Tag Archives: ABB

Microsoft Signs ABB to Use Microsoft Office 365, Yammer

By Tim Brugger, The Motley Fool

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ABB has agreed to implement Microsoft‘s Office 365 and its enterprise social network, Yammer, utilizing the cloud-based solutions across its international operations, Microsoft announced today.

Currently, ABB utilizes multiple enterprise solutions to communicate among its 145,000 employees located in 100 countries. ABB provides power and automation technologies for utility and industrial customers worldwide.

Microsoft quoted ABB Chief Information Officer Andy Tidd as saying, “Office 365 and Yammer will enable us to transform communication and collaboration among our employees, surfacing the best and most innovative ideas across the organization.”

Office 365 integrates multiple functions, including mail, video conferencing, and Yammer. Microsoft COO Kevin Turner was quoted as saying, “ABB‘s decision as a global technology leader to deploy Office 365 and Yammer will help it realize its vision for empowering employees with new ways of working via enterprise social and the cloud.”

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The article Microsoft Signs ABB to Use Microsoft Office 365, Yammer originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Tim Brugger has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of Microsoft. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Could Ford's Favorite Robotics Company Be a Top Stock?

By Blake Bos, The Motley Fool

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In the video below, Motley Fool industrials analyst Blake Bos takes a look at ABB Robotics . The company recently won a major award from Ford for being a leader in helping create major manufacturing efficiencies in Ford’s production line. Could this be a great play for investors in the recent U.S. automaker boom? Blake tells investors what they need to be paying attention to with ABB.

Ford has been performing incredibly well as a company over the past few years — it’s making good vehicles, is consistently profitable, recently reinstated its dividend, and has done a remarkable job paying down its debt. The stock has recently taken off, and it appears that investors have begun to notice what Ford is doing right. Does this create an incredible buying opportunity, or are there hidden risks with the stock that investors need to know about? For in-depth analysis on whether Ford is a buy right now, and why, you’re invited to check out The Motley Fool‘s premium research report on the company, authored by one of our top equity analysts. Simply click here now to claim your copy today.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Rise of the Machines: Are We Headed Toward SkyNet?

By Katie Spence, The Motley Fool

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If you’re a science fiction fan, or married to one, you’ve probably watched Terminator, Battlestar Galactica, and I, Robot. Widely entertaining, these shows revolve around the premise that humans create machines, and somewhere along the line, the machines become self-aware and turn on their human masters. Luckily, these stories are relegated to the land of fiction. However, the rise of robotics is not. In fact, RoboEarth recently announced that it’s developed an open source cloud engine called Rapyuta, which will allow robots to share knowledge and learn from each other. While this news might be creating nightmarish visions of SkyNet, it also presents a potential investor gold mine, as robotics could be akin to the next PC or iPhone. Here’s what you need to know.

Photo Credit: Ѕolo via Compfight cc

They’re heeere…
Believe it or not, robots already play a part in human life. iRobot makes robots like the Roomba vacuum, and FirstLook, a robot the military can use for situational awareness. Companies like Hansen Medical and Intuitive Surgical make medical-assisting robots that aid in complex surgeries. And companies like ABB make manufacturing and industrial robots. Whereas these robots probably don’t conjure images of Cylons or T-1000s, they are robots nonetheless, and part of a progression in technology.

The next steps in this progression are robots that can adapt to their environment, react to changes, and alter their behavior, all without human intervention. One such robot is Baxter, a robot made by Rethink Robotics. This robot is mainly for manufacturing companies, and was designed so that instead of going overseas for cheap labor, companies could stay stateside and use robots in their manufacturing plants, with humans overseeing the robots.  

Rodney Brooks, Rethink Robotics‘ CEO, said that he believes robots “will become as common place in our lives as turning to a search engine is today,” and that as technology progresses, robots will become cheaper and more adaptive to their environments, allowing the average person to train robots to do everyday tasks – like the dishes.  

This is where cloud computing, Google‘s Goggles — an image recognition service for mobile devices, and cloud storage, and Microsoft‘s Kinetics, come into play. As Brooks stated, a goal in robotics is to create inexpensive robots that can do everyday tasks. But one of the problems has been object recognition. However, researchers at Berkeley have developed a custom version of Goggles that runs on Google’s image recognition system that will facilitate training and recognition. According to the researchers: “The training endpoint accepts 2D images of objects with labels identifying the object. The recognition endpoint accepts an image, and based on the set of features, either returns the object’s identifier along with a probability of correctness, or reports failure.” 

In other words, cameras, along with Microsoft’s Kinetics, allow the robot to take pictures and create 3-D scans of objects. Then, images are uploaded via the cloud. Based on …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

The Men Who Run AMEC

By Tony Reading, The Motley Fool

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LONDON — Management can make all the difference to a company’s success and thus its share price.

The best companies are those run by talented and experienced leaders with strong vested interests in the success of the business, held in check by a board with sound financial and business acumen. Some of the worst investments to hold are those run by executives collecting fat rewards as the underlying business goes to pot.

In this series, I’m assessing the boardrooms of companies within the FTSE 100 (UKX). I hope to separate the management teams that are worth following from those that are not. Today, I am looking at AMEC , which provides consultancy, engineering, and project management services to the energy and natural resources sectors.

Here are the key directors:

Director

Position

John Connolly

(non-exec) Chairman

Samir Brikho

Chief Executive

Ian McHoul

Finance Director

Shortchanged
John Connolly spent his executive career at Deloitte, initially in corporate finance roles, rising to be global chairman between 2007 and 2011. Deloitte enjoyed strong growth and success under his leadership. But Connolly had been AMEC‘s chairman for just 12 months when, in June 2012, he also took up the chairmanship of G4S after the previous incumbent left in the wake of G4S’s failed megabid for a Danish cleaning company.

He was immediately confronted with G4S’s Olympic scandal, which goes to prove how quickly and unexpectedly a FTSE 100 chairmanship can become a full-time job. I think AMEC shareholders might feel a bit shortchanged.

Three-bagger
Samir Brikho was a divisional head of Swedish-Swiss engineering giant ABB when he was headhunted to run AMEC in 2006. The Lebanese-born Swede, who is fluent in five languages, had spent his earlier career with ABB‘s Swedish predecessor ASEA and French engineer Alstom.

Brikho refocused AMEC away from engineering and construction into a service provider with a wide geographic footprint. During his tenure, the share price has more than tripled, with earnings per share rising nearly fourfold.

Ian McHoul has been finance director since 2008. A chartered accountant, he previously spent 20 years in the brewing industry, at Fosters and Scottish and Newcastle where he was finance director.

Boardroom bust-up
Last Autumillion, AMEC scrapped its divisional structure, eliminating the position of chief operating officer held by Neil Bruce. Bruce, who apparently had a difference of opinion with Brikho over the reorganization and strategy (according to the Financial Times) had been seen as the most likely internal candidate to succeed Brikho. A board member since 2009, he had been with AMEC since 1997. Arguably, Bruce’s departure leaves a hole in the board. At least its non-execs are drawn from relevant sectors.

AMEC‘s remuneration report was nearly voted down in 2009 over a proposed 13% increase in Brikho’s pay, but shareholders have since been assuaged by the company’s performance. Brikho and McHoul have 19 million pounds’ and 3 million pounds’ worth of shares, respectively.

I analyze management teams from five different angles to help work out a verdict. Here’s my assessment:

1. Reputation. Management CVs and track record.
<br …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance