1) Magician Loses Its Sparkling Touch: SAP, Europe's largest software maker, had been doing so well this year that it was starting to look more like the work of black magic than skilful management. That, at least, was the impression until recently when it became the last sizeable player in its devastated sector to issue a profit warning. No longer under the spell, analysts are now wondering whether the warning was a blip or the prelude to more serious problems for the German group. At the very least, they say, the episode has pointed to serious weaknesses that must be addressed quickly. One of them lies in SAP's handling of its last results announcement, which not only irritated investors but also fanned fears the group may have lost "visibility" on developments in its market...As Mr Ashton puts it: "You can have the biggest firework in the world, it is no good if you do not have the audience."

0 comments

2) SAP Chooses Sun Micro Platform Over Microsoft : SAP, Europe's biggest software group, has decided not to use Microsoft's .Net software platform and is instead backing a competing offering from Sun Microsystems. Hasso Plattner, SAP chief executive, will announce next week that the German group is to adopt Sun's J2EE architecture, a development platform for enterprise software based on the Java programming language, to run SAP software. SAP's move is likely to be a blow to Microsoft, as the German group has one of the largest customer bases of any business software developer.

0 comments

3) SAP lowers revenue target - Oct. 18, 2001: SAP, the world's biggest business software publisher, lowered its 2001 revenue target on Thursday and said it would cut more jobs.

0 comments

4) ZDNet: Enterprise: Microsoft: Big plans for Great Plains: Microsoft to rewrite Great Plains' apps in two years in C#. It's a familiar scenario: Microsoft Corp. settles into an inauspicious market toehold as competitors pay no heed – only to wake a few years later to find themselves obscured by the company's long shadow. It happened with Windows and Office. Now, the plan is to make it happen with Great Plains Software Inc.'s business applications. The software became part of Microsoft's portfolio when it acquired Great Plains this year. "All the business software in the world will be replaced," said Microsoft VP David Vaskevitch, the mastermind behind the acquisition. "It will be a 10-, 15-, even a 20-year process. You can rewrite SAP [AG], but it will be 10 times easier to rewrite Great Plains."

0 comments

5) U.S. Looking at Spacecraft as Bomber: The Pentagon is exploring development of a futuristic "space bomber" that could destroy targets on the other side of the world in 30 minutes but could also intensify the growing international debate over the militarization of space. As part of its program to modernize the military, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld directed the Pentagon last month to look into "sub-orbital space vehicles" that "would be valuable for conducting rapid global strikes," according to a planning document issued under his name.

0 comments

6) BBC News | AMERICAS | US rejects germ warfare plan: The United States has refused to sign up to an international agreement designed to enforce a ban on the use of biological weapons. Washington's representative to the United Nations-sponsored talks in Geneva said the US was unable to support the draft accord - the result of years of debate - because it would not achieve its goals and would hurt American interests.

The message that goes out now is that the world does not care about biological weapons - the most dangerous kind of all

Graham Pearson Biological weapons expert Donald Mahley said: "In our assessment, the draft protocol would put national security and confidential business information at risk."

0 comments

7) How many ways can you skin a cow? In Hindu India, there are plenty: ERODE, INDIA, July 19, 2001: To Western companies operating in India, the cow is a sacred. But nothing is so straightforward in India. India is actually a major producer and consumer of leather, and only some of it comes from goat, sheep and buffalo. With a population that is an estimated 80% Hindu, India slaughters 14 million cattle a year, making it the world's fifth most active cattle killer, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Government tax breaks have helped make leather of all kinds one of India's biggest exports. But it takes some effort to accommodate business and religion when it comes to cowhide. The Hindu religion forbids eating beef and slaughtering cows, but permits taking the hide of a ''fallen'' cow, or one that has died naturally. Central Leather Research Institute in Madras' executive director, T. Ramasami, says leather is just a by-product of cows that are slaughtered for meat. ''Economics are a reason cows became sacred, as one cow provided milk for an entire village. Economics change faster than religious beliefs," he says.

0 comments

8) REALITY RESET: "It's the Thought That Counts": "OK, now stay with me on this. One of the big limitations of law enforcement has always been that you can only arrest people for what they do, not for what they might think about doing."

"Well, naturally," I said, "You can't know what people are thinking. And even if you could know, it's criminal actions that can be prosecuted, not thoughts."

"Ah! That's where you're dead wrong, Lauren! We may not be able to extract people's thoughts yet, but we can easily infer their thoughts from what they write down," said Harvey.

0 comments

9) German union: Shun HP pay-cut plan - Tech News - CNET.com: A German union is encouraging Hewlett-Packard employees not to go along with a voluntary cost-cutting plan that asks them to take a pay cut or forfeit vacation days. HP announced a program in June under which workers could take a 10 percent pay cut through the end of October, take eight days of vacation, or take a 5 percent cut and four days of vacation. But the program was optional: Employees could chose anonymously to keep their full pay and vacation benefits without any repercussions, said spokeswoman Suzette Stephens.

0 comments

10) CNN.com - Brain drain costs developing countries billions - July 10, 2001: The United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) report estimates that India loses $2 billion a year in resources because of the emigration of computer professionals to the U.S. alone. The Human Development Report 2001 says that about 100,000 Indians are expected to emigrate each year, and the average total cost to India of educating each one of them was between $15,000 and $20,000.

0 comments

11) 11 July 2001 : Adnan Sami wants Indian citizenship: The United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) report estimates that India loses $2 billion a year in resources because of the emigration of computer professionals to the U.S. alone. The Human Development Report 2001 says that about 100,000 Indians are expected to emigrate each year, and the average total cost to India of educating each one of them was between $15,000 and $20,000.

0 comments

12) SAP Evicts Cybersquatter: Invoking its trade dispute resolution power, the World Intellectual Property Rights Organization (WIPO) has ordered India-based cybersquatter Devinder Pal Singh Bhatia to transfer the domain names Sapmaster.com and Sapwizard.com to the German multinational e-business concern, SAP AG.

0 comments

13) Germans slammed for racial intolerance - JULY 4, 2001: STRASBOURG, FRANCE, July 4, 2001: The Council of Europe said yesterday it was deeply concerned about racism and anti-semitism in Germany, slamming a broad political atmosphere of intolerance and apathy toward racist attacks in the country. Its latest report on racism and intolerance notes that the causes of racist attacks include open and latent racism and anti-semitism and a generally apathetic attitude towards such attacks. The Council's European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) identified racism in housing, education and employment and expressed concern over asylum seekers being deported to countries where they risked human- rights violations. More generally, there was concern about a culture of intolerance. A Hindu father in Germany wrote to Hindu Press International a few days ago to say that the local authorities refused to register the Hindu name of his new-born daughter, stating that it was the "law" that she had to have a German given name. Any readers of HPI familiar with Germany law in this regard are requested to contact hpi@hindu.org.

0 comments

1