Sony shares have dropped to levels not seen since the recession; going from one disaster to another the company, from the iPhone seizing the mobile phone market and the dismal sales of their PS3. Sony is in the market of mobile phones but as my classmate Samantha Yam mentioned in her blog post, they only had a partnership with Sony Ericsson, not actually controlling the mobile company; the recent 1.5 billion dollar merger is expected to give Sony more control and presence in the mobile phone market.
However, unlike Samantha I did know previously that Sony was a separate venture from Ericsson and I think that this new level of control will allow Sony to develop products that truelly have a chance of competing with bigger names in the industry like Samsung. The idea that they would be competing with Apple does seem out of reach at the moment; the iPhone runs of its very own iOS custom built for the phone with integrated compatibility across all of Apple’s products while Sony builds their phones around Googles Android operating system. I think Sony does have a long way to go before they can begin competing with Apple but if they can start creating innovative products again as well as integrating the new phones with Sony’s current offerings like TV’s and computers the company stands a chance of regaining its role as a global tech leader.
What are the bills pictured above, a artistic rendition? The answer no, above we have the future of Canadian currency, the new 100 dollar bill and the soon to be released 50 dollar bill. These new bills represent the future of physical currency in Canada with BoC Govoner still believing that a “cashless society” is unattainable (Mark Carney). Sure the new bills look different but what makes them the future of money, its the polymer plastic used to make them
Unlike the current cotton fibre paper notes we currently have in Canada the new polymer notes will last nearly 2.5 times longer (Bank of Canada). The reduced environmental impact from the longer lasting notes as well as the ability to recycle the old notes (Bank of Canada) plays a large role in the switch. New security measures built into the polymer also help the currency fight off the wave of increased counterfeiting that the country has been exposed to in recent years.
The one current downfall of the new notes is its price tag, nearly double the price of the current bills. Given that these new bills are just beginning to be produced, one can expect the cost of producing them will drop from the current 19 cents.
Producing these new notes seems like a smart move for the government, despite a higher price tag, the bills will last over double the length of current bills while fighting off a wave of counterfeiting. New payment methods such as those through cell phones or the currently established credit card system are ventures the Bank of Canada needs to be concerned with, but in today’s current world physical money accounts for more then half of all purchases warranting the need to keep developing more efficient methods of producing it.
Netflix has taken a lot of heat in the past few months over mistakes made in the companies direction, from increasing the price to the introduction of the ill-fated Quickster. Nevertheless, this dot-com company has seen great success through its establishment in 1997 and turning its first profit, $6.5 million, in the 2003 fiscal year. The companies Marc Randolph, Reed Hastings and Mitch Lowe have demonstrated all four elements of entrepreneurial success in their Netflix venture.
The company has demonstrated high profitability since its first profit of $6.5 million in 2003 to its latest quartly profit of $285 million despite having lost nearly 800,000 subscribers.
During these past 8 years of profitability Netflix has seen its profits soar; growing year over year from $6.5 million in a year to $285 million, all in the span of 8 short years.
At the time of its establishment, video rental stores were the only conceivable option to rent a DVD. Netflix founders decided to try a completely new approach and price scheme to get the same DVD’s to customers and their risk paid off as customers widely adopted the new service.
Lastly, Netflix took a service that was already in place, renting DVD’s, and completely revamped the delivery method with an innovative new model. Delivering the DVD’s to customers with the new price scheme of monthly payments for unlimited rentals and no late fees faired well with consumers and gave Netflix its success.
The Occupy Wall Street protests have gone global, including our home Vancouver. Protestors can be found in their “tent city” blocking the Vancouver Art Gallery and or parading through the streets disrupting local businesses; most recently their run on the banks.
The protestors lack a clear unified goal but the overlying message many of the global protests seem to be that people are not happy with the income gap and want change. In Vancovuer, protestors recently placed the burden upon the banking industry and moved in to “occupy” several banking establishments throughtout Vancouver including RBC and TD; chanting slogans like “Shut down RBC” or “hey hey ho ho big banks have gotta go”. The crowd ended at the TD bank next to the art gallery where miscreants played a loud stero while others danced on tellers tables.
Actions like these show that many of the people at the protest arent there to better the world, they’re jumping on the bandwagon and looking for a little fun, which masks many people who do have something important to say, and genuinely care about fixing the income gap. One thing that I couldn’t stop thinking about while watching the video was, “Do these people realize the country wouldn’t be able to run without a banking system?”
Check out the source video pulled from youtube below.
Technology blog Engadget has been following the recent blackberry outage for the past few days now and have now confirmed what Blackberry users around the globe have feared; Blackberry services worldwide including email and BBM have crashed.
Frustrated may be an understatement to the millions worldwide who have been affected by the Blackberry outage. Many endured days without access to email, web browsing, and Blackberry’s popular BBM service. The outage is a major blow to the company as it tries to play catch up to market leaders such as Apple and Android. The brands perception secure reliable perception may also be under fire. RIM executives Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie have come out in acknowledging the failure and apologizing to their customer base for the inconvenience.
RIM’s response to the situation has seemed rather delayed and took a full four days for the Executives to address the public. This doesn’t help the company in its struggles to regain market share; the stock has fallen from near 70 to 23 dollars this year and the company has been losing market share to competitors like Apple and Android. Its going to be interesting to see if the company will be able to recover from the ordeal but social media is a-buzz with dissatisfaction. Some angry users even asking for friends to vote, if they should switch to Android of Apple.
Apples latest addition to the iPhone family may have left people “underwhelmed” after 15 months of hype led expectations of a “revolutionary [new] design”, but that has by no means lessened demand for the phone. At&t recently came out with sales figures, announcing that within 12 hours of taking pre-orders they had sold 200,000 iPhone 4s units.
With the latest rendition of iPhone, Apple is relying on internal hardware upgrades like an 8MP camera and the new A5 dual-core processor. The phone will launch with Apples iOS 5 bringing a slew of new features, most prominently a sophisticated voice recognition software called Siri.
Apple has never had so much competition in the mobile phone market. Other mobile operation systems like Android or Windows Phone have been taking sizeable chunks of the mobile market; Google’s Android actually accounts for a larger market share then Apple.
These sales numbers are quite impressive considering that At&t is no longer the sole carrier for the iPhone. During the launch of the iPhone 4 is was the single place Americans could go to get the much loved phone but later in the year a Verizon variant came out. With the launch of the iphone 4s Sprint has been added to those three, adding a large number of consumers who had been previously unable to purchase the iPhone.
Despite a lacklustre unveiling, the iPhone 4s seems positioned to continuing the success of previous iPhones with some analysts even predicting that 28 million will be sold by December. Only time will tell if Apple’s loyal fan base is willing to put up with the rather uninspired new phone and if the new phone can hold off competition from Android.
Adelle Tepper came upon a very interesting article, one I believe involves an industry many post secondary students have tried at some point throughout their academic career. It’s an article about energy drinks, yes from Redbull the drink that “gives you wings” to 5 hour energy shot.
Recently though the Canadian government has put forward a plan to limit the amount of caffine that these drinks are allowed to have awhile not going as far as calling them stimulant drugs only to be sold in pharmacies.
While a consumer of energy drinks the first thought that came to mind was, the government shouldn’t be allowed to do that. Not wanting the drinks I had come to enjoy to be lessened in their value, it sounded like the government had overstepped its bounds; that is till I read on and found out the average energy drink has 80mg of caffeine, 100mg less then the imposed limit. It is the health departments role to protect the Canadian consumer from harms unknown to us but with the levels of caffine in a cup of coffee being higher I think they may have overreacted to the acceptence of energy drinks among youth.
Reffering to the chart on the right, you can see that a grande Starbucks coffee has over double the amount of caffeine as a Red Bull. It seems only fair that if the government is going to be placing caffeine restrictions on energy drinks they should look into implementing the same system to the coffee industry as well.
You can find Adelle’s original blog post here, or for the original article please check the link below.
When Spyker, a maker of luxury sports cars, bought Saab last year, there were doubts whether the small sports car company would be able to bail Saab out of its financial woes. After joining to form Swedish Automobile, the luxury car company is being jettisoned in hopes that the cash from the sale will keep Saab afloat until a potential deal with Chinese auto companies, goes through.
Like previous dealings between Swedish Automobile and Vladmir Antonov, a deal to sell Spyker fell through earlier this year. Mr Mascioli, Managing Director for North Street Capital, has announced he would be purchasing the company stating “he has owned a few racing cars, he has never owned a Spyker or an entire car company”
If the proposed deal goes through it would give Saab $32 million Euros and Mr. Muller, CEO for Swedish Automobile, believes that the deal could be closed within a month. Muller would stay on as CEO for Spyker as appointed by Mascioli, but is currently looking for a new CEO for Saab.
Muller had been very optimistic about Saabs future and had made many broad claims about the company rebounding to its former glory. His departure from the company seems to undermine that optimism and point to a not so bright future for Saab which might is only being held at bay by a potential deal from Chinese investors
The “Day of Rage” on September the 17th kicked of the “Occupy Wall Street” protest. With so many protests going on in the middle east and Arabian countries, where people are fighting and dying to gain freedom this mostly peaceful protest tended to get overlooked by many, myself included. The purpose was to raise awareness that 1% the 7 billion people on the planet control most of the worlds financial power while the other 99% are left to fend for themselves and whatever this 1% throws at them.
Recently though, feuds between protesters and police have turned violent; what started as a peaceful protest on “A Day of Rage” has led to clashes between police and still apparently peaceful protesters. Social media sites YouTube and twitter have been flooded with images, stories and even videos of un-provoked acts of police violence. The NYPD has released a statement saying the arrests were “just” but watch the following video and judge for yourself
Life for a police office is by no means easy; having to handle the daily stress the protests created brought a lot of added strain but police officers are there to protect citizens. When you’re in trouble they’re the ones you can count on to help. The behaviour of many officers at these protests has left a dent in the trust between civilians and civil guards
The name Saab wouldn’t ring a bell to many as it had in the 1980’s, but the drama surrounding the company this past year has brought it back into the spotlight. After being jettisoned from General Motors, Saab has struggled under its new ownership to raise the captial and investment necessary to continue production of this iconic brand. Their most controversial option comes in the form of Vladmir Antonov, a wealthy Russian investment banker with possible mafia connections. Mr Antonov has been making offers since GM first annouced they would be selling Saab but due to his gray background has been barred from ownership in Saab. That hasn’t stopped him from making attempts and as Saab’s situation gets grimmer, Swedish Automobile has come out and admit they are in continued talks over selling shares to Antonov.
While it may be questionable for Saabs owners to continue talks with Antonov, they’re running out options and must consider any option to keep the company afloat. Without solid evidence against Antonov I believe its well within Saabs rights to negotiate with him, his investment might be the only thing that keeps the Saab brand from fadding into obscurity.
Sources:
Netflix has taken a lot of heat in the past few months over mistakes made in the companies direction, from increasing the price to the introduction of the ill-fated Quickster. Nevertheless, this dot-com company has seen great success through its establishment in 1997 and turning its first profit, $6.5 million, in the 2003 fiscal year. The companies Marc Randolph, Reed Hastings and Mitch Lowe have demonstrated all four elements of entrepreneurial success in their Netflix venture.
