foods
3. http://www.cnewmark.com/ - Craig Newmark, CEO, Craig’s List
4. http://www.calacanis.com/ - Jason Calacanis, CEO, Weblogs
5. http://www.blogs.marriott.com/ - Bill Marriott’s Blog
6. http://www.bobparsons.com/ - Godaddy founder
7. http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/ - Jonathan Schwartz, President & CEO, Sun Microsystems
8. http://www.blogmaverick.com/ - Mark Cuban, Owner, Dallas Mavericks
9. http://windberblog.typepad.com - Nick Jacobs, CEO of the Windber Medical Center
10. http://www.bccp-llc.com - Carrie Bekker, CEO of Bekker Compliance Consulting Partners
11. http://wceo.blogspot.com - Michael R. Flannery, Woolpert CEO
12. http://bduck1.blogspot.com/ - CEO of Black Duck Software
13. http://runningahospital.blogspot.com/ - Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.                                                                                                                               14. http://ross.typepad.com/ - Ross Mayfield, CEO, Socialtext
15. http://onlyonce.blogs.com/ - Matt Blumberg, CEO, Return Path
16. www.ceotutor.blogspot.com - George Cigale, CEO of Tutor.com
17. http://www.mwwstraighttalk.com - Michael Kempner, the CEO of the public relations firm MWW Group
18. http://www.michaelhyatt.com/fromwhereisit/ - Michael Hyatt, “From Where I Sit” — CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers
19. http://www.edelman.com/speak_up/blog/ - Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman
20. http://marklogic.blogspot.com/ - Dave Kellogg, CEO of Mark Logic Corporation

Top CTO blogs

1. http://www.novell.com/ctoblog/ - Novell CTO
2. http://www.rahulsood.com/ - CTO for HP Global Gaming Business
3. http://blogs.hds.com/hu/ - CTO Hitachi Data Systems
4. http://www.capgemini.com/ctoblog/ - Capgemini CTO blogs
5. http://dwave.wordpress.com/ - CTO of D-Wave
6. http://gilbane.com/ctoblog/ - A Gilbane Group hosted blog for CTO’s

Top Fake CEO Blogs

1. http://fakerichardbranson.blogspot.com/ - Fake Richardbranson
2. http://fakelarryellison.blogspot.com/ - Fake Larryellison
3. http://fakebill.wordpress.com/ - Fake Bill
4. http://fakeschwartz.blogspot.com/ - Fake Schwartz
5. http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com/ - Fake Steveballmer
6. http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/ - Fake Steve

Top Chairman Blogs

1. http://www.mikecritelli.com - Mike Critelli, “Open Mike” — executive chairman of Pitney Bowes
2. http://fastlane.gmblogs.com - Robert Lutz, “Fast Lane” — GM vice chairman
3. http://www.jetblue.com/about/ourcompany/flightlog/ - David Neeleman, “Flight Log” — chairman of JetBlue Airways

CMO blogs

1. http://www.novell.com/company/blogs/cmo/ -John Dragoon, CMO, Novell

Some other Blogs

1. http://www.klynch.com - Chief Software Architect at Adobe.
2. http://www.drlaundryblog.com/ - Dr. Laundry, The Clorox Company
3. http://www.blogsouthwest.com/ - Southwest airlines blog
4. http://jnjbtw.com/ - Johnson & Johnson
5. http://boeingblogs.com/randy/ - Randy Tinseth, vice president, marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes
6. http://www.ingblogs.com/mycupofcha/ - Jacques Kemp, Chief Executive Officer, ING Asia/Pacific
7. http://www.coca-colaconversations.com/ - Phil Mooney, historian/archivist for The Coca-Cola Company