A handful of independent banks are trying to break the iron grip the mega banks seem to have on the Bay Area — a cycle that’s been repeated more than once.
“It is a pattern you see time and time again,” says Morningstar Inc. analyst Craig Woker about small, independent bank startups. “Typically, what you see happen after a mega bank merger is small, new and existing independent banks try to
One of the most profitable Internet business models is a direct marketing tactic expected to cost U.S. companies billions this year. The worldwide problem is so expensive that even cash-rich Microsoft Corp. has thrown down the gauntlet by coordinating with law enforcement agencies and organizing a détente with competitors to fight the intrusive culprit — e-mail spam.
Microsoft says it needs outside help to prevent unwanted e-mail from driving
Recent bank mergers have some longtime valley bankers saying the time is ripe for a new crop of small, community-oriented independent banks.
Their market target is small businesses and people who want more personal service from top bank management that is not possible with huge regional banks.
In the past two years, at
RBC Capital Markets says it is pulling the plug on some of its investment banking operations in Minneapolis and plans to move staff closer to the action in New York and Menlo Park. RBC, which is owned by Toronto-based Royal Bank of Canada, says it wants to position itself as a bigger player on the coasts.
Although the company is keeping mum on the specifics, RBC recently told employees the move
Even in the down economy, Silicon Valley princesses are lining up to kiss this frog
Since its birth more than 34 years ago in Germany’s Black Forest region, Frog Design Inc., now based in Sunnyvale, has been a leader in creating the “coolness” factor for some of biggest consumer tech brands.
Frog’s philosophy is based on creating a mind meld of technology and human emotion to make other brands famous. During the
Despite alarms that sounded when Nokia Corp. raised the spectre of consolidating operations into its Finnish homeland, the telecommunications company’s Mountain View facility will continue on unscathed.
The same can’t be said for a sister operation up north.
By announcing the closure of its Santa Rosa broadband operations later this year, Nokia Corp. becomes the latest high-tech company to pull up and move out of Sonoma County’s battered Telecom Valley.
The
Like the breakthrough technologies and gurus it features, national cable-television channel TechTV is revamping its programming while resisting the temptation to pattern itself after standard cable fare.
Its unconventional approach has attracted 38 million cable and satellite subscribers in the five years since the San Francisco channel went on the air, but hasn’t made a profit. While staying true to its mainstay audience of male viewers who quickly latch
One Milpitas telecommunications-hardware company claims it’s poised to profit as the telephone company wars shift to wireless Internet services. With fewer than 100 employees, 3-year-old Aperto Networks expects two recent regulatory decisions will help it make a giant leap toward profitability.
In the past two weeks, while many were occupied by a possible
A two-year battle has California regulators trying to hobble the nation’s largest mortgage lender by revoking its residential-lending license.
In a legal tiff, labeled by Wall Street analysts and Wells Fargo & Co. of San Francisco as a bunch of hot air out of Sacramento, California’s Department of Corporations charges the bank’s home mortgage unit illegally stiffed its customers with unnecessary charges.
“Department of Corporations examiners discovered that Wells Fargo
Doubling revenue annually to gain 90 percent market share, one technology company has left so many competitors in the dust that consumer advocates are crying foul and claiming it’s a monopoly. No, this is not another story about Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft Corp. It’s the saga of San Jose’s own eBay Inc.
Since its founding in a San Jose living room by entrepreneur Pierre Omidyar in 1995, eBay has grown
