Month: September 2014

Can Blackberry make a comeback?

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Although it’s been nothing compared to the Iphone 6 announcement in September, there has been some buzz around the market of the new Blackberry Passport release, which raises some questions about whether or not the Blackberry Passport can help the company make a comeback into the competitive smartphone industry. Its no news that the Canadian phone maker has become irrelevant to the game in the last few year, and reviewers of the Passport has not been helping its declining reputation either. I Personally, thought it was interesting to note that there are several major contributing factors to why it’s nearly impossible to revive Blackberry at this point, relating back to several key ideas that we’ve discussed in class.

For one, Blackberry can’t seem to convince App makers to write any apps for the Blackberry App store, compared to Android OS and Apple, Blackberry has a meager 100,000 app count. The most popular apps currently such as Instagram, Vine, YouTube, and Google maps doesn’t even have an official App program for the Blackberry. Which greatly reduces its competitiveness against Androids and Apple.

Secondly, one of Blackberry’s competitive advantage used to be the BBM for instant messaging, but in the recent years new instant messaging platforms such as Whatsapp, Facebook  Messenger and Wechat has become widely popular especially on the Android and Apple devices, with even more advanced features than BBM, therefore making it more difficult for Blackberry to retain its subscribers.

Lastly, the change of consumer preference in the last few years has evolved towards touchscreen handheld devices. The keyboard for Blackberry just isn’t as impressive as it used to be. The most popular phones on the market currently are all touchscreens only, reviewers actually find the keyboard on the blackberry to be a nuisance rather than a feature.

Blackberry’s attempt at a differentiation strategy seems to be driving consumers away rather than the opposite. Its highly unlikely that the Blackberry Passport, in my opinion, be any more different than the Z10 or Q10 launch of last year. It doesn’t look like it will make an impressive comeback any time soon, not in 2014 anyways.

 

 

Image Link : https://www.google.ca/search?q=blackberry+passport&espv=2&biw=1242&bih=606&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=vEUnVLzPA6ryiwKd44Ag&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=QB1tnPjFaCe8YM%253A%3BTLt3SdzfsNpW9M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.oneclickroot.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2014%252F09%252Fblackberry-passport-3.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.oneclickroot.com%252Fmobile-oses%252Fblackberry-passport-released-is-it-a-legitimate-android-competitor%252F%3B770%3B433

Ethical Business can’t be Profitable Business?

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Nike is among one of the earliest companies to learn the importance of outsourcing their factory jobs in order to save cost and therefore boost profit, but since its outsourced jobs in Asia have been under scrutiny of paying workers as little as 17 cents a day, it became questionable whether both strong ethics and profits can exist within the same realms of business. Personally, I think Nike is a prime example of a typical large corporation who maximizes its profits by ignoring the basic human required wage for living. I think it is important to not that it is not only harming the foreign underpaid workers, but also the US economy when it took its jobs away from the cities where the factories once were. And using ethical practices in a business is easier said than done considering it may not be the priority of all of Nike’s stakeholders, while the prime objective is to make as much profit as possible, it may be seen by executives and shareholders as a smart move to launch more money into being ethical than investing in a possible new product. Nike has long been a strong brand with enormous fan base, but the underpaid workers scandals have seriously damaged the reputation of confidence the brand has uphold, the article describes the growing number of protest against the Nike campaigns but little seems to have changed in term of business ethics for Nike although the article claims it has.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-nike-solved-its-sweatshop-problem-2013-5

Nisen, Max. “How Nike Solved Its Sweatshop Problem.” Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 9 May 2013. Web. 11 Sept. 2014.