Last week, word came down that Cognos would pay $339 million for Applix, a maker of financial performance management software.  This is the latest in a number of buyouts in the business intelligence software industry, such as Oracle march purchase for $3.3 billion of Hyperion, the financial performance management market leader.

This interest matches companies demands for better ways to analyze thier operations, and use business intelligence to maximze productivity across different divisions and departments.  The industry is moving forward towards offering prepackaged solutions instead of the customized or optimized legacy systems solutions of the past.  Click here for the full story.

The ripples continue to spread.  It was German and Australian banks.  Now Indian outsourcing companies are seeing yet another side of getting large contracts with western financial firms.  Some major Indian outsourcers are already feeling the pinch as they lose major clients in the U.S. mortgage and lending crisis - Click here for the complete story.

This is hardly a small business - amounting to some $4 billion in  revenue to process U.S. loan applications in India. There is some speculation this may be the largest short term threat to the Indian economy.  The benefits of globalization are clearly vast, but the stone thrown in the water now send ripples a long way.  Maybe they’re not ripples anymore.  Another meeting on the diversification plans anyone? 

It seems Nokia and Apple continue to give the consumer reasons to upgrade to or buy into their cell phones. According to Gartner, cell phone sales grew 17 percent in second quarter this year. They also predict that mobile phone sales will reach 1.13 billion units by the end of 2007.

Probably what is most telling is that Apple is selling a phone that is about the same price as a new computer. The iPhone is the current ultimate in coolhunting for the tech crowd.

Spurred by a strong growth in overall retail revenue a need to modernize, Chinese retailers represent a strong growth market for IT service providers according to IDC.

In 2006, Chinese retailers spent US $551 million for IT services, while in 2011, they are projected to spend over US $1 billion. It seems China is on a high growth curve about how IT can improve their business operations. According to the study, the biggest drivers for growth are in Business Intelligence, CRM and SCM. To read more click here.

Retailers in China are obviously gearing up for more growth in the retail sector and see the opportunities associated with better operational management through IT. It seems they come out positive on the immediate return on their IT investment vs. what they have and the probable lessons learned coming out of the U.S. It would seem to make sense that if they were to engage a systems integrator, they would do it with a U.S. or European based provider where they could benefit from the collective experience. Large scale IT projects can change careers in a good and bad way.

According to a recent study by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, customer satisfaction has fallen another 3% in the last year. Customer assistance after the sale seems to be the key driver in this drop in satisfaction. Although Apple remains no. 1 in the study, its satisfaction dropped 5%. Dell also dropped 5%, yet Hewlett Packard rose 1%. It certainly looks like an opportunity for companies to improve their satisfaction ratings to ensure customer loyalty. Click here for the full story.

Broadband’s rate of penetration in the United States has gone to 12% in 2006-2007 from 40% in from 2005-2006 according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. According to the authors, the easy customers or low-hanging fruit is dwindling and it’s going to take some convincing to get new customers to want broadband.

If you want to read more of the story, click here.

Although they are well educated on the risks of illegal downloading, Europe’s kids are convinced that everyone is doing it, so it’s fine based on a recent study by a major European Commission. Some of the better excuses include songs are just expensive and that somehow the artists will get paid.

The kids also said that legal proceedings are not as much of a worry as contracting a computer virus on-line. If you want to read the full story, click here.

According to a recent study, Yahoo doesn’t seem to be going away soon and in fact has gained some ground on Google with users. Although Google is still the #1 search site, Yahoo has done a good job of satisfying users based on a study from the University of Michigan American Consumer Satisfaction Index. Yahoo’s satisfaction rose 3.9 points compared to Google dropping 3.7 points. To read the full story, click here.