Tuesday, February 3, 2009

OpenOffice.org 3.0.1 released

While waiting for the next version of OpenOffice.org 3.1 (scheduled to release by end of March 2009), OpenOffice.org 3.0.1 is now finalized and on general release.

If you are using Ubuntu Linux 8.10 and installed OpenOffice.org 3 with the method as described in my earlier article in this blog, your OpenOffice.org should already automatically updated to release candidate of version 3.0.1 quite some time ago, and also automatically updated to general release version of 3.0.1 recently.

Version 3.0.1 is a bug fix release before the upcoming version 3.1. It fixes quite a lot of bugs found in version 3.0. Beside that, there is also new feature for Writer to handle grammar checking. This built-in grammar checking feature in Writer has been long awaited and finally made available now.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Pharmaceutical companies continue to invest in Malaysia

While there are some recent restructuring and/or downsizing news from electrical and electronic sector such as Intel Penang, Panasonic Melaka, etc., there are also good news from global pharmaceutical players to expand their investment in Malaysia.

The German-based B Braun which runs its Malaysian operations in Bayan Lepas, Penang has recently invested more than RM300 million to acquire a new plot of land to strengthen its presence with new facilities.

On the other hand, there is also news about US-based St. Jude Medical has confirmed its plan to invest in Malaysia and has already launched a $30 million site in Penang to set up Asia’s first pacemaker manufacturing facility.

Beside that, US-based Trustgen LLP and India-based Malladi Drugs & Pharmaceutical Ltd have also in October 2008 announced their decision to invest a combined $600 million investment in Malaysia to set up manufacturing facilities and their respective regional and global hubs.

All these are showing positive signs that the pharmaceutical industry in Malaysia will continue to grow despite the current worldwide economic downturn.

Financial Times Global MBA Rankings 2009

The London based Financial Times has just released their Global MBA School Ranking for 2009, naming University of Pennsylvania: Wharton (USA) and London Business School (UK) as the joint no. 1 business school for MBA programs.

The ranking is based on factors including the average alumni salary, their salary increment from before getting the MBA to today as a percentage of the pre-MBA salary, value for money of the MBA course, career progress, fulfillment of aims of doing the MBA, placement and employment success after graduation, alumni recommendation, female students, international students, doctoral degree availability, academic research publication, etc.

The top 10 rankings for 2009 are as follow:

  • University of Pennsylvania: Wharton (USA)
  • London Business School (UK)
  • Harvard Business School (USA)
  • Columbia Business School (USA)
  • Insead (France / Singapore)
  • Stanford University GSB (USA)
  • IE Business School (Spain)
  • CEIBS (China)
  • MIT: Sloan (USA)
  • New York University: Stern (USA)

Click here to see the top 100 business schools listed in the Financial Times Global MBA Rankings 2009 and their scores in each of the ranking factors.

Hint: Click on the "Older Posts" link to continue reading, or click here for a listing of all my past 3 months articles.