Apple doing great!
Today Apple Inc. has announced its financial results for the second quarter of the year, and the numbers are simply impressive. Apple has obtained revenues for $5.26 billion and net quarterly profit of $770 million. This is a very impressive 88% increase in profits from the same period in last year, but I think most importantly, Apple shipped 36% more Macintosh computers (1’517,000). This growth is more than three times the industry growth, and this is not the first time Apple has managed to keep a growing when the rest of the companies in the industry are struggling to maintain their sales.
I know it is also important to consider that probably sales last year during this period were not the strongest due to people waiting for the new Intel-macs, but still the company has managed once more to go through a complicated transition rather smoothly, and slowly but steadily Mac is beginning to gain market share. Not as surprisingly, the sales of iPods increased 24% with 10.5 million iPods sold. However, this was despite the criticism about lack of updates and competition catching up.
Now with the iPhone coming soon (to the US at least) and a new operating system, there seems to be a bright future for Apple. Still, it sure is risky, and the success of the iPhone is not very clear yet as is the sustainability of the iPods’ popularity.
Can Apple maintain its success? Will the iPhone be the next killer device? What do you think?
abkontakt.se
This is one of those problems that you don’t believe until you see them, or at least that happened to me.
Toledo!
It has been a while since I wanted to go to Toledo, but I had been waiting for a weekend without too much work and good weather. Finally, that was last weekend! So generally I liked Toledo a lot! We had lots of fun, the weather was great, oh and yes of course, we had to walk and walk and walk and…
Yan & Divya with Sancho Panza!
Learning of the day…
As they say, everyday you should learn something new, and I believe I do. But today I learned something that I think is very interesting so I decided to share it, I hope you enjoy:
What is the difference between eggs & bacon?
That the hen is involved but the pig is committed! 
Power to the People!
Information is power, and the Internet has made the biggest and fastest distribution of information in the history of mankind. This has had a profound effect on the way businesses work, with power shifting from the companies itself to the customers. This is forcing the companies to stop ignoring the annoying thing called customer, and start becoming customer-oriented.
The latest most important example of this transformation is the music label EMI, which made the announcement to begin selling DRM-free music through Apple’s iTunes online store. It is an incredible change of approach from a company that once supported the suing and jailing of its very own customers, teenagers, for downloading illegal music. Now, instead of shutting down the annoying customer and putting him in jail, EMI has actually listened to it and offer what it has been screaming for.
And it is a very important change, EMI is setting the way for others to follow. So could this mean the end of DRM? I certainly hope so, and not only in the online music business but overall in every industry. The movie industry has proved that copy control systems on DVDs have only but annoyed legitimate customers, and that hackers have been able to break the locks. And now the new movie formats (Blueray and HD-DVD) face the same future, with its AAC protection system hacked within one week of being updated.
But this change in focus towards the customer is not only happening in the digital economy, but every (or almost every) industry needs to rethink their relationship towards their client. Failing to do so could prove to be costly.
The beginning of the end!
Well, vacations are over as well as the second period! Yesterday we had the last presentation and we have now started with new classes for the third period. It is amazing how fast time goes by, and looking back, more than 6 months have already passed since I arrived to Madrid. But, a good thing is that this period looks very promising! While the previous periods we had a lot of courses on basic tools like accounting and economy, we now have more courses regarding the specifics of the master! Also, it will supposedly be lighter regarding workload which means more time to party… 
let’s hope so and I will also keep my fingers crossed! We now have more but shorter courses and with very interesting professors. The last of three periods looks like this:
- Conversations with new Customer
- Corporate Governance
- Customer Management (with Enrique Dans!)
- Digital Media Management
- Financial Markets in the ICT & Media Industry
- Information Systems for Cooperation
- Investment and Financial Decision in ICT
- Leadership Skills
- Managing Change
- Managing Cooperative Strategies
- Management Control
- Outsourcing
- Scenarios of Technological Evolution
- Technology and Economics Workshop
So a lot of courses as you can see plus a trip to San Francisco, so it looks like a very promising ending to a very good start!
Portugal!!
So after two weeks of hard work with lots of exams and final projects, I got a chance to travel to Portugal during the Easter holidays!
Traveling by car with Alex and Miguel, we toured around Sintra, Lisbon, Coimbra, Porto and finally an express visit to Salamanca.
In the car aided by GPS (not to get lost ) and with Miguel as co-pilot.
Entering Lisbon, on the “25 de Abril” bridge. Very nice views…
City of Sintra
Palace da Pena
Street of Sintra
Click below to see the rest of the pictures…