TECHNOLOGY

MICROSOFT TO INVEST $1.7 BILLION IN INDIA

NEW DELHI – Microsoft plans to nearly double its work force in India over the next four years, investing $1.7 billion and adding 3,000 jobs in a vote of confidence in one of the world’s fastest growing markets.

The investment would be among the largest an information technology company has made in this country of 1 billion people that Microsoft has long viewed as having huge potential in human capital and for sales.

A substantial part of the money would go to creating a Windows operating system designed specifically for India and available in nine Indian languages. That could help Microsoft fend off challenges from cheaper open-source operating systems led by Linux, which has made deep inroads in India.

Half the money would go to improving Microsoft’s research and development capabilities, including the creation of a new facility in the southern city of Bangalore, India’s technology hub, the company said.

– Associated Press

NOKIA COURTS BLACKBERRY CUSTOMERS

Nokia Oyj is betting BlackBerry addicts are looking for a new fix.

The world’s largest mobile-phone maker is courting customers of Research In Motion’s BlackBerry for a combination phone and e-mail device, coming out next quarter. Nokia is exploiting concern that the service may be shut down in America amid a patent dispute.

“People are looking for some alternatives,” a Nokia senior vice president, Mary McDowell, said. The patent lawsuit has “been a cloud over RIM.”

Nokia wants to create its own class of fans, similar to the users from Wall Street to Silicon Valley who nicknamed Research In Motion’s device the “CrackBerry” and crouch over the pagers on trains and airplanes.

Ms. McDowell says the Espoo, Finland-based company’s E61 device will win over some of the 650 million people with business e-mail accounts worldwide by giving them access to messages on the go.

– Bloomberg News

PHARMACEUTICALS

GLAXO RESEARCHER FINDS DIABETES DRUG MAY SLOW ALZHEIMER’S

A research executive at drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline, neurologist Allen Roses, provided evidence yesterday that the company’s best-selling diabetes pill Avandia may slow the effects of Alzheimer’s. At a science meeting in San Diego, he presented a 500-patient study showing Avandia enhanced memory when compared with a placebo.

The study supports a hypothesis that the disease, which affects 4.5 million Americans, is caused by some of the same biological malfunctions that are involved in diabetes. The Glaxo researchers found that only people with a particular gene linked to a protein that transports cholesterol through the blood responded to the treatment.

“It is one of the first studies to indicate that a drug works for some people and not others based on a test of their genetics,” Mr. Roses, 62, said before his presentation at the University of San Diego School of Medicine. The results, he said, suggest “a totally new approach to treating the disease.”

– Bloomberg News

IN BRIEF

The number of American stocks selling for $100 a share or more has doubled since Google reached that milestone in its first day of trading almost 16 months ago … Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said it’s “unwise” to focus the central bank’s interest-rate policy only on reaching a “neutral” level that neither spurs nor restrains economic growth … American consumers scaled back their borrowing in October by the biggest amount on record, the Federal Reserve said yesterday … Gannett, the largest American newspaper company, predicted lackluster growth in advertising revenue next year, in line with other publishers.

– Bloomberg News