A 40 % drop in net profits is not something you hear at Nokia quite too often. For the quarter that ended on June 30, the net profit of Nokia fell from 380 million Euros an year back to 227 million Euros. Here’s some uncovering into what went wrong for Nokia.

There are three reasons for this downfall. One, Smartphones. Two, Smartphones. Three, Smartphones again. The biggest and the most prominent reason for a downfall in Nokia’s profits has been a clear inability to compete in smartphones segment with companies like Apple and the devices based on Google’s Android. Not that Nokia is unaware of this. With Symbia, a characteristic Smartphone platform built by Nokia and Meego- a platform developed jointly by Nokia and Intel set to reach markets before the end of this year, the numbers might very well tell an entirely different story then.

It’s rather too early to write off a corporation as big as Nokia. At Keilaniemi in Finland, just across the Gulf of Finland, new strategies are being devised to stage a comeback. We better watch out.

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Micro financing is a critical sector. The profits are very narrow. The target group is usually from the lowest end of the economic spectrum. Thus the chances of defaults are the maximum. But to ensure a uniform growth of economy, it’s important to place resources in the hands of those who need it the most. And that is exactly why Micro financing play an immensely important role in growth of the economy.

When SKS Microfinance Ltd. got an approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to proceed with an IPO, a new chapter in the book of corporate history was written. As the company will become the first Indian company to go public in the area of Microfinance, it plans to raise US$ 250 million which will then be handed out as tiny loans to poor families.

Mohammad Yunus, a Nobel Laureate a pioneer of the Microlending, however seemed to disagree. “Microcredit is an opportunity to make an impact on poor people’s lives. An IPO gives a wrong message”, is what he said recently.

Criticisms and accusations kept aside, one thing is certain. The IPO will put more money in the hands of SKS Microfinance Ltd. And as long as it continues to hand out the loans to people who need them the most, it deserves all the good words. The profit may be too small, the purpose is too big though.

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On Saturday, when Apple opens a store in Shanghai, it will be no ordinary an event. Not just because the store lies right in front of the historic Oriental Pearl Tower. But more so because China is no ordinary a market when it comes to Apple’s products. Potentially the biggest undoubtedly.

For Apple, the problem is not about popularity of its products. In fact, Chinese people love the iPhones, iPads, Macs and all other Apple products but they seldom buy it from Apple. There are countless unauthorized dealers who sell smuggled products thus hitting the revenue of the company hard. Also, China is notoriously known for its large scale imitation of the popular electronic items which downgrades the company’s earnings which makes the real product. To check this trend, Apple plans to have an extensive presence across the country with a couple of dozen stores to be opened within next two years. Apple also needs to get several other things in order. Firstly, the delays in the launch like the one in case of iPhone have to be avoided. Secondly and most importantly, Apple has to work in close tandem with Chinese authorities to stop the imitation of its products.

Given the success of Apple in other markets, China may just be the next big story.

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If you ask an economist to relate Worker shortages, employee unrest, a strengthening currency (thus making exports expensive) and inflation, he would surely predict a rise in manufacturing costs. What does it mean for China? And what does it mean for companies like Apple, Dell, HP, LG, Nokia etc. who have always enjoyed a fat profit margin owing to low production costs in China?

For years China has been a major destination for manufacturing and assembly owing to an average wage of less than a dollar an hour. And we are talking of product assembly and packaging of products of some of the biggest names in the world of business. While China gained hugely from the upsurge in manufacturing, these companies benefited too as the profits soared. But as wages have almost doubled since 2005, these companies may start moving to interior locations in China where the cost of production is still lesser.

Needless to say, as the manufacturing costs go up the companies have to come with innovative ways to improve profitability. Meanwhile, for China, its time to being something more than just the “Workshop of the World.”

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Yes. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and not some other fancy weird organization with the same name. United Space Alliance, a space contractor which manages the shuttle fleet and handles NASA’s International Space Station has announced a layoff of around 1000 of its employees. These, mind you are some of the world’s leading scientists and technicians.

This all started with NASA ending its space shuttle programme. United Space Alliance, which is a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, announced the lay-offs as a part of cutting costs owing to a reduction in the business because of the economic slowdown. With very less private companies in the sector, life is surely going to get off for the laid off employees. Not because they lack the skill in their field. But because they have worked on highly secretive national space projects, they are unlikely to be allowed to work for foreign companies

Looking at this, you can take home only one lesson. When the winds are blowing hard, even the tallest of trees can take a beating.

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On Tuesday, Twitter announced something different. On Tuesday, Twitter announced an entry into selling products. The company plans to display time sensitive deals on products and events. How? Through tweets obviously.

The company has created an official “earlybird” account which will promote special time bound deals, sneak peeks and events. The company also announced that it would be very selective about the deals it will offer and would go out in ensuring that these deals are of sizeable value to customers. The company also plans to offer deals specific to geographical locations- say a city or a country. So if you are a twitter user, you need to follow @earlybird and you will see tweets of marketing campaigns especially designed by companies for twitter.

What does this mean for the world of advertising? A lot, actually. With companies like Dell already using Twitter to promote their marketing campaigns, the ‘earlybird’ phenomenon can help users to pick up the best of those deals. Happy Shopping, Tweeple!

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In rather unearthed news, rumors are surfacing regarding Google’s refreshed attempt to Topple Facebook. The news definitely confirms the fact of the search engine sites losing their ground gradually to the Social-networking sites. Rumors suggest the new service from Google is christened as “Google Me”.

Digg CEO, a day earlier had tweeted about the rumor, which was later removed, but was enough to buzz the online Community. Former Facebook CTO Adam D’ Angelo had also pooled in his thoughts on his Q&A service “Quora”, and said that Google Me is real and is aimed at Facebook. He further added that he has pieced together the information from very reliable sources.

Google already has a Social-networking service “Orkut”, which isn’t much of hit except in few countries like India, and is also losing its ground there to Facebook and Twitter. Google earlier this year launched Buzz certainly aimed at the fast growing Twitter, but failed to garner enough users. Google currently hosts various services like Google Profiles, Latitude and Google wave along with Orkut and Buzz which offer Social networking at various levels. With “Google Me” it is rumored to club all this services under one roof, to provide it a competitive edge above Facebook and Twitter. It may also rope in YouTube, BlogSpot and Picasa on to the same platform.

Getting these services under a common roof, won’t be much difficult but to build a Social networking platform stronger than Facebook, will require a lot more. Even Facebook wasn’t an overnight success and it took it years to get where it is currently. But, with recent Market-researches indicating Social-networking sites gaining more visits than Search engines, Google perhaps has no option but to go for it, has it is still driven by Volume based Add revenues. Will Google be able to topple the Facebook with its latest attempt or not, certainly depends upon the level of user Interface it would offer to its users and to the extent the users are ready to offer the “Me” in “Google Me”. But for now, with a tough Competition scheduled ahead, the Users are sure to have a better choice. I hope Facebook is already on its Dashboard, and did I Bing about Microsoft here?

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Katrina Kaif, the Bollywood actress with a British background, is so impressed with Farah Khan’s style of direction that she has insisted that only Farah be considered for directing her in a commercial for Etihad Airways.

Katrina, the ‘Raajneeti’ star has recently been appointed the brand ambassador for Etihad Airways and was to shoot a commercial for the same. When the Bollywood beauty was asked her choice of director, she promptly named Farah Khan.

Kaif and Khan have worked on just one film together- Tees Maar Khan. This movie is Farah’s third movie as a director. Initially a choreographer, Farah Khan has made the likes of Aamir Khan, Sharukh Khan, Shakira and Kylie Minogue dance to her steps. Farah’s first two movies in the Director’s chair, Main Hoon Na and Om Shanti Om both proved to be blockbusters. Both the movies had Shah Rukh Khan in its main male lead. Tees Maar Khan however has been made with Akshay Kumar as the main male actor and Katrina as his co-artist.

The ‘Namastey London’ star it seems was very impressed with Farah’s filmmaking and enjoyed shooting so much under Farah’s direction in Tees Maar Khan , that she would have no one else but Farah as a director for her commercial and Etihad Airways happily obliged her.
The ad is to be shot at Etihad’s airport lounge in Abu Dhabi. Katrina will be flying to Abu Dhabi from Spain, where she’s shooting for another movie. Farah will fly down from Mumbai to join Katrina.- in Abu Dhabi.

We are sure with this pair of a super hit actress and a very successful director, the resulting commercial too will be a hit with both the critics and the airways target group.

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ICANN [Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers] has finally given its nod for the .xxx suffix to be used by the adult Entertainment Industry. The Idea that was proposed in 2005, has finally received the green signal after a series of denials.
Most of the adult entertainment Industry earlier denied the move alleging that a separate suffix would lead to regulation and marginalization of the domains. However the Florida based company “ICM Registry” that supported and proposed the move said that it has a vision of a red-light space in the Internet world that would be clean, free of spam, viruses and credit-card thieves. And that all the content would be branded adult content, and the entire Adult space can be easily blocked by the people who are offended by the pornography. Meanwhile Chairman of ICM, Stuart Lawley said that “It is good for everyone” and that “It is a win for the customer of Adult Content. They will know that the dot-xxx sites will operate by certain standards.” Mr. Lawley also further added that more than 100,000 domains have already been registered and that once the domain is available for business, more than 500,000 will register within a year. Religious groups across the globe condemned the move alleging that it will make pornography even more prevalent online and that youth can now more easily access it.

Adult Entertainment is one of biggest online sector, which is worth Billions of dollars. Analysts though claim that the move may not actually clean up the space from the Porn content, as the existing domains may not actually prefer to move to the new domains. But, with the new extension now becoming available they will surely have an option and future regulations from the government might just force the industry to adopt this. Will the content clean up the web space or further clutter it, depends upon the direction in which its implemented, for now the issue very much open for debate and your views.

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