Here I comment on my Comm101 classmate, Scott Mashall‘s blog:

How will Samsung Smartwatch do in today’s market?

In this blog, Scott talked about the future of Samsung Smartwatch in today’s market. He predicted the smartwatch would not have a success. His analysis was specific and from different aspects.

Personally, I don’t agree on his opinion.

In his blog, he said: “The technology on the watch is nothing too revolutionary either, […] In the big picture, the watch really does not add much convenience to normal phone users.” In my opinion, the smartwatch is a combination of watch and phone. It has the basic functions of a phone and the convenience of a watch.  The smartwatch cannot be compared with a normal phone because it is a kind of “phone”. The market strategy that Samsung used is good for their business expanding——explore new innovations while keep working on their smartphone development.

As technology develops, stuffs tend to be smaller and easier to operate in order to gain more convenience. Smartwatch can be one of the possibilities in the future. Like the computer, most of people thought it useless, but how about now?

(The blog was posted at:https://blogs.ubc.ca/scottmarshall/2013/10/06/how-will-samsung-smartwatch-do-in-todays-market/)

The meaning of new app Passwordbox was talked when I browse through my comm101 classmate, Ali Jatoi’s blog “Forget Your Password No Longer With PasswordBox”.

What Ali talked about in his blog is from the point of entrepreneurship. The start-up of an entrepreneur focuses on what customers’ need is. The aspect is applied by what we learned on Comm101 class.

I totally agree with Ali’s opinion. However, if I write this blog, I will focus on the entrepreneur’s marketing analysis which we learned in Comm101 class.

The idea of Passwordbox is not new. After doing research, the similar function app was reported to be developed in this summer. Actually as I know, there is a same function app was designed and sold much earlier in China, because I downloaded this app at the beginning of this year. I do not know that whether the idea of Passwordbox was come up with by Daniel Robichaud himself or not, but I am sure that he saw the market of this app in Canada. Therefore, if writing the sense of market, and combination with the five power in market and market research, the blog will be more proper.

(The blog can be found at https://blogs.ubc.ca/alijatoi/2013/11/13/forget-your-password-no-longer-with-passwordbox/)

This blog is posted by Julie Jargon  on The Wall Street Journal on November 5th, 2013.

Jargon’s blog is mainly talked about that the new burger from Burger King seems a copy of MacDonald’s Big Mac.

I think the block is interesting because the author used an ironic language to analysis this issue. Burger King is like a kid who denies after making mistakes. The blog analysis this issue from the perspective of business theory of position. Burger King believes their new burger is unique, but obviously their “uniqueness” dose not gain position in market for them.

What really interests me is what MacDonald’s response. As mentioned in Jargon’s blog “McDonald’s reacted to the new burger with a shrug: “We’re focused on our business and our customers,” a spokeswoman said.” .

I see two reasons there. Firstly, MacDonald’s is the largest fast food company in the whole world, while Burger King is about the fifth or sixth. However, MacDonald’s annual sale is approximately seven times of Burger King’s. MacDonald’s has the confidence. Secondly,  customers are not fools and have the ability to tell who is copying others. Generally, the reason is that MacDonald’s believes itself and their customers.

(The blog can be found at: http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2013/11/05/burger-kings-big-king-a-big-mac-by-any-other-name/)

Twitter held its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange on November 7th morning. On the second day, Twitter opened up at $45.10 at morning and finished at $44.90. In one day, Twitter’s IPO price increased by 73 percent.

Someone said that Twitter’s increasing share price is not only a big success of Twitter itself, but also a hope of renaissance of electronic social platforms.

I don’t agree with that. I do see the great price improvement of Twitter, but the future is not clear.

I have seen that Facebook had the similar beginning as Twitter. Facebook seemed like being always good at share market. The operation problem decreased its share price though.

Also I think the competition of electronic platforms is fierce. Google, Facebook and Twitter, although they are different kind of networks, the revenue of advertisements and users number are the common area. Google did really well in share market at past.

With good beginning, Twitter needs go further. I recommend Twitter to grab the opportunity  without hesitations, not like Facebook. Will Twitter go similar way of Google or Facebook? It still remains to be time to certification.

External link: http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/7/5076484/twitter-ipo-twtr-public-offering-stock

BMO(Bank of Montreal) says Canadian small business owners are increasingly savvy about using social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.The bank says 57 per cent of about 300 business owners contacted for the study said they use social media.

In my opinion, it is reasonable for small business entrepreneurs to choose social media. Firstly, social media is a cheap stage to show their products. Even on some social website like Facebook, which is totally free. It is a good way for small business to decrease their cost. Secondly, social media has a large users base. People may watch TV three times a week, but they check their Facebook everyday.

On one hand, I do not see anything incorrect. When several big companies dominating in the industry, there always are some barriers to start up. Social media is a method to cover those barriers, so why not take advantage of it?

On the other hand, I will say that big companies do not need to worry about the case. As small business grows, they will find social media is not large enough for them. They still need to make advertisements on TV or radio.

External Link: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-marketing/advertising/small-businesses-more-social-media-savvy-survey-says/article15072616/

The entrepreneur of company Transformix complained banks set challenges for them. The entrepreneur described those banks like:“We were going through this crazy growth, and we were doing well, cash flow was great, and all the major banks wanted to partner with us, wanted to give us a line of credit. And the minute it was kind of cloudy, they wanted their money back.”

In my opinion, banks are growing their power of management by screwing those companies. The definition of entrepreneur is the people who take the responsibility and risk for starting a business. As the growth of the companies speeds up, entrepreneurs need loan more from banks. The more money they loan, the more power of effect banks have on their companies.

I think that the entrepreneurs should improve their management information system in order to come up with good strategies immediately after growing. Banks have the power to  effect the development of companies. Therefore, the strategies for companies are on management level. The loans in growing period cannot be avoided, so the companies need to find proper strategies earlier to be against the power of banks. Therefore, a better MIS is required.

The news can be found at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-managing/leadership/finding-financing-when-the-bank-turns-off-the-taps/article15378421/

The recent news said that iPhone 5c could spell serious trouble for Apple.

In my analysis, the sale of iPhone 5c meets such a temporary failure due to two main reasons.

– the price gap between iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s is not large enough. Firstly, the difference between the prices of these two new phones is only $100. People who are eager to buy an iPhone won’t care this $100.

-Apple usually follows differentiation strategy. The uniqueness of Apple products is what Apple stands for in the market. However, iPhone 5c becomes a signal that Apple moves towards cost leadership strategy.Selling iPhone 5s and 5c at the same time is graphic to show Apple is stuck in the middle.

In my analysis, the price gap and the strategy movement are two main reasons for bad sale of iPhone 5c.I recommend Apple to decrease the price of 5c. However, the latter reason cannot be covered before next iPhone being published. What’s worse, it decreases the whole class of Apple in consumers’ mind. I recommend to no more produce  products like iPhone 5c. If Apple wants to keep iPhone in a high class, they should not produce stuffs in a low class.

(The news can be found at: http://bgr.com/2013/09/18/iphone-5c-sales-projections-iphone-5s/)

The recent business news  reviewed the situation of sweatshops and Nike was referenced.

My analysis shows that the business ethic cannot be ignored, no matter how big the company is. Nike is unlucky because they are definitely not the only one who uses sweatshops, but they are the only one who uses sweatshops and is known by everybody. However, Nike is lucky because they remedied the problem and successfully got their business back. As the society progress, the public focus more on moral instructions and the power of social media becomes more vigoroso, which makes business ethic indispensable.

I recommend the companies which take advantages of sweatshops to give up using sweatshops. The ethical problem effect is destroy-able, which is also hard to be forgave. The local government should not be indulgent with this behaviour,  though those companies offered job opportunities and economic effects. After all, I suggest that the public put more pressure on those companies or boycott the product produced by sweatshops. Minimizing the need of low-cost products is the most effective way to decrease the number of sweatshops from the root.

(The post can be found at:http://www.businessinsider.com/how-nike-solved-its-sweatshop-problem-2013-5)

News: BlackBerry Ltd. will cut 4,500 jobs, write off more than $900-million (U.S.) worth of unsold phones and abandon parts of the consumer wireless market in an attempt to save a business in freefall.

In my analysis, one of the important reasons for BlackBerry had such a poor sale volume is that BlackBerry failed to position itself in the market.

-Failed to get into the mind of consumers: the advertisement of BlackBerry Z10 was blamed as too confused to get the information about the phone.(The advertisement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2qm5R2rt0s)

-the wrong strategy of positioning: BlackBerry used to take advantage with the unique design of full-keyboard. However, as the first carrier of the new system 10, the BlackBerry Z10 is a touchscreen phone. After  several months Z10 being sold, Blackberry started to sell the full-keyboard phone Q10 with system 10, which caused a great loss of customers. In the high-technology smart phone market, Z10 was totally defeated by iPhones and Samsung phones.

As my analysis shows, I recommend BlackBerry to focus more on the sale of Q10, because full-keyboard phones are BlackBerry’s sustainable products. Also, make a advertisement for Q10 and stop playing Z10’s advertisement because Z10’s ad is complained to be a “mass” by customers.

(The news can be found at:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/trading-in-blackberry-halted/article14440386/)

China school bus has been a big problem for a long time.

Since the year of 2003, the problem of China school buses started to appear, but got few attention form the government. These years, as the public media grows, the accidents of China school bus were reported. However, the accidents of China school buses happened more frequently these years.

Stakeholders:

-the kids who take those school buses

-the relatives of those kids, especially parents

-the drivers of those school buses

-the school

-the government

According to those news, I found that there are several common reasons for those accidents

-nearly all those buses in accidents are not specialization. Some are common vans.

-those school buses are overloaded.

-those school bus drivers are not professional

-the potential safety hazard were not checked out but after the accidents happened

I recommend those stakeholders to do

-parents: tell the school buses are weather safe or not for kids.

-schools: hire professional school bus drivers and buy specialized school buses.

-the government: strengthen supervising, increase the punishment level for those immoral schools who has potential safety hazard in their school bus and allocate funds for supporting some schools to buy school buses.