Month: October 2013

I remember when I used to have a phone that  could only dial calls and send messages. That is becoming a thing of the past. Phones are getting more and more advanced, able to do things that previously computers couldn’t even do. Years ago, Blackberry was at the top of the smartphone food chain. Everyone wanted one. However, recently, it’s been on a steady decline.

A new thing popularized is instant messaging on your phone. Apps like Whatsapp and iMessage allowed users to see when messages are read and sent. Blackberry also decided to jump onto the bandwagon and expand its popular Blackberry Messenger to iOS and Android phones. This is a smart move seeing that Apple, Android and Windows phones are all surpassing Blackberry in sales. In shifting its attention to software rather than hardware, Blackberry is able to test the market. If the app does well, then perhaps they can stop selling the phones, which are becoming less and less popular. Consumer demand is a critical component of analyzing a company. If the consumers’ preferences change, then the company should definitely take that into consideration, as Blackberry did in this case.

(Click photo for article)

The iPhone 5c was marketed as a more affordable alternative to the iPhone 5s. However, when the phones were brought to the market, the price of the “cheaper” model was shocking. I had expected “cheaper” to mean anywhere between 100-400 dollars, but the 5c actually retails between $599 to $719 (source).

Coming out with 2 lines of iPhones is an interesting strategy by Apple. It could be risky in that bringing out a less expensive version would cause the 5 and 5s to lose credibility with the original segment that Apple was focused on. The elite, stylish people that the original iPhone is targeted towards could become uninterested in the product after discovering that it is made using pretty much the same things as the plastic ones. However, I think that it was actually a smart plan to make the iPhone 5c at such a high price point because this way, the customers won’t think that the phone itself is cheap, just the shell that it is wrapped in. Having two types of phones allows Apple to target two separate markets while still holding its foot in the door of the higher end smartphone industry.

According to a blog in the Washington Post, new research shows that the effect on the GDP from the shutdown of the US government will not be as devastating as analysts have previously predicted. The Defense Department has forced resumed many critical positions in the government deemed “essential employees” so the government has not completely stopped running.

From a political standpoint, I really don’t understand how shutting down the government resolves anything, because honestly, the stalemate wouldn’t be solved. From the financial point of view, it also seems to be damaging the economic state of the United States. National parks and various other government services have been temporarily discontinued and the government is even considering increasing its debt limit for a short period to accommodate for the shutdown (source). This could be extremely hazardous to the country because it could lead to a default on the debt. A Treasury report states that “Credit markets could freeze, the value of the dollar could plummet, U.S. interest rates could skyrocket, the negative spillovers could reverberate around the world” (source).

The shutdown could potentially cause quite a significant amount of damage, but I guess they haven’t figured out a better way to solve the disagreement…