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Fri. Jan. 20, 2012 Kronos buys OptiLink Kronos Inc., a Chelmsford software company that helps businesses manage their workforces, has acquired the assets of OptiLink from the Advisory Board Co. in a deal that will let Kronos offer more services to its many health care customers. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Oregon-based OptiLink specializes in services that enable hospitals to better control labor costs by performing such tasks as precisely matching nurses’ staffing levels to current patient demand.	Advertisement
Comcast beefs up ‘Celtics on Demand’ feature Comcast, which telecasts Boston Celtics basketball games, is augmenting its “Celtics on Demand” offering for its cable TV subscribers. New features include a series of instructional basketball videos hosted by Celtics players and coaches. Four hours after a game ends, subscribers can now also access the game for a 24-hour period and watch it again. Now in its fifth season, “Celtics on Demand” aims to help fans fully immerse themselves in the Celtics experience.
Steinway announces agreement in principle to sell band division Steinway Musical Instruments Inc., a company with offices in Waltham, has reached an agreement in principle to sell its band division to an investor group. The company may be best known for Steinway & Sons pianos, but its product line also includes Bach Stradivarius trumpets, Selmer Paris saxophones, and C.G. Conn French horns. The investor group interested in buying the company’s band division is led by two current directors of the company.
Several local firms make Fortune’s list of ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ Fortune has just released its list of “100 Best Companies to Work For,” and several from Massachusetts made the cut. They include Boston Consulting Group (ranked 2nd), Bingham McCutchen LLP (ranked 30th), Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Co. (ranked 35th), and Bright Horizons Family Solutions (ranked 83rd).
Friendly’s plans Fribble freebie To celebrate its recent emergence from bankruptcy, the Friendly’s faimily-restaurant chain plans to give away free Fribbles at its remaining locations tomorrow afternoon. As generations of New England families know, the Fribble is the chain’s “signature” milk shake. The chain’s chief executive has a message for Friendly’s loyalists: “Friendly’s is open for business in 16 states and nearly 400 locations.”
Hacker group Anonymous shuts down DOJ site Angered by a massive federal indictment against an Internet file-sharing site, the online activist group Anonymous took responsibility for a series of evening network attacks on the websites of the US Justice Department, the US Copyright Office, the Recording Industry Association of America, Universal Music Group, and BMI, an organization that collects copyright royalties for music composers. A number of the sites, including the Justice Department, BMI, and Universal, were knocked offline by the attack; others experienced service disruptions..
Online protest to fight piracy bills involved 115,000 websites Yesterday’s Web protest against two congressional bills meant to stop online piracy included 115,000 websites and more than 13 million Internet users, according to a Worcester advocacy group that helped organize the virtual demonstration. The group, Fight for the Future, said that 50,000 websites went dark as part of the virtual demonstration. Those sites range from small blogs to Wikipedia, one of the Web’s most popular destinations.
Rectrix Aviation to provide ground services at Hansom, Worcester Airport Hanscom Field in Bedford and Worcester Regional Airport are getting a new fixed-base operator to provide services such as parking, fueling, and maintenance to general aviation aircraft. Rectrix Aviation, whose corporate headquarters are at Hanscom, will invest $15 million at Hanscom and $5 million in Worcester to develop office space and hangars that can accommodate new large corporate jets such as the Gulfstream G650
Ameren renews with Fidelity Fidelity Investments, a Boston-based financial services company that offers workforce retirement plans, said today that it has renewed its retirement services relationship with Ameren Corp., a provider of electricity and natural gas to customers in Western Illinois and Missouri. Fidelity provides more than 9,000 Ameren employees with a 401(k) plan and eligible employees with a nonqualified retirement plan, with combined assets of $1.5 billion. Fidelity began its relationship with Ameren in 2008, and the five-year renewal began Jan. 1.
Bank of America reverses loss and earns $2b Bank of America made $2 billion in the last three months of last year, reversing a loss from a year earlier. It offset legal expenses over mortgages and losses in its investment banking business by selling debt and its stake in a Chinese bank. The bank, which has a large presence in Massachusetts, said today that it made 15 cents per share in the fourth quarter. That fell short of the 22 cents expected by analysts surveyed by FactSet, a provider of financial data, but was in line with other estimates.
Harvard Housing Studies’ report: Home remodeling should ‘trend up’ later this year Home improvement spending should accelerate from a slow start and trend up later this year, a sign that the housing market is finally starting its slow recovery, the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University said today. The center issued the latest data from its Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity survey, which it refers to as LIRA. The headline of the center’s press release: “Glimmers of hope for remodeling in 2012.”