Biz Wizards - Quark 2009 : Prelims (Non-Visual)

1. Sergey Brin along with Larry Page started Google Inc. Sergey Brin’s wife Anne Wojcicki along with Linda Avey founded a company X in which Google has invested 3.9 billion dollars. “If Google wants to really organize world information, it needs to consider what X is purporting to sell” was how a business analyst explained the investment. What product / service does X offer?

2. "I will have no man in my boat," said _______, "who is not afraid of a whale." By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
Fill in the blank.

3. Isaac Merritt Singer has been popularly associated with the sewing machine. He didn’t invent it though. By the time he’d perfected a prototype in 1850, it had been invented 4 times. In 1856, manufacturers Grover, Baker, Wheeler, Wilson and Singer, each accusing the other of patent infringement met in New York, to pursue their suits. Something unique came out of this meeting and for the first time too. What was it?

4. Taglines. Give the names of the corporates with whom the following slogans / taglines are associated.

1. The Jeans That Built America –
2. Stop watching bad movies. –
3. Life. Research. Hope. –
4. What can Brown do for you? –

5. This entrepreneur wrote two books. One was 'Never Mind School Records', in which he stressed that school records were not important in one's success or ability to do business. Name the other book.

6. This yacht race founded as the Whitbread Round the World Race in 1972 is held once in three years. The 10th edition of the race is being held between October 4, 2008 and June 27, 2009. Currently, who is the owner and official sponsor of this race?

7. In property sale jargon, what does ‘gazumping’ mean?

8. Which company’s NYSE ticker symbol is HOG?

9. Which company’s engineering and construction wing has to its credit, the Taipei 101, Taipei and the Petronas Towers, Kuala Lampur, and is currently working on the Burj-al-Arab, Dubai?

10. A history of M & As.
· 1912 – Formed when Carl Laemmle’s Independent Motion Picture Company merged with eight other smaller companies.
· Independent until 1946 – It merged with International Pictures.
· 1952 – Purchased by Decca Records.
· 1962 – Decca Records purchased by MCA (Music Corporation of America)
· 1990 – Matsuhita (now Panasonic) acquires MCA.
· 1995 – Seagram buys it from Matsuhita.
· 2000 – Vivendi acquires Seagram.
· 2004 – General Electric acquires it from Vivendi and merges it with NBC.
Which company’s history is being summed up above?

11. What is common to Tyrell Corporation, Morley Cigarettes, InGen, Milliways and Universal Exports?

12. Which company has to its credit the creation of the Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake game franchises?

13. Which of the following is not a Unilever brand?
a) Brut
b) Camay
c) Lipton
d) Dove

14. Bayer is the 3rd largest pharmaceutical company in the world owing entirely to the sales of aspirin, a drug it has patented. For a brief period in its history, it was part of a larger conglomerate called IG Farben, formed from a merger of 6 companies (which included Bayer). What was the most famous (or should we say infamous) product made by IG Farben?

15. If it’s Nikkei for Tokyo and KOSPI for Seoul, what is it for Hong Kong?

16. In the United Kingdom, it is marketed as the ‘G-Wiz I’. How do we know it in India?

17. Of Danish origin, this American founded his eponymous company in 1923. He inaugurated a National Radio Index for broadcasters and advertisers in 1942. He was a member of the Sigma-Phi Society and won the U.S. Father and Son Doubles title in Tennis in 1946 and 1948. He was inducted into the International Hall of Tennis fame in 1971. He was an alumnus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison to which he later made a donation to create a full-time MBA specializing in marketing research. This happens to be the only full-time marketing research program in the United States. During his lifetime, he was at the forefront of the advance of this field. Who is the person in question?

18. Which company’s annual shareholder’s meetings have been dubbed as ‘Woodstock for Capitalists’?

Zed