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To the list of Chinese pet food, Chinese toys, Chinese furniture, Chinese laptops, Chinese this and Chinese that, American consumers will soon add Chinese cars.

Chinese car maker Chery is expected to hit the American market by 2009 and will surely kill what’s left of the struggling U.S. auto industry.

You see, Chery workers in Anhui, China earn slightly more than $1 an hour. So, how can any American car manufacturer even dream of competing against Chery or other Chinese car makers assuming they offer a decent quality car?

American auto workers can kiss their jobs and nice health benefits goodbye.

Oh, by the way Chrysler (now in private equity hands) will be selling the Chery cars in the U.S.

Recently, the Wall Street Journal’s reporters drove Chery’s A1 car across Xinjiang in China.

And for the most part, the WSJ reporters were happy with the Chery A1 car.

Gordon Fairclough writes in today’s WSJ (subscription required):

In all, we traveled more than 1,700 miles — in city traffic, on highways and even up and down steep hills off-road in the desert — and the A1 performed admirably. For a small car, the ride was surprisingly smooth and quiet, even at high speeds.

European car companies are also embracing Continue reading »

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It’s becoming a zoo out there in the Indian car portals arena with so many players.

In the typical me-too style characteristic of many Indian Internet ventures, one more car portal has come up.

The latest entrant is Carazoo, the offspring of automotive interactive software provider Logix Microsystems of Bangalore.

Like its fellow travelers, Carazoo lets visitors buy and sell cars, get loans and buy accessories.

Besides Carazoo, the other prominent Indian auto web sites are AutoIndia, Carwale, Indimoto, DriveInside, IndiaAutomobile, AutomartIndia and Bharatautomobiles.

Going by Alexa ranking, AutoIndia has the highest traffic rank of 3,351 followed by Carwale with 10,295.

The other Indian car portals have Alexa ranks above 25,000, are probably irrelevant and will most likely die a slow death.

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Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has shut down 10 Reliance Industries superstores after protests by small traders and political activists.

Five supermarkets run by another Indian retail chain Spencer’s have also been shut down.

Mayawati, who became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh recently, after a resounding victory, said:

I have constituted a high-level committee to review the whole affair and until the committee gives a green signal, Reliance Fresh stores will remain shut.

Small merchants and their employees fear that these self-service airconditioned supermarkets pose a big threat to their livelihood and have been Continue reading »

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It seems like there’s no end in sight to Dell’s problems.

Just after disclosures of fraud in its accounting, Dell’s having serious problems shipping some of its laptops and desktops.

The problems couldn’t have come at a worser moment for Dell because the lucrative Back to School season is getting started in the U.S.

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has a story with the details:

Persistent delays in laptop shipments caused by paint problems and supply constraints have put a crimp in the company’s turnaround efforts. Since late July, it has delayed shipments of some colorful models of its latest notebook computers, the XPS M1330 and its new Inspiron PCs. This latest incident — hitting right in the crucial back-to-school selling season — marks a significant setback in its push to rebuild its brand and business.

Apparently, Dell’s been facing issues of dust contamination in Continue reading »

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U.S. venture major Greylock Partners has invested in Indian electronic payment processing outfit TechProcess Solutions (formerly BillJunction).

The size of the investment has not been disclosed.

Greylock executives Asheem Chandna and Ganesh Rengaswamy are managing the investment in TechProcess.

TechProcess was originally backed by ICICI Ventures. TechProcess’ CEO Bikramjit Sen was an ICICI executive in the project financing group.

TechProcess provides Continue reading »

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Several years after Tel3, Pingo and Reliance rolled out their card-less phone services to India, VSNL is rolling out a similar me-too international calling service for South Asian immigrants in the U.S.

Dubbed Trueroots, the service was unveiled at a function on August 16 in New York City.

The per minute rates for the calls, which are to be carried on VSNL’s fiber optic network, were not disclosed.

Trueroots includes a prepaid recharge option, PIN-less dialing for up to Continue reading »

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A bunch of reporters from CNET and the AP sued HP and two of its former executives over the computer giant’s use of illegal tactics while spying on journalists and their family members.

HP’s investigators illegally obtained telephone records of reporters using “pretexting” techniques – pretending to be someone else to get private information – to get call logs while spying on reporters and their familes, and board members.

HP resorted to spying and other dirty tactics to stop unauthorized leaks to the media.

Kevin Boyle, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, told the Wall Street Journal  (subscription required):

We’re filing the lawsuits to make sure this never happens again.

HP told the WSJ it was “disappointed” by the reporters’ decision and would defend itself.

HP has already agreed to pay the state of California $14.5 million to settle civil charges related to the scandal.

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In yet another corporate scandal, Dell admitted to repeatedly lying about its financial results and said it had cooked its books for several years to meet financial targets.

After an internal probe revealed the accounting manipulations and irregularities – which usually occurred at the close of a quarter – Dell intends to restate the results relating to fiscal 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and the first quarter of 2007. 

Dell said the restatement would cut profits by $50 million-$150 million.

While the numbers may seem small for a multi-billion dollar company, Dell is suggesting the irregularities are significant.

“The accounting errors and irregularities that will be corrected are significant because of the combination of the number of issues identified, the qualitative nature of many of the issues, and in some cases, the dollar amounts involved,” the Round Rock, Texas company said Thursday.

Dell has been struggling Continue reading »

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Search giant Google has joined the Band of Angels in India as an institutional investor.

Band of Angels is a bunch of Angel investors looking to invest in early stage businesses in the areas of IT products & services, retail, high end BPO, biotech & pharma, Internet, media & entertainment and leading edge technology in telecom & embedded domains.

Other Band of Angels’ institutional members include Lightspeed Venture, Punjab Venture Capital Ltd, SIDBI Ventures and Naukri.

Typically, the Band of Angels looks at investing from $100,000 to about $1 million, and exiting over a three-to-five period through an IPO, M&A or strategic sale.

Google’s move to join the Band of Angels as an institutional investor is in line with the high profile the company has been taking in India.

As the Business Standard reports,

In addition to being an active direct investor in companies, Google has also invested in three early-stage funds — Seed Fund, Erasmic Fund and VentureEast TeNet Fund in India

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IT outsourcing has made Indian cities like Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad easily recognized names not just in the cubicles and hallways of corporate America but even with mainstream Americans.

But some of that sheen could be wearing off as India joins the high-wage club.

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has a front page story today on how wage inflation is making India a less atttractive destination for IT outsourcing.

Across Silicon Valley, some technology companies, particularly start-up and midsize ones, are beginning to turn away from India for low-cost labor to do sophisticated tech work. Kana Software Inc. of Menlo Park, Calif., eliminated 100 software-development jobs in India in late 2005 and expanded its U.S. hiring instead. Teneros Inc. shut down a 30-member India office and brought 12 of the people to its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Some tech start-ups are choosing other low-wage foreign locales, such as Romania and Poland.

The WSJ story also highlights the wage issues Munjal Shah has grappled with in building his start-up Riya and his decision to close shop in Bangalore and return to Silicon Valley.

For sure, what the WSJ story alludes to is only an an emerging trend and the situation is in no way dire. Companies like Infosys, Wipro, TCS and Cisco continue to hire in the thousands.

But the unbridled wage inflation for experienced engineers is a worrisome trend for tech companies.

After all, if you go back to the 1990s it was tech companies like Texas Instruments, Motorola, Verifone, Digital, Cypress Semiconductor and Honeywell that first dropped anchor in Bangalore setting off a trend Continue reading »

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