Home » Technology

Technology

Articles

Emerging India: Opportunity or threat?: Indiana businesses brace for growing global competition

Opportunity or threat? Indiana businesses brace for growing global competition Next month, President Bush will make his first official visit to India. To most of the American media, it’ll be just one more round of global terrorism discussions with a distant foreign nation, perhaps worthy of a brief. The Indian press knows better. Six weeks ahead of Bush’s trip, banner headlines about it ran in every newspaper. Al Hubbard knows better, too. Friends with Bush since their days at Harvard…

Read More

Tiny firm initiates ‘triple play’: Hancock Telecom first to bat with voice-data-video combo

Not so long ago, the heart of Hancock Telecom in the tiny town of Maxwell was a concrete bunker ticking with the solenoids of telephone switching equipment. But about a year ago, the devices were moved to a corner to make room for rack after rack of satellite receivers-fed by a 32-foot dish big enough to cap a corn silo. The product: 176 channels of network and local TV programming that leave headquarters in the form of pulsing light via…

Read More

Entrepreneurship the Indian way: A day with a Bangalore software-maker reveals business parallels

BANGALORE, India-HealthAsyst CEO Umesh Bajaj remembers when the only computers allowed in India were self-assembled. As recently as 20 years ago, the Indian government’s protectionist measures prohibited foreign companies from directly selling PCs. Instead, Indians imported microchips and built the computers themselves. In his first job as an electronics engineer for an Indian conglomerate, Bajaj crisscrossed the country marketing versions of mainframes and desktops made in India. Today Bajaj, a 55-year-old born in New Delhi, owns his own Bangalore-based health…

Read More

Emerging India: Passage to Bangalore: Hoosiers seek outsourcing and investment opportunities

Passage to Bangalore Hoosiers seek outsourcing and investment opportunities BANGALORE, India-The deal was falling apart. Despite a week of flirtation and friendly negotiations, the two young Indian entrepreneurs rejected the offer from the group of Hoosier investors. Frustrated, the investors walked out of the hotel conference room. The chance to speculate on an Indian software startup called Picsquare.comhad fizzled. But none of the six Indiana business leaders was demoralized. After all, they’d crossed the globe to pursue business opportunities in…

Read More

RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: The Fortune 500 begins to dance with blogs

Ford and GM do it. So do Sprint, Sun, Boeing and Xerox. But Raytheon, 3M, Kmart, McDonald’s, and most of the rest of the Fortune 500 don’t. At last count, only 22 of the Fortune 500 did it, according to Socialtext.net. Why do so few companies blog? Before going on, let’s define “blog.” A “blog” is shorthand for “weblog,” which is essentially an online diary anybody can read and anybody can annotate with comments. Blogs are not strictly Web sites,…

Read More

New FBI facility: tough case to crack: Government struggling to find site to build field office for bureau

The highly-sought-after job of developing a new building for the FBI’s Indianapolis field office is still in play, but it’s hampered by the federal government’s inability to find a site for the building. A bevy of local and national developers are expected to throw their hats in the ring to develop the building, which the Government Services Agency says needs to be 110,000 square feet. For the winner, it would be a high-profile project and one of the more significant…

Read More

Want-ad battle brewing: Newspapers feel threatened by state’s deal with Monster

A four-year, $2.8 million deal between the DWD and McLean, Va.-based Monster Government Solutions to develop and maintain an online job search and recruitment system is coming under heavy fire, with newspaper operators saying a system funded by their own tax dollars will harm their business. DWD officials said the deal is designed to lower unemployment and boost Indiana’s economy. “We think this deal is going to result in a brain gain, keeping people employed and keeping our college graduates…

Read More

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Let the private sector operate the Toll Road

Watching the tug and pull of partisan politics in full bloom in our state capital brings to mind that old saying about making laws and making sausage. You don’t really want to see how either one happens. But as our elected leaders posture and fight over the table scraps of new revenue that can realistically be said to be squeezed out of what has historically been an overcommitted state budget, another, more hopeful, vision comes to mind. It’s a vision…

Read More

Bills clash over video regulation: Phone giants, cable firms fight about franchising rules

In fact, some say the franchising clash has overshadowed the real implications of deregulation: Cable operators will get their first real competition since satellite TV mushroomed in the mid-1990s. Municipalities, which grant franchise agreements to cable TV companies and collect millions in fees in return, hyperventilated when Sen. Brandt Hershman, R-Wheatfield, introduced Senate Bill 245 last month. It would give the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission the job of doling out statewide video franchises. Cities would lose that authority, but would…

Read More

IPOs take minor dip in 2005: Analysts stay optimistic; 3 Indiana companies set to go public in early ’06

Three Indiana companies took the plunge to go public last year, two less than the number that did so in 2004. The state’s slight dip in initial public offerings mirrors the slump in activity nationally. But Indiana appears to be off to a fast start for 2006. Three other Hoosier companies filed to go public late last year, but had yet to complete their IPOs by year’s end. Overall, the number of companies that went public on the major U.S….

Read More

Firms face choice: Spend or be swallowed: Independent third-party benefits administrators watch consolidation wave sweep through state

For small companies, “their systems costs are just eating them alive,” said Donley, president of Donley & Co. Inc. “If they lose a couple large clients, all of a sudden they go from being in the black to being in the red.” Donley and others say the skyrocketing cost of doing business has triggered a wave of consolidation in the Indiana market for benefits administration. Since 2003, larger companies have gobbled or plan to gobble at least seven independently owned…

Read More

VIEWPOINT: Our schools let talent go to waste

We have two kinds of schools: those that encourage each child to be all he/she can be and those that focus on being efficient institutions for groups of children. The first kind of school finds ways to help each child who struggles, meets each child’s educational needs, and finds ways to provide each child with the context to achieve as much as he/she can at the most appropriate pace. The second kind of school is focused on making sure as…

Read More

RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Are cell phones bad for conducting business? Researchers have discovered something they call ‘inattention blindness’ for drivers using cell phones

After having a cell phone for several years now, I’m asking myself if they’re worth having in the car. Ever since I saw that the ultra-cool Mike Connors had one in his convertible in the TV show “Mannix,” I’ve been besotted with the desire to look similarly cool as I call my secretary back at the office. There’s a sense of power and control with having a phone in the car. There’s also a residual tint of elitist clout, too….

Read More

CHRIS KATTERJOHN Commentary: Greetings from Florida-and the Edge

NAPLES, Fla.-After 11 days of vacation here in Naples, I’m beginning to gear up to return to work. I’ll be back in the office on the 23rd. Let me tell you what I’ve read since I’ve been down here. I started with “Memoirs of a Geisha,” an engaging piece of fiction that tells a beautiful love story while revealing the inside world of Japanese geisha. Second, I tackled “The Grail Bird,” a work of non-fiction that tells the story of…

Read More

CHRIS KATTERJOHN Commentary: Greetings from Florida-and the Edge

NAPLES, Fla.-After 11 days of vacation here in Naples, I’m beginning to gear up to return to work. I’ll be back in the office on the 23rd. Let me tell you what I’ve read since I’ve been down here. I started with “Memoirs of a Geisha,” an engaging piece of fiction that tells a beautiful love story while revealing the inside world of Japanese geisha. Second, I tackled “The Grail Bird,” a work of non-fiction that tells the story of…

Read More

RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Are cell phones bad for conducting business? Researchers have discovered something they call ‘inattention blindness’ for drivers using cell phones

After having a cell phone for several years now, I’m asking myself if they’re worth having in the car. Ever since I saw that the ultra-cool Mike Connors had one in his convertible in the TV show “Mannix,” I’ve been besotted with the desire to look similarly cool as I call my secretary back at the office. There’s a sense of power and control with having a phone in the car. There’s also a residual tint of elitist clout, too….

Read More

IPOs take minor dip in 2005: Analysts stay optimistic; 3 Indiana companies set to go public in early ’06

Three Indiana companies took the plunge to go public last year, two less than the number that did so in 2004. The state’s slight dip in initial public offerings mirrors the slump in activity nationally. But Indiana appears to be off to a fast start for 2006. Three other Hoosier companies filed to go public late last year, but had yet to complete their IPOs by year’s end. Overall, the number of companies that went public on the major U.S….

Read More

Firms face choice: Spend or be swallowed: Independent third-party benefits administrators watch consolidation wave sweep through state

For small companies, “their systems costs are just eating them alive,” said Donley, president of Donley & Co. Inc. “If they lose a couple large clients, all of a sudden they go from being in the black to being in the red.” Donley and others say the skyrocketing cost of doing business has triggered a wave of consolidation in the Indiana market for benefits administration. Since 2003, larger companies have gobbled or plan to gobble at least seven independently owned…

Read More

VIEWPOINT: Our schools let talent go to waste

We have two kinds of schools: those that encourage each child to be all he/she can be and those that focus on being efficient institutions for groups of children. The first kind of school finds ways to help each child who struggles, meets each child’s educational needs, and finds ways to provide each child with the context to achieve as much as he/she can at the most appropriate pace. The second kind of school is focused on making sure as…

Read More

Biz-incentive plan may be beefed up: Legislators seek to strengthen EDGE program by doubling retention tax credit to $10 million

Indiana’s showcase business incentive program is about to go through another tweaking. At the request of the Indiana Economic Development Corp., legislators are considering changing the EDGE tax credit program to give it more teeth to retain existing jobs. Since 1994, Indiana has used the Economic Development for a Growing Economy, or EDGE credit, to spur private-sector job growth. The program allows budding companies to abate state payroll taxes for new employees. Over the last 12 years, Indiana has authorized…

Read More