Google Chrome overtakes Firefox in UK

Google's Chrome overtook Mozilla Firefox in July to become Britain's second-most popular Web browser after Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Web analytics firm StatCounter said.

Chrome, launched in December 2008, took 22.1 per cent of the UK market, up from 12 per cent a year earlier. Internet Explorer's share fell to 46 per cent from 55 per cent a year ago, while Firefox fell to 21.6 per cent from 25.

Google is trying to convert its dominance in Web search into operating systems and mobile software, bringing it into direct competition with Microsoft. Chrome is used by more than 160 million users worldwide.

In May, Google launched its long-awaited Chromebook, which runs entirely on software accessed via the Internet rather than installed on the machine.

Globally, Internet Explorer had 42 per cent of the browser market in July, followed by Firefox with 28 per cent and Chrome with 22. Apple's Safari brower had 5 percent of the market, while Opera had 2 per cent.

Tata Croma to open online store soon

Tata Group firm Infiniti Retail that runs consumer durables and electronics chain of stores under 'Croma' brand said it will soon start selling products online to tap Net savvy consumers.

Besides the new initiative, the company is also expanding presence of Croma stores with plans to open around 10 new outlets by the end of this fiscal and also strengthen after sales service infrastructure.

"Online sales are catching up in a big way in India. We will soon launch a new portal with some unique features to cater to consumers making purchases online," Infiniti Retail Managing Director and CEO Ajit Joshi told PTI.

He said the company is considering options like cash-on-delivery to make it easier for consumers to shop online and make it accessible to those who do not have or use credit and debit cards.

Joshi, however, did not give a timeline or sales targets from the new initiative.

Another big retail player, the Future Group that operates a dedicated portal Futurebazaar.com for online sales has already said that it is targeting at least 10 per cent of the company's total retail sales from digital medium.

According to a latest report by industry body Assocham, online retail segment in India is likely to be worth Rs 7,000 crore by 2015 due to easy availability of broadband services and increasing Internet penetration, compared to Rs 2,000 crore at present. It is growing at an annual rate of 35 per cent.

Apart from the online initiative, Joshi said Infiniti Retail is also expanding its store network across India.

"We plan to open another 10 stores in this fiscal to take the total store count to 75," he said, adding all the stores and company operated.

It is also in the process of setting up a dedicated after sales service facility for consumers, who buy Croma branded private label products.

"So far, we have been dependent on our partners for service, but going ahead we have plans to set up our own service centres in major cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore and begin by servicing Croma branded products," Joshi said.

The company has recently received Rs 200 crore from its holding company Tata Sons to fund network expansion and other initiatives.

In the last fiscal, Infiniti Retail's total turnover stood at Rs 1,549 crore, Joshi said.

Asked about the company's profitability he said : "We are profitable at store level." He, however, did not comment on the break-even expectation of the company.

Temporary jobs: Better money attracting young Indians

Many Indians are quitting permanent jobs to move into more attractive temporary roles. As many as 15% new recruits of temp staffing firm Teamlease are permanent employees switching to temporary jobs, company officials say. Adecco India, another such firm, also says the trend is catching on.

The development suggests that for the first time, the Indian workforce is putting opportunity ahead of security. The carrots - better career profile, money and organisation brand.

Ruchika Upneja, 26, is a financial analyst at Microsoft's corporate office in Gurgaon. Four months ago, she quit her permanent job at an Indian manufacturing company to move into this temp job that is "a better opportunity in terms of career profile, money and brand". Upneja says she has three years of experience and perhaps it will take her another three years to reach some kind of a leadership role. "It hardly matters to me whether it is a temp or permanent job. My objective is two-fold - a good profile and building my CV."

Adecco has placed permanent employees from banking MNCs, consulting and tax credit companies, and software services firms into temp roles. While the company did not divulge names, it said employees are placed at various levels - from software testing to project managers, senior analysts and director (technology).

"A shift such as this can give the employee exposure to new growth areas, experience of working on cutting-edge technology and an opportunity to get absorbed as a permanent employee eventually," says Sudhakar Balakrishnan, managing director & CEO of Adecco India. In most cases, employees get a higher pay packet for shifting, but that does not seem to be the biggest incentive.

A permanent job holds the promise of security, but employees are rising above that as they now believe they have 'employment security'. They are confident that after an exit -- voluntarily or forced -- they can get the next job easily. This was not the case earlier.

Also, young employees in India have a higher risk appetite in terms of job movement. What exactly do employees lose when they leave permanent jobs? Nothing much, it seems.

Much Ado aboutJob Security

"The only difference is in a permanent job you are engaged in an activity that is continuous in nature. The statutory dues a temp and a permanent employee are eligible for are exactly the same be it minimum wages or their coverage under social security," says Rituparna Chakraborty, senior vice-president at TeamLease Services, a staffing company.

Job security seems to be a misnomer too. Irrespective of whether an employee is on a temp or permanent assignment, he/she cannot be indiscriminately fired from their job. "One can be let to go based on the terms agreed in the contract or appointment letter and by providing adequate notice," says Chakraborty. As a result, employees are more concerned about career progression and acquiring relevant experience on their CVs than hankering after job security.

Shivanshu Sharma, 30, has been working with Hewlett-Packard in the National Capital Region in a temp role for three months now. He moved from a secure job at another IT services company to HP India; the pull factor being a leadership role. "I found this opportunity and exposure to be very good. I am handling different vendors in my current role that is invaluable experience to my seven-year career."

In Mumbai, Susan Mascarenhas recently quit her job in a media company to move into the role of project manager (marketing) at a payment gateway company as a temp. It was a well thought-out decision. "I don't think there are any perks attached to a permanent job," she says. Her current organisation has an equal number of temp and permanent staff.

According to Adecco's Balakrishnan, "Such movements are being seen in IT, engineering, technical staffing of large engineering companies. The trend is also common in oil and gas." Employees from tier-II companies are most likely to move to temp role, he adds.

Says E Balaji, MD and CEO of Ma Foi Randstad, a staffing and search firm: "This is a also reflection of the temp industry maturing. About 12-13 years ago, no one would want to work in a temp role. They preferred to be without a job."

The temp staffing industry in India is less than 15 years old, but has more than 600,000 on its rolls currently. Has a permanent job ceased to matter completely? Not yet. When she moves into a managerial role, Upneja will think of getting a permanent role. "In my earlier role, it would have taken me 10 years to reach managerial levels. Through the temp route, I have fast-tracked my career," she says.

Car sales fall by 15 per cent in July: Crisil

Car sales in India fell by around 15 per cent in July compared to a growth of 38 per cent in the same month last year, according to a report released by Crisil Research here on Monday.

"Increase in fuel prices and interest rates affected consumer sentiment. The seven per cent increase in diesel prices announced in June 2011 further impacted cars sales, given that diesel models now account for over a third of car sales," the report said.

A 31 per cent fall in domestic car sales of Maruti, which accounts for 49 per cent of domestic car sales, led the decline. Maruti's car sales fell mainly because it discontinued production of its old 'Swift' series and volumes of Swift Dzire declined, with a shift in the model's production facility.

Maruti's 'Swift Dzire' and its old 'Swift' series, together account for around 25 per cent of the company's total domestic car sales. Maruti will make the new 'Swift' series available to consumers in mid-August.

Notably, though the top three car manufacturers reported a 29 per cent fall in sales with rising dealer inventories, the rest of the manufacturers reported a 45 per cent growth in volumes driven by more than five model launches.

"The fall in volumes clearly manifests weakening consumer sentiment over rising cost of car ownership. Model launches, along with the onset of the festive season, will, however, revive sales growth in the second half of 2011-12," Crisil Research's Head, Sridhar Chandrasekhar

Microsoft’s most expensive challenge: Google search

Mike Nichols has a poster on his office wall. It shows the young Muhammad Ali glaring down at a fallen Sonny Liston, the bruising heavyweight who had seemed invincible - until Ali beat him, in 1964, in one of the biggest upsets in sports history, and then beat him again a year later.

"The triumphant underdog," Nichols says, nodding toward the wall.

The inspirational fight poster is fitting, because Nichols, a general manager at Microsoft, is a lieutenant in an underdog corporate army here. Its daunting mission is to take on the Google juggernaut.

Microsoft's assault on Google in Internet search and search advertising may be the steepest competitive challenge in business today. It is certainly among the most costly. Trying to go head-to-head with Google costs Microsoft upward of $5 billion a year, industry executives and analysts estimate.

As the overwhelming search leader, Google has advantages that tend to reinforce one another. It has the most people typing in searches - billions a day - and that generates more data for Google's algorithms to mine to improve its search results. All those users attract advertisers. And there is the huge behavioral advantage: "Google" is synonymous with search, the habitual choice.

Once it starts, this cycle of prosperity snowballs - more users, more data, and more ad dollars. Economists call the phenomenon "network effects"; business executives just call it momentum. In search, Google has it in spades, and Microsoft, against the odds, wants to reverse it.

Microsoft has gained some ground. Its Bing search site has steadily picked up traffic since its introduction two years ago, accounting for more than 14 per cent of searches in the US market, according to comScore. Add the searches that Microsoft handles for Yahoo, in a partnership begun last year, and Microsoft's search technology fields 30 per cent of the total.

Yet those gains have not come at the expense of Google. Its two-thirds share of the market in the United States - Google claims an even higher share in many foreign markets - has remained unchanged in the past two years. The share losers have beenYahoo and smaller search players.

The costs for Microsoft, meanwhile, keep mounting. In the latest fiscal year, ended in June, the online services division - mainly the search business - lost $2.56 billion. The unit's revenue rose 15 per cent, to $2.53 billion, but the losses still exceeded the revenue.

Microsoft is a big, rich company. But investors are growing restless at the cost of its search campaign. In May, when David Einhorn, the hedge fund manager, called for Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, to be replaced, he pointed to the online unit as a particular sore spot.

Qi Lu, president of Microsoft's online services division, sees the situation this way: "To break through, we have to change the game. But this is a long-term journey."

I dream of all-India entrance test by 2013: Sibal

HRD Minister Kapil Sibal has said it his "dream" to implement a single common entrance examination for admission in engineering and science disciplines at the national level by 2013.

"My real dream is by 2013, I should have the first all India test," he told PTI during an interaction.

A committee chaired by T Ramasami, Secretary in the Department of Science and Technology, was constituted to re- look into the test methodology of selecting students and have a common system for admission.

The aim of the National Aptitude Test is to reduce psychological and financial stress on students.

Sibal said Ramasami, who has completed his work, had carried out a study to seek response for a single test and "response is that 80 per cent of the people in India want it," he said.

"No political party has said no to that (to the test)", he replied to a question.

Asked about opposition from Tamil Nadu to this concept, he said "that is a peculiarly Tamil Nadu legislative decision, which is now being challenged in Madras High Court. Thats entirely different from having a separate test."

He said if there is an all India list and there is an equalisation procedure which takes into account each state board, then every child can get admission to the institution of his choice and there can be no capitation fee.

BlackBerry Bold Touch 9900 To Be Launched In India

Research In Motion (RIM) has not given up yet despite the recent setbacks. It is going to launch seven smartphones in India very soon. The BlackBerry Bold Touch 9900 smartphone, which is the thinnest smartphone from RIM yet, is one of them and getting ready for a launch in the second week of August. It seems that the company is trying to reassure that it is still in the game.

Powered by the latest version of its OS, BlackBerry OS 7, this smartphone comes with a 2.8" VGA capacitive touchscreen. It features enhanced voice-enabled Universal Search, to make handsfree search easier. Also present is Near Field Communication (NFC), although it is going to take some time for this technology to be implemented in our country. It sports a 1.2 GHz processor, 5 MP camera, 8 GB internal memory and supports up to 32 GB SDHC memory cards.

RIM plans to sell the device with a 1.5 year warranty at under Rs 32,500, which is still a stiff price to pay. It seems that the BB Bold Touch 9900 is a good candidate to grab a sizeable customer base, due to reports praising its quick and speedy touchscreen response. We will find out if this is really true when the phone is available off the shelves.