PayPal you owe our family $4020.
That figures represents the amount of extra money my wife and I had to shell out last week for tickets to an upcoming party because of the company’s inability to give us access to our accounts in a timely manner.
My wife and I lost out on the opportunity to buy two $20 tickets to the forthcoming HoHoTO food bank fundraiser because we weren’t able to access payment information we had already submitted. (The party’s taking place at the Mod Club in Toronto on the 16th by the way). The online payment mechanism wouldn’t let my wife and I buy the tickets for reasons that still aren’t entirely clear to us. In both instances, the issue wasn’t clear from the get go nor were customer service representatives able to assess and explain the issue to us quickly.
This much i know – the system wouldn’t allow me to see or choose an active Visa card I’ve had on file with PayPal for years. It wasn’t listed as my primary card nor was I able to switch to it from an expired Mastercard PayPal had on file. Why? I’m still not entirely sure.
By the time we sorted out our problems, the party organizers were out of the lowest-cost tier of tickets – there was a limited number made available to the public. As a result, we had to pay an extra $10 a pop for each ticket to the gathering of social media enthusiasts.
Calls to customer service revealed little information of use. I was on the phone for 15 minutes during which time I managed to solve the problem in a circuitous manner.
By the time my issue was resolved – my wife’s account is still in limbo – the cheapest tickets were gone.
We had to buy $30 tickets instead. Petty? Perhaps somewhat. An extra $20 isn’t going to make or break us.
Problem is we’ll likely run into PayPal problems again if history repeats itself. There’s a good chance that’ll happen – this isn’t the first incident I’ve had with PayPal. The system has frustrated me with its user unfriendly ways for on several occasions. The issues are typically the speed of the transaction and access to information. Yet it’s increasingly difficult to avoid it – I expect to use it more in future. A growing number of merchants with an interest in e-commerce in my anecdotal experience seem to use it.
HoHoTO is no different. The party organizers chose PayPal as the online payment mechanism partygoers more or less have to use if they’d like to buy a ticket to the party (which will be a whole lot of fun.)
Time to clean up your act PayPal – everyone will be happier and you’ll be richer for it.
![google phone[3]](http://kevinrestivo.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/googlephone3.jpg "google phone[3]")
A Google-created and branded smartphone has been rumored for years. TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington gave the idea fresh legs on Monday when he suggested the search king would introduce an unlocked smartphone or a VoIP/Web-enabled Web device to the world early in 2010.
He seems to think this purported device will be sold direct to consumers and by retail partners on an unlocked basis meaning consumers will presumably be able to use it on multiple networks (e.g. AT&T’s and T-Mobile’s GSM networks).
His notions were almost immediately dismissed by the likes of John Gruber, the noted Apple commentator, and PC World among others. Gruber cited a statement from Andy Rubin, made two weeks ago, that Google won’t “compete with its customers” as proof it won’t get into the hardware game.
Rubin, the company’s head of all things Android, made the statement when asked if Google will create its own branded smartphone.
It’s true that Google, as it stands, works with hardware partners such as Samsung, Motorola and LG among others to bring Android-powered phones to market.
And yak, there are plenty of reasons to doubt Arrington – he’s been wrong many a time. He writes as much for entertainment value as he does for the sake of accuracy. But let me play devil’s advocate. There are reasons to believe Google may one day create a branded smartphone – don’t dismiss the notion just because a suspect story teller raised the idea.
Three reasons (and one opportunity) come to mind :
1) Vertical integration. The fastest-growing smart phones are the ones that are made from the ground up by company. Research In Motion and Apple, the No. 2 and No. 3 smartphone sellers in the world control the development process from soup to nuts, allowing them to create and adapt models more readily some might argue. It’s a good bet that Google has by now noticed the gigantic lead Research In Motion and Apple have accumulated in North America.
2) Executive restlessness. Google, given its dominance of the internet search market, prefers to be No. 1 in any field it’s active in – they’re not even close now when it comes to smartphone operating system share. It’s early days for Android I know but it wouldn’t surprise me if Sergey and Larry are getting restless on the smartphone front. They may want to exert more control over the design, if not the development process, with hopes they’ll produce a blockbuster smartphone like their peers Steve Jobs, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis did with the iPhone and the BlackBerry. It probably wouldn’t lose partners. Many of Google’s partners have already pinned part of, or all of their immediate smartphone growth hopes, on the Android operating system so the downside for Google is low.
3) Co-optition. This one’s more about opportunity more than motive. Partnerships come in all shapes and sizes. Google’s relationships with its hardware partners aren’t exclusive. What’s to say it can’t also design, if not manufacture, a device itself? It wouldn’t be unlike a tech giant to learn from a partner than apply those lessons in a more self-serving way. Google could do the same to/with its hardware partners.
4) Channel Disintermediation. Google wants to disintermediate a lot of different industries – why not make the wireless services industry the next target? It makes sense for Google to sell mobile devices directly to consumers in North America. It gives the company the free reign it may think it needs to create a mobile experience for consumers without the interference of those pesky service providers, who are, er, consulted on such matters whenever a phone for their network is introduced. (Oh by the way, that phone is usually “locked” to the carrier’s network too, limiting customer mobility. But I digress.)
A Google-branded mobile device if and when it ever comes could very well meet with indifference. The high cost of an unsubsidized device may also turn off consumers if indeed that’s how the rumored device is sold. But there are a number of reasons for Google to try – don’t discount the notion there’ll be a Google phone or device one day.
The cloud descends in Toronto on Nov. 3rd. That’s when my employer IDC Canada, will help attendees of the Virtualization Under a Cloud – Payoffs and Pain conference better understand one of the tech industry’s hottest topics and growth prospects.
Consulting and research firm IDC estimates 10 per cent of the world’s IT spending will be cloud-related by the year 2012, making it a topic and an opportunity that tech community types, IT managers and other affected parties in Canadian (and worldwide) end-user organizations can’t ignore.
Even the conservative Economist magazine, in a recent special report on the topic, said cloud computing “itself is here to stay and to grow.”
Yet it’s difficult to ascertain the direction cloud computing, let alone a specific type of it, is going to play out. After all, the term became a buzzword in the IT vernacular about a year ago. IDC can help attendees of the conference, which will be held at the Toronto Board of Trade beginning at 7:30AM, better understand the topic and the prospects for it moving forward through fact-based analysis.
There will be a variety of analyst presentations, case studies as well as a moderated discussion by the CIO Association of Canada on the topic of cloud computing to help attendees.
A wide variety of business people should benefit from the panel discussions and presentations including chief information officers as well as vice-presidents and directors of IT infrastructure, operations as well as strategy and planning.
There are a limited number of spots which are disappearing quickly – sign-ups have picked up in recent weeks. Space is at a premium so interested potential attendees should act quickly. Some registrants may gain access for free to the conference.
To register for free, enter the code IDCF in the special promotion field. Register by phone at 1-888-432-2812 or 416-673-2299 or email at tabramova@idc.com.
David Pogue, the talented resident New York Times tech columnist, erstwhile Broadway producer and Mac fan boy, has come up with another entertaining take on one of his favorite topics – Apple.
Pogue’s ditty, which will appeal to tech industry followers, is an oldie but goodie that apparently he dredged up at something called the Boston Book Festival over the weekend.
It’s a take on current chief executive Steve Jobs’ return to the company he co-founded in 1997. Over the past 12 years, he’s not only helped bring back the company from the precipice but has helped leapfrog some key competitors on the relevance scale but that’s the topic of another blog post.
I thought it’d be a fun post – it’s still the weekend after all. Enjoy the Evita-fashioned musical interlude. Thanks Mashable for the reference and link to the video which has since been posted to YouTube!
Bell and Telus will probably start selling the iPhone on Nov. 4th, the same day the second and third-largest service providers in Canada light up part or all of their brand spanking new jointly-built wireless network in the Great White North.
The impending introduction of the iconic device has led to speculation the iPhone 3GS and 3G will be sold for less than the respective C$199 and C$99 price tags Rogers and Apple sell the devices for at the moment.
(Rogers, for those non-Canadian readers, has been the exclusive reseller of the iPhone and Apple carrier partner since July 2008 by virtue of its GSM network. Bell and Telus have operated and will continue to operate networks based on the less used CDMA network standard.)
Some of the iPhone price speculation has undoubtedly arisen because of recent comments by Apple chief operating officer Tim Cook who had the following to say on the topic last week:
“Generally speaking, in markets where we’re already selling, I would not expect to see a wholesale price difference as we bring on other carriers,” he told analysts and investors on a conference call last week. “However, the end user price is set by the carriers themselves, so you may or may not see a street price difference.”
It would be a mistake to believe the iPhone, however, will be sold for anything less than the prices established by Apple and Rogers in Canada.
It’s a matter of finance, not conspiracy theory. In other words, the iPhone is a very expensive device for carriers to acquire, making device price cuts unlikely, given the additional focus on profitability at the carrier level.
Apple’s premium pricing policy, which can lead to consumer sticker shock, extends to carriers as well; companies pay premium prices as well for the iPhone. That cost has to be passed on to someone unfortunately for consumers.
The greater the hardware subsidy, the harder it is for a carriers to make a customer profitable. By most accounts, iPhone customers aren’t profitable until the third year of their contract.
This is a troublesome metric for carriers as customer profitability is of greater concern. Investors have measured carriers, in large part, on an average revenue per user basis. Trying economic times and lower growth prospects however mean investors are increasingly concerned with average margin per user.
The net result for consumers will be an equally, or more expensive, iPhone sticker price on the Bell and Telus networks. Expect the carriers to at least match the advertised prices the iPhone is sold for by Rogers.
For all the talk of iPhone and BlackBerry growth in recent weeks, there is still a relatively large group of people that want a basic phone with fixed monthly service costs on a non-contract basis in North America.
People of this wireless persuasion are typically more price sensitive or feel less inclined to use the features of a smartphone or a high-end feature phone. They may be new Americans or Canadians, teens or senior citizens.
Mobile virtual network operators, or MVNOs to industry types, have been created in recent years to sell subscriptions to those without wireless. MVNOs resell air time, bought from facilities-based providers, under a different brand name. They typically target a specific customer segment.
The model, which is typically carries high upfront costs with it, has been anything but an unmitigated success. There have been a series of high-profile flameouts including Amp’d Mobile. Boost Mobile, Sprint Nextel’s MVNO in the U.S., and others continue to struggle.
Wal-Mart’s new unlimited cellphone plans, announced last week, could very well be an exception to the MVNO rule in the U.S. where service providers are struggling to find new post-paid customer prospects. Wal-Mart already has the retail points of presence, the scale and relationships with customers, many of whom deem price to be criteria numero uno. This fact may help eliminate many of the start-up costs that have doomed many an MVNO from the beginning.
By the way, TracFone, a lesser known U.S. wireless service provider brand owned by America Movil, supplies the air time to Wal-Mart. The prepaid plans start at US$30 a month and stretch up to the still very low price of $45 a month for unlimited minutes, text messages, and data.
This isn’t the end of AT&T or Verizon by any stretch. Wal-Mart, despite its obvious advantages, has failed miserably on the DVD rental and social networking front.
There are obvious downsides to the Wal-Mart/TracFone wireless initiative as well, namely handset selection. Unlimited data users will find out quickly you get what you pay for in life assuming they try to access the mobile Web with the help of a Motorola Razr, one of the few phones that will be sold by the world’s largest retailer.
Will it work in Canada (where I reside)? The barriers for a retailer may be greater. The Canadian addressable market is smaller than that of the U.S. which presumably makes the opportunity less attractive for the likes of Wal-Mart. Its costs would be higher. Historical precedent isn’t great either.
Canadian Tire, one of the country’s largest retailers, tried to sell prepaid service in past with little success.
Nonetheless, expect Wal-Mart to help drive wireless voice prices in the U.S., a trend that’s already in full swing.
Apple’s the envy of many a company, especially in these recessionary times. Yet its 2009 fiscal year fourth-quarter results, which are slated for a 4PM EST release on Monday, could suffer as a result.
Demand for virtually every one of its products not called iPod is on the upswing even though consumer spending is down on a year-over-year basis in the countries where Apple has a relatively high amount of market share (e.g. United States, Australia and the United Kingdom among others).
Apple, however, has struggled to keep up with demand for the iPhone for example. Demand has outstripped supply of Apple’s popular smartphone, specifically the iPhone 3GS, in many countries other than the United States.
In Canada, where I reside, Rogers and its discount brand Fido struggled in recent months to keep the devices on its shelves, virtual or otherwise over the course of summer.
The supply issue was felt by carriers overseas as well, most notably 3 Italia whose chief executive who said the carrier could double iPhone sales if 3 had access to more devices.
It’s a problem that most chief executives would love to have. For a closely-watched, publicly-traded company, it’s a double-edged sword. More consumers (and some business types) want the device, leading to greater expectations of the company. Apple’s increasingly dependent on its iPhone product for top and bottom line growth. But the company has struggled to make enough of the devices. (N.B. I don’t believe for a minute the shortage is some sort of Apple construct meant to highlight the device. Apple doesn’t need more publicity.)
The likely reason for said supply problems is rooted in manufacturing processes. It’s an expensive product to make, which in manufacturing terms makes it harder to mass produce. This may have contributed to the supply issues of late. It should be noted that in Canada, at least, the backlog of orders seems to have relented as of late.
In any case, Steve Jobs and Co. need to beat the Street’s 7.5-million Street consensus iPhone shipment estimate for the Apple growth train to motor ahead. Apple’s fourth quarter is particularly important to the company’s fortunes as it includes the back-to-school months which are traditionally high-volume sales months for the company.
My personal prediction is that Apple will beat iPhone shipment estimates. The current backlog of devices made by China-based Foxconn, Apple’s chief contract manufacturer, likely cleared enough in the month of September for Apple to meet or surpass investor’s high iPhone sales expectations. Furthermore, Apple has a strong record of overdelivery on the results side. We’ll see on Monday.
Mobile phone recycling efforts are nothing new. Canadian and U.S. wireless service providers for years have encouraged people to recycle devices no longer in use by tugging on heart strings.
Take Rogers Wireless, in Canada, for example. The provider created a Phones For Food program 6 years ago as the corporate social responsibility trend took off. The benefits? Phone recyclers get to clear their closets and their collective conscience. Rogers, in turn, gets to paint itself as a community champion or benefactor as the program is "set up to alleviate hunger and divert waste from landfill sites by raising funds for local food banks through the process recycling of …cell phones," according to the program’s Web site.
Best Buy, the giant U.S. electronics retailer, has taken the idea a step further. The chain last month introduced a ‘cash for clunkers’ cell phone trade-in program. (That’s my name for it as you probably guessed).
It’s a more market-based approach to the traditional cell phone disposal problem. Best Buy awards store credits to phone recyclers based on the value of the device that’s traded in. The program, for prospective traders, doesn’t seem to have an end date. At least, there’s no advertised end date on the company’s Canadian Web site. No word on the program’s success rate to date.
Best Buy, of course, is no more benevolent than Rogers. It’s simply trying to drive more Mobile unit or same store sales. The retailer hopes people will take the cash credit and spend it on a new device or apply the credit to another at one of the company’s many locations.
I traded a UTStarcom SMT5800, powered by an earlier version of Windows Mobile, about a month ago at a downtown Toronto Best Buy. Bell Mobility was the provider. It was affectionately known in cell phone circles as "The Brick" and was outdated shortly after the device was released.
It’s collected dust for years now hence my decision to trade it in. Luckily I didn’t use it much, meaning the device worked as advertised and had all the accessories in the original box. That meant I could collect nearly $30, or the maximum amount Best Buy will potentially give consumers for this particular antiquated device.
Presumably, broken devices or those without all the fixings, will fetch considerably less. However, a relatively new and functioning BlackBerry or iPhone is of course is worth more to the retailer. For example, a consumer could receive almost $140 for a fully functioning BlackBerry Curve 8520. (I imagine the retailer then refurbishes and resells the devices but I’m not sure.)
If you have a device, like the Brick, that’s collecting dust in your basement and you know you’re going to make an electronics purchase of some sort in the near future, you may want to check out the Best Buy trade in program.
Canadians love their gadgets. It’s a relatively rich country, abundant with resources and well-educated people, which gives many of its citizens the luxury and opportunity to use the latest and greatest toys.
Yet the lineup of notable consumer technology and service offerings that aren’t available in Canada never ceases to amaze me.
A Canadian need not surf many U.S.-based Web sites, to understand what he or she can’t buy or watch via conventional channels.
Here’s an off-the-top of my head list of the top missing gadgetry and services at this moment in Canada (in no particular order I might add.) The list could undoubtedly be rounded out with a little help from a few readers. Here it goes anyway:
1) Amazon’s Kindle. The fast-growing electronic book reader (and buying mechanism) is a U.S. only phenomenon unfortunately. I’d expect to see the Kindle 2 released in Canada at some point over the next 12 to 18 months. In the meantime, Amazon has said it needs to strike electronic publishing and distribution rights as well as network agreements with the likes of Rogers, Bell and Telus so readers can download books to their Kindles in the Great White North. For now, Canadians will have to stick buy books of the old fashioned paper variety from Amazon or other book stores.
2) Unlimited wireless long distance – As Canadians are all too aware, a phone call from the 416 area code to say Oshawa, a suburb of Toronto a mere 55 kilometres away, costs 35 cents a minute (sans LD plan). Ouch. Not quite like the unlimited wireless LD plans found in the United States, which give users the ability to call virtually anywhere in the country for a flat rate. Oh how many a Canadian would like a bigger wireless LD bucket of minutes to draw upon. The market will solve this problem over the course of time but for now Canadians can choose a My5 plan from Rogers or another large service provider or of course simply watch their wireless LD usage carefully.
3) Tivo. Founded in 1997, Tivo has become popular with Americans that want to shake up the conventional TV viewing experience. In Canada, the box costs $199 roughly and the monthly service will cost you $12.95 a month. That’s an expensive proposition for someone that’s already forking over a monthly stipend to Rogers, Cogeco, or another TV service provider. The TiVo box also doesn’t record in high-definition either, another major difference between the Canadian and U.S. versions of the service, which further detracts from the TiVo value proposition in Canada. This makes the service one for the all but the most ardent of gadget geeks (and those with lots of disposable income).
4) Hulu. Canadians are “allowed” to watch Saturday Night Live digital shorts on Canwest’s Global station, which could enter bankruptcy protection in the coming weeks or months. Just don’t expect to watch the same short again on NBC’s Hulu because there isn’t an ad for the Keg or some other Canadian construct. In other words, the regulator won’t let Hulu stream its service into Canada, presumably because it hasn’t struck a deal with the likes of CTV and/or Global to feature Canadian ads.
Anyway, Canadians don’t live in a digital ghetto as one columnist/blogger suggested last year(thanks for the graphic Jesse) – quite the opposite. There’s usually a good reason for the notable absence of high-visibility products and services in Canada, namely economies of scale.
Canada’s a small country which makes the profit potential lower and the business case weaker for companies that may want to sell their wares north of the 49th parallel at least for the short term.
Regulation, as noted, can be an issue too. Deals must also be struck with local providers or affiliated companies as Amazon and others have likely discovered.
This may all be well and good for some but for others it slows down the pace of technology adoption and arguably productivity, if not plain ol’ fun.
Those are my top of mind thoughts on the matter. Are there other technologies missing from the Canadian landscape you’d like to see available?
Research In Motion’s purchase of Viigo: Striking a deeper app development chord
Posted by Kevin Restivo on Saturday, March 27, 2010 at 4:52 pm. 2 Comments.
Ownership of Viigo gives the Waterloo, Ont.-based company outright control of the company’s mobile application development efforts. This is important to R.I.M. as Viigo’s news aggregation software has become one of the most popular applications available for the BlackBerry.
By bringing a software maker such as Viigo in house, R.I.M. presumably will be able to throw its vast resources at the small, Toronto-based mobile software maker.
This presumably will speed up application development efforts and result in an even better product which will help R.I.M. keep users loyal and happy in the face of increased competition.
R.I.M. has left most of the software development for its device to its partners until recently. But smartphones, increasingly, resemble mini-computers which makes the availability and quality of applications a higher priority for R.I.M. hence the hands-on approach.
Viigo is also a prototypical Research In Motion acquisition target. It’s a relatively small, successful and inexpensive acquisition target. It’s hard to tell of course as terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
Viigo’s proximity to R.I.M. headquarters and an existing relationship undoubtedly helped pique the interest of R.I.M. and speed acquisition talks. This is not unlike almost all of R.I.M.’s previous acquisition targets over the past decade (e.g. Certicom, Chalk Media).
Look for other select, “tuck-in” acquisitions in future on the part of R.I.M. to help bolster application development efforts.
Filed under News Items and Commentary.