Monthly Archives: November 2011

Playbook to follow TouchPad’s (scheme?)

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Picture courtesy of CrackBerry

In October, I blogged about the TouchPad’s firesale. Hewlett-Packard (HP) slashed $300 of their TouchPad tablet, making the price at $99.

Today, Research In Motion (RIM) also discounted $300 of their Playbook tablets: the new prices are $198 for 16 GB, $298 for 32 GB, and $398 for 64 GB. Could RIM be trying the same scheme as HP: selling their tablets for a low price to gain market share?

I believe that may be one of the reasons for the price decrease. The main difference between RIM and HP’s sale is the fact that RIM announced this price decrease is only temporary, while HP’s sale was because of their decision to drop the entire product line.

Another reason for the price decrease could be an attempt to attract additional developers with a bigger user base. Currently, the number of apps in BlackBerry App World is significantly lower than the apps in the Android Market or Apple’s App Store. When developers see an increase in customers, the additional incentive will bring more innovative apps for BlackBerry users, which will result in an increase in BlackBerry customers.

Is this a scheme for tablet sales ranking? Or is it to attract more developers? Only RIM will know.

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YouTube Entrepreneurs Rake in $1.65 Billion

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YouTube, the popular video sharing website that went live on February 2005, was founded by three entrepreneurs: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim. Due to the skyrocketing popularity, Google had set its sight on YouTube and came to an $1.65 billion agreement in October to acquire all the shares of YouTube. The three founders was suddenly rich!

The founders of YouTube can be considered as entrepreneurs because of:

Due to Google’s acquisition of YouTube, the founders had a sudden and large increase of wealth. Also, starting up YouTube can be considered a huge risk, as server costs (equipment) and bandwidth will usually cause web owners to earn only economic profit; or worse, lost profit. Furthermore, before YouTube there was no other easy video-sharing websites, thus creating the huge increase in popularity of YouTube.

By fulfilling those four points, YouTube’s founders can be considered to be entrepreneurs.

 Word Count: 162

Resources for Students

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Image courtesy of Google

After looking at the organizational culture of both Google and Microsoft, I found the Google Student Blog. This website sparked my curiousity and I spent the next 30 minutes exploring this blog.

Jeff Moore, the Lead Engineering Recruiter, blogs weekly tips for students wishing to pursue a career in Google. Although he describes most of his tips in the Google context, the majority of the tips apply to any students looking for a job.

For example, he talks about rocking the “non-technical interview”. He recommends potential employees for any company to research the company, review your resume, and prepare a list of questions, as interviewers will ask “if you have any questions”.

I believe this is an extremely helpful blog as the tips is coming from a professional recruiter, especially in the fifth best company to work for in 2011. I recommend readers to follow this blog if you are seeking for tips to get a job!

Word Count: 159

Microsoft = / ≠ Google?

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Image Courtesy of Xbit Labratories

Microsoft and Google. Rivals, right?

Even the greatest rivals have similarities.What is it? Corporate Culture.

My colleague Sammie Chan discussed about Google’s latest motivator, the MetroNap Energy Pod. Google employees can take quick naps in a quiet setting, or with soothing music playing to relieve their stress.. Furthermore, Google employees have flexible shifts and access to free drinks, snacks, and Google-subsidized cafes. 

Similarly, Microsoft have a similar corporate culture for their employees, making them feel at home and work near stress-free. In 2009, I visited Microsoft’s development office in Richmond, BC. At that time, I was working with 4 Microsoft employees on my project in their “BlackComb” meeting room. After our meeting,  Mr. Graham Wardle gave me a tour around their office. Although the office was no where close to their main one in Redmond, they still had subsidized cafes, free drinks and snacks, pool and Table Tennis tables, and flexible shifts. Mr. Wardle told me that Microsoft employees love to work there because of the culture and the flexibility Microsoft provides to each employee.

As we can see, having a good corporate culture is key to a successful company, unless you deny Microsoft and Google’s success.

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