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6:32:00 PM

Lincoln will reveal a concept version of its next-generation Navigator at the New York Auto Show on Wednesday — and the big new SUV is the boldest concept Ford's luxury brand has rolled out since its comeback began several years ago.
The Navigator was first introduced in 1997. With the Cadillac Escalade, it defines the large-and-in-charge SUV market.
These are SUVs executed on an epic scale. Sales were relatively strong until the early 2000s, when gas prices began to creep up and the tide of consumer sentiment turned against big, gas-guzzling trucks.
The financial crisis put Lincoln into a tailspin and raised doubts at Ford about whether the brand should live.
But live it did, and now it's on a solid run. In 2015, Lincoln captivated the New York Auto Show with its Continental concept (the production version was one of the stars of the 2016 Detroit Auto Show).
This year in New York, Lincoln gave journalists a sneak preview of the direction the Navigator will be moving in.

It's worth keeping in mind, this is a concept, so some of the more exotic features — massive gullwing doors and retractable concertina steps adorned with nautical teak — are unlikely to make it to the production vehicle that hits showrooms  

Sleek and suave

But the overall suave and sleek redesign, which follows a refresh of the old SUV from 2015, marks an interesting new phase in Lincoln's revival. The brand is zigging when much of the rest of the competition is zagging, aiming to deliver what Lincoln president Kumar Galhotra calls "quiet luxury." Mercedes, Lexus, BMW, and Cadillac have all taken an aggressive tack in the design of their SUVs. 
But Lincoln is going for something different: easygoing, self-confident sophistication with a dash of hard jazz.
It had to bring Navigator into that evolving brand story — and do in a big way.
Hangs out with yachts.

"It's a vehicle we have to have," Galhotra told Business Insider. "The original Navigator fundamentally changed the paradigm for luxury customers. It's an iconic nameplate."
Galhotra was clearly delighted that he could preside over his second high-drama concept presentation in as many years. And for the moment, Lincoln's quiet luxury is a bit more brash.

Born from yachts

The Navigator concept was inspired by yachts and the world of luxury boating, according to designer David Woodhouse, who provided us with a walkaround of the quite large vehicle once the huge white sheet was pulled off at an exhibition space in Manhattan's West Chelsea art gallery neighborhood.
The yachting theme "influenced everything from the clean, modern lines and Storm Blue paint on the exterior that mimics the grays and blues of sea and sky, to the teak finishes, custom gear and wardrobe management system found inside," Lincoln said in a statement. 
A massive new Lincoln grille and badge fill one's field of vision when considering the Navigator head on. This will be a common visual element on all new Lincolns going forward.
The wardrobe management is actually rather cool: it's a rack that would accommodate everything the modern yachtsman or yachtswoman would need for a day on the water and an evening at the yacht club. 
A place for all your stuff.

Innovative infotainment

The fourth-generation of the Navigator will get a 400-plus-horsepower, 3.5-liter V6 engine, Lincoln said, along with a host of features already familiar to owners of the brand's crossovers and sedans, including 30-way adjustable seats and a suite of collision-avoidance and advanced cruise-control technologies. The production version will also have the kind of towing capacity that Navigators have come to expect — to tow, for example, a small yacht!
For the concept, Lincoln also showed what quiet luxury looks like when it enters the Navigator's infotainment system. There are four interconnected screens — two in the second row and two in the third — on which passengers can enjoy multiplayer games and other shared apps, thanks to in-vehicle wifi. 
But it's the driver's instrument cluster that signals Lincoln's whole attitude toward its customers, who want to tune out distractions rather than being bombarded with data. The instrument screen can be customized to display only the most essential driving information (owners who want more can add information, if they choose).
Really huge cars are sometimes derisively called "boats" or "land yachts," but with the Navigator concept, Lincoln has turned that idea completely around. It's a Navigator, sure, so it has to be immense. But inside and out — in concept at any rate — it looks like it's ready to cut through open water rather than slosh around in a currently bay. 
It also proves that Lincoln and Ford aren't holding back when it comes to reinventing the brand. If you want to see the early star of the New York Auto Show, this could be it.


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6:38:00 AM

Hot dogs are a classic American food, and I've tried nearly every one. 
After eating hot dogs from Burger King, Shake Shack, Five Guys, and Checkers, it surprised me to admit that Burger King serves the best hot dogs.
Grilled hot dogs were only added to the menu a month ago and have been receiving mixed reviews.
But after several of our readers expressed their regard for Costco's hot dogs, I decided to see what all the hype was about.

I made the journey to Costco in Brooklyn, New York and went straight to the food court.
While I waited in line, I overheard many of the customers order either the hot dog or a slice of pizza.
I placed my order with the cashier and before I finished paying, a hot dog appeared..
Wrapped in its foil, I could have mistaken it for a burrito. It was huge!  
Costco sells one hot dog, plus a drink for $1.50. That’s way cheaper than the other chains I tried (excluding Checkers' hot dogs which are 86 cents.) 
Costco has been selling the hot dog combo at the same price for 30 years.

I unwrapped the foil and skipped over to the condiments section. I added ketchup, mustard, and relish, consistent with the other hot dogs I tried.
I took a bite and my eyes lit up.
The bun is soft, sweet, and holds the dog and condiments well. It never got soggy. 
The dog is very flavorful, with a slight smokiness to it. 
While I enjoy Burger King’s grilled hot dog, I must admit that Costco’s hot dog is the winner — it’s bigger, cheaper, and embodies a richer flavor. Burger King's hot dog offered an off-the-grill, charred taste that got old.
Since Burger King is conveniently located to me, I’ll continue to go there.
But if I find myself at Costco,  I’ll be sure to treat myself to the famous hot dogs.



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6:29:00 AM
BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA – MARCH 20:  Seohee Ham lands a punch on Bec Rawlings during their UFC Strawweight bout during UFC Brisbane on March 20, 2016 in Brisbane, Australia. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)

By my count, UFC is on its way to soon becoming a $3 billion enterprise.

Mixed Martial Arts got approval from the New York State Assembly two days ago.  The bill now moves to the desk of Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has expressed his intention to sign it. From there, the New York State Athletic Commission has 120 days to adopt guidelines.
Here’s the audio of the press conference with Lorenzo Fertitta, UFC Chairman and CEO, Ike Lawrence Epstein, UFC Senior Executive Vice President and COO, Marc Ratner, UFC Senior Vice President of Government and Regulatory Affairs and Chris Weidman, former UFC middleweight champion.

UFC has pledged four events per year in New York for the first three years after passage, and UFC will tentatively have the opportunity to kick it off with an event before the end of 2016. The promotion, founded in 1993 and purchased by Zuffa, LLC in January 2001, is currently in 49 states and has 520 athletes representing 45 countries. UFC is also the largest PPV event provider in the world and produces more than 40 live events annually.

From 2001 through 2014, UFC’s revenue increased from $4.6 million to over $520 million. Earlier this year I estimatedUFC’s 2015 revenue and operating income (in the sense of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) at $540 million and $110 million, respectively. I also pegged the promotion’s enterprise value (equity plus debt) between $1.8 and $2.0 billion.
Regarding the impact of having UFC events in New York,  Lorenzo Fertitta said “For us, obviously I think that New York is the biggest market for us in the United States already from a pay-per-view standpoint, the most important media market in the United States, perhaps in the world. We have high expectations when we do events at Madison Square Garden or in the arenas in upstate New York, we’re looking to literally break the gate records in each arena that we go to, and that includes Madison Square Garden when we eventually get there, hopefully by the fourth quarter of this year.”

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6:17:00 AM
Above: From left to right: iPhone 4S, Samsung Galaxy Note, PS Vita
Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), the Sony subsidiary behind the PlayStation console, has announced that it’s forming a new company specifically to build games for mobile devices. “ForwardWorks” will be officially incorporated on April 1 — the same day SCE is due to merge with Sony Network Entertainment International (SNEI) to create Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a new business dedicated to PlayStation.
Sony said it will use its existing PlayStation titles and characters to create games for “smart devices including smartphones” (Android and iOS) for users in Japan and the broader Asia region. “SIE will vigorously maximize the corporate value and create new business opportunities through the establishment of ForwardWorks,” the company said in a press release.
Heading up ForwardWorks will be president Atsushi Morita, who’s currently president of SCE Japan and Asia, while the head of the new combined SIE unit, Andrew House, will sit on the board.
While the giants of the gaming world have long embraced “mobile” through handheld consoles, they have largely steered clear of building games specifically for mobile devices. However, there has been a clear change in strategy — just last week, Nintendo launched its first mobile game, Miitomo, which topped the Japanese App Store in under two days. Sony too has dabbled in the smartphone realm through PlayStation Mobile, a now abandoned initiative that sought to make some games available on select Android phones.
Though ForwardWorks will be limited to the Asian market for now, it’s a notable change in direction for Sony — and it’s indicative, if nothing else, that the omnipresence of smartphones is just too difficult to ignore. This doesn’t mean that the console market is dead, however — it’s still said to be worth around $30 billion globally. But it is telling that Sony, as with Nintendo, is focusing specifically on Japan and Asia with its first foray into making smartphone games.
As GamesBeat’s Jeff Grubb recently noted, Japan no longer matters to PlayStation. “Japan is now a mobile gaming-first market,” he said. Two million PS4s have sold in Japan, compared to 35 million globally — and that tells its own story.

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2:55:00 AM
The construction union and a peak business group have clashed over whether a tougher building industry regulator would infringe workers’ rights or was necessary to crackdown on unlawful conduct at an industrial relations election curtain-raiser.
The Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union national construction secretary, Dave Noonan, said Malcolm Turnbull had recalled parliament in the run-up to a possible 2 July double dissolution election on “a lie” that the Australian Building and Construction Commission was necessary to deal with endemic criminalityand corruption in the construction sector.
Noonan said the ABCC was not a criminal law enforcement agency but rather enforced industrial laws through civil penalties.
The Australian Industry Group’s chief executive, Innes Willox, and Noonan debated the merits of the ABCC on Wednesday at the National Press Club. Willox said the government was right to consider the ABCC bill “a major priority”.
He said it contained powerful protections against unlawful behaviour including: the ability to compel people to give evidence; higher penalties for unlawful conduct; and a building code that would prevent employers who had capitulated to “union coercion” from receiving government work.
Noonan took aim at the economic case for the ABCC, saying an Econtech report on the productivity benefits of the ABCC had been “comprehensively debunked” and its output was “valueless”.
The construction union boss said the ABCC in its last iteration had seen a “serious escalation in the number of fatalities in the building industry”.
He said the Fair Work Building Construction regulator was now suing more than 500 individual workers for unprotected industrial action for up to $10,000 – penalties that could triple under the ABCC bill.
Noonan said some industrial laws had been condemned by the International Labour Organisation up to eight times for breaching freedom of association and collective bargaining conventions ratified by Australia. Its compulsory examination powers also stripped away the right against self-incrimination, he said.
Willox argued the construction industry needed a separate regulator because it was “a different beast” characterised by “bullying, thuggery and standover tactics”. He cited a pattern of industrial law breaches by the CFMEU, which has 100 officials and delegates before the courts who are accused of more than 1,000 industrial law breaches.
Noonan said “no one likes paying members money out in fines, and the union tries to work with the law”.
He said the trade union royal commission had not recommended passage of the ABCC. The royal commission did, however, call for a separate building and industry regulator “with compulsory investigatory and information-gathering powers equivalent to those possessed by other civil regulators”, and the ABCC bill powers “appear appropriate in this regard”.
In addition to restoration of the ABCC, Willox issued an election wishlist from theProductivity Commission workplace relations review. It included increasing flexibility on workers’ pay after a transfer of business; restricting union right of entry to workplaces and lunchrooms; and prohibiting content in industrial agreements that reduced management flexibility.
He said the changes would “not completely upend the apple cart” but restore balance to the industrial relations system.
“We would hope the government and opposition would both be able to take comprehensive [workplace relations] packages to and election then find some common ground ... this is the debate we had to have now, but we don’t want to be having it years into the future.”
Noonan said AiG’s proposed reforms would allow companies to lower workers pay after a restructure or takeover; make it harder for a worker to see a union official on a worksite; and reduce job security protections in agreements which prevent work being allocated to contractors.

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2:45:00 AM
NEW YORK (AFP) – Streaming has become for the first time the top money-maker for the US recorded music business, but it has struggled to offset falling CD sales and downloads, industry data showed Tuesday.
Releasing its 2015 figures, the Recording Industry Association of America said that streaming grossed more than $2 billion led by rising subscriptions for services such as Spotify.
Amid the emergence last year of new players such as Apple Music and Tidal, revenue from paid subscriptions to streaming services — which offer unlimited, on-demand listening — grew by more than 50 percent.
Streaming accounted for 34.3 percent of overall revenue in the world’s largest music market, narrowly edging out permanent digital downloads on platforms such as iTunes.
But despite streaming’s rapid growth, the industry’s overall revenue last year went up a mere 0.9 percent to $7 billion.
CD sales and digital downloads slipped with revenue from albums on CD, long a staple of the industry, down 17 percent in revenue.
The recording association hailed the growth of streaming in a statement that said 2015 saw “the most balanced revenue mix in recent history,” with streaming, downloads and physical sales each making up roughly one third of sales.
But it also warned that the revenue setup from streaming was not keeping pace.
The industry group, without explicitly condemning companies, clearly was pointing the finger at YouTube and the free tier of Spotify, which make money through advertising.
“We, and so many of our music community brethren, feel that some technology giants have been enriching themselves at the expense of the people who actually create the music,” association president Cary Sherman said in an essay on the annual figures.
“We call this the ‘value grab’ — because some companies take advantage of outdated, market-distorting government rules and regulations to either pay below fair-market rates, or avoid paying for that music altogether,” he said, also renewing longtime criticism of US rules under which radio stations do not need to pay artists.
- Vinyl hits pre-CD highs -
One major bright spot was vinyl, whose sales went up by nearly a third amid a resurgence of interest by hardcore collectors, reaching a level last seen in 1988 before the rise of CDs.
While vinyl remains relatively niche, the format has been picking up and was worth more than a quarter of the value of CD albums last year.
The $416 million generated by vinyl accounted for more than all the revenue brought in by billions of advertisement-supported free streams.
The popularity of vinyl has been visible through the growth each year of Record Store Day, an annual celebration of independent retailers, with the latest edition on April 16 to feature hundreds of special releases around the world.
The music industry has not yet released global figures for 2015.
Streaming has risen at different paces around the world, making rapid strides in Nordic countries, while Japan and Germany – the world’s second and third largest music markets – remain strongholds of CDs.
Spotify, the largest streaming company, announced Monday that it had reached 30 million paying subscribers across 58 countries.
With the recording association estimating 10.8 million paid subscriptions across platforms in the United States, streaming has plenty of room to grow further.

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2:41:00 AM
After seven years and three businesses, Lily Cole still doesn’t think of herself as an entrepreneur. Aged 28, the model turned actor turned businesswoman has already spent half her life working and the last four years focused on Impossible, a social network that enables people to help out others for free. Users can offer or request almost anything in its gift economy, from piano lessons to restaurant recommendations to a chat about shared interests.
Cole has never taken a salary for Impossible and recently returned to work after having a baby with Kwame Ferreira, the founder of venture fund Kwamecorp, who helped her develop the site.
“It’s been a rollercoaster,” she says of her journey starting the business, which she says “happened by accident”. The business evolved from an idea she had during her time at Cambridge university – she wanted to find out if technology could replace money.
“The idea was: can technology play the same role in life that money plays so that we’re not so dependent on money as a society? It felt like a really simple idea. I became quite obsessed with it.”
Starting a business has been full of highs and lows. “There have been amazing moments and difficult moments and it’s still a total learning process,” she says. “You’re not just turning up at your job and doing your small part. You’re taking responsibility for a whole thing to move or not move. It’s all encompassing. You really have to believe in what you’re doing.”
Clothed head to toe in a black and white outfit that brings out her dramatic auburn hair, Cole is in Kensington to support the Venture, a global competition in which social entrepreneurs from Israel to Guatemala compete for mentoring and $1m (£690,000) in funding. She is taking part in a panel discussion on the role of social enterprise.
After years spent supporting social and environmental causes through charities – she is a patron of the Environmental Justice Foundation and used to be an ambassador for international development charity Global Angels – Cole has come to the conclusion that supporting social enterprise is a more effective way to change the world.
Businesses are running the world,” she says. “I used to work with a lot of amazing charities who I still support and who play an important role. But charities are separated off in a really unsustainable way to almost band aid a lot of the problems that are being created in the first place through how we operate and do business.”
But social enterprise needs more support to make a difference, she says. “Financial support [for social entrepreneurs] is massive. Funding is potentially the biggest barrier for social enterprises.”
Although social enterprises in the UK are outperforming mainstream SMEs in terms of turnover, the sector is being held back by lack of access to capital, according to 2013 research by Social Enterprise (SEUK).
Cole cites the social investment tax relief introduced in 2014 as progress but says more needs to be done.
“We need to go a bit further so [social enterprise] can become more competitive with normal business and charity. It’s something I’ve struggled with in this space. You’re not getting the tax benefits of a charity but you’re also not giving investors the upside that they get with normal business. So how do you persuade people to operate in that space?”
Is Cole worried, then, that despite operating in 120 countries, Impossible is yet to make a profit?
“We’re only at the beginning of trying to monetise the platform. I think it will take a while – I don’t know how soon we will make a profit, but most businesses take a while. We’re doing what I think most businesses do: be lean and trust that in a few years time that it will get to financial sustainability.”
Last year the company launched its own marketplace for sustainable fashion and started a membership scheme with rewards including a free magazine. But is it possible for the company, which has received help from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus, to find a financial solution when the core principle of its product is that it operates without money?
It’s a paradox Cole still struggles with. “We’re trying to encourage free transactions – there’s no inbuilt business model for that. The way I’ve squared that circle in my own head is to make it a social business. It may be one day we open source the platform and everybody becomes a volunteer and we have no running costs. Then it won’t be a business, it will be a free thing to connect people. Of course there is something very attractive about that but the reality is making it operational to this point in time has taken resource.”
It was an easier task to monetise her first business, The North Circular, she says. Co-founded with fellow model Katherine Poulton, the company sells sustainable knitwear created by a network of “grannies” knitting from home.
“It was a simple idea,” says Cole. “We had grandmas who knit, and this feeling that older generations are often quite disenfranchised from society. I was really interested in transparency on products – can we get grandmas to knit goods and put names on the labels and try make people think about the people behind products.”
Would Cole start a business without a social aim, I ask?
“Never say never, but I don’t think so.” She pauses and laughs. “I wouldn’t see the point really.”

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2:37:00 AM
Imagine a company started by a struggling entrepreneur: it began with one accounting staff, likely a non-CPA, and used Excel spreadsheet, largely a manual system. In the beginning, the attention of the business owner would primarily be focused on producing quality products or the efficient delivery of services, as well as developing and growing its client base. Over the years, the business has succeeded and expanded into an operation that now has more than 20 branches with a significantly much higher volume of transactions. However, its accounting group has likely remained lean, still employing a manual accounting system.
CHRIS FERAREZA

This story is not uncommon. Most businesses see their front office, sales and operation units or the units generating revenues as priority areas for resources and funding. On the other hand, the back office, the accounting unit – the one that tracks information after the operations have generated revenues and incurred expenses, is considered a cost center and thus, receives the least allocation in funding.
Because of this mindset, it is not surprising that business owners wake up one day finding their financial records in disarray and the financial reports either lacking or unreliable, or both. Common signs that indicate problems in the accounting group would include, among others, missing or unavailable financial reports or basic financial statements; months of backlog in transaction records; various unsupported transactions; unreconciled general ledger and subsidiary ledger; and a lack of or substantially delayed bank reconciliations.
The lack of attention to the proper and timely accounting of business transactions has significant consequences. Management is not properly guided when making business decisions, resulting in foregone opportunities or bad decisions that could lead to losses. Reliance on cash flow reports or the movements of funds in the company’s bank accounts, which are used as an alternative basis for assessing the business’ position, poses dangers to decision-making. In this scenario, business owners usually fail to consider other critical aspects affecting the business such as contingent liabilities, unrecorded obligations. Likewise, fraudulent transactions within the organization may go undetected when accounting records are not in order.
The lack of proper accounting records is also one of the reasons why companies are unable to comply with their tax obligations. The business is likely to be very vulnerable and unprepared for any examination by the tax authorities.
As a Firm, we have always advocated maintenance of proper accounting records. We always believe that management will have a better picture of the company’s current financial status and will make better informed decisions of the future when the financial records are updated, prepared on time and in order.
It is, thus, pleasing to see an increasing number of businesses that are realizing the value of maintaining proper accounting records. They engage accounting professionals to help them fix and keep their books in order. While updating financial records generally takes time and requires investment, companies now understand that not having accurate financial information is risky and may result in more costly business decisions in the long run.
The participation of the younger generation in family-owned businesses has also paved the way for the founding members of family to consider infusing new technology and professional consultants into their operations. Increasingly, these new generations of business owners are able to convince their parents that the way of doing business has now evolved and, to be competitive, finance and accounting practices must not only efficiently record the results of operations and financial condition of the company but also provide critical information for a more accurate analysis of customer behaviors and needs.
The transformation of these companies has several benefits – some companies are finding it easier to access financing and some are even able to launch an IPO. With better quality financial reports, decision-making by the management improves significantly.
Clearly, the accounting unit of a business organization is no longer seen as a cost or just a back office but as a necessary support group enabling the operations to achieve its strategy. We have seen companies that took the hard route to keeping their records updated and reliable, and several companies that regressed or decided to continue doing things the old way as the cleaning-up process took its toll. Those that took the hard road found the path to success.
Chris Ferareza is a Partner, Audit & Assurance and In-Charge of Training at P&A Grant Thornton. P&A Grant Thornton is one of the leading Audit, Tax, Advisory, and Outsourcing firm in the Philippines, with 20 Partners and over 700 staff members.
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2:34:00 AM
Established industries aren’t ripped apart overnight. That takes time, though when momentum builds, change happens fast. How can incumbents manage through the monumental changes currently under way? One answer is to take a cue from pivotal technology companies leading the change.
Many of the companies leading today’s technology-driven transformations across industries are leveraging transitional strategies, or more specifically transitional business platforms. Few old-guard players have recognized the power of transitional models, but companies such as Netflix, Uber, Apple, and Tesla know that waiting for the time to be right means waiting until it’s too late. Netflix founder Reed Hastings, for instance, always wanted to do on-demand video, but the technology infrastructure wasn’t there in 1997, the year he founded the company. Rather than giving up, he founded a DVDs-by-mail business until the time was right. Similarly, Google’s interest in Nest isn’t primarily a play to control the thermostat: it’s a Trojan Horse into the connected home.
Getting in the game helps define the game, but it’s essential to have some idea — even a vague one — of what the game might eventually be. For the next generation, that game will often be about pushing the production and provision of products and services ever closer to the moment of demand. From distributed energy generation to 3D printing to crowdfunding to the Internet of Things and data analytics, all of these technologies enable us to provide what customers want, where, how, and when they want it. Businesses able to most cost-effectively provide it will win. This dynamic will persist for many years as technology improves and businesses learn to apply it in new ways. We’re only in the early stages. Companies that focus on defending established business models will lose in the long run. Companies with foresight will pursue transitional models to be part of driving the change.
A transitional business platform such as Netflix’s DVD rental business provides a potentially profitable business opportunity that gets to market and enables, rather than hinders, transition to future business models as technologies, customer behaviors, regulations, or other factors evolve.
A transitional business platform such as Netflix’s DVD rental business provides a potentially profitable business opportunity that gets to market and enables, rather than hinders, transition to future business models as technologies, customer behaviors, regulations, or other factors evolve.

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2:31:00 AM
Domo, the secretive Utah-based cloud software startup focused on visualizing and managing the minute-by-minute data that comes with running a business, today launched a new initiative it calls the Business Cloud.
The move is a culmination of the vision that founder and CEO Josh James has been teasing at but has never fully described since the former Omniture CEO first started raising money five years ago.
“We’ve been lying about the opportunity we see ahead of us,” James said in an interview. “We’re going after a lot more than anyone may have realized.”
The plan, he described, is to create a cloud-based environment from which a company can run its operations, soup to nuts, including finance, sales, marketing and operations. The software grabs live data from all the different places it may be found and creates visual representations based on the user’s role in the company. After furtively guarding it behind non-disclosure agreements for months, Domo will open the apps up to prospective customers to try for free.
Domo is also launching an app store and already has 1,000 apps ready to install for Domo customers, some free and some paid. To support its plan to build out an ecosystem, it also launched a $50 million investment fund to back third-party companies building apps on Domo. GGV Capital, Institutional Venture Partners and Zetta Venture Partners are participating in the investment process.
Alongside the Business Cloud news, Domo also said it has added $131 million more to its Series D investment round. The investment firm BlackRock led the round last year, when it was $200 million. New investors including Credit Suisse and Canyon Capital Advisors have joined, topping it out at north of $330 million, bringing Domo’s total capital raised to date to $590 million. James said Domo maintained its $2 billion valuation.
The new fundraising implies that plans for an IPO, which James has said could happen sooner rather than later, is now more likely in the “later” category. Speaking at our Code/Enterprise Series event in San Francisco last year, James said an IPO could happen “within six months.” That was 11 months ago.

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2:27:00 AM
Tax handouts to the well-off, cuts to disability benefits and accusations of“rhetorical nonsense” courtesy of the IFS – so many of the things trumpeted in last week’s foolhardy budget were swiftly rebuked, and yet there’s still more to pluck from the scrawny financial carcass. Business rate reform for one.
In among the usual white noise and bluster, this was another cuts curve ball chucked at local government. Tumultuous doesn’t even begin to do justice to what councils have endured during the cuts era, so when the chancellor pulled plans to extend small business rate relief out of the hat, council leaders were worried.
It has understandably been welcomed by business owners, many of whom could do with the help. But if, as expected, the manoeuvre on business rates removes a sizeable chunk of tax receipts from local government coffers in the run-up to 2020, just when they are grappling with the next wave of budget constraints, then that is a major problem.
Despite government reassurances that councils will be compensated for any revenue shortfalls (projected to be £7bn) , these will be difficult to calculate).
Clive Betts, chair of the Commons’ communities and local government select committee, fired off a letter (pdf) to the secretary of state for communities and local government, Greg Clark, calling for clarification on whether the government could guarantee “that local authorities will be compensated in full and that none of them will be worse off as a result of these measures”.
In general, councils were positive about announcements by George Osborne to give them more control over raising revenue from business rates. The tax is set to be fully devolved to local authorities by 2020 in tandem with the phasing out of the revenue support grant from central government – but in reality it’s far from clear-cut.
The chief executive of Wakefield council, Joanne Roney, says the surprise move on business rates leaves some things unclear and that there’s a risk of the reductions costing her district around £7m.
It puts a number of issues into sharp focus, she adds, including how a local authority is supposed to manage its four-year budget settlement when shock changes can be introduced at a moment’s notice by the Treasury.
“The latest announcement is clearly significant given that our four-year budget settlement announced previously was [predicated] around reducing government funding with a view to increasing local business rate relief,” says Roney, stressing the need for clarity. “Local government needs to have a period of certainty.”
Barnsley has seen its budget slashed by £88m since 2010, with another £45m on the cards by 2020, according to leader of the council, Steve Houghton. “It’s very much up in the air,” he says of the business rate adjustments. He adds that that without an ironclad commitment to bridge any revenue gaps (which has historically been done via section 31 payments) councils could be left in the lurch.
But more important than this, Houghton hones in on inherent contradictions between the northern powerhouse agenda and what’s happening on the ground. The fact is that not all councils are created equal.
Some, mainly those in the south of England, are better placed to raise cash from business rates or council tax. Others, such as Barnsley, with high rates of deprivation and little wriggle room on either council tax or business rates, will in all likelihood see a further gulf between them and their wealthier southern counterparts.
“We are going to have this perverse situation where we’re talking about a northern powerhouse when actually the change in business rates will give economic advantage to the south and weaken the position of the north,” says Houghton.
With so much at stake, enormous pressures on local authorities and the chancellor’s propensity to dance around the full facts, it has perhaps never been more important to scrutinise every detail of the budget. The full implications of the business rate reform is one glaring example.


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2:23:00 AM
Above: Google Cloud Platform at GDC 2016 in San Francisco.
Image Credit: Jordan Novet/VentureBeat
(Reuters) – Google, long an also-ran in cloud services, has scored an important victory in its effort to win corporate clients: Home Depot is moving some of its data toGoogle’s cloud.
The deal, flagged Tuesday by Google executive Greg DeMichillie in a briefing and expected to be announced formally on Wednesday, highlights the momentum Google Cloud Platform has gained under the leadership of Diane Greene, a co-founder of VMWare who joined Google late last year.
VMWare sells its “virtualization” technology for improving the efficiency of data centers to many of the same customers that Google Cloud is targeting.
Many of Google Cloud’s more prominent customers, including message service Snapchat and accommodation service Airbnb, are new Internet-based companies – not always the best references for chief information officers at more traditional companies.
Landing Home Depot, the Atlanta-based construction and home-improvement retailer with over 2,000 stores in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, bolsters Google Cloud’s standing among bricks and mortar businesses. Home Depot declined to provide any details on its deal with Google.
Google’s cloud business generated about $500 million in revenues last quarter, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs, up from $400 million the quarter before. That compares to $21.32 billion overall for parent company Alphabet Inc, but the cloud business is one of its fastest-growing business areas.
Overall, Google is the No.4 player in cloud infrastructure services, according to Synergy Research, with 4 percent market share last year. Amazon’s AWS took 31 percent of the market, Microsoft’s Azure 9 percent, and IBM, 7 percent.
But there are signs Google is gaining ground. Apple, long a user of Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft’s Azure, has started using Google’s cloud for its iCloud, the service that allows Apple customers to store music, photos, and documents, according to an industry executive.
And last month, music service Spotify, a high-profile customer of Amazon’s AWS, said it would use Google’s cloud for some computing infrastructure.
Google is also building up its data centers across the world, launching two new regional centers in Japan and Oregon to bring the number of regions it serves to five.

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8:10:00 PM


 Starting in September Boeing will slow the production rate to six planes a year from twelve.

The four-engined plane is being overtaken in popularity by twin-engined craft which are more fuel efficient.

However, the 747 will still be used for the Air Force One presidential fleet, which is due to be upgraded.
'Dying'

"Basically, the 747 line is slowly dying," said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst, from the Teal Group.

"Boeing can't kill it right away, even if that makes economic sense, because they need to build the last few planes for the US Air Force presidential replacement aircraft program in a year or two," he added.

In recent years the 747 has been more popular as a cargo plane, rather than a passenger jet.

Ray Conner, chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said in a statement: "The air cargo market recovery that began in late 2013 has stalled in recent months and slowed demand for the 747-8 freighter."

Mr Aboulafia says a combination of factors has eroded demand for the jumbo.

"The cargo market has had a very difficult few years, and shows no signs of growth. Meanwhile, the 747-8I passenger version was basically killed by the 777-9X, in much the same way that Airbus's A380 was gravely damaged by the A350-1000," said Mr Aboulafia.

Boeing shares rose 0.98% on Friday.
Record year

Overall the company said global passenger traffic and demand remained strong.

Boeing and European rival Airbus delivered record craft last year and Boeing is raising production of its 787 Dreamliner, built largely with lightweight composite materials that reduce fuel use.

Production will rise from the current 10 per month rate to 14, by 2020.
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7:57:00 PM


 The company had been accused of "not paying its fair share" of tax, and criticised for complex tax structures.

Senior figures at the technology company have said that they want to draw a line under the issue.

"Today we announced that we are going to be paying more tax in the UK," Matt Brittin, the head of Google Europe, told the BBC.

"The rules are changing internationally and the UK government is taking the lead in applying those rules so we'll be changing what we are doing here.

"We want to ensure that we pay the right amount of tax."
Tax inquiry

Google's move comes after a six year inquiry by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

It acted after controversy over the low level of taxes paid by multinational companies that operate in the UK but are headquartered abroad.

Despite the UK being one of Google's biggest markets, it paid £20.4m in taxes in 2013.

The value of its sales in Britain that year was £3.8bn.

The company has been criticised for its complex international tax structures.

Its European headquarters are in Ireland which has a lower corporation tax rate than the UK.

It has also used company structures in Bermuda - where the corporation tax rate is zero - to shelter profits.

Such moves are legal and Google says it has abided by international tax rules.

It is an American business, meaning that it pays the majority of its taxes there.
Accounting change

Google has now agreed to change its accounting system so that a higher proportion of sales activity is registered in Britain rather than Ireland.

It has pledged to pay more tax on those sales in the future.

It has also said that it will use a different structure to account for its profits in the UK from 2005 until 2015.

"We are paying £130m in respect of previous years when the rules were to pay in respect of profits you make in a country and then going forward we will also be paying in respect of sales to UK customers," Mr Brittin said.
Image copyright Getty Images

Didn't the back payments, I asked Mr Brittin, show that Google's critics were right that the company had avoiding paying tax in the past?

"No," Mr Brittin replied.

"We were applying the rules as they were and that was then and now we are going to be applying the new rules, which means we will be paying more tax.

"I think there was concern that international companies were paying only in respect of profits that they make and those were the rules and the pressure was to see us pay in respect of the sales we make to UK customers - and the same for other companies.

"So, we are making a change because we want to continue to comply with the rules and the rules are changing."

An HMRC spokesman said: "The successful conclusion of HMRC enquiries has secured a substantial result, which means that Google will pay the full tax due in law on profits that belong in the UK.

"Multinational companies must pay the tax that is due and we do not accept less."

He added that HMRC enforces tax rules regardless of the size of the company.
Stinging attacks

Google, along with other American companies such as Facebook, Amazon and Starbucks, have faced heavy criticism for their tax affairs.

Margaret Hodge MP, the former chairwoman of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, describe its tax structures as "devious, calculated and, in my view, unethical".

She said that Google was avoiding paying its "fair share" of tax.

Global tax rules have been tightened over the last year, with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which produces guidance on world tax agreements, saying that multi-national companies should not deliberately move profits to different countries to avoid tax.

"I think the international rules are quite complicated and the OECD has just gone through a big process to try to simplify them and that is why the rules are changing," Mr Brittin said.

"If we were British, we would make most of our profits in the UK and we'd be paying a lot more tax in the UK.
'Strong' market

"The facts are we are an American company and that is where we pay the majority of our taxes, that is where we make the majority of our profits.

"But what is changing is outside the US, in international markets, we will be paying now in respect of our sales, not just our profits."

Mr Brittin said the UK was a strong market for Google.

"I think it is right that where there is public concern and where politicians and the press are concerned about international companies - not just us - when the rules change you should change with them and we have done that," he said.

"Of course what you want to be doing as a business is focusing on building amazing products and hiring people and helping the UK make the most of the internet opportunity and that is what we want to spend our time doing."
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