Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) is an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington, USA. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world,[2] with 16,120 stores in 49 countries, including around 11,000 in the United States, followed by nearly 1,000 in Canada and more than 800 in Japan.[3] Starbucks sells drip brewed coffee, espresso-based hot drinks, other hot and cold drinks, snacks, and items such as mugs and coffee beans. Through the Starbucks Entertainment division and Hear Music brand, the company also markets books, music, and film. Many of the company's products are seasonal or specific to the locality of the store. Starbucks-brand ice cream and coffee are also sold at grocery stores.

From Starbucks' founding in Seattle as a local coffee bean roaster and retailer, the company has expanded rapidly. In the 1990s, Starbucks was opening a new store every workday, a pace that continued into the 2000s. The first store outside the United States or Canada opened in the mid-'90s, and overseas stores now constitute almost one third of Starbucks' stores.[4] The company plans to open a net of 900 new stores outside of the United States in 2009,[5] but has announced 900 store closures in the United States since 2008.

Starbucks has been a frequent target of protests on issues such as fair-trade policies, labor relations, environmental impact, perceived anti-competitive practices,* and rumors of support for the Israeli military.
he original Starbucks was opened in Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington, in 1971 by three partners: English teacher Jerry Baldwin, history teacher Zev Siegel, and writer Gordon Bowker. The three were inspired by Alfred Peet (whom they knew personally) to sell high-quality coffee beans and equipment. From 1971–1976, that first Starbucks was at 2000 Western Avenue; it then was relocated to 1912 Pike Place, where it remains to this day. During their first year of operation, they purchased green coffee beans from Peet's, then began buying directly from growers.

Entrepreneur Howard Schultz joined the company in 1982 as Director of Marketing, and after a trip to Milan, Italy advised that the company should sell coffee and espresso drinks as well as beans. The owners rejected this idea, believing that getting into the beverage business would distract the company from its primary focus. To them, coffee was something to be prepared in the home. Certain that there was money to be made selling pre-made drinks, Schultz started the Il Giornale coffee bar chain in 1985.

In 1984, the original owners of Starbucks, led by Baldwin, took the opportunity to purchase Peet's (Baldwin still works there).
What we are all about Starbucks purchases and roasts high-quality whole bean coffees and sells them along with fresh, rich-brewed, Italian style espresso beverages, a variety of pastries and confections, and coffee-related accessories and equipment -- primarily through its company-operated retail stores. In addition to sales through our company-operated retail stores, Starbucks sells whole bean coffees through a specialty sales group and supermarkets. Additionally, Starbucks produces and sells bottled Frappuccino® coffee drink and a line of premium ice creams through its joint venture partnerships and offers a line of innovative premium teas produced by its wholly owned subsidiary, Tazo Tea Company. The Company's objective is to establish Starbucks as the most recognized and respected brand in the world.
www.wikipedia.org; www.starbucks.com

Sony Corporation (Japanese: ソニー株式会社, Sonī Kabushiki-gaisha?) (TYO: 6758) is a multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan, and one of the world's largest media conglomerates with revenue exceeding ¥ 7.730.0 trillion, or $78.88 billion U.S. (FY2008).[2] Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of electronics, video, communications, video game consoles, and information technology products for the consumer and professional markets. Its name is derived from sonus, the Latin word for sound.[3]

Sony Corporation is the electronics business unit and the parent company of the Sony Group, which is engaged in business through its five operating segments—electronics, games, entertainment (motion pictures and music), financial services and other. These make Sony one of the most comprehensive entertainment companies in the world. Sony's principal business operations include Sony Corporation (Sony Electronics in the U.S.), Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Ericsson, and Sony Financial. As a semiconductor maker, Sony is among the Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders. The company's slogan is Sony. Like no other.

In 1945, after World War II, Masaru Ibuka started a radio repair shop in a bombed-out building in Tokyo. The next year, he was joined by his colleague Akio Morita and they founded a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo K.K.,[5] which translates in English to Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation. The company built Japan's first tape recorder called the Type-G.[5]

In the early 1950s, Ibuka traveled in the United States and heard about Bell Labs' invention of the transistor.[5] He convinced Bell to license the transistor technology to his Japanese company. While most American companies were researching the transistor for its military applications, Ibuka looked to apply it to communications. Although the American companies Regency and Texas Instruments built the first transistor radios, it was Ibuka's company that made them commercially successful for the first time. In August 1955, Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering released the Sony TR-55, Japan's first commercially produced transistor radio.[6] They followed up in December of the same year by releasing the Sony TR-72, a product that won favor both within Japan and in export markets, including Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and Germany. Featuring six transistors, push-pull output and greatly improved sound quality, the TR-72 continued to be a popular seller into the early sixties.

In May 1956, the company released the TR-6, which featured an innovative slim design and sound quality capable of rivaling portable tube radios. It was for the TR-6 that Sony first contracted "Atchan", a cartoon character created by Fuyuhiko Okabe, to become its advertising character. Now known as "Sony Boy", the character first appeared in a cartoon ad holding a TR-6 to his ear, but went on to represent the company in ads for a variety of products well into the mid-sixties.[5] The following year, 1957, Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering came out with the TR-63 model, then the smallest (112 × 71 × 32 mm) transistor radio in commercial production. It was a worldwide commercial success.[5]

University of Arizona professor Michael Brian Schiffer, Ph.D., says, "Sony was not first, but its transistor radio was the most successful. The TR-63 of 1957 cracked open the U.S. market and launched the new industry of consumer microelectronics." By the mid 1950s, American teens had begun buying portable transistor radios in huge numbers, helping to propel the fledgling industry from an estimated 100,000 units in 1955 to 5,000,000 units by the end of 1968.

Sony's headquarters moved to Minato, Tokyo from Shinagawa, Tokyo around the end of 2006.
www.wikipedia.org; www.bellainternational.com

The General Electric Company, or GE (NYSE: GE), is a multinational American technology and services conglomerate incorporated in the State of New York.[5] In 2009, Forbes ranked General Electric as the world's largest company.
By 1890, Thomas Edison had brought together several of his business interests under one corporation to form Edison General Electric. At about the same time, Thomson-Houston Company, under the leadership of Charles A. Coffin, gained access to a number of key patents through the acquisition of a number of competitors. Subsequently, General Electric was formed by the 1892 merger of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston Company.
In 2004 GE bought Vivendi's television and movie assets, becoming the third largest media conglomerate in the world. The new company was named NBC Universal. Also in 2004 GE completed the spin-off of most of its mortgage and life insurance assets into an independent company, Genworth Financial, based in Richmond, Virginia.

In May 2008, GE announced it was exploring options for divesting the bulk of its Consumer and Industrial business.
General Electric has the fourth most recognized brand in the world, worth almost $49 billion.[11] Their logo is affectionately referred to as "The Meatball" by GE employees.[12]

CEO Jeffrey Immelt had a set of changes in the presentation of the brand commissioned in 2004, after he took the reins as chairman, to unify the diversified businesses of GE. The changes included a new corporate color palette, small modifications to the GE Logo, a new customized font (GE Inspira), and a new slogan, "imagination at work" replacing the longtime slogan "we bring good things to life", composed by David Lucas. The standard requires many headlines to be lowercased and adds visual "white space" to documents and advertising to promote an open and approachable company. The changes were designed by Wolff Olins and are used extensively on GE's marketing, literature and website.
The value of the brand is reinforced by ownership of two letter domain ge.com. The domain was registered on August 5, 1986.[13] General Electric is one of the few corporations worldwide to own a two letter domain name.[14] The brand is also reflected by the GE New York Stock Exchange ticker symbol.
GE's divisions include GE Capital (including GE Commercial Finance and GE Money and GE Consumer Finance[15]), GE Technology Infrastructure (including GE Aviation,the former Smiths Aerospace and GE Healthcare), GE Energy Infrastructure, and NBC Universal, an entertainment company.
www.wikipedia.org

McDonald's Corporation (NYSE: MCD) is the world's largest chain of fast food restaurants, serving nearly 47 million customers daily.[3] McDonald's primarily sells hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken products, french fries, breakfast items, soft drinks, milkshakes, and desserts. More recently, it has begun to offer salads, wraps and fruit. Many McDonald's restaurants have included a playground for children and advertising geared toward children, and some have been redesigned in a more 'natural' style, with a particular emphasis on comfort: introducing lounge areas and fireplaces, and eliminating hard plastic chairs and tables.
In addition to its signature restaurant chain, McDonald’s Corporation held a minority interest in Pret A Manger (a UK-based sandwich retailer) until 2008, and owned the Chipotle Mexican Grill until 2006 and the restaurant chain Boston Market until 2007.[4] The company has also expanded the McDonald's menu in recent decades to include alternative meal options, such as salads and snack wraps, in order to capitalize on growing consumer interest in health and wellness.
Each McDonald's restaurant is operated by a franchisee, an affiliate, or the corporation itself. The corporations' revenues come from the rent, royalties and fees paid by the franchisees, as well as sales in company-operated restaurants. McDonald's revenues grew 27% over the three years ending in 2007 to $22.8 billion, and 9% growth in operating income to $3.9 billion.[The business began in 1940, with a restaurant opened by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald in San Bernardino, California. Their introduction of the "Speedee Service System" in 1948 established the principles of the modern fast-food restaurant. The original mascot of McDonald's was a man with a chef's hat on top of a hamburger shaped head whose name was "Speedee." Speedee was eventually replaced with Ronald McDonald in 1963.
The first McDonald's restaurants opened in the United States, Canada, Costa Rica, Japan, Netherlands, Germany, Australia, France, El Salvador and Sweden in order of openings.
The present corporation dates its founding to the opening of a franchised restaurant by Ray Kroc, in Des Plaines, Illinois on April 15, 1955[6] , the ninth McDonald's restaurant overall. Kroc later purchased the McDonald brothers' equity in the company and led its worldwide expansion and the company became listed on the public stock markets in 1965[7]. Kroc was also noted for aggressive business practices, compelling the McDonald's brothers to leave the fast food industry. The McDonald's brothers and Kroc feuded over control of the business, as documented in both Kroc's autobiography and in the McDonald brothers' autobiography. The site of the McDonald brothers' original restaurant is now a monument.[8]
With the expansion of McDonald's into many international markets, the company has become a symbol of globalization and the spread of the American way of life. Its prominence has also made it a frequent topic of public debates about obesity, corporate ethics and consumer responsibility.McDonald's restaurants are found in 119 countries[9] and territories around the world and serve nearly 47 million customers each day. McDonald's operates over 31,000 restaurants worldwide, employing more than 1.5 million people[9]. The company also operates other restaurant brands, such as Piles Café, and has a minority stake in Pret a Manger. The company owned a majority stake in Chipotle Mexican Grill until completing its divestment in October 2006. Until December 2003, it also owned Donatos Pizza. On August 27, 2007, McDonald's sold Boston Market to Sun Capital Partners

www.wikipedia.org

Mercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. It is currently a division of the parent company, Daimler AG (formerly DaimlerChrysler AG), after previously being owned by Daimler-Benz. Mercedes-Benz has its origins in Karl Benz's creation of the first gasoline-powered automobile in January 1886,[1] and by Gottlieb Daimler and engineer Wilhelm Maybach's conversion of a carriage by the addition of a petrol engine the same year. The Mercedes automobile was first marketed in 1901 by Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft. The first Mercedes-Benz brand name vehicles were produced in 1926, following the merger of Karl Benz's and Gottlieb Daimler's companies into the Daimler-Benz company.[1] Mercedes-Benz has introduced many technological and safety innovations that have become common in other vehicles several years later.Since its inception, Mercedes-Benz had a reputation for its quality and durability. Objective measures looking at passenger vehicles such as J.D. Power surveys demonstrated a downturn in reputation in this area in the late 1990s and early 2000s. By mid-2005, Mercedes temporarily returned to the industry average for initial quality, a measure of problems after the first 90 days of ownership, according to J.D. Power.[2] In J.D. Power's Initial Quality Study for the first quarter of 2007, Mercedes showed dramatic improvement by climbing from 25th to 5th place, surpassing quality leader Toyota and earning several awards for its models.[3] For 2008, Mercedes-Benz's initial quality rating improved by yet another mark, now in fourth place.[4] On top of this accolade, it also received the Platinum Plant Quality Award for its Mercedes’ Sindelfingen, Germany assembly plant.[4] As of 2009, Consumer Reports of the United States has changed their reliability ratings for several Mercedes-Benz vehicles to "average," and recommending the E-Class and the S-Class.

www.wikipedia.org; www.mercedesbenzgl.info

Google Inc. is an American public corporation, earning revenue from advertising related to its Internet search, e-mail, online mapping, office productivity, social networking, and video sharing services as well as selling advertising-free versions of the same technologies. The Google headquarters, the Googleplex, is located in Mountain View, California. As of March 31, 2009 (2009 -03-31)[update], the company has 20,164 full-time employees.

Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University and the company was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 4, 1998. The initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004, raising US$1.67 billion, implying a value for the entire corporation of US$23 billion. Google has continued its growth through a series of new product developments, acquisitions, and partnerships. Environmentalism, philanthropy and positive employee relations have been important tenets during the growth of Google. The company has been identified multiple times as Fortune Magazine's #1 Best Place to Work,[4] and as the most powerful brand in the world[5] (according to the Millward Brown Group).

Google's mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful".[6] The unofficial company slogan, coined by former employee and Gmail's first engineer[7] Paul Buchheit, is "Don't be evil".[8][9][10] Criticism of Google includes concerns regarding the privacy of personal information, copyright, and censorship.
www.wikipedia.org

Nokia Corporation a Finnish multinational communications corporation that is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki.[4] Nokia is engaged in the manufacturing of mobile devices and in converging Internet and communications industries, with 128,445 employees in 120 countries, sales in more than 150 countries and global annual revenue of EUR 50.7 billion and operating profit of 5.0 billion as of 2008.[1][2] It is the world's largest manufacturer of mobile telephones: its global device market share was about 37% in Q1 2009, down from 39% in Q1 2008 and unchanged from Q4 2008.[3] Nokia produces mobile devices for every major market segment and protocol, including GSM, CDMA, and W-CDMA (UMTS). Nokia offers Internet services that enable people to experience music, maps, media, messaging and games. Nokia's subsidiary Nokia Siemens Networks produces telecommunications network equipment, solutions and services.[5] The company is also engaged in providing digital map information through its wholly-owned subsidiary Navteq.[6]

Nokia has sites for research and development, manufacture and sales in many countries throughout the world. As of December 2008, Nokia had R&D presence in 16 countries and employed 39,350 people in research and development, representing approximately 31% of the group's total workforce.[1] The Nokia Research Center, founded in 1986, is Nokia's industrial research unit consisting of about 500 researchers, engineers and scientists.[7][8] It has sites in seven countries: Finland, China, India, Kenya, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.[9] Besides its research centers, in 2001 Nokia founded (and owns) INdT – Nokia Institute of Technology, a R&D institute located in Brazil.[10] Nokia operates a total of 15 manufacturing facilities[11] located at Espoo, Oulu and Salo, Finland; Manaus, Brazil; Beijing, Dongguan and Suzhou, China; Farnborough, England; Komárom, Hungary; Chennai, India; Reynosa, Mexico; Jucu, Romania and Masan, South Korea.[12][13] Nokia's Design Department remains in Salo, Finland.

Nokia is a public limited liability company listed on the Helsinki, Frankfurt, and New York stock exchanges.[11] Nokia plays a very large role in the economy of Finland; it is by far the largest Finnish company, accounting for about a third of the market capitalization of the Helsinki Stock Exchange (OMX Helsinki) as of 2007, a unique situation for an industrialized country.[14] It is an important employer in Finland and several small companies have grown into large ones as its partners and subcontractors.[15] Nokia increased Finland's GDP by more than 1.5% in 1999 alone. In 2004 Nokia's share of the Finnish GDP was 3.5% and accounted for almost a quarter of Finland's exports in 2003.[16]

Finns have consistently ranked Nokia as both the best Finnish brand and the best employer. The Nokia brand, valued at $35.9 billion, is listed as the fifth most valuable global brand in the Interbrand/BusinessWeek Best Global Brands list of 2008 (first non-US company).[17][18] It is the number one brand in Asia (as of 2007)[19] and Europe (as of 2008),[20] the 42nd most admirable company worldwide in Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies list of 2009 (third in Network Communications, seventh non-US company),[21] and the world's 85th largest company as measured by revenue in Fortune Global 500 list of 2009, up from 88th the previous year.[22] As of 2009, AMR Research ranks Nokia's global supply chain number six in the world.

www.wikipedia.org; www.ceoworld.biz