There is a troubling psychology to the business end of the technology and entertainment industries at the moment. Both the electronics and computers (tech) sector and the entertainment industry are manipulating consumers and it is troubling how long their behavior has gone unreported. Read more »
Like so many industries, the consumer electronics sector has a vibrant secondary market. Thanks in no small part to Alpha Consumers frequently upgrading and the consumer culture that fosters the mindset that this year’s new products will be obsolete or uncool by next year, the used electronics market has grown in recent years. Buyers who are more interested in substance than style or who are simply thriftier than their peers can enjoy significant benefits from buying their electronics in gently used condition. One of the biggest sectors in the electronics secondary market is in cell phones and smartphones.
However, just like when you are considering purchasing a used car, there are some good rules to live by when purchasing a used cell phone or used smartphone. Both as a buyer and a seller, you should consider the following:
A few years back, Microsoft had some legal troubles. The U.S. government decided to aggressively pursue the Microsoft Corporation for antitrust violations. This resulted in a restructuring of much of the way Microsoft does business and as Microsoft progresses past that dark chapter in its corporate history, it is once more growing steadily. The results of the government probes and prosecution would have been much worse, had it not been for Mary E. Snapp.
Mary E. Snapp is the Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel in the Law and Corporate Affairs branch of Microsoft. She specializes in providing legal advice for the Products and Services Division of Microsoft. As Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of the vital Products and Services division, Snapp oversees 150 lawyers working to protect Microsoft’s legal claims for some of the most widely-used Microsoft products.
As the United States comes into another election year, political activism is once more on the rise. But for those for whom politics is more than just an every-four-year event, new technologies are making their political activism more effective. One of the relatively new technologies used by activists is the Short Message Service. Among the various Short Message Services, Mobile Commons stands out for its effectiveness.
Mobile Commons is a marketing platform designed for smartphone users. The Internet-based application acts as a social network that allows you to connect your smartphone to the smartphones of all of your friends. Then, when you have an important issue that you need transmitted through your networks, the Mobile Commons application acts as a Short Message Service. As an SMS, Mobile Commons helps transmit both messages – via the phone portion of your smartphone – and text documents to everyone with whom you have a relationship.
The benefit of the Mobile Commons application to political activists is almost self-evident. As soon as you learn of an issue that affects the people in your network, you may inform them all simultaneously using Mobile Commons. But as important, as a leader of a group, you may help guide the group to a specific course of action using Mobile Commons. Using Mobile Commons, you may draft a form letter to your Representative or Senator (or any person you need to get a message to) and send it with your voice message. As a result, within minutes of learning of a bill, news event or other political controversy, you and your entire network can spread the word and tell those people in power exactly what you want them to do!
Mobile Commons is not limited to just political activism in its usefulness as an application. Large families may benefit from using Mobile Commons. For example, if your large family is in the process of becoming even larger, Mobile Commons can be an invaluable tool. You may use Mobile Commons to send everyone in your family network announcements about new births or other vital family events and attach photos of the new baby. Using Mobile Commons, members of your family network may then spread the good news and pictures with people in their lives.
There are many applications that allow networking and sharing, but Mobile Commons puts it together in a very effective, easy-to-use platform that has a proven record of success. That makes Mobile Connect very cool for activists and genuinely social people.
About RESCUECOM:
RESCUECOM provides computer repair and computer support, 24/7: Meeting every tech support need including data recovery, virus removal, networking, wireless services, and computer support for all brands of hardware and software. For computer support or information on products, services, or computer repair, visit https://www.rescuecom.com or call 1-800-RESCUE-PC.
For More Information, Contact:
David Milman, CEO
315-882-1100
david@rescuecom.com
If you spend time going through the corporate biographies of executives in the tech sector, it is very easy to get bored. The story with so many executives is a familiar one: they went to business school, they took a business job, and they became a business leader. Wow, someone started on a career path and they ended up at the end position of their chosen career path! This is a pretty predictable story and one that plagues so many corporate biographies. So, it is the atypical executive who stands out. Gurdeep Singh Pall is just one such executive!
Gurdeep Singh Pall is the Vice President of Information Platform And Experience at the Microsoft Corporation. In that role, Pall developed and promoted the Microsoft Lync system which has made video telecommunication more of a reality than ever before. Pall is responsible for many important aspects of Microsoft’s Bing platform as well, including its research and development and promotion. His real passion seems to be for working on the Bing platform’s speech recognition, mapping and mobile applications.
Part of what makes Gurdeep Singh Pall’s story so interesting is how he ascended to the position of Vice President, Information Platform & Experience. He began at Microsoft as a software engineer, like so many people do. Like visionaries in the field like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates before him, Pall had a vision to solve a complicated computer problem and he helped to design the LAN Manager Remote Access Service. With that heady accomplishment, he moved to the Windows NT development team where he made several valuable contributions to the emerging OS through several of its incarnations. In 1996, Pall was recognized for his achievements in pioneering VPN, the virtual private network.
After that, the software engineer became more of an executive. Microsoft promoted Pall to the general manager of Windows Real-Time Communications and he served as the Vice President of the Office Lync And Speech Group. There, he continued to use his engineering experience as he guided the team to the release of Lync. Pall holds over twenty patents for technology he developed, most of which is in the emerging field of voice over internet protocol. He helped pioneer the computer telecommunications field; when we have actual video phones, no doubt they will be based upon programming Pall developed!
Gurdeep Singh Pall has had an interesting career with Microsoft rising fast in the company because of his innovative ideas and technical acumen. It is hard to imagine what he will come up with next!
About RESCUECOM:
RESCUECOM provides computer repair and computer support, 24/7: Meeting every tech support need including data recovery, virus removal, networking, wireless services, and computer support for all brands of hardware and software. For computer support or information on products, services, or computer repair, visit https://www.rescuecom.com or call 1-800-RESCUE-PC.
For More Information, Contact:
David Milman, CEO
315-882-1100
david@rescuecom.com
The Nielsen Company, the company whose ratings determine which television shows will continue being produced, gathers a wide range of data outside the entertainment industry. One of the growing markets where Nielsen statistics have become increasingly more relevant is the technology sector. Nielsen ratings for electronics, computer services and consumer trends in the technology sector help steer the technology markets. Just as television studios change the course of their programming based on the trends Nielsen television ratings indicate, manufacturers of consumer electronics put a lot of stock in Nielsen ratings for determining their corporate direction.
The Nielsen Company has released its 2011 Third Quarter analysis of operating systems for smartphones. As consumer spending rises in anticipation of the Christmas holiday, this information may be particularly valuable to shoppers.
The statistics collected by the Nielsen Company indicate that the third quarter was very good for smartphones running the Android Operating System. Android-driven smartphones account for 42.8% of the smartphone market share. The next most popular, by sales, operating system was Apple’s iPhone Operating System at 28.3% of the market share. The only other substantial (over 10% market share) smartphone OS was RIM Blackberry’s Operating System with 17.8% of the market share for the third quarter. Four different operating systems split the bottom 11.2% of the smartphone operating system market!
What does this mean for consumers? Consumers spending money on smartphones for the Christmas 2011 holiday may want to consider an option other than a phone driven by Windows Mobile, Palm/HP Web OS, Symbian OS or Windows Phone 7 OS. Those four operating systems may not have anything wrong with their functionality, design or support mechanisms. Because they occupy the bottom of the market share, though, those manufacturers are most likely to re-evaluate their operating systems. Smartphone consumers want stability and products that work. If the manufacturers decide to scrap their OS to reprioritize their focus on areas in which they may be more successful, consumers must change their OS. Failure to change an operating system on your smartphone may leave you with a smartphone that cannot access the network where you have a smartphone plan.
Conversely, Android, Apple and RIM have a lot to be grateful for going into the fourth quarter. Their platforms dominate the smartphone industry and Android especially has every reason to feel secure. With over 42% of the smartphone market using Android-based smartphones, consumers have added incentive to purchase smartphones that run on the Android OS. By dominating so much of the smartphone market, Android implicitly promises the stability consumers demand.
Smartphone technology changes almost every quarter, so selecting a phone with a stable and successful operating system ensures your smartphone will continue to change with the times. Keep that in mind when buying this season!
About RESCUECOM:
RESCUECOM provides computer repair and computer support, 24/7: Meeting every tech support need including data recovery, virus removal, networking, wireless services, and computer support for all brands of hardware and software. For computer support or information on products, services, or computer repair, visit https://www.rescuecom.com or call 1-800-RESCUE-PC.
For More Information, Contact:
David Milman, CEO
315-882-1100
david@rescuecom.com
The return of Bill Gates to save Microsoft would surprise no one. What is surprising is the model Gates could follow to return his company to glory.
That would be the Jobs model – the Steve Jobs model.
When Gates left Microsoft, the company had a successful track record and seemed poised to remain atop the technology marketplace.
Things haven’t exactly turned out that way. A return by Gates has become, in the minds of many, necessary and inevitable. But can one man really make that much of an impact? Read more »
Microsoft has chosen to re-renter the smartphone marketplace with a new OS – Windows Phone 7. A highly anticipated and much debated entry into the mobile OS arena, WP7 is one of Microsoft’s most important releases in years. To help you understand WP7 and decide whether it’s right for you, Rescuecom’s computer support and computer repair specialists share the five things you need to know about Windows Phone 7. Read more »