Integrating AI, Accelerating Success
RIM pulls BlackBerry app Kik while Apple, Google OK | Electronista:
“However, some have speculated that RIM was primarily concerned that Kik is too similar to BlackBerry Messenger and is a competitive threat that would reduce the incentive to keep using BlackBerries. The app has been available on Android and iPhone devices and, if popular, could make it easier to switch platforms.”
(Via The Macintosh News Network.)
Exactly. It would be foolish for them to give BBM addicts a road to recovery.
How Mobile Apps Are Disrupting the Car-Rental Business:
“Since Zipcar has shown that a mobile app and special software can help tackle the logistical challenges of car sharing, rivals have been following suit. Six months ago, Hertz launched an iPhone app that functions in much the same way for Connect, its own Zipcar-like program. Whereas Zipcar has 6,500 vehicles, Hertz has nearly half a million, although only about 1,000 of those are available through Connect. “As we began to look at [Zipcar] and to see that model grow, it was a natural evolution for Hertz,” says Joseph Eckroth, Hertz’s chief information officer.
“
(Via Technology Review: The Authority on the Future of Technology.)
I have personal experience with this. It is indeed a niche that’s growing. I don’t see ZipCar being able to fend off serious forays from the established rental companies if they get serious however. Disruption? Maybe. Right now it looks more like evolution. What would be disruptive is an acquisition forcing the remaining competitors to get into the game. We’ll see.
This time the story is hardly the one you would expect.
Mac sales growth continues to surge ahead of PCs 3 to 1:
“The single biggest jump in sales has come from the business market, which is up by 66.3%. Among large and very large businesses, sales spiked 146% and 202% respectively, which is an excellent sign for Apple. Those large businesses tend to be controlled by large IT departments, which are typically very conservative when it comes to computer system upgrades and replacements. The popularity of iOS devices among executives and the more tech savvy is probably playing a big part in convincing these companies to take another look at Apple on the desktop.”
(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)
Wow! Of course, Apple has had a lot of room to grow in terms of the business market, but at this economic time? That is pretty remarkable.
Apple is right to stay out of the high-end server market if the results keep coming in like this. They want to sell metal not software so this strategy of strong user centricity is clearly working. As long as the Mac can play nice in “corporate environments,” i.e. Windows environments, it can compete well. Microsoft has recognized this by finally, after nearly a decade, opting to bring full Outlook back the Mac version of Office. With the recent rehabilitation of Excel, Microsoft is still in a position to print money from it’s cash cow (to mix metaphors): Microsoft Office and it’s attendant servers. Yes, Windows on the client end suffers a bit of market share loss, but Microsoft keep the servers and basic corporate technology on their platform. And while Microsoft is doing its level best to answer the iOS, the trend right now suggests we should expect to see “Pocket” versions of the Office apps in the not too distant future.
Big Companies Hiring, Small Companies Aren’t, Gallup Finds:
“Despite the trope that ‘small businesses are the engines of job growth,’ larger companies seem to be doing the most hiring, according to new survey data.”
(Via Economix.)
Well, that’s a surprise. But this is a Gallup poll and not BLS statistics. If it bears out, this would indeed be remarkable.
Pretty Good for Government Work – NYTimes.com:
“So, again, Uncle Sam, thanks to you and your aides. Often you are wasteful, and sometimes you are bullying. On occasion, you are downright maddening. But in this extraordinary emergency, you came through — and the world would look far different now if you had not.”
(Via Politics : NPR.)
The Oracle of Omaha thanks the federal government for saving our bacon in 2008. The great political irony is the bailouts in these crisis moments are what started the Tea Party. I wonder if they knew how close they came to total economic annihilation? Ignorance is indeed expensive!
RIM CEO: Apple Is Wrong for Having an App for That:
”‘So you reject the appification of the Web?’ asked Summit host John Battelle. ‘Correct,’ Balsillie said, challenging Apple’s ‘there’s an app for that’ slogan for its iPhone App Store, which has more than 300,000 applications.
Balsillie’s comments were tinged with a note of bitterness in the wake of unprovoked attacks on RIM’s business by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. One month ago, Jobs appeared on Apple’s fourth-quarter earnings call to tout how Apple had passed RIM in smartphone sales for the quarter.”
(Via eWeek – RSS Feeds.)
Apple and Oracle Partner for OpenJDK for Mac OS X:
“Apple and Oracle are working together to bring the OpenJDK project to Mac OS X. This will ensure the continued presence of Java on the Mac platform. The news comes on the heels of a revelation last month that Apple will no longer be providing its own line of custom Java packages, which many, us included, took to indicate the end of Java support in OS X altogether.”
(Via TheAppleBlog.)
Huge sigh of relief for Java developers deploying on Macs.
Verizon to sell Galaxy Tab starting November 11th for $599.99 — Engadget:
“Well, we finally have a price on this thing! America’s largest carrier has announced plans to sell Samsung’s Galaxy Tab for… $599.99. The 3G, Android 2.2-based unit (which will be loaded with V CAST apps, of course) will hit retail on November 11th, and since it’s being sold at full price, a data plan (which starts at $20 per month for 1GB) is completely optional.”
(Via The Macalope.)
I thought I’d never write the following words: Apple is killing Samsung on price.
However, whether the results on Ben and on me are due to malevolence or the same unreliable reporting of result counts that appear to be prevalent in the other cases, the unreliability of the counts is striking. Until recently I had used counts of results reported as a rough measure of the significance of an individual or a piece of work, or at least of their popular visibility, which is not quite the same thing as significance. Obviously I cannot use the number of results returned as a measure of anything until I understand them further. Can I use Google Scholar, or any other Google site, and assume that results have been returned with an even hand, without fear or favor, and with care for their accuracy? I suspect not.
via Is Google Guilty Of Deliberate Query Sabotage?.
This is such a biting damnation of Google’s search result count it garnered a response in less than 3 hours. Unfortunately the response is more public relations than substantive explanation or even rebuttal. Restricting a search should always do just that, restrict the search. If the “estimate” goes up, these numbers are not even remotely accurate regardless of how many significant digits you care about. Trying to hide behind the word “estimate” is simply disingenuous when a more accurate term would be “guesstimate.” And Google has no plans to fix this bug since they don’t want to “spend the cycles on that aspect of [their] system.” It’s only their core business. Not very important stuff at all.
Why Big Companies Matter in Job Creation – NYTimes.com:
“The start-ups that make a outsized contribution to job generation are the ones that survive beyond five years, and begin to take off, heading toward and beyond the government-defined boundary of a small business (fewer than 500 employees).
You can read that and assume that big, older companies don’t play an important role in the job-creation game. That would be a mistake, economists say. The old-line companies may not create a lot of net new jobs in America, they say, but the big global corporations shape the environment that gives rise to entrepreneurial upstarts.”
