US first-quarter growth forecast raised to 4 per cent
New York: The US economy is slated to expand at a 4 per cent from January to April 2005, which is higher than previous estimates because of higher company spending on plant and equipment, according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists.

Last month, economists had forecast 3.6 per cent growth for the current quarter. The economy expanded 3.8 per cent in the fourth quarter.

Reports in the past weeks have said that business investment expanded in the first months of 2005 after growing at the fastest pace in more than a year during the final quarter of 2004.

The economists in the survey also raised the median forecast for all of 2005 to 3.8 per cent from 3.6 per cent in the previous survey. The economy grew an average 4.4 per cent last year, the highest since 1999.

Microsoft Corp chairman Bill Gates, in an interview recently said the US economy is "very strong" and customers are increasingly willing to spend money on new technology projects and investment.

The increased estimates for US contrast with downward revisions for Europe. The European Central Bank last week lowered its growth prediction for the 12 nations that share the euro to 1.6 per cent from 1.9 per cent.
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Oracle offers $500m for Retek
San Francisco: Oracle is offering about $500m for retail software provider Retek, in a bidding war with German software rival SAP to stop it from encroaching on a key market.

The proposed acquisition comes two months after Oracle a contentious $10.3bn acquisition of rival PeopleSoft.

Larry Ellison co founder of Oracle said the Retek bid was to defend Oracle's market share in North America, where SAP is aggressively expanding.

Retek's customers include British grocery chain Tesco and San Francisco-based clothing retailer Gap.

Oracle is the world's top database software maker and its biggest competitor in business planning software is market leader SAP.
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Singapore dethrones US as best IT user
Geneva: Singapore is now the world's best user of information and communications technology, ahead of the US and three Scandinavian nations close behind.

The US dropped to fifth place from the first place earlier behind Iceland, Finland and Denmark in the annual Global Information Technology report by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Singapore ranked highest in math and science teaching, affordability of telephone connection charges, purchasing of information and communications technology (ICT) and the priority given to ICT by governments, the WEF said.

However, the US remained at the top in business readiness, another of the report's benchmarks, as well as in the excellence of its scientific research and business schools.
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