Fremont economy may be in trouble

The future of the largest employer of the Alameda County, NUMMI, a join venture from GM and Toyota is in question. By the end of this month they will decide whether to continue this plant or not. Toyota used this plant for 25 years to build Corolla and Tacoma. They are going to shift the production of Corolla to Canada and Tacoma to Texas. So if you have 2010 Corolla that will be last from this plant. All 2011 production will be going to the other site. The main reason could be the fact that this plant never went profitable.

NUMMI is the largest commercial employer in the Alameda County, it has around 1000 supplier in California only. Even though they employed 5000 employee but there are 50,000 jobs related to this plant. This Christmas will not good for many folks living here in the valley.

This tells us how expensive is to do business in California. Closure of this plant will certainly impact the local economy. Let us see what Arnold do about this!

My Son's Three Wishes

Here is the exact words written by my son, when he asked by his teacher to write about his three wishes:

One wish that I have is to get smarter. I will get smart by doing lots of difficult homework. Another way is that I will be nice to everybody, so that God can make me smarter. This way I can be smart every day. When I'm in college, I can get good grades. Also I can then get lots of money to be rich.

My second wish is to be very rich. I want to be the richest person in the world. I want to be rich because I will like to have a blue, three story house. It is very important because if I have an emergency, I can pay for it and I will still be rich. Also I can buy lots of healthy food so that I'll be strong and I won't be fat. I can spend my money on sports so I can be stronger. These sports would be tennis, baseball, and wall ball. I won't have videos like a (Nintendo) DS, Wii, Play Station 1, Play Station 2, Play Station 3.

My third wish is to help poor people. I feel terrible because they sometimes have ripped clothes and no money. It is important that their lives wouldn't be ruined. I will give them money, healthy food, and warm clothes. I will teach them how to do exercises and make things like toys, chalks and rocks with color. Then I might teach poor people how to build Native American houses. I will also give sun block to the poor people because will probably get sun burn outside without it. The poor people will probably thank me for giving them lots of helpful things. The poor people will be so happy. Then I'll be happy too!

Now you know about my three wishes.

Raj Patel, Grade 2
Wiebel Elementry School

Tech industry will go Merger and Acquistion

It is no brainier to say that the corporate have difficulty in profit and revenue.

As we go along with the recession, I think there are lot of merger or acquisition in the tech industry will have to happen. Reason?

1. Company are trying to trim cost of doing business to drive the profit.
2. Company will go into another business line to add the revenue stream or to show growth.

How many company can afford to acquire or merge with other company? Very few.

Let's look at some of them can be candidate for acquisition.

Sun Microsystem - I don't think it can survive by itself in the recession. Company like Cisco may target it to add new product line in their portfolio.

Cerner - They are just for the one verticle market, healthcare, which is struggling. Company is great but need better partner.

Others are Sandisk, Netapp, Informatica, Yahoo, eBay etc to name a few potential candidates. There are lot of solar companies that will be consolidated.

The only reason to invest in tech is to get acquired by others with hefty premium.