Selling big business on the iPhone

Author: Alexandru Cosmin | Category: Tech

Steve Jobs has won over legions of new customers since he returned to Apple, but one key group has stubbornly eluded him: big business.

The reason isn’t a mystery. Apple’s mercurial CEO decided a decade ago that corporate IT departments weren’t worth the trouble. Though they buy tech gear by the truckload, when it comes to computers they often favor stripped-down, predictable technology:

the stuff Jobs finds boring. Rather than chase that business, he has courted upscale consumers with innovative devices like the iMac and iPod that are as fashionable as they are functional. It’s hard to argue with the results: Apple stock is up more than 2,000 percent in the last 10 years.

But now as Jobs seeks to turbocharge sales of the 3G iPhone, he’ll have no choice but to embrace the corporate stiffs. That’s because while Apple’s computer and iPod sales are healthy, analysts believe the popular smartphone has the most growth potential - and business buyers could be the key to its success.

• 3G iPhone, he’ll have no choice
• With its strong brand and balance sheet
• Info-Tech Research Group
• Apple’s handpicked group

Even though Apple hasn’t charted a detailed corporate strategy, no one’s counting the company out. Even its critics say the combination of well-designed software and popular hardware could be hard to resist.

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TVs shrink in the big economic picture

Author: Alexandru Cosmin | Category: Gadgets

America’s supersized consumer appetite is shrinking. With the increased costs of food and fuel, rising unemployment, falling home prices, tighter credit and general gloom it’s hardly a surprise that people aren’t bulking up on big ticket purchases like they used to.(GLW, Fortune 500)

But big screen TV sales have held up well. Until now. Analysts say the next consumer luxury to feel the pinch of the slowing economy will be the Humvee of TVs- the 46-inch-and-above, $3,000-plus flat-screen high-definition set.

The number of “shipments are tracking in line but people are spending less on TVs,” says Tayyib Shah, an analyst with Longbow Research. “People are buying smaller sizes and concentrating their spending on lower-priced models.”

Other industry analysts says they are also seeing a dip in demand and uptick in supply.

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Fuel costs could ‘devastate’ airlines

Author: Alexandru Cosmin | Category: Featured

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The skyrocketing price of fuel could “devastate” the airline industry and hurt the economy, according to a report from the Business Travel Coalition released Monday.

Pressured by rising fuel costs, major airlines could collapse as early as this year, the coalition said. The failure of just one airline could disrupt travel for 200,000 to 300,000 daily passengers and cause between 30,000 and 75,000 immediate job losses, said the coalition.

The failure of more than one airline could result in 100,000 job losses, said the report, particularly in such hubs as Atlanta for Delta Air Lines (DAL, Fortune 500), Chicago for UAL Corp.’s (UAL) United Airlines and Continental Airlines’ (CAL, Fortune 500) Houston.

“Already-depleted cash reserves are dwindling fast, and unless the fuel crisis lessens, airlines face not the now-familiar protracted restructuring in bankruptcy, but outright and immediate extinction,” said the report.

Business travel would be disrupted, as would the airborne supply chain for goods like pharmaceuticals, electronics and auto parts.

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