Thursday 24 October 2013

Blackberry - what next?

Blackberry seem to be on the brink of something and no-one is really sure of what! So what should Blackberry do now?
These are my thoughts on the matter and considering I know very little about Blackberry my thoughts could be rubbish!
Firstly Blackberry had a very very good system that crashed and harmed its reputation big time. This message system needs to be rebuild with a scaling factor built in, able to cope with millions of users reliably. And it needs to be secure, this goes without saying these days. Then the hardware. The Blackberry system, from what I saw of it seemed good and stable and able to be developed, but Android is now a dominant player, so I'd suggest that Blackberry develops 2 phones and 2 tablet, one of each with Blackberry system and one of each with Android, making sure both can communicate with the core Blackberry messaging system. The form factor of the phone I'd make would be a phone that is comfortable in the hand and comfortable to use. Maybe the use of polycarbonates for strength and feel. A lot of phones and tables look good but are a pain when holding and trying to use. And use some good marketing to launch it all, a countdown to a special launch, midsummer, outside for all to see, not in a conference hall, but a park or a railway station, the Grand Canyon might be a good place. Blackberry needs to look outside the box and do something a little different if they want to not only survive but be a player in the communications market.
In saying that Blackberry have just released there messaging app on Android and iPhone, and people seem to like it. May be there is hope, I hope so.
Just my thoughts. 

Monday 3 June 2013

A Week in Politics

This week was quite funny. Well I thought so.  Some background, Tony Abbot has said that he wants an open and transparent government. The ALP apparently have funding problems. This week it was announced the "political donation bill" where $50m of tax payers money would be hived off to pay for party administration and political campaigns. The public and independent MP's stated this bill was immoral. Julia Gillard and Tony Abbot seemed surprised at this attitude. Lets look at this. A deal was done in secret, is this seems normal for the ALP re the mining bill, but seem hipocritical of Tony Abbot! The budget stated that the Australian bank account was "overdrawn" but several billion dollars and they want to take some more out of the pot.  I could go on.
The fact that Tony Abbot has withdrawn his support of the bill shows he listens!
They (the party leasers) say there is democracy in Australia, I'd say it a strangled version of it. Democracy has two main caviats, choice and dissemination of power - to allow the local community to govern themselves. In Australia there is a lack of choice in that there is compulsory voting and two party preference.  And they wonder why the young are not registering to vote! And for the dissemination for power is nonexistent in that all the power is slowly heading to the centre. Its almost a feudal system. The main difference between here and Zimbabwe is that we can still vote for our dictator!   
What needs to be done? Get rid of two party politics, the two party preferences and clear the way for smaller parties to have their say and bring in accountability. The government has racked up huge debt but it is us who'll have to pay it off. Where is the accountability? This is just the start, I could go on. Have you read The Prince by Machiavelli? Well worth the read!