SEARCH CLINIC

Dr Search- the Search Clinic’s Principal Consultant has now been recognised by the Association of MBAs as a qualified Member.
The Association of MBAs is the international impartial authority on postgraduate business education and was established in 1967.

AMBA is the only professional membership association for MBA students and graduates, accredited business schools, and MBA employers. The membership network currently includes 9,000 members living in 88 countries.

The accreditation service is the global standard for all MBA, DBA and MBM programmes. They currently accredit programmes at 189 business schools in over 70 different countries.

In June 1967, a small group of business graduates, eight with MBAs from the US and two from the first intake at London Business School, gathered in London to found the Business Graduates Association (BGA).

Recognising that despite the value of the MBA, there was a distinct lack of knowledge about the qualification in the UK and Europe, the BGA’s intention was to promote the benefits of business education through five key objectives: help the development of existing business schools, support the founding of new business schools, encourage employers to take on MBAs, help increase the number and quality of students attending business school, and advocate the importance of professional business education in general.

By the end of their first decade the BGA had grown to a membership of 1,900.

In 1983, in response to the growing number of polytechnic business schools offering an MBA programme, the BGA established an accreditation programme to champion the MBA as a brand and to ensure standards were maintained. It soon became clear that there was considerable demand for this kind of quality assurance in the MBA market.

By 1987 the BGA’s stakeholder group had evolved into graduate members, accredited business schools and MBA employers. To reflect this change the BGA became the Association of MBAs.

Throughout the 1990s, the Association of MBAs continued to grow, adding members and accrediting programmes, including many outside the UK. The Association, until then staffed by volunteers, also adopted a more professional structure, adopting a full-time head and management team.

Jeanette Purcell came on board as Chief Executive in 2003. In 2007, the Association of MBAs celebrated its 40th anniversary as the leading international impartial authority on postgraduate business education.

You can contact Dr Search by clicking here now.

Apple reported record breaking profits for the three months to 31 December 2011 of £8.36 billion ($13.06 billion)- more than doubling  up 118% from the same period in 2010.The company also sold 37 million iPhones- more than twice as many as they sold in the last quarter of 2010.

“Apple’s momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline,” said chief executive Tim Cook.

The firm is expected to release its iPad 3 in March this year.

“We are very happy to have generated over $17.5bn in cash flow from operations during the December quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO.

“Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2012, we expect revenue of about £20.96 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about £5.48 ($8.50).”

Apple saw strong sales for both its iPads and its Mac range of computers, rising 111% and 26% respectively compared to the same period in 2010.

Google reported a 27% increase in revenues for the last three months of 2011, but even that was not good enough to meet Wall Street estimates, sending the shares tumbling.Google shares fell 10% in after hours trading to £370 ($575) .

It reported 3 month revenues of £6.8 billion ($10.6billion) and its net profit rose 6.4% to £1.74 billion ($2.7 billion).

“Google had a really strong quarter ending a great year,” said chief executive Larry Page.

“I am super excited about the growth of Android, Gmail, and Google+, which now has 90 million users globally – well over double what I announced just three months ago.”

But analysts were less impressed with Google’s figures.

Expectations were very high and Google have missed thier estimates.

The number of clicks on Google’s AdWords Pay Per Click networks rose significantly in the fourth quarter, but the amount that Google was able to charge advertisers for each click fell 8%.

For the full year, Google reported a 29% rise in revenue to £24.45 billion ($37.9 billion), with net profits up 14% to £6.25 billion ($9.7 billion).

Microsoft’s profits in the three months to the end of December fell as lower computer sales hit its core Windows business.The world’s largest software firm made a net profit of £4.27 billion ($6.624 billion), against £4.42 billion for its second quarter last year.

Revenues rose 5% to £13.47 billion, slightly down on some analysts’ expectations.

Revenue at the Windows operating system division fell, but rose at its server, Xbox 360 and online services arms.

Wall Street welcomed the figures, with Microsoft’s shares rising 2.1% in after-hours trading.

Tighter cost control and a continuing reduction of losses at the Bing search engine helped boost the figures.

Analysts were expecting a fall in business at the Windows division due to slower sales of PCs.

The computer industry is facing a worldwide shortage of hard disk drives due to flood devastation in Thailand whit hit the global supply chain of suppliers in November.

But Windows is also facing competition from the growth of tablet computers such as Apple’s iPad and mobile devices using Google’s Android system.

However, Microsoft is hitting back with the release of Windows 8, an operating system for PCs and mobile devices.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said in a statement: “We delivered solid financial results, even as we prepare for a launch year that will accelerate many of our key products and services.”

During the quarter the Windows and Windows Live division posted revenue of £3.05 billion, a 6% fall on the previous year.

The Entertainment & Devices division saw the sharpest revenue rise, up 15% to £2.78 billion.

Smart TVs sets with the ability to stream online content, run apps and show television channels simultaneously dominated the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) exhibition.At the end of 2011 there were 82 million connected TVs in homes worldwide according to research group Informa. By 2016 it forecasts that number will have ballooned to 892 million.

For years much of the tech industry has pursued a vision of the computer as the home’s digital hub. Owners used their PCs to copy photos off digital cameras, download music and movies and then transfer the material to other compatible devices.
Camera built into Samsung smart TV Samsung’s built-in camera allows its TV to recognise gestures and identify users

Advanced users might have connected their laptop to their TVs or streamed content to the sets wirelessly, but the televisions were at most at the end of a spur coming off the hub, rather than its heart.

The roll-out of cloud services allied to faster internet speeds now offers televisions the chance to usurp the PC’s place, and offers users further freedom from the confines of broadcasters’ schedules.

Samsung – the world’s best-selling TV-maker – has been at the forefront of efforts to deliver this vision.

One of the promotional videos it showed at this year’s event claimed watching television by appointment would become a foreign concept in the future, and its executives talk of the TV being the centre of the home.

Users are offered thousands of apps allowing them to use social networks, play video games, run educational software and follow exercise routines.

But smart TV makers recognise that people still want a sit back rather than lean forward experience most of the time.

Furthermore they acknowledge that increasing numbers of homes own other connected devices. So users may still find it preferable to tweet about a show via their tablet or smartphone rather than shrink the TV picture to pull up an app alongside.

However, manufacturers insist there are instances where it makes more sense to have everything on one screen.

While Samsung and Panasonic are developing their own system software, Google is taking a second crack at offering its own smart TV service.

At the show, LG and Vizio unveiled new sets with the search firm’s Android-based software built in. Sony also added the facility to two devices – a set-top box and a Blu-ray player.

The first version of Google TV launched in October 2010 to much fanfare, but proved a flop – enabled devices were criticised for being too expensive, and several TV networks blocked the US-only service from accessing their web content.

This time round a focus on apps may tempt content providers to co-operate, but for now it remains reliant on its own YouTube service as well as streams from Netflix, Amazon and several niche operations.

UK-based Canonical was punting a rival Linux-based Ubuntu operating system at the trade show. It says it offers a solution to clients who do not want to develop their own software and content deals, but feel uncomfortable linking up with Google.

Whichever operating system proves most popular, the internet poses a threat to the rest of the pay-TV market.

Furthermore, it says that recent developments have spurred pay-TV providers on to furnish its boxes with more material.

For now, the smart TV market looks fragmented from the point of view of content, and immature in terms of some of the technologies involved.

But as smart TVs become ever smarter, previous generations of unconnected sets may soon appear only slightly less antiquated than the black and white models of yesteryear.

Jerry Yang, the co-founder of Yahoo!, has resigned from its board of directors with immediate effect.Jerry Yang founded the online company in 1995 with David Filo and was its chief executive from June 2007 until January 2009.

His resignation comes two weeks after the company hired former PayPal executive Scott Thomson to be its new chief executive.

Mr Yang annoyed some shareholders by turning down a £31 billion ($47.5 billion) takeover offer from Microsoft in 2008.

Since then the value has plummeted and the company’s current market value is only about £13 billion.

Mr Yang has also resigned from the boards of Yahoo Japan and Alibaba Group and said in a statement: “The time has come for me to pursue other interests outside of Yahoo!”.

In addition to leaving the boards, Mr Yang is also giving up his title of “Chief Yahoo”. He also expressed support for the company’s current management.

“I am enthusiastic about the appointment of Scott Thompson as Chief Executive Officer and his ability, along with the entire Yahoo! leadership team, to guide Yahoo! into an exciting and successful future,” he said.

Some observers had seen Jerry Yang as an impediment to the sale or restructuring of the business as it provides a more objective and unemotional approach to the variuos strategic alternatives which are being considered as the company attempts to reinvent itself.

Wikipedia has taken its English language site offline as part of protests against proposed anti piracy censorship laws in the US.Anyone attempting to access the site just sees a black screen and a political statement: “Imagine a world without free knowledge.”

Wikipedia, which attracts millions of hits every day, is opposed to the US Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) being debated by Congress.

The legislation would allow the Justice Department and content owners to seek court orders requiring search engines to block results associated with piracy.

The site’s founder, Jimmy Wales, told the BBC: “Proponents of Sopa have characterised the opposition as being people who want to enable piracy or defend piracy”.

“But that’s not really the point. The point is the bill is so over broad and so badly written that it’s going to impact all kinds of things that, you know, don’t have anything to do with stopping piracy.”

The message replacing the normal Wikipedia front page on the internet says: “For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopaedia in human history. Right now, the US Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia.”

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales: ”These bills are very badly written”

Even Google.com joined the protest, blacking out its logo and linking to an online petition urging Congress to not censor the web.

Sopa’s supporters in the House of Representatives say the legislation is designed to stop revenue flowing to “rogue websites”. A similar bill, Pipa, is making its way through the US Senate.

A sign of how bad this legislation may be is that even the arch hacker Murdoch- whose media organisation has been likened to the mafia for it’s “industrial illegal activities” aka phone and email hacking- supports these bills.

On Saturday the White House issued a statement that appeared to side with critics of the legislation.

It said: “While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global internet.”

Despite the hint of a presidential veto, Wikipedia said that the English site’s administrators had decided to stage its first ever public protest because the bills “would be devastating to the free and open web”.

It added: “We don’t think Sopa is going away, and Pipa is still quite active. Moreover, Sopa and Pipa are just indicators of a much broader problem. All around the world, we’re seeing the development of legislation intended to fight online piracy, and regulate the internet in other ways, that hurt online freedoms.”

HTC’s new smartphone Raider 4G HTC is the world’s number four smartphone maker.Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC has reported a 25% fall in fourth quarter profit, as its models struggled to compete with those of its rivals.

Net profit dropped to 11bn Taiwan dollars (£235 million) in the three months to December, from 14.8 billion dollars in the same period a year earlier.

Sales for December fell 20.3% from a year ago to 26.3 billion Taiwan dollars.

In October the firm said it expected lower revenues in the fourth quarter due to “uncertainties from new models”.

But its latest update also revealed that net profit for the whole of 2011 rose 57% to 62 billion Taiwan dollars.

HTC is the world’s number four smartphone maker, behind Samsung, Apple and Nokia.

Many of the world’s technology companies have also been hit by the recent floods in Thailand- which knocked the global supply chains of may manufacturers.

The most pirated game of 2011 was PC title Crysis 2, according to technology blog TorrentFreak.It was downloaded illegally an estimated 3.2 million times after its release in March last year.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3, FIFA 12 and Portal 2 made up the rest of the top five most pirated PC games.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 was the most downloaded Wii game while Gears of War 3 took top spot on the Xbox 360 list.

The PS3 isn’t included in the list as far fewer games are illegally downloaded for that console.

TorrentFreak says the number of downloads of the top titles in each category is slightly lower than last year.

Super Mario Galaxy 2, released in 2010, is the most pirated Wii game for the second year in a row.

Meanwhile, Fast Five was the most pirated Hollywood film of 2011.

TorrentFreak estimates that the movie was illegally downloaded more than nine million times last year.

The Hangover II, Thor, The King’s Speech and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 were also in the top 10.

The data for the estimated download numbers is collected by TorrentFreak from several sources, including reports from all public BitTorrent trackers.

PC game downloads on BitTorrent in 2011
1. Crysis 2 (Estimated 3.9 million)
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (3.6m)
3. Battlefield 3 (3.5m)
4. FIFA 12 (3.3m)
5. Portal 2 (3.2m)

Wii game downloads on BitTorrent in 2011
1. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (1.2 million)
2. Mario Sports Mix (1m)
3. Xenoblade Chronicles (950K)
4. Lego Pirates of the Caribbean (870K)
5. FIFA 12 (860K)

Xbox 360 downloads on BitTorrent in 2011
1. Gears of War 3 (890,000)
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (830K)
3. Battlefield 3 (760K)
4. Forza Motorsport 4 (720K)
5. Kinect Sports: Season Two (690K)

The Irish data protection commissioner has recommended widespread changes to improve personal data privacy on Facebook.They include making its terms and conditions clearer and offering users greater control over how their data is used on the site.

The findings are particularly significant because Facebook Ireland was given responsibility for all non-US and Canadian data in September 2010.

Facebook has six months to implement the changes.

Commissioner Billy Hawkes will conduct a formal review of its progress in July.

Commenting on the report, he said: “This was a challenging engagement both for my office and for Facebook Ireland. The audit has found a positive approach and commitment on the part of FB-I [Facebook Ireland] to respecting the privacy rights of its users.”

The review was conducted partly in response to complaints about Facebook’s data and partly as routine assessment of firm conducted by the commission.

The report suggested widespread changes, including:

• a mechanism for users to make informed choices about how their information is used and shared on the site, including in relation to third party apps
• increased transparency and controls over how personal data is used for advertising purposes
• transparency and control for users via the provision of all personal data held to them on request and as part of their everyday interaction with the site
• the deletion of information held on users and non-users via what are known as social plug-ins, and more generally the deletion of data held from user interactions with the site much sooner than at present
• an update to its data use policy/privacy policy to take account of recommendations as to where the information provided to users could be further improved
• an additional form of notification for users in relation to facial recognition/”tag suggest” that, it is considered, will ensure Facebook Ireland is meeting best practice in this area from an Irish law perspective
• an enhanced ability for users to control tagging and posting on other user profiles
• an enhanced ability for users to control their addition to groups by friends

One of the first changes users will notice in the new year will be prominent notices informing them about the facial recognition tag which suggests names for labelling photos. Users will be offered the chance to disable it.

It’s not that long ago that Facebook felt able to ignore complaints about the way it handled users’ data, confident that everyone would eventually fall in line with Mark Zuckerberg’s exhortation to share more. That has all changed.

Under growing attack from privacy campaigners, governments and regulators, the social network is now doing its best to sound more sensitive to their concerns.

The idea that internet firms could ignore local regulators by simply moving elsewhere now looks out of date. If the likes of Facebook and Google want to operate globally, they are finding that they have to respond to local concerns.

But further clashes loom. Facebook’s business depends on advertisers who want to know more about the likes and dislikes of its users. Balancing their demands for more data with the privacy concerns of 800 million people will be a difficult line to tread.