Posted by Admin on January 26th, 2010 ~
0 Comments Facing consumer lawsuits and scrutiny by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Matrixx Initiatives Inc. posted a loss of $13.9 million for the nine months ended Dec. 31, compared with $10.7 million during the same period in 2008.
Money stopped rolling in shortly after the FDA told the Phoenix company to pull its Zicam nasal gel products off retail shelves in June 2009 because of complaints that consumers were losing their sense of smell after using the cold product.
The company hired the Phoenix office of Chicago-based advertising agency Cramer-Krasselt to create a branded advertising campaign for other Zicam cough and cold products not affected by the FDA mandate. Advertising Age reported that the contract was valued at about $30 million.
In a prepared statement, Bill Hemelt, president and CEO of Matrixx, said the Zicam Cold Remedy oral delivery products are gaining market share.
For the 12 weeks ended Dec. 27, retail unit sales of Zicam Cold Remedy oral delivery products increased 16 percent, while the total cough/cold category increased 5 percent compared to the previous year.
Hemelt attributes the gains to increased in-store promotion and advertising.
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Tags: Loss, Loss Rise
Posted by Admin on January 24th, 2010 ~
0 Comments 
World Economic Forum – Davos 2010
My blog for the WEF – Day 1, Part 2 .
My self-assigned role is to represent the technologist, entrepreneur and mobile money communities.
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffective, concerning all acts of initiative and creation…Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now” – Goethe
Klaus Schwab sent me a book and a note to provide more background on the World Economic Forum. He invited me to review the survey of the key issues which preoccupied humanity over the last 40 years. As I fly to the World Economic Forum, I read this review and think about what I look forward to and who I look forward to meeting in Davos. I am a tech
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Tags: Role, Selfassigned Role
Posted by Admin on January 24th, 2010 ~
0 Comments Name: Dr. Sara Brenner
Sara Brenner in action
Age: 29
Hometown: Guilderland
Real job: Assistant vice president for NanoHealth Initiatives and assistant professor of nanobioscience at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering
Passion outside work: Brenner likes entering what some may consider “extreme” running competitions. In addition to running marathons and trail races, she has also run ultra-marathons and participates in snowshoe racing across the northeast during the winter months. In the fall of 2008, she ran the JFK 50 Mile, an ultra-marathon that starts in Hagerstown, Md. and covers 16 miles of the rugged Appalachian Trail. Her official time was over nine hours. Brenner runs between 40 to 60 miles per week, but when she is training for a marathon, she will ramp up to individual runs between 20 to 25 miles. The longest race that Brenner has done was the 200-mile Green Mountain Relay between Jeffersonville and Bennington, Vt. Brenne
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Tags: Brenner, Sara Brenner
Posted by Admin on January 22nd, 2010 ~
0 Comments 
For more than a week now we have been shocked at the scenes of utter devastation and chaos that is happening in Haiti since the magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck on the 12th of January. In New Zealand we also live in fear of “the big one” hitting us one day as we exist in a similar area of tectonic instability. It’s not a question of if, but when.
How would your company cope if a major earthquake struck tomorrow and have you done anything about planning for how you would recover as fast as possible? A disaster plan will allow you to make decisions before a disaster strikes your business and forces you to determine how you are going to deal with one should it happen.
A disaster plan will allow you to deal and come to terms with the disaster situation in those first critical hours or days rather than deciding on how you are going to deal with it.
A plan is ideal for recognising physical disasters such as fires, floods and the very real act of terrorism. It wi
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Posted by Admin on January 22nd, 2010 ~
0 Comments US government must work with IT industry to enforce security of cloud computing, says Microsoft
Microsoft has requested that the US government takes steps to ensure the security of cloud computing.
At a Brookings Institution Policy forum earlier this week, the company’s senior vice president Brad Smith claimed that organisations need reassurance if they are to transfer data from their own infrastructure to the cloud.
Part of this would include the establishment of a Cloud Computing Advancement Act in the US, introducing laws, rules and policies on how cloud services are administered, with harsher punishments being handed down to data centre hackers, Smith said.
“We also need government to modernise the laws, adapt them to the cloud, and adopt new measures to protect privacy and promote security,” he added. “Ther
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Tags: Security
Posted by Admin on January 21st, 2010 ~
0 Comments Downturn finally catches up with Big Blue, but new services signings point to strong year ahead
Computing giant IBM has posted revenue growth of just 0.8% to $27.2 billion for the final quarter of 2009, reflecting a decline in systems and consultancy sales. Were it not for favourable currency exchange rate fluctuations, quarterly revenue would have declined by 5%, the company said.
Despite this lacklustre revenue, IBM did manage to grow net income by 9% to $4.8 billion, thanks in part to a $3.7 billion cost cutting drive.
IBM also bolstered its new services signings during the quarter, increasing them 9% to $18.8 billion, ahead of its initial forecast of $17 billion, lend further weight to predictions of an upturn in IT services during 2010.
In a conference call, IBM explained that customers had held back on larger contracts as a result of the unfavourable economic climate, but insisted that some major software deals will “roll over” into the first quarter.
The company said that it was expecting recent investments in cloud computing and advanced analytics to play a larger role in its overall operations this year. Ear
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Tags: Big, Big Deals
Posted by Admin on January 18th, 2010 ~
0 Comments Premium travel remained in a slump in November 2009, but improved over October, International Air Transport Association (IATA) reported Tuesday.
The group’s analysis shows the number of passengers traveling on first or business class airline tickets during November was 6.7 percent lower than November 2008. But it marked an improvement over the 9.3 percent drop in October.
IATA said there has been a rise in premium travel in recent months, which is now around 5 percent higher than its May low point, but much of the upturn took place mid-year, since then there has been little further progress once seasonal fluctuations are taken into account.
Premium travel numbers are still roughly 20 percent lower than early 2008 levels.
Economy travel is now showing positive year-on-year growth rates, up 3.5 percent in November, and economy travel levels are now just 4 percent below where they were in early 2008.
Total passenger numbers are some 6 percent away from recovering early 2008 levels, IATA said.
Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport has felt the brunt of the recession as the Valley’s tourism sector struggles. F
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Tags: Premium Travel, Travel