How they boost income: 30-June-08
Sourav Mitra -
Monday, June 30, 2008 10:39 PM
Google, web search giant:
1. It is lobbying regulators to make wireless airwaves open to a wider range of applications.
2. It is pushing the Federal Communications Commission to make some airwaves available for free public broadband use.
3. It has created the Open Handset Alliance to remove some costs currently inhibiting handset makers from making cheaper phones able to access the Web.
4. It will keep its smartphone software Android free, so more people would be able to afford smartphones and log onto the mobile Web-and ultimately use Google applications.
5. It will not push its applications onto people, but create an open environment where people can choose these applications.
Click here for full story at Businessweek.com]
Reducing the price of the source of the income stream = more income
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Nokia, cell-phone maker:
It will purchase the portion of Symbian, a maker of mobile-phone software, that it didn't already own - and then give away the software free to lure users away from competing cell-phone software makers including Google
Click here for full story at Businessweek.com]
Reducing price = more income but at higher cost and must be justified by volume increases
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Asos Plc, the U.K.'s second-largest online clothes retailer:
1. It began by selling copies of celebrity fashions and added products by Dolce & Gabbana SpA and Polo Ralph Lauren Corp.
2. It offered a wider range of dresses and shoes to capitalize on a boom in Internet shopping as higher food and fuel costs spur Britons to go on line in search of lower prices.
3. It adds about 500 new lines a week and now sells 10,900 products and more than 300 designer brands.
4. It also offers items under its own brand
5. It will add a discount Web site this year selling end-of-season clothes under the Asos Red name to attract increasingly thrifty shoppers.
6. It has hired two buyers from competitor TJX Cos.'s T.K. Maxx stores.
7. It will increase capital spending to 7.5 million pounds this year on remodeling of its warehouse and improvements to computer systems to spur growth
[Click here for full story at Bloomberg.com]
Lower prices = more customer appeal in trying times = more income
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Highland Capital Partners, venture capital firm:
1. It gives student entrepreneurs a business boost with a $7,500 stipend, free office space, and access to its expertise and contacts in return for an option to co-invest up to 50% of the total financing if the startup raises venture capital within 180 days from the end of the program.
2. Its VCs focus on their business and maintain control over investment decisions, but they get an injection of new ideas from bright youngsters-with no strings attached.
Click here for full story at Businessweek.com]
Easy sourcing of business ideas + option to invest in the best new ideas = more income
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Babcock & Brown Ltd., Australia's second biggest securities firm:
1. It borrows to buy utilities such as wind farms and bundles them into funds. (It received initial bids of as much as $3 billion this month for European wind assets)
2. It agreed to a 50-basis point increase in interest rate on A$2.8 billion ($2.7 billion) of debt to avoid early repayment.
[Click here for full story at Bloomberg.com]
Finding new realms to play the interest gap = more income
Paying more to keep business alive = income survival