Google entering in a new Music market?

Google will launch this year a service for downloading songs related to its search engine, which will be followed in 2011 by a music service subscription. Lo scrive il Wall Street Journal , che cita fonti a conoscenza delle trattative l'azienda di Mountain View e le case discografiche. Writes the Wall Street Journal , citing sources familiar with the negotiations the company in Mountain View and record companies. The contours of the project are still vague, the newspaper said, but in programs Google would offer music on the Web and mobile phones using the Android operating system.

An entry in straight leg - after the agreement last year with sites like iLike and Pandora - the playground of Apple and its iTunes, increasing the direct rivalry between the two companies, which began with the landing of its Big G Market smartphone. Offensive e controffensive che vanno dalla pubblicità digitale (il lancio di iAd da parte della Mela) ai sistemi operativi (Android, appunto, e il futuro Chrome per pc). Ranging from counter-offensive and digital advertising (IAD launch by Apple) operating systems (Android, of course, Chrome and the future for PC).

The news comes the day of the launch of the new OS for iPhone, renamed IOS, version 4. E due giorni prima dall'arrivo negli Stati Uniti del nuovo Melafonino , che secondo indiscrezioni del sito AppleInsider potrebbe essere anticipato già a domani (ed Engadget lo ha fotografato già nei negozi, vedi a fianco).Intanto Apple ha di che festeggiare, comunque: in 80 giorni sono già stati venduti 3 milioni di iPad. And two days before the United States new iPhone by which, according to gossip site AppleInsider may be anticipated already tomorrow (and Engadget has already photographed in stores, on the right). Meanwhile, Apple has much to celebrate, however: in 80 days have already sold 3 million iPad.

http://vitadigitale.corriere.it/2010/06/google_entra_nel_campo_della_m.html

Casa del Libro Q&A

1. What would be your decision? Would you stick to the previously developed UNIX platform, or switch to the new Microsoft one? Please feel free to make any rational assumptions you might need in order to reach a decision.

I think that the project is a the point of no return. Either we go or we quit, right now no midway solutions. So between redesigning it from scratch or go for it with initial features, I would not invert my path and continue. Finding out some places where to cut costs. The idea is good and there are strong premises. I do believe it feasible in a 2010 situation.
Back to 2001 with the bubble I would stop the project if not completely agreed with AOL and Planeta to continue the investment.


2. Which are the most relevant criteria for you to make the decision? Just name each criterion, and explain it very briefly.

New Implementation Risk of the new system. New problems may arise.
New Cost, althougt small is something new.
Sunk Investment of the first implementation if we drop it.
Number of transactions. Is really the new cheap system been able to sustain such probable hig number of transactions?
Good Idea. The book online store with so much titles is a very good idea and despite hard time management should not kill it.

Tesco Case: a succesful IT Story

Every Little Helps!


This case shows a successful story about a former tiny grocery stores and it can become a worldwide group with +60M£ of year sales and how this "miracle" could be possible with a new strategic decision made through a new IT and technology implementation.

Started in 1919 to sell groceries from a market stall in the East End of London, the company opened more and more stores following its motto "Pile it high, sell it cheap" aiming for volume of sales. Growing with some important milestones, 100 stores by the IIWW or the first self-service market in 1960, the Tesco in 1995 developed the concept of a fidelity card: the Clubcard.

Looking it as a way to reward loyal consumers they develop something more and more powerful, also it was the Uk's first loyalty program and the competitive advantage to competitors was still to discover.

"The customer who shopped frequently and purchased more as points accumulated for every £5 that he or she spent after a minimum spend of £10. The points were converted quarterly into Clubcard vouchers, which then could be redeemed within Tesco stores."

But apart the loyalty program, this card gave the company a tremendous flow of information that could be used for any market research, segmentation and positioning of products, response to campaign and many more other analysis of the consumers’ behavior.

As an example: " Tesco realized that both pensioners and students, who often made frequent purchases, were not benefiting from the scheme, as their purchases did not always exceed the £10 threshold required to qualify for points. The scheme was thus adapted to cater to this situation."

What Tesco set up was a close brother of an Customer Relation Management system, in order to get competitive advantage to market contenders, and although they followed Tesco program the first move gave the biggest advantage.


Finally although the Clubcard is dated 1995,but with some major changes, is still the main competitive advantage that the Tesco group has, as number of a continuous growth show:
Growth on 2009 Year to Year: 6.8%
Last 5 Years Sales: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Group sales (£m) 43,137 46,611 51,773 59,426 62,537

to ERP or not to ERP

Should companies adapt to ERPs or vice versa?

I have tiny back ground of Implementation projects, as an Education consultants I was part of big project teams working together with IT guys struggling on bizarre customizations that the customer had set up during decades of unregulated process. It was a mess, always.

The rare easy and troubles experiences were the ones based on tiny companies which adapted them self to our product (by the way a PLM product lifecycle management system that can be the side wing of an ERP towards the manufacturing dept.).

But although my IT colleagues were happy to work on such easy projects as was easy for them to plan ahead their upcoming days. There is a lot of uncertainty on big and heavily customized projects, as a system failure or unexpected bug can enlarge the implementation timeline.
Sales and project manager, from the their point of view, are aiming to high structured projects as the staffing required and hence revenues coming from those is definitely higher.

So usually projects are big and the degree of customization offered to the customer is always very large to the limit of the possible, in the never ending fight between technical and
sales team.

In this Scenario I believe that are the companies them self that have to constrain them self, looking towards simplicity and future up scalability of the IT systems, cutting out and redefining those "not-core" and not differentiating process. For their and the implementation success.

www.ptc.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_lifecycle_management

Next topic: Dell Hell

Dell = Hell?
I don’t believe so, as I’m writing on my brand new Dell Studio. As it is a jewel of the state-of-the- art of technology and I’m very happy about it. And it’s my 3rd Dell I have bought in my life of computer user.

What should Dell have done to contrast the Dell=Hell blogging turmoil?

Maybe just make all the good stories with very positive experience as mine bob up and contrast that huge but still minorities voice of Dell Laptop’s problem. Something like this, I think would work.
And good media, blogs coverage that you have resolved all of the user problems.

Anyway I didn't liked at all the foul language that Mr. Jervis used on his blog. It isn't fair and I do believe he's at the border to be suited.

http://www.buzzmachine.com/
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2005/09/inside_dell_hell.html
http://dellhell.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Jarvis

Facebook session

Facebook! Nice one, as I'm in facebook since several years.

My experience is really positive but I needed during those years to manage a bit my privacy.
First my name is cropped: just Ste Capi. As i don't like to be find. Second I created a private list, where I put not strict contacts, but that you can't avoid accepting their friendship request. The ones in such private list can't see my picture and video.
I feel the need to build a wall between work and friends environment.
In such way Facebook can really work and be just a pleasure, and I check FB every day.
As privacy is a main issue to its future Facebook has to make it simpler and short. As it now isn't.

I do believe that for its future Privacy is the main issue on the social network Facebook.
From the other hand its main revenue its coming from selling and using these data to companies.
So the right balance between these two aspects will be crucial for its future.
At the end we are selling data for having for free this amazing free social network.
And the price should be fair.

Stats counter after 1st week

After one week of usage here is the StatCounter user graph:

Thursady peek definetly refers to when i published it on my Facebook page, others refers to the Informative Systems class. Nice and interesting!

I have been growing with Windows, from Windows 3.1, which I had on my first personal computer back in the '93. To me it meant the computer itself. And didn't even know what the Microsoft Corporation was. Windows was the name and the logo, and Internet Explorer, Word and Excel elements of it, part of my PC.
Growing, I followed all the new release of this OS, rather buying it, till I have started buying laptop in which those software are sold in a bundle. I didn't gave to MSFT a lot of money compared to +17years of heavy usage.
As me many of my friends acted. On eMule I always found what i was looking for, each new Software releases was and is at my disposal just days after the launch. I have also tried Ubuntu 9.10 as a OS and found it interesting, but not so simple. I have read very good thing on the release 10, more user friendly. That is the Windows strong point.
So even with the Windows Genuine Advantage i don’t think the normal user’s market will be so profitable for the Corporation. Microsoft Windows for Corporate for sure is different, it has been profitable.

Maybe Office is different. I will later on my career be able to pay for the Office Packet, which competitors like Open office are not ready to substitute in my dream software’s portfolio, so far. Office it’s a must, but still its costs over 200€, too much for a student paying for it.
I’m nicely using right now Office 2010 in Beta release for free, and I’m very happy about it. It has all the good things that the 2007 propose, plus something new like outlook aligned graphically to others software.

I think that the main market and profit for Microsoft will come on the Office Packet, but I haven’t done any research as Prof Dans said. We’ll see if tomorrow I will change my mind.

Settled! Now let's work on 4Square

Thoughts on 4Square business Model:

Found really interesting a comment posted last 5 Aug from one of the founders, on their business model just a couple of months after their launch , it's exactly what I admire of their idea:

"There are a ton of branding and marketing opportunities and we’re approached by people all the time — sponsored badges, sponsored mayorships, etc.,” Crowley told me. “What [co-founder] Naveen [Selvadurai] and I feel really good about is building two things at once — things that make it easier/more fun for our users explore the city (tips, finding friends, badges) and things that make it easier for venues to reach out to their most loyal/vocal/early-adopter users. For example, it would cost $5 for a restaurant to give my brother a free dessert for being mayor, but with Foursquare linked to Twitter (read word-of-mouth), that $5 could go a long way towards driving people to that venue. The local ad market has long been underserved — and that means one thing to a lot of companies (e.g., finding nearby doctors and dentists and lawyers and lawn care, etc.) but something different to us (cafes, restaurants, pubs, bars)." link

I believe that the small local grocery store is one of the most valuable hidden spot we must preserve. and they are threatened by all of these Mall and Commercial Centers. I hate that.
In my home city, there you can find the most precious, traditional, home made raw ingredient for our Granmother's recipies. Everything that can help those small niche market to rose, it's welcomed here.
4 Square is a good way for this. You can get and share information of really good products sold somewhere in your city, and on the other hand the little unknow store has a powerful tool to really unveil the quality of their goods, service, rarities.

And the fidelity part driven by all the badge, mayors, titles that you can obtain is a fantastic way to boost the application and their benefit to the next level, encouraging the usage of 4Sq.

If you have to pay for these services with a small amount of time and a bit of privacy, i may say quoting Machiavelli that " il fine giustifica i mezzi (The end justifies the means)"

Here we go!

Happy day !

4 days to go...
Some emotions are coming...
And some last days's problems too.

Fortunately here at IE we are keep well occupied by professors...

Ah at least i found i'm not the only one.
Congrats Abdul Rifai

8 Days... tonight i will fly to Rome to have my try in church...
probably will be the first stronmg emotion...

concerning the Informative systems hope you can translate this article from italian Newspaper,
I explain an research where internet is prooved to make us more angry. check it out.

http://www.corriere.it/cronache/10_maggio_07/rodota_ba45d082-59b3-11df-8cbf-00144f02aabe.shtml

Really nice days

Here translated with google Translate: here

Ok short premise:
Next upcoming 15th of May i will get married. Most of you already know that.
But this amazing first days here an the Imba are not making me think about that, at all.
I don't understand if is a good or bad thing.
I spent 2 month organizing it, so almost everything should be fine, but i'm not worried at all.
My future wife is in Rome organizing the very last things and she's getting mad.

seems that I'm a lucky guy.

10 days to go...
Happy days.

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Idea arrived!

My Wedding! 11 days to go...