Microsoft and Apple go up the hill

After months of research, Microsoft has finally launched Zune, its portable media player, with a ‘big bang’ on November 14. The device is Microsoft’s big bid to overpower Apple’s wildly successful iPod. The launch was heavily marketed and was marked by free concerts in six major US cities. To initiate the battle, Zune is available in just one 30GB model, that too in three colours. As far as pricing is concerned, Zune is competitively priced at $250 at par with iPod. Competing with Apple will be a herculean task for Microsoft, considering the fact that iPod has a monstrous 75% share of the digital music player market in the US and dominates more than half of the world market. Perhaps, this is the reason why Microsoft has dumped plans to try to overthrow the iPod by working with third-party MP3 player manufacturers. As Microsoft’s Zune is not part of the ‘Plays For Sure’ initiative (the firm licenses software). Consequently, songs bought from Napster, Rhapsody, AOL or Urge, for example, will not work with the player. Zune users must buy and download music from a dedicated Zune music store or split their own CDs and copy them on to the player. The hope is just that it gets better with time.

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Source:- IIPM Editorial

An IIPM and Management Guru Professor Arindam Chaudhuri's Initiative

Pakistan’s going the MTV way

Indigenization has always been a key element in MTV’s strategy. Remember how it turned the channel desi in India when it realised that the power lay in the ethos of the land – and not imported culture? The buzz is that MTV will take special care to blend its content to appeal to local sentiments and culture. Special international events like the European Music Awards, Video Music Awards and Lycra MTV Style Awards would also be included in MTV Pakistan’s programming schedule. With MTV’s launch in Pakistan, the brand’s reach will increase to 33.5 million households in South Asia.

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Source:- IIPM Editorial

An IIPM And Management Guru Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Initiative

Product Portfolio Problems

Take a bird’s eye view today and Nokia’s entire product portfolio lacks the vigour that it once boasted of. And though it still has a variety of handsets for various price points, the problem is that many of them have been around for a long time; and need to just disappear off the racks. If Nokia is hoping for In fact, what will change Nokia’s downhill slide in India is indeed some positive investments in R&D to come up with innovative designs that captures the imagination of the young consumer. But here too they should tread carefully! The recent launch of their supposedly sleeker and sexier E-series was a dismal flop in the Indian market. Guess its time for Nokia now to take a leaf out of the Motorola design booklet and innovate further to sustain their India advantage!

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Source:- IIPM Editorial

An IIPM And Management Guru Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Initiative

Why should Tony Blair care?

Why should Tony Blair care? He has a more pressing need to meet the challenge of well-nigh non-existent threat of nuclear terrorism. And when people ask, do you need such massive missiles to counter nuclear-armed terrorists? The British white paper on the issue states that nuclear capable states may use nonstate actors (terrorists) to launch their evil designs on Britain. Now, such explanation challenges the conventional definition of terrorism. A terrorist is an actor detached from a particular state. An individual working on behalf of a state cannot be a non-state actor. Just as Pakistan sponsored terrorists, are mercenaries. These issues are critical, if ever Britain decides to launch a nuclear strike on a state, believed to have used terrorists.

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Source:- IIPM Editorial

An IIPM And Management Guru Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Initiative

Accept it now!

Finally, some turnaround for the beleaguered Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) – words of praise and achievements from a belligerent and a fuming press on November 27, 2006, when an incoming Prithvi missile launched from the Balasore Interim Test Range was successfully intercepted & destroyed at an altitude of 50 km over the Bay of Bengal by another Prithvi missile. No doubt that with this success, India has entered the club of a few elite countries having an impressive ballistic missile defence capability.

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Source:- IIPM Editorial

An IIPM And Management Guru Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Initiative