Fairfield County Business Journal

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FAIRFIELD COUNTY

BUSINESS JOURNAL

YOUR only SOURCE FOR regional BUSINESS NEWS | westfaironline.com

December 17, 2012 | VOL. 48, No. 51

GE touts backup system

SUITORS COURT XYLEM Stamford may lure $3.8B

Offers financing for uninterrupted power devices BY PATRICK GALLAGHER

pgallagher@westfairinc.com

water technology developer

With businesses looking to patch system

and infrastructure gaps exposed by Hurricane Sandy, General Electric (GE) recently introduced a plan to help firms finance the installation and retrofits of electrical backup systems that can prevent even the most miniscule of outages. Uninterrupted power supply (UPS) systems can recognize an electrical outage and provide temporary backup power within two milliseconds, whereas backup generators can often take anyGE touts, page 6

BY JENNIFER BISSELL and PATRICK GALLAGHER

jbissell@westfairinc.com, pgallagher@westfairinc.com

W From ‘Jeopardy!’ to corporate

FCBJ TODAY Panelists discuss the need for succession planning with tax changes likely on the horizon… 2 Diamondback Capital Management tells investors it will liquidate as assets decline… 3 The Senate unanimously approves a $631 billion defense spending bill as executives caution lawmakers over sequester… 7 The Rizzo Cos. celebrates 50 years in Danbury… 8 Two Roads Brewing Co. to open in Stratford by the end of the month… 11

MEDIA PARTNER

Stephen Gold, IBM worldwide marketing director, and UConn School of Business Dean John A. Elliott.

Program is an effort to strengthen corporate partnerships BY JENNIFER BISSELL

jbissell@westfairinc.com

The University of Connecticut has teamed with IBM Corp. to explore business applications for the artificial intelligence technology developed as part of Big Blue’s Watson initiative. Students in UConn’s School of Business worked in teams to develop pitches, which they presented to a group of IBM directors and engineers Dec. 5 at the school’s Stamford campus.

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The proposals, which ranged from applications in the pharmaceutical industry to roles at call centers, were a part of a semester-long course developed as part of a partnership between UConn and IBM, which is based in Armonk, N.Y. Made famous by its appearance on “Jeopardy!” in 2011, Watson is a cognitive computer system that can process natural human language, generate hypotheses and use evidence-based learning. UConn and IBM have had a long rela-

ater technology developer Xylem Inc. looks to capitalize on the regional competition for corporate headquarters as it seeks a new base of operations after being spun off from ITT Corp. last year. After reporting $3.8 billion in revenues in 2011, Xylem is being courted by Stamford and Westchester County officials as it seeks a new site for its global headquarters. Xylem, which shares the same White Plains, N.Y., address as its former parent company, is being required by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to move its corporate functions to a new location. The company has narrowed its search to two spots in downtown Stamford and as well as in Purchase, N.Y., and White Plains, according to an application for sales tax incentives submitted by Xylem to the Westchester County Industrial Development Agency (IDA). Xylem is seeking to lease a 65,000-square-foot space for a period of 10 years and said it plans to invest about $11.6 million in its eventual new home, Suitors, page 6

UConn, page 6

7

Senate passes defense bill

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