27 Feb 12 Android Chief: Google Built ‘Firewall’ Between Android, Motorola
By Amir Efrati
The man in charge of Google’s Android mobile operating system said the company “built a firewall” to keep his Android team at a safe distance away from Motorola Mobility Holdings, the handset maker that Google last year agreed to acquire for $12.5 billion. The deal is expected to close within days or weeks.
BloombergAndy Rubin, vice president of engineering at Google Inc., talks about the Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system during a news conference earlier this month.
Speaking at a press conference at Mobile World Congress, an annual conference in Barcelona, Andy Rubin said he was “painfully aware” of the questions surrounding whether Google might favor Motorola by giving it early releases of Android software ahead of other manufacturers such as HTC or Samsung, or otherwise will help Motorola to build the best Android-powered devices on the market.
Rubin, who also announced new statistics about the accelerating growth of Android, said it would be “completely insane” to try to turn Motorola, which currently has “single-digit” market share in Android mobile handsets, into the dominant player. “It just isn’t going to happen,” he said, adding that “the way Android’s going to continue to be successful is to be neutral.”
Android continues to make gains on its rivals, including in areas hard-hit by the European currency crisis. More than 300 million Android devices have been activated to date, up from 200 million in November, Rubin said. about 850,000 Android devices were being activated every day, up from a rate of 700,000 in December, he said.
The success of Android helps Google to ensure that its search engine, mapping and other services are preloaded on mobile devices.
Android is the No. 1 operating system for smartphones but it lags far behind Apple in the tablet category, and it’s facing new competition from rival Amazon’s Kindle fire tablet, which is powered by Android software but doesn’t include a suite of Google services. Rubin said that 12 million Android tablets had been activated, but “that’s less than I’d expected it to be if you really want to win.” he said, without offering specifics, that this year Android would “double down to win in that space.”
Even before the Motorola acquisition, Android was working on a project in which Google would design and market a consumer electronic device under its name. Rubin’s team has been overseeing the production of a Google-branded Android device that could stream music and other digital media, such as online video, to TVs, speakers or other devices in people’s homes, people familiar with the matter have said. Rubin wouldn’t comment on the product but said that in the “post-PC era,” one of Google’s aims was to help “the 20 screens in your home” to interact with one another and feed content from the Web into them.
When Google completes the Motorola acquisition, it also will inherit the company’s patent-infringement legal battles against Google rivals Microsoft and Apple, which have been targeting companies that build handsets using Android software.
The “patent system can’t keep up” with innovations happening in the mobile market, Rubin said. but he added that “there’s a balancing effect” underway that could help ease the conflicts, including the Motorola acquisition, which will give Google patents to help protect its hardware partners in certain legal disputes.
16 Feb 12 IT Sales Leads: An Advantage For IT Companies
These days, firms involved in the IT industry find it harder and harder to get new business. That is to be expected. considering the global financial fiasco that has affected the buying capacity of individuals, indeed, even with larger firms, looking for ways to be profitable is in order. Now, such IT firms will need lots of IT leads. Through such leads, firms would have more information about their markets, as well as a guide when they reposition themselves to address the needs of their prospects. not only that, IT leads can be very useful for firms that are in search of other firms to do a business venture with. it really works.
For a company that bases its profits from IT products and services sold in the market, it is only natural that such firms would be looking for a working solution to increase profitability. And one the ways that has attracted a lot of attention these days is through the use of IT sales leads. Such leads are a necessary component of a company’s special operations. to begin with, there are many cases in which due to these assets, a company has been able to adjust quite well to the changes in their markets. another thing that makes such business leads so popular for IT firms is the ease in gaining. There’s no doubt that two of the most popular strategies in accomplishing that are by the use of IT lead generation and IT appointment setting services. Both strategies are able to produce leads due to the efficiency of their medium, which is IT telemarketing.
IT lead generation plays a crucial role in the over-all marketing plans of an IT firm. By way of this method, theses firms are able to generate high quality IT leads of enough quantities to merit working on. Information is crucial for a firm’s effective adaptation during times of market changes and decline. This is big thanks to the IT sales leads generated by IT lead generation services, companies have better access to relevant information. they can use the information obtained to gain their market’s attention, increase the interests of their customers for the products and services offered, propagate the desire to make a purchase, and, if the company is skilled enough, direct the customer to actually buy. all this can be made possible, thanks to the quality of IT sales leads produced. That’s why IT lead generation service is very important for firms.
Another aspect of IT lead generation that also merits the attention of entrepreneurs is with regards to IT appointment setting services. An offshoot of lead generation, IT appointment setting rests on the principle that getting leads is not enough. For a company to really benefit from the sales leads they obtain, they must also be able to meet with their prospective clients, face-to-face. Such arrangement may seem odd for a company that targets individual consumers, but it does make sense if the prospects being persuaded are actually other firms. IT appointment setting services can support a company by connecting them with the right people,, making sure that both the firm and the prospective customer are compatible to each other, and then going ahead with setting an appointment. Through this method, promoting a company gets easier.
It would be a wise investment for a company to use IT lead generation and IT appointment services to augment their operations. Both methods are very effective in increasing their popularity.
16 Feb 12 Survey: Sam's Club, Publix top in customer experience
WABAN, MASS. — Research results released Tuesday by Temkin Group, which rates the customer experience of 206 large companies across 18 industries, showed that only eight companies deliver excellent customer experience.
Sam’s Club and Publix led the pack, followed by Starbucks, Subway, Chick-fil-A, Aldi, Winn-Dixie, H-E-B and credit unions.
According to the 2012 Temkin Experience Ratings, in its second year, 76 companies (37% of the total) earned "poor" or "very poor" ratings.
The research examines customer experience across 18 industries: airlines, appliance makers, auto dealers, banks, car rental agencies, computer makers, credit card issuers, fast-food chains, grocery chains, health plans, hotel chains, insurance carriers, Internet service providers, investment firms, parcel delivery services, retailers, TV service providers and wireless carriers.
Grocery chains, fast-food chains and retailers are the top three industries, earning an average rating of "good." At the bottom of the ratings, TV service providers, Internet service providers, and health plans earn an average rating of "poor." Health plans show up in seven of the bottom 14 spots in the ratings.
"while many companies aren’t delivering experiences that meet customers’ needs, it’s an epidemic for TV service providers, Internet service providers, and health plans," said Bruce Temkin, author of the report and managing partner of Temkin Group.
The research by Temkin Group also analyzed the changes in ratings between 2011 and 2012.
12 Feb 12 Prospects for Phl BPO Industry Still “Very Positive” – British Outsourcing Experts
7 February 2012 – the prospects for the Philippine business process outsourcing (BPO) industry remained “very positive”, according to two top representatives of the British-Philippines Outsourcing Council (BPOC).
BPOC Board Members Ian McGowan and Richard Patterson, who made a courtesy call on Philippine Ambassador to the United Kingdom Enrique Manalo at the Embassy on February 2, said that while most BPO clients served from the Philippines were American, there has been a “noticeable increase in interest” from British, Australian and Asian firms wanting “extraordinarily high skill sets and competitive pricing.”
The two industry experts said that outsourcing was “not bad” for developed economies, such as the United Kingdom, emphasizing that companies outsource to the Philippines “in order to compete globally and be successful.”
They offered the view that, based on their extensive experience with various British companies with BPO services in the Philippines, “for every job created in the Philippines several more jobs are created in Britain.”
For his part, Ambassador Manalo expressed support for BPOC’s efforts to promote the Philippines as an investment destination.
“The Embassy, as part of its economic diplomacy program, will continue to work with organizations such as BPOC to actively showcase the Philippines as a prime, value-for-money business location. the BPO industry is one of the country’s leading lights, especially here in Britain where the Philippines has been regularly adjudged best Offshoring Destination thrice over the past few years. BPOC will be an important partner in developing a bigger market in this country”, Ambassador Manalo remarked.
BPOC, a non-profit, independent organization based in London, was established in 2009 to promote the Philippines as a BPO destination to British businesses. Membership is open to all companies with a base in the United Kingdom who either operate outsourcing services in the Philippines, outsource work to the Philippines or provide advisory services to the outsourcing or buyer communities. its website is at bpoc.uk.com
Latest estimates by the Business Process Outsourcing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) show that the BPO industry grew by 22 percent to USD 10.9 billion in 2011, employing 640,000 people. by 2016, it is forecasted to grow to 1.3 million workers generating some USD 25.0 Billion in export revenues. END
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