Ballmer
in Detroit...
Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer capped the Detroit Economic Club's
National Summit of business and economic leaders Wednesday. Ballmer
told Detroit Free Press columnist Tom Walsh that the company located
a research and development center in Vancouver, British Columbia in
2007 because of restrictive United States immigration policy, not because
of high taxes or regulation. And he told Reuters that gaining on Google
in terms of search is a long term proposition. In his actual remarks
before the Summit, according to Crain's Detroit Business, Ballmer
said America has to ramp up its ability to innovate. He said business
must relearn the importance of R&D over short-term profit -- and
government must reward R&D. More.
GM's
Henderson speaks out on energy, bankruptcy at National Summit General Motors Corp. President and CEO Fritz Henderson spoke
candidly on energy costs at The National Summit during Wednesday's general
session on energy. Henderson spoke on how energy costs will affect the
future of the automotive industry, as well as consumers. Henderson also
told the Detroit News that GM's trip through bankruptcy court is proceeding
"according to plan," and a new company consisting of the automaker's
best assets could emerge within 60 to 90 days. And he told MLive.com
that the bankruptcy isn't cutting sales. More.
Ford
CEO decries regulation; National Summit report going to DC Ford CEO Alan Mulally says regulation has stymied innovation
among business and manufacturers in the United States. Speaking at The
National Summit Wednesday, Mulally says businesses must be freed up
in order to find new ways to advance U.S. manufacturing. He said corporate
America must work to polish its image in light of government bailouts
and securities fraud, by explaining the value businesses bring to the
world. Also, as the three-day summit wrapped up, Ford Executive Chairman
Bill Ford said he and Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris will meet with
the U.S. Commerce Secretary later this year to present the findings
of a three-day summit on manufacturing, energy, technology and the environment.
More.
Medical Society,
Microsoft, Covisint to expand health care tech The
Michigan State Medical Society Wednesday announced a collaboration with
Microsoft Corp., Compuware subsidiary Covisint and MedImpact Healthcare
Systems Inc., to be first in the nation to provide statewide connectivity
of medical and pharmacy data for Michigan. Patients and physicians who
use the medical society's electronic portal, MSMS Connect, will now
have access to critical health care data in one location -- Microsoft
HealthVault. This new collaboration expands MSMS' nation-leading effort
to help implement electronic health care technology statewide. More.
Proxy:
Compuware compensation crashes Compuware Corp. CEO Peter Karmanos Jr. saw his salary plunge
in the company's most recent fiscal year, ended March 31, from a year
earlier, according to the company's proxy statement, released Wednesday.
Karmanos' total compensation -- salary, bonus, stock options and other
income -- was $2,821,668 in the year ended March 31, down from $5,309,207
a year earlier and $3,272,158 the year before that. Compuware CFO Laura
L. Fournier saw her pay drop to $1,449,984 from $2,286,530, while president
and COO Robert C. Paul saw his drop to $1,731,449 from $2,283,366. More.
Two Midland advanced energy firms sweep GLEQ top prizes
The
Great Lakes Entrepreneur’s Quest hosted its Statewide Business
Plan Competition Award Ceremony last week with partner organizations
Automation Alley and NextEnergy at the James B. Henry Center on the
Michigan State University campus.
The GLEQ $25,000 Grand Prize
in the Emerging Company category was awarded to Kinetic Wave Power LLC
of Midland. Kinetic Wave Power is led by Vice President of Technology
James Sack and has developed unique technology to use renewable energy
contained in ocean waves.
The runner up award of $5,000
in the Emerging Company category was captured by Lambert Technologies
of Canton Township. Lambert Technologies has developed and is bringing
to market a patented stress-testing tool for engineers to verify and
validate engineering designs of structural components.
In the New Business
Idea category, Advanced Battery Concepts LLC of Midland received the
First Place cash award of $5,000 and RateMyStudentRental LLC was awarded
the runner up award of $1,000.
Advanced Battery
Concepts has developed battery electrode technology, branded GreenSeal,
which enables dramatic improvements in battery performance while lowering
costs. Additionally, flexibility in packaging combined with weight savings
enables new applications to become feasible for lead-acid batteries.
RateMyStudentRental offers
a Web-based rental property rating system for student rentals, with
a management system for landlords and a private-label housing portal
for universities.
Advanced Battery Concepts
also received two innovation awards. The awards are the Automation Alley
Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Award of $12,500 and the NextEnergy
Alternative Energy Innovation Award of $10,000.
Note: For
information on how you can sponsor content in the Blue Box, contact
Jeff Lasser at (248) 455-7319 or jeff.lasser@cbsradio.com
Marshall industrial
park gets gigabit Ethernet Broadstripe LLC, a high-speed Internet service provider with
offices in Charlotte, and Tukwila, Wash., announced that it had deployed
a gigabit Ethernet passive optical network to serve businesses within
the Brooks Industrial Park in Marshall with super high capacity metro
Ethernet service. The project will allow park businesses to use super
high-speed data applications, multichannel high resolution video and
toll quality voice. More.
UM's Ross
School Frankel Fund announces new investment
The Frankel Commercialization Fund, a student-managed venture
capital seed fund at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business,
has announced an investment of $80,000 in Accio Energy, an Ann Arbor-based
developer of an innovative wind energy system. Accio Energy, founded
by entrepreneurs Dawn White and David Carmein, has developed a wind
energy device that utilizes charged particles and wind to create electricity.
More.
Somanetics
profits, revenue falls as distribution deal is renewed Troy-based
Somanetics Corp. Wednesday reported net revenues of $11.8 million for
the second fiscal quarter ended May 31, down 7 percent from $12.7 million
in the same period of 2008. Net income was $1.8 million, or 14 cents
a share, down 42 percent from $3.1 million or 21 cents a share in the
second quarter of fiscal 2008. However, the company said a major distribution
deal was renewed. More.
THE WORLD
IN TECH
AT&T relents
on iPhone pricing for upgraders AT&T
Inc. will allow some current iPhone owners to upgrade to a new model
at the same price as new buyers when it is released Friday. Wednesday's
announcement comes after AT&T took some criticism from iPhone owners
who felt that its prices were unfair. Current owners would have to pay
$399 for the cheapest version of the new iPhone 3G S, compared with
$199 for new buyers. The Dallas-based carrier heavily subsidizes the
purchase price of the phone, and it takes a while for it to make that
money back through monthly service fees. That means it doesn't want
to sell new, subsidized phones to customers who haven't "paid off"
their old phones. More.
Attempted
Iran clampdown shows resilience of modern media Iran
clamped down on independent media in an attempt to control images of
election protests, but pictures and videos leaked out anyway -- showing
how difficult it is to shut off the flow of information in the Internet
age. The restrictions imposed by the government made such social-networking
sites as Twitter and Flickr more prominent - with even the U.S. State
Department calling on Twitter to put off a scheduled shutdown for maintenance.
Iranians were posting items online, but it wasn't known how much of
that information was being seen by others inside the country. And although
some of the posts on Twitter appeared to be from users in Tehran, others
clearly were not. More.
Top
senator: NSA not violating wiretap law
The chairman of the
Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday disputed a newspaper report
that the National Security Agency conducted more widespread intercepts
of private U.S. conversations in 2008 and early this year than has been
acknowledged. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said that as far as she
knows the NSA has not committed flagrant violations of the rules governing
surveillance of American e-mails and phone calls. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.,
a member of the Judiciary Committee, also questioned the accuracy of
the story in The New York Times. The Times quoted Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J.,
who chairs the Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, as being very concerned
about the extent that conversations were over collected and doubted
that violations reported in April were accidental. More.
Survey:
Elderly and poor begin to close Digital Divide Some
groups that have lagged in signing up for high-speed Internet service,
like the elderly, the poor and rural residents, have started to gain
on those who have had a head start, according to a new survey. Those
conclusions come as the government is set to decide how to spend $7.2
billion in stimulus money on expanding the availability of broadband.
Broadband usage among those 65 or older grew from 19 percent in May
2008 to 30 percent this April, the Pew Internet & American Life
Project said Wednesday. Among households with annual income of less
than $20,000, 35 percent subscribed to broadband this year, compared
with 25 percent last year. More.
Stocks:
Tech stocks keep gains; Adobe rises on results
Technology stocks closed Wednesday with gains after prepared remarks
from President Obama gave the broad market a boost. Obama
delivered a speech late Wednesday morning, outlining sweeping changes
to the financial markets designed to avoid future crisis. See
full story. The Nasdaq Composite Index (COMP)
rose 11.88 points or 0.7 percent to 1,808.06. The Dow Jones Industrial
Average ($INDU)
fell 7.49 points, or 0.1 percent, to 8,497.18. The Philadelphia Semiconductor
Index ($SOX)
rose 2.45 points or 0.9 percent to 266.16. The Morgan Stanley High Tech
35 Index (MSH)
rose 2.82 points or 0.6 percent to 448.92. The NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical
Index (DRG)
rose 4.87 points or 1.9 percent to 258.73. The Amex Biotech Index (BTK)
rose 8.01 points or 1.2 percent to 660.8. Finally, the Standard & Poor's
500 (SPX)
fell 1.26 points or 0.1 percent to 910.71.
First, greetings from East Lansing,
where I spent big chunks of Wednesday at my baby daughter's
orientation to Michigan State University. She got her first
semester of pre-nursing classes, and her mom and I got lessons
in supporting without smothering. Oh, and the Kellogg Hotel
Internet service rocks -- 13.61 megabits per second
upload, 11.87 megabits per second down. Next, the local extras:
Orion's Scate adds an app that adds video and pictures to Twitter
tweets; customer service representative quality is key to
call
center satisfaction; the University of Michigan finds the
first evidence of lightning
on Mars; Waste Management opens a Detroit
recycling center; Ypsilanti's ISSYS gets a new partnership
for fluidic
microsystem devices; a Ferndale pharma firm offers a new
wound
care product; and new deli kiosk software from Nextep.
Elsewhere
in Techland: An AP review of playful Hunch.com, which helps
you make decisions; the guessing game continues as to just
how
much money YouTube is losing; Google cedes to a German demand
to erase
some mapping data; a homeopathic cold cure can cause loss
of sense of smell; the mystery of the missing
sunspots may be solved; the Air Force is planning a new
fleet of robotic
aircraft; a Best Buy ad claims their people are better
than Wal-mart's; high costs, delays and technical challenges
bedevil an international
fusion project; Google's data sync tool breaks Windows
search; 'Golden Cash' botnet-leasing network uncovered;
turns out teen online safety is mostly
about behavior; launch a radio takeover
with Jelli; and the CNET News.com Daily Podcast brings up the
troubles
with Netbooks.
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Two Midland advanced energy firms sweep GLEQ top prizes
