Business

British Prime Minister Johnson Wants to Continue Extracting Oil and Gas in the North Sea
27May By Alan LorenzNo Comments
Business, News, UK

British Prime Minister Johnson Wants to Continue Extracting Oil and Gas in the North Sea

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants to continue extracting oil and gas in the North Sea to tackle the rising cost of living in the United Kingdom. Johnson also calls on energy companies to continue investing in fossil fuels.   “I don't think we can turn our backs on fossil fuels completely,” Johnson said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. “The UK has a thriving industry in the North East of Scotland. That is very important and we have to keep it up.” In his drive to lower the cost of energy by increasing supply, Johnson also emphasized the importance of further investment in green technology and renewable energy sources. “To tackle inflation in the medium term, you have to solve supply-side problems,” he said. “So we need the energy companies to invest a little more in fossi...
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Elon Musk and Bill Gates are Arguing Again: ‘What a Shitty Prank’
25May By Alan LorenzNo Comments
Business, News, Technology

Elon Musk and Bill Gates are Arguing Again: ‘What a Shitty Prank’

It's another fight between two of the richest people in the world. News reports claim that Microsoft founder Bill Gates would donate money to boycott Twitter, which Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk calls a "shit prank".   “Sigh”. Just one word, but one with a lot of meaning. Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk wrote the word on Twitter in response to a news article alleging Microsoft founder Bill Gates donated “hundreds of millions of dollars” to groups behind a campaign urging advertisers to boycott Twitter. if Musk takes over the platform. Under another article with the same content, he wrote "What a dick move", which means "what a shitty prank". This is not the first time the two have openly argued. Gates has criticized Musk's possible takeover of Twitter in the past. He said Musk mig...
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Broadcom Wants to Acquire VMware
23May By Alan LorenzNo Comments
Business, News, Technology, US

Broadcom Wants to Acquire VMware

Talks are underway between Broadcom and VMware to take over the latter. Although a deal does not seem immediate.   Both Bloomberg and Reuters spoke to sources who say the two are currently negotiating, but details about the terms are not yet available. Also, the takeover talks would not lead to a takeover in the short term. Broadcom is mainly known as a chip manufacturer and makes routers and other network technology, among other things. In recent years, the company has acquired CA Technologies for $18.9 billion and Symantec's security arm for $10.7 billion. It previously also tried to take over chip manufacturer Qualcomm, among others, but without success. VMware has changed hands a few times in recent years. It was largely owned by EMC. Later it came into the hands of Dell Techn...
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Siberian McDonald’s Owner Takes Over Entire Chain in Russia
19May By Alan LorenzNo Comments
Business, News, Russia

Siberian McDonald’s Owner Takes Over Entire Chain in Russia

Russian McDonald's owner Alexander Govor is taking over all Russian restaurants from the American fast-food group. He plans to continue them under a different name. McDonald's announced a few days ago that it was leaving Russia because of the war in Ukraine.   Govor has been involved with McDonald's as a franchise owner since 2015. In Siberia, he ran 25 McDonald's restaurants. The fast-food chain has a total of approximately 850 branches in Russia with about 62,000 employees. This involved collaboration with hundreds of suppliers and other entrepreneurs in the country. McDonald's choice to turn its back on Russia like other large companies has great symbolic value. The chain first opened its doors in the country more than thirty years ago in the waning days of the Soviet Union. Tha...
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UK Regulators Still Grappling With Brexit Impact
18May By Alan LorenzNo Comments
Business, Europe, News, UK

UK Regulators Still Grappling With Brexit Impact

Several UK regulators are still grappling with the impact of Brexit. They are constantly struggling with staff shortages. There is also often a lack of data that is necessary to be able to perform their work properly.   According to a report from the National Audit Office, there would also be no clear long-term planning. Regulators such as the competition watchdog CMA, the food and commodity authority FSA and HSE, the body that monitors national health and safety at work, have been given additional work due to Brexit. The three have also received additional funding for this. As a result, the workforce has also expanded. Nevertheless, it is challenging for the authorities to attract people with specialist skills. Only a quarter of the vacancies for legal positions at the CMA had be...
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Zoom buys contact center software company
16May By Alan LorenzNo Comments
Technology, Business, News

Zoom buys contact center software company

Video conferencing company Zoom has completed a new acquisition. With Solvvy, it adds customer support AI to its portfolio.   The move appears to be part of a broader plan to expand Zoom from its familiar voice and video chats to a platform for large businesses. With the lockdowns that made Zoom so popular in much of the world gone, the company has been expanding its portfolio for a while now. With Solvvy, it has acquired an automation platform for contact centres containing the necessary AI. Zoom already introduced Zoom Contact Center last year, allowing companies to provide their customers with the well-known video chat, but with voice, SMS and live chat. Solvvy's software fits neatly into this. The aim is to build the AI software into the Zoom Contact Center Platform. The acqui...
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Nintendo Expects to Sell Fewer Switch Consoles This Year
10May By Alan LorenzNo Comments
Technology, Business, News

Nintendo Expects to Sell Fewer Switch Consoles This Year

Nintendo expects to sell a lot fewer Switch consoles this year than last year. The Japanese game console company reported this when it presented its annual figures.   Nintendo made fewer game consoles last year due to the persistent chip shortage. Turnover was slightly lower than a year earlier due to lower sales than during the global lockdowns. However, many people were at home more than, and gaming became a welcome form of entertainment for many in the gloomy corona. In the current year, Nintendo expects to sell 21 million Switch consoles. Last year there were more than 23 million. Nintendo posted a turnover of 1.7 trillion yen in the past broken financial year, which ran until the end of March. That is almost 4 percent less than a year earlier. As a result, net profit fell by...
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Company Behind KitKat and Maggi Wants to Keep Raising Prices
21Apr By Alan LorenzNo Comments
Business, News

Company Behind KitKat and Maggi Wants to Keep Raising Prices

Food manufacturer Nestlé, known for, among other things, chocolate bars from KitKat and stock cubes from Maggi, expects to continue to raise prices for the rest of the year due to high inflation.   The costs of raw materials rose sharply at the end of last year due to the recovery from the corona crisis, and the effects of the war between Ukraine and Russia are added to that. CEO Mark Schneider speaks of "further pricing campaigns" to absorb setbacks due to the cost increase. Earlier this year, Albert Heijn, among others, came into conflict with the Swiss group, which, according to the Dutch supermarket chain, implemented far too high price increases. As a result, Albert Heijn did not put any new Nestlé products on the shelves for a while. Nestlé's turnover rose from 5.4 percent t...
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Red Numbers for Credit Suisse Again After Blow Due to War Ukraine
20Apr By Alan LorenzNo Comments
Business, News

Red Numbers for Credit Suisse Again After Blow Due to War Ukraine

Credit Suisse is once again in the red, partly due to the war in Ukraine. Due to the conflict, the Swiss financial group has announced that it is dealing with a financial blow of 200 million francs, converted into almost 195 million euros.   Once again, the bank is set aside a lot of money for legal proceedings about scandals that have been going on for some time. Credit Suisse decided in March to stop issuing new loans in Russia because of the war, a step that many parties in the financial sector have taken. However, the bank is probably not the only financial group to experience losses due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. For example, Société Générale recently announced its withdrawal from Russia by selling its stake in Rosbank. As a result, the French bank has to write off bi...
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Hungary Repeats: We Do Not Support Import Ban on Russian Oil
19Apr By Alan LorenzNo Comments
Business, Hungary, News, Russia

Hungary Repeats: We Do Not Support Import Ban on Russian Oil

Hungary will not support European sanctions targeting Russian oil and gas, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said. In doing so, the minister repeated a previously expressed view of his government via Facebook.   Still, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Tuesday that a European import ban on Russian oil is in the works. France has been calling for a ban on Russian oil for some time now. German parliamentarians last week announced that a majority in the Bundestag is in favour of an oil embargo against Russia. Berlin has been cautious until now because Germany is very dependent on that oil. Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky has called for a boycott of Russian oil several times. The European Union has introduced a package of sanctions against Russia becau...
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