FEATURES
BUSINESS
VOICES
PATTERNS
LIVES
FOCUS: CHINA
FOCUS: INDIA
CHEAT SHEETS
100 DAYS
WRITERS' BLOGS
MONEY
Apple takes on Asia
By launching the iPhone months before the device reached Asia, Apple CEO Steve Jobs was forcing his would-be competitors to react to the media hype and show their hands.
The Apple iPhone is a stalking horse.
Fresh phone
Apple is set to rock the mobile phone world and bets are on that Steve Jobs will unveil the beauty as early as January.
Would you buy a new mobile phone today if you knew Apple was introducing its first-ever mobile phone sometime next year, maybe as early as March?
Accidental hero
Chairman of Google Eric Schmidt may well have saved China’s mobile phone industry.
In a career that spans 26 years, Eric Schmidt has been many things. Until 2001 he was best known as the CEO of Novell, a Silicon Valley software firm. Today he is famed – and admired and feared and hated – as chairman and CEO of Google. But by the time he retires, the 53-year-old Schmidt may be known by another title – the man who saved China's mobile phone business.
Blood money (Part 1 of 2)
With his investment in 3G technology bleeding red ink, Li Ka-shing makes sure he pays his lieutenants well to keep it afloat.
Is it better to work for a boss who is doing well or one in trouble? When it comes to Li Ka-shing, it is definitely the latter.
Bleeding the millions of HK tycoon Li Ka-shing (Part 2 of 2)
With his investment in 3G technology bleeding red ink, Li Ka-shing makes sure he pays his lieutenants well to keep it afloat.
So Li ploughed on, putting more and more of Hutchinson's money into the venture. As of end-2007, Hutchinson had invested around US$25 billion in it, and not got a single cent in return.
Indian stud appeal
Soon Bollywood's leading men will no longer be the only Indian studs to receive critical acclaim.
In "The Iliad", Homer wrote: "There is none who could sprint to make it up, nor close you, nor pass you, not if the man behind you were driving the great Arion, the swift horse of Adrestos, whose birth is from the immortals."
Arion's pedigree seemed impeccable as he was fathered by Poseidon, or Neptune, the King of the Sea, who was credited with having created the horse and, subsequently, horse racing. His mother was Demeter, the goddess of fertility.
Dearly departed (Part 1 of 2)
Before the global economy started to melt down, July 2 had already signalled the last day of normalcy for the 5,000 or so employees of the listed Polaris Securities, Taiwan's second-largest brokerage by market value.
That morning, many who worked in the Taipei headquarters greeted their chairman, Wayne Pai Wen-cheng, when the 55-year-old self-made multimillionaire came into the office. A half dozen or so key staff held the regular weekly meeting with Pai, who appeared "very subdued and depressed", according to one of them in a later interview. By evening, Pai would kill himself by jumping off the high bridge of a remote island resort.
Dearly departed (Part 2 of 2)
< BACK to Dearly departed (Part 1 of 2)
The man whose laughter preceded him wherever he went could hardly squeeze out a smile as he went to his office. In the staff meeting, Pai "went through the motions" of listening to reports. He then stood up, took out three sealed envelopes, gave them to a trusted lieutenant, and left. Frantic efforts to contact him failed – Pai had switched off his mobile phone, something he had never done outside of a plane.
The convenient fallacy
The world basks in the after-glow of another series of Live Earth concerts preaching the environmental cause. How much credit goes to its high priest, "Do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do" energy guzzler Al Gore?
When Al Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year and was later listed as one of the Top 10 Ethical Heroes of 2007 by UK magazine Ethical Consumer, stories began circulating that the laureate lives his life in hypocrisy.
