About Me

My photo
Mr Srinivas is a Co-founder and Director at Master Mentors Advisory Pvt Ltd, a Premier Consulting Organisation. He has 20 years post educational experience in leading Indian and MNC organisations.

Friday 20 July 2012

SUCCESSFUL ORGANIZATIONS- TECHNOLOGY BASED

                      SUCCESSFUL COMPANIES IN THE NEW GENERATION
Success in the 21st century belongs to the companies who combine knowledge with execution excellence. Leveraging technology in a smart way is the key factor for success and no doubt the Information Technology domain has produced some of the finest companies in today's world.

There is no formula for measuring the success of a company. Most of the focus on measuring the success of a company deals with numbers related to the balance sheets, profits, shares and finances of a company. However, the impact of a company is often beyond these numbers. The measure of success is different for different companies, while for an early stage start-up, success is about survival. For an enterprise like Google, success is about changing the way people use information and make decisions. 

The true measure of success for any organisation depends on its performance against its goals. However, there are certain benchmarks that the most successful organisations set, when it comes to an evaluation by the external world. The most remarkable companies on the planet are those that have transformed the world to be a better place and are consistently at it. They have changed the way people do things and are creating a huge impact by their existence. These companies have transformed the lives of people for the better. For example, Google has changed the way information is sought for and consumed in the world. It has put an unlimited power in the hands of the people by providing them access to quality information at the wink of an eye, that helps them drastically improve their productivity and performance levels and has become an indispensable part of the global citizens' lives. This is the true measure of success for a company. 

Some of the finest companies in the world,  that have achieved success on the global scale, in the Technology & Knowledge intensive domains are given in the following table..


                    MASTER MENTORS HALL OF FAME- TECHNOLOGY & TELECOM
          LAST PUBLISHED (Amount in US$ Billion)
DOMAIN NAME FOUNDED YEAR COUNTRY REGION TURNOVER  NET INCOME EMPLOYEES
TECH-CONGLOMERATE SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS 1969 SOUTH KOREA SEOUL 149.00 12.00 160000
TECHNOLOGY HEWLETT-PACKARD COMPANY 1939 USA CALIFORNIA 127.00 7.00 349600
TELECOM AT&T INC 1983 USA TEXAS 127.00 3.90 256420
TECH-CONGLOMERATE HITACHI 1910 JAPAN TOKYO 123.52 4.44 372360
TELECOM VERIZON 1983 USA NEWYORK 110.00 2.40 188200
TECHNOLOGY APPLE INC 1976 USA CALIFORNIA 108.25 26.00 60400
TECHNOLOGY IBM 1911 USA NEWYORK 107.00 16.00 433362
CONSUMER ELECTRONICS PANASONIC 1918 JAPAN OSAKA 99.96 9.85 330767
TECH-CONGLOMERATE SIEMENS 1847 GERMANY BERLIN/ MUNICH 90.41 7.56 360000
TECH-CONGLOMERATE TOSHIBA 1939 JAPAN TOKYO 81.51 1.76 212000
TECH-CONGLOMERATE SONY CORPORATION 1946 JAPAN TOKYO 80.58 -5.75 162700
TELECOM VODAFONE 1991 UK LONDON 71.76 12.32 83862
TECHNOLOGY MICROSOFT CORP 1975 USA WASHINGTON 69.94 23.15 90000
TECHNOLOGY DELL INC 1984 USA TEXAS 63.00 3.50 110000
TELECOM ORANGE 1994 FRANCE PARIS 57.44 5.74 168694
TECHNOLOGY FUJITSU 1935 JAPAN TOKYO 57.09 0.55 172336
TECHNOLOGY INTEL CORP 1968 USA CALIFORNIA 54.00 12.90 100100
TELECOM NTT DOCOMO 1991 JAPAN TOKYO 53.85 5.89 22954
TECH-CONGLOMERATE LG ELECTRONICS 1958 SOUTH KOREA SEOUL 49.00 -0.42 91000
INTERNET AMAZON.COM INC 1994 USA WASHINGTON 48.00 0.63 65000
TELECOM NOKIA CORP 1865 FINLAND EXPOO 47.54 -1.43 122148
CONSUMER ELECTRONICS CANON INC 1937 JAPAN TOKYO 44.82 3.16 198307
TECHNOLOGY CISCO SYSTEMS INC 1984 USA CALIFORNIA 43.00 6.50 71025
INTERNET GOOGLE INC 1998 USA CALIFORNIA 38.00 9.80 55000
TECHNOLOGY ORACLE CORP 1977 USA CALIFORNIA 37.00 10.00 115166
TELECOM ERICSSON 1876 SWEDEN STOCKHOLM 32.69 1.81 104525
CONSUMER ELECTRONICS SHARP CORPORATION 1912 JAPAN TOKYO 31.37 0.00 57200
CONSUMER ELECTRONICS PHILIPS  1891 NETHERLANDS AMSTERDAM 31.27 1.78 114500
TELECOM TELSTRA 1975 AUSTRALIA MELBOURNE 26.03 3.32 35790
TECHNOLOGY XEROX 1906 USA NEWYORK 22.62 1.33 139650
TECHNOLOGY LENOVO 1984 INDIA BEIJING 21.60 0.27 26341
CONSUMER ELECTRONICS WHIRLPOOL 1911 USA MICHIGAN 18.34 0.60 71000
TECHNOLOGY SAP 1972 GERMANY  Weinheim 17.26 4.24 59420
TELECOM ALCATEL-LUCENT 1898 FRANCE PARIS 15.42 1.12 76000
TELECOM QUALCOMM 1985 USA CALIFORNIA 15.00 4.26 17500
CONSUMER ELECTRONICS ELECTROLUX GROUP 1919 SWEDEN STOCKHOLM 14.63 0.38 52916
INTERNET EBAY INC 1995 USA CALIFORNIA 11.65 3.20 27770
TELECOM BHARTI AIRTEL 1995 INDIA DELHI 10.00 2.00 20500
TECHNOLOGY TCS 1968 INDIA MUMBAI 8.89 1.93 243545
TELECOM MOTOROLA CORP 1928 USA ILLINOIS 8.20 1.15 23000
TECHNOLOGY WIPRO 1945 INDIA BANGALORE 7.30 1.09 135920
TECHNOLOGY INFOSYS 1981 INDIA BANGALORE 7.00 1.71 151151
TECHNOLOGY COGNIZANT TECHNOLOGY 1994 USA NEWJERSEY 6.12 0.88 140500
TECH-CONGLOMERATE HCL GROUP 1976 INDIA NOIDA 5.36 0.41 90000
INTERNET YAHOO! INC 1995 USA CALIFORNIA 4.98 1.05 14100
TELECOM RELIANCE COMMUNICATIONS 2004 INDIA MUMBAI 4.54 0.27 20000
TECHNOLOGY ADOBE SYSTEMS 1982 USA SANJOSE 4.21 0.83 9925
CONSUMER ELECTRONICS VIDEOCON 1979 INDIA AURANGABAD 4.00 50000
INTERNET FACEBOOK 2004 USA CALIFORNIA 3.71 1.00 3200
TELECOM IDEA CELLULAR 1995 INDIA MUMBAI 3.07 0.17 6500
TECHNOLOGY TECH MAHINDRA 1986 INDIA PUNE 1.06 0.13 42746
INTERNET LINKEDIN 2006 USA CALIFORNIA 0.52 0.01 2447


                                                                           

Details of some of these companies as given in Wikipedia are given below..

Philips

Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.
TypeNaamloze vennootschap
Traded asEuronextPHIANYSEPHG
IndustryElectronics
Founded15 May 1891 (Eindhoven)
HeadquartersAmsterdam, Netherlands
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleFrans van Houten (CEO),Jeroen van der Veer (Chairman of the supervisory board)
ProductsConsumer electronics,domestic applianceslighting,medical systemsmedical technology
Revenue€25.42 billion (2010)[1]
Operating income€2.065 billion (2010)[1]
Profit€1.446 billion (2010)[1]
Total assets€32.27 billion (end 2010)[1]
Total equity€15.09 billion (end 2010)[1]
Employees114,500 (2011)
Websitephilips.com
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Royal Philips Electronics, commonly known as Philips) (EuronextPHIANYSEPHG) is a Dutchmultinational electronics company headquartered in Amsterdam. It was founded in Eindhoven in 1891 by Gerard Philips and his father Frederik.
Philips had revenues of €25.42 billion in 2010, making it one of the largest electronics companies in the world. It employs around 114,500 people across more than 60 countries.[1]
Philips is organized into three main divisions: Philips Consumer Lifestyle (formerly Philips Consumer Electronics and Philips Domestic Appliances and Personal Care), Philips Healthcare (formerly Philips Medical Systems) and Philips Lighting. As of 2012 Philips is the largest manufacturer of lighting in the world.[2]
Philips has a primary listing on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange and is a constituent of the AEX index. It has a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange.












---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Electrolux
AB Electrolux
TypePublicly traded Aktiebolag
Traded asOMXELUX B,NASDAQELUXF
IndustryHousehold appliances
Founded1919
HeadquartersStockholmSweden
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleMarcus Wallenberg (Chairman),Keith McLoughlin (President andCEO)
ProductsMajor and Small appliances
RevenueSEK 101.60 billion (2011)[1]
Operating incomeSEK 3.017 billion (2011)[1]
ProfitSEK 2.64 billion (2011)[1]
Total assetsSEK 76.384 billion (end 2011)[1]
Total equitySEK 20.644 billion (end 2011)[1]
Employees52,916 (average, 2011)[1]
Websitewww.electrolux.com
AB Electrolux (commonly known as Electrolux) is a Swedish multinational home appliance manufacturer headquartered in Stockholm,Sweden.[2][3][4] It is the world's second-largest home appliance maker by 2010 market share (after Whirlpool).[5] Its products sell under a variety of brand names including its own and are primarily major appliances and vacuum cleaners.[6] The company also makes appliances for professional use.[4]
Forbes Magazine says Electrolux is one of the top 5 companies in consumer durable goods, worldwide, and named it to its list of 130 Global High Performers in 2010.[7]
Electrolux has a primary listing on the Stockholm Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the OMX Stockholm 30 index.



Electrolux moved its North American headquarters from Augusta, GA to CharlotteNorth Carolina, announcing it in December 2009. Electrolux's CEO said they chose Charlotte for a number of reasons. He mentioned the area's culture, quality of life and workforce. A major factor was easy access to an international airport with an airline hub.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sony


Sony Corporation
ソニー株式会社
TypePublic
Traded asTYO6758
NYSESNE
IndustryConglomerate
Founded7 May 1946[1]
Founder(s)Masaru Ibuka
Akio Morita
HeadquartersMinato, Tokyo, Japan
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleSir Howard Stringer
(Chairman of the Board)
Kazuo Hirai
(President & CEO)
Ryōji Chūbachi
(Vice Chairman)
ProductsConsumer electronics
Semiconductors
Video games
Media/Entertainment
Computer hardware
Telecom equipment
ServicesFinancial services, insurance, banking, credit finance and advertising agency
Revenuedecrease ¥6.395 trillion (2012)[2]
Operating incomedecrease ¥-70 billion (2012)[2]
Net incomedecrease ¥-456 billion (2012)[2]
Total assetsincrease ¥13.29 trillion (2012)[2]
Total equitydecrease ¥2.028 trillion (2012)[2]
Employees162,700 (2012)[3]
SubsidiariesList of subsidiaries
WebsiteSony.net

Sony Corporation (ソニー株式会社 Sonī Kabushiki Gaisha?) (TYO6758NYSESNE), commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanesemultinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Kōnan Minato, Tokyo, Japan.[4] It ranked 87th on the 2012 list of Fortune Global 500.[2][5]Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of electronics products for the consumer and professional markets.[6]
Sony Corporation is the electronics business unit and the parent company of the Sony Group, which is engaged in business through its four operating segments – Electronics (including video games, network services and medical business), Motion picturesMusic and Financial Services.[7][8][9] These make Sony one of the most comprehensive entertainment companies in the world. Sony's principal business operations include Sony Corporation (Sony Electronics in the U.S.), Sony Pictures EntertainmentSony Computer EntertainmentSony Music EntertainmentSony Mobile Communications (formerly Sony Ericsson), and Sony Financial. As a semiconductor maker, Sony is among the Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders.
The Sony Group (ソニー・グループ Sonī Gurūpu?) is a Japan-based corporate group primarily focused on the Electronics (such as AV/IT products and components), Game (such as PlayStation), Entertainment (such as motion pictures and music), and Financial Services (such as insurance and banking) sectors. The group consists of Sony Corporation (holding and electronics), Sony Computer Entertainment (game), Sony Pictures Entertainment (motion pictures), Sony Music Entertainment (music), Sony/ATV Music Publishing (music publishing), Sony Financial Holdings(financial services) and others.
Its founders Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka derived the name from sonus, the Latin word for sound, and also from the English slang word "sonny", since they considered themselves to be "sonny boys", a loan word into Japanese which in the early 1950s connoted smart and presentable young men.[6]





--------------------------------------------------------------------------
LG Corp
LG Corp.
LG 법인
TypePublic
Traded asKRX003550
IndustryConglomerate
Founded1947
HeadquartersSeoul, South Korea
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleKoo Bon-Moo
(Chairman & CEO)
Yu Sig Kang
(Vice Chairman & Co-CEO)
Juno Cho (EVP & COO)
ProductsElectronicschemicals, telecommunications, engineering
Revenueincrease US$ 89.5 billion (2010)[1]
Net incomeincrease US$ 5.8 billion (2010)[2]
Total assetsincrease US$ 62.0 billion (2010)[2]
Employees186,000 (2009)
SubsidiariesLG Electronics
LG Display
LG Telecom
LG Chem
LG Life Sciences
LG Solar Energy
Websitewww.lgcorp.comes utilized celebrities such as South Korean pop girl group Girls' Generation for the LG Cookie in 2010.e Refrigerator (KF-P8903 HLP).
LG Corp. (Korean: LG 법인) is the second-largest South Korean chaebol following Samsung and its headquarters is situated at the LG Twin Towers inYeouido-dongYeongdeungpo-guSeoul.[3] LG makes electronicschemicals, and telecommunications products and operates subsidiaries like LG ElectronicsLG DisplayLG Telecom and LG Chem in over 80 countries.


LG Corp. founder Koo In-Hwoi established Lak-Hui Chemical Industrial Corp. in 1947.[4] In 1952, Lak-Hui (pronounced "Lucky", currently LG Chem) became the first Korean company to enter the plastic industry. As the company expanded its plastic business, it established Goldstar Co. Ltd. (currently LG Electronics Inc.) in 1958. Both companies Lucky and Goldstar merged and formed Lucky-Goldstar.
Goldstar produced South Korea's first radio. Many consumer electronics were sold under the brand name Goldstar, while some other household products (not available outside South Korea) were sold under the brand name of Lucky. The Lucky brand was famous for hygiene products such as soaps and HiTi laundry detergents, but the brand was mostly associated with its Lucky and Perioe toothpaste. Even today, LG continues to manufacture some of these products for the South Korean market, such as laundry detergent.
In 1995, to compete better in the Western market, the Lucky-Goldstar Corporation was renamed "LG", the abbreviation of "Lucky-Goldstar". More importantly, the company associates the letters LG with the company's tagline "Life's Good". This tagline came from Australia, where many of the products are tested first by LG. Since 2009, LG also owns the domain name LG.com.
Since 2001, LG has two joint ventures with Royal Philips ElectronicsLG Philips Display and LG Philips LCD, but Philips sold off its shares in late 2008.[8] In 2005, LG entered into a joint venture with Nortel Networks, creating LG-Nortel Co. Ltd.
The company logo of LG features the letters “L” and “G”, presented in the form of a smiling human face.[9] It was later noticed by members of the Internet community that if the L in the logo were to be moved upwards to match the rest of the logo, then the logo turns into a Pacman shaped object.[10]
---------------------------------------------------------------------

[edit]

Samsung

Samsung Group
삼성그룹
三星그룹
TypeChaebol
IndustryConglomerate
Founded1938
Founder(s)Lee Byung-chull
HeadquartersSamsung TownSeoulSouth Korea
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleLee Kun-hee (Chairman andCEO)
Lee Soo-bin (President, CEO ofSamsung Life Insurance)[1]
ProductsConsumer electronics,shipbuildingtelecom, engineering and construction,information and communications technology servicesfinancial services, chemicals, retailheavy industries, entertainment, apparel, medical services
RevenueUS$ 247.5 billion (2011)[2]
Net incomeUS$ 18.3 billion (2011)[2]
Total assetsUS$ 384.3 billion (2011)[2]
Total equityUS$ 224.7 billion (2011)[2]
Employees344,000 (2010)[2]
SubsidiariesSamsung Electronics
Samsung Life Insurance
Samsung Heavy Industries
Samsung C&T
Samsung SDS etc.
WebsiteSamsung.com
Samsung Group (Hangul삼성그룹Hanja三星그룹Korean pronunciation: [sam.sʌŋ ɡɯ'ɾup̚], informally Samsung) is a South Korean multinationalconglomerate company headquartered in Samsung TownSeoul. It comprises numerous subsidiaries and affiliated businesses, most of them united under the Samsung brand, and is the largest South Korean chaebol.
Notable Samsung industrial subsidiaries include Samsung Electronics (the world's largest information technology company measured by 2011 revenues),[3][4] Samsung Heavy Industries (the world's second-largest shipbuilder measured by 2010 revenues),[5]Samsung Techwin (weapons technology and optoelectronics), and Samsung Engineering and Samsung C&T (respectively the world's 35th- and 72nd-largest construction companies).[6] Other notable subsidiaries include Samsung Life Insurance (the world's 14th-largest insurance company),[7] Samsung Everland (the oldest theme park in South Korea)[8] and Cheil Worldwide (the world's 19th-largest advertising agency measured by 2010 revenues).[9][10]
Samsung produces around a fifth of South Korea's total exports[11] and its revenues are larger than many countries' GDP; in 2006, it would have been the world's 35th-largest economy.[12] The company has a powerful influence on South Korea's economic development, politics, media and culture, and has been a major driving force behind the "Miracle on the Han River".In the "World's Most Reputable Companies" 2011 list, published by the Reputation Institute, Samsung Electronics was placed at 22nd,[30] consistent with the previous year (a significant advancement occurred between 2009 and 2010 when the company leaped from 75th position[31]). The company was also ranked 11th in the "50 Most Innovative Companies 2010" list put out byBusinessWeek, a five-notch increase from the previous year's 16th.
The company had emphasized innovation in its management strategy since the early 2000s and it again highlighted innovation as part of core strategies when it announced the Vision 2020 in which the company set an ambitious goal of reaching the $400-billion sales revenue within ten years. In order to cement its leadership in the areas of memory chip and television production, the company has invested aggressively in research and development. The company has 24 research-and-developement centers around the world. In the 2010 BusinessWeek innovation ranking, Appleand Google retained the leading positions as in the 2009 list, followed by Microsoft, which gained one notch from 2009's fourth place.
Meanwhile, the company took the 33rd place in the "World's Most Valuable Brands 2010" list made public by Forbes magazine. The magazine said that the company's brand value was as much as $12.8 billion with an average sale revenue growth rate of 17 percent for the past three years.
In April 2011, Samsung Electronics sold its HDD commercial operations to Seagate Technology for approximately US$1.4 billion. The payment was composed of 45.2 million Samsung-Seagate shares (9.6 percent of shares), worth US$687.5 million, and a cash sum for the remainder.[32]
In the first quarter of 2012, the company became the highest-selling mobile phone company when it surpassed Nokia with 93.5 million units sold and 82.7 million units sold, respectively. Samsung also took pole position in smartphones with "brisk sales" of its Galaxy SII smartphone (and newer Galaxy Note device).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ACCENTURE Plc:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Accenture Inc
TypePublic limited company
Traded asNYSEACN
IndustryIT servicesIT consulting
Predecessor(s)Arthur Andersen (1989-2001)
Founded2001
HeadquartersDublinRepublic of Ireland
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleWilliam D. Green
(Executive Chairman)
Pierre Nanterme
(CEO)
ServicesIT, business consulting andoutsourcing services
Revenueincrease US$ 27.35 billion (2011)[1]
Operating incomeincrease US$ 3.47 billion (2011)[1]
Net incomeincrease US$ 2.27 billion (2011)[1]
Total assetsincrease US$ 15.73 billion (2011)[1]
Total equityincrease US$ 3.87 billion (2011)[1]
Employees251,000 (May 2012)
Websitewww.accenture.com




Accenture plc (NYSEACN) is a multinational management consultingtechnology services and outsourcing company headquartered in Dublin, Republic of Ireland. It is the largest consulting firm in the World[2] and is a Fortune Global 500 company.[3] As of September 2011, the company had more than 244,000 employees across 120 countries.[2][4] Accenture's current clients include 96 of the Fortune Global 100 and more than three-quarters of the Fortune Global 500. The international company was first incorporated in Bermuda in 2001.[5] Since September 1, 2009 the company has been incorporated in Ireland.[6]
Accenture is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the S&P 500.
Accenture originated as the business and technology consulting division of accounting firm Arthur Andersen. The division's origins are in a 1953 feasibility study for General Electric. GE asked Arthur Andersen to automate payroll processing and manufacturing at GE's Appliance Park facility near Louisville, Kentucky. Arthur Andersen recommended installation of a UNIVAC I computer and printer, which resulted in the first commercially owned computer installation in the United States in 1954. Joe Glickauf was Arthur Andersen's project leader responsible for the payroll processing automation project. Now considered to be the father of computer consulting, Glickauf headed Arthur Andersen's Administrative Services division for 10 years.  On January 1, 2001 Andersen Consulting adopted its current name, "Accenture". The word "Accenture" is supposedly derived from "Accent on the future". Although a marketing consultancy was tasked with finding a new name for the company, the name "Accenture" was submitted by Kim Petersen, a Danish employee from the company's Oslo, Norway office, as a result of an internal competition. Accenture felt that the name should represent its will to be a global consulting leader and high performer, and also intended that the name should not be offensive in any country in which Accenture operates.


PricewaterhouseCoopers


PricewaterhouseCoopers
(trading as PwC)
TypeMember firms have different legal structures; both UK and US firms are limited liability partnerships
IndustryProfessional services
Founded1998
(PricewaterhouseCoopers)
1849
(Price Waterhouse)
1854
(Coopers & Lybrand)[1]
HeadquartersLondon, United Kingdom[2]
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleDennis Nally (Chairman)[3]
ProductsAssurance
Tax Advisory
Consulting
Financial Advisory
Actuarial
Legal
Revenueincrease US$29.2 billion (FY 2011)[4]
Employees169,000 (2011)[4]
Websitepwc.com

PricewaterhouseCoopers (trading as PwC) is a global professional services firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom.[2] It is the world's largest professional services firm and the largest of the "Big Four" accountancy firms measured by 2011 revenues.[5]

Revenues in Billio US Dollars of the top four global accounting and consultancy firms for 2011 are as: PwC- 29.2, Deloitte, 28.8, and for 2010,  Ernst & Young 21.3 & KPMG 22.7. 

The PricewaterhouseCoopers name was formed by the combination of the names of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand, following their merger in 1998. On 20 September 2010, PricewaterhouseCoopers rebranded as PwC, although the legal name of the firm remained PricewaterhouseCoopers

PwC has offices in 771 cities across 158 countries and employs over 169,000 people.[4] It had total revenues of $29.2 billion in FY 2011, of which $14.14 billion was generated by its Assurance practice, $7.63 billion by its Tax practice and $7.46 billion by its Advisory practice.[6]

The firm was formed in 1998 by a merger between Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse.[1] The trading name was shortened to PwC in September 2010 as part of a major rebranding exercise.[7]


PricewaterhouseCoopers has three main service lines:[20]
  • Assurance Services
  • Tax Advisory, (international tax planning and compliance with local tax laws, customs, human resource consulting, and transfer pricing)
  • Advisory – mainly consulting activities which covers Strategy, Performance Improvement, Transactions Services, Business Recovery Services, Corporate Finance, Business Valuation, Sustainability and Crisis Management in a range of specialist areas such as accountancy and actuarial advisory.
PwC's service lines face the market in each country by broad industry specialisations such as:
  • Consumer and Industrial Products and Service (CIPS)[21]
  • Financial Services (FS)[22]
  • Technology, Information, Communications and Entertainment (TICE)[23]
  • Infrastructure, Government and Utilities (IG&U)[24]
  • Private Company Services (PCS)[25]
These sub-divisions may vary slightly in some territories.

[edit]Consulting

PwC has developed several broader consulting initiatives in the Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) framework, including a global effort to assist corporations with outsourcing, as well as a global political risk assessment with the political risk advisory firm Eurasia Group.[26]
Advisory services offered by PwC also include two actuarial consultancy departments; Actuarial and Insurance Management Solutions (AIMS) and a sub branch of "Human Resource Services" (HRS). Actuarial covers mainly 4 areas: pensionslife insurancenon-life insurance and investments. AIMS deals with life and non-life insurance and investments while HRS deals mainly with pensions.[27]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

McKinsey & Company

McKinsey & Company
TypeIncorporated Partnership
IndustryManagement consulting
Founded1926
Founder(s)James O. McKinsey and Marvin Bower
Number of locationsabout 100 offices
in 50 countries
Key peopleDominic Barton
(managing director 2009-present)
ServicesManagement consulting services
Revenue$ 7 billion (est. 2010)[1]
AUMover $ 5 billion (MIO Partners)
Employees17,000 (9,000 consultants)[2]
Websitewww.mckinsey.com
McKinsey & Company, Inc. is a global management consulting firm that focuses on solving issues of concern to McKinsey & Company was founded in Chicago in 1926 by James O. ("Mac") McKinsey as James O. McKinsey and Company. Previously, McKinsey served as an accounting professor at theUniversity of Chicago Booth School of Business and is considered the father of managerial accounting. senior management. McKinsey serves as an adviser to many businesses, governments, and institutions. It is recognized as one of the most prestigious consulting firms in the world,[3][4] has proportionally produced more CEOs in large-scale corporations than any other company,[5] and has been a top employer for newMBA graduates since 1996.[6]
The firm, while formally organized as a corporation, functions as a partnership in all important respects. Its managing director is elected for a three-year term by the firm's other senior partners. Each managing director can serve a maximum of three terms, a policy instituted by Gupta. At a strategic level, a number of committees are charged with the development of policies and making critical decisions. Committee memberships, senior roles, and the managing director position all rotate regularly among the firm's senior partners and directors.[9]
Former managing director Rajat Gupta explains McKinsey's structure as follows:
It is very much, in many dimensions, like an academic organization. We have senior partners who are very much like tenured faculty: they are leaders in their own right. [...] We have about 80 to 100 performance cells -- a geographic office or industry practice or functional practice. They are very much autonomous and they are not organized in any hierarchy beyond that. We don't have any regional structures or sectoral structures. So all these performance units, in a theoretical sense, report to me, which means they don't report to anybody, because nobody can have 80 or 100 people reporting to them.[9]
The firm operates under a practice of "up or out", meaning that consultants must either advance in their consulting careers within a pre-defined timeframe or leave the firm. "25% of the firm is new every year," Gupta says, "so half the people have less than two to three years' tenure in the firm, and their values need to be reinforced." All senior roles rotate among the directors (senior partners).[9][10]
McKinsey has about 9,000 consultants in 97 locations in 55 countries,[11] working with more than 90% of the 100 leading global corporations and two-thirds of the Fortune 1000 list.The firm is organizationally divided into partners and non-partners. It is generally not possible to join the firm as a partner; instead, partners are promoted internally from the existing ranks of principals and associates. According to the Firm's career website, "successful consultants who join McKinsey early in their career can expect election to principal (the first stage of partnership) within five to seven years. ... There is no limit to the size of our partnership."[17] Successful partners are sometimes elected director (senior partner) after at least seven years as partner, though there are fast-rising exceptions: Daniel, Gupta, and Kumar become directors approximately 10 years after joining the firm as associates.
Officially, "director" is the highest position (other than the rotating managing director) at McKinsey, though top directors are distinguished by reputation and influence. The firm's mandatory retirement age is 60, after which directors become "director emeritus
Former managing director (CEO) Rajat Gupta was convicted in June 2012 of four counts of conspiracy and securities fraud, and acquitted on two counts, resulting from his board memberships atGoldman Sachs and Proctor & Gamble while a senior partner emeritus of McKinsey.[74] In October 2011, he was arrested by the FBI on criminal charges of sharing insider information from these confidential board meetings with Rajaratnam.[75][76] Gupta was convicted, among other crimes, of passing information to Rajaratnam within 4 minutes of the completion of a special Goldman Sachs board meeting to approve a capital injection by Warren Buffett during the height of the financial crisis in 2008. He stood to profit as the chairman of Galleon International and as the chairman of New Silk Route.[77] At least twice, Gupta used a McKinsey phone to call Rajaratnam and retained other perks — an office, assistant, and $6 million retirement salary that year[78] — as a senior partner emeritus.[79]
After the scandal McKinsey performed an independent review of its policies and procedures, including investigating other partners' ties to Gupta.[80][81] There is no evidence of any damage to McKinsey's brand, though the firm has came under controversy for having former leading senior partners (Gupta and Kumar) as well as a junior partner (Palecek) all implicated with the Galleon Group and insider trading.[82] The firm's revenues grew 10% during the same period, though its long term impact remains unknown.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Deloitte

Deloitte & Touche
TypeUK private company, limited by guarantee
IndustryProfessional services
FoundedLondon, EnglandU.K. (1845)
Founder(s)William Welch Deloitte
HeadquartersParamount Plaza,
New York City, New York,U.S.
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleStephen Almond (Chairman)
Barry Salzberg (CEO)[1]
ServicesAudit
Consulting
Financial advisory
Tax
Enterprise Risk
Revenueincrease US$28.8 billion (2011)
Employees182,000 (September 2011)
WebsiteDeloitte.com/global
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (play /dəˈlɔɪt/), commonly referred to as Deloitte, is one of the Big Four professional services firms along withPricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)Ernst & Young, and KPMG.
Deloitte is the second largest professional services network in the world by revenue and has 182,000 employees in more than 150 countries providingaudittaxconsultingenterprise risk and financial advisory services.[2] In FY 2011, Deloitte earned a record $28.8 billion USD in revenues, ranking second behind PwC's record $29.2 billion.[3]
In 2012, it is reported that in the U.K. Deloitte has the largest number of clients amongst FTSE 250 companies.[4]
Its global headquarters is located in New York CityUnited States.[5]
According to the company website, Deloitte now refers to the brand under which independent firms throughout the world collaborate to provide audit, consulting, financial advisory, risk management, and tax services to selected clients.[22]
In 2008, Deloitte adopted its new “Always One Step Ahead” (AOSA) brand positioning platform to support the existing Deloitte vision: “To be the Standard of Excellence”. AOSA represents the global organization’s value proposition, and is never used as a tagline. The recent launch of the Green Dot ad campaign also aligns with Deloitte’s brand strategy and positioning framework.[23]Deloitte offers its staff a variety of career models to choose from based on their preferences, geographic location and business need. These career models also vary for each function. Traditional titles for Consulting are "analyst" through "principal", FAS has "associate" through "partner", and the delivery-focused track features "specialist" through "specialist leader".Deloitte hires entry-level personnel to client-facing functions through their graduate recruitment programs at selected universities.The organization is consistently rated by Fortune as one of their "100 Best Companies To Work For".In 2007 and 2009, Deloitte was rated the number one place to launch your career by BusinessWeek.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KPMG

KPMG
TypeSwiss Cooperative
IndustryProfessional services
Founded1987; merger of Peat Marwick International and Klynveld Main Goerdeler
HeadquartersAmstelveenNetherlands[1]
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleMichael Andrew (Chairman)
ProductsAssurance
Tax Advisory
Consulting
Financial Advisory
Actuarial
Legal
RevenueincreaseUS$22.7 billion (2011)[2]
Employees145,000 (2011)[2]
WebsiteKPMG.com
KPMG is one of the largest professional services networks in the world and one of the Big Four auditors, along with DeloitteErnst & Young (EY) andPwC. Its global headquarters is located in AmstelveenNetherlands.[1]
KPMG employs 145,000 people[2] and has three lines of services: audittax, and advisory. Its advisory services are further divided into three service groups - Management Consulting, Risk Consulting, and Transaction & Restructuring.
The firm was established in 1870 when William Barclay Peat formed an accounting firm in London.[3] In 1877 accountancy firm Thomson McLintock opened an office in Glasgow[3] and in 1911 William Barclay Peat & Co. and Marwick Mitchell & Co. merged to form Peat Marwick Mitchell & Co, later known as Peat Marwick.

Global structure

Each national KPMG firm is an independent legal entity and is a member of KPMG International Cooperative, a Swiss entity registered in the SwissCanton of Zug. KPMG International changed its legal structure from a Swiss Verein to a co-operative under Swiss law in 2003. 
This structure in which the Cooperative provides support services only to the member firms is similar to other 
professional services networks. The member firms provide the services to client. The purpose is to limit the liability of each independent member.[14]Each national KPMG firm is an independent legal entity and is a member of KPMG International Cooperative, a Swiss entity registered in the SwissCanton of Zug. KPMG International changed its legal structure from a Swiss Verein to a co-operative under Swiss law in 2003.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ernst & Young

Ernst & Young (EY)
TypeMember firms have different legal structures, USA and UK:Limited Liability Partnership
IndustryProfessional services
Founded1989; individual components from 1849
HeadquartersLondon, United Kingdom[1]
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleJim Turley (Chairman & CEO)[2]
ServicesAudit
Tax
Financial Advisory
Consultancy
RevenueincreaseUS$22.9  billion[3]
Employees152,000 (2011)
DivisionsAssurance, Advisory, Tax, Transactions
WebsiteEY.com
Ernst & Young (EY) is one of the largest professional service firms in the world and one of the "Big Fouraccounting firms, along with DeloitteKPMGand PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
Ernst & Young is a global organization of member firms in more than 140 countries, headquartered in London, UK.[4] It was ranked by Forbesmagazine as the 8th largest private company in the United States in 2011.[5]
Ernst & Young is the result of a series of mergers of ancestor organizations. The oldest originating partnership was founded in 1849 in England as Harding & Pullein.[6] In that year the firm was joined by Frederick Whinney. He was made a partner in 1859 and with his sons in the business it was renamed Whinney Smith & Whinney in 1894.[6]
In 1903, the firm of Ernst & Ernst was established in Cleveland by Alwin C. Ernst and his brother Theodore and in 1906 Arthur Young & Co. was set up by the Scotsman Arthur Young in Chicago.[6]
As early as 1924 these American firms allied with prominent British firms, Young with Broads Paterson & Co. and Ernst with Whinney Smith & Whinney.[6]In 1979 this led to the formation of Anglo-American Ernst & Whinney, creating the fourth largest accountancy firm in the world.[6] Also in 1979, the European offices of Arthur Young merged with several large local European firms, which became member firms of Arthur Young International.In 1989, the number four firm Ernst & Whinney merged with the then number five, Arthur Young, on a global basis to create Ernst & Young.[7]
EY is the most globally managed of the Big Four firms. EY Global sets global standards and oversees global policy and consistency of service, with client work being performed by its member firms.
Each EY member country is organised as part of one of four areas.[14] This is different from other professional services networks which are more centrally managed.
The four areas are: EMEIA:i)Europe, Middle East, India and Africa,ii) Americas,iii) Asia-Pacific 7 iv)Japan
Each area has an identical business structure and one management team that is led by an Area Managing Partner is part of the Global Executive board. The aim of this structure is to effectively cater for an increasingly global clientele, who have multinational interests.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Boston Consulting Group

The Boston Consulting Group
TypePartnership
IndustryManagement consulting
Founded1963
HeadquartersBostonMassachusetts, United States
77 offices in 42 countries
Key peopleHans-Paul Bürkner, President & CEO
ProductsManagement consulting services
RevenueUS$ 3.55 billion (2011)BCG.com
Employees5,600 (consultants) BCG.com
Websitebcg.com
The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is a global management consulting firm with 77 offices in 42 countries. It is recognized as one of the most prestigious management consulting firms in the world.[1] It is one of only three companies to appear in the top 15 of Fortune's "Best Companies to Work For" report for seven consecutive years.[2] In the 2011 and 2012 lists, BCG is listed as the second best company to work for, and is the only top-tier consulting firm to appear in the top 100.[3] BCG is also the only firm to have been listed every year in Consulting Magazine's "Best Firms to Work For" list, since the magazine's inception in 2001.[4]
The company was formed by Bruce D. Henderson, a Vanderbilt University and Harvard Business School alumnus. After many years in the purchasing department of Westinghouse in Pittsburgh (where pricing behavior gave him the idea of the experience curve), he joined Arthur D. Little in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was then recruited by The Boston Company, where he founded a one-man, one-telephone consulting unit he named Boston Consulting Group. In 1975, Henderson arranged an employee stock ownership plan, and employees took the company independent from The Boston Company.[5] The buyout of all shares was completed in 1979. 

Concepts developed

[edit]"Growth-share matrix"

Growthsharematrix.png

BCG matrix of example data set
In 1968, BCG created the "growth-share matrix", a simple chart to assist large corporations in deciding how to allocate cash among their business units. The corporation would categorize its business units as "Stars", "Cash Cows", "Question Marks", and "Dogs" (originally "Pets"), and then allocate cash accordingly, moving money from "cash cows" toward "stars" and "question marks" that had higher market growth rates, and hence higher upside potential.[7][8]

[edit]"Experience curve"

The experience curve illustrates that the more often a task is performed the lower will be the cost of doing it. The task can be the production of any good or service. Each time cumulative volume doubles, value-added costs (including administration, marketing, distribution, and manufacturing) fall by a constant and predictable percentage.
BCG founder, Bruce Henderson, expounded the implications of the experience curve for strategy.[9] BCG research concluded that because relatively low cost of operations is a very powerful strategic advantage, firms should capitalize on these learning and experience effects.[10]

[edit]Advantage matrix

In this matrix, the two axes are economies of scale and differentiation. The four quadrants formed are called "Volume", "Stalemated", "Specialized", and "Fragmented".

[edit]Recruiting

BCG typically hires for Associate or Consultant positions. While so-called "lateral hires" as Project Leader, Principal or Partner are possible, they are not the norm. In the United States, BCG recruits undergraduates to join as Associates from about a dozen institutions, and hiring is extremely competitive, with fewer than 1% of candidates given offers. Top-performing Associates receive sponsorship to pursue an MBA, returning to BCG upon completion

Bain & Company

Bain & Company
TypeIncorporated partnership
IndustryManagement consulting
Founded1973
HeadquartersBostonMassachusettsU.S.
Key peopleOrit Gadiesh
(Chairman of the Board)
Bob Bechek
(Worldwide Managing Director-elect)
ProductsManagement consulting services
Revenue$3.5 billion (est. 2010)
Employees5,500 employees worldwide
Websitewww.bain.com
Bain & Company is a global management consulting firm headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Bain has 48 offices in 31 countries[1] and more than 5,500 employees. It is considered one of the most prestigious consulting firms in the world,[2] ranks first on the Vault Consulting 50,[3] and has been named the Best Firm to Work For by Consulting Magazine for nine consecutive years.
Bain & Company was established in 1973 by a group of seven former partners and managers from the Boston Consulting Group headed by Bill Bain. The company was originally headquartered in Lexington, Massachusetts on Militia Drive. By the end of the decade, the firm's headquarters were in Faneuil Hall Marketplace in downtown Boston.
Under Bain's direction, the firm implemented a number of unconventional practices in its early years. Notably, Bain & Co. would only work with one client per industry to avoid potential conflicts of interest.[5] Partners did not carry business cards and clients were referred to by code names, further demonstrating its reputation for enforcing client confidentiality. The company preferred to win work by boardroom referrals rather than marketing itself, sometimes landing clients by offering several weeks of work at no cost until proving the results of its services. Bain consultants preferred to work on increasing a company's market value rather than simply handing clients a list of recommendations.[6] To win business, Bain demonstrated the increase in the stock price of their clients relative to the Dow Jones Industrial Average
.The new millennium also brought changes to Bain's traditional generalist approach to solving client issues. Due to increasing specialization in the consulting industry, the firm developed niche "Practice Areas" in order to better serve the varying needs of its increasingly diverse multinational and local client base. Through targeted industry hires, Bain added industry experts to each of these "Practice Areas", significantly raising its profile in fields such as financial services, healthcare, information technology and media/entertainment.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Booz & Company

Booz & Company
TypePrivate
IndustryManagement consulting
Founded1914, by Edwin Booz
Headquarters101 Park AvenueManhattan,
New York City, New York
,U.S.
Number of locations60 offices in 33 countries
Key peopleCesare Mainardi (CEO)
Joe Saddi (Chairman)
Revenue$1.3+ billion (2011)
Employees3,000[1]
Websitewww.booz.com
Booz & Company is a global management consulting firm established in the United States in 1914.[2] It is recognized as one of the most prestigious management consulting firms in the world[3] and one of the best consulting firms to work for by Consulting Magazine.[4] Booz and Company is among the top recruiters of graduates of the top-ranked business schools in the world, in addition to hiring first-rate people with advanced degrees in science, medicine, engineering and law.
The company has 60 offices in 33 countries and consults to the world’s top businesses, governments and organizations. 75 of the world's largest 100 corporations are Booz and Company clients and the firm has been involved in some of the most celebrated business episodes of their day, including the dawn of the contract system for Hollywood movies, the merger of the National and American football leagues, and the rescue of the Chrysler corporation from bankruptcy.[5]
The company was spun off from Booz Allen Hamilton in conjunction with a private equity takeover by The Carlyle Group in 2008.[6] The firm represents the commercial portion of the consulting business, as well as all consulting operations with government entitites outside the United States. Booz Allen Hamilton was then focused exclusively on U.S. government consulting endeavors. However, as Booz Allen Hamilton's three-year noncompete provision has expired, it is now building out its commercial consulting practice anew.The firm publishes the majority of its thought leadership in its quarterly management magazine Strategy+Business, which in 2009 was one of just two business magazines to grow its circulation, along with The Economist.[13] The publication's founding Editor-in-Chief Joel Kurtzman was a former Harvard Business Review Editor-in-Chief. While at Strategy+Business, he coined the widely-used term thought leader.[13]
In 2010, the independent White Space report on consulting firms' thought leadership, ranked Booz as first in foresight because of "the consistently interesting and topical writing in strategy+business".[14]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc.
TypePublic
Traded asNASDAQAMZN
NASDAQ-100 Component
S&P 500 Component
Founded1994
HeadquartersSeattleWashington, U.S.
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s)Jeff Bezos
Key peopleJeff Bezos
(Chairman, President & CEO)
IndustryInternet, Online retailing
Cloud computing
ProductsA2Z Development, A9.com,Alexa Internet, Amazon.com,Amazon KindleAmazon StudiosAmazon Web ServicesAudible.com,dpreview.comEndless.com,IMDbLoveFilmZappos.com,WootJunglee.com
Revenueincrease US$ 48.07 billion (2011)[1]
Operating incomeincrease US$ 862 million (2011)[1]
Net incomeincrease US$ 631 million (2011)[1]
Total assetsincrease US$ 25.27 billion (2011)[1]
Total equityincrease US$ 7.75 billion (2011)[1]
Employees65,600 (2012 Q1)[2]
WebsiteAmazon.com (original US site)
various national sites
Alexa rankpositive decrease 10 (July 2012)[3]
Type of siteE-commerce
AdvertisingWeb bannersVideos
Available inEnglishFrenchGerman,SpanishItalianJapanese,Chinese
Launched1995
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQAMZN) is an American multinational electronic commerce company with headquarters in SeattleWashington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer.[4] The company also produces consumer electronics - notably the Amazon Kindle e-book reader - and is a major provider of cloud computing services.
Amazon has separate retail websites for the following countries: United StatesCanadaUnited KingdomFranceGermanyItalySpainJapanIndiaand China, with international shipping to certain other countries for some of its products. It is also expected to launch its websites in Poland,[5]Netherlands and Sweden.[6]
Jeff Bezos incorporated the company (as Cadabra) in July 1994, and the site went online as amazon.com in 1995.[7] The company was renamed after the Amazon River, one of the largest rivers in the world,[7] which in turn was named after Amazons, the legendary nation of female warriors in Greek mythology. Amazon.com started as an online bookstore, but soon diversified, selling DVDsCDsMP3 downloads, softwarevideo games,electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, and jewelry.Amazon was incorporated in 1994, in the state of Washington. In July 1995, the company began service and sold its first book on Amazon.com —Douglas Hofstadter's Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought.[11] In 1996, it was reincorporated in Delaware. Amazon issued its initial public offering of stock on May 15, 1997, trading under the NASDAQ stock exchange symbolAMZN, at a price of US$18.00 per share ($1.50 after three stock splits in the late 1990s).
Amazon's initial business plan was unusual. The company did not expect a profit for four to five years. Its "slow" growth provoked stockholder complaints that the company was not reaching profitability fast enough. When the dot-com bubble burst, and many e-companies went out of business, Amazon persevered, and finally turned its first profit in the fourth quarter of 2001: $5 million or 1¢ per share, on revenues of more than $1 billion. The profit, although it was modest, served to demonstrate that the business model could be profitable.[12] In 1999, Time magazine named Bezos the Person of the Year, recognizing the company's success in popularizing online shopping.Amazon launched Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2002, which provides programmatic access to latent features on its website. Amazon Web Services (AWS) was first launched as a public beta of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud running Microsoft Windows Server and Microsoft SQL Server.[96] This was later expanded to several operating systems, including various flavors of Linux and OpenSolaris. Over the last decade,[when?] Amazon has developed a customer base of around 30 million people. Amazon.com is primarily a retail site with a sales revenue model. Amazon makes its money by taking a small percentage of the sale price of each item that is sold through its website. Amazon also allows companies to advertise their products by paying to be listed as featured products.[124]

eBay
eBay Inc.
TypePublic
Traded asNASDAQEBAY
NASDAQ-100 Component
S&P 500 Component
FoundedSeptember 3, 1995
HeadquartersSan Jose, California, U.S.
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s)Pierre Omidyar
Key peopleJohn Donahoe (CEO)
Pierre Omidyar (Chairman)
IndustryInternet, Online retailing
ProductseBayClassifiedselectronic commerceGumtreeKijiji,online auction hostingPayPal, shopping mall
Revenueincrease US$ 11.651 billion (2011)[1]
Operating incomeincrease US$ 2.373 billion (2011)[1]
Net incomeincrease US$ 3.229 billion (2011)[1]
Total assetsincrease US$ 27.320 billion (2011)[1]
Total equityincrease US$ 17.929 billion (2011)[1]
Employees27,770 (2011)[1]
Slogan
"World's Online Marketplace."
"Connecting buyers and sellers globally."
"What ever it is, you can get it on eBay."
"Buy it, sell it, love it"
"Buy it New, Buy it Now"
WebsiteeBay.com
IPv6 supportNo
Alexa ranksteady 21 (July 2012)[2]
Type of siteOnline auction
RegistrationRequired to buy and sell
Available inMultilingual


eBay Inc. (NASDAQEBAY) is an American multinational internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auctionand shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide. Founded in 1995, eBay is one of the notable success stories of the dot-com bubble; it is now a multi-billion dollar business with operations localized in over thirty countries.[3][4] eBay expanded from its original "set-time" auction format to include "Buy It Now" standard shopping; shopping by UPCISBN, or other kind of SKU (viaHalf.com); online classified advertisements (via Kijiji or eBay Classifieds); online event ticket trading (via StubHub); online money transfers (viaPayPal)[5] and other services.
Bidding on eBay's auction-style listings is called proxy bidding and is essentially equivalent to a Vickrey auction, with the following exceptions.
  • The winning bidder pays the second-highest bid plus one bid increment amount (that is, some small predefined amount relative to the bid size), instead of simply the second-highest bid. However, since the bid increment amounts are relatively insignificant compared to the bid size, they are not considered from a strategic standpoint.[33]
  • The highest bidder's bid is sealed, as in a Vickrey auction, but the current winning bid (second highest plus one increment) is displayed throughout the auction to allow price discovery
  • .As eBay is a huge, publicly visible market, it has created a great deal of interest from economists, who have used it to analyze many aspects of buying and selling behavior, auction formats, etc., and compare these with previous theoretical and empirical findings.
  • eBay is a data-driven company which processes 50 petabytes of data a day.[52]
    eBay uses a system that allows different departments in the company to check out data from their data mart into sandboxes for analysis. According to Goul, eBay has already experienced significant business successes through its data analytics. name="knowwpc" /> To continue improving the business through data-driven decision making, eBay employees 5,000 data analysts.
    On May 8, 2008, eBay announced the opening of its newest building on the company's North Campus in San Jose, which is the first structure in the city to be built from the ground up to LEEDGold standards.The building is equipped with a lighting system that detects natural ambient light sources and automatically dims artificial lighting to save 39 percent of the power usually required to light an office building.[78] eBay's newest building also reduces demand on local water supplies by incorporating an eco-friendly irrigation system, low-flow shower heads, and low-flow faucets.[78]Even during construction, more than 75 percent of the waste from construction was recycled.[78] eBay also runs buses between San Francisco and the San Jose campus to reduce the number of commuting vehicles
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Yahoo!

    Yahoo! Inc.
    TypePublic
    Traded asNASDAQYHOO
    NASDAQ-100 Component
    S&P 500 Component
    IndustryInternet
    FoundedSanta Clara, California, U.S.
    (March 1, 1995)
    Founder(s)Jerry YangDavid Filo
    HeadquartersSunnyvale, CaliforniaU.S.
    Area servedWorldwide
    Key peopleFred Amoroso
    (Chairman)
    Marissa Mayer
    (CEO)
    ProductsSee Yahoo! products
    Revenuedecrease US$ 4.98 billion (2011)[1]
    Operating incomeincrease US$ 800 million (2011)[1]
    Net incomedecrease US$ 1.04 billion (2011)[1]
    Total assetsdecrease US$ 14.78 billion (2011)[1]
    Total equitydecrease US$ 12.53 billion (2011)[1]
    Employees12,000 (May 2012)[2]
    SubsidiariesYahoo! subsidiaries
    WebsiteYahoo.com

    Yahoo! operates the web portal which provides content including the latest news, entertainment, and sports information. The portal also gives users access to other Yahoo! services like Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Maps, Yahoo! FinanceYahoo! Groups and Yahoo! Messenger.
    Yahoo! Inc. was founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in January 1994 and was incorporated on March 1, 1995. On January 13, 2009, Yahoo! appointed Carol Bartz, former executive chairman of Autodesk, as its new chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors.[7] On September 6, 2011, Bartz was removed from her position at Yahoo! by chairman Roy Bostock and CFO Tim Morse was named as Interim CEO of the company.[8][9] On January 4, 2012, Scott Thompson, former President of PayPal, was named the new chief executive officer.[10] On May 13, 2012, Scott Thompson was replaced by Ross Levinsohn as the company's interim CEO.[11] On July 16 2012, former Google executive Marissa Mayer was named as Yahoo! CEO and President, effective July 17.[12] Yahoo has averaged one CEO a year for the last five years.Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQYHOO) is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portalsearch engine (Yahoo! Search), Yahoo! DirectoryYahoo! MailYahoo! NewsYahoo! Finance,Yahoo! GroupsYahoo! Answersadvertisingonline mappingvideo sharingfantasy sports and social media website and services. It is one of the largest websites in the United States.[3] According to news sources, roughly 700 million people visit Yahoo! websites every month.[4][5] Yahoo! itself claims it attracts "more than half a billion consumers every month in more than 30 languages."

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    PayPal



PayPal Inc.
TypeSubsidiary of eBay Inc.
FoundedPalo Alto, California, USA (1998)
HeadquartersSan Jose, California, USA
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s)Ken Howery
Max Levchin
Elon Musk
Luke Nosek
Peter Thiel
Key peoplePatrick Dupuis, CFO
David Marcus, President
RevenueUS$4.4 billion (2011)
OwnereBay Inc.
Websitehttps://www.paypal.com
Alexa ranknegative increase 37 (July 2012)[1]
AdvertisingYes
RegistrationOptional
Available inMultilingual
Current statusActive



eBay's North First Street satellite office campus (home to PayPal's corporate headquarters)
PayPal is a global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders.
Originally, a PayPal account could be funded with an electronic debit from a bank account or by a credit card at the payer's choice. But some time in 2010 or early 2011, PayPal began to require a verified bank account after the account holder exceeded a predetermined spending limit. After that point, PayPal will attempt to take funds for a purchase from funding sources according to a specified funding hierarchy. If you set one of the funding sources as Primary, it will default to that, within that level of the hierarchy (for example, if your credit card ending in 4567 is set as the Primary over 1234, it will still attempt to pay money out of your PayPal balance, before it attempts to charge your credit card). The funding hierarchy is (1) a balance in the PayPal account; (2) a PayPal credit account, PayPal Extras, PayPal SmartConnect, PayPal Extras MasterCard or Bill Me Later (if selected as primary funding source) (It can bypass the Balance); (3) a verified bank account; (4) other funding sources, such as non-PayPal credit cards.[2]
The recipient of a PayPal transfer can either request a check from PayPal, establish their own PayPal deposit account or request a transfer to their bank account.
PayPal is an acquirer, performing payment processing for online vendors, auction sites, and other commercial users, for which it charges a fee. It may also charge a fee for receiving money, proportional to the amount received. The fees depend on the currency used, the payment option used, the country of the sender, the country of the recipient, the amount sent and the recipient's account type.[3] In addition, eBay purchases made by credit card through PayPal may incur extra fees if the buyer and seller use different currencies.
On October 3, 2002, PayPal became a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay.[4] Its corporate headquarters are in San Jose, California, United States at eBay's North First Street satellite office campus. The company also has significant operations in Omaha, NebraskaScottsdale, Arizona, and Austin, Texas, in the United StatesChennaiDublinKleinmachnow (near Berlin) and Tel Aviv. As of July 2007, across Europe, PayPal also operates as a Luxembourg-based bank.




-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Google


Google Inc.
TypePublic
Traded asNASDAQGOOGFWBGGQ1
NASDAQ-100 Component
S&P 500 Component
IndustryInternet, Computer software
FoundedMenlo Park, California, U.S.
(September 4, 1998)[1][2]
Founder(s)Sergey BrinLarry Page
HeadquartersGoogleplexMountain View, CaliforniaUnited States
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleLarry Page
(Co-founder & CEO)
Eric Schmidt
(Executive Chairman)
Sergey Brin (Co-Founder)
ProductsSee list of Google products.
Revenueincrease US$ 37.905 billion (2011)
Operating incomeincrease US$ 11.632 billion (2011)
Profitincrease US$ 9.737 billion (2011)
Total assetsincrease US$ 72.574 billion (2011)
Total equityincrease US$ 58.145 billion (2011)
Employees54,604 (2012)[3]
SubsidiariesAdMobDoubleClickMotorola MobilityOn2 Technologies,PicnikYouTubeZagat
WebsiteGoogle.com
References: [4]

Google Inc. (NASDAQGOOG) is an American multinational corporation which provides Internet-related products and services, including Internet searchcloud computing, software and advertising technologies.[5] Advertising revenues from AdWords generate almost all of the company's profits.[6][7]

The company was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while both attended Stanford University. Together, Brin and Page own about 16 percent of the company's stake. Google was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 4, 1998, and its initial public offering followed on August 19, 2004. The company's mission statement from the outset was "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful",[8] and the company's unofficial slogan is "Don't be evil".[9][10] In 2006, the company moved to its current headquarters in Mountain View, California.

Rapid growth since incorporation has triggered a chain of products, acquisitions, and partnerships beyond the company's core web search engine. The company offers online productivity software including email, an office suite, and social networking. Google's products extend to the desktop as well, with applications for web browsing, organizing & editing photos, and instant messaging. Google leads the development of the Android mobile operating system, as well as the Google Chrome OS browser-only operating system,[11] found on specialized netbooks called Chromebooks.

Google has been estimated to run over one million servers in data centers around the world,[12] and process over one billion search requests[13] and about twenty-four petabytes of user-generated data every day.[14][15][16][17]

As of September 2009 Alexa listed the main U.S.-focused google.com site as the Internet's most visited website, and numerous international Google sites as being in the top hundred, as well as several other Google-owned sites such as YouTube, Blogger and Orkut.[18] Google also ranks number two in the BrandZ brand equity database.[19] The dominant market position of Google's services has led to criticism of the company over issues including privacy, copyright, and censorship.
Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford University in California.[23]

While conventional search engines ranked results by counting how many times the search terms appeared on the page, the two theorized about a better system that analyzed the relationships between websites.[24] They called this new technology PageRank, where a website's relevance was determined by the number of pages, and the importance of those pages, that linked back to the original site.[25][26]

A small search engine called "RankDex" from IDD Information Services designed by Robin Li was, since 1996, already exploring a similar strategy for site-scoring and page ranking.[27] The technology in RankDex would be patented[28] and used later when Li founded Baidu in China.[29][30]

Page and Brin originally nicknamed their new search engine "BackRub", because the system checked backlinks to estimate the importance of a site.[31][32][33]
Eventually, they changed the name to Google, originating from a misspelling of the word "googol",[34][35] the number one followed by one hundred zeros, which was picked to signify that the search engine wants to provide large quantities of information for people.[36] Originally, Google ran under the Stanford University website, with the domain google.stanford.edu.[37]
Ninety-nine percent of Google's revenue is derived from its advertising programs.[109] For the 2006 fiscal year, the company reported $10.492 billion in total advertising revenues and only $112 million in licensing and other revenues.[110] Google has implemented various innovations in the online advertising market that helped make it one of the biggest brokers in the market. Using technology from the company DoubleClick, Google can determine user interests and target advertisements so they are relevant to their context and the user that is viewing them.[111][112] Google Analytics allows website owners to track where and how people use their website, for example by examining click rates for all the links on a page.[113] Google advertisements can be placed on third-party websites in a two-part program. Google's AdWords allows advertisers to display their advertisements in the Google content network, through either a cost-per-click or cost-per-view scheme. The sister service, Google AdSense, allows website owners to display these advertisements on their website, and earn money every time ads are clicked.[114]
Most of Google's revenue is derived from its advertising programs.Google has implemented various innovations in the online advertising market that helped make it one of the biggest brokers in the market. Using technology from the company DoubleClick, Google can determine user interests and target advertisements so they are relevant to their context and the user that is viewing them.[111][112] Google Analytics allows website owners to track where and how people use their website, for example by examining click rates for all the links on a page.[113] Google advertisements can be placed on third-party websites in a two-part program. Google's AdWords allows advertisers to display their advertisements in the Google content network, through either a cost-per-click or cost-per-view scheme. The sister service, Google AdSense, allows website owners to display these advertisements on their website, and earn money every time ads are clicked.[114]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Facebook

Facebook
Facebook.svg
URLFacebook.com
Type of siteSocial networking service
RegistrationRequired
Availablelanguage(s)Multilingual (70)
Users901 million[1] (active April 2012)
OwnerFacebook, Inc.
Created by
LaunchedFebruary 4, 2004
Alexa ranksteady 2 (July 2012)[2]
RevenueAdvertising
Current statusActive
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, owned and operated by Facebook, Inc.[3] As of May 2012, Facebook has over 900 million active users, more than half of them using Facebook on a mobile device.[4] Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into lists such as "People From Work" or "Close Friends". The name of the service stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by some university administrations in the United States to help students get to know each other. Facebook allows any users who declare themselves to be at least 13 years old to become registered users of the site.[5]
Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow students Eduardo SaverinAndrew McCollumDustin Moskovitzand Chris Hughes.[6] The website's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening to high school students, and eventually to anyone aged 13 and over. However, according to a May 2011 Consumer Reports survey, there are 7.5 million children under 13 with accounts and 5 million under 10, violating the site's terms of service.[7]
A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social networking service by worldwide monthly active users.[8]Entertainment Weekly included the site on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list, saying, "How on earth did we stalk our exes, remember our co-workers' birthdays, bug our friends, and play a rousing game of Scrabulous before Facebook?"[9] Critics, such as Facebook Detox,[10] state that Facebook has turned into a national obsession that results in vast amounts of time lost and innately encourages narcissism. Quantcast estimates Facebook has 138.9 million monthly unique U.S. visitors in May 2011.[11] According to Social Media Today, in April 2010 an estimated 41.6% of the U.S. population had a Facebook account.[12] Nevertheless, Facebook's market growth started to stall in some regions, with the site losing 7 million active users in the United States and Canada in May 2011.[13] Facebook purchased fb.com on January 11, 2011 for 8.5 million dollars making the acquisition of FB.com one of the ten highest domain sales in history. Again in 2012 it bought the photo sharing website Instagram for 1 billion dollars.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LinkedIn

LinkedIn Corporation
TypePublic
Traded asNYSELNKD
FoundedSanta Monica, California (2003)
HeadquartersMountain View, CaliforniaUS
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s)Reid Hoffman
Allen Blue
Konstantin Guericke
Eric Ly
Jean-Luc Vaillant
Key peopleReid Hoffman
(Executive Chairman)
Jeff Weiner
(CEO)
IndustryInternet
Revenue$522 million (2011)[1]
Employees2,447 (2012)[1]
SloganRelationships Matter
Websitewww.linkedin.com
IPv6 supportNo
Alexa ranksteady 12 (July 2012)[2]
Type of siteSocial network service
AdvertisingGoogleAdSense
RegistrationRequired
Users161 million[3] (February 2012)
Available inEnglish, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Romanian, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Czech, Polish, Korean, Bahasa Indonesia, and Bahasa Malaysia.
LaunchedMay 5, 2003
Current statusActive
LinkedIn (NYSELNKD) (play /ˌlɪŋkt.ˈɪn/) is a social networking website for people in professional occupations. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003,[4] it is mainly used for professional networking. As of February 9, 2012, LinkedIn reports more than 150 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories.[5][6] The site is available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Romanian, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Czech, Polish, Korean, Bahasa Indonesia, and Bahasa Malaysia.[7][8][9] Quantcast reports LinkedIn has 21.4 million monthly unique U.S. visitors and 47.6 million globally.[10] In June 2011, LinkedIn had 33.9 million unique visitors, up 63 percent from a year earlier and surpassing MySpace.[11] LinkedIn filed for an initial public offering in January 2011 and traded its first shares on May 19, 2011, under the NYSE symbol "LNKD".[12]
One purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people with whom they have some level of relationship, called Connections. Users can invite anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a connection. However, if the invitee selects "I don't know" or "Spam", this counts against the inviter. If the inviter gets too many of such responses, the account may be restricted or closed.[43]
This list of connections can then be used in a number of ways:
  • A contact network is built up consisting of their direct connections, the connections of each of their connections (termed second-degree connections) and also the connections of second-degree connections (termed third-degree connections). This can be used to gain an introduction to someone a person wishes to know through a mutual contact.
  • Users can upload their resume or design their own profile in order to showcase work and community experiences.
  • It can then be used to find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by someone in one's contact network.
  • Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.
  • Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and discover which of their existing contacts can introduce them.
  • Users can post their own photos and view photos of others to aid in identification.
  • Users can now follow different companies and can get notification about the new joining and offers available.
  • Users can save (i.e. bookmark) jobs which they would like to apply for.






----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


IBM


International Business Machines Corporation
TypePublic
Traded asNYSEIBM
Dow Jones Component
S&P 500 Component
IndustryComputer hardware,Computer softwareIT servicesIT consulting
FoundedEndicott, New York, U.S.
(June 16, 1911)
Founder(s)Charles Ranlett Flint
HeadquartersArmonk, New YorkU.S.
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleSamuel Palmisano
(Chairman)
Ginni Rometty
(President and CEO)
ProductsSee IBM products
Revenueincrease US$ 106.91 billion (2011)[1]
Operating incomeincrease US$ 20.28 billion (2011)[1]
Net incomeincrease US$ 15.85 billion (2011)[1]
Total assetsincrease US$ 116.43 billion (2011)[1]
Total equitydecrease US$ 20.13 billion (2011)[1]
Employees433,362 (2012)[2]
DivisionsFinancing, Hardware, Services, Software
WebsiteIBM.com

International Business Machines Corporation, or IBM, is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered inArmonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructurehosting and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology.[3]

The company was founded in 1911 as the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation through a merger of three companies: the Tabulating Machine Company, the International Time Recording Company, and the Computing Scale Corporation.[4][5] CTR adopted the name International Business Machines in 1924, using a name previously designated to CTR's subsidiary in Canada and later South America. Its distinctive culture and product branding has given it the nickname Big Blue.

In 2012, Fortune ranked IBM the #2 largest U.S. firm in terms of number of employees (433,362),[2] the #4 largest in terms of market capitalization,[6]the #9 most profitable,[7] and the #19 largest firm in terms of revenue.[8] Globally, the company was ranked the #31 largest in terms of revenue byForbes for 2011.[9][10] Other rankings for 2011/2012 include #1 company for leaders (Fortune), #1 green company worldwide (Newsweek), #2 best global brand (Interbrand), #2 most respected company (Barron's), #5 most admired company (Fortune), and #18 most innovative company (Fast Company).[11]

IBM holds more patents than any other U.S.-based technology company, and has nine research laboratories worldwide.[12] Its employees have garnered five Nobel Prizes, six Turing Awards, nine National Medals of Technology, and five National Medals of Science[13] Famous inventions by IBM include the automated teller machine (ATM), the floppy disk, the hard disk drive, the magnetic stripe card, the relational database, the Universal Product Code (UPC), the financial swapSABRE airline reservation systemDRAM, and Watson artificial intelligence.

The company has undergone several organizational changes since its inception, acquiring companies like SPSS (2009) and PwC consulting (2002),spinning off companies like Lexmark (1991), and selling off product lines like ThinkPad to Lenovo (2005).

Sam Palmisano stepped down as chief executive officer on January 1, 2012, but retained his position as chairman. He was replaced by veteran IBMerGinni Rometty.[14][15]


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard Company
TypePublic
Traded asNYSEHPQ
Dow Jones Component
S&P 500 Component
IndustryComputer hardware,Computer softwareIT consultingIT services
Founded1939 (Palo Alto)
Founder(s)Bill HewlettDavid Packard
HeadquartersPalo Alto, CaliforniaU.S.
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleRaymond Lane
(Executive Chairman)
Meg Whitman
(President & CEO)
ProductsSee list of HP products.
Revenueincrease US$ 127.24 billion (2011)[1]
Operating incomedecrease US$ 9.67 billion (2011)[1]
Net incomedecrease US$ 7.07 billion (2011)[1]
Total assetsincrease US$ 129.51 billion (2011)[1]
Total equitydecrease US$ 38.62 billion (2011)[1]
Employees349,600 (2011)[1]
DivisionsFinancing, Hardware, Services, Software
SubsidiariesList of subsidiaries
WebsiteHP.com
Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSEHPQ) or HP is an American multinational hardware and software corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, United States. It provides products, technologies, software, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and large enterprises, including customers in the government, health and education sectors.
The company was founded in a one-car garage in Palo Alto by William (Bill) Redington Hewlett and Dave Packard. HP is the world's leading PC manufacturer. It specializes in developing and manufacturing computing, data storage, and networking hardware, designing software and delivering services. Major product lines include personal computing devices, enterprise, and industry standard servers, related storage devices, networking products, software and a diverse range of printers, and other imaging products. HP markets its products to households, small- to medium-sized businesses and enterprises directly as well as via online distribution, consumer-electronics and office-supply retailers, software partners and major technology vendors. HP also has strong services and consulting business around its products and partner products.
Major company events have included the spin-off of part of its business as Agilent Technologies in 1999, its merger with Compaq in 2002, and the acquisition of EDS in 2008, which led to combined revenues of $118.4 billion in 2008 and a Fortune 500 ranking of 9 in 2009.[2] In November 2009, HP announced the acquisition of 3Com,[3] with the deal closing on April 12, 2010.[4] On April 28, 2010, HP announced the buyout of Palm for $1.2 billion.[5] On September 2, 2010, HP won its bidding war for 3PAR with a $33 a share offer ($2.07 billion) which Dell declined to match.[6]
HP is recognized as the symbolic founder of Silicon Valley, although it did not actively investigate semiconductor devices until a few years after the "traitorous eight" had abandoned William Shockley to create Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957. Hewlett-Packard's HP Associates division, established around 1960, developed semiconductor devices primarily for internal use. Instruments and calculators were some of the products using these devices.

In May 2010, HP was named one of the World's Most Ethical Companies by Ethisphere Institute. This is the second year in a row HP has made the list. Ethisphere reviewed, researched and analyzed thousands of nominations in more than 100 countries and 35 industries to create the 2010 list. HP was one of only 100 companies to earn the distinction of top winner and was the only computer hardware vendor to be recognized. Ethisphere honors firms that promote ethical business standards and practices by going beyond legal minimums, introducing innovative ideas that benefit the public.[69]
HP is listed in Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics that ranks electronics manufacturers according to their policies on sustainability, energy and climate and green products. In November 2011, HP secured the 1st place (out of 15) in this ranking (climbing up 3 places) with an increased score of 5.9 (up from 5.5). It scored most points on the new Sustainable Operations criteria, having the best programme for measuring and reducing emissions of greenhouse gases from its suppliers and scoring maximum points for its thorough paper procurement policy.[70]
Moreover, HP does especially well for its disclosure of externally verified greenhouse gas emissions and its setting of targets for reducing them.[71] However, Greenpeace reports that HP risks a penalty point in future editions due to the fact that it is a member of trade associations that have commented against energy efficiency standards.[70]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Wipro

Wipro Limited
TypePublic limited company
Traded asBSE507685
NSEWIPRO
NYSEWIT
BSE SENSEX Constituent
IndustryIT servicesIT consulting
FoundedAmalner, Maharashtra (December 1945)
Founder(s)M.H. Hasham Premji
HeadquartersBangaloreIndia
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleAzim Premji
(Chairman)
ServicesIT, business consulting andoutsourcing services
Revenueincrease US$ 7.30 billion (2012)[1]
Operating incomedecrease US$ 1.25 billion (2012)[1]
Profitdecrease US$ 1.09 billion (2012)[1]
Total assetsincrease US$ 8.55 billion (2012)[1]
Total equityincrease US$ 5.60 billion (2012)[1]
Employees135,920 (2012)
DivisionsWipro Consumer Care & Lighting
Wipro Infrastructure Engineering
Wipro GE Medical Systems Limited
Wipro Technology Services Limited
Websitewww.wipro.com
Wipro Limited (formerly Western India Products Limited) (NASDAQWITNYSEWITBSE507685) is an Indian multinational provider of Information technology (IT) services, consulting and outsourcing services. It is headquartered in Bangalore, India.[2][3] As of 2012, the company has over 130,000 employees and a worldwide presence with global centers across 54 countries.[4]
The company operates in four segments: IT products and services, Consumer care and lighting, Healthcare and Infrastructure engineering.[5]

Spirit of Wipro

The Spirit of Wipro is the core of Wipro and represents its values and what Wipro aspires to be. These values are

[edit]Intensity to Win

  • Make Customers Successful
  • Team, Innovate, Excel

[edit]Act with Sensitivity

  • Respect the individual
  • Thoughtful and responsible

[edit]Unyielding Integrity

  • Delivering on commitments
  • Honesty and fairness in actions[43]
The Spirit is an indivisible synthesis of all three statements and means manifesting the three values all the time. Wipro organizes the Spirit of Wipro Run every year in which employees and families are encouraged to participate to celebrate the Wipro spirit.[44] In 2011, this run was organized over a period of 24 hours across 11 cities in India and 45 overseas locations across five continents – a first in the run’s six year history.
Wipro Technologies, the global IT business of Wipro Limited is a leading Information Technology, consulting and outsourcing company with a comprehensive portfolio of services and an organization wide commitment to sustainability and innovation[47]. The IT Products segment sells a range of Wipro personal desktop computers, Wipro servers and Wipro notebooks. It is also a value added reseller of desktops, servers, notebooks, storage products, networking solutions and packaged software for international brands[48].
Wipro entered into the technology business in 1981 and has over 130,000 employees and clients across 54 countries today. [49]IT revenues stood at $ 5.9 billion for the year ended March 31, 2012 with a repeat business ratio of over 95%[50][51].
Wipro Technologies enables clients to respond and change according to business needs, to “do business better” and be future-ready. [52]It provides IT services, outsourced R&D, infrastructure services, business process services and business consulting. [53]The business model at Wipro Technologies is an industry aligned customer facing model[54][55][56] which gives greater understanding of customers’ businesses to build industry specific solutions.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tata Consultancy Services

Tata Consultancy Services Limited
TypePublic
Traded asBSE532540
NSETCS
BSE SENSEX Constituent
IndustryIT servicesIT consulting
Founded1968
Founder(s)JRD Tata
HeadquartersMumbaiMaharashtraIndia
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleRatan Tata
(Chairman)
N. Chandrasekaran
(CEO & MD)
Seturaman Mahalingam
(CFO)
ServicesIT, business consulting andoutsourcing services
Revenuedecrease US$ 0.0 billion (2012)[1]
Profitdecrease US$ 0 billion (2012)[1]
Employees243,545 (2012)[1]
ParentTata Group
Websitewww.tcs.com
Tata Consultancy Services Limited (TCS) (BSE532540NSETCS) is an Indian provider of information technology (IT) services, business solutions and outsourcing services headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It is a subsidiary of Tata Group conglomerate.
One of TCS' first assignments was to provide punched card services to a sister concern, Tata Steel (then TISCO). It later bagged the country's first software project, the Inter-Branch Reconciliation System (IBRS) for the Central Bank of India.[2] It also provided bureau services to Unit Trust of India, thus becoming one of the first companies to offer BPO services.
  • Early 1970s—Tata Consultancy Services started exporting its services.
  • 1974— TCS's first international order came from Burroughs Corporation, one of the first business computer manufacturers. TCS was assigned to write code for the Burroughs machines for several US-based clients.[3] This experience also helped TCS bag its first onsite project—the Institutional Group & Information Company (IGIC), a data center for ten banks, which catered to two million customers in the US, assigned TCS the task of maintaining and upgrading its computer systems.[3]

Bombay House, the Head Office of theTata Group.
  • 1975—TCS counducted its first-ever campus interview which was at IISc,Bangalore. The recruits comprising 12 IITians and 3 IISc graduates were the first to get formal training at the company.[4]
  • 1979—TCS delivered an electronic depository and trading system called SECOM for SIS SegaInterSettle, Switzerland. It was by far the most complex project undertaken by an Indian IT company. TCS followed this up with System X for the Canadian Depository System and also automated the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).[5] TCS associated with a Swiss partner, TKS Teknosoft, which it later acquired.[6]
  • 1985—The first client-dedicated offshore development center was set up for Compaq (then Tandem).
  • 1999—TCS saw outsourcing opportunity in E-Commerce and related solutions and set up its E-Business division with ten people. By 2004, E-Business was contributing half a billion dollars (US) to TCS.[7]
  • 2012-TCS became the first Indian IT company to cross the 10 billion dollar revenue milestone.
  •  TCS has 19 Innovation Labs based in three countries.[24]


Intel

Intel Corporation
TypePublic
Traded asNASDAQINTC
EuronextINCO
SEHK4335
Dow Jones Component
NASDAQ-100 Component
S&P 500 Component
IndustrySemiconductors
FoundedMountain View, California, U.S.
(July 18, 1968)[1]
Founder(s)Gordon MooreRobert Noyce
HeadquartersSanta Clara, CaliforniaU.S.[2]
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleAndy Bryant
(Chairman)
Paul Otellini
(President and CEO)
ProductsBluetooth chipsetsflash memorymicroprocessors,motherboard chipsets,network interface cards
Revenueincrease US$ 54.0 billion (2011)[3]
Operating incomeincrease US$ 17.5 billion (2011)[3]
Net incomeincrease US$ 12.9 billion (2011)[3]
Total assetsincrease US$ 71.12 billion (2011)[3]
Total equityincrease US$ 45.91 billion (2011)[3]
Employees100,100 (2011)[3]
WebsiteIntel.com
Intel Corporation (NASDAQINTC) is an American multinational semiconductor chip maker corporation headquartered in Santa Clara, California, United States and the world's largest and highest valued semiconductor chip maker, based on revenue.[4] It is the inventor of the x86 series ofmicroprocessors, the processors found in most personal computers. Intel Corporation, founded on July 18, 1968, is a portmanteau of IntegratedElectronics (the fact that "intel" is the term for intelligence information was also quite suitable).[5] Intel also makes motherboard chipsetsnetwork interface controllers and integrated circuitsflash memorygraphic chipsembedded processors and other devices related to communications and computing. Founded by semiconductor pioneers Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore and widely associated with the executive leadership and vision ofAndrew Grove, Intel combines advanced chip design capability with a leading-edge manufacturing capability. Though Intel was originally known primarily to engineers and technologists, its "Intel Inside" advertising campaign of the 1990s made it and its Pentium processor household names.
Intel was an early developer of SRAM and DRAM memory chips, and this represented the majority of its business until 1981. Although Intel created the world's first commercial microprocessor chip in 1971, it was not until the success of the personal computer (PC) that this became its primary business. During the 1990s, Intel invested heavily in new microprocessor designs fostering the rapid growth of the computer industry. During this period Intel became the dominant supplier of microprocessors for PCs, and was known for aggressive and sometimes illegal tactics in defense of its market position, particularly against Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), as well as a struggle with Microsoft for control over the direction of the PC industry.[6][7] The 2011 rankings of the world's 100 most valuable brands published by Millward Brown Optimor showed the company's brand value at number 58.[8]
Intel has also begun research in electrical transmission and generation.[9][10] Intel has recently introduced a 3-D transistor that may improve performance and energy efficiency.[11] Intel will be mass producing this 3-D transistor, called Tri-Gate transistors, with their upcoming 22 nm process in the near future.[12] In 2011, SpectraWatt Inc., a solar cell spinoff of Intel, filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11.[13]

SAP AG

SAP AG
TypeAktiengesellschaft
Traded asISINDE0007164600FWBSAP NYSESAP
IndustryEnterprise software
FoundedWeinheim, Germany (1972)
Founder(s)Dietmar Hopp
Hans-Werner Hector
Hasso Plattner
Klaus Tschira
Claus Wellenreuther
HeadquartersWalldorfGermany
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleHasso Plattner (Chairman)
Jim Hagemann Snabe (Co-CEO)
Bill McDermott (Co-CEO)
ProductsSee list of SAP products.
Revenueincrease 14.233 billion (2011)[1]
Operating incomeincrease €4.879 billion (2011)[1]
Profitincrease €3.438 billion (2011)[1]
Total assetsincrease €23.225 billion (2011)[1]
Total equityincrease €12.699 billion (2011)[1]
Employees59,420 (2012)[1]
WebsiteSAP.com
SAP AG (ISINDE0007164600FWBSAPNYSESAP) is a German multinational software corporation that makes enterprise software to manage business operations and customer relations. Headquartered in Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg, with regional offices around the world, SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software. The company's best known software products are its enterprise resource planning application (SAP ERP), its enterprise data warehouse solution - SAP Business Warehouse (SAP BW), SAP BusinessObjects software, and most recently, Sybase mobile products and in-memory computing appliance SAP HANA. SAP is one of the largest independent software corporations.
SAP was founded in June 1972 as Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung ("System Analysis and Program Development")[2] by five formerIBM engineers in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg (Dietmar HoppKlaus TschiraHans-Werner HectorHasso Plattner, and Claus Wellenreuther).[2] The acronym was later changed to stand for Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung ("Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing").
In December 2011, SAP AG agreed to buy SuccessFactors Inc. for $3.4 billion in cash or 52 percent more than the share closing price on 2 December 2011. With the acquisition, SAP AG will become more competitive with Oracle Corp. in the Cloud computing market.[17]
In May 2012, SAP AG announced to acquire the Sunnyvale, California-based supply chain network operator Ariba Inc. for an estimated $4.3 billion dollars. SAP said it will offer $45 a share. The acquisition is assumed to be completed in the third quarter 2012, subject to approval by Ariba shareholders and regulators.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation
TypePublic
Traded as
IndustryComputer software
Online services
Video games
FoundedAlbuquerqueNew Mexico, United States (April 4, 1975)
Founder(s)Bill GatesPaul Allen
HeadquartersMicrosoft Redmond Campus,RedmondWashingtonU.S.
Area servedWorldwide
Key people
ProductsSee listing
ServicesSee listing
Revenueincrease US$ 69.94 billion (2011)[1]
Operating incomeincrease US$ 27.16 billion (2011)[1]
Net incomeincrease US$ 23.15 billion (2011)[1]
Total assetsincrease US$ 108.7 billion (2011)[1]
Total equityincrease US$ 57.08 billion (2011)[1]
Employees90,000 (2011)[1]
SubsidiariesList of Microsoft subsidiaries
WebsiteMicrosoft.com
References: [2]
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQMSFT) is an American multinational corporation headquartered in RedmondWashington, United States that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services related to computing. The company was founded by Bill Gatesand Paul Allen on April 4, 1975. Microsoft is the world's largest software corporation measured by revenues.
Microsoft was established to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. It rose to dominate the home computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems. The company's 1986 initial public offering, and subsequent rise in the share price, created an estimated three billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees. Since the 1990s, the company has increasingly diversified from the operating system market. In May 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype for $8.5 billion in its largest acquisition to date.[3]
As of 2012, Microsoft is market dominant in both the PC operating system and office suite markets (the latter with Microsoft Office). The company also produces a wide range of software applications for desktops and servers, and is active in areas including internet search (with Bing), the video game industry (with the Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles), the digital services market (through MSN), and mobile phones (via the Windows Phone OS). In June 2012, Microsoft announced that it would be entering the PC vendor market for the first time, with the launch of the Microsoft Surface tablet computer.
In the 1990s, critics began to contend that Microsoft used monopolistic business practices and anti-competitive strategies including refusal to dealand tying, put unreasonable restrictions in the use of its software, and used misrepresentative marketing tactics; both the U.S. Department of Justiceand European Commission found the company in violation of antitrust laws.






-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HCL Technologies

HCL Technologies Limited
TypePublic
Traded asBSE532281
NSEHCLTECH
IndustryIT Services
Founded12 November 1991
Founder(s)Shiv Nadar
HeadquartersNoida, India
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleShiv Nadar (Chairman & CSO)
Vineet Nayar (VC & CEO)
ServicesIT and Outsourcing services
RevenueINR16,102 crore (US$3.21 billion)(2011)[1]
Employees82,464 (2012)[1]
ParentHCL
Websitewww.hcltech.com
HCL Technologies Limited (BSE532281NSEHCLTECH) is an Indian provider of Information technology (IT) services and consulting company headquartered in NoidaIndia. It is primarily engaged in providing a range of outsourcing services, business process outsourcing and infrastructure services. HCL Technologies is fourth largest IT company in India and is ranked 48 in the global list of IT services providers.
HCL Technologies formed in 1991 when HCL's R&D business was spun off to focus on the growing IT services industry.They have decided to vast their features in Information Technology all over the world. During last 20 years, HCL has expanded its service portfolio in IT applications (custom applications for industry solutions and package implementation), IT infrastructure management, and business process outsourcing, while maintaining and extending in product engineering.

[edit]Services

HCL provides services across the following business lines -
  • Engineering and R&D Services (ERS) - offering services in Hardware, Embedded, Mechanical and Software Product Engineering.
  • Enterprise Transformation Services (ETS) - offering services in the areas of Independent Verification and Validation, Process Transformation, Data Management, Integration Services, Architecture Services, Disruptive Technology Services, IT Strategy, and Change Management.
  • Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) - division of HCL Technologies Limited has delivery offices across India, UK and USA.[4]
  • Enterprise Application Services (EAS) - focuses on areas like in ERP, SCM, CRM, HCM, EPM, BI and Middleware. This group is now part of HCL AXON, subsidiary of HCL Technologies, formed after HCL Tech acquired Axon Group plc for £440m cash offer in 2008.[5]
  • IT Infrastructure Management Services (ISD) - Well known as HCL Comnet Systems and Services is subdivion of HCL Technologies formed in 1999 offering services such as End User Computing, Datacenter Transformation, Network Services, Information Security Services, Integrated Operations Management, Cross functional services, Mainframe and AS/400 and System Integration.ISD is considred to be a fastest growing line of business. .[6]

[edit]Acquisitions and Joint Ventures

The company acquired Capitalstream, a US BFSI product company for US$40 million in February 2008.[7] Capitalstream's FinanceCenter product is an addition to HCL's current product addressing the BFSI market - Penstock, the product that HCL launched in 2007.[8]
On 15 December 2008, HCLT acquired the UK based AXON Group for US$658 million, which was renamed HCL Axon.

[edit]


Apple Inc.


Apple Inc.
TypePublic
Traded as
Industry
FoundedApril 1, 1976 (incorporatedJanuary 3, 1977 as Apple Computer, Inc.)
Founder(s)
HeadquartersApple Campus, 1 Infinite Loop,Cupertino, CaliforniaU.S.
Number of locations364 retail stores(as of October 2011)
Area servedWorldwide
Key people
Products
Services
Revenueincrease US$ 108.249 billion (2011)[3]
Operating incomeincrease US$ 33.790 billion (2011)[3]
Net incomeincrease US$ 25.922 billion (2011)[3]
Total assetsincrease US$ 116.371 billion (2011)[3]
Total equityincrease US$ 76.615 billion (2011)[3]
Employees60,400 (2011)[4]
SubsidiariesBraeburn CapitalFileMaker Inc.Anobit
WebsiteApple.com

Apple Inc. (NASDAQAAPL; formerly Apple Computer, Inc.) is an American multinational corporation that designs and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products are the Macintosh line of computers, theiPod, the iPhone and the iPad. Its software includes the Mac OS X operating system; the iTunes media browser; the iLife suite of multimedia and creativity software; the iWork suite of productivity software; Aperture, a professional photography package; Final Cut Studio, a suite of professional audio and film-industry software products; Logic Studio, a suite of music production tools; the Safari web browser; and iOS, a mobile operating system.
As of July 2011, Apple has 364 retail stores in thirteen countries,[5] and an online store.[6] It is the largest publicly traded company in the world by market capitalization[7] [8] as well as the largest technology company in the world by revenue and profit, more than Google and Microsoftcombined.[9][10] As of September 24, 2011, the company had 60,400 permanent full-time employees and 2,900 temporary full-time employees worldwide;[4] its worldwide annual revenue in 2010 totalled $65 billion, growing to $108 billion in 2011.[3]
Fortune magazine named Apple the most admired company in the United States in 2008, and in the world from 2008 to 2012.[11][12][13][14][15]However, the company has received widespread criticism for its contractors' labor, and for its environmental and business practices.[16][17]
Established on April 1, 1976 in Cupertino, California, and incorporated January 3, 1977,[18] the company was named Apple Computer, Inc. for its first 30 years. The word "Computer" was removed from its name on January 9, 2007,[19] as its traditional focus on personal computers shifted towardsconsumer electronics.[20]


















Oracle 

Oracle Corporation
TypePublic
Traded asNASDAQORCL
NASDAQ-100 Component
S&P 500 Component
IndustryEnterprise software
Computer hardware
FoundedSanta ClaraCaliforniaUSA
(June 16, 1977)[1]
Founder(s)Larry EllisonBob Miner,
Ed Oates
Headquarters500 Oracle Parkway,Redwood ShoresRedwood City, CaliforniaUnited States
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleLarry Ellison (CEO)
Jeffrey Henley (Chairman)
Safra Catz (President)
Mark Hurd (President)
ProductsOracle ApplicationsOracle DatabaseOracle Enterprise ManagerOracle Fusion Middlewareservers,workstationsstorage
Revenueincrease US$ 37.1 billion (2012)[2]
Operating incomeincrease US$ 13.7 billion (2012)[2]
Net incomeincrease US$ 10.0 billion (2012)[2]
Total assetsincrease US$ 78.3 billion (2012)[2]
Total equityincrease US$ 44.1 billion (2012)[2]
Employees115,166 (Q4 FY12)[2]
SubsidiariesList of Oracle subsidiaries
Websitewww.oracle.com

Oracle Corporation (NASDAQORCL) is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketingcomputer hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems. Headquartered at 500 Oracle Parkway,Redwood ShoresRedwood City, California, United States and employing approximately 113,644 people worldwide as of 30 June 2012,[3] it has enlarged its share of the software market through organic growth and through a number of high-profile acquisitions. By 2007 Oracle had the third-largest software revenue, after Microsoft and IBM.[4]
The company also builds tools for database development and systems of middle-tier software, enterprise resource planning software (ERP), customer relationship management software (CRM) and supply chain management (SCM) software.
Larry Ellison, a co-founder of Oracle Corporation, has served as Oracle's CEO throughout its history. He also served as the Chairman of the Boarduntil his replacement by Jeffrey O. Henley in 2004. On August 22, 2008 the Associated Press ranked Ellison as the top-paid chief executive in the world.[5][6]
Ellison took inspiration[7] from the 1970 paper written by Edgar F. Codd on relational database management systems (RDBMS) named "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks."[8] He heard about the IBM System R database from an article in the IBM Research Journal provided by Ed Oates (a future co-founder of Oracle Corporation). System R also derived from Codd's theories, and Ellison wanted to make Oracle's product compatible with System R, but IBM stopped this by keeping the error codes for their DBMS secret. Ellison co-founded Oracle Corporation in 1977 with Bob Minerand Ed Oates under the name Software Development Laboratories (SDL). In 1979 SDL changed its name to Relational Software, Inc. (RSI).[9] In 1982, RSI renamed itself Oracle Systems[10] to align itself more closely with its flagship product Oracle Database. At this stage Bob Miner served as the company's senior programmer. In 1995, Oracle Systems Corporation changed its name to Oracle Corporation.[11]
Part of Oracle Corporation's early success arose from using the C programming language to implement its products. This eased porting to differentoperating systems (most of which support C). This gave Oracle Corporation an advantage over companies using operating-system-specific languages.[citation needed] Oracle Corporation programmers wrote the first C compiler for the IBM mainframe platform in order to port to that platform.[citation needed].
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Infosys

Infosys Limited
TypePublic
Traded asBSE500209
NSEINFY
NASDAQINFY
BSE SENSEX Constituent
IndustryIT servicesIT consulting
Founder(s)N. R. Narayana Murthy
Nandan Nilekani
N. S. Raghavan
S. Gopalakrishnan
S. D. Shibulal
K Dinesh
Ashok Arora
HeadquartersBangalore, India
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleK. V. Kamath
(Chairman)
S. Gopalakrishnan
(Co-Chairman)
S.D. Shibulal
(CEO & MD)
ServicesIT, business consulting andoutsourcing services
Revenueincrease US$ 6.99 billion (2012)[1]
Operating incomeincrease US$ 2.01 billion (2012)[1]
Profitincrease US$ 1.71 billion (2012)[1]
Total assetsincrease US$ 7.53 billion (2012)[1]
Total equityincrease US$ 6.57 billion (2012)[1]
Employees151,151 (2012)[1]
DivisionsInfosys BPOInfosys China
Websitewww.infosys.com
Infosys Limited formerly Infosys Technologies Limited (BSE500209NSEINFYNASDAQINFY) is an Indian provider of business consulting, technology, engineering and outsourcing services. Its headquartered in Bangalore, India. It has offices in 30 countries and development centers in India, US, China, Australia, UK, Canada, Japan and many other countries.
Infosys was co-founded in 1981 by N. R. Narayana MurthyNandan Nilekani
N. S. RaghavanS. GopalakrishnanS. D. Shibulal, K Dinesh & Ashok Arora after
 they resigned from Patni Computer Systems. Today, Infosys is 
a global leader in the "next generation" of IT and consulting with
 revenues of 7billion (FY12).
Infosys ranked among the most innovative companies in a Forbes survey [2],
 leading technology companies in a report by The Boston Consulting Group [3]
 and top ten green companies in Newsweek's Green Rankings
.Infosys was voted India's most admired company in The Wall Street

Infosys Labs

Infosys developed a corporate Research and Development wing
 called Infosys Labs. Consisting of a dedicated research and
 innovation facility, Infosys Labs builds on the successes of the
 award-winning Software Engineering and Technology Labs (SETLabs),
 and envisages a broader mandate. The 600-member technology and
 domain-focused team focuses on driving innovation across trends
 identified by the company to transform the businesses of clients 
globally.[14]

[edit]Charity

In October 2009, the northern districts of Karnataka were severely affected by floods after torrential rainfall. It claimed hundreds of lives and rendered millions of villagers homeless.

The employees of Infosys joined hands to rebuild villages and undertake a mass housing project. Infoscions, together with the Board of Directors and the Infosys Foundation, contributed US$ 6.8 million towards relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Adobe Systems

Adobe Systems
TypePublic
Traded asNASDAQADBE
NASDAQ-100 Component
S&P 500 Component
IndustryComputer software
FoundedMountain View, California, U.S.
(1982)
Founder(s)Charles Geschke
John Warnock , Steebanraj Charles
HeadquartersAdobe Systems complex,
San Jose, California, U.S.
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleCharles Geschke
(Co-Chairman)
John Warnock
(Co-Chairman)
Shantanu Narayen
(President & CEO)
ProductsList of Adobe products
Revenueincrease US$ 4.21 billion (2011)[1]
Operating incomeincrease US$ 1.19 billion (2011)[1]
Net incomeincrease US$ 832.85 million (2011)[1]
Total assetsincrease US$ 8.99 billion (2011)[1]
Total equityincrease US$ 5.78 billion (2011)[1]
Employees9,925 (December 2, 2011)[1]
WebsiteAdobe.com
Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQADBE) (play /əˈdb/ ə-doh-bee) is an American multinational computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States. The company has historically focused upon the creation of multimedia and creativity software products, with a more-recent foray towards rich Internet application software development.
Adobe was founded in December 1982[2] by John Warnock and Charles Geschke, who established the company after leaving Xerox PARC in order to develop and sell the PostScript page description language. In 1985, Apple Computer licensed PostScript for use in its LaserWriter printers, which helped spark the desktop publishing revolution. The company name Adobe comes from Adobe Creek in Los Altos, California, which ran behind the houses of both of the company's founders.[2] Adobe acquired its former competitor, Macromedia, in December 2005, which added newer software products and platforms such as ColdFusionDreamweaverFlash and Flex to its product portfolio.
As of 2010, Adobe Systems has 9,117 employees,[2] about 40% of whom work in San Jose. Adobe also has major development operations inOrlando; Seattle; San Francisco; Lehi, UtahMinneapolisWaltham, Massachusetts; and San Luis Obispo, California in the United States; Ottawa, Canada; Hamburg, Germany; Noida and Bangalore, India; Bucharest, Romania; Basel, Switzerland; and Beijing, China.
At PhotoShop World 2011, Adobe unveiled a new mobile photo service.[26] Carousel is a new application for iPhone, iPad and Mac that uses Photoshop Lightroom technology for users to adjust and fine-tune images on all platforms.[26] Carousel will also allow users to automatically sync, share and browse photos.[26] The service was later renamed to "Adobe Revel"[27].
On November 9, 2011 Adobe announced that they would cease development of Flash for mobile devices following version 11.1. Instead they will be focusing on HTML 5 for mobile devices.[28]
On December 1, 2011, Adobe announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately held Efficient Frontier.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Former typeSubsidiary
IndustryComputer systems
Computer software
FateAcquired by Oracle
Successor(s)Oracle America, Inc.
Founded1982
Founder(s)Vinod Khosla
Andy Bechtolsheim
Bill Joy
Scott McNealy
DefunctJanuary 27, 2010
HeadquartersSanta Clara, CaliforniaUSA
ProductsServers
Workstations
Storage
Services
Owner(s)Oracle Corporation
Employees38,600 (near peak, 2006)[1]
WebsiteOracle.com
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold computers, computer components, computer software, and information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982.[2] At its height, Sun headquarters were in Santa Clara, California (part of Silicon Valley), on the former west campus of the Agnews Developmental Center.
On January 27, 2010, Sun was acquired by Oracle Corporation for US$7.4 billion, based on an agreement signed on April 20, 2009.[3] The following month, Sun Microsystems, Inc. was merged with Oracle USA, Inc. to become Oracle America, Inc.[4]
Sun products included computer servers and workstations based on its own SPARC processors as well as AMD's Opteron and Intel's Xeonprocessors; storage systems; and, a suite of software products including the Solaris operating system, developer tools, Web infrastructure software, and identity management applications. Other technologies include the Java platformMySQL, and NFS. Sun was a proponent of open systems in general and Unix in particular, and a major contributor to open source software.[5] Sun's main manufacturing facilities were located in Hillsboro, Oregonand Linlithgow, Scotland.













----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems, Inc.
TypePublic
Traded asNASDAQCSCO,SEHK4333
Dow Jones Component
S&P 500 Component
IndustryNetworking equipment
FoundedSan Francisco, California, U.S.
(1984)
Founder(s)Leonard Bosack
Sandy Lerner
HeadquartersSan Jose, CaliforniaU.S.[1]
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleJohn Chambers
(Chairman & CEO)
ProductsNetworking Device
Network Management
Cisco IOS and NX-OS Software
Interface and Module
Optical networking
Storage area networks
WirelessTelepresenceVOIP, Security
Datacenter
List of Cisco Products
Revenueincrease US$ 43.2 billion (2011)[2]
Operating incomedecrease US$ 7.67 billion (2011)[3]
Net incomedecrease US$ 6.49 billion (2011)[3]
Total assetsincrease US$ 87.09 billion (2011)[3]
Total equityincrease US$ 47.25 billion (2011)[3]
Employees71,825 (2012)[4]
SubsidiariesList of acquisitions
WebsiteCisco.com
Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQCSCO) is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Jose, California, United States,[5] that designs, manufactures, and sells networking equipment. The stock was added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average on June 8, 2009, and is also included in the S&P 500 Index, the Russell 1000 IndexNASDAQ 100 Index and the Russell 1000 Growth Stock Index.[6]

History


One of the many buildings on the Cisco Systems campus in San Jose

[edit]1984–1995: early years

Leonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple who worked as computer operations staff members at Stanford University, later joined by Erich Drafahl, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner briefly moved on to direct computer services at Schlumberger, but returned full time to Cisco in 1987.[citation needed] The name "Cisco" was derived from the city name, San Francisco, which is why the company's engineers insisted on using the lower case "cisco" in the early days. For Cisco's first product, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally written some years before by William Yeager, another Stanford employee who later joined Sun Microsystems. The company's first CEO was Bill Graves, who held the position from 1987 to 1988.[7] In 1988, John Morgridge was appointed CEO.
On February 16, 1990, Cisco Systems went public (with a market capitalization of $224 million) and was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. On August 28, 1990, Lerner was fired; upon hearing the news, her husband Bosack resigned in protest. The couple walked away from Cisco with $170 million, 70% of which was committed to their own charity.[8]
Although Cisco was not the first company to develop and sell dedicated network nodes,[9] it was one of the first to sell commercially successful routers supporting multiple network protocols.[10] Classical, CPU-based architecture of early Cisco devices coupled with flexibility of operating system IOSallowed for keeping up with evolving technology needs by means of frequent software upgrades. Some popular models of that time (such as Cisco 2500) managed to stay in production for almost a decade virtually unchanged - a rare sight in high-tech industry. Although Cisco was strongly rooted in the enterprise environment, the company was quick to capture the emerging service provider environment, entering SP market with new, high-capacity product lines such as Cisco 7000 and Cisco 7500.
Between 1992 and 1994, Cisco also acquired several companies in Ethernet switching, most notably Kalpana, Grand Junction and Crescendo Communications which together formed the Catalyst business unit. At the time, the company envisioned layer 3 routing and layer 2 (EthernetToken Ring) switching as complementary functions of different intelligence and architecture – the former was slow and complex, the latter was fast but simple. This philosophy dominated the company's product lines throughout 1990s.
In 1995, John Morgridge was succeeded by John Chambers.

[edit]1996–2005: Internet and silicon intelligence

The phenomenal growth of the Internet in mid - to late 1990s quickly changed the telecom landscape. As the Internet Protocol (IP) became widely adopted, the importance of multi-protocol routing declined. Nevertheless, Cisco managed to catch the Internet wave, with products ranging from modem access shelves (AS5200) to core GSR routers that quickly became vital to Internet service providers and by 1998 gave Cisco de-facto monopoly in this critical segment.
In late March 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom, Cisco became the most valuable company in the world, with a market capitalization of more than US$500 billion.[11][12] In November 2011, with a market cap of about US$94 billion,[13] it is still one of the most valuable companies.[14]
Meanwhile, the growth of Internet bandwidth requirements kept challenging traditional, software-based packet processing architectures.
The perceived complexity of programming routing functions in silicon, led to formation of several startups determined to find new ways to process IP and MPLS packets entirely in hardware and blur boundaries between routing and switching. One of them, Juniper Networks, shipped their first product in 1999 and by 2000 chipped away about 30% from Cisco SP Market share. Cisco answered the challenge with homegrown ASICs and fast processing cards for GSR routers and Catalyst 6500 switches. In 2004, Cisco also started migration to new high-end hardware CRS-1 and software architecture IOS-XR.

[edit]
Throughout mid-2000s Cisco also built a significant presence in India. establishing its Globalization Centre East in Bangalore for $1 billion planning that 20% of Cisco's leaders would be based there.[16]
However Cisco continued to be challenged by both domestic Alcatel-LucentJuniper Networks and overseas competitors HuaweiCisco products, most notably IP phones and Telepresence, are frequently sighted in movies and TV series.[20] The company itself and its history was featured in the documentary film Something Ventured which premiered in 2011.
Cisco acquired a variety of companies to spin products and talent into the company. In 1995–1996 the company completed 11 acquisitions.[24] Several acquisitions, such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the industry when they occurred. During the Internet boom in 1999, the company acquired Cerent Corporation, a start-up company located in Petaluma, California, for about US$7 billion. It was the most expensive acquisition made by Cisco to date, and only the acquisition of Scientific Atlanta has been larger. Several acquired companies have grown into $1Bn+ business units for Cisco, including LAN switching, Enterprise Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) platform Webex, and home networking. The latter came as result of Cisco acquiring Linksys in 2003 and in 2010 was supplemented with new product line dubbed Cisco Valet. Cisco announced on March 15, 2012 that it is acquiring NDS Group for a $5B.[25] This transaction is expected to complete in 4–6 months.

In the recent merger deals, Cisco bought Starent Networks (a mobile technology company) and Moto Development Group, a product design consulting firm that helped develop Cisco's Flip video camera.[26] Also in 2010, Cisco became a key stakeholder in e-Skills Week. In March 2011, Cisco completed the acquisition of privately held network configuration and change management solutions company Pari Networks.[27]

Although many buy-ins (such as Crescendo Networks in 1993, Tandberg in 2010) resulted in acquisition of flagship technology to Cisco, many others have failed – partially or completely. For instance, in 2010 Cisco occupied a meaningful share of the packet-optical market,[28] revenues were still not on par with US$7 billion price tag paid in 1999 for Cerent. Some of acquired technologies (such as Flip from Pure Digital) saw their product lines terminated.[29]
[edit]Products and services

Cisco's current portfolio of products and services is focused upon three market segments – Enterprise and Service Provider, Small Business and the Home. The solutions for each market are segmented into Architectures, which form the basis for how Cisco approaches each market.
Corporate market: Enterprise networking and Service Providers
Borderless networks: for their range of routers, switches, wireless systems, security systems, WAN acceleration, energy and building management systems and media aware networks.[30]
Collaboration: IP video and phones, TelePresence, HealthPresence, Unified Communications, Call Center systems, Enterprise social networks and Mobile applications[31]
Datacenter and Virtualization: Unified Computing, Unified Fabric, Data Centre Switching, Storage Networking and Cloud services.[32]
IP NGN (Next Generation Networks): High-end routing and switching for fixed and mobile service provider networks, broadcast video contribution/distribution, entitlement and content delivery systems.[33]
Small businesses[34]
Routers and switches (including those for networks of smart meters)[35]
Security and surveillance: IP cameras, data and network security solutions, etc.[36]
Voice and conferencing solutions: VOIP phones and gateway-systems, WebEx, video conferencing
Wireless: WiFi Access points
Network storage systems
Home user[37]
Linksys product line of access points, switches, etc.
Broadband: cable modems

With the acquisition of Pure Digital Technologies, Cisco began to sell a line of video recording devices called "Flip Video" that had been Pure Digital's only line of products. This line of products was not as popular as Cisco had thought it would have been, and on April 12, 2011, Cisco announced they were discontinuing all Flip camera production.[38][39] Cisco ūmi product line – video conferencing for home also proved to be a short-lived bid for consumer multimedia market and did survive in Cisco product lineup.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Dell

Dell Inc.
TypePublic
Traded asNASDAQDELL
SEHK4331
NASDAQ-100 Component
S&P 500 Component
IndustryComputer hardware, Computer software, IT consultingIT services
FoundedAustin, Texas, U.S.
(November 4, 1984)
Founder(s)Michael Dell
Headquarters1 Dell Way, Round Rock,
Texas
United States[1]
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleMichael Dell
(Chairman & CEO)
ProductsDesktopsnetbooks,notebooksperipherals,serversprintersscanners,smartphonesstorages, televisions
Revenueincrease US$ 63.07 billion (2012)[2]
Operating incomeincrease US$ 4.43 billion (2012)[2]
Net incomeincrease US$ 3.49 billion (2012)[2]
Total assetsincrease US$ 44.53 billion (2012)[2]
Total equityincrease US$ 8.91 billion (2012)[2]
Employees110,000 (2012)[2]
SubsidiariesAlienwareDell Services,Force10SonicWallWYSE,SecureWorksKACE NetworksExanetCompellent,AppAssure SoftwareQuest Software
WebsiteDell.com
Dell Inc. (NASDAQDELL) is an American multinational computer technology corporation based in 1 Dell Way, Round Rock, Texas, United States, that develops, sells and supports computers and related products and services. Bearing the name of its founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest technological corporations in the world, employing more than 103,300 people worldwide.[2] Dell is listed at number 41 in the Fortune 500list.[3] It is the third largest PC vendor in the world after HP and Lenovo.[4]
Dell has grown by both increasing its customer base and through acquisitions since its inception; notable mergers and acquisitions includingAlienware (2006) and Perot Systems (2009). As of 2009, the company sold personal computers, serversdata storage devicesnetwork switches,software, and computer peripherals. Dell also sells HDTVs, cameras, printers, MP3 players and other electronics built by other manufacturers. The company is well known for its innovations in supply chain management and electronic commerce.
Fortune Magazine listed Dell as the sixth largest company in Texas by total revenue.[5] It is the second largest non-oil company in Texas – behindAT&T – and the largest company in the Austin, Texas area.[6]
Dell's headquarters is located in Round Rock, Texas.[32] As of 2010 the company employs about 16,000 people in the facility,[33] which has 2,100,000 square feet (200,000 m2) of space.[34] As of 1999 almost half of the general fund of the City of Round Rock originates from sales taxes generated from the Dell headquarters.[35]
The US and India are the only countries which have all of Dell's business functions and provide support globally: Research and Development, manufacturing, finance, analysis, customer care.
From its early beginnings, Dell operated as a pioneer in the "configure to order" approach to manufacturing—delivering individual PCs configured to customer specifications. In contrast, most PC manufacturers in those times delivered large orders to intermediaries on a quarterly basis.[57]
To minimize the delay between purchase and delivery, Dell has a general policy of manufacturing its products close to its customers. This also allows for implementing a just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing approach, which minimizes inventory costs. Low inventory is another signature of the Dell business model—a critical consideration in an industry where components depreciate very rapidly.[58]
Dell's manufacturing process covers assembly, software installation, functional testing (including "burn-in"), and quality control. Throughout most of the company's history, Dell manufactured desktop machines in-house and contracted out manufacturing of base notebooks for configuration in-house.[59] However, the company's approach has changed. The 2006 Annual Report states "we are continuing to expand our use of original design manufacturing partnerships and manufacturing outsourcing relationships." The Wall Street Journal reported in September, 2008 that "Dell has approached contract computer manufacturers with offers to sell" their plants.[60]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------






































5 comments:

  1. thanks for posting

    excellent information provided

    Hope to see top Indian farms related to Professional tax consultants India in your next post

    thanks

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have gone through your post and it provides a really nice information on Industrial vacuum cleaners India by Forbesprocts.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Business intelligence Analyst
    SQIAR (http://www.sqiar.com/services/bi-strategy/) is a leading Business Intelligence company.Sqiar Provide business intelligence Services Which help the company to present Information in Meaningful form.

    ReplyDelete
  4. How to Win Clients and Influence Markets with Motherboard
    Your PC starts to boot up gradually.>Peripherals on your PC begin to end up inconsistent.>You see odd conduct on your screen, through glimmering, lines on the screen or startling stops.>When you connect a glimmer drive to your PC’s USB port it at times neglects to introduce.>Increased recurrence of “blue screen of death” blunders.>A consuming or liquefied plastic smell.

    ReplyDelete
  5. SSbizconsulting is one of the best firm of IT consulting and project management services that operate across Sydney, Australia. Our key strength is focusing on our client’s needs such as implementing project management HR, Payroll and Workforce Management Systems. Our in-depth knowledge in the industry allows us to provide our clients with insights that add real value.

    ReplyDelete