Amazon: Armed to Beat the Recession

One of the new features released by Amazon allows users to take pictures of items they want to buy with their phones and store them in an online shopping cart until they wish to purchase them from amazon.com, usually for cheaper than a normal bookstore. This application was designed for Apple’s iPhone and allows people to view customer reviews and prices for items through their mobile phones. This new invention is very important for amazon because it allows users to instantly see if they can get the item for cheaper on amazon.com just by taking a picture. One of the reasons that Amazon is so far ahead of the game when it comes to technology is because of the amount of money they spend on research and development. Over the past 5 years they have spent over 4 billion, which is far more than their competitors. For example, over that time span one of their largest competitors when it comes to online shopping, eBay, spent only 2.7 billion on research and development. They have also come out with several other new ways to shop online. They have a new browser widget which allows users to create a wish list from items they see anywhere on the web and retrieve the list at amazon.com. Their new feature coming out for the holiday season is called “Windowshop View” and allows users to view items in a 3-D format, as if they are in a toy store. These new applications are meant to help out Amazon’s bottom line in the long run. With the economy how it is they are not expecting any big gains in the near future.
Although Amazon.com is still the most popular place of shopping during the holiday season, many other normal stores are making big gains. Stores such as Target, Wal-Mart, and Sears are all gaining on Amazon according to polls taken of holiday shoppers. Wal-Mart.com is one of the biggest online competitors because of their ability to offer products that no one else has due to their close relationships with suppliers. For example, Walmart.com was able to sell thousands of Nintendo Wii’s online because of their relationship with Nintendo while Amazon.com was already sold out. Many online stores are likely to fail during the economic recession and therefore Amazon may be in a better position when it ends. Their decision to spend a large amount of money on research and development has benefited Amazon and given them a competitive advantage over other companies.

Business Week. Amazon: Armed to Beat the Recession. Douglas MacMillan

Microsoft vs Google

The article in Business Week is about the battle going on between Microsoft and Google. These giant companies are able to build the systems to manage the data of many companies. Google has recently been hyping its ability to through software being run over the internet. This is what has become known as “cloud computing”. In response to this Microsoft is starting a project to build 20 supersize data centers. Each of these centers can cost up to 1 billion dollars. They are also creating a new operating system that will allow users to run it over the internet. They are also upgrading their corporate email software and Microsoft Office applications so that they can also be run over the internet. This change is due to the popularity that cloud computing is gaining. With companies such as Google already so far ahead Microsoft has some catching up to do.
Microsoft’s plan for building the giant data centers is long in the works. Prior to this Microsoft depended on other companies to manage their data. But when they acquired Debra Chraptay, a former chief technology officer, they decided to start the start doing it themselves. In order to accomplish this they started to bring in people from companies such as Intel and Hewlett-Packard. One of the major problems that can arise from managing data like this is the cost of energy. That is why when Microsoft opened a plant in rural Washington to use the cheap energy created from a dam nearby, Google followed and soon also opened a plant nearby. Most of Microsoft’s new data centers are juge, open buildings that are filled with serves. The data center is 700,000 square feet. The first floor of the center can hold 224 containers and each container can hold 2,500 servers. Therefore the first floor can hold 560,000 servers. The reason Microsoft set the data center up in this way is because they believed it would save time and money. This is due to the time it takes to open server boxes and connect the servers. This way they can just bring it each container with 2,500 servers and set it up in a few days. It is also easier to cool these servers because they can cool each container individually rather than have to cool the entire building. The goals of these changes are to be able to run the data center with half as many employees as would previously be needed and to cut heating costs by one third.
Microsoft is taking a different approach at data centers. Google generally remains secretive about its data centers while Microsoft is being open and collaborating with other companies in trying to drive innovation and technology forward. They are openly sharing details about their plans with other companies. Overall, the battle over data centers has driven both Microsoft and Google to innovate and drive the field of technology forward.
Business Week. “Microsoft to Google: Get Off my Cloud.” Peter Burrows.

Energetica de Minas Gerais to Use New GPS Tracking System

With over 17,000,000 customers spread across 516,000 sq. kl it is easy to see why efficiency is very important to the South American electricity company. Recently the company contacted a design company in California, Radio Satellite Integrators, Inc, and asked them to design a cost effective GPS system that the company could use to track their vehicles and hopefully save operating costs by better allocating its recourses. Radio Satellite Integrators was able to design that worked based off of the outdated radio system that the company’s trucks already had installed. Because they were able to do this, the cost for the system was drastically lower then it would have been other wise.
This new technology will benefit Energetica de Minas Gerais, because it will give them a better edge over their competitors in allocating their personal to the clients that need them. The company will now be able to know down to a matter of feet where all its employees are at any given time, and that makes for much easier and more convenient scheduling.
This article was very interesting because it not only gave the IT development on the side of the electricity company, but it also spoke of the California based company that designed the system. Because Energetica de Minas Gerais knew exactly what it was looking for in a new system, it was able to find the appropriate people, and tailor the system to the company’s needs. The system was then able to be implemented over the scale of land that the electricity company provides electricity too, and has already been put into 4,000 of the company’s 20,000 cars. The company admits that it is too early to know if the system will really cut costs as it expects, but early indications are looking good.

Written By Brian Tanner:
Source: http://www.allbusiness.com/operations/shipping/131302-1.html

Dell going Green

As our entire world is beginning to realize, we must do something about the increasing effects of global warming. In the last five years thousands of governments, companies, and organizations have begun this quest to reduce the effects of global warming on our planet. The latest company to join in the PC power house Dell. Dell plans to go green by greatly reducing unnecessary packing materials in there desktops and laptops. They plan to reduce the materials by ten percent in the next four years. Doing this will actual save Dell 8 million dollars. Dell has been generating such ideas by paying special attention too customer feedback. The company was able to read costumers blogs who complained about how small memory sticks were shipped in huge boxes. Dell saw this an was inspired to make to change. The company stressed that its long time CEO Mike Dell takes personal pride in such things that will have an environmental impact. Another instance came after a group of Dell employees had finished installing several thousand new servers for a company. After the installation the crew was left with a mountain like pile of boxes. The crew was sharing a few six packs with representatives of the company when they pondered why not package servers like beer bottles. This revelation led Dell to try this strategy out. Its outcome was a success. The new method greatly reduced the set up time and left costumers with fewer boxes.
Reasons like these are key as to why Dell was rated one the top 50 most innovative companies in Business Week. It is clear that IT technology was essential to obtaining such a prestigious award. Dell used IT to allow customers to blog on their website in order to give critical feedback. This led the company to reexamine itself and the way it operates. Ultimately the IT technology led to Dell changing unnecessary expensive packaging costs. It is certain for years to come that Dell will continue implore IT technology in order to connect with costumers and enhance there business.



Business Week

Advertisers Face Hurdles on Social Networking Sites

Advertisers Face Hurdles on Social Networking Sites

Marketing in today’s world is a relentless, and often tiresome reality.  Everywhere you go you see “brand.”  Let’s start in the morning.  You wake up to the sound of you Sony alarm clock, and you get in the shower to use your Dove products.  When you get out of the shower, you get into your Ralph Lauren suit, tie your Armani tie, and pour yourself a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee from your Cuisinart coffee machine.  All of these items display the brand name and brand image for you and the rest of the world so by the end of the day, these companies should be paying you to be a walking advertisement.  There isn’t anything wrong with this, but it is just the name of the game. 

 

But the effects of these advertisements dull over time.  None of these things have the same flash they had when they were new, and therein is the challenge for the marketer.  How do marketers penetrate the market with their brand identity or make the market aware of a new product?  They have made every experience throughout the day a brand experience, and the World Wide Web is not safe from that monster.  Banner ads, in text ads, and other kinds of online ads have been around for quite some time, but sometimes people might just luck into that advertising.  How do you reach exactly the right market segment with exactly the right product?  What kind of website would have a database that easily defined?  The answer is simple.  Social Networking sites.

 

The Social Networking Site, at face value, appears to be the greatest gift to marketers.  Let’s look specifically at Facebook.  Users give a large amount of information about themselves: Age, location, race, religious views, hobbies, and so on.  This is the easiest market segmentation ever devised.  You can search for any characteristic or any combination of characteristics. 

 

What’s better is the amount of time people spend on these social networking sites.  People spend many hours a week checking facebook by looking at pictures, reading wall posts, sending stickers, or just stalking people.  This is a captive audience.  This should be a marketers dream!

 

Apparently not.  Many advertisers feel that people ignore the advertising that shows up on their Facebook homepage.  According to the New York Times article, “Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Social Media Networks, an online advertising company, wrote on his Facebook blog that a banner ad ‘is universally disregarded as irrelevant if it’s not ignored entirely.’”  This is something that I can verify.  Every time I go on Facebook, I completely ignore the advertising.  This is a place people want to go spend time experiencing their friends, not a place to have marketing invade. 

 

This is not the best way to get people to turn to your product.  If you want to be successful marketing on these sites, it needs to be catchy and funny.  It needs to be something that members will send to each other to laugh about.  People aren’t going on Facebook to think about what kind of laundry detergent they need, they are going on to look at their friends, and laugh, and comment on pictures.  So what do you advertise?  Probably cameras and beer.  Why?  Because the beer will make people do something worth taking a picture of.

Stross, Randall. "Advertisers Face Hurdles on Social Networking Sites." New York Times. 13 Dec. 2008. New York Times. 15 Dec. 2008 pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=technology>.

UPS Delivery Intercept

UPS has recently implemented a new service called Delivery Intercept that allows customers to stop a package mid shipping process and change its destination with a few simple clicks. Next year when UPS has fully implemented the technology, it will have spent $600 million on the project. This technology is in-part thanks to already existing technology that allows UPS and its customers to track packages instantly. Every UPS deliveryman is equipped with a device that scans packages and relays the information of where they are to a central database that is able to be checked by the customer who sent it.

This new information technology by UPS is great news for businesses using UPS to ship products. Mistakes in shipping can now be corrected for a small cost rather than having to lose precious time and money to entirely reship the product after it reaches the original destination. I think this technology will totally reshape the way businesses transport large scale shipments because it gives them somewhat of a security blanket in shipping and allows them to ship packages without having to hesitate on if the destination is completely confirmed. I think this will allow businesses to ship products faster on average, thus decreasing the overall shipping process time. This increases trust in UPS by both customers receiving products and by businesses shipping products.

This technology is also great for UPS because more large businesses will choose to use UPS for all shipping needs. Being the only shipping company with a service like this allows UPS to stand out among all shipping companies, which I think it points out very effectively in its humorous “white board” commercials. Since most packages that are shipped are from businesses, convincing more businesses to use UPS is a very profitable prospect for UPS. UPS is creating a larger name for itself by its new and innovative information technology.

I believe that there are a few very well known shipping companies such as USPS, FedEx, DHL, and UPS. I feel that in the past it has been hard for one shipping company in particular to stand out from the rest of the group. But now, I feel that UPS stands out among the group as having the most innovative and advanced information technology. This is exactly their goal. UPS is marketing themselves as the shipping company that is the most time and cost effective through its advances in technology. This bodes well for UPS in the large business aspect of the shipping industry.

http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/results/docview/doc

Wal-Mart Launches E-Health Program

Have you ever gone to the doctor and been told to fill out tedious health related forms?  Well, a non-profit enterprise called Dossia has a brilliant solution.  Backed by major corporations like AT&T, Intel, and most importantly Wal-Mart, Dossia is an “employee-driven, digital health records initiative, to help contain health-care costs.”  At the beginning of the year 2009, Wal-Mart employees will no longer have to agonize over searching for their health information upon every doctor’s visit.  Rather, their information will be stored in the company database and accessible by the employee at any time.  With an unstable economy at hand, retailers are looking for any way to cut their costs.  Studies show that 3,000 US corporations’ health-related costs are up nearly 6%; Dossia could not come at a better time! 

Linda M. Dillman, executive vice-president for benefits and risk management for Wal-Mart, stated that these digital records would result in “healthier associates who are more productive.”  The digital records of an employee that the newly designed technology provided by Dossia stores are more accurate and descriptive than the hurried descriptions usually written on doctors’ office forms.  These records will attempt to eliminate the possibility that a patient leaves out any vital information necessary for a doctor to give a proper diagnosis.  This reduction of error on the forms prevents further, more expensive doctors visits down the road and, in turn, keeps the corporations insurance costs to a minimum. 

            Some people argue that it would be unsafe to put all of one’s health related information on one system and that there is a threat that the information could get out.  However, Dossia guarantees patient privacy through the E-health software.  This software retrieves information from the databases of the participating pharmacies and insurers of the employee, then safely stores it in password-protected digital files that only the employee has access to.  This eliminates any risk of an outside party gaining access to the individuals’ personal records while making health care more efficient.  A representative from one of the pioneer corporations in this technological endeavor has stated that the software’s protections derive from “secure systems similar to those used to store bank information.” 

            I think this new development in health related technology will do nothing but benefit the community at large.  Employees will no longer have to spend time filling out forms and/or worry about whether or not vital health information was left out.  The new healthcare information database will also be useful in situations of emergency when a patient is unable to voluntarily give their information and medical history to the attending physicians.  Dossia has provided the world with an E-health system that will alleviate some of the current high costs to corporations while providing more efficient health care to its employees.