Daimler and BYD (China) plan to establish a development center to combine the German automaker's expertise in automotive engineering with BYD's battery and low-cost production know-how. The companies aim to create a new brand for the vehicle that will be positioned between BYD and Mercedes models. Development time may take about three years. Daimler said last month it will focus on cleaner technologies to take global market share from rivals BMW and Audi.

The battle between Adobe and Apple has an underlying objective: to defend their business model. The two corporations are fighting about the threat of the new standards into the video on-line market: Flash vs. Html 5. Adobe ensures that the choice of Apple will have no influence on its sales, but it's also true that new standards are appearing on the Web and are threatening Adobe one.

Toyota has agreed to invest $50m in Tesla, the Californian builder of battery-powered cars, as it seeks to extend the dominance it has built in petrol-electric hybrids into the next generation of green vehicles. The deal announced on Thursday makes Toyota the second big global automaker to invest in Tesla, a six-year-old startup founded by Elon Musk, creator of the internet payment service PayPal, and backed by other Silicon Valley luminaries such as Google's founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin. The deal could help Toyota repair its reputation in the US after a series of safety problems that have forced it to recall millions of its cars, pay a $16.4m fine and endure multiple investigations by Congress. Toyota has built a big lead in low-emission cars with its Prius hybrid, which went on sale in 1997, and is by far the best-selling alternative to standard petrol-only vehicles. But some other carmakers are preparing to try and leap-frog Toyota by introducing battery-only cars.

BMW is trying to change the American way to buy cars. The German carmaker has to deal with a cultural issue and it's finding lot of skepticism by U.S. consumers. The issue is a built-to- order vehicle worths the wait, challenging Americans' penchant for instant gratification. BMW effort to change this trend may run into cultural barriers and it's a big gamble, hardly a new business model.

Between Nokia, Apple and HTC now the fight for supremacy in the smartphone to play on another field, the courts' one. HTC has sued Apple for patent infringement. Earlier this year, Apple sued HTC, focussing on the Taiwanese phone maker's Android devices. HTC has now responded with a patent suit of its own. It has submitted an official request to the International Trade Commission (the American agency that supervises the competition) to block U.S. sales of the iPhone, iPod and iPad, which infringed five patents. In a statement released by HTC says that the action against the house in California was undertaken "to protect intellectual property, partners and users who use our devices."

After a period of research, Jacuzzi has come to IUNGO, the Smarten's software and business solution for managing the supply chain. They chose IUNGO instead of SAP first of all because it's Italian, and moreover because it's more customizable and easier to use. Furthermore IUNGO is fully integrable with the management software currently in use and did not require any customization of the ERP.

Within the next two years, BMW will save 5.2 billion dollars thanks to the agreement with Mercedes for the development and sharing of components not visible to the customer including, for example, air conditioners or window regulator motors. According to Bloomberg agency reported, this target would be the result of a conservative estimate and might even generate a substantial surplus. This result is convincing largely attribute to the new 7 Series, with full sales and first recipient model of joint activities. That kind of odd alliance means the two carmakers are going to share component suppliers, so instead of a two actors alliance it could be considered a three subjects agreement. The third part involved are the common suppliers.

Un curioso esempio di nuovo business model nato dall'opportunità di sfruttare le nuove tecnologie e nello specifico il social network più diffuso al mondo: Facebook. E' ancora in fase di incubazione, ma l'acquisto in community pare essere molto interessante e vantaggioso.

German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel is trying to mark the future of the electric and hybrid vehicles founding the "National Platform for Electric Mobility" - a new alliance dedicated to promoting sustainable mobility. A clear objective: she wants to take electric mobility out of its niche model status and become the market leader for a new type of sustainable mobility by 2018. This strategy is planned by the German federal government, which would like to to promote electro-mobility and to see about one million electric vehicles on the roads by 2020. It's a clear way to force the German carmakers for reshaping mobility. The market needs innovations that are intelligently coordinated and networked, from the engines themselves to a reliable infrastructure (charging points) and well-trained experts who can deal with highly complex technologies.

The digital generation loves social networking, but still there is no way to ensure that social networks are easy to use together. Especially because there are too many. Microsoft is playing the card "Kin", formerly known as Project Pink. Kin's been developed in collaboration with some important partners like Vodafone, Sharp, in order to be more competitive and to create a new smartphone platform., and also with Verizon, to guarantee a huge distribution for the product, in contrast with Google's strategy. The aim of the first pair of mobile Kin (in the future Microsoft could add other devices to this first generation platform) is not to simplify but to amplify the social users life and has got the difficult task of attracting the young, future consumers, within the Microsoft ecosystem, rather than in those created by Google and Apple.

What is going to be the next TV generation? Searching for the new paradigm and after revealing the 3D line, Sharp launches the new RGBY QUATTRON model. The technology utilizes a fourth color pixel, yellow,and enhances the RGB-technology. RGBY is the abbreviation for Red Green Blue Yellow used in some LCD high-tech screens, so not LED. Sharp is investing a lot in the launch of this new product as they really believe in the technology.

USB 3.0, a revolution? No, not really but it is a substantial improvement of the popular and indispensable interface that opens the door to a quick and easy management of large files in the home. It's a clear type of incremental innovation, and it's going to became the new connect standard for pcs and all the other devices. The competence enhancing content comes out from the compatibility properties with the current standard 2.0. The third generation of USB is promoted in performance even if the old 2.0, ten times slower in normal usage, have much to say to all those users, and the vast majority, who must manage large volumes of data .

Yesterday in Cupertino, CA, the Apple's CEO unveiled at the developers the new iPhone OS 4.0. The new OS is available to iPhone developers today, while the general public will get the update sometime this summer. Apple uses innovators and then early adopters to improve the product, leveraging on their enthusiasm. "We are not the first to offer this service, but we are the best" : Steve Jobs doesn't know moderation and understatement. Some of the OS 4.0 features, as the multitasking, doesn't represents that kind of radical innovation, just because Google did it first. But Apple is aware about giving those features to its product in the right time, according to Jobs. By the way, multitasking is only 1 of the 100 new user features announced and thanks to the early market the OS 4.0 could potentially represent the birth of new paradigms in the operating software market.

Advertising agencies and software developers also welcomed Apple's new iAd network as a potential breakthrough that could give an important boost to the small but fast-growing mobile advertising market. iAd is an OS 4.0 built-in app, which could be the starting point of a new generation of mobile adverts that would be far more engaging than current formats, which Jobs said "suck". Thanks to his company's control Apple's network would be able to serve up more creative forms of advertising to run inside the "apps" users download on to these devices. Advertising inside apps, although still small, has become the hottest corner of the mobile advertising business, prompting a race between Google and Apple. In fact, earlier this year Apple bought Quattro Wireless for $270 million signaling its intention to enter the advertising network space. Quattro is an ad network that spans both mobile websites and smartphone applications. It seems to develop a new strategy and paradigm for the advertisement and a new battle field for the two giants Apple and Google. Which will emerge?

In order to provide a better communication between the corporate seat and the foreign branches in Germany, and to manage the whole organisation and data, FIAT adopted a new Corporate Planner. The strengths of this application are the compatibility with the older ones, the flexibility of the system and the real time management. Actually, this can be a starting point to solve the huge internal communication problems of the Fiat Group Automobiles, created by the new alliance with Chrysler. If it works correctly,it will be extended to the whole company.