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ASIAN BUSINESS
Japanese electric vehicle (EV) maker Terra Motors has raised $10 million to make the Philippines its production hub in Asia and support operations in the region.
According to Terra Motors Corp., it received funding from investors such as California based Fenox Venture Capital and Japanese firms Mizuho Capital Co. Ltd., Shinsei Bank Ltd., SMBC Venture Capital Co. Ltd., and Aizawa Securities Co. Ltd.
“By this fund raising, we got ready for partnering with Asian business groups,” Terra Motors chief executive officer Toru Tokushige said.
Part of the secured funds would be invested for the production operations in the firm’s factory in Calamba, Laguna.
This, as the company intends to make the Philippines its production hub in Asia.
“In near future, Terra will export EV from Philippines to the other Asian countries. Philippines’ production factory is a hub for Asian market,” the firm said.
Terra Motors aims to sell a total of 100,000 EVs in the Asian region by next year as it aims to enter markets such as India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Taiwan and Thailand.
Aside from Japan and the Philippines, the firm has a presence in Vietnam.
“Generally speaking, EV tends to be considered as mobility for developed countries. However, when it comes to electric two wheelers and three wheelers, the main markets are Asian emerging countries,” Tokushige said.
Earlier, he said the firm intends to start production of the electric tricycles in the Philippines within the year.
“At the beginning, we will start mass production at 500 units a month,” he said.
Terra Motors is among the parties which submitted bids for the Asian Development Bank and Department of Energy’s e-trike project.
BANKING
The country’s first automated teller machine (ATM) was set up by HSBC (Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) in Mumbai back in 1987. The 1,000th — for which no one took credit, surprisingly — came a good 12 years later. In contrast, Tata Communications Payments Solutions (TCPSL) put up its 1,000th unit within eight months of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) allowing white-label ATMs (WLATM) last year. But Sanjeev Patel, CEO, TPSCL, doesn’t want to rest on his laurels. “A thousand-plus ATMs a year happened a long time ago,” he says. The current run rate is 16,000 ATMs a year. Besides TCPSL, four others — Muthoot Finance, Prizm Payment Services, Vakrangee and BTI Payments — are in the WLATM fray. For Kochi-based Muthoot, WLATMs are a way to increasing presence in areas where it doesn’t have a branch — which number 4,300 as on date. “We have 15 ATMs (since the first one was installed in March). We have been a bit slow off the blocks, but the rollout will gather pace in the months ahead. At 100 ATMs a month, we will reach 1,000 by March 2015,” says K.R. Bijimon, chief general manager, Muthoot Finance.
WLATM is the first major ATM initiative since Mint Road allowed brown-label ATMs — operated and managed by non-banks in partnership with sponsor banks — in the mid-2000s. The ATM business (owned, brown or white label) today is at an inflection point — you can see that in the two deals struck in 2013 in brown-label ATM deployment. Last November, Japan-based Hitachi acquired ATM and point-of-sale (PoS) solutions company Prizm Payments for Rs 1,300 crore, while in December, ICICI Ventures picked up a strategic stake in Bangalore-based BTI Payments, the ATM management subsidiary of Australia-based Banktech Group, and hired K. Srinivas, former president of Bharti Airtel’s consumer business, as CEO.
BUSINESS
The technology titans behind the top two smartphone platforms in the world called a truce Friday in a long-running patent war. "Apple and Google have agreed to dismiss all the current lawsuits that exist directly between the two companies," the companies said in a joint statement.
"Apple and Google have also agreed to work together in some areas of patent reform."
The companies made it clear that the detente does not include licensing their technology to each other.
Motorola filed a patent lawsuit against Apple in US federal court four years ago, prompting the iPhone maker to fire back with a patent suit of its own.
Litigation has spread to more than a dozen other courts.
Google took on the legal wrangling when it bought Motorola Mobility in 2012 in what was seen at the time as a move to use its patents for defending Android operating software in the increasingly litigious smartphone and tablet markets.
Early this year, Google agreed to sell Motorola Mobility to China-based computer giant Lenovo. The sale has yet to be completed.
INDIA BUSINESS
Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone has bought the port of Dhamra in a deal worth 55 billion rupees ($930 million) including debt, as the company looks to handle more coal and iron ore shipments mined in India's east.
Adani Ports, part of billionaire Gautum Adani's conglomerate, is paying Tata Steel Ltd & L&T Infrastructure Development Projects Ltd in cash for the Dhamra Port Company Ltd, the company's Managing director Sudipta Bhattacharya told reporters on a media call on Friday.
Bhattacharya declined to comment on the equity value of the deal, but an official at one of the sellers who did not want to be named because the details are not public said the equity was valued at between 20 billion and 22 billion rupees.
Adani has grown into one of the largest port owners in India thanks to its Mundra plant in the west of the country, where more than 100 million tonnes of cargo are processed each year.
Bhattacharya said Adani planned to expand the amount of cargo handled at Dhamra to 100 million tonnes by 2020 from a current 14.3 million tonnes.
Based in the state of Odisha, Dhamra currently handles resources including iron ore and steel from mineral-rich states in India's east, and has environmental clearance for the development of 12 additional berths to add to its existing two
"The hinterland is growing quickly," Bhattacharya said, referring to India's eastern region. "We intend to replicate what we did with Mundra."
Adani has an agreement with Tata Steel under which the latter will send at least 5 million tonnes of cargo annually through Dhamra for the next 15 years, Bhattacharya said.
MANAGEMENT
VXL's new device management software, VMS (VXL management suite) represents a simple and easy to use software application that provides an enterprise-level IT management tool for all infrastructure administrators and service providers.
VMS provides optimum end-point management, automates tasks and keeps a constant check on the health of the IT infrastructure. Freeing IT professionals from unnecessary support tasks, VMS allows users to perform tasks on multiple systems, keeping support costs to a minimum.
Providing a centralised management solution for the entire hardware life-cycle including desktops, notebook PCs, POS, Kiosks and thin clients, VMS uses an intuitive and browser-based GUI for effective and convenient remote asset management.
Incorporating secure HTTPS-based communication and a powerful device policy for configuration management, VMS enables real-time software management, including assets and inventory, software deployment, patches, remote assistance, QoS and health monitoring, that's based on an industry-standard SQL database and optimizes remote software repositories.
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Source of Information for this issue : Google alert accessed on Google alert on May 19th and 20th, 2014
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Best wishes
Compilation
Sabita Sahu
Junior Librarian
Concept, Layout and Editing
Syamaghana Mohanty
Chief Librarian
Information and Documentation Divison, Chanakya Central Library
Asian School of Business Management
Shiksha Vihar Bhola,
Barang Khurda Road, Chandaka
Bhubaneswar-754012
www.asbm.ac.in
Tel: 0674-2374832, 2374833
E-mail: library@asbm.ac.in, chieflibrarian@asbm.ac.in
Sabita Sahu :Junior Librarian Knowledge and Information Services Unit, Chanakya Central Library, Asian School of Business Management, Bhubaneswar. library@asbm.ac.in ; www.asbm.ac.in
3 comments:
I am very happy that the service is being continued uninterrupted. Best wishes to Ms.Sabita Sahu and Mr.Mohanty.
Rajashekhar Devarai
Thank you very much sir for your good wishes.
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