MEDC helps
high-tech manufacturers grow
Two high-tech manufacturers will
expand in the Ann Arbor area with support from the Michigan Economic
Development Corp. AVL Powertrain Engineering Inc. and Molded Materials
were approved today for MEGA tax credits from the state of Michigan.
AVL’s hybrid and alternative fuel development center will provide
hybrid, electric vehicle, and alternative fuel vehicle development,
integration and testing services. AVL will add technology and manufacturing
capability with the addition of 40 new positions. It plans to invest
$2.6 million into the expansion of its current plant in Ann Arbor. Molded
Materials is an advanced materials technology company focused on the
design, engineering, and manufacturing of advanced composite components
for a wide variety of industries. It will consolidate two of its three
existing plants to Saline, adding 29 jobs over the next five years.
More.
Online
Tech sells Web site hosting business Ann Arbor-based Online Tech
Inc., Michigan’s largest data center operator, announced Tuesday
that it sold its shared web hosting business to Clarkston-based IGD
Solutions, a Web site design, development, and hosting company for small
and mid-sized businesses. Online Tech said the transaction involved
about 150 Web sites and was a cash deal of less than $1 million in amount.
Online Tech said it sold its 15-year-old Web hosting business to focus
on its rapidly expanding colocation and managed server business. More.
SRI
growing science jobs in Ann Arbor SRI International is expanding
its offices in Ann Arbor. SRI, an independent nonprofit research institute
based in Menlo Park, Calif., is leasing an additional 2,682 square feet
across the hall from its existing 3,444 square feet at 2100 Commonwealth
Boulevard in the Plymouth Park office complex. The company estimates
it will hire another three to five scientists and engineers this year
in Ann Arbor and another five to seven in 2010. The office conducts
advanced government sponsored research into imaging, radar and signal
processing. More.
Stryker
sales, earnings fall Kalamazoo-based Stryker
Corp. reported a 4.7 percent fall in net income on a 4.6 percent drop
in sales for the second quarter ended June 30. The medical device maker
said net sales were $1.63 billion, down from $1.71 billion a year earlier,
in the quarter. Net income was $291 million or 73 cents a share, down
from $306 million or 73 cents a share a year earlier. More.
Neogen's
sales, net income both hit record levels
Lansing-based Neogen Corp. Tuesday announced
a 16 percent increase in revenues for its 2009 fiscal year, which ended
May 31, and a continuation of the company's record of profitability.
Neogen's revenues for the year were $118.7 million, up from $102.4 million
in the company's previous fiscal year. The 2009 results reflect changes
in currency exchange rates that had an unfavorable impact of $2.7 million
on Neogen's international net sales. Net income was $13.9 million or
92 cents a share in fiscal 2009, up from $12.1 million or 81 cents in
fiscal 2008. Both revenues and net income for the 2009 fiscal year established
new all-time highs for the 27-year-old company. The increase took place
despite a 20-percent-plus rise in research and development spending.
More.
In the Blue Box: His business is growing in vanity numbers
A West
Bloomfield Township entrepreneur is shepherding the growth of a company
he started at the beginning of the decade, helping businesses find vanity
phone numbers.
"We set up unforgettable
phone numbers that spell things out, so people remember them and companies
can use them in their marketing," said Aaron S. Beals, a West Bloomfield
native and Western Michigan University business graduate and founder
of Ring Ring LLC.
Beals works with
clients to track down and research unique phone numbers, determining
where they are already taken and where they are available. Toll-free
numbers can be routed or taken down to the ZIP code.
Yes, companies can
just check with the phone company to see if a vanity number is available.
But Beals' company has all telephone company databases on hand, as well
as its own database and directory of vanity numbers -- as well as its
consulting expertise on how a business might go about finding an available
vanity number. (For example, 800 4-MOBILE might be taken, but 800 GET-MOBILE
might not be.)
Ring Ring also conducts
its own outreach marketing to various types of businesses.
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
Cheer for
your Bayview racer with GPS For the first time, sailing
fans around the world will be able to monitor the Pure Michigan Bayview
Mackinac Race with Global Positioning System tracking technology available
exclusively at www.michigan.org/gps.
This year marks 85 consecutive years for this premier event on Lake
Huron organized by Detroit's Bayview Yacht Club. The historic race begins
in Port Huron on July 25 with more than 250 sailboats and 2,500 crew
members headed north for the Mackinac Island finish line. A crowd of
more than 100,000 is expected on race day to bid sailors a safe and
speedy voyage. More.
New York
e-retailer rips off Detroit-area consumers, BBB says
The Better Business Bureau
is warning consumers about a New York-based online retail company that
is submitting unauthorized credit card charges months after purchases
are made. Classic Closeouts offers apparel, jewelry and other merchandise
online at classiccloseouts.com. Consumers nationwide have filed hundreds
of complaints with BBB about the company’s practices. More.
Netarx
gets deal with Indiana data centers Farmington Hills-based Netarx
Inc., a provider of collaboration and data center services, said Tuesday
it had a new alliance with South Bend, Ind.-based Global Access Point
to provide exclusive installation, monitoring and management services
in GAP’s Midwest data centers. Netarx and GAP operated data centers
will eliminate the exorbitant cost and resource requirements that companies
incur when trying to implement and manage in-house primary and secondary
data centers. GAP provides the physical and environmental data center
systems while Netarx NetCare managed services deliver digital services
such as off-site backup, disaster recovery, VOIP, hosted applications
like Microsoft Exchange, virtualized computing environments, equipment
co-location and much more. More.
THE WORLD IN TECH
Yahoo second
quarter profit rises 8 percent despite weak ad market Yahoo Inc. eked out a slightly
higher profit in the second quarter as its new, no-nonsense chief executive
cut enough expenses to shake off the Internet company's sharpest drop
in ad revenue since the dot-com bust. The worsening ad slump overshadowed
Yahoo's first quarterly earnings increase since the start of 2008, causing
the company's shares to fall more than 2 percent after the results were
released Tuesday. More.
(Oh, and here's
a transcript of some of the analyst call with Yahoo's new CEO, Carol
Bartz.) (And Yahoo jazzes up its home page with a major
makeover.)
Apple
profit rises 15 percent, helped by iPhones, laptops Apple Inc.,
the closest thing the tech industry has to a luxury brand, said Tuesday
its profit jumped 15 percent in the most recent quarter despite the
recession. IPhone revenue surged and reduced prices pushed laptop sales
higher, even as the rest of the PC industry shrank. The company, which
recently welcomed CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs back from medical leave,
said earnings in the quarter that ended June 27 rose to $1.23 billion,
or $1.35 per share. Apple's profit was $1.07 billion, or $1.19 per share,
in the same period last year. Sales increased 12 percent to $8.34 billion
from $7.46 billion in the year-ago quarter, which is the third in Apple's
fiscal calendar. More.
Twitter
all-star? Best Buy puts number at 250 followers
After buzz built online about a new marketing
job, Best Buy Co. Inc. is reworking the help-wanted listing that sought
Twitter experience and put a number on it -- 250 followers. After the
initial description for the new position of senior manager of emerging
media marketing was published four weeks ago, the world's largest consumer
electronics chain watched as the blogosphere reacted, prompting scores
of tweets, re-tweets and blog posts. The requirement for popularity
on the Twitter social-networking Web site caused the most online discussion
and ultimately prompted the chain to harness the technology it hoped
its newest employee would use. Best Buy opened the crowd-sourcing gates
and asked the public for input on just what kind of skills and talents
applicants should have. More.
Bill
Gates: Better data mean better schools The
U.S. must improve its educational standing in the world by rewarding
effective teaching and by developing better, universal measures of performance
for students and teachers, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said Tuesday.
Speaking at the National Conference of State Legislatures' annual legislative
summit, Gates told hundreds of lawmakers how federal stimulus money
should be used to spark educational innovation, spread best practices
and improve accountability. Gates, one of the world's richest men, has
been a longtime critic of American public schools and has used philanthropy
to advocate for a better educational system. U.S. schools lag their
international counterparts because of "old beliefs and bad habits,"
and it's not clear how to get them back on track without uniform achievement
standards, he said. "We don't
know the answers because we're not even asking the right questions and
making the right measurements," Gates said.
More.
Stocks:
Stocks extend weeklong rally; Nasdaq up 11 straight The stock market managed
to extend its weeklong rally even as it struggled with more worries
about the banking industry. Major market indexes seesawed through much
of Tuesday's trading and ended with gains of less than 1 percent. Better-than-expected
results from companies including Caterpillar Inc. spurred shares generally
higher, although financial stocks slid on reports of losses at several
regional banks. Investors also digested a mixed report from Federal
Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who restated the Fed's view that the
economy is still on track to recover this year, but slowly. He also
predicted rising unemployment. Analysts said the market's more subdued
tone was natural after stocks surged more than 8 percent since the start
of last week. More.
The Nasdaq Composite Index (COMP)
rose 6.91 points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,916.2. The Dow Jones Industrial
Average ($INDU)
rose 67.79 points or 0.8 percent, to 8,915.94. The Philadelphia Semiconductor
Index ($SOX)
fell 0.16 points or 0.1 percent to 293.97. The Morgan Stanley High Tech
35 Index (MSH)
rose 2.07 points or 0.4 percent to 480.64. The NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical
Index (DRG)
rose 4.29 points or 1.6 percent to 273.55. The NYSE Arca Biotech Index
(BTK)
rose 21.79 points or 2.8 percent to 814.03. Finally, the Standard &
Poor's 500 (SPX)
rose 3.45 points or 0.4 percent to 954.58.
All contents copyright 2009 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS Radio & Eye logo trademarked and copyright 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. Written and edited
by Matt Roush, Technology Editor, WWJ Newsradio 950, Detroit. GLITR may contain material from the Associated Press, CNET, News.com, MarketWatch.com or Reuters, used by permission. For coverage comments or news tips, e-mail Matt Roush at
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In the Blue Box: His business is growing in vanity numbers
The
U.S. must improve its educational standing in the world by rewarding
effective teaching and by developing better, universal measures of performance
for students and teachers, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said Tuesday.
Speaking at the National Conference of State Legislatures' annual legislative
summit, Gates told hundreds of lawmakers how federal stimulus money
should be used to spark educational innovation, spread best practices
and improve accountability. Gates, one of the world's richest men, has
been a longtime critic of American public schools and has used philanthropy
to advocate for a better educational system. U.S. schools lag their
international counterparts because of "old beliefs and bad habits,"
and it's not clear how to get them back on track without uniform achievement
standards, he said. "We don't
know the answers because we're not even asking the right questions and
making the right measurements," Gates said.
