HPalm - A good move by HP

The buying of Palm by HP gives HP an opportunity to move into the mobile business. Everybody knows Palm's WebOs is great but the problem was the handset, with a not so great design. With HP's financial wherewithal, Palm can become a fancy item like iphone. If HP can port this WebOs to it's netbooks and iPad like devices, and create a good market place for apps based on its WebOs, then we have a solid winner.

So things to do for HP to make it a success:
1) Make the palm handset elegant and not look like gravel.
2) Leverage the webOs and use it in netbooks, iPad and even its printers!
3) Create a vibrant marketplace for Palm.

Now that HP has made its move, it seems it is going to hurt Microsoft the most. HP being one of the biggest Windows user, webOs will cut into windows market in mobile and netbooks.

Spain's presentation to secure its credit line!!

Kingdom of Spain Economic Policy and 2010

John Paulson funds' returns from NYT

With John Paulson in news almost everyday, if you are wondering what were his real returns during 2008. Here it is.

Paulson

El Asira : How to reach an impenetrable market?

You know that there is a customer need but you can't cater to it as it is too tricky and there is an important hurdle. This is the biggest hurdle you can ever think, "The religion". But that is exactly what a Dutch company called El Asira has achieved. The company provides sex devices(currently restricted to perfumes, gels and lotions) mainly for Muslim population. Now one has to understand the gravity of the situation. Sharia law has lot of restrictions when it comes to sex and the consequences of going against it will be catastrophic. In spite of the difficulties, El Asira has successfully launched an online shop to sell sex devices without violating any sharia laws. The website has been developed with a lot of thought into it not to make any obvious mistakes to hurt its customers' beliefs. 

Their website says "We have opted for a respectful approach with respect to Muslims and non-Muslims and establish us within the Muslim community" (translation from dutch). Currently they mainly sell enhancement pills and gels. Their problems are multiple fold - They not only have to be careful about their product offerings but also about the marketing material. But the same problems also provide an unique opportunity as Winston Churchil said "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty"

El Asira was launched in January 2010 and it lasting success is yet to be seen. But if it becomes a success, they have a great competitive advantage in a niche market.

This is an exemplary situation of how to reach an impenetrable market with clever positioning and product offering.

Facebook : Adaptability in a Startup

Facebook that started as a normal social network to connect with friends has grown into a whole different animal now!

Facebook shows the importance of "Adaptability" for a start-up to be successful in the internet field, where continuous innovation and improvement is of utmost importance.

Facebook has now evolved more than just a place to connect with friend. It has become an online gaming platform, a news aggregator, micro-blogging tool, online marketing tool and social network all in one. This has created multiple revenue drivers for facebook unlike myspace which was unable to leverage its online traffic for a longtime until facebook showed how.

The key to facebook's success was that it judged customer's needs and provided an elegant way to share each other's activities and thoughts, which became the core value on which everything else was built.

After creating a solid social network, it was not complacent with just ad revenues but rather took lessons from iphone soon and created a platform for third party applications. These third party applications has now opened up a million opportunities and create wealth not only for the app developers but also to facebook.

Facebook is a great example how to succeed as startup, that shows the importance of adaptability and innovation in the web2.0 age.