Yesterday I just got a trackback from a new article on Business News, Advices, Quotes And quite a handful of link through’s from there also. The funny part, call it amazing, they were linking to blog post I wrote 18 Months ago. Hardly a current, breaking news item, but the article seem to be quite active considering the link through’s and the minor nature, in context, with what the article was on about.
The internet really doesn’t forget.
All the bad news,
Nokia smartphones dumb down profits
Nokia releases Q2 2010 results; profits down, market share flat
Nokia Q2 2010 results – profits down but smartphone sales up
So lets do a reality check on the facts; Nokia profits are Down 40%, but are still making a Profit. Which means they are in the green economically, and are making a Profit of €221M Euros (285M$). But 40% less than last quarter, meaning that they are only making 60% of the profit they made last quarter, during the worst recession in over 100 years And everyone is complaining?
The only thing this tells me, is that a manufacture like Apple who makes more profit on their iPhone 4, is ripping off their customers by charging a premium price for a Smartphone and Nokia does not!
This article is one of the best portrayals of Nokia’s Perceived fall from grace: The Background Story
…But somehow with Apple, the facts no longer matter. The iPhone was the ultimate best phone ever – according to Steve Jobs – and because Steve Jobs says so, that started to become the storyline. The truth didn’t matter…
…Because Apple was in the game, now anything Steve Jobs said was the word from god. And no matter how severely deficient the first iPhone models were, because they were Apple phones, that meant they were the world’s ‘leading’ phones. And if you didn’t match the current iPhone model with a potential ‘iPhone killer’ – then you were obsolete. …
Consider how unfair this issue is. Apple has today 2% of total phone market share. Nokia has 34%. Apple has 14% market share in smartphones – and has lost market share now for 3 straight quarters. Nokia has 41% market share in smartphones and has been growing market share in the same period. Of Apple’s flagship phone the iPhone 4 – with its 5 major improvements now in 2010 – Nokia has had 4 of those in its phones long before 2007. Why is Apple given any credit as the ‘leader’ and Nokia accused as ‘having lost the lead’?
If you haven’t heard there is a vote in The Dáil on Tuesday, A No Confidence Vote against the Fianna Fáil Government. But listening to RTE and the Newspapers, you would only hear about Fine Gael frontbenchers ousting Kenny . What? No! We are voting AGAINST Fianna Fáil ! Where did all the kerfuffle about Kenny come about. In a word Fianna Fáil! It’s a ploy augmented by the gullible and lazy press to deflect attention away from the Tuesday No Confidence Vote. A lame attempt to displace attention away from their criminal activities which created the Irish Banking Crisis and to make a mockery of the Vote.
I have had a revelation with regards to SmartPhones and the Reality Distortion Field.
Simply put, if the device, any device, that does not behave like a profit generating platform for Apple, should not be considered a Smartphone.
Sorry not for me, even Android’s more subtle marketing of Google is too much for me. If you are new here, you can be excused for not knowing that I use an Open Source phone called the Nokia N900. And while Nokia has done a lousy job marketing it, it still does all the things that the mighty Apple iPhone 4.
This is a simple projection based upon sales-to-date, plus next months iPad 3G launch, and an estimated 10,000 units a week sales through the end of the year. The only real variable here is if (and that’s a BIG if) Apple can maintain 10,000 units a week.
While reading this article 5 Reasons Why Online Freedom of Speech Does Not Exist I was encouraged that a person of Arabic decent wrote it. And is spot on about the real lack of freedom on the internet.
And a thought came to mind that what Irelands ‘Smart Economy’ ought to be, is to create a genuine open internet connection to the world. An Internet free of ALL censorship, blocking, filtering and snooping both into and out to the rest of the internet. Even so much as establishing free VPN connections into the country for people living in internet ‘oppressed’ world areas thus giving an open gateway into a free, and (as) open as anyone could make, Internet. It would not prevent countries from blocking export of banned information into Ireland, but Ireland would not add any blockages. And it would not prevent information from Ireland into censored countries. but it would create a cloud of truly free internet.
I think this could foster an internet ‘Switzerland’ much like Switzerland is to banking. Businesses like Google, Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, Skype would find this an attractive country to expand and centralize in. It would make Ireland an Internet sanctuary for complete and open exchange of ideas and communications.
That headline isn’t really news, at least to the people of Ireland. And only the, very disconnected, Irish Government believe that their spinning of any other message has changed that public attitude.
But here is another one, Rent, the very nature of the overinflated rents, which are driving companies out of business. This has only one value, and that is to the Banks which are utilizing the higher rents to increase the apparent value of their holding before passing them on to NAMA. In any other country, this is called Fraud
Accounting fraud
In order to hide serious financial problems, some businesses have been known to use fraudulent bookkeeping to overstate sales and income, inflate the worth of the company’s assets or state a profit when the company is operating at a loss. These tampered records are then used to seek investment in the company’s bond or security issues or to make fraudulent loan applications in a final attempt to obtain more money to delay the inevitable collapse of an unprofitable or mismanaged firm.
While this deceit may be well know to many, it was new to be. I could not understand why anyone would increase rents which were driving out tenants. Or how the rents were still overinflated with all the empty property’s currently on the markets. This more or less points to a second issue, that of Price Fixing and is, in reality, another for form anti-competitive fraud.
And there is no revolution yet? I suppose the bankers can have, and eat your cake too…
A fellow Blogger at A Networked World made the connection with another blogger. And Got me thinking about The Real, Next Big Question! He states;
It can’t really be the same as it was before. We have to seek new things, new jobs, and a different way of life than that which was before. That world is gone! IT will NEVER return, or better yet, SHOULD NEVER be allowed to return. It’s unsustainable and WILL collapse again (for the worst) should we ever ‘Recover’ it.
What’s needed is Vision and leadership, something sorely missing in the Irish mindset, let alone the mindless Government mindset.
If anyone wants to know the benefits of having an Internet connected population only needs to skim this article Economic Benefit of Getting Everyone Online in the UK
– Digitally excluded households are missing out on average savings of
GBP560 per year from shopping and paying bills online– The most economically disadvantaged families are missing out on savings
of over GBP1billion– 1.6 million children in digitally excluded families could increase
their lifetime earnings by GBP10.8billion– Unemployed people who get online could increase their lifetime earnings
by over GBP12,000– If 5% of digitally excluded unemployed could find work by using job
websites it would deliver an estimated GBP560million to the UK economy– Internet savvy workers can earn an average increase in lifetime
earnings of over GBP8,000– Government could save at least GBP900 million a year in customer
contact costs if all digitally excluded adults got online and made just
one electronic contact per month
and while the amounts will be different in Ireland, the benefits will be similar, maybe even better.
One thing, If the Yes vote is supposed to be the right (as in correct, AND good) Vote. Why is so much money being spent to Buy the Yes Vote!
Shouldn’t the Yes be self evident? And don’t say that it’s because there is a ‘No!’ campaign on, that must be countered. Opposition occurred second.
In the area of advertising, outside of posting nude pictures of celebrities and offering Free Beer I’m out of my league. When I talked about my new projects to the Open Coffee Cork gang, I got what I thought was pleasant interest. But outside of the amusing use of my @querynetTwitterBot asking about jaegerbombs, no one else bothered to visit my projects.
I have been seeking any feedback on Idea Forecasting, Query-The.net (@querynet) and fleetingthoght.com (@fleetthoughts) but if I can’t get a reaction from a more or less friendly crowd, it’s unlikely to get much of a reception from anyone else.
I have noticed that there are a lot of dystopian Apocalyptic movies being released in 2009.
2012, The Book of Eli, Carriers , Daybreakers , Knowing , Gamer , The Road, Legion , Surrogates and Zombieland and that’s just to name the soon to be released one’s. For movies to be this depressing indicates that they were being created in the latter part of the Bush/Cheney Era, when the world was very depressing.
If this isn’t the most Idiotic Marketing move Palm has ever made, I can’t see how thay could top it. To begin Marketing a second Web-OS phone that is called the Mini-Pre BEFORE THEY HAVE EVEN SOLD A SINGLE ‘PRE’ If there was ever a way to cripple the potential sales surge normally associated with the release of a new Phone, this would be it! Release information about a newer, cheaper version! What were they thinking? Now the ‘Pre’ sales are stunted, as all the people who might have been willing to stretch their wallets in a recession to buy a slick new phone, will now wait for the cheaper model to arrive.
UPDATE: It looks like the Pixie may not happen due to bad planning Palm Pixie Is Real, But May Never Come To Market And not to say so, but I told you so!
Say I have a store and I’ve been buying rotten fruit from my friends for sometime. Paying top Euro for it as well.
When it comes to selling it, I find it impossible to sell it, and so I conceal from my stock holders the fact that I’ve been buying all this rotten fruit,
I talk with my friends and they tell me I should convince the government that I should have help selling this fruit, or else I’ll go out of business. Isn’t it just the great that my friends in government have agreed, and are going to buy all my rotten fruit, at top Euro as well, and then they will let me continue to operate my store however I wish to.
Isn’t this a bit like the new ‘Financial’ bill in the Dail currently. The Irish taxpayer gets all the rotten fruit, and the Bankers get to have debt free banks. What a deal!