The 2008 Conficker computer worm upped the ante in the battle of cyber-security experts against the creators of malicious viruses and worms. While The Cuckoo’s Egg remains a classic book about the onset of tracking hackers, this article from The Atlantic shows that the war is far from over. As the author Mark Bowden points out the stakes in the battle against newer, more sophisticated and insidious computer viruses have never been higher.
The security experts profiled in the article employ old fashion Sam Spade-type detective work along with their state of the art technologies and unprecedented collaboration with experts across national borders. I am hesitant to say that I enjoyed this article because of the serious issues involved, but if you are going to read an article about global cyber attacks what is the harm if it also reads as well as an espionage thriller?
On the OneSource Global Business Browser landing page search for your company
under the “Companies” search box.
Search for your company within the “Companies” box. Remember, most companies in OneSource are large publicly traded corporations.
Once you’ve identified your company among the search results (yours will usually be the one headquartered in the US, with a US stock listing), click on the Strengths/Weaknesses link among the list of links on the right hand side of the page.
Can’t find a SWOT? Don’t panic.
Remember that the SWOT analysis is not difficult to make. First grab a SWOT from Reference USA International, using the process outlined above, to use as a template. Use Proquest Newsstand Complete, Factiva, and Business Source Premier to retrieve press releases and media articles on company and its executives for the past twelve months. (Focus on CEO, Chairman, and CFO interviews, new product releases, earnings releases, and stock analyst opinions on the industry or company.) Within Business Source Premier, also look for a Datamonitor company profile. If the company is public, go to their website–usually the “investors” or “company information” sections–to find the company’s SEC 10-K, 10-Q, and 14-A filings.
An acronym of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, SWOT analysis provides a simple but powerful tool for evaluating the strategic position of the firm. It is especially useful for senior executives undertaking a fundamental reappraisal of a business, in that it permits a free thinking environment, unencumbered by the constraints often imposed by a finance driven budgetary planning system.
Reposted from ResourceShelf. Shows ranking, reach %, # of unique visitors and page views. Updated monthly on the Google Ad planning site. Lists below from April 2010.
The Top 10
1. Facebook
2. Yahoo
3. Live.com
4. Wikipedia.org
5. MSN.com
6. Microsoft
7. Blogspot (owned by Google)
8. Baidu.com
9. QQ.com
10. Mozilla.com
Here are a few other rankings:
18. Twitter
22. Amazon.com
31. Flickr.com
44. IMDB
56. Linkedin.com
83. NY Times
102. Scribd
166. Reference.com
179. Reuters.com
asset-backed. Generic term for securities or financing methods where the underlying obligation and the source of interest and principal repayment is the cash flow from a particular financial asset or a portfolio (pool) of financial assets. Examples of asset-backed securities include receivables from commercial loans, credit cards, auto loans, real estate, inventory financing, and other securities (cf. mortgage-backed). The key factor in putting together such securities is the ability to differentiate or pool specific income producing assets so as to establish a legitimate legal claim or lien thereon.
Can’t get to the Keffer Library? Try this e-book, The Handbook of Financial Instruments. Chapters 14 to 20 explain simple, direct language about collateralized debt obligations, agency and non-agency mortgage-backed securities, and more in clear and understandable terms.
Well, what’s happening with asset-backed finance in the world right now?
Want some more articles like this? Go to Factiva and follow these steps:
In the Free Text box, type “asset-backed” (without quotes)
In the Subject section below the Free Text box, click on “subject”
Click the + beside Corporate/Industrial News
Scroll to Funding/Capital and click the word so that it shows up in pink above the selection field
Click the Run Search button
You’ll get a lot of results. Look for articles with titles like “Why REITs Could Lead Mortgage-Backed Comeback” or “ECB Moves to Restore Confidence in Securitisation” to get a good overview of what investment banks, investors, and even regulatory agencies are doing in asset-backed financing.
Many know LexisNexis for its reputation in legal research. On the non-law-school side of the library, we use LexisNexis primarily for news and business information.
A couple of the most interesting LexisNexis resources are Hoover’s Company Records and Experian Business Reports.
Experian Business Reports, however, are unique among our resources, and serve as a credit report for a business. In these reports you can learn whether a business has taken out a loan, what it’s using as collateral, whether it’s repaid other loans on time, and more. There is often very little that we can learn about small private businesses with standard information sources. Having this kind of snapshot of a company can be extremely valuable.
Though some banks are still cautious, business school counselors are telling students to be persistent. Banks under-hired during the market collapse, the counselors say, and will soon be creating more full-time positions than former interns can fill.
And there are other mentions of the trend. Take a look here at articles in Business Source Premier on MBAs and the job market. Want more still? Try any of our Business: Articles & Books databases with the keywords mba, hir*, job, employ*, market*. Contact a librarian for other search strategies.
Looking for something more local? Try the Minneapolis/St Paul Business Journal. Fifteen per cent of Twin Cities employers are looking to hire in Q2, according to a Manpower survey referred to in the link above. Want to find more in the Minneapolis/St Paul Business Journal, but you’re blocked by “for subscriber only” messages? Access backfiles and subscriber-only content here, via the UST Libraries.
Most web users know and use Google. According to comScore, a market research firm that tracks search statistics, Google captured 65.4 per cent of the US online search market in January. That’s two-thirds of the 15.2 billion searches run in the US in January.
Other interesting bits: Its global market share is estimated to be 86 per cent. Its IPO price in August 2004 was $85; yesterday it closed at $541. And there’s more! It’s the #1 website in the world. It processes 20 petabytes a day, or something like 1330 times the information currently held in the Library of Congress.
Turn to Gartner, a UST Libraries source for reports and analysis of the technology industry. In mid-December Gartner released a report, “Magic Quadrant for Mobile Enterprise Application Platforms.”
To find this report, log on to Gartner, search for “tablet,” and select the report from the list of results. Remember to capitalize your first and last names when logging in.
So what’s a Magic Quadrant? Essentially it’s a modified X Y graph on which are plotted the various vendors in a market relative to one another. Strategists will use this tool to determine what kind of technology to invest in, or which company to partner with for a particular venture. Business development will use this information to identify corporate prospects. (And of course students might use this information to target companies to work for.)
An illustration of a Magic Quadrant is below. In the case of tablet computers, companies like IBM, Apple, RIM, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP will appear as points on a graph indicating their relative market position.
As you can see in this YouTube video, not everyone likes the Magic Quadrant. The questioner in the video says that it’s the most “reviled” in the industry. Gideon Gartner, the founder of Gartner Group, admits that it is “overused, misused, and abused.” Which only attests to the degree to which the Magic Quadrant has become embedded in the business of technology.
Contrary to appearances, Mr Gartner is not attacking anyone in this clip, though it may appear otherwise. It’s a Q&A session. Not daytime TV.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, consulting will be the industry with the largest number of new jobs over the next decade. “Three of the 10 detailed industries projected to have the most employment growth are in professional and business services: management, scientific, and technical consulting; computer systems design; and employment services. Altogether, these 3 industries are expected to add 2.1 million jobs.” Find more details on these employment projections at the BLS website.
