Lamborghini Urus, Courtesy: Lamborghini Ltd.

The luxury Italian carmaker, Lamborghini Ltd., officially unveiled its new sport-utility concept vehicle, the Lamborghini Urus, in Beijing, days before the annual Beijing auto show.

The Lamborghini Urus is the first real attempt by Volkswagen AG (parent firm) to produce a full production super-car SUV.

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NASDAQ:RIMM stock chart with volatility as at September 29, 2011

Demonstration of how Apple’s FaceTime works on iOS devices, which is now also supported with Mac computers. Source: CNet

Demonstration of Skype for BlackBerry, only available in the U.S. for Verizon customers. International users are not able to use the app to make VoIP calls or chat with Skype friends. Source: CrackBerry, via YouTube

Adobe engineer demonstrates how developers could use Adobe Air to create a single code base for applications that can be used to run the apps on multiple operating systems. Source: Adobe, via YouTube

RIM’s overhauled BlackBerry Bold 9900, includes capacitive display and keyboard. Source: RIM, via Bloomberg

The Ontario-based BlackBerry maker, Research In Motion LLC (RIM), continues to disappoint investors, as sales and free cash flow to equity significantly declined in the pervious fiscal quarter as a direct result of still not having released a competitive device more than a year after Apple launched its iPhone 4 – in fact, Apple will announce the next generation iPhone next Tuesday.

Investors largely blame top management for being too slow to innovate coupled with a corporate structure filled with intermediaries and lack of accountability that works counter-intuitively in facilitating efficient information flows, decision making, and innovation.

Despite the significant downturn, the company holds over 2,000 patents, and is the market leader in providing enterprises with the most secure mobile communication and management infrastructure. However, competitors are now able to provide many of those core BlackBerry features in their own products with a better user experience and on a more cost effective basis.

But, it isn’t too late for RIM just yet.

Here are some of the most important things RIM should consider to remain a going concern.

1. Take back control of your own platform:

Apple has been criticized for being notoriously controlling over what apps work on its iOS platform to the point where competitors have raised anti-trust concerns.

Although being too controlling might not be a good thing (and Apple isn’t as controlling today), at least it provides a very consistent user experience, but the same cannot be said about the BlackBerry user experience.

For example, the U.S. telecom Verizon reached an exclusive deal with Skype to make the Skype VoIP/chat app available exclusively only to Verizon BlackBerry customers. As a result, millions of other international Skype/BlackBerry users do not have viable access to Skype (even in Canada) because of the exclusive deal reached between Skype and Verizon in the U.S. – this would have never happened with any Apple product.
As another example, after you’ve restarted your BlackBerry, have you ever noticed new app installation icons (like mobile commerce app Zoom on Telus) on your menu? That’s courtesy of your carrier that has pushed the apps to your device after reaching a deal with the app makers, in the process re-arranging your menu configuration. Even if you delete the service books, after another restart, those apps re-appear. Could you opt out? No.

2. Focus on the user & innovate

One thing Apple really understands is consumer wants, and as a result, people are willing to camp out in front of stores to buy new Apple products.

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Apple co-founder Steve Jobs most recently unveiled iCloud at the Apple Developers Conference WWDC 2011 in San Francisco Source: AP

Apple filed an 8-K report (firms are required to disclose new material events as they occur in an 8-K form, also known as a “current” form ) with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that reveals the company has awarded its new CEO, Tim Cook, 1,000,000 Apple shares worth $383.58-million based on today’s closing price of Apple stock (NASDAQ:AAPL).

Apple earmarked 1,000,000 common shares to Mr. Cook that will be converted in to cash on two different dates, Aug 24, 2016, and five years later on Aug 24, 2021, contingent on Cook’s continued employment at Apple. The number of shares converted will be evenly divided between the two dates.

The stock allocation should not be misconstrued as long call options because the shares will be converted into cash at the closing price on the respective dates, that is, there is no strike price, and the allocation is in fact already like an in the money stock option.

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Most suppliers offer discounts if the full balance on a purchase is paid in full before a specific time period. But what if you don’t take advantage of the discount? Ever wondered what the implied annual cost of not taking the discount is?

You can use this formula to easily figure out the implied annual cost of not taking advantage of the discount and to better organize your payables to maximize your dollar returns.

If you’re firm can’t afford to take advantage of every supplier offered discount, at the very least you can use this method to easily identify offers with higher discounts to realize higher savings.
[ (1 + ( Discount % / (1 – Discount %) ) )^(365/days past discount) ] – 1

Let’s see how this works in a real life example.

A supplier usually quotes a discount in this format: 2/10 net 30

This simply means the supplier offers a 2% discount if the full balance is paid within 10 days, and the full balance is due within 30 days, or without a discount after the 10-day discount period.

Plugging in the numbers from the example, this is the computed annual implied cost of not taking advantage of the discount:

[ (+1 ( .02 / (.98) ) )^(365/20) ] – 1 = .44585 = 44.59%

As you can see, it could be very costly for businesses not to take advantage of supplier offered discounts.

The world’s most popular consumer-to-consumer ecommerce company, eBay Inc., has announced the company has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Magento Inc., the company that develops open-source eCommerce systems that make it simple for smaller retailers to sell their merchandise through the Internet.

eBay will integrate the newly acquired Magento assets as part of a new commerce group called X.Commerce, coupled with existing technologies, like PayPal integration, with the aim of creating a full-featured open commerce platform. eBay will also be integrating other technologies from previous acquisitions, including technologies from GSI commerce, another firm eBay has agreed to acquire (that deal has yet to close).

Consumers and businesses now make purchases from the Internet through multiple devices, including mobile devices, however, smaller retailers have adapted slowly to this new market landscape primarily due to prohibitive costs in developing software.

eBay Inc. chief executive John Donahoe said in a statement, “the focus of this new business is to provide ways for consumers and merchants to shop, sell, pay, and be paid, by leveraging our companies technology assets,”

Donahoe went on to say, “Combined, we believe these acquisitions will position us to become the strategic partner of choice for retailers of all sizes.”

Thousands of merchants, including John Deere, Movado, Officemax, Nokia, and Ford, among many other companies use Magento.

eBay does not plan to immediately shut Magento down after the acquisition completes, rather, it will integrate the newly acquired software assets in X.commerce, and possibly, later down the road the company could transition Magento into X.commerce.

Exact terms of the Magento acquisition, including the purchase price, are being kept strictly private. The company did confirm that the deal would close some time in the third quarter of this fiscal year.

By making X.commerce open source, eBay is hoping developers will adopt the new platform by creating customized solutions with various ways to monetize, which would also accelerate innovation, according to eBay.

eBay says the first X.commerce developers conference is scheduled to take place later this year in October.

The eBay stock (NASDAQ:EBAY) closed up about 120 basis points during yesterday’s trading session to $29.92 per share.

The world’s largest online search engine, Google Inc., has acquired the product search engine Sparkbuy, according to a note on the Sparkbuy website.

Google has yet to issue an official announcement concerning its latest acquisition, and at this time, the terms of the deal are being kept strictly private.

Sparkbuy to date has raised about $1-million in venture capital funding and was founded by Dan Shapiro in 2010 after he was disappointed with current search methods when he was looking at purchasing a new laptop. The search engine aims to allow a user to easily get recommendations on consumer electronics (like laptops) based on various input criteria and preferences, including price, feature options (like memory, hard drive space, battery life, etc.), among other filters.

The search engine works by aggregating various bits of information about products and generating recommendations based on aggregated data. Sparkbuy has thousands of products in its database, including from Amazon Inc., and even has more than 3,000 products from North America’s largest consumer electronics chain Best Buy Inc. after reaching a deal with the company within weeks after it launched.

If you were hoping to use Sparkbuy right now, unfortunately, that is no longer a possibility as the service has already been shut down as a direct result of the acquisition.

Sparkbuy said in a statement, “We’re stoked about the opportunity to share our vision for search with a broader audience. And while we won’t be offering services at sparkbuy.com any more, stay tuned for truckloads of new awesome from our team at Google.”

Google is expected to incorporate proprietary Sparkbuy algorithms in its current product search engine to generate more relevant results.

The small Sparkbuy team will now join the Google camp at the company’s California headquarters.

The Google stock (NASDAQ:GOOG) closed down just over 10-basis point at the end of the last trading week to $518.39 per share.

Most recently, Google reported total revenue of $8.58-billion in Q1 2011, up 27-percent from the same period last year. Google reported GAAP net income of $2.30-billion in the same period.

Donald Trump, photo by Gage Skidmore

WASHINGTON – American business mogul and likely presidential hopeful, Donald Trump, has made headlines numerous times over the last few weeks after publically lashing out at political heads, including both President Bush and President Obama.

In the latest outburst, Mr. Trump criticized Rep. Mitt Romney during an interview on the CNN show “State of the Union” that aired earlier today.

After being asked by the CNN reporter Candy Crowley why Trump is preferable to Mitt Romney for Republicans, Trump characterized Romney as “a small-business guy,” going on to say, “I’m much bigger than this man and have a much, much bigger net worth. I mean my net worth is many, many, many times Mitt Romney,” when asked who was a better businessman.

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The Internet search giant, Google Inc., has completed its third acquisition of a Toronto-based tech company, this time scooping up PushLife Inc. with the details of the acquisition being kept private.

PushLife was founded in 2008 by ex Research In Motion employee Ray Reddy and aimed to developed software for people to organize, share, and purchase digital content across different mobile platforms from a single application.

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In a move not seen very often, NASDAQ OMX Group, the company that owns and operates the Nasdaq stock index announced today the company would re-organize the weightings of certain securities in a bid to lower volatility.

Technology stocks that are traditionally more volatile will be adjusted to new lower weightings, and other stocks that are less volatile will now represent larger weightings.

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Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page

Google co-founder Larry Page today replaced outgoing CEO Eric Schmidt as part of a transition process that takes place today.

Schmidt will continue to work at Google as Executive Chairman, where he will focus on external factors like business partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, and government lobbying and policies that impact Google’s operations. Schmidt says he will still be involved in key decision making among the three co-founders.

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