FRANKFURT: German media company Bertelsmann AG is actively toying with the idea of leading the German side to a proposed Franco-German project to create a global search engine to counter the influence of U.S.-dominated Google and Yahoo, as envisioned by French president Jacques Chirac.

The project, called Quaero, was mooted by Chirac in his new year message as a Europe’s response to the U.S. challenge. The French side is known to have committed 150 million euros for the project through the new Agency for Industrial Innovation, set up on the recommendation of Jean-Louis Beffa, chairman of glass and ceramic group, Saint-Gobain. Thomson, the media services and equipment group, is expected to lead the French side, along with the French National Centre for Scientific Research.

In Germany, Beffa’s counterpart is said to be Heinrich von Pierer, chairman of Siemens, who is close to Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.

A unit of Bertelsmann’s service division Arvato, Empolis GmbH, is evaluating whether cooperation is in the interests of the company. According to sources, the company is close to signing up as Germany’s official leader in the project early this week. Guetersloh, Germany-based Bertelsmann is Europe’s largest media company.

Chirac had outlined the proposal as one based on public and private resources in France and Germany with a view to close the gap in research and development between Europe and the U.S. Quaero, means “I search” in Latin.

The proposal envisages creation of a search engine for the general public that can sort through audio, images and video as well as text. Search engines now rely on written descriptions of audio, images and video, which could cause inaccurate results. The system will have technical capabilities to transcribe audio automatically as well as image and video recognition.

It is reported that Thomson would want to make use of Quaero to offer an in-built search facility on the set-top boxes it makes, plus supplying applications to its television and film company clients. Bertelsmann too would be wanting to create similar applications.

France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom are members of the consortium formed for the project.

LONDON: House price inflation dropped to 2.7 percent in December, the lowest in a decade, according to figures from a Financial Times’ House Price Index.

The Average house price inched up 0.5 percent to close at £196,042 at yearend, the study shows. The growth in house prices however, was not uniform throughout the UK, with the northern England reporting a rise of 7.6 percent year-on-year for the last quarter.

The overall picture shows many contrasts. Property prices in the southwest indicated only 0.3 percent growth and in the south-east they grew only 1.1 percent whereas in the capital house prices were up 5 percent in the year to November on a market trend which failed to prompt similar action from the rest of the country. It is interesting to note that London, for the past five years, had largely lagged behind the rest of the country in house price growth.

Reading between the figures, analysts opine that a house market crash is now just as unlikely as a boom. Increased affordability and growing levels of personal debt are likely to keep overall growth at minimum levels, the experts believe.

The FT index is regarded as a more reliable indicator of the trends in the property market, as the data are compiled from the official Land Registry which records every property transaction in the UK.

SINGAPORE: Singapore’s public sector company PSA International Pte. has confirmed that it is bidding for British container ports and ferries operator, the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. It will improve an offer by Dubai’s state-owned port operator Dubai Ports World.

While PSA International, owned by Singapore’s state investment firm Temasek Holdings Pte., did not disclose the value of the offer, sources said it could be worth 3.53 billion pounds, comparable with 3.3 billion pounds offered by DP World. The company already hiked its holding in P&O; to 4.1 per cent recently.

P&O;, the world’s fourth largest container terminal operator, said in a statement on its website that it had received an approach from PSA International “…which may lead to an offer to acquire the whole of the P&O; deferred stock at 470 pence in cash per unit”.

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However, the statement clarified that the proposal does not amount to a firm intention to make an offer and is subject to some pre-conditions, including a satisfactory due diligence and withdrawal by P&O; of its recommendation for DP World’s bid. P&O; is deferring a stockholders’ meeting scheduled for 20 January by two weeks in order to allow PSA International to have time to satisfy its pre-conditions, and put forward a formal offer, the company said

If PSA International indeed acquires P&O;, the unified entity will be the No 1 world over, past the Hong Kong-based Hutchison Ports. It has investments in 18 port projects across 11 countries including Belgium, Brunei, China, India, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, South Korea and Thailand. It handles more than half of its total container volume in Singapore, the world’s busiest container port, but has been asked to reduce its dependence on the country alone.

Competitor Dubai Ports World is intending to expand in Asia, particularly India. It holds a 1.8 per cent stake in P&O.; It operates the Rashidad Jebel Ali ports in the Middle East and ports in Romania, Germany and India. Acquisition of P&O; will make it the world’s second largest port operator.

P&O;, founded in 1837, essentially for mail transportation, had exited the shipping business, sold property and lowered costs at its ferry business in 2005. It now focuses on terminal operations. It had a profit of 220.1 million pounds in the six months ended June 30 on revenue of 1.4 billion pounds.

LONDON: People in nine cities across Britain will be able to make use of WiFi technology beginning March as a city-based firm, The Cloud, is launching its first phase of a proposed nationwide WiFi network. This will mean that users in these cities will be able to access the internet from their laptops outdoors, without cables, and use their mobile phones to make calls over the web.

The eight cities where the WiFi hotspots will be launched are Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham, Oxford, Cambridge and Liverpool besides the London boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea, Camden and Islington.

WiFi hotspots provide access to the internet for those with a WiFi-enabled computer or mobile phone without having to use the traditional medium of a cable. Several hotspots put together provide blanket coverage of outdoor areas in the city. Mobile phone users will also be able to make use of the hotspots and make national and international calls, send e-mails and transfer documents at a fraction of the existing costs and without having to rely on telecom service providers.

Mobile phones and laptop computers with a WiFi chip can use the internet to make calls or create networks. While most of the laptop computers contain the WiFi chip, some 25 mobile phones come with WiFi chips.

George Polk, chief executive of The Cloud, a firm funded by private equity funds, said he expects voice calls to represent about a third of revenues.

He said the network equipment will be installed on lampposts or street signs and revenue will be share between those who own these street furniture’s, the Cloud and the ISP.

Initially, subscribers of BT Openzone, O2, SkypeZones and Nintendo WiFi will be able to make use of the service while other wireless ISPs will be added soon.

The Cloud operates some 6,000 hotspots throughout the country, Sweden and Germany. It had recently set up a network in Canary Wharf, which is claimed to be the largest WiFi-enabled financial area in Europe.

Polk said providing the ubiquitous wireless broadband access … will have a major impact on the way people communicate, work and play in city centres. “Businesses can use wireless broadband to work more efficiently, local government workers can stay in touch with their office via hand-held devices, and the general public can surf the web, play games, compare prices and make low-cost calls internationally over the internet,” he added.

LONDON – Corner shops in the country could be an extinct animal by the next decade owing to the aggressive expansion of the big four supermarkets, according to a latest report by MPs. This is especially true because independent wholesalers are almost out of the business, says the report. LONDON – Corner shops in the country could be an extinct animal by the next decade owing to the aggressive expansion of the “big four” supermarkets, according to a latest report by MPs. This is especially true because independent wholesalers are almost out of the business, says the report.

Supermarkets will say that they are also providing convenience stores, but the prospect for the independent operator is very, very bleak indeed,” said Jim Dowd, the Labour MP, who is the chairman of an all-party group that tabled this report. “This is a sector that chains were not even in a little more than five years ago and now they have more than 600 stores.”

The report also claimed that this extended domination of the supermarkets would result in the creation of “food deserts” across the country and pose hardship for the old and infirm who would have to travel the extra mile to take care of their needs. The MPs also said that this trend would affect the publishing industry as well and small magazines could be wiped out in the near future.

This corner shop sector is believed to be worth around 120 billion. The latest report will add to the woes of the Government which could be forced to intervene. Smaller shops are disappearing from the retail landscape at a rate of 2,000 per year, the report said. In 2000, there were 30,000 small shops, but this number has currently dwindled to 20,000. This attrition has been unabated and has coincided with the emergence and domination of Tesco, Sainsburys, Asda and Morrisons.

The big supermarkets do not drag people off the streets into their stores. There is no doubting their reputation for value for money and good-quality produce. But it is a question of what the secondary effects of that are: is it sustainable over the long term when competition is being eradicated so ruthlessly? Mr Dowd asked.

He added that Tesco had informed MPs of its intentions to add 1,200 small shops over the next decade. This report will pressurize the Government to conduct another investigation into the whole issue. Earlier in August, the Office of Fair Trading had rejected the demand to refer the issue to the Competition Commission since it found no violations.

LONDON: Britain’s state-owned Royal Mail will lose its 350-year-old monopoly status in the country Tuesday when the country’s 6.5 billion-pound mail industry opens up for private participation.

A spokesperson for the department said the department is resolved to fight hard for every single letter. “Royal Mail is determined to compete successfully in the open market, but in order to do so we need a fair regulatory regime and the ability to invest 2 billion pounds in the modernisation of the business,” he said.

The system is partially privatised since April 2003 as private companies are allowed to handle bulk mailings of 4,000 items or more. From Tuesday, 14 private operators licensed by industry regulator Postcomm will be able to operate in all the fields. These companies include Deutsche Post unit DHL, UK Mail of Business Post Group and the U.K. arm of TNT NV, TNT Mail.

Postcomm chairman Nigel Stapleton said in a statement that one highly valued aspect of the U.K. mail system will remain unchanged by these new developments, and that is the universal serviced provided by Royal Mail — “the one-price goes-anywhere stamp, plus collections and deliveries every working day for every U.K. address”. The regulator is hopeful Royal Mail, which at present controls 95 per cent of the market, delivering 80 million items six days a week, will continue to have a 90 per cent market till 2010.

The company said there has been a huge rise in the volume of access mail — letters collected and handled by rival firms or customers before being presented to Royal Mail at a lower price — which has risen to 90 million letters a month. It now expects that by the end of the financial year, it would handle more than 1 billion letters compared with only 13 million a year ago.

The company, now struggling with a 4 billion-pound deficit in its pension fund, said it needs a 2 billion-pound investment in order to complete a process of modernisation in sorting operations in order for it to compete on a level playing field.

Analysts see competition to intensify in “end-to-end” services spanning collection to delivery as well as niche postal services, particularly within the business sector.

However, there could not be a scenario immediately of multi-coloured post boxes alongside Royal Mail’s red ones or of multi-uniformed delivery people alongside the local postmen. The private operators will largely rely on agreements over access to Royal Mail’s delivery network, with existing postmen and women handling the final delivery.

AN JOSE: The world’s biggest chip maker, Intel Corporation, is scrapping its present logo and the rhyming tagline ‘Intel Inside’ as part of a major overhaul of its brand, putting emphasis away from its PC business and on to home entertainment products.

The 37-year-old Intel logo, with the “e” slightly lowered, will be replaced by one having an oval swirl around the company’s name and the phrase “Leap Ahead” instead of Intel Inside.

Brand watchers recall the existing logo and the tagline, created in the 1990s as being responsible for the Silicon Valley hardware major’s leap to become a global giant. It is world’s No 5 brand with an estimated value of $36 billion.

The company said though the Intel Inside will go, it will introduce a marketing programme with that theme to help PC makers advertise products using Intel chips.

The new logo as well as details of the marketing programme will be unveiled by Intel’s chief executive Paul Otellini at next week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Intel believes that its thrust now should be on digital media and networking business as the PC market has slowed down to some extent and its rival Advanced Micro Devices has captured part of its laptop and server markets. Besides, it wants to emphasise on the new internal face it has gained since Otellini took over in May 2005.

Brand watchers see the attempt as Intel’s intention to focus on platforms rather than individual processors. These platforms will facilitate the integration of Intel-based systems with digital media and networks in homes, businesses and schools.

Intel insiders reveal that the proposed campaign will centre on the company’s Centrino line of processors for laptops, instead of its venerable Pentium range, and a new concept it calls Viiv, which is essentially the platform to integrate PCs and home entertainment systems.

Intel has also revealed its new chip for laptop computers, which it calls Core, and which will be a key part of the Viiv concept. It is set for launch early next year and will be a key product in the mobile market to take on rival AMD.

Core, once called Yonah, is a 32-bit dual core microprocessor chip with the ability to conserve power and run cooler than earlier Intel chips. It is purely an Otellini venture aimed at taking AMD head-on.

Intel now has a new chief marketing officer, Eric B. Kim, formerly of Samsung Electronics and credited with making the South Korean company a global brand. The rebranding and the new programme launch will be done under his supervision.

LONDON: Spanish bank Banco Santander Central Hispano SA is planning to take back the control of the credit card operations of its U.K. unit Abbey National, which is now being handled by U.S. credit card operator MBNA under a 2001 deal. Abbey National, then, was not a part of Santander. The agreement is set to end next year.

According to estimates, it may cost the bank around 300 million pounds.

Santander is known to be inducting its Parternon payment platform in Abbey National’s new IT systems, which is clear indication that it wants to run the credit card business.

Abbey National had outsourced the credit card business to MBNA for 289 million pounds before Santander acquired it in 2004 for 8.5 billion pounds. Sources in the know say MBNA will insist on a similar payment to return the business as it owns the assets and customer base.

The Spanish bank is a major player in the credit cards business and issues some 15 million cards worldwide and most of the business is managed in-house as it is its core business.

Santander and Abbey National confirmed the agreement is under review and a buyback is one of the options. It said a final decision could well be sometime in the first quarter of 2006.

MBNA too said it is discussing future plans with Abbey National.

When Abbey struck the deal with MBNA, it had 500,000 customers and a loan book of 244 million. MBNA had paid a premium of 45 million pounds. The customer base now is 1.27 million.