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Social media on finger tips- literally!
Be it iPhone, android phone, symbian or tablets this jaw dropping number clearly reflects as to which activity people of all age groups highly indulge in: going through all the updates from their known friends tops the activity list.84.6% avid social networkers keep a constant check on what their friends or foes are up to in their online and offline lives every second day. With information flying so fast due to new enabled phones, poor desktops await their turn to be put to use regularly like in the past years.

The second activity in which almost 73.6% people participate religiously is posting constantly changing status updates, switching profile pictures or posting comments or reading blogs. In comparison to last year, the total number of people clinging to social networks via their personal devices is on a steep rise with no signs of waning in the near future too. The hike seen is a startling 77%.

Interesting to note
Quite obviously, this growth can be directly related to the purchase of new age smart phones. The top applications to be explored to the hilt starts with Facebook network on both iOS( I phone, iPad etc) as well as android followed by Twitter that surprisingly ranks way lower than Facebook. To add a twist to the opinion most minds must have concluded on, is that it is not the mobile social networking feature that is behind the spurt seen in the number of people opting for a smart phone. Surprisingly, the ability to get to know everything anytime anywhere was quite below in the list of factors that affect a buyer’s decision. Here, no.1 is not the addiction for social media but the quality of network a particular mobile service provider offers along with the running system installed in it.

It’s confirmed that people have started to love their online presence quite a lot and this dedication is here only to get deeper. Don’t be surprised if you see somebody brushing their teeth and checking their web updates together.

Blackberry has yet again managed to be better in terms of the sales with its fiercest competitor Apple Inc but the point to be noted is- only by the skin of its teeth. It can be easily said that the advantage that is getting them the edge lies in the home soil. With 32.6 per cent market share it is leading the smart phone commercialization, followed very closely by the giant Apple from the United States with 31.2 per cent. These statistics do sound good to read but it’s an alarm more than a wakeup call for the Canadian smart phone manufacturer to start reviving their strategies in order to broaden the lead or else it should be prepared to lose the top spot.
The competitors to tackle
Beyond the Canadian borders, top slot of popular smart phones has slipped out of RIM’s grip a long time back mainly from the US followed by United Kingdom. The bad news continues as even in countries like France, Italy and Spain, Blackberry failed to make way into the top three. Foray of the i phone is not the only woe that can threaten to erode Blackberry’s strong presence in their home country, there are other smart phone makers who are taking full advantage of the popular android operating system, Samsung being one of them who has tried its best to seep into the Canadian market by launching several sleek models over the past one year. An interesting point to note is that google’s operating system has posted 11 percent of the total market share in the last 3 months.

This certainly is not very good news for RIM as it directly implies that it will have another competitor to deal with in the near future.

Popularity on a decline
Even though there still exist companies who continue using Blackberry as Research in Motion Ltd (RIM) furnishes the best security features for corporate data, this loyalty is fast receding according to analyst experts.

A new lease of life
Experts suggest leveraging the current loyal customer base and keeping the momentum going by providing more and more innovative solution to strengthen its position. The only lifeboat in sight for the steadily drowning Canadian company is its proposed switch to the new QNS operating system by next year. What should be kept in mind is that new changes keep the consumers as well as the vendors on their toes. A “bold” action in terms of strategies and leadership is the need of the hour.

The company stated they went full monty making the most of the holiday season by a belligerent promotions across the nation.  Dave wireless, a lesser known name of Mobilicity, gave the figures of a staggering 63000 customers on boarding their wireless services. Market analysts are in no dilemma that Mobilicity surpassed the entire math’s that was done to predict the company’s performance by them. Having this in light, Mobilicity has still kept the number of total customers with them at the year end under wraps as of now.

Rivals -Wind Mobile and Public Mobile who have the year end number for customers as 408000 and 199000 respectively need to make a recipe to fight Mobilicity which has reached the rampant number of 250000 since its start in May 2010. Some market experts are even anticipating the number to have crossed 300,000 mark. The pace at which the company has progressed is commendable. It won’t be wrong to say that the service that they are providing has managed to click well with the Canadian subscribers.

Stewart Lyons, the chief operating officer of the firm said, holiday season promotions did a world of good for them but the fact also remains that Mobilicity tends to get on board more subscribers than its peers in non-promotional periods. He didn’t fail to add that they had a very impressive Q4 for Mobilicity. What more? He also flashed the ARPU of their subscriber pool to be averaged at $30 for the whole year. This calculation will only throw up an almost 8 digit figure. It’s abuzz since this ARPU was revealed, as the said competitors draw a lesser ARPU than Mobilicity.

2011 turns out to be a very glittering year for this wireless service provider in its 2 years of operations. Targeting the budget conscious with “unlimited call and text plans” mantra seems to have struck the chord for Mobilicity. Reaching this success is one part of this journey, will they be able to sustain the momentum, only time will be able to tell. Till then, well done Mobilicity!

While the former unpopular, now obsolete policy was considered inhumane, the latest one is being spoken of as both progressive and employee friendly. Nowadays, some companies actually offer financial help to workers so as to allow them to choose and bring to office, the gear of their choice rather than the antiquated practice of issuing them the same generic, un-cool hardware. This so called revolution is being backed up by top notch companies who are more than willing to pick up the payment bills of workers personal laptops and smart phones bought for and brought to work.

The ideology behind this generous move
Companies are implementing Bring Your Own Devices to Work policy owing to a few trends which are as follows:

An ‘easy to work in’ employee environment: The whole idea is to create a harmonious working environment for the diligent employees and not to lose the best of the best workers’ zeal to work as laptops, tablets and personal smart phones are the important part of their lifestyle and identity. Bring Your Own Device to Work smart phones and other devices have a better cutting edge so it is basically the organization that both directly and indirectly gets to reap the advantages of up to date features and capabilities. Needless to say that there are some clear cost savings on per person basis going up to a staggering $ 70 a month, a big reason to adopt this revolution. Another lesser known advantage that comes with this move is the care to the gadget that the employee gives, which in turn reflects directly on the employee’s work output

A dicey move to take
A few concerns to keep a note of before deciding on whether to follow Bring Your Own Device policy or not are. If the particular company has many branch offices, then Bring Your Own Device to Work will make utmost sense and would not be a difficult change to follow as the infrastructure being taken care of is already too expensive to support. If satisfaction of the workers is the bosses concern

If a company’s legal and security regulations include signing contracts agreeing that the company has the final authority and if ever need be, even wipe the corporate data in the employees’ personal machine in case an employee is fired or quits or the device being used is misplaced. Companies should have the right to get the data from the employee’s device and to make this possible there should be some ground rules set like a definite usage policy and compliance. This will give some control to the company and is a must. Many in-house softwares are developed by firms which have adapted to this revolution which help to keep the compliance go check and give the visibility that the company needs.

Out and out this revolution is here to stay and will become wires with time.

O.S release was delayed from October to February promising a big pack of updates which will curb all the negative points and add some quality features. It’s finally available on RIM’s website. A very smart native email application, a much needed smarter calendar and an efficient contact list are the few things that impress with OS 2.0. Once you feed in the company that you work for, then leave rest to Playbook which will get you all the news in the world that matters to the company and keep you a step ahead without making any efforts to get the information. The OS 2.0 is a sleeker and not heavy on the system. The native email system is totally re-designed for the social media updates and feeds. The format of representing this is much more appealing than the previous instance. It also boosts predictive text for email which is a huge relief for maximum people using Playbook.

The BlackBerry Bridge app has updated itself to gel with this new version of OS, what this app does is that it enables users to use their Blackberry as remote controls for their Playbooks and work onto the larger, touch screen media using their Blackberry’s buttons. Another thing to notice is that this version supports the applications from the rival Android technology; this feature is not a rage among the developers who have not polished their app for Playbook. Enterprise email support needs the local IT approval.

A small issue that was reported while syncing Gmail was that it was not quick enough to get registered, there is a lag of around 30 minutes, post that all is well with it.

All said and done, Playbook is not popular as compared to its peers in Apple’s iPad, Kindle Fire or cheap Samsung tablets. Until now Playbook had lacked many of the critical features which made it stand far behind the line. Analysts report that RIM has made a huge loss in the last year and was forced to drop to a level to lessen its inventory by selling the Playbook at much cheaper price. We hope with its new lethal “revampment” Playbook will soar to new heights.

These updates are free and are available at RIM’s website. The Playbook can also be directly updated with wireless connection downloading the same. This loaded package is already a hit with its handful of customers lining up to get their playbooks updated and enjoy the same features that this OS promises to bring along. Go get your new OS 2.0 and fall in love with it!

Scot Adams, the CIO and Senior Vice President of this realty giant based out of Toronto, vouches on the affordability of applications running on cloud-computing. With their potent networks, software giants like Google Inc., IBM and Microsoft Corp. provide trouble-free manageability of IT infrastructure at a reasonable price.

There are so many good players in the market for cloud-based computing, that it makes it very difficult for a company like Cadillac Fairview to zero in on one. Mr. Adams agrees that their choice fairly depends on who provides the finest service at the lowest price.

Giving up their email management to Google Inc. has saved a lot of expense for Cadillac Fairview. The CIO said that in addition to an excellent service Google Inc. gives them oodles of more storage for a few extra bucks.

Their colossal property business is also considering cloud-based applications of Salesforce.com to do away with the need for internal servers and CRM setup. But they will go forward with the proposal only if expense management deems it feasible.

The government in Canada is still apprehensive about the security and privacy offered under cloud-computing. Canada has very stringent data protection and privacy laws. The Canadian government has still to frame concise and unambiguous policies related to cloud-computing. This will be a very crucial move for a huge number of companies to decide upon the adoption of this technology.

The president of another corporate giant E-com Canada Inc., Mr. Sri Prakash says that reducing costs and putting that money to use for much needed value-added services is propelling companies to adopt cloud-computing.  This risk management company is based in Toronto and Mr. Prakash finds this technology just amazing for the business world. However, he says that once the government lays down more concise rules regarding cloud-computing, more companies will look forward to adopting it.

Enomaly is another company in Toronto which assists other firms in providing cloud-based networks. Its CTO Mr. Reuven Cohen opens up about most of their customers being out of Canada. Their clients are mostly from the U.S. and China. He believes that Canada still has a long way to go to match these countries in terms of cloud-computing.

Recently, a huge marketing survey involving 700 private and government-owned businesses was conducted by Leger Marketing. A mere 29% of these confirmed using cloud-based networks. Opposed to this, another poll by Advanced Micro Devices in California in 2011, an astonishing 75% of U.S. organizations were found using or considering using this new technology.

Mr. Sri Prakash advices that it’s extremely vital to give a serious thought about ‘what data is safe to put on the cloud’. Also, he recommends choosing a big vendor to ensure safety. Mr. Prakash is sure that once the guidelines are in place, the Cloud is bound to be more popular among Canada’s enormous number of companies of small-and-medium dimension.

Boom gone bad
Nortel was literally minting money with its booming business in the heavy weight Asian region of China during the 90’s. With it’s multiplying profits from the region the management was all pro China. Little did they realize that there was a snake in the dark? It’s said that the suspected Chinese hackers who plotted this attacked that lasted for almost a decade enjoyed an unshackled access and control over Nortel’s intellectual property. They had ample of time with them and all they were waiting for was to think and understand as to what needs to be taken from the firm’s intellectual properties, which indeed, was a fortune. It’s reported that, vital documents, business expansion plans, development projects and even employee email was a part of this interception being conducted all the way from China. The snake did tighten its grasp and this is regarded as one of the reasons for downfall of the telecom giant. CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) did approach Nortel about this industry espionage, only to be turned downed by the money counting management then.

Threat discovery and the lame action.
The firm discovered about this hacking program that was ongoing for a while, only in 2004, and immediately reported to RCMP. In turn, RCMP did not supply vast resource over this matter against China. The case seems to have purged somewhere in dump as there are no records of charges. Apart from this reporting formality, Nortel hardly did anything impressive from its own security standpoint. Mr. Shields even brought the matter to attention with its senior management but was brushed off. Distinguishing and swift action to halt the disruptions would have saved the firm the position that it is in today.

Drama unfolds
It adds to the inferno; that this was unfolded from the wraps just recently after Prime Minister Stephen Harper returned from his very successful Trade trip to China, after which Huawei struck golden by formally entering the Canadian market with huge deals in network equipments. Huawei is known to have imitated Nortel’s equipment designs and openly copied it instruction manuals!

A lesson to be learnt for the future.
Downfall of such a big company was initially concluded to be due to the acquisition spree that it was in during 1995 – 2003. But with this information out in the open, it is being accepted as a fair contributor to the bankruptcy of the firm. External security advisor believes that cyber attack on Nortel for more than 10 years has an element of a well co-ordinate insider as all the vital information was gathered from one network itself. This also shows how careless Nortel was with its intellectual properties which were flying everywhere; waiting to fall into wrong hands. A lesson to be learnt from, for every company.

Even though iPad has entered the market only two years back, it has proved to be a big hit among all age groups. The popularity of iPad has been remarkable. iPad can help you do everything right from sending simple emails to reading news to playing games. It is reported that many of the consumers bought iPad when it was launched, iPad2 was also bought by many of them, and now they bet, that they will surely purchase the all new iPad 3 when it releases. iPad has become an add-on in the life of all the customers who are using it.

In a survey, it was reported that, the growing rate of tablets in comparison to Smartphone is concluded to be three is to one. And still the number is climbing the ladder. This year also, it is speculated that tablets sales will be rising. Many of the projections display that people who already own one of the iPad will again buy one more tablet from Apple. It is going to increase up to 5% more.

Tablets have achieved that position, which television, radio or car took decades to attain it. It is necessary for society to be conscious about the products and services around them. Tablet is considered to be a personal device unlike car or television which can be used by anyone in the family. Obviously, you won’t let your tablet to be used by anyone and share your personal desktop with others.

iPad has made this generation to be the ME generation. There is PVR that allows you to watch television whenever you wish to. Thus, same goes with the new category. You can say tablet is a consumption of content, but it is the consumption of MY content. It’s said to be a personalized tablet that is also portable. Initially, people had a bad notion about iPad because it is a type of laptop that can’t stand on its own; a kind of iPod that can’t be stuffed into the pocket and lastly you can’t even make calls. So people thought it of no use.

This year, Intel is also going to release their tablet, Ultra book which is super thin and very light but is nothing in comparison of Apple’s Mac. But reports say that Intel’s ultra book can give a great competition to Apple’s iPad.thus, it is said that desktops will also come to end in few years. In many of the educational institutes, teachers have started using iPad as an innovative medium of teaching.

Reportedly, Apple Inc.’s share went up to $503.83 when the trade market opened and the closing price was about $502.60. We can say it is almost a %9.18 or 109 percent increase in the price after it closed on Friday.

There was a race between Apple and Exxon Mobile Corp. as to who will reach the $500 position first. As both the companies were waiting to be listed as the most valuable company in the world since the mid of 2011. But due to the latest rally by Apple Inc., there had been a rise in popularity of the company as compared to the oil company.

The market capitalization of Apple Inc. is $465 billion where as Exxon’s capitalization is $400 billion. Apple posted its net income of about $13.06 billion for the last holiday quarter that came to an end in December on 24^th January, 2012. Sales have a rise in about 73 percent as compared to last year, which came about to $46.3 billion.

Many analysts had already predicated that there has been a great gap in the share price and earnings of Apple. Even before Apple declared these results, analyst had pointed out this gap. Thus, if you compare the stock price and earnings with the common methods of evaluation, the stock has to be a lot more worthy.  The Apple stock also rose up to 22% in this year.

Analysts have given a target share price for Apple as $588 on January 24^th. Also, they say that Apple has a bad policy of keeping its cash rather then dividing it as a payment in the form of dividend which is very bad for the stock. Thus, people stop themselves from investing in companies who refuse to pay dividends.

However, the people who are connected to the company are observing the company and thus expect Apple to cancel this policy and start paying off the profit in the form of dividends in this year. It is reported that the company has been discussing about how to use the cash earned by the company.

This year, Apple is going to have a brilliant year with new releases of new gadgets such as sequels of iPhone and iPad. It is also speculated that the company is also planning to move towards the Television market. This is the most amazing transformation Apple is going through after it reached above the stock price of $500. Apple is climbing up and up, like we can say, it is going higher and higher in 11 days out of 14 days.