isights

They’re dying anyway. There’s a classic marketing treatise called Marketing Myopia, written by Theodore Levitt, in which he introduced the famous question, “What business are you really in?”

Levitt claimed that railroad executives saw themselves as being in the railroad business rather than the transportation business. They focused on that business exclusively… and in the process they gradually lost their passenger business to the automotive and airline industries.

RIM faces the same problem. They think they’re in the mobile phone business. They’re not. They think they’re in the handset business. They’re not.

They’re in the communications business. Or they’d better be, if they want to survive.

Heins is an idiot. He thinks RIM is in the handset business. They’re not.

They’re in the communications business.

The value behind the BlackBerry phone system is BlackBerry Messenger. It, and the backend services, are what make the platform valuable. Without it, a BlackBerry is just a so-so phone with a decent keyboard.

To survive, RIM needs to roll out a cross-platform messaging system for use on existing smartphones and tablets. That’s iOS. That’s Android. And that’s Window’s Phone.

A set of messaging apps could be done in an extremely short period of time given a set of skilled developers. They don’t even have to have the expertise in-house. Just farm it out to shops well versed in iOS, Android, and Windows development.

Sell companies and individuals on using your secure service for all of their important communications.

Then, and only then, can you try enticing them with dedicated hardware that makes that service even better.

Please. The entire industry was racing to the bottom selling commodity Windows boxes long before Apple sold their first iPhone or iPad.

I wrote an article about the death of print and in it discussed the death of Borders:

“Borders sold books, and they got hit with Amazon and home delivery and highly competitive pricing. They sold CDs, and they got hit by iTunes and torrents. They sold DVDs, and they got hit with Netflix and Redbox and torrents. They sold magazines, and got absolutely flattened by the Internet.”

Best Buy has many of the same problems, if not more: declines in CD and DVD sales, commodity PCs, declining margins in TVS and electronics in general, the collapse of the home stereo market, declines in sales of shrink-wrapped software, increased competition in consoles and games by Walmart and Target, and declining appliance sales as people moved on to Lowes and Home Depot.

And, of course, people who simply us them as an Internet showroom.

Then there’s the price gouging on accessories and services, the relentless push to sell protection plans, the teenage “sales” guy that’s no where to be found because he’s hitting on the girl in the music department…

All simply more nails in the coffin.

My girlfriend brought home a bottle of LiquiGlide last night and… oh… wait.

Wrong Forum.

Who are the knowledgeable employees?

Yeah, it’s not like Amazon has to maintain dozens of warehouses across the US staffed with hundreds of people whose job it is to pick, pack, and ship hundreds of thousands of packages daily…

How are we to know that she didn’t?

Similarly, CISPA exists to legally allow any business or corporation to share private information with the government.

CISPA exists to bypass existing laws and regulations regarding privacy.

CISPA exists to block disclosure of such under the FOIA.

CISPA exists to provide a “get out of jail” immunity card to companies that voluntarily provide the government with data.

CISPA exists to give the NSA a legal mandate and access to any and all information collected, both foreign and domestic.

Agreed. Regardless of the exact dimensions, it’s fairly obvious that developers are going to need to do at least some work in supporting new layouts and resolutions. If nothing else, there will be new technologies coming in iOS 6 that will require support.

With that in mind, is it time for Apple to clean up the App Store? Should abandoned apps be deleted or deprecated to make room for applications and developers who continue to update and improve their applications?

The iPad added an extra row. So if they do the same as theory did with the iPad…

Umm… doesn’t it also have mic-in and controls (play/pause)?

Then again, we have a bit of a double standard on the matter ourselves…

So you thought you’d be cute and drop a number that happens to be the entire population of Pakistan?

"As a citizen of #Pakistan and as a former journalist I condemn the blocking of #Twitter. Freedom of speech is an inviolable right," tweeted Farahnaz Ispahani, a member of Parliament and media advisor to President Asif Ali Zardari.

“Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ordered Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Technology to restore access to the site.”

"I am so ashamed of my information technology ministry," stated Marvi Sirmed, a Pakistani human rights activist. "It shows how ignorant they are. I am so enraged at this point in time. It is making Pakistan a laughingstock of the entire world."

Cute. But no cigar.

“… is not very developed and a lot of people are uneducated.”

Actually, we have many of the same problems here in the US.

Not to mention the possibility that the block was political, and the blasphemy accusation was simply a cover.

There’s also the possibility that the ban was politically motivated…

“Censorship is nothing new in Pakistan, but often it surrounds matters tied to the country’s powerful security establishment. In this case, activists suspect the democratically-elected civilian government is using the sensitive topic of blasphemy as cover for constricting the space for political debate ahead of national elections.”

Apparently the Pakistain government disagrees….

“As a citizen of #Pakistan and as a former journalist I condemn the blocking of #Twitter. Freedom of speech is an inviolable right," tweeted Farahnaz Ispahani, a member of Parliament and media advisor to President Asif Ali Zardari.

The government has dropped the ban.

Was just going to post this…

“Pakistan’s telecommunications regulators shut down Twitter for about eight hours Sunday because the social networking site would not remove content the government found objectionable to Muslims, but the nation’s prime minister stepped in to reverse the ban, officials said.”

Interesting if true. References or sources?

“What I mean in this context about "hate speech" is speech used as a weapon to encourage people to commit violent acts.”

That’s the straw man argument that’s been put forth. However, I’ve yet to read anything that confirms it was the original purpose.

What I have read is that “some” people may find such images blasphemous, and that it was blocked on those grounds.

“The people spreading Anti-Muslim stuff are NOT being persecuted in any way.”

I would add “yet” to that.

You’ve been very quick to equate the competition in question with “hate speech”, regardless of whether or not that’s true,, and yet denying someone’s freedom of speech and denying access to public and social communication systems somehow doesn’t equate to being “persecuted in any way.”

Seems to me you’re pretty quick to bias the argument with provocative words and imagery… when it suits your own purpose.

You seem awfully predisposed towards equating the competition in question as “racist” and “hate speech”.

The one phrase I’ve seen associated with this over and over, is, “Many Muslims regard depictions of the prophet, even favorable ones [note], as blasphemous.”

That’s many, not all, and apparently even a favorable image is “blasphemous” and according to you, automatically qualifies as “hate speech”.

“Freedom of Speech doesn’t mean going out an offending any person you like.”

How about following the tenants of your own religion?

“That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. … You have heard that it hath been said, Thou shall love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you."

I think that, if anything, they should go with watermarking. I have several ebooks I bought from Pragmatic Press that are DRM free, but have “Prepared for Michael Long” at the bottom of each page.

This could be like the title and chapter number and disappear from the page when you’re reading. Have a back cover page with full name and address and phone. Refuse to run if the watermark has been tampered with or stripped.

We’re past that. Modern web sites require responsive designs, link to social sign-in systems, talk to back end servers using jquery and json, and so on. Being able to type “hello world” between two body tags buys you nothing.

""I can’t think of many other skills that enable you to create something from scratch and reach as many people as knowing how to set up a simple website."

Yes, because setting up a Wordpress or Tumblr blog is so difficult. Sign up. Select theme…. and then what?

A blog is worthless without something to say. As such, the majority would be much better off learning to communicate in English.

“However, there is a language you could master that teaches many of the same lessons, appears far more forgiving in terms of syntax, and has immediate broader appeal. The language you can learn is your own.”

If you can’t even form a coherent sentence in a proposal, letter, or email, I’m probably not going to give you a chance to prove that you can write a coherent program.

You’re making assumptions. It’s entirely possible that in order to get the same performance I’d need a heavier V8 engine and transmission. To get the same range, I might need a larger fuel tank that holds an extra 5-6 gallons of gas. I might need heavier brakes to counteract the lack of regenerative braking, and so on.

So the added weight might be less than you think. A Honda Civic weighs about 2,700 lbs. A Honda Civic Hybrid weighs 2,860 lbs, or just 160 lbs more (6%).

Besides, eliminate the torque from the electric motors, and I suspect you also eliminate 0-60 in less than 3s… (grin)

200MPH. Zero to 60 mph in under three seconds. Uh… what technology isn’t there yet?

“… output doesn’t support analogue quality.”

That’s a laugh.