Global Insight bought in deal worth $200m

Economic forecasting firm Global Insight Inc. of Waltham (and past client of J.Y. Design) yesterday said it agreed to be purchased for $200 million by IHS Inc., of Englewood, Colo.

"Global Insight was formed in May 2001 when Joseph E. Kasputys, now its chief executive, acquired Data Resources Inc. of Lexington and its rival Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates of Philadelphia. Kasputys said he plans to remain with Global Insight as chairman emeritus under IHS...

(an IHS executive) said Global Insight will retain its name and expand its Boston area workforce in coming years but work more closely with Cambridge Energy Research and other IHS "insight" companies, which provide data, analysis, and consulting services to businesses and government agencies around the globe...

Down the road, Kasputys said, he can imagine Global Insight and Cambridge Energy analysts working side by side on research and forecasts. "This is a terrific combination of Global Insight's economic analysis and Cambridge Research's energy analysis," he said..."

Source: Boston Globe. Congrats to GI.

Google To Acquire GrandCentral

techcrunch.com: "Google is in acquisition discussions with telephone management startup GrandCentral, we've learned, and we have a high degree of confidence that the deal has actually been closed. We are trying to nail down the acquisition price...

The basic idea around GrandCentral is "one phone number for all your phones, for life." As we change jobs, homes and cell phones, there are a lot of phone numbers to keep track of, and keeping everyone up to date with your most recent phone numbers is a real cost. If you use GrandCentral you can give out a single phone number. What happens when that person calls that number depends on his/her relationship to you, and what you are doing at the time."

Wow, Google grabs another one. I've been an early user of GrandCentral and it works as advertised. You can add any number of lines to ring, you can even upload a custom ring-tone MP3 for people to hear (I tested this by geeking out and adding the iPhone ring to my line). I have yet to put it to any rigorous use, but plan to leverage it quite a bit this summer.

Google buys JotSpot Wiki Service

CNET News.com: "Google has bought JotSpot, a 3-year-old company with a system for building collaborative Web pages called wikis... JotSpot's product is a platform for building wiki-based applications. For example, the company has an online spreadsheet and calendar that multiple people can edit."

Interesting news, also Google has fully absorbed recently acquired Writely by combining it with spreadsheets and giving it a "Google Docs & Spreadsheets" brand at http://docs.google.com/.