All posts by Michelle Grathers

About Michelle Grathers

Michelle Grathers is an international tax expert. She has consulted for a variety of firms and high net worth individuals on all tax- and legal-related issues. She also helps new companies develop payroll services, statutory audits and mergers and acquisitions. Contact Michelle at michelle[at]businessdistrict.com

Watch Your Back IBM, Oracle’s Coming

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Larry Ellison of Oracle says he is ready to take on computer hardware giant IBM. Ellison is threatening to overtake them in control of the market share of business network hardware, and that includes high-end computer servers.

Ellison, who has been with Oracle since it was founded in 1977, was speaking during the prestigious All Things Digital conference during an “on-stage” discussion with Kara Swisher.

“Our biggest competitor is IBM,” Ellison said. “IBM was number one in databases. Now we are number one,” he said.

“And they were number one in middleware (programs that help different elements of a computer system communicate), now it’s us; they were number one in high-end servers, and we will be number one in the high-end servers.”

However Ellison pointed out that when it comes to services, Oracle cannot compete with the century-old IBM, which has made services a priority over the course of many years.

Today Oracle is ranked fourth worldwide in server market revenue, according to statistics released on Wednesday by IDC.  The leader in the server market is currently Hewlett-Packard with 29.3 percent of market share; IBM is second with 27.3 percent; and Dell has 15.6 percent.

Ellison also announced at the conference that as of June 6 all Oracle software will be available online in the internet “cloud.” He promised to send out his first “tweet” on the mini-blogging site Twitter on that historic day, to mark the occasion.

Internet Marketing Takes Advantage of Global Village

Communications, Companies, , ,
Court Conningham, CEO of Yodle, Reviews the World of Local Internet Advertising

In the most general terms, internet marketing is the selling of products and/or services over the World Wide Web, or internet. The term also includes sales done through email and any other wireless media.

There are many companies engaged in this approach to advertising and marketing, and the number is constantly growing. In the case of companies like Karmasnack, Server Side Design and Yodle, reviews suggest that business is booming.

Every internet marketing company has its own style and business model which include strategies and methods designed specifically with the latest technologies and trends in mind. Some marketers specialize in the “one-to-one” approach in which the marketer targets a particular user who is browsing the internet so that the message reaches the surfer in a more personal way.

Some marketers prefer, or concentrate on niche marketing, geo-targeting, or the appeal to well-defined, specific interests that a user has. All these methods have advantages and disadvantages, and it is up to the marketer and his client to decide which methods are the correct ones to get the best results.

In the 1970s Marshall McLuhan coined the term “Global Village,” envisioning a time in the future when people in vastly different locations would nevertheless be intimately connected to each other. With the rise of the internet and its influence on just about every aspect of our lives, it is safe to say that McLuhan’s prediction has come true. Today we live in a global village. It is possible for consumers in one part of the world to make purchases with incredible ease just about anywhere in the world. As the world in this sense shrinks, internet marketers will continue to take advantage of the power of the internet to find consumers anywhere on the globe.

Regulators Keeping Keen Eye on Google as they Purchase Motorola Mobility

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Droid 4 by Motorola

Google, the web-search giant, will be carefully scrutinized by US and European regulators as their bid to purchase Motorola Mobility is approved, giving Google possession of 17,000 patents and an additional 7,500 patent applications.

The purchase price for Motorola was a cool $12.5 billion, paving the way for Google to continue to compete with its market rivals such as Apple Inc and also defend itself and other Android manufacturers in patent lawsuits.

Regulators have said they will carefully monitor Google to ensure that all patents that are crucial to the telecommunications industry would be licensed at fair prices. European antitrust authorities as well as the US Department of Justice said they will watch how the patents are used to make sure that they comply with antitrust laws.

The regulators are concerned that the patents, which are critical in making sure that the large number of communications devices on the market, which are sold by many different companies, will be compatible with each other and are licensed for a reasonable fee.

“The (Justice Department’s antitrust) division will not hesitate to take appropriate enforcement action to stop any anticompetitive use of SEP (standard essential patent) rights,” the Justice Department said in a statement.

The deal with Motorola gives to Google one of the largest patent libraries in the mobile phone industry. Also included in the deal are Motorola’s manufacturing operations which will give Google the ability to create its own line of smart phones.

Payless Shoes Expanding to Asia

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Payless Shoe Source

Collective Brands Inc, the owners of Payless discount shoe stores, announced that it plans on opening its first franchised branches in Vietnam, Thailand and Korea this coming year.

In the planning stages are 16 stores throughout the three Asian countries, said LuAnn Via, the head of the Payless division of Collective Brands (PSS.)

“We were very interested in Korea; we think that our brand will resonate very well there,” Via said. “We perform extremely well” in developing countries, she added.

Collective Brands stated in August last year that it was ‘reviewing’ its strategic options to help propel the price of its stock. According to the value of its various separate businesses Collective Brands could be worth as much as $27 per share.

Today Payless has about 4500 stores throughout 34 countries. Its first overseas franchise opened in Kuwait in 2009. Now there are 140 franchised locations with the hope of expanding to 700 locales by 2014. Collective Brands is also the owner of Saucony, Stride Rite, Keds, and Sperry Top-Sider brands.

On February 3rd this year the price of one share of Collective Brands stock fell 1 percent to $16.65 on Wall Street. In 2011 the total value of Collective Brands stock fell by 32 percent.

 

 

 

Able Planet Bringing Affordable Hearing Aids to the Market

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Kevin Semcken Photo by Mary Semcken via Bloomberg

Electric hearing aids were developed around the time of the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. In all those years no one was ever able to create a hearing aid that would be affordable and effective for many people who suffer from hearing loss, until now.

Affordable and Efficacious Hearing Aids

Based in Colorado, Able Planet is a manufacturer of headphones, but they are planning on launching a new line of amplification devices designed to do the job right. Beginning in March Able Planet will release their first new product of this type, the Personal Sound AMP. A band holds the device in place within the ear, into which it fits perfectly, as its dimensions are smaller than the size of a dime.

Able Planet estimates that the device will cost about $800 for a pair, favorably competitive with traditional hearing aids which often cost thousands of dollars. Due to the prohibitively high cost only 9 percent of seniors who need hearing aids in the US who make less than $50,000 a year actually own a pair, according to a 2010 survey conducted by a medical devices research firm called Parks Associates.

Serial Entrepreneur

Chief Executive Officer Kevin Semcken bought Able Planet six years ago. Semcken is 52 years old and has bought built and sold seven medical technology companies over the years, as a serial entrepreneur and private investor.

Semcken bought Able Planet when it was mired with debt problems and multiple design lawsuits, but it hasn’t stopped him from continuing to lead the charge into the hearing aid market.

Although it is true that Able Planet’s income today derives mostly from sales of its consumer headphone products, the company was originally founded to be a source of the manufacture of hearing devices. It has been the expense of research and development made it a prohibitive undertaking financially during the doldrums of the recession.

One Percent of Market Share

Ninety percent of Able Planet’s $30 million in revenue in 2011 came from its consumer electronics. The products are sold on-line and in retail outlets such as Costco in the US and in Mexico and Japan. Able Planet, which is headquartered in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, competes with the likes of Bose, Monster Cable Products and Sony, industry leaders in the $900 million domestic market for stereo headphones. Ben Arnold, and audio and video industry analyst at market research firm NPD Group says that Able Planet has about 1 percent of the market share for stereo headphones.