Industry Voices

February 4, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Value is a funny, very hard to predict thing.

What it is, how to measure it, how to demonstrate that you offer more of it than does your competitor is more voodoo than science.  But it is no less important because that is so. No matter how difficult to do, everyone in business must define a value proposition for their customers and then attempt to sell how they want to be perceived. To do that we see terms like “great value”, “no better value”, “high value”, etc. but have you ever stopped to wonder what that means to the consumer?...Read More

January 28, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (2)

In 2011, three very short years from now, the first of this nation’s 78 million baby boomers will begin to retire (assuming they will begin retiring at 65) and when they do the impact on U.S. housing will be immense. Statistics developed by Dowell Myers and Sung Ho Ryu of the University of Southern California show that buyers of housing exceed sellers in each age group up to 65-69 at which point they are equal. After that, 70 and above, the number of sellers dramatically exceeds the number of buyers by almost 10-to-1 among those 80 or older. So in 2011 we have the beginning of 78 million people retiring who, if the past is an indicator of the future, will not only not be buying new or more houses but will in fact be selling what they own. 

What will that likely mean to CE? Major changes, presuming the industry does nothing to reposition itse...Read More

January 22, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Carmaker touts plans for auto-based access, in sync with tech trend of mobile Internet use.

Talk about good news! 

The above headlines comes from an ...Read More

January 17, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

“You take someone like Apple. They could spend $150 million to $200 million on a marketing campaign and not blink an eye. I sat there and watched someone propose a $20 million marketing campaign.  And we just vomited all over him.  Two days later, my CFO and I approved a $950 million research and development budget in about 15 minutes, but to spend $20 million on marketing.  We just don’t know how to do that.  It just drives us nuts.  But we’re going to have to get over it.”

January 8, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Quarterly Mac Sales Set New Record
Quarterly iPhone Sales Exceed One Million

 “Apple shipped 2,164,000 Macintosh computers, representing 34 percent growth over the year-ago quarter and exceeding the previous quarterly record for Mac shipments by 400,000. The Company sold 10,200,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 17 percent growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone sales were 1,119,000, bringing cumulative fiscal 2007 sales to 1,389,000....Read More