Intercultural Business News

SINCE it was unveiled in 2007 Amazon’s Kindle has dominated the fledgling market for devices that let users download and read electronic books. Now it faces a formidable challenge. On August 25th Sony unveiled a new, expensive electronic-book reader for the American market that will compete with Amazon’s offerings. Both firms are betting that demand for devices dedicated to displaying electronic text will grow explosively. They could be disappointed.

Although Sony has sold e-book readers in America for several years, the Japanese firm allowed Amazon to gain the upper hand with the Kindle, which offers users the novel ability to download books wirelessly from Amazon’s online store. Now Sony is trying to reassert its technological supremacy with its new device, dubbed the “Daily Edition”, which will be available in December for a hefty $399. This boasts not only a wireless link, but also a touchscreen interface that is much slicker than the Kindle’s clunky buttons.

The Sony "Daily Edition"

 Yet Amazon still retains one big advantage: its vast online book emporium. To level the playing field, Sony has struck a deal with Google that gives users free access to more than a million books scanned by the internet firm. It has also embraced an open electronic standard that lets customers buying e-books from Sony read them on other devices running the software. And it has inked deals with public libraries so users can borrow electronic books that disappear automatically when the loan period expires.

Read More>Economist.com

Nokia, the world’s top mobile phone maker, plans to make laptops, branching out from its traditional mobile phone market to enter the fast-growing netbook sector with a “mini-laptop”.

The Finnish company is looking to broaden its base in mobile devices that connect to internet, crossing the border between two converging industries in the opposite direction to Apple, which entered the phone market in 2007 with the iPhone.

The next logical step for Nokia?

Nokia has seen its profit margins drop over the last quarters as traditional handset demand has slumped, although sales of smartphones have accelerated. Research firm IDC expects netbook shipments this year to grow more than 127 per cent from 2008 to more than 26 million units, outperforming the overall PC market that is expected to remain flat and a phone market which is shrinking some 10 per cent.

Nokia’s first netbook, the Nokia Booklet 3G, will use Microsoft’s Windows software and Intel’s Atom processor to offer up to 12 hours of battery life while weighing just 1.25 kilograms. It will have a 10-inch screen and 3G wireless capability to connect to the web

Read More>Times Online

London’s rich hedge fund managers and private equity executives will quit the UK in droves ahead of the 50% top tax rate next spring.

That is the news from City tax advisers who say they have never been so busy consulting with professionals on how to leave the UK and avoid their tax bill from Revenue & Customs.

Chancellor Alistair Darling has announced that from next April people paid more than £150,000 a year will pay tax at 50%. But the loss of allowances in reality takes that top tax rate to more than 60% for some.

Is the UK to become the highest taxing country in Europe?

It makes Britain the highest taxing nation in Europe after the traditionally big income takers of Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands.

The advent of the 50% tax rate appears to be the final straw for many hedge funds and other money firms who are being actively lobbied by the Swiss authorities to decamp to Zug, Zurich or Geneva.

They are being promised that in Switzerland they can hide from increasing European Union regulation or the intervention of watchdog agencies like Britain’s Financial Services Authority.

Read More>London Evening Standard

An Indian government delegation arrives today in Houston, the heart of the American oil industry, hoping to raise as much as $4 billion (£2.4 billion) by auctioning rights to drill for hydrocarbons at the Bay of Bengal.

The sale of 70 exploration licences for the Krishna-Godavari basin, parts of which have already proven rich in natural gas, is the largest to be undertaken by India and may prove a key factor in the nation’s energy security.

But potential investors will have something on their mind other than thoughts of striking petrochemical gold: an increasingly vicious row between the world’s richest,and possibly most fractious, brothers.

Mukesh and Anil Ambani — who are together worth more than $30 billion — fell out after the death in 2002 of their father, Dhirubhai, who rose from rags to riches by creating Reliance, a sprawling industrial empire embracing petrochemicals and telecoms. He died without writing a will.

The Feuding Ambani Brothers

 
In 2005 the company was split between the feuding brothers under terms hammered out by their mother, Kokilaben — the only person so far to have mediated successfully between the siblings. Since then, however, dealings between India’s most prominent “Bollygarchs”, who account for as much as 5 per cent of India’s GDP between them, have descended from frosty to sub-zero.

Read More>The Times Online

Greyhound buses have become part of American folklore, and they are about to become a feature of British life.

FirstGroup, the British company that owns Greyhound Lines, will start running budget Greyhound buses next month.

The new operator should stimulate competition in the UK transport market, by taking on National Express and Megabus, which is owned by Stagecoach, in the low-cost travel market. FirstGroup is aiming to emulate BoltBus, an American division of Greyhound aimed at younger travellers.

Will Greyhound Busses Become A Regular Sight On UK Roads?

Greyhound will run from hourly services from Victoria in central London to Portsmouth and Southampton from September 14. FirstGroup hopes to add further destinations next year.
With fares starting from £1.50, including a 50p booking fee, FirstGroup appears to be targeting travellers who find rail travel too expensive. Free wi-fi on the buses is likely to attract younger customers.

Read More>The Times Online