Due to an unsatisfactory sales  performance of the new smartphone, Blackberry announced that the company had lost nearly one billion in 2nd quarter; the revenue also declines 45 percents compared to the same period last year. Although in august the company already cut down 4500 jobs in order to reduce expenditure, it still can not recover from that massive, devastating loss. Therefore, Blackberry recently  decides to make an alternative plan with it’s biggest shareholder- Fairfax Financial. The initial negotiation states that Blackberry agrees to sell itself for 4.7 billions to FairFax Financial and turn the company to private.

In my opinion ,the reason why Blackberry can not turn itself around is because the lack of innovation.  BlackBerry used to dominate the market  and held  50 percents of market share back in 2009, but in 2013 , it only left with 3 percents. There are lots of competitors in this market that constantly innovating and produce the product that has new, “wow-factor” to the consumers. For instance, majority of the mobile manufacture companies like Apple, Samsung have changed their mobile keyboard system on the touch screen; only Blackberry retains the traditional keyboard.  As the result, consumers ‘ preference change from traditional keyboard to touch screen one thus the demand for BlackBerry’s product decrease.

Sources:

“BlackBerry loses $965M in 2nd quarter.” CBC NEWS 27 09 2013, n. pag. Web. 28 Sep. 2013. <http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/blackberry-loses-965m-in-2nd-quarter-1.1870447>.

Fontevecchia, Agustino. “BlackBerry To Go Private In $4.7B Deal As Fairfax Bets On Enterprise Business.” forbes.com 23 09 2013, n. pag. Web. 28 Sep. 2013. <ww.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2013/09/23/blackberry-to-go-private-in-4-7b-deal-as-fairfax-bets-on-enterprise-business/>.

China is gradually become one of the leading countries in today’s global economy. However, the communist government still has an aggressive censorship on internet and other social medias. People in China can not access onto the sites such as Facebook, Twitter or any website than contains political controversy issues. Recently, Chinese government has planned to open to up free accessibility of the internet in Shanghai’s free trade zone. The main reason behind it is because there are lots of foreign investors in this region and by open up the accessibility of internet, it will reach investors’ satisfaction thus captivate them for further investing.

In my opinion, China should have abandoned the regulation on internet usage in the past. In today’s world , the advancing communication like internet leads to  globalization of market, which results in increase international trade and world per capita GDP. Market, demand and supply are interconnected with every parts of the world; if China keeps self-isolation, the foreign investors would not come to China for investment.

To comment on Julie’s post about marketing to children, I agree that advertisement can have an enormous impact on children’s perspective. It is not ethical for company to promote anything based on it’s profits.  However, in today’s market economy, everyone is trying to maximize their own-self interest, that is just how the market works. Therefore, the best result will more likely be find the balance between integrity and profits.

Link:

Reuters, Thomson. “China to lower internet firewall in Shanghai free trade zone.” CBC NEWS 24 09 2013, n. pag. Web. 28 Sep. 2013. <http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/china-to-lower-internet-firewall-in-shanghai-free-trade-zone-1.1866688>.

There are lots of issues that associated with ethical controversy in today’s business world. Indeed, some of the large corporations tend to practice in unethical activities to maximize their profits. In the recent news conference, Apple Inc. has announced to released a brand new iphone; however, the disgrace truth behind the fashionable, modern mobile devices is the abuse of cheap labor in china.

According to the article, the manufacture factories in china are forcing the workers to work beyond the working hour limit. Also, the new employees are forced to sign the contracts declaring that any overtime hour would count as voluntary.

From an ethical point of view, I believe that Apple should not take advantage over labor’s basic human right to gain profit. While people in developed countries are having a good time using a brand new  technology, the people in developing countries have to suffer severe working conditions to meet basic living standard. For me, it is brutal and not ethical at all. In addition, from the economic point of view, I think the company that takes advantage over cheap labor only can gain profits in short term, not long term. In the short term, it can decrease cost of supply and produce product more efficiently; however in the long term, it may ruin brand’s reputation thus decrease customer’s loyalty and demand.

To comment on saheel mistry’s Blog, I strongly think that it is not ethical to “buy” a spot in university.  Perhaps university can gain some goods through this immoral way but as the long term effect it will significantly destroy school’s value.

sources:

Yan, Sophia. “Apple faces new China labor allegations.”CNN MONEY 06 09 2013, n. pag. Web. 28 Sep. 2013. <http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/06/technology/apple-china-labor/index.html>.

“Apple faces new China worker abuse claims.” BBC NEWS29 07 2013, n. pag. Web. 28 Sep. 2013. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23486638>.

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