Omnova Focuses Efforts: Fairlawn Firm Touts Emphasis on Its Two Segments Where It is a Market Leader
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By Marilyn Miller, The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio  Feb. 14--Facing challenges, Omnova Solutions Inc. executives believe they have improved the company's financial position in the past three years by focusing on their market leadership in areas that will increase profitability.
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Company targets software-as-service businesses with Âon demandÂ database program.
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Whole Foods Market's leader does the right thing.
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It's on track to meet sales targets, but profits might not keep pace.
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The corporate parent of Celera is exploring whether to turn the Rockville biotechnology firm and an affiliated unit into two independent, publicly traded companies.
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A fine balance needed to both make a business succeed and retain a friendship.
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At a time of dramatic consolidation in the enterprise BI (business intelligence) market, MicroStrategy sees great opportunities as an independent vendor, the company&#39;s chairman, president and CEO Michael Saylor said Wednesday.Unlike competitors that become part of larger IT vendors, MicroStrategy retains the freedom and flexibility to support a broad variety of third-party products without having to weigh the competitive considerations of a parent company, Saylor said.&quot;Our view is to be Switzerland in this business and to make sure we protect your investment when we give you the ability to tap into lots of different vendors and technology architectures to achieve your goal,&quot; Saylor said during a keynote speech at the company&#39;s MicroStrategy World 2008 event in Miami.For example, it&#39;s natural for Business Objects to prioritize making its products work better with the applications of its&#160;new parent company SAP&#160;-- a $6.7 billion deal -- while Cognos will do likewise once its $5 billion&#160;acquisition by IBM&#160;is completed, he said. The same story will play out with Hyperion, recently&#160;acquired by Oracle&#160;for $3.3 billion.Even as Saylor was giving his speech, it appeared that the enterprise software market would be further consolidated, with Wednesday morning news announcements that&#160;BEA has agreed to be acquired by Oracle&#160;for $8.5 billion, and that&#160;Sun Microsystems would buy MySQL&#160;for $1 billion.By contrast, MicroStrategy can continue to chart its own course for supporting a wide variety of complementary, third-party products, such as Web browsers, operating systems, processors, databases and application servers, based on the needs of its customers and on market dynamics, Saylor said.&quot;The market needs a vendor that provides the flexibility we can provide,&quot; Saylor said.Another benefit from the latest round of consolidation is that it lowers the noise in a market that 12 years ago was very crowded with over 60 BI vendors competing for attention. This makes it easier for MicroStrategy, founded in 1989, to get its message out to potential customers.This year, MicroStrategy will focus on a number of technology and business priorities, including strengthening its BI products so that they can effectively analyze even larger data sets -- whether they be in data warehouses, data marts or transactional databases -- resolve queries faster, generate higher volumes of more interactive and sophisticated reports and support increasing numbers of users, he said.MicroStrategy will also continue to improve the performance for global and decentralized deployments of its systems, while striving to continually simplify and enhance its front-end software.The vendor will also improve its software&#39;s support for mobile devices, and make &quot;profound investments&quot; in global services, in order to beef up its partner roster of qualified MicroStrategy consultants and practitioners worldwide, he said. MicroStrategy also plans to increase the amount of end-user training and education it offers globally.While those are some of the priorities for 2008, MicroStrategy has drafted long-term goals, looking out 10 year and 20 years, which it plans to continue pursuing as an independent company, he said. &quot;We just keep plugging away, like the Little Engine that Could,&quot; Saylor said.
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An acquisition focuses on a market with strong growth potential.
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By Occhipinti, Christina  Kelley Briggs and Cindy Penchina like to think big, and the duo can credit their latest business venture Hudson Fusion, an integrated marketing firm - to their ability to recognize a good thing when they see it.
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The company will find a competitive environment after moving aggressively into the security space.
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As president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Thomas J. Donohue has long been obliged to talk tough against federal regulation, especially by the Securities and Exchange Commission. But now, it's personal.
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Clear Channel Outdoor  wants to  increase its share of the French outdoor advertising market  where it competes with domestic leader JCDecaux , the  head of Clear Channel France told French daily Les Echos in an  interview published on Thursday.
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Consumer goods company is facing its challenges and looking for a turnaround.
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The company needs to focus on its core brand rather than launching new products.
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The two companies do not operate in all the same markets, but Monday's warnings seemed to suggest that both were suffering from tougher competition in some areas.
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Altria Group Inc. (MO.N: Quote, Profile, Research) is preparing to split up the company or find another means of &quot;maximizing shareholder value&quot; when tobacco litigation hurdles are cleared
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The company, which is in the midst of restructuring its business to lift sales, reported strong revenue growth across all divisions.