Archive for the ‘RFID’ Category:
Morgan Stanley to sell its retail businesses to Invesco Ltd.
With the aim of focusing on institutional clients, Morgan Stanley has decided to sell its retail asset management business, including the Van Kampen division, to money manager Invesco Ltd. in a $1.5 billion deal which will include $500 million in cash and 44.1 million shares. The transaction is expected to close in mid- 2010.
“By taking a minority interest in Invesco, Morgan Stanley will be able to realize significant value in partnership with a world-class player,” said Morgan Stanley Co-President James Gorman. “In addition, this transaction will mitigate certain affiliated product sales restrictions faced by Van Kampen portfolio managers since the closing of the Morgan Stanley Smith Barney joint venture.”
Morgan Stanley also said its investment management group will include several institutional-focused businesses, including a long-only business (equity and fixed income), a direct hedge fund business, and a fund of funds business. It also will include a liquidity business and a merchant banking business, with the bank’s real estate, private equity and infrastructure units.
In Japan, Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s (MSIM) equity management operations will be sold to Invesco as part of the transaction, but the bank will retain its fixed income investment team and a sales and client service team to serve Japanese investors.
This is the latest addition to the array of deals which include money manager takeovers of bank assets. Bank of America Corp. last month sold the long-term asset management business of its Columbia Management unit to Ameriprise Financial Inc., a financial planning services firm based in Minneapolis, for up to $1.2 billion in cash. And in June, British bank Barclays PLC agreed to a $13.5 billion offer from U.S. investment manager BlackRock Inc. for its asset management arm, Barclays Global Investors.
Subscribe to the comments for this postProblems associated with asset management
There are various issues or problems which have to be faced by an asset manager while performing his job. Some of the common problems relating to asset management are:
It is difficult to update the evaluation of assets especially when there is a bog team of asset management because lack of proper communication and difficulty in assignment of specific tasks makes it difficult to establish the updates.
If the members of the asset management team are not properly trained to use the equipments and techniques, the incompetence will lead to inventory problems and management issues. So, it is always better to have few high quality people than many below average ones.
Again, if your staff members are adequately competent but you do not have the technology that matches their qualifications for doing to job, you may still get a below average performance from your asset management team.
Lack of support and co-operation among departments may not be conducive for positive change and objective or honest inventory of assets. As such there is a need for strengthening the ties of the team members via enriching activities.
Lack of balance in the different categories and the figures that represent them in the charts are detrimental to good management of assets in an organization.
Sometimes, there may be a tendency to eliminate the risk altogether in asset management without considering this fact that risks are contributory to the company’s growth and yield good returns.
The above mentioned problems are inherent to asset management business and have been there and will be there in existence. A good team needs to address these problems for successful output.
Auditing, Problem in Better Implementation of IT Asset Management
In an IT Asset Management meet voice of resentment and protest expressed by representatives of the respected companies held at Orlando, FL about the increase in auditing as performed by Business Alliance and the Software Information and Industry Association.
The companies are feeling increased instances of auditing by association as well as a publisher is disturbing. In a question how many of them are audited by software publisher among presented in the meeting 50% to 70% raised hands in favor of being audited. As much applications a company uses as much it goes through the complex process of software license management.
As according to some representatives at in conference, IT asset management is about knowing what you have, buying only what you need and maximizing the value of the asset throughout its lifecycle. But there are so many problems while in proper asset management program implementation as expressed by representatives like lack of executive buy in, improper staffing, problem to comprehend software licenses.
And expense while carrying away an audit is only start of the problem even companies are said to spend 3-to-6 times the costs of audit to cover other necessary costs.
RFID Tags - The Newest Channels For Transmitting Computer Viruses!
The Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Technology industry got a sudden jolt last week when Melanie Rieback, a PhD Student from Amsterdam, presented her paper on how computer viruses could spread through RFID tags. Melanie’s research says that the virus could spread from RFID tags through readers, into middleware applications and from there to enterprise backend systems and databases. Informationweek.com reports:
Those disagreeing with the research findings believe the paper assumes an architectural design not in use today. England calls attention to system-level inaccuracies. RFID tags store numbers, not executable code.
Read More: RFID World Still Reacting Strongly to Virus Research
Will Consumers be Under Constant Surveillance, by RFID Tags?
Are we entering an era where we will be, at all times tracked through our personal possessions? RFID tags typically include a 64-bit unique identifier that listen to radio query and respond by transmitting their unique ID code. Such RFID chips may find place in everything from whatever you may be eating, wearing or carrying. New.com reports:
The generic name for this technology is RFID, which stands for radio frequency identification. RFID tags are miniscule microchips, which already have shrunk to half the size of a grain of sand.
Read More: Perspective: RFID Tags: Big Brother in Small Packages
RFID-Combating the Intrusion of Privacy
A lot has been spoken and debated upon with regard to the intrusion of privacy and breech of security as pertaining to the use of RFID technology. However, any technology with high end uses should not be stifled for this cause, instead a solution to overcome the issue, must be found out. One such solution is the Open Business Innovation or Obivision and how it influences RFID. By employing this, RFID tags will be able to freely transfer data during the supply chain stage of the item. But once it reaches the customer, at the point of purchase, the tags get switched off and go into a ‘privacy mode’. This will bring it under the consumer’s control. Only when the consumer wishes to, will the tags broadcast any data. This promises to effectively combat the issue of privacy-intrusion and security breech.
Can EPC Tags Really Be Killed From a Cell Phone?
The EE Times reported about 2 weeks ago that a professor of computer science at Weizman Institute of Science; Adi Shamir had claimed that he could crack the passwords for the very popular brand of Gen 1 EPC tags and completely finish them off. Shamir said at the RSA conference that a cellular phone was equipped with all that was necessary to make such an attack and completely kill all the RFID tags in and around it. rfidjournal.com reports:
Shamir and Oren used what’s called a side-channel attack. Instead of sending possible passwords until hitting on the right one, the hacker analyzes the behavior of the protected devices to "slowly insinuate" the correct password or key needed to access the protected data.
Read More: RFID Security: A Reality Check
Steady Growth of RFID Market in China
The RFID market in China, maintained a growth of 86.2% in its fourth quarter, of the year 2005. This study was done by Beijing based Analysis International, which said in its report that this growth was concentrated on the replacement of 2G ID card (48%) and public transportation(7%). Industryweek.com reports:
The report notes that in the near future, China’s RFID market will be mainly driven by the manufacturing sector. "There are huge stock and logistics systems in manufacturing processes. Manufacturing Driving RFID in China
Read More:
Asset Tracking Using RFID Technology
RFID is the chosen technology for the purpose of tracking the movement of men, machines and materials. It finds many applications in business and industry. Today it is being used for tracking vehicles passing a toll booth to the tracking of MRE’s for soldiers. Asset tracking systems use RFID tags. With the help of these, they can track the movement of assets-only or assets and the carrier of the assets. This tracking is done, as the assets move through strategically located checkpoints. The asset tracking software verifies that the correct owner is carrying a designated tagged asset. in case of mismatch, it generates an alarm. Tracking can be done for multiple variables within a system. Tracking can also be done in multiple locations by using controllers, this feature enables a large area to be covered.
Adoption and Use of RFID Technology In the Pharmaceutical Industry
The pharmaceutical industry has very different requirements from those of any other industry. The same holds true with respect to the application and use of RFID technology, in this domain. Duplicates of Drugs can be lethal. Counterfeits can damage a pharmaceutical brand. In case of anything going amiss, the recall procedures must be extremely strong. Error prevention with drugs at item level has already been proved by various companies in this segment. The FDA recommends that all item level prescribed drugs sold in USA must be RFID tagged, within two years. Since drug tagging has several compelling drivers for all in the value chain as well regulatory authorities. It may go up to about 60% of all item level tagging by 2010.
Read More: Pharmaceutical RFID - Fast Forward