
** Prepare youself for the digital revolution **
gRim reality
Blackberry maker RIM has recently had a boardroom cleanout, including their co-CEOs, COO and CTO. They will now conduct a strategic review which could see the business dismantled, refocused or reengineered. Trying to be something to everybody and trying to do it all on their own does not appear to be a recipe for success.
Offshore news
Corporate fraud specialists (until they were caught) Satyam and BT part-owned Tech Mahindra are merging to form what is expected to be India’s fifth largest IT service company. The combined group will be heavily dependent on telecoms business. The fact that this is not a growing market suggests the newly merged company will have to overhaul its strategy.
Hactivism doesn’t pay
According to US telco Verizon, over half of electronic data record thefts were perpetrated by hacktivists. Thus ideology trumps financial gain. Anonymous and its associates were responsible for many of the high profile attacks including the CIA, Sony and Nintendo. Is the trend emerging because the people that perpetrate financial cyber crime ultimately get more personal satisfaction by, in their own minds at least, standing up for civil liberties?
Oracle up
Oracle dismissed its last quarter disappointment as an aberration. The latest quarter results are the first step in proving this hypothesis, with profits exceeding analyst expectations. Oracle is quite bullish about its Cloud offering with plans to give Salesforce and Sap a run for their money in the online applications arena.
Apple fans continue to take the tablets
Apple sold a record 3 million iPads in the first 4 days of its release. Whether this reflects the continuing ascendancy of the tablet or Apple’s ability to rev up the market and get its supply chain act together is unclear. My gut feeling is the latter, given that the most notable difference from the ‘old’ iPad is that the iPad3 is heavier.
Google – Play is a serious business
Google wants to take Apple’s iTunes head on by integrating Google Music and eBookstore into its Android Market offering and renaming it Google Play. Google is hot on Apple’s heels with almost as many apps as the iStore and almost as many Android platforms in circulation as the combined number of iPods, iPhones and iPads.
Intel - Autotrader
The automotive industry is a huge consumer of processor chips. Intel wants to fuel that demand by setting up a $100 million fund to invest in companies developing car-based technologies. It will be interesting to see whether car buyers mimic the behaviour of impressionable PC buyers and look for the Intel Inside sticker before making a purchase.
Ade McCormack
** Prepare youself for the digital revolution **