In response to Victor Ho’s blog post about Netflix, I can say that I agree with his predictions  of Netflix if they can successfully secure this deal. Netflix, being the largest internet provider of television shows and movies globally, will reap extreme benefits if they gain the ability to stream movies thirty days after their release. As Victor states in his post, Netflix has “gone from being the king and the first in the industry, to being dethroned and kicked while it’s down, and has climbed its way back up again”. Just in the last quarter alone Netflix, added 1.3 million US customers, and saw its revenue increase by 22%. This deal would secure Netflix as a prominent force in the online entertainment industry.

On top of this deal, Netflix should begin to begin to pursue opportunities in the pay TV business as this would help them take away some of the market for cable television and further drive their profits. They have already started this in the U.K., through partnering with Virgin Media to offer Netflix as an option in the cable company’s set-top box.

Link to Victor Ho’s Blog: https://blogs.ubc.ca/hovictor/

Blackberry in its heyday, 2008, had 40% of the smart phone market share and was worth $83 billion. Since then the public company, under the ticker of BBRY, has seen it share price decrease by 90% and its worth decrease to $4 billion. They have initiated many tactics attempting to come out of the state of ailment, such as rejuvenate the hype of the firm by releasing new products and looking for a buyer to make the company private.

As a result of new innovations by companies such as Samsung and Apple, Blackberry has fallen significantly behind in the smart phone market. To match the technological updates of other firms Blackberry recently released a new phone called the Z10. Blackberry imagined releasing this product would help re-establish themselves but it did the complete opposite. This was largely due to the technology of ‘apps’ and how popular they are among apple and samsung consumers. In the latest fiscal quarter, Blackberry is reporting unsold inventory of $960 million and has laid-off 40% of the workforce.

Moreover, Prem Watsa, who is the boss of the large Canadian insurance company Fairfax Financial Holdings, wants to purchase Blackberry and make them a private company. Mr Watsa currently owns 10% of the BBRY shares and has offered to pay $4.7 billion for the company. What makes Blackberry appealing to Fairfax is they have around $2 billion in cash and a number of patents representing a large amount of intellectual property. Although this would make the company easier to deal with, is Blackberry past the point of no return?

On Tuesday September 20th, Apple released 2 new products: the iPhone 5S and 5C. The 5S, being the higher end product, will be available in 3 colours: silver, gold and “space grey”. If bought without a contract and unsubsidized direct from Apple, the 16 GB iPhone 5S will cost $719. Some of the new features on the phone include a Touch ID, which reads fingerprints at a “detailed level,” and a new processing chip which will allow the phone to run twice as fast. The latter product, the iPhone 5C, which is a cheaper, and a more colourful version of the phone, will be released in green, blue, yellow, pink and white, with a starting price of $599 for the 16 GB version.                                                                                 

This is the first time apple has released two separate tiers of the iPhone. It was a fantastic decision for them to do this because the cheaper version appeals to an entire new market that had never thought of buying an iPhone because it was too expensive, while the 5S keeps its high-end users satisfied. This is the companies first major shift in mobile strategy since the first iPhone’s release in 2007. Other phone companies such as android and samsung have been dominating the budget-conscious consumer market for quite sometime now and this new product now gives people the chance to buy the strong brand name of Apple with a cheaper product. 

Regarding Apple’s new release of their line of iPhones, how do you think their higher prices will impact the smartphone industry and whether or not they will continue to succeed in sales?