Posts tagged business
6 things RIM needs to do to turn its fortune around
Jan 5th
by Kye Husbands
Seems like every blog we do of late is about RIM, because it’s difficult to watch a giant go down without a real fight. We have long communicated that BlackBerry desirability – ideal phone choices by customers at myCELLmyTERMS when creating a proposal – has been steadily declining to under 10 per cent at the end of the last quarter.
The Financial Post is reporting that RIM lost more marketshare in the US, going from 7.1 per cent to 6.5 per cent. Why this really sucks, is that the smartphone market is still growing by leaps and bounds, so losing market share in a growing market is a real sign of trouble, but trouble has been brewing for over a year, as we watched the desirability fall to all time lows of under 10 per cent on our network.
The solution seems so simple however, rally all of your staff to get get some new phones out to market and as soon as possible. For RIM getting ahead of the curve in the smartphone space would be ideal, but the challenge with waiting for the right pitch to hit a home run is that you miss out on all the RBI opportunities. It’s a gamble and a big one to wait for perfection in an ever changing space and some things are a must have, but let’s hypothesize for a sec.
What does RIM have to do with the BlackBerry to get ahead of the curve:
- Quad-core phones would be nice
- 18MP Camera or something crazy like that (front and rear facing)
- HDMI output or something of the sort
- New Operating System (BlackBerry 10K) with improved usability all the way around and snappy. (i.e. Not like OS 6.0 which freezes all the time)
- Improved virtual keyboard – (BTW – Please move the world icon from where it is, somehow I always found a way of switching to chinese when sending an email)
- Some real wow factor (ex. like a Virtual Assistant, A few killer apps, bigger screen phones)
I don’t have all the answers and neither does RIM, so let’s hope that they do the right thing and get a few phones out to market that are good enough to lay a solid foundation and build on that. Clearly we can’t expect everything at once like a vibrant developer community and thousands of apps, but we need to see some evidence of work being done to spark confidence.
Should your business buy a .XXX domain?
Sep 8th
By Tony Bradley
ICANN has begun accepting registrations on a limited basis for XXX domains. If you are in the adult entertainment business, or your site is related to adult endeavors, then buying a XXX domain is a no-brainer, but even businesses that offer more “traditional” goods and services may want to consider getting in line for a XXX domain.
Why? That seems like a fair question. The answer is simple: to protect your brand and reputation.
Read the rest of this entry »
Lenovo ThinkPad: four reasons it’s the right tablet for business
Aug 24th
By Tony Bradley
Tablet headlines have been dominated for the past week by the sudden demise of the TouchPad, and the subsequent fire sale by HP to clear out inventory. But, just because HP is bailing on the tablet industry doesn’t mean the world has come to a halt.
Today, Lenovo launched its ThinkPad Tablet–an Android tablet with more of a business focus than some of its rivals.
Despite the fact that the Apple iPad is being tested or deployed at 86 percent of Fortune 500 companies, and that businesses of all sizes have found innovative ways to use the iOS tablet in uniquely productive ways, there are still those who will argue that the tablet is a consumer gadget incapable of meeting the needs of business professionals.
Last chance to enter ‘heroic’ business contest
Aug 12th
1&1 Canada’s My Business Heroes contest, for which I’m a judge, wraps up today. This is the first time the company has launched the contest, where Canadians can nominate businesses they feel have had a positive impact on their community.
“For the 1&1 My Business Heroes Contest, we are looking for an act of kindness that truly shows compassion for certain people or individuals; a business or entrepreneur that found a unique way to help those in need that also inspired others to do the same,” according to the contest organizers. “We feel that the most important factor in any philanthropic activity is the impact the work will have on those it directly affects. We consider that to include any amount of time and money shared which shows consideration of others, so anything local businesses do to work towards a positive end goal is a great way to give back to their community.”
Be prepared for another Canada Post service stoppage
Jun 30th
Canada’s small businesses learned a tough lesson in business continuity readiness this month when Canada Post locked out its workers and snail mail came to a full stop.
The mail is an essential service for many businesses even in a world where more business is being done electronically all the time. Until 3D printers are combined with quantum tunneling technology by some sort of genius mad scientist to invent teleportation technology, we’re stuck wrapping stuff up in thin brown paper, taping it up, and sending it off in the mail. When your business is in selling physical goods, it doesn’t do you much good to be taking orders online when you can’t fill them.
Brian Jackson, Associate Editor, ITBusiness.ca
App Store for Web browsers coming soon
Nov 30th
By Katherine Noyes
Along with its audited financial statements indicating a revenue increase of 34 percent last year, Mozilla late last week also published a “State of Mozilla” report providing a glimpse at what the organization is planning for the future.
Firefox for Android is one part of those future plans, of course, and will be released “in a few months,” according to the report.
Even more intriguing, though, is the company’s confirmation that it’s planning what it calls an “Open Web App ecosystem”–also known, in other words, as a platform-independent app store.
Device-Independent
“The current app model has traits that threaten some of the characteristics that have made the Web so vibrant a platform, particularly in the mobile space,” Mozilla explained in its report.
Specifically, “apps are often device specific and platform specific,” it said. “Information we create in an application is stuck in that application and / or that platform. One doesn’t join a unified whole as one can with the Web. App-related information isn’t generally linkable or findable. In addition, developers often need to get permission from one or more gatekeepers to reach people–from a network operator, a device manufacturer, a ‘store’ operator. Similarly, consumers must go through these filters to access new functionality.”
Related Story: Toronto students behind Firefox browser’s amazing overhaul
As a way to remedy such problems, Mozilla has designed a prototype of an Open Web App ecosystem, it says, noting that “this includes a system design, technical documentation and examples of what such a system would look like and work like.” A video on YouTube offers further explanation.
HTML5, CSS and Javascript
Taking inspiration from the success of Apple’s App Store, of course, Google has been working on its own Chrome Web Store as well. Mozilla also mentioned similar plans back in May.
“Supporting the needs of Web developers in their efforts to develop websites and apps that aren’t bound to a specific browser and work across the Web is core to Mozilla’s public benefit mission,” Mozilla wrote back then.
Accordingly, an open Web app store should “exclusively host web applications based upon HTML5, CSS, Javascript and other widely-implemented open standards in modern web browsers – to avoid interoperability, portability and lock-in issues,” it explained.
Such a store should also “ensure that discovery, distribution and fulfillment works across all modern browsers, wherever they run (including on mobile devices)” and “set forth editorial, security and quality review guidelines and processes that are transparent and provide for a level playing field.”
Finally, an open Web app store should “respect individual privacy by not profiling and tracking individual user behavior beyond what’s strictly necessary for distribution and fulfillment” and it should “be open and accessible to all app producers and app consumers,” Mozilla wrote in May.
Too Many Apps For That?
App stores are becoming a ubiquitous part of the Internet; in addition to Apple’s longstanding offering and the planned entries from Google and Mozilla, there are also app stores from Research In Motion for the Blackberry phone and from Microsoft for Windows Phone 7.
Then, too, there’s Apple’s Mac App Store for desktops and Google’s assortment for Google TV, among others.
Few, however, can boast Mozilla’s commitment to openness and open standards like HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Google’s Chrome store notwithstanding, it seems to me that amid all these platform-specific offerings, a device-agnostic store is just what we need.
How professional service firms can become more valuable
Sep 7th
What is your firm’s value proposition? To effectively answer this question, begin by identifying where your firm falls on your industry’s value chain. To understand the changing dynamics of the value chain concept, observe what’s happened to the music business.
Tim Williams
Consumers are still spending roughly the same amount of money on music, but the money isn’t going to the record companies and music stores; it’s going to iTunes. The money in the music business value chain is still there—it just moved.
The same is happening in other rapidly evolving industries. Companies are spending, but they’re spending in new and different areas of the value chain.
Sneak peek: Burstn pics, mobile style
Aug 25th
Picture this: you’ve just snapped some great pictures on your smartphone and want to share them instantly with friends, colleagues, customers, or with your social networks on Twitter and/or Facebook. What’s the fastest and easiest way to do this? Try Burstn them.
Krista Napier
Toronto-based Burstn has launched an app that allows iPhone users (and hopefully soon, at least for my sake, BlackBerry and Android users), the ability to share photos in real time without any hassles around uploading or posting them to a website.
I had a chance to chat with Josh Davey and Dave Senior from Burstn recently. Here’s a sneak peak into our chat: Read the rest of this entry »
Sneak Peak: Enabling Audience Interaction with Chatroll
Aug 6th
Engaging with audiences online and through mobile devices in real time is still relatively new, but quickly becoming a must for broadcasters, live event planners, big brands, and others that are looking to create more engaging audience conversations and experiences.
Krista Napier
Toronto-based Chatroll is looking to address this opportunity with its platform for real-time social interaction. I had a chance to chat with Jonathan McGee and Francis Ma from Chatroll June 21, 2010. Here’s a sneak peak into our Q&A:
Q: How do you differentiate Chatroll?
A: Chatroll allows broadcasters to quickly engage large audiences on a PC or a mobile device in real time. It allows the audience members to engage with one another, and the broadcaster, by commenting or asking questions. The conversation remains private (unlike a public forum like Twitter), providing an intimate conversation, but users can still sign in with their social media profiles so that other audience members can find and connect with them. Read the rest of this entry »
5 important things to know about Canadian cell phone plans
Aug 5th
The Canadian cell phone industry is confusing and difficult to understand. When comparing plans you have to deal with calling circle plans, specified evenings and weekend minutes, “anytime” minutes – it’s all so confusing. Well here are 5 items that you may not be aware of that you should know while you compare cell phone plans:
1. Long distance isn’t quite long distance
I always thought that if you were on a 100 min long distance plan that these minutes were in addition to my other minutes as I am paying extra for them. But what long distance plans do is to convert your regular minutes to long distance minutes. In other words, 100 of your 200 min plan is allocated for long distance usage as opposed to 200 regular mins plus 100 additional for long distance. Read the rest of this entry »
