Sulekha.com plans to go big!

Norwest Venture Partners said Wednesday it invested $10 million in Sulekha.com Inc., an online social media and local commerce site for people in or from India.

Palo Alto-based NVP said the investment is Sulekha's first institutional round of funding.

Sulekha.com has a portfolio of interactive services in the areas of social media such as blogs, groups and networking and local commerce such as classifieds, yellow pages and events in 25 cities worldwide, including eight in India. Sulekha.com has more than 2 million unique visitors to its site each month, and features over 10 million pages of content, almost all of it contributed by members.

Sulekha.com plans to use the new capital to extend business development and marketing, primarily through alliances, and expand its service offerings into new vertical markets.

It would be really intresting to see the new alliances this company makes, will track this one  for sometime.

Cagemini to buy Kanbay,EDS bought Mphasis and IBM ??

Kanbay, one of the few pure play companies in the IT services space created by a group of Indian and US entrepreneurs, has finally bitten the bullet. It has decided to become a part of global services company Capgemini. Driven by a favourable response from some of the key stakeholders of Kanbay, Capgemini on Thursday made an offer to buy out all shareholders of the Nasdaq-listed, $400-m company for $1.25bn.

Guess which Tier  2 company is IBM gonna buy out??

more
Press Release

Goldman Sach names 115 PMD's

Goldman Sachs doled
out one of its highest honors on Wednesday, naming 115 employees as
partner managing directors, or P.M.D.'s. The status, awarded to a
select group every two years, comes with a broad array of perks,
including the right to share a larger portion of the investment bank's
profits

Courtesy : NYTimes

Wow isnt this a company to work for ?? i like companies wuch companies which treat employees as partners rather than employees. He He, as if anyone hates that.

Ford posted a quarterly loss of $5.8 billion -- its largest loss in 14 years

"Ford Motor Co. on Monday posted a quarterly loss of $5.8 billion -- its largest loss in 14 years -- as slower truck sales, charges for job cuts and asset write-downs in its troubled North American operations and elsewhere took their toll on the No. 2 U.S. automaker.

Ford said it would restate results from 2001 through the second quarter and cautioned that operating results would weaken further in the current quarter.

Ford also said it was considering raising new funding secured by its automotive assets in order to protect its cash position as it pays the bill to close 16 plants and cut up to 45,000 jobs.

"These business results are clearly unacceptable," said Chief Executive Alan Mulally, who took over at Ford in early September.

Ford posted a net loss of $3.08 per share for the third quarter compared with a loss of $284 million, or 15 cents per share, a year earlier. That included a battery of charges that totaled $4.6 billion after taxes, or $2.46 per share."

All this from Ford when Toyota and Honda excel, signifies a weaker business model. It would take a total shift in strategy for Ford to ever be the Ford again!

more >> http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=businessNews&storyid=2006-10-23T175013Z_01_N23335936_RTRUKOC_0_US-AUTOS-FORD-EARNS.xml&src=rss

World's first voice resume service - TimesJobs Talkies

E-recruitment portal Timesjobs.com has entered a strategic partnership with NowPos Online Services Pvt. Ltd., a Hyderabad-based niche Voice Technologies Products Company, to launch the world's first voice resume service.

It was only a matter of time before some folks thought writing stuff was the last thing one preffered to do. This service is currently targeting BPO(business process outsourcing) industry

Potential and existing BPO employees can now "speak and record" their resumes, including answering a few typical questions and read a randomly system-chosen paragraph as part of their online resume.

The path-breaking solution allows candidates to record, store and place their voice over the internet. Candidates record their voice in two parts – one, a read-out of a random paragraph to gauge diction, and the other, an open speech on a topic provided to them, to gauge fluency.

I would say folks why not ask for a video resume?? Though BPO staff communicate over phone, it would be of utmost importance for many employers to know how comfortable a person is in what he is doing. Also this would solve the identity problem?

more http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/125784.cms

Schumacher bids farewell

 Its a sad sad day to see Schemacher retire from the racing arena. Un doubtedly the best ever racer to have played the game with 8 titles to his name.
Will the game ever be the same without Schumi !

7/11: India gives proof of ISI hand to US

<b>Top CIA officials on Monday met Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon in Delhi and are understood to have discussed evidence of Pakistani involvement in the July 11 Mumbai blasts. </b>
   This comes a day after US has said that all differences between India and Pakistan should be resolved by 2 party talks.
          more > http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2234687.cms
 

Iran Warns

Iran, "If they choose sanctions we will decide accordingly"

Iran's case has been returned to the U.N. Security Council because the Islamic Republic failed to heed a U.N. demand to suspend uranium enrichment.

Iran map

An Iranian Foreign Ministry official warned Sunday that Tehran would not remain passive if the West imposes sanctions on over Iran's disputed nuclear program, but did not say how it would respond.

 

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