Alphabet Winds Down Makani
Alphabet, Google's parent company, announced that it is calling it quits on its efforts to build and monetize its Makani wind energy kites.Google acquired Makani, which developed airborne wind turbines and aimed to make wind energy more accessible and affordable, in 2013. Last year, the company spun it out of X and made it a standalone Alphabet unit.Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has reportedly been under pressure to cut losses from the company's 'Other Bets' category, which includes projects such as X, self-driving car service Waymo and wireless broadband project Loon. Last year, 'Other Bets' lost $4.8 billion, according to the Financial Times.Fort Felker said in his blog post that despite successfully demonstrating a flight off the coast of Norway last year…
The Cost-conscious Manager
Wondering What to Trim? Look to the skies: billions in offshore savings may be orchestrated from the back office. For many managers (and analysts), sales, general and administrative costs, or SG&A, are ordinary accounting lines on an offshore services company’s ledger. Less ordinary — less known — is that a sizable chunk of the “A” in SG&A are travel costs that can be better managed. A recent restructuring-focused Deloitte report suggested that SG&A costs might be the wisest costs to shed without thwarting operations. For offshore suppliers, the wisest SG&A costs to shed might just be travel costs. Examining SG&A for offshore outfits produces some interesting travel numbers…
Gibdock Tackles Sixth Special Survey on Comanav Ferry
Gibdock has underlined its strategic location for regional ferry operators following a significant program of work on the ferry Ibn Batouta, for Moroccan operator Comanav. Docked in early September for a 25 day stay at the Gibraltar ship repair and conversion yard, work included the 426.5-ft long ro-pax vessel’s sixth special survey. Built originally in 1981 by Harland & Wolff for UK operator Sealink, as St Christopher, Ibn Batouta has space for 1,350 passengers as well as 850 lane meters for cars and road haulage vehicles. She is now deployed on Comanav’s regular passenger and car service between Tangiers, Morocco and Algeciras, Spain.
