DETROIT ? Ford Motor Company announced Monday it is investing $450 million in its Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne to produce future hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and battery electric vehicles starting in 2012. That's the plant that will produce the new 2011 Ford Focus, along with the 2012 Ford Focus Electric. The latest announcement means that
ANN ARBOR - Cloud computing technology made a lot of progress in 2009 but it wasn't without its problems. Reliability and security issues surfaced as the young service struggled with the widespread media coverage and rapid growth. Reflecting on the year that was dominated by the IT buzz word, cloud computing, Online Tech CEO Yan
SOUTHFIELD - In a newly released Cleantech Point-of-View, Airfoil Public Relations urges the automotive industry to adopt the flexible, fast-to-market strategies of the technology industry and points out that tech developers have much to learn from best manufacturing practices developed by auto companies. "It's time for the automotive and technology industries to embrace partnerships, share
DETROIT - The Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE has chosen the state of Michigan to host an intense multi-stage competition that aims to pit some of the world's most fuel efficient vehicles against one another in a quest to win their share of a $10 million prize purse. Fifty-one super efficient cars from 41 teams
LANSING ? Web hosting company Liquid Web on Monday launched Storm On Demand, a flexible cloud hosting platform. Development of the new platform will add 600 jobs over the next five years. ?Virtually every business or anyone with a personal Web site can benefit from Storm On Demand,? said Liquid Web founder and CEO Matthew
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Ca. - Google no longer intends to censor search results in China, and if the Chinese government balks, it may take its servers and go home. The stunning change in Google's policy toward doing business in China, which was always a complicated dance, came after Google discovered that it and other businesses were
NEW YORK - IT spending worldwide will reboot in 2010, rising 8.1 percent after last year's 8.9 percent freefall, Forrester Research predicts in a report released Tuesday. Businesses and governments are expected to spend $1.6 trillion on information technology throughout 2010, Forrester predicts, CNET News.Com reported. In the U.S. alone, IT spending is likely to
DETROIT - The global automotive supplier industry starts the New Year with difficult prospects. Although revenue and operating results in 2009 were not as bad as initially feared, a significant market recovery is not foreseen for 2010. Most surveyed suppliers expect the global market in 2010 maintain the levels of 2009 with positive developments only
LANSING - Both of the state's two largest utilities have now been ordered to repay customers for excessive rates they had self-implemented with the completion of a rate case Monday for Detroit Edison. Edison will have to refund $62.6 million plus interest, meaning about a 1.3 percent rate cut for customers, the Public Service Commission
LANSING - It looks like the nation started pulling itself out of the recession sometime around the third quarter of last year, but it won't be until the same time in 2011 that Michigan can expect to see modest job growth, economists said Monday during the Revenue Estimating Conference. By the time Michigan recovers, 11