Archive for October, 2010

Newsweek Names Dell Greenest Company in America

Thursday, October 28th, 2010

It’s always nice to be recognized for your efforts. Although Dell is honored to take the top slot in Newsweek’s Green Rankings for 2010 (see the complete list here), we also see this award as a reflection of your commitment to environmental stewardship.

Having customers like you who strive to be greener is what inspires us to continually find better ways to help you achieve more. The efficiencies that come from greener practices, products and services are so often the key to finding those better ways.

Newsweek recognized us for building sustainability into our supply chain and operations, which ultimately makes it easier and more cost-effective for you to be green. For example, you have helped us divert more than 484 million pounds of equipment from landfills since 2006 through our convenient recycling programs. And our innovative bamboo packaging provides a strong, renewable packaging alternative that you can compost for easy disposal.

Newsweek also recognized our passion for helping you compute more while consuming less. For example, thanks to the energy management features on our OptiPlex? business computers, Dell customers have saved more than $5 billion in energy costs since 2006.
Newsweek Names Dell Greenest Company

About the Ranking

The Newsweek Green Rankings grades America’s 500 largest publicly traded companies, as measured by revenue, market capitalization and number of employees, on their environmental performance, policies and reputation as environmentally responsible companies.

Newsweek partnered with three independent organizations to assemble a “green score” for each company. That score is based on three components:

  • Environmental impact —?based on data compiled by?Trucost
  • Green policies —?derived from data collected by RiskMetrics
  • Reputation —?based on an opinion survey of corporate social responsibility (CSR) professionals, academics and other environmental experts who subscribe to CorporateRegister.com

CEOs or high-ranking officials in all companies on the Newsweek 500 list were also invited to participate.

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Dell Settles S.E.C. Accounting Suit for $100 Million

Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

Dell agreed on Thursday to pay $100 million to settle civil charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission that its senior executives used fraudulent accounting tricks to make it appear that the computer maker was meeting Wall Street earnings targets. Michael Dell, the company’s founder, chairman and chief executive, agreed to pay a $4 million fine as well.

“Accuracy and completeness are the touchstones of public company disclosure under the federal securities laws,” Robert Khuzami, director of the S.E.C.’s enforcement division, said in a statement. “Michael Dell and other senior Dell executives fell short of that standard repeatedly over many years, and today they are held accountable.”

The S.E.C. said that Dell received large special payments from 2002 through 2006 by the computer chip maker Intel for exclusively using Intel chips in Dell computers. (more…)

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DELL SEC Settlement To Pay $100 Million Over Accounting Fraud Charges

Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

Computer maker Dell Inc. is paying $100 million to settle civil charges that it fraudulently used payments from Intel to pump up its profits to meet Wall Street targets over five years, the government announced Thursday.

Under the settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, company Chairman and CEO Michael Dell also agreed to pay a separate $4 million civil penalty.

The settlement culminated a five-year investigation by the agency. While the $100 million fine was far from the largest penalty levied by the SEC, the decision to charge a sitting chief executive of a major company and reach a seven-figure settlement with him is rare. Founder Michael Dell is one of the most prominent figures in the technology industry, credited for revolutionizing the PC market by making the computers cheap and widely accessible.

The SEC had accused Michael Dell, former CEO Kevin Rollins and former Chief Financial Officer James Schneider of playing a role in the company’s alleged violations of disclosure laws. Schneider and two other former executives were charged with taking part in the alleged fraudulent accounting.

Dell, based in Round Rock, Texas, is the world’s third-largest PC maker behind Hewlett-Packard Co. and Taiwan’s Acer Inc. The company’s net income was $441 million in its fiscal first quarter this year, which ran from February through April.

The SEC said the company also failed to disclose to investors large payments it received from Intel Corp. in exchange for not using central processing units made by Intel’s main rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Those payments enabled Dell to meet its quarterly earnings targets, the agency said. After Intel stopped the payments, Dell again misled shareholders by not disclosing the real reason its profits had dropped, according to the SEC. (more…)

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University of Maryland College Park

Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

The University of Maryland, College Park (often referred to as The University of Maryland, UM, UMD, UMCP, or Maryland) is a public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George’s County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. Founded in 1856, the University of Maryland is the flagship institution of the University System of Maryland. With a fall 2009 enrollment of 37,000 students, Maryland is the largest university in the state and the largest in the Washington Metropolitan Area. It is a member of the Association of American Universities and a founding member of the Atlantic Coast Conference athletic league.

The University of Maryland’s proximity to the nation’s capital has resulted in strong research partnerships with the Federal government. Many members of the faculty receive research funding and institutional support from agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Department of Homeland Security.

As of fiscal year 2009, the University of Maryland, College Park’s operating budget was projected to be approximately $1.531 billion. For the same fiscal year, the University of Maryland received a total of $518 million in research funding, surpassing its 2008 mark by $117 million. As of June 30, 2010, the university’s “Great Expectations” campaign had exceeded $750 million in private donations.

The university has been recognized as a “Public Ivy” and is currently ranked among the top national universities in the 2010 U.S. News & World Report rankings. It has been consistently ranked one of the world’s top 50 universities by the Academic Ranking of World Universities report (ARWU). (more…)

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University of Colorado at Boulder

Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

The University of Colorado at Boulder (CU-Boulder; CU) is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado. Considered a Public Ivy, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado system and was founded five months before Colorado was admitted to the union in 1876. The university’s colors are officially silver and gold; however, traditional CU items utilize the black and gold color scheme.

In 2007, the university consisted of nine colleges and schools and offered over 150 academic programs, enrolled 28,988 students, and granted 6,781 degrees.Six Nobel Laureates, seven MacArthur Fellows, and 17 astronauts have been affiliated with CU Boulder as students, researchers, or faculty members in its history. The university received nearly $340 million in sponsored research in 2009 to fund programs like the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, JILA, and National Institute of Standards and Technology’s NIST-F1 atomic clock.

Colorado Buffaloes competed in nine intercollegiate sports in the NCAA Division I Big 12 Conference. On June 10, 2010, it was announced that they would be joining the Pacific-10 Conference. The Buffaloes have won 23 NCAA championships: 17 in skiing, five total in men’s and women’s cross country, and one in football. Approximately 1,500 students participate in 34 intercollegiate club sports annually as well.
On March 14, 1876, the Colorado state legislature passed an amendment to the state constitution that provided money for the establishment of the University of Colorado in Boulder, the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, and Colorado Agricultural College in Fort Collins, now known as Colorado State University.

Two cities competed for the site University of Colorado: Boulder and Ca?on City. The consolation prize for the losing city was to be home of the new Colorado State Prison. Ca?on City was at a disadvantage as it was already the home of the Colorado Territorial Prison. (There are now six prisons in the Ca?on City area).

The cornerstone of the building that became Old Main was laid on September 20, 1875. The doors of the university opened on September 5, 1877. At the time, there were few high schools in the state that could adequately prepare students for university work, so in addition to the University, a preparatory school was formed on campus. In the fall of 1877, the student body consisted of 15 students in the college proper and 50 students in the preparatory school. There were 38 men and 27 women, and their ages ranged from 12–23 years. (more…)

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British Ethics Group Calls for Regulations on Testing Sold Directly to Consumers

Tuesday, October 12th, 2010

Tests often provide medically meaningless data according to ethics group

With medical technology becoming more and more advanced, we have numerous new medical tests that doctors can use to check for various disease conditions. Some of the new genetic tests can be used to determine the chance a patient might have of developing a serious disease like cancer or diabetes at some point in their lives.

The interesting part about many of these genetic tests is that there is a market for direct sales of genetic testing to people that have no symptoms or reason to worry they might develop a certain disease. A new report by a British medical ethics groups has asked that private DNA testing be accredited and have to live up to certain standards to protect consumers.

The group maintains that many of these genetic tests provide “medically and therapeutically meaningless” results and that these false results could lead the person paying for the tests to pay for further testing that isn’t needed and to needlessly worry about their medical condition. The group, called the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, maintains that the results of many genetic tests are “unclear, unreliable, or inaccurate.” In addition to regulating genetic testing, the group also wants regulations placed on body scanning services using MRI and CT scans. (more…)

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Virginia Commonwealth Bank selects DNA from Open Solutions

Tuesday, October 12th, 2010

Open Solutions has announced that Virginia Commonwealth Bank has selected its DNA, an enterprise-wide core relational platform, for the processing needs.

Enhanced by Open Solutions’ advanced open platform, DNA capitalizes on the strength of Open Solutions’ data model and design, while increasing workflow, flexibility and productivity. Built on integrative Oracle relational database, the solution provides the necessary flexibility for running a service-oriented financial institution.

Available as an in-house or outsourced solution, DNA helps banks streamline both front- and back-office processes and creates a comprehensive view of customers, employees and business partners. Virginia Commonwealth Bank will implement DNA in an outsourced environment. (more…)

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Facebook Adds One-Time Password Security Feature to Protect Accounts

Tuesday, October 12th, 2010

Facebook users skittish about using their real password on public computers can now get a one-time password sent to their mobile phones.

Facebook has added a one-time password feature as part of an effort to address account security.

The social network site is gradually rolling out the ability to have Facebook text a one-time password to users concerned about working on machines other than their normal computers, such as public computers in hotels, cafes or airports.

“Simply text “otp” to 32665 on your mobile phone, and you’ll immediately receive a password that can be used only once and expires in 20 minutes,” blogged Jake Brill, product manager for Facebook’s integrity team. “In order to access this feature, you’ll need a mobile phone number in your account. We’re rolling this out gradually, and it should be available to everyone in the coming weeks.” (more…)

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IBM stock shares reach all time high

Friday, October 8th, 2010

IBM stock shares hit an all-time high Thursday.

Shares closed at $138.72 on the New York Stock Exchange, up 88 cents from the previous day’s close.

A spokesman for Armonk-based IBM Corp. confirmed it was the highest that the shares had ever reached.

Such comparisons are adjusted to eliminate the effects of stock splits, in which a company typically splits one share into two.

During the day’s trading, shares rose as high as $138.88. Volume was 6.4 million shares, somewhat higher than average. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones industrial average, of which IBM is a component, dropped 19.07 points to close at 10,948.58.

The closing price gave Big Blue a market capitalization of nearly $175 billion.

The company went public in 1915. It will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2011.

Chief Executive Officer Samuel Palmisano has shifted IBM’s focus more to services and software, which offer high profit margins. Since he became CEO in 2002, IBM shares have risen from around $104, or a gain of about a third.

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