Executives at all levels would be more innovative and therefore successful if they approached problems the way designers do

understanding a problem or need from the consumer's point of view and then coming up with the best good or service for the job

What can we do that really nobody else can?

It's the query that sparked the DSi's dual/touchscreen action, the Balance Board's super-accurate weight and mass measurements, and the Wii's revolutionary motion-sensing gameplay

Nintendo has sold 4.02 million Wiis this year, compared with Micosoft's (MSFT) 2.39 million Xbox 360s and 1.94 million Sony (SNE) PlayStation 3s, according to market trackers NPD Group

Miyamoto says their mimicry shows that Nintendo was right to gamble with the Wii. But he worries that a sameness will turn off gamers. "I don't necessarily think all the companies should move in the same direction," he says. "I would like to see each individual company take advantage of its own uniqueness and specialties."

For Miyamoto, that means coming up with a sequel to the Wii. Or does it? Updates such as the Wii MotionPlus accessory and Wii Fit Plus are proof that "there are still a lot of different opportunities and possibilities that haven't been exhausted yet on that console," he says. And it's clear he works by his own schedule. Miyamoto is notorious for scrapping or rebooting projects he thinks aren't up to snuff. Even the new Mario Bros. game ran late, nearly missing the upcoming holiday season because, as Miyamoto admits, "I got deeply involved rearranging elements and polishing it." Although Nintendo investors may want a blockbuster, you can bet the company won't be introducing any new products until Miyamoto says so.

Here's how a utility can make more by selling less. Instead of spending $2 billion on a new 1,000-megawatt power plant, say, the utility decides to spend $2 billion or less insulating homes, paying customers to install more efficient equipment, and making the grid smarter. Taking those steps would slash power consumption by more than 1,000 Mw, eliminating the need to build the power plant and cutting greenhouse gas emissions at the same time

$2 billion investment

Even though the price of electricity will be higher, customers who comply will be using much less power (and those who don't will effectively subsidize those who do)

The new model isn't a sure thing

retaining users can be equally difficult

news apps get re-used more than once per day, at a rate of 11 times per week

Quadrant I is comprised of the most frequently used apps over the longest period of time; categories like News and Reference (e.g., Dictionaries, Thesauruses, Recipes, etc.)

more data on retention by category, as well as frequency of use

customers will only be able to pay for applications using operator billing when the application developer has set the price in USD

Motorola will launch its own app store for its Android based phones

Shop4Apps

This is not the first store that will offer Android applications outside Google’s Android Market

Already several independent stores for Android are available, but Motorola is the first big handset vendor to launch one.

MotoAppstore

Since Android is an open platform, it is possible to install stores besides Google’s Android Market

The problem however is that most of the new independent Android stores are not pre-installed on the device

The Orange Application Shop was launched this week during the Le Web conference in Paris

Samsung Bada applications are coming in the first half of 2010 and will very likely be distributed via the Samsung Application Store

The Nokia Ovi Store is reaching close to 1 million downloads per day

Apple promoted a set of applications in the App Store during Black Friday. This promotion greatly influenced rankings and downloads of the featured applications

Samsung is holding a launch event in London next week December 8, to kick-off Samsung Bada

Despite growing competition, RIM sold more than 10 million devices in the quarter

with strong growth coming from outside of North America and in the consumer segment.

in Q3 of this year, Apple sold 5.2 million iPhones

Q4 earnings call

Q&A Session

Sales of iPod touch were up 100% year over year.

Over 70% for share of U.S. MP3 market.

launching there October 30th with China Unicom

Almost 21 million for the fiscal year sold now in terms of iPhones, so we have momentum. Plus the App Store with 85,000 apps is so far beyond anyone else. We feel good about competing with anyone. I think people are still trying to catch up with the first iPhone, announced 2 years ago. We’ve moved beyond that

We ship the 3G in 80 today, 64 for the iPhone 3GS, I suspect that will be past 80 by the end of the calendar year

Expert panel Q&A

how do you convince business owners of your value proposition?

it’s an end-to-end solution for them to advertise smarter on the Web

is there adverse selection? are the merchants who are most likely to want phone calls least likely to get the web to get them?

We found most merchants overall prefer to receive phone calls

What’s the biggest of the 12 categories you support now?

Health and fitness