McDonald's Singapore Glorifies Festive Menu

McDonald's to offer truffle flavored seasoning with fries in Singapore.
McDonald’s Corporation seems to be on a roll where every day you get to hear one story or another regarding their great initiatives that are intriguing the masses. Firstly the company recently announced about an all day breakfast menu. This is actually great news for all those who prefer hash browns, pancakes and eggs throughout the day. Then it was notified that the company has revealed its festive menu in the United States that encompassed a range of exquisite items that will add to the rustic charm. Moreover, the company has also come up with breakfast burgers in United States for a limited time period that is again a treat for fast food lovers. It is not the first time that the company is experimenting but this season has been filled with announcements regarding delicious experiments by the company. The company revealed the testing of mozzarella sticks and sweet potato fries that are as delicious as they sound. But news that you might now know is that the company is all set to reveal its truffle fries for all the truffle lovers out there. In case you have made up your mind to hit you car and visit the nearest McDonald outlet then behold since this offering is only valid for Singapore. Singapore is known for being a pioneer amongst all McDonald outlets across the globe in terms of improvising and experimenting. As per the British news platform, Metro, the fries are being offered as do it yourself. All you need to do is order yourself regular fries- you will get truffle flavored seasonings along with your fries in small sachet that can be sprinkled over the fries to make them taste even better. It needs to be noted here that this not really the first time where Singapore has tried to tweak the McDonalds menu but they have been doing so since a fairly long time. Thus the company came up with the cheese flavoring earlier and also went quite obnoxious by offering the seaweed flavoring too. So now, you might just be a bit to excited to try out these delicious fries but first book your tickets to Singapore. These small initiatives by the company where they are tweaking their menu can actually help them to lure the fast food junkies again who are now looking for healthy initiatives. This has actually caused immense disruption for them but their constant efforts will actually pave their way to glory.

McDonald's To Progress Rapidly Under Easterbrook's Leadership

The fast food company has been rated bullishly by the Street analysts who have also appreciated the way Easterbrook has been carrying the giant foward.

McDonald’s Corporation has been on a roller coaster ride for the past couple of months and things have now started to take a positive turn, which analysts believe is due to the progressive leadership it is receiving from Steve Easterbrook, who took the CEO’s position in the management a couple of months back. The shares of the company have climbed the ladder in a rapid speed over the past few weeks and now the giant has scored a share price which is 20% higher than the share value it had a year before the current one. This progress in the stock market is one to be taken into consideration by the rivals, even though the fast food giant still has a lot to improve at.

As per the records on the index, McDonald’s stock has turned out to be one of the best performing ones so far in the year and this is great for the investor sentiment, which was previously quite over to the bearish side due to the negatives being faced in the sales department. The giant has been covered by analysts at The Street and one such analysts, Brian Sozzi, has presented an analysis report to the investors in which he has stated that the fast food giant has the biggest franchises and outlets network spread all over the country and this just brings it more responsibility to deal with its problems in a much better way than how its rivals handle theirs.

McDonald’s management, under Easterbrook’s strict guidance, has been carrying business activities forward quite positively, facing some problems here and there nonetheless. At the time Don Thompson left the company, who is the ex CEO of the food giant, the food giant was almost in ruins with almost all the equity firms giving out bearish ratings to its stock without thinking twice. Easterbrook, however, has no doubt turned things around on a massive level by first bringing out the Turnaround plan and then implementing it with higher cash dividends for the investors along with the all-day breakfast plan which has reportedly increased the previously sluggish sales of the company.

On the other hand, McDonald’s restaurants are also experiencing really low same stores sales but despite that, Sozzi has stated that Easterbrook’s efforts to bring a much needed difference to the business strategies of the giant have indeed brought to the food giant exactly what it needed to sustain its position in the market. The analyst also believes that he has, with great leadership skills, turned out to change the company’s destiny on the whole by making it turn towards a new direction with no intentions of lagging behind anymore.

What Facebook Inc (FB) Earnings Propose For The Future

The social media company is expected to grow even more now that it has opened Instagram for ads.

Facebook Inc reported earnings for the third quarter of the year in a very positive way, and clearly ended up beating all the estimations made by the analysts in the market. The earnings showed that the analysts and equity firms covering the stock activities of the social media company with a bullish attitude where not bullish about it enough, as the results presented by the giant to the investors on the final reporting day turned out to be a little too much over the positive side. As for how the investor sentiment should be, now that the earnings have been announced, analysts believe that there is a lot more to rely on for positivity coming from the Silicon Valley based company’s side for the upcoming future.
Presently, Facebook business is enjoying quarterly profit coming from the mobile ad business to have made up around 78% of the total profit which shows that the giant is slowly relying more and more on the revenue being generated from online ads. According to the equity firms, the best way to grow that revenue percentage on the whole can be done by monetizing its photo sharing app, Instagram, which is a platform yet to be used for displaying of ads.

The fact that Instagram is one of the social media apps which have been gaining users on a massive level on a daily basis makes it all the more interesting for businesses to think of it as a great platform to showcase their products in the most effective of ways. According to the analysts belief, it can also been seen that the social media giant is aware of all the potential Instagram has and how it can help the giant to increase its revenue generation.

Recently the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook business informed the industry that it will be making ads on Instagram available for all the marketers and this will be done in exactly the same way that it gets ads for the social media website. Sheryl Sandberg, the COO, also mentioned in one of the press conferences that the kind of feedback which has so far been received by the marketers is quite impressive and it just opens up more space for the company to roll out similar activities for its other projects as well, which could be of either Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger.

However, news suggests that the networking giant is not looking forward monetizing any of the latter subsidiaries of the company any time soon and this only looking forward to focus on Instagram for now.

Apple To Delay The Launch Of iPad Pro

Apple might delay the launch of iPad Pro for 2 days.

As per the Cult Of Mac, it has been reported that the iPad Pro 12.9’’ by Apple Inc. might not be launched on November 11, 2015. The much anticipated Apple device that was expected to be launched in a few days might just not reach users who really wanted to explore the possibilities with this device. However, users need not be sad since it has been reported to the publication house that the device will be launched on November 13, 2015 although two extra days are now being added but this is expected to be on par with the product launches done previously in the past. This also happened when the company’s recent set top box namely the Apple TV was launched. On the other hand, the employees at the company’s Apple Store are now being trained so that they can gear up for the release of the new product contributing to the company’s legacy. The idea behind this training is to prepare the employees to answer all the queries regarding the product which the customers have. This actually makes a lot of sense since products launched on weekends tend to a lot of traction. At this point of time, the source for the Cult of Mac has not really unveiled whether Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil will be launched with the tablet or later but if both the things are launched together then it will be more fruitful for the company. The Apple iPad Pro is being discussed in the industry as a product that will target the creative junkies since it can be used for designing, animation and other similar purposes. This makes the device a must have at setups that fuel creative content such as Walt Disney. However, on a broader perspective, Microsoft is also coming up with its recent hybrid Surface tablet that is more flexible and can be used at the corporate space. So it will further ignite competition for the tech giant. If the company fails then this it will be the demise of the company’s tablet range since they are already not doing quite well already. Many analytical publication houses also believe that this might also concur with the review tablets that have been given in the coming week. The Apple iPad has so far gotten mixed reviews from the reviewers where some claim that it might be a game changer whereas others believe that this might contribute to the company’s decline.

IBM's Urge To Grow Has Encouraged It To Get Its Hand On Gravitant

The company focuses on a buying methodology to lure growth.

International Business Machines Corp. recently announced that the company has now acquired Gravitant Inc. which is a company based in Texas that has expertise in Cloud brokerage. The company has taken this initiative to promote the portfolio of its Cloud solutions, so far the financial aspect of the deal has not been revealed. Gravitant helps its consumers in buying, managing and getting access on cloud computing services from various retailers. The aim of the company is to improve its Service as a Software (SaaS) domain by interlinking the acquisition with its unit for Global Technology Services. A similar initiative was taken by Dell Inc. where the bought a company of the similar nature. During this time, other company’s belonging to the Information Technology sector like Oracle and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise are on the verge of migrating to the Cloud business. Both the firms are trying their best to make the process faster so that the transition is smooth. In the times to come, most of the company’s will use hybrid cloud for the businesses. According to Senior Vice President of IBM’s Global Technology Services, Mr. Martin Jetter, "The reality of enterprise IT is that it is many clouds with many characteristics, whether they be economic, capacity or security.” He further added, “Gravitant provides an innovative approach to add choice and simplicity to how enterprises can now manage their environments. It will be a key component as we broaden our hybrid Cloud services.” Before both the company’s finalized the collaboration, IBM also tested the framework and architecture of Gravitant and deduced that the service goes pretty good with outsourcing prospects and managing the company’s stack. This is a recent add on to the list of cloud firm that the company has acquired in the past. Some companies that are now a part of IBM include SoftLayer, Cleversafe and Cloudant. The company’s acquisitions of all the aforementioned companies are part and parcel of a company’s blueprint so that they can make their transition to Cloud. The company has a strategy where they wish to buy the products rather than building them. So now the company has achieved another milestone where they will focus on pushing its cloud business to newer heights. There is a lot of effort involved by the company and the end results of these acquisition will soon help the company in establishing a niche in the world of cloud computing.

Alphabet Will Initiate Drone Package Delivery In FY17

Alphabet has plans to start drone package delivery by 2017. Alphabet Inc, the renowned Internet giant which is the recent holdings company for Google has plans to initiate delivery via drones to consumers in 2017. The claim was made by the executives at the company in an attempt top bolster its drone segment. The head of Project Wing at Alphabet, Mr. David Vos believes that the firm is now having negotiations with the Federal Aviation Administration along with various other stakeholders for establishing an air traffic control system for all those drones that will be enabled via Internet or cellular technology. This will help them to coordinate the drone flights that are below 500 feet in altitude. “Our goal is to have commercial business up and running in 2017,” mentioned Mr. Vos while addressing an audience at the air traffic control convention taking place in Washington DC, United States. Amazon and Alphabet are among those tech giants who wish to make drone delivery a reality in the times to come. The only hindrance that is stopping these companies is that the drones will not be able to take flight till the time the FAA comes up with published rules for the drones operations commercially. This is likely to happen in the start of 2016. The initial research by the search engine giant began almost 2 years before Project Wing was launched in FY14. A YouTube video surfaced that showed a field test was conducted through a prototype in Australia. Within the United States, the Project Wing unit has collaborated with NASA to conduct the testing. VOS is said to be the co-chair of the task force at the FAA that is developing a drone registry. The idea is to identify the drone operations and also enabling the UAV to be away from the aircraft within a time span of 12 months. “We’re pretty much on a campaign here, working with the FAA, working with the small UAV community and the aviation community at large, to move things along,” Vos added. According to Mr. Vos, the drone registry under the administration of President Obama is likely to take place by the end of Fy15. This will be the first step that will encompass the Internet and wireless communication technology. This will also deal with applications control via cell phones so that the UAV are far apart from one another. This is great news for all those who expected drone delivery in near future.

IBM Is On The Verge Of Acquiring The Weather Company

IBM will finally be acquiring the data assets and digital technologies of the Weather Company.

According to recent news, it is believed that International Business Machines Corporation will become the most accurate weather forecaster in the coming times. The company has officially claimed that they are on the verge of getting their hands on "The Weather Company" which is a digital technologies and data assets firm. Reuters was the first one to begin such speculations however the speculations have been approved by the company on their own. Sources familiar to the matter suggest that the partnership collaboration that is between Big Blue and The Weather Channel could be valued at $2 billion. Despite the deal being so close to be finalized by both parties, the details and finances are not yet made public. This deal does not include the take over of its primary television cable channel business however it is only interested to acquire the digital part of its technologies such as the website, application, cloud business, cloud based web properties, Weather Underground, Weather Channel brand, and weather.com. Furthermore, it will be taking over the data infrastructure as well. It is believed that the company is more interested in the forecasting group of its partners, WSI. According to a source, “WSI houses forecasting technologies and weather data compilations, which the company collects and licenses to other businesses, ranging from insurance companies to utility companies and airlines.” It is known that The Weather Company is in the ownership by a consortium where NBC Universal, which is owned by Comcast Corporation, owns 25 percent of it whereas Bain Capital, LLC with Blackstone Group LP along with are accountable for the left 75% of the share. In 2008, this consortium purchased the company for over more than $3.5 billion. It has not been mentioned anywhere in the Big Blue’s announced but according to the publication, the chief executive of The Weather Company, David Kenny, will be joining IBM when the deal is fully completed. The Weather Company put itself for sale a couple of times prior to this in an attempt to lure potential buyers. Once, Google was also willing to invest in the assets of the company. However, soon they lost interest. The rumors started to gather pace since the beginning of this year over a potential deal between two parties. It is now been confirmed and the deal is on the verge of completion. Both parties have allied together on previous occasions as well to make businesses flourish with their respective technologies.