Group items tagged

This article talked about how Apple broke the monopoly in computer industry controlled by Microsoft. 14 years ago Justice Department worried that without government intervention, consumer choice would be significantly limited by Microsoft. However, today Apple broke this monopoly and took a big share of market. By using non-price competition and creating innovative product, Apple survived and succeed in computer industry. So we can see there is no such thing as a monopoly in computer industry, the advancement of technology will always give the market to the firm.

The article is about the giant West German Daimler- Benz group which tries to decrease the cost of production to avoid the future economic breakdown the cost of technology which was the main concept for Daimler and the number of workers decreased according to the such find of economic collapse of the company.

The Japanese automobile maker Nissan announced a couple years ago its plans for a new completely electric car, the Nissan Leaf. However, sales in the United States have been fairly low, only selling 10,000 of the cars in 2012. The reason for the small amount of sales is believed to be caused by its high price, due to an expensive and large battery back in the car, and the fact that the car has a small 80 mile range. In hopes to increase sales, the company is beginning to start production here in the United States. Producing the product closer to where it will be purchased will reduce production costs for the company, allowing it to decrease the price of the car and leading, hopefully, to an increase in demand.

Nissan is opening up a production plant in the U.S. to produce their car, the Leaf electric car. This is the first production plant. The short term is the building of the plant, which should decrease unit costs because they will no longer need to transport the cars to the U.S. The long term is the plan to create new technology to improve the car (battery, charging, etc.) and hopefully increase the demand, which could reduce unit costs even further. 

 Sony has managed to get rid of the competing technology,the HD DVD.   Instead of an increase gain in market share,Sony has had a decrease in  market share. The reason is that people are savvy to the pricing strategies that vendors use. They understand that with no competition, Sony will eventually have to lower its own price.  In taking out competition Sony has caused a decline in its own products.

The article talks about the affect of the imposing tax on medical devise industry, that is not profitable at all. The future of medicine will get worse, because they won't be able to buy advanced technology ect. By imposing tax on medical devise industry may cause a lot of problems, which are mentioned in the article.

In the old days there wasnt really monopolies they were mostly quasi-monopolies. The government owned enterprisis and there were not really private sectors and only customers were the one that was suffering but since the old days are gone most of things changed. They believe that monopolies are preffered by consumers and companies instead of competition. The developing technology is a great factor in a way of helping firms to advertise their product to convince people or take people's attention to buy the product. The advertisements and the high prices of products convince people to buy the product because they trust the price and the trusworthiness of the firm.

Google has struck a deal with the FTC about their current antitrust lawsuit. Google currently has a major monopoly over the internet market. As a result of the deal, they have to change the way they do business in order to ensure that competition is more fair.

Nokia, a well-known cellphone manufacturer based out of Helsinki, Finland, has been struggling for the past few years to keep its revenue at sufficient level. Last year, the corporation was not able to pull any profit and lost over $1 billion. After many cuts and streamlining procedures, Nokia was able to gain a profit this quarter of $200 million, however, revenue continued to fall by 20%. This is an excellent example of how profit and revenue are truly separate concepts, because although the profit gain gave the impression that Nokia's status is improving, it is still in fact losing income.

This article talked about eBay increasing their revenue in double digit percentage and brought in 1.8 million$ last quarter. They were able to do so because in the long run they planned ahead and predicted that mobile phones would become a platform for commerce, so eBay used PayPal to make a lead in mobile payment, which gave them more market share. eBay was also experimenting with new app called eBay Now, which allows customers to buy goods from their phones from Macy's Target and Walgreens and have them delivered the same day. So we can see how important it is for a form to plan ahead in the long run: it decides the revenue for the firm in future.

This article is about how consumers are not willing to buy 3-D TVs because of its high cost. The cost of the TVs are not the only problem; the cable package, the 3-D Blu-ray player, the DVDs, and even the cost of the glasses all add up together.

This article is interesting because it shows economics and how it must adapt as well in order to better handle things that arise with the new century. It illustrates how economics as a study is not static

The article is talking about the programmers around the world have been churning out new digital currencies that try to improve on the concept of bitcoin, the hot but controversial virtual money that has swept the InternetAs questions still swirl around bitcoin's legality, many technology entrepreneurs are trying to sidestep the currency's pitfalls by devising new ways to make payments in a cashless futureThe online payment system viewed by many insiders as having the best chance of supplanting bitcoin, however, is not even on the list: Ripple. Founded in San Francisco by former bitcoin developers, Ripple holds out the promise not just of a new currency, but also of a novel method to send money around the world. With that potential, it is winning something that has proved elusive for virtual currencies: involvement from more mainstream players in the financial system.

Since our topic this week is on exchange rates i thought it would be a good time to address a topic of interest to me - virtual money. the bitcoin is accepted as a form of currency by many and from the article, we can deduce that it has a high exchange rate. A norwegian man had bout $27 worth of bitcoins which now translates to $886,000. this value and exchange rate is un-paramounted and extremely high but there are reasons for this. Bitcoins are now being used as a form of currency for illegal trading - forged documentation serving as an example. This increase in demand has lead to appreciation for the value however many countries are just starting to recognise the bitcoins currency value. many owners are just starting to accept bitcoins as a form of payment in the hopes that it can appreciate and they can sell it for more in the future. However in the article we get an understanding that the bitcoin fluctuates greatly. This detracts consumer confidence however the sheer idea of investing in virtual money is enticing to many, increasing the demand for the bitcoin.