viernes, 29 de junio de 2012

¿Qué le pasó a R.I.M. (Research In Motion - "Blackberry")?

Aquí, en abril 30 de 2012, hicimos la misma pregunta, con otra otrora gran compañía: ¿Qué le pasó a Nokia?

Inevitablemente, el comentario es el mismo también:

"Especulaciones:

1. El desplazamiento del centro de gravedad del crecimiento del negocio celular a India-Asia, y a Smart-landia: otros clientes, otros competidores. Sin duda de esto se trata.

2. Siguiente pregunta: ¿No lo previeron? ¡Imposible que no!

3. Siguiente pregunta: ¿No podían hacer mucho? Mmmmmmmm. Ciertamente Samsung y los fabricantes en China no iban a permitir una entrada fácil de RIM en sus territorios. Los operadores locales tenían también todos los incentivos para alinearse con los fabricantes locales.

4. En el otro extremo del mundo (del negocio se entiende), Steve Jobs y Apple deciden entrar y quedarse con todo; redefinen el terminal móvil de "gama alta" en la dimensión insospechada hasta esos momentos por todo fabricante.

5. RIM queda atrapada por una tenaza que aprieta sin compasión. Los consumidores damos la bienvenida a ambos recién llegados. Nada tenemos que reprochar a RIM, ha sido un excelente fabricante hasta ese momento, pero pareciera que ya nunca más será una opción válida.

Entonces, ¿qué le pasó a RIM? Lo mismo que a RCA y a Kodak: no supieron ni tuvieron suficiente voluntad de reinventar sus negocios; apostaron porque aún tenían tiempo para pensarlo, y no lo tenían. Que de aquí nadie saque conclusiones sobre cómo manejar bien un negocio: la única, tal vez, que está entre los oficios de mayor riesgo hoy en día :-)"

Aquí, reporte de la debacle desde Telecom TV: Dead man talking? RIM's death spiral accelerates

Extracto introductorio:

"Blackberry-maker RIM's Q2 results look like the final bleeps on the heart monitor. Revenue has dropped by nearly a half from last year, losses continue and 5,000 more job cuts are on the way.

Perhaps worst of all, RIM just can't seem to pull together its potential saviour - its new operating system BlackBerry 10 (BB 10). That already overdue offering will not now appear until early next year. The company cites problems it's experiencing in integrating new features..."

jueves, 28 de junio de 2012

Este libro es lo más a l u c i n a n t e que haya leído...

...¿Cómo puede alguién llegar a imaginar algo así (una y otra vez)?


Y estas, algunas imágenes al azar (Google images) que inspiró a otros su lectura:





miércoles, 27 de junio de 2012

Google Nexus tablet

Aquí la entrada desde Telecom TV News



Aquí la entrada desde el blog oficial de Google

Extracto introductorio:

"Nexus 7: powerful, portable and designed for Google Play
All of this great Google Play content comes to life on Nexus 7, a powerful new tablet with a vibrant, 7” 1280x800 HD display. The Tegra-3 chipset, with a quad-core CPU and 12-core GPU, makes everything, including games, extremely fast. And best of all, it’s only 340 grams, lighter than most tablets out there. Nexus 7 was built to bring you the best of Google in the palm of your hand. Hang out with up to 10 friends on Google+ using the front-facing camera, browse the web blazingly fast with Chrome and, of course, crank through your emails with Gmail."


Jobs-to-be-done:

Más rápido
Más liviano
Más ...

¡Y nunca había visto a unos ingenieros vendiendo tan bien su creación :-)! (video a continuación)


lunes, 25 de junio de 2012

Evidencias del poder de las fuerzas competitivas, en Colombia, que nos dejan pasmados (II)

Aquí, Armando Montenegro hará cosa de un mes nos ofreció un primer lamparazo sobre el tema.

Aquí, en su columna en El Espectador de ayer 24 de junio, llega el segundo.

Aquí el documento citado en la columna.

J.A. Schumpeter (desde su biografía - 3)

Prophet of innovation. Thomas K. McCraw.

P.163

“Overall, industry-specific innovation “does not follow, but creates expansion.” None of this, Schumpeter adds, can be explained in the usual economist’s terms of equilibrium. Instead, innovation requires continuous disequilibrium –led by entrepreneurs obsessed with what they are doing. Innovation itself is primarily “a feat not of intellect”, but of will… a special case of the social phenomenon of leadership.” The barriers to innovation consist of “the resistances and uncertainties incident to doing what has not been done before.” These difficulties are often immense, and to surmount them “is the function characteristic of the entrepreneur.”

viernes, 22 de junio de 2012

J.A. Schumpeter (desde su biografía - 2)

Prophet of innovation. Thomas K. McCraw.

P.162

"This is very hard to do, Schumpeter concedes. Most successful people, especially once they become wealthy, do no want to continue obsessing over economic growth. They come to abhor the relentless demands of continuous innovation. They want to enjoy themselves and live a better-rounded life. For these reasons, great enterprises typically outgrow the abilities of founding families to sustain a position at the top of their industries. “Mere husbanding of already existing resources, no matter how painstaking, is always characteristic of a declining position.”
Under truly modern forms of capitalism, the task of maintaining a prime position becomes even more difficult. “Industrial leaders must shoulder an often unreasonable burden of current work, which takes up the greater part of each day.” Entrepreneurs need “extraordinary physical and nervous energy.” The best of them can sustain their efforts on a high level only if they have “that special kind of ‘vision’… concentration on business to the exclusion of other interests, cool and hard-headed shrewdness- traits by no means irreconcilable with passion.” And entrepreneurs working in very large corporations must have even more talents. They must know how to “woo support” among their colleagues, “handle men with consummate skill,” and give others ample credit for the organization’s achievements.”

jueves, 21 de junio de 2012

J.A. Schumpeter (desde su biografía - 1)

Prophet of innovation. Thomas K. McCraw.

P.161

“One might think that the sound practices of saving, living frugally, and maintaining the company on a solid foundation would suffice. But Schumpeter argues that any company following these routines –however admirable they seem at first glance- will soon be overtaken by aggressive, risk-taking, competitive entrepreneurs. He is very emphatic on this point: “The introduction of new production methods, the opening up of new markets –indeed, the successful carrying through of new business combinations in general- all these imply risk, trial and error, the overcoming of resistance, factors lacking in the treadmill of routine.” He concludes by saying, “As to the question why this is so, it is answered by the theory of entrepreneurial profit.” Newcomers to the industry will bring fresh ideas, earn much higher profits, and drive incumbents out of business –through the simple device of fixing on economic growth as their sole objective.”

viernes, 8 de junio de 2012

J.A. Schumpeter (again :-)

Tomado del prefacio a la tercera edición en inglés (abril de 1949) de Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy

p.411

"...it has been pointed out that the principle of political democracy -the principle that governments should emerge from competitive struggles for votes- does, to some extent, guarantee freedom of speech and freedom of the Press, but that, for the rest, democracy has nothing to do with “freedoms.” In particular, as regards the “freedoms” with which the economist is concerned, the freedom of investment, the freedom of consumers’ choice, and the freedom of occupational choice, we have now interesting experimental material before us that goes to show that these “freedoms” may be restricted quite as much as, and in some respects more that, socialist governments are likely to require under normal conditions.”

J.A. Schumpeter

miércoles, 6 de junio de 2012

J.A. Schumpeter (muy a propósito de estos convulsionados tiempos)

Tomado del Preface to the Second Edition en Capitalism Socialism and Democracy; los subrayados son míos.

"I thought I had taken every care to make it quite clear that this is not a political book and that I did not wish to advocate anything. Nevertheless, to my amusement, the intention has been imputed to me -and more than once though not, so far as I know, in print- of "advocating foreign collectivism". I mention this fact not for this own sake but in order to notice another objection that lurks behind this one. If I was not advocating collectivism, foreign or domestic, or indeed anything else, why then did I write at all? It is not entirely futile to elaborate inferences from observed facts without arriving at practical recommendations? I was greatly interested whenever I met with this objection -it is much a nice symptom of an attitude that accounts for much in modern life. We always plan too much and always think too little. We resent a call to thinking and hate unfamiliar argument that does not tally with what we already believe or would like to believe. We walk into our future as we walked into the war, blindfolded. Now this is precisely where I wanted to serve the reader. I did want to make him think. And in order to do so it was essential not to divert his attention by discussions about what from any given standpoint "should be done about it" which would have monopolized his interest. Analysis has a distinct task and to this task I wished to keep though I was fully aware of the fact that this resolve would cost me a great deal of the response a few pages of practical conclusions would have evoked.

This, finally, leads to the charge of “defeatism.” I deny entirely that this term is applicable to a piece of analysis. Defeatism denotes a certain psychic state that has meaning only in reference to action. Facts in themselves and inferences from them can never be defeatist or the opposite whatever that might be. The report that a given ship is sinking is not defeatist. Only the spirit in which this report is received can be defeatist: The crew can sit down and drink. But it can also rush to the pumps. If the men merely deny the report though it be carefully substantiated, then they are escapists. Morever, even if my statements of tendencies amounted more definitely to prediction than they were intended to do, they would still not carry defeatist suggestions. What normal man will refuse to defend his life merely because he is quite convinced that sooner or later he will have to die anyhow? This applies to both the groups from which the charge has come: sponsors of private-enterprise society and sponsors of democratic socialism. Both of them stand to gain if they see more clearly that they usually do the nature of the social situation in which it is their fate to act.

Frank presentation of ominous facts was never more necessary than it is today because we seem to have developed escapism into a system of thought. This is my motive as it is my apology for writing the new chapter. The facts and inferences there presented are certainly not pleasant or comfortable. But they are not defeatist. Defeatist is he who, while giving lip service to Christianity and all the other values of our civilization, yet refuses to rise in their defense –no matter whether he accepts their defeat as a foregone conclusion or deludes himself with futile hopes against hope. For this is one of those situations in which optimism is nothing but a form of defection."

Joseph A. Schumpeter
Taconic, Connecticut
July 1946

martes, 5 de junio de 2012

Desde la biografía de J.A. Schumpeter

Tomado del "Álbum" incluído al final en Diez grandes economistas: de Marx a Keynes, de Alianza Ed. 1997

p.31

"Después comenzó a escribir lo que sería Capitalismo, socialismo y democracia, que aparecería en 1942; pero esto no le requirió ni mucho tiempo ni mucho esfuerzo. Este libro sí que fue un éxito inmediato y todavía hoy se vende y se lee. En él sostiene la tesis de la decadencia progresiva del capitalismo porque el progreso técnico destruye los pilares del individualismo, de la meritocracia y de la desigualdad, y sin estos pilares el socialismo tecnocrático ya era una realidad, sin necesidad de revolución."


***

¡El tipo innovador en peligro!