NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar 29, 2010 - Columbia Business
School today announced its 6th Annual India Business Conference on
April 2nd. This year's theme, “India: The Decade
Ahead,” will focus on the upcoming years as India...

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar 29, 2010 - Columbia Business
School today announced its 6th Annual India Business Conference on
April 2nd. This year's theme, “India: The Decade
Ahead,” will focus on the upcoming years as India...

Seton Hill University in Greensburg, Pa., plans to give all its students an Apple iPad and a MacBook laptop computer in the fall. The school will give the Apple Inc. devices to every student (it has about 1,550) in the fall, and to all entering freshmen thereafter. Seton Hill has spent $1.5 million on campus technology infrastructure. It plans to charge students about $500 per term for this

Scientists have embraced the Grid, but businesses have held back, concerned about complexity and security. Now a European research team has built a platform opening the Grid's vast resources to business users.

Scientists have embraced the Grid, but businesses have held back, concerned about complexity and security. Now a European research team has built a platform opening the Grid's vast resources to business users.

I wanted to let everyone know that I'm back from my break, and will resume regular blogging tomorrow. I have a few topics queued up, but in case I've missed something - any big stories out there that we should be talking about?

Ken Lewis said he would step down as chief executive of Bank of America by the end of the year. Mr Lewis has had a rough time ever since BofA took over Merrill Lynch amid the financial maelstrom in September 2008. The deal was welcomed at first, but BofA had to ask the government for an extra $20 billion in funding to help smooth its acquisition. Mr Lewis also became a lightning rod for general criticisms over bank bonuses when huge rewards were paid to Merrill executives after the merger. These are now the subject of multiple investigations.America’s Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation proposed a novel solution for rebuilding its deposit-insurance fund, depleted after a spate of seizures. Banks will pay three years’-worth of premiums, or $45 billion, upfront. But they will be able to record this on balance-sheets over time. This should enable the FDIC to avoid having to borrow from the Treasury, for now. ...

It was International Data Privacy Day yesterday. That’s doesn’t appear to have led to any restaurant or bar discounts or formed the basis of an awesome themed party, but it did produce a series of events and speeches to promote the issue.

Ben Bernanke remarked that the Federal Reserve was “closely” watching currency markets, and that the central bank would “help ensure that the dollar is strong”. The weak dollar has caused commodity prices to nudge up, a potential inflationary threat. Any opinion from the chairman of the Fed regarding the value of the greenback is controversial because the Treasury handles exchange-rate policy. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who heads the IMF, called on China to let the yuan appreciate, “the sooner the better”. China tightly controls its currency by pegging it to the dollar—benefiting domestic exports—and has so far resisted pleas to allow it to rise. See article ...

Jan 8 - Plastic Logic launches its Que electronic reading device at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and describes it as the world's first proReader.

Finance ministers from the G20 countries met in London to discuss the outline of a new framework for regulating finance ahead of a summit in Pittsburgh this month. The new rules, should they be adopted, would require banks to increase capital as a buffer against a downturn and ask financial companies to develop “living wills” that set out procedures for creditors to unwind a failed bank. The meeting was held almost a year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which helped trigger the world’s worst financial crisis since the 1930s. See articleThe ministers also discussed ways to implement uniform guidelines on bankers’ bonuses. Separately, Lloyd Blankfein, the boss of Goldman Sachs, gave a speech in which he said anger about bankers’ pay was “understandable and appropriate”. ...

The crisis surrounding Greece’s debt situation gathered pace, despite the prime minister’s assurance that “the worst is over”. The yield on ten-year Greek government bonds jumped sharply, pushing Greece’s premium over German bonds to the highest level since Greece joined the euro in 2001. Markets are rattled by, and some investors are taking advantage of, the uncertainty about what the terms would be of an actual Greek bail-out, which has been agreed in principle by the European Union. See article

Barack Obama went to Wall Street on the first anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers to tout his blueprint for overhauling America’s financial regulatory system. The president recognised that the financial industry is “beginning to return to normalcy” after the worst panic since the 1930s, but warned that there are some “who are misreading this moment”. He reiterated his administration’s plans to create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, close regulatory loopholes and hand more oversight powers to the Federal Reserve. Critics responded that the proposals would only hinder banks. Ben Bernanke said for the first time that America’s recession is probably over, “from a technical perspective”. The chairman of the Federal Reserve cautioned that the economy’s recovery would be weak initially, and job creation would be slow. In its annual report on employment, the OECD described the short-term outlook for jobs in the rich world as “grim”. ...

Earlier tonight, we posted the video of Frank Eliason speaking at Gnomedex. His presentation was humorous, and informative. He gave us his top ten reasons why businesses should have a real presence on social media sites, such as Twitter. He made some excellent points – ones I sincerely hope you will take to heart. Social Media isn’t a fad. It isn’t going to go away. It’s here, it’s real, and it’s huge! You need to be a part of it, and you need to make good use of the time there. Use it to your advantage, and let Frank’s tips be your starting point.

A court in Shanghai handed down stiff jail sentences to four employees of Rio Tinto who had admitted taking bribes from private steel mills seeking to secure supplies of iron ore. Stern Hu, the mining company’s head salesman in China, was given a ten-year sentence and fined 1m yuan ($146,000). The mining company, which originally said there was no evidence of wrongdoing, dismissed the four after the verdict, citing “clear evidence” they had accepted bribes. Parts of the trial relating to “commercial secrets” were held in camera. See article

AP - Ex-Fannie Mae execs try to defend track record

After a coolant leak knocked out the server which supports the Café, Golem IV rises from the ashes, allowing us all to get back to business. Our thanks go to Jacques Distler for his sterling effort.

[Update: I think comments aren’t working yet.]

[Update 2: Now they are.]

I’ve been running the near daily #andypoll on Twitter for a couple of months now. Sometimes the questions are goofy, sometimes they are serious, and most of the time they are just random questions that pop into my head. The question I asked today elicited all sorts of answers.

For this particular poll, I got a ton of answers. So many, in fact, that rather than highlight a few, I compiled them into a giant picture file.

Bank of America announced that it was ready to repay the $45 billion it received in government bail-out money, which it will finance by selling $18.8 billion in securities and tapping $26.2 billion of “excess liquidity”. The bank had to demonstrate to the Treasury that it was stable enough to obtain investment through the markets. By exiting the Troubled Asset Relief Programme, BofA will be free of many of the restrictions imposed on it, including on executive pay, which is said to be hampering the bank from appointing a successor to the outgoing chief executive, Kenneth Lewis. See articleDirectors at the Royal Bank of Scotland threatened to resign if the British Treasury prevented them from paying GBP1.5 billion ($2.5 billion) in bonuses at its investment-banking unit. Some British bankers have stepped up their criticism of what they say is overbearing government influence in matters of pay and compensation. ...

After months of speculation and a failed merger effort, Microsoft and Yahoo! announced an agreement to integrate their internet-search and advertising businesses. Under the deal, Microsoft will incorporate Yahoo!’s search technologies into its existing web-search platforms while its Bing search engine will operate on Yahoo!’s websites. Microsoft will enter a revenue-sharing partnership with Yahoo!. Between them, the two account for 28% of internet searches in America, compared with Google’s 65%. See articleThere was more evidence that housing markets may be turning a corner. Sales of new homes in America jumped by 11% in June compared with May, the biggest increase in nearly nine years. And the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index for May rose by 0.5%, its first gain since mid-2006. The Land Registry’s survey of house prices in England and Wales recorded its first advance, 0.1%, in 17 months. See article ...

UBS posted a SFr1.4 billion ($1.3 billion) quarterly net loss. Net outflows of clients’ cash slowed, but still hampered the Swiss bank’s efforts to recover from huge losses. It has been hurt also by investigations in America into customer accounts allegedly used for tax evasion. UBS reached a preliminary settlement with the Internal Revenue Service in a civil action on revealing the identities of account holders. It had settled a criminal case with the Justice Department in February. See articleBritain’s big banks reported earnings for the first half. HSBC’s pre-tax profit was $5 billion—a mere half of what it made in the same period last year, but a significant improvement on its loss in the last six months of 2008. Pre-tax profit at Barclays was GBP3 billion ($4.4 billion), 8% higher than a year ago. Neither bank has taken government equity. ...

Dell took a long-awaited step towards diversifying its business when it agreed to pay $3.9 billion for Perot Systems, an IT services company. The computer-maker obtains most of its revenue from selling hardware and related products to companies, which leaves it vulnerable to business downturns. Perot Systems, founded by Ross Perot, a former presidential candidate, receives most of its income from government and health-care contracts, a more stable source of revenue which will increase if the American government digitises patients’ records as promised. The Federal Open Market Committee issued an upbeat statement on America’s economy and held interest rates at a record low. It also extended its $1.25 trillion programme of buying mortgage-backed securities into the first quarter of 2010. ...

Republican senators in America finally allowed debate to begin on legislation to overhaul financial regulation, after successfully frustrating three attempts by the Democrats to bring a bill to the floor. The Republicans were joined in their initial opposition by Ben Nelson, a Democrat from Nebraska, who wanted to remove an amendment requiring existing derivative contracts to be backed with cash as collateral. Such a move would hurt companies like Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which is based in Mr Nelson’s home state and holds $63 billion in derivatives. See article