Patents Bending

The U.S. Supreme Court recently put the pedal to the metal in a case that manypatent experts say will accelerate a drive toward a more rigorous interpretation of“obviousness.” In KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., the Court ruled unanimously that a Teleflex patent that combined an adjustable...

By Karen M. Kroll • July 23, 2007

Whole Foods CEO Apologizes for “Error”

Whole Foods Market Inc. confirmed late Tuesday on its website that the Securities and Exchange Commission had contacted the company and is probing CEO John Mackey’s financial message-board postings about Whole Foods and Wild Oats Market, a rival chain the company is trying to acquire.The postings...

By Alan Rappeport • July 18, 2007

Explore the Trendline➔

The CFO Strategy for Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence’s impact on the office of the CFO continues to evolve, and finance chiefs must be aware of the opportunities it will create for growth. 

By CFO.com staff

Did Whole Foods CEO Blog Illegally?

In the wake of a reported probe by the Securities and Exchange Commission, securities experts have been confounded by the question of whether the online actions of John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods Market, were legal. Many have concluded that it would be hard to prove that he was intentionally ...

By Alan Rappeport • July 17, 2007

SAP-Oracle Tussle Could Roil ERP Market

SAP AG’s admission that its TomorrowNow subsidiary “inappropriately” downloaded material from Oracle Corp. may have its greatest impact in the huge market for third-party maintenance for enterprise-resource-planning (ERP) software. In addition, of course, the concession could hurt SAP in the four...

By Kate Plourd • July 11, 2007

How Software Swords Slay Compensation Dragons

Ask CFOs to draw a picture of themselves when they are calculating incentive compensation and they inevitably draw an angry, two-headed monster with red question marks shooting out of their mouths like flames.Or offer words to that effect. Along with marketing spend, the payment of commissions an...

By Elaine Appleton Grant • July 9, 2007

Intertwined

As the CFO of Dassault Systemes, Thibault de Tersant knows a thing or two about integration. After all, a big part of the product lifecycle management (PLM) software applications that the €1.2 billion French company sells helps its corporate customers “see the whole life of a product,” he says. “...

By Jon Mainwaring • July 9, 2007

Middle Man

Joseph Anichebe knows which side he’s on. Despite a hybrid title — IT CFO for the investment banking arm of UBS — Anichebe’s allegiance, first and foremost, is to finance. His team of more than 50, which oversees billions of dollars in annual IT spending at the Swiss bank, works with IT to monito...

By Jason Karaian • July 2, 2007

You Oughta Be on YouTube

Daughtry and Bon Jovi aren’t the only outfits promoting hip new videos these days. In an odd twist on financial reporting, a handful of companies are imploring shareholders to check out their videos.Management at marquee businesses such as Sealy Corp. and Ruth’s Chris Steak House Inc. are activel...

By John Goff • July 2, 2007

The Onus of Bonus

Ask CFOs to draw a picture of themselves when they are calculating incentive compensation and they inevitably draw an angry, two-headed monster with red question marks shooting out of their mouths like flames.Or offer words to that effect. Along with marketing spend, the payment of commissions an...

By Elaine Appleton Grant • July 1, 2007

Ahead of the Tape

Inventors of trading algorithms—computer programs that generate buy and sell orders and make lightning-quick trades — have picked up a bit of timeless wisdom from the stock operators of old. “The best of all tipsters,” Edwin Lefèvre wrote in a 1923 fictional account of the markets, “is the tape.”...

By Economist Staff • June 25, 2007

Ready for a Test Drive: XBRL Financial Tags

The future of interactive data will be a lot nearer next month. The reason: A user-ready version of XBRL labels for information reported under generally accepted accounting principles will soon be ready for a test run.Speaking before the Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council, Rob Blake,...

By Alan Rappeport • June 19, 2007

The Simple Complexity of XBRL

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s push for interactive data is intended to make it simpler for people to use financial information. But as with any innovation intended to simplify life, it also comes with potential complications.At the recent SEC and Financial Reporting Institute Conferenc...

By Alan Rappeport • June 13, 2007

Why Danny Ocean Won’t Go Back to the Bellagio

Although director Steven Soderbergh went to the well for a third time to film Danny Ocean and his gang pulling off a casino heist, he chose not to return to shoot “Ocean’s Thirteen” at real casinos. Instead, unlike “Ocean’s Eleven” and “Ocean’s Twelve,” which were both filmed at a variety of casi...

By Cheryl Rosen • June 11, 2007

For Road Warriors, Lightening Strikes Again

Ah, the never-ending fascination with miniaturization: Nanotechnology. Quantum physics. The Mini Cooper.Portable computers keep getting smaller, too, although the terminology used to describe them keeps expanding. First came laptops, then notebooks, soon followed by subnotebooks. These days, ultr...

By John Goff • June 1, 2007

Now Playing on YouTube: Microsoft Excel

Cute pets, outrageous stunts, off-key singers, and comedy-show clips are all YouTube staples. So, surprisingly enough, are dozens of Microsoft Excel videos.That’s right, the same Web service that brings you waterskiing squirrels and tap-dancing monks can help you use your spreadsheet software mor...

By John Edwards • May 25, 2007

A Big Leap for Web Conferencing?

Cisco Systems’s $3.2 billion purchase of Web-conferencing leader WebEx was more than just another deal for the acquisition-mad networking giant. In shelling out so much for an established Web-services firm, Cisco made it clear that it intends to move beyond its base in networking hardware and tak...

By Laura DeMars • May 18, 2007

SAP to Acquire OutlookSoft

In a move that further consolidates the performance management software industry, German software giant SAP announced Tuesday that it would acquire Stamford, Connecticut-based OutlookSoft, a provider of budgeting, forecasting, and consolidation software.“OutlookSoft completes another key componen...

By Tim Reason • May 9, 2007

A Battle at the Checkout

In his celebrated book, “The PayPal Wars”, Eric Jackson described how in its early years the internet firm had to battle crotchety regulators, identity thieves, volatile markets, scrappy rivals and even scheming Mafiosi. It has since gone on to become the undisputed master of online-payments proc...

By Economist Staff • May 8, 2007

Insider Raiding

Despite all the attention given to filched credit-card numbers and other damage wrought by computer hackers, a new University of Washington study puts hard numbers to what security experts have long claimed: you have more to fear from insiders than from outsiders.The study looked at almost 600 in...

By Scott Leibs • May 8, 2007

Going Away

Frank Cocuzza’s first visit to an outsourcing vendor in India seven years ago left him intrigued but not ready to jump. “Nice story,” the senior vice president of finance for Penske Truck Leasing Co. recalls thinking. “But we weren’t going to trade our processes for a nice story.” Eighteen months...

By Randy Myers • May 1, 2007

Multifunction Junction

Talk about a paper jam: two years ago, power producer Progress Energy was up to its smokestacks in office machinery. The Raleigh, North Carolina, company deployed nearly 2,700 printers, copiers, scanners, and fax machines in more than 200 sites in Florida and the Carolinas. That worked out to abo...

By Esther Shein • May 1, 2007

Nerve-center Fusion

Walk into a room, any room, and it speaks to you. This is an emotive response, entirely in your imagination, but it’s palpable, and architects take it very seriously. That response can have a profound effect on social interactions. Work in an open, well-designed space and you may find that you wa...

By Tom Leander • April 30, 2007

Business Objects to Buy Cartesis

Consolidation of business software for the finance department continued Monday as Business Objects announced that it will buy privately-held Cartesis S.A. for $300 million.Business Objects is a provider of business intelligence software while Cartesisspecializes in enterprise performance manageme...

By Stephen Taub • April 23, 2007

From GooTube to GoogleClick

Another month, another string of victories for Google, the internet’s emerging superpower. With the most popular search engine and the most efficient system for placing text advertisements alongside the results, Google already dominates the lucrative market for “paid search” advertising (where ad...

By Economist Staff • April 20, 2007

XBRL Traffic Picks Up Speed

Traffic is picking up on the Security and Exchange Commission’s pilot interactive data program. Since its foray into XBRL (extensible business reporting language) four months ago, the SEC has had more than 10,000 visits to its Website’s trial viewer and users have reviewed more than 500,000 finan...

By Alan Rappeport • April 13, 2007