Monthly Archives: September 2014

Amazon is the current powerhouse in online shopping, online content (ebooks, music, etc). But this summer this online browsing leader attempted to break into the phone industry with the amazon fire. Unfortunately, the Fire is being extinguished. On september 8 this year, Amazon announced a dramatic price drop from around $200 to $.99 plus an AT&T contract (Streitfeld)

According to Reis and Trout, “if a product cannot be first, it must find an unoccupied position in which it can be first”(Product Positioning). The Amazon Fire phone is not the first smartphone in the increasingly competitive smartphone market and they did not find a niche in which they could dominate. Apple’s new iphone 6 boasts a bigger screen than past models, as well as an updated operating system and increased battery life (a long time complaint of the iphone). The Samsung Galaxy S5 is dust and water resistant and features photo sharing by tapping the backs of two phones together. Both of these leaders found their respective positions in the market and have dominated them. The Fire, on the other hand, has much of the same features that these other phones do, with the exception of Firefly-a tool that identifies music, phone numbers, etc- and the only real bonus of the Fire is a free year of Amazon Prime. But, none of these things make the Fire stand out from its competitors.

Overall, the Amazon Fire phone was due to fail for the same reasons that IBM failed to get into the copying industry and Coke’s Mr.Pibb couldn’t compete with Dr.Pepper; poorly thought out positioning strategies. If Amazon had featured focused their advertising more on the few differences between their device and its competitors, then maybe the Fire wouldn’t have burned out.

 

Resources:

“Product Positioning.” Product Positioning. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2014. <http://www.quickmba.com/marketing/ries-trout/positioning/>.

Streitfeld, David. “Amazon Cuts Struggling Phone’s Price to 99 Cents.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 8 Sept. 2014. Web. 30 Sept. 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/09/technology/amazon-struggling-fire-phone.html?_r=1>.

Ethics in Ivy League Grading

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Many people define Ivy League Schools as academic institutions, not businesses. However, the Ivy’s are just as much businesses as they are places of study. In fact, Ivy’s have to make many of the same decisions that businesses make; such as, who to accept (hire), how many funds to allocate to each individual, and how to retain these students (employees).

Recently, the Economist released a story about grade inflation among Ivy ( According to the article, Ivy League schools inflating grades in order to keep their average students happy . Yet by doing this, they are isolating the outstanding students-since everyone’s grade is the same, is anyone a star student? Just like a business would make a decision to either promote or decrease inflation of currency in order to control the market, the Ivy League schools are inflating grades in order to keep their existing students placated with their education.

In conclusion, the ethical standards that are typically applied in University grading are not appearing at Ivy League Universities. this is due to the University, as a business wanting to maintain a smaller, more “successful” ( this is relative due to said grade inflation) student body. however, this is ethically lacking in that it takes away grades as a distinguishing factor amongst its students.

Sources:

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21615616-not-what-it-used-be-grade-expectationsSources: