Moving and Storage Business News

The News Review:

- Martha Stewart partnership with KB Home brings a new direction to…
- Never Mind the Clip-On Ties Geek Squad Can Fix Your PC
- Villagers didn’t want school now ready for IT
- Morgan Stanley Warms Up
- Brief spring storm drills Tri-Cities.

Martha Stewart partnership with KB Home brings a new direction to…
San Diego Union Tribune – May 21, 2006
Downsized for the mass market their architecture and decor are tweaked from the originals – her personal residence in the Hamptons of Long Island and getaway homes in upstate New York and on the Maine coast. The houses are being built under a partnership between Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and the big national home builder KB Home. The two publicly held companies are finding themselves joined in a strange corporate marriage that for each is aimed at building brand identity and market share. Marketing experts call this strategy co-branding but in this first project cohabitation may be the more appropriate word as teams from both companies worked side by side for months at the site to establish a common ground and culture to bring the houses to completion. What makes a 'Martha' home?Here are some of the design elements incorporated into the Martha Stewart homes built by KB Home at the Twin Lakes development in Cary N. Not all features are included in every home and some are upgrades… A tour through the Stewart homes makes it clear that Twin Lakes is all about a Martha way of living – from kitchen islands that call up images of her crafting a culinary surprise in her TV studio to open shelving along kitchen walls where each plate is meticulously stored in order almost cataloged. In some models the tops of stairways open onto lofts with storage and space for entertainment or hobbies. If the male psyche is soothed by homes having rooms dominated by huge plasma or LCD TVs and by garages with beer-at-the-ready refrigerators there may be some disappointments at hand. High-tech TVs and wireless communications are given short shrift in these first designs while the garages with interesting single-bay doors are bare-bones concrete and drywall inside with no hint of a place to hide the power saw or basketball. Some models have one-car garages. Many of the exteriors evoke Craftsman styles while the top-of-the-line 3608-square-foot Katonah with up to five bedrooms is a gingerbread confection with multiple pitched roof lines a mustard-yellow exterior and powder-blue trim.

Never Mind the Clip-On Ties Geek Squad Can Fix Your PC
New York Times – May 20, 2006
Stephens said as blasts from a nearby flamethrower mounted on an old fire truck periodically punctuated the conversation. He wasn’t being nasty because his technicians were at the ready to support the fair exhibitors just in case. He made that statement because it explains why the company he founded as a college student in 1994 has grown and grown. When he sold the Geek Squad to… ” The flat fee for services rather than an hourly rate was an effort to avoid the expense of paperwork and monitoring the staff for fraud. Stephens sees the world of service moving toward flat fees. “We are a flat-rate society because people are willing to pay for simplification” he said. It is easier for consumers to understand and they are less likely to feel cheated he said. “People hate the hourly rate. They hated it when it applied to cellphones and Internet service.

Villagers didn’t want school now ready for IT
Ahmedabad Newsline – May 20, 2006
js’>However things have changed now and how. A private hydro-power company Everest Power Private Limited which has set up a 100-MW project in the village’s vicinity has taken upon itself the task of taking computers to the village which has a disturbingly low literacy rate seven to 15 per cent. ”In the absence of any road to the village we will take the computers as head-loads. An Internet centre will be established right there in the school for local children” company representative Rajender Pirta told The Indian Express here. Setting up an Internet centre and installation of the computers is expected to cost Rs 5 lakh. But the local administration sees this initiative as a revolution in the society which has preserved its ancient self-democracy and village judiciary… An elected village judiciary enforces the rules and regulations adopted over centuries. In all the company proposes to spent Rs 1 crore on social welfare activities in Malana which also include the installation of a dish antenna to bring the villagers face to face with the outside world through television. Other key works proposed by the company include the construction of community toilets a hospital renovation of the Panchayat building construction of pavements construction of a drinking water storage tank and setting up of a training centre for the villagers to upgrade their skills. Malana which is now frequently visited by tourists and trekking troupes including foreigners is 3180 metres across the Rashol Pass below the Chanderkhani Pass. The setting up of Malana Project by the Bhilwara Group earlier and now Malana-II (under execution) by the L&T-backed power company is being seen as a step to liberate Malana from poverty illiteracy and backwardness both social and economic.

Morgan Stanley Warms Up
wsj.com – May 20, 2006
Thomas Langford its co-head of energy investment banking is moving to Houston from New York to oversee all investment banking in that office. The firm also hired two more energy bankers in Houston to expand its business of underwriting master limited-partnership deals that will appeal to individual investors. Langford 47 years old who remains co-head of energy banking with Michael Dickman in New York and Robert Maguire in London advised Unocal on its 2005 decision to.

Brief spring storm drills Tri-Cities.
Free with registration – Tri City Herald – AccessMyLibrary.com – May 20, 2006
Kraemer And Jeannine Koranda May 20–A 14-foot diameter trampoline in Pasco took its own tumble Friday evening when Mother Nature flipped the switch on a wind machine shattering the sky with long veins of lightning and deluging Southeastern Washington. Erin Ray couldn’t believe her eyes when she heard a noise and looked out the window to see her net-enclosed trampoline fly over her cedar fence and land in the middle of the road just missing a parked car and a moving truck. After several frantic phone calls Ray ran into the street and disassembled it with the assistance of seven neighbors while quarter-sized raindrops soaked them and created big puddles in the street.