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TechCrunch Europe — [France] France’s MyERP has just announced a partnership deal with Google, in which the company’s platform will be one of the first available in Google’s new Apps Marketplace . ~ MyERP, which was founded in 2000, provides an all-in-one cloud-based business suite for small and medium-sized businesses. Aiming to substitute for a patchwork of business applications – like Salesforce , ACT! and Quickbooks – the platform includes modules for CRM, sales, projects, purchasing, inventory and accounting. ~ ...More In addition, the freemium business model allows the first 2 users to use the platform entirely for free. As the platform is generally geared towards companies of 5-100 employees, MyERP charges $29 per month per user from 3 users onwards – a rather easy price to swallow in comparison to the alternatives. ~ The Google Apps Marketplace was officially launched Tuesday night and includes a number of various professional applications. Google will claim 20% of all sales generated through the platform. ~ MyERP currently has over 8,500 users and the Google deal should put the company at 20,000 by the end of the year. The partnership will also result in the full integration of Google docs, calendar and Gmail into the MyERP platform. ~ The company has been largely self-funded but also includes €2 million from business angels, Crédit Mutuel , UFG-LFP and the French government. ~ In addition to the customer base, Founder, François Nadal, plans to grow MyERP’s headcount by the end of the year. While US activities are run out of San Francisco, the company has remote teams in Russia, Ukraine, Belgium and Romania as well. ...Less

Comment is free | guardian.co.uk — News that wages are rising in China is greeted with dread by those who share Greenspan's unwarranted fear of rising inflation ~ Alan Greenspan had a dream, or rather a nightmare. Greenspan seems to have woken up in a cold sweat one morning in fear that the period of "disinflationary pressures" that had kept inflation low since the 1990s was about to end. This was 2007, when he published his autobiographical economic treatise, The Age of Turbulence . Despite his well-known love for economic data, and poring over the ...More latest reports from every statistical agency, he did not realise that he was sitting on a housing bubble of epic proportions . Not seeing the bubble (he also missed the prior stock market bubble that accumulated and burst on his watch, causing the 2001 downturn), he could not know that it would soon collapse and cause a very ugly recession, in which inflation would be irrelevant. ~ This by itself should be enough to question the wisdom of central bankers, since the evidence for both of these world-historic asset bubbles was blindingly obvious once they had reached a certain size. But Greenspan's nightmare is scary for other reasons, some of which will become increasingly relevant as the world economy recovers. ~ As Greenspan details in his book, the reason for his nightmare is that the world was depleting its stock of hundreds of millions of unemployed people, including those of the former Soviet Union and also in rural China. In other words, "too many" of them had become employed, and this was allowing for wages of factory workers in China to rise. So long as China had a huge mass of unemployed, wages were held in check, and – according to Greenspan – competition from low-wage production there held down wages in the rest of the world, including even rich countries like the United States. All good! Until the nightmare started. ~ Is there something wrong with this picture, that one of the world's most powerful economic decision makers (at the time), dreads the ... ...Less

Comment is free | guardian.co.uk — Intentional or not, the announcement of new settlements in East Jerusalem may push the US into a tougher stance towards Israel ~ It's not the first time that Israel has stiffed Barack Obama over his attempts to kick-start Middle East peace negotiations. But the sudden, highly inflammatory announcement of plans to build an additional 1,600 homes in occupied East Jerusalem , in the midst of a visit to Israel of US vice-president Joe Biden, was certainly the most brutally contemptuous rebuff so far to American peacemaking. ~ It ...More may be that Binyamin Netanyahu , Israel's rightwing prime minister, was unaware in advance of the provisional decision by a Jerusalem district planning committee , as he claims. But the announcement was promulgated by his interior ministry, which thereby gave it an official stamp of approval. If Netanyahu did not know, then why not? ~ Despite the evident embarrassment and considerable political damage caused by the decision, Netanyahu has so far made no move to repudiate it. Lesser figures, such as welfare minister Isaac Herzog and Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev were deployed on firefighting duties on Wednesday, dutifully uttering conditional words of contrition. "We have to express our apologies for this serious blunder," Herzog said. ~ But protestations of innocence by interior minister Eli Yishai, head of the Shas religious party in Netanyahu's coalition and no great advocate of American attempts to forge a two-state peace settlement with the Palestinians, are hard to credit. ~ "There was certainly no intention to provoke anyone, and certainly not to come along and hurt the vice-president of the United States," Yishai said. ~ These are weasel words. Is it to be believed that Yishai, like Netanyahu, was unaware of what his own ministry was doing? Did he have no idea the planning decision was pending? Did he, as an experienced politician, not foresee the destructive political implications of this ambush? Like Netanyahu, Yishai presumably regard... ...Less

Financial Times — OnLive a 'cloud' video game service that challenges the dominance of traditional games consoles, said it would launch in the US in June.

Comment is free | guardian.co.uk — It's better for Obama to have the odd puff if the alternative is keeping all that stress bottled up inside ~ The Guardian kicked the habit long ago, banning smoking from the office years before it became the law of the land. So of course we applaud President Lula of Brazil who has given up smoking – 50 years after he started. Apparently it was sheer force of will that did it: no nicotine patches, no gum, no tablets. Good for him. Meanwhile, Lula's counterpart in Washington still struggles against the demon weed. Barack ...More Obama has tried and tried to give up but – as his first presidential medical confirmed last month – success has proved as elusive as his healthcare reform bill. Some will condemn the US president as weak-willed, a poor role model for America's impressionable teens. We take a more charitable view, for we are reminded of the fate of one of Mr Obama's predecessors. Lyndon Johnson resisted temptation and smoked not once during his more than five years in the White House. The instant he left office, however, boarding the plane home to Texas, he pulled out a cigarette. One of his daughters immediately yanked it from his mouth, with a warning that he was killing himself. He snatched it back, saying, "I've raised you girls, I've been President: now it's my time." He then embarked on what historians regard as a "self-destructive spiral", dying four years later. Given that history, perhaps it's better for Obama to have the odd puff if the alternative is keeping all that stress bottled up inside . When it comes to presidents and smoking, we ought to lighten up – and let them light up. ~ Smoking Barack Obama Brazil United States ~ guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds ...Less

Comment is free | guardian.co.uk — Doomsaying precludes the possibility of ingenious solutions – and indicates a morbid vanity that we must be the saviours ~ Isn't it welcome to have Ian McEwan as an advocate for a little optimism in the climate change debate ? His hope, expressed in his new novel Solar , that humanity will prove ingenious enough to solve the problem through the skill of coming generations is a welcome change from those who portray our descendants as helpless victims of our "excess". ~ Their injunctions to "save the world ...More for our children and grandchildren" fly in the face of history, which repeatedly shows how progress – from the wheel to the internet – transforms the world picture as time marches on. The doom brigade has its moments, such as the collapse of the classical world in Europe, the Black Death and the first world war, but they are exceptions to learn from. And we have learned. ~ Not to the extent of mastering clairvoyancy, however. Like miserabilism, a constant in human behaviour is the inability of Today to successfully imagine Tomorrow. The archive of prophecy and science fiction contains some good guesses, but in general the seers get it wrong. Which of my grandparents, addressing me in the 1950s, could possibly have foreseen today's IT? Which of my grandparents' grandparents had a notion of the bicycle or national parks? ~ This is true of scientists as much as of the more general type of wise person. Science is too often mistakenly treated in the way that history was by those 19th-century Germans who thought that one day the whole truth could be set down. Certainty is not absolute. Scientists are ambushed by novelty – see Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin, Einstein – as often as the rest of us. ~ None of this is to argue against the risks of global warming or prudence in facing them. It is to warn against vanity, in the form of the exaggerated belief that it is all down to our generation: here, now, hurry, rush. It's also an appeal against pessimism, because of the limitations glumne... ...Less

TechCrunch Europe — Later this week, thousands of ironic t-shirts will be arriving in Austin for the 16th annual South By Southwest Interactive festival. ~ At about this time, it’s traditional for tech publications to publish handy guides to “ surviving SXSWi ” – packed with useful advice that’s basically interchangeable with that for any other festival since the beginning of time. ~ “Drink plenty of water!” “Prepare for some late nights!” “Plan ahead to make sure you don’t miss anything!” ...More “Pack sturdy shoes!” “Always use a condom!”. Useful advice for SXSWi, certainly, but also applicable for Oktoberfest, Glastonbury, Woodstock and the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia (although for the latter, replace ’shoes’ with ’sandals’ and ‘condom’ with ’sprig of silphium’). ~ This year, though, I decided to use my experience of past SXSWi’s to produce something more useful. A very specific and completely foolproof guide on surviving this year’s event. And here it is… ~ Tip One: Don’t go to South by Southwest Interactive. ~ READ MORE ...Less

TechCrunch Europe — [France] France-based eXo has just raised a €4 million series A round with Auriga Partners and XAnge Capital to expand their business in the US. ~ The company, a provider of open source java middleware for cloud-based services, first set-up shop in San Francisco in October 2009. The opening of their US office followed a partnership deal they made with Red Hat, which led to the joint-development of GateIn . eXo’s new round of funding will go towards sales, marketing and R&D efforts, as well as establishing additional ...More partnerships throughout the US. ~ The company’s flagship product, eXo Platform, was developed in 2003 as a result of a request made by the US Department of Defense. The open source platform aims to bridge the gap between the web 2.0 experience and enterprise platforms, by facilitating the development Java websites and applications and including various collaboration and social features. The latest version, eXo Platform 3.0, is to be released by summer. ~ Founded in 2002 by CEO Benjamin Mestrallet, eXo counts additional offices in Vietnam, Ukraine and Tunisia. eXo also has a number of strategic partnerships in Europe with Bull, Capgemini, Atos Origin and Thales. ...Less

Comment is free | guardian.co.uk — California's Living New Deal project is an ambitious social history initiative that is mapping the legacy of America's greatest public works programmes In 1940, Eugene A Delorenzo was just 17 years old when he boarded a train bound from New York City to rural Idaho after his father suggested he sign up with the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), one of the public works programmes launched by president Franklin D Roosevelt's New Deal in response to the Great Depression. Writing of the time, Delorenzo recalls: "We built ...More a road, including a bridge, fought forest fires, and provided for all of our own support – food, shelter, and recreation. All this from a bunch of kids who knew less than nothing about anything other than how to get along on the mean streets of New York. It saved my life, believe me. I was headed down the lonely and inevitable path to prison, and was rescued by the CCC. They did more than build roads and repair buildings!" Delorenzo's is one of numerous touching tales catalogued by California's Living New Deal (LND) project, an ambitious social history initiative that is mapping the legacy of the country's greatest public works programmes. The academics and researchers responsible have been charting overlooked or forgotten buildings and landmarks paid for by the New Deal – and the people who built and benefited from them. In pictures, words and audio, the project is collating an inventory of everything from libraries, schools and swimming pools to monuments constructed with the New Deal money that helped heave America out of the Depression. The result is a singular insight into the vast social scope of the New Deal and how it went beyond merely creating jobs and staving off poverty – providing things such as adult literacy classes, art for public spaces, and music lessons for poor youngsters. The LND project was conceived to mark the 75th anniversary of the New Deal, and the driving force behind it, academic Gray Brechin, likens it to a society-wide... ...Less

Comment is free | guardian.co.uk — Seal meat at the parliamentary restaurant has angered anti-cull activists, but the debate needs to move beyond sloganeering In a move that seems almost designed to raise the hackles of animal rights activists, the Canadian parliamentary restaurant has begun to offer seal meat as part of the menu. The decision is a not-so-subtle snub at the EU, which last year put an end to seal imports from Canada, due to the allegedly inhumane way that harp seals are killed each spring. As the hunting of seals, and the protests against it, continue, ...More the headway being made by either side of the debate seems to have come to rest. It looks like there are no grounds for compromise, and thus to the general population, it has been debased to simple sloganeering. That needs to change. For its part, the Canadian government has done little to add any nuance to the discussion. Last spring, the governor general Michaelle Jean ate raw seal meat from a fresh carcass when she attended a community ceremony in Nunavut. As far as political statements go, it might have only been less subtle had she wiped her mouth with the Canadian flag. Prior to the opening of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the Canadian parliament voted unanimously to include sealskin as part of the official athlete's uniforms for the games. The Canadian Olympic team quickly opposed the vote , and the sealskin uniforms never materialised. However, the Canadian government was yet again guilty of an in-your-face move that seemed unnecessarily boorish. In retrospect, it was for the better. There were enough issues in the first days of the Olympics without the added public relations headache that sealskin would have brought to the event. Animal rights groups have already labelled the menu selection in the parliamentary restaurant as another blind show of support for what they allege to be an archaic, inhumane hunt . No doubt that opposition will only grow louder – there are still two months left of the seal-hunting season. The se... ...Less