Best Buy Can't Keep Up With the Holidays

Best Buy was not prepared for the holidays. Best Buy decided to give free shipping on all online holiday orders, with no minimum requirements. As expected, Best Buy got many customers. But, according to “Best Buy cancels some online orders” by Marisa Taylor of MSNBC.com, Best Buy can’t keep up with the demand of their own promotion. They have decided to cancel some orders. Best Buy released this statement:

“Due to overwhelming demand of hot product offerings on BestBuy.com during the November and December time period, we have encountered a situation that has affected redemption of some of our online orders. We are very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused and we have notified the affected customers”

Let that sink in for a moment. Some Best Buy customers may have recently been informed that the holiday present(s) they purchased has been canceled. The purpose of purchasing products days to months before the holidays is to avoid last minute shopping. Best Buy not only is causing inconveniences but essentially pushing customers away.

Best Buy should have a research and inventory department that advised the company that they couldn’t live up to the promotion. All in all, the free shipping promotion means little if they lose customers and gain bad publicity. 

Saab Files for Bankruptcy

Yesterday, Saab announced it filed for bankruptcy. According to “Saab calls it quits” by Peter Valdes-Dapena of CNNMoney.com, “The Board of Saab Automobile subsequently decided that without further funding the company will be insolvent, and that filing bankruptcy was in the best interests of its creditors.” Saab has been turned over “to a Swedish court-appointed receiver”.

General Motors sold the company to Swedish Automotive in 2010, but maintained an ownership stake. GM made no comment on the bankruptcy. Saab has previously attempted to sell the company to Chinese investors. The article reports that Saab suffered from lack of cash, inability to pay their workers, and lackluster sales. At this point, Swedish Automotive “does not expect to realize any value from its ownership of Saab”. The only hope for Saab is if any entity steps forward to buy all or portions of the company.

Samsung adds to legal battle with Apple; RIM Announces Delay to Blackberry 10

“Samsung expand patent row with Apple in Germany” by Ju-Min Park of Reuters.com reports Samsung has added 4 patent infringement claims against Apple in their Germany trademark battle. Samsung and Apple have a multi-national battle over accusations that the other has violated trademarks in the production of their phones and tablets. Samsung was somewhat losing as there were bans placed on their tablets. Recently, they have had a substantial victory as a judge rejected Apple’s request to ban Samsung’s Galaxy line in the U.S.

CNNMoney.com’s The Buzz (link is to the video) reports that Research In Motion’s Blackberry 10, their next software update, is delayed until the end of 2012. Research In Motion’s stock has been down about 80% this year and they previously reported that they would not make financial expectations. The latest delay news has many wondering if RIM can survive considering the update is vital to the company. Many are also urging for a change in leadership. RIM has two CEOs and if two CEOs cannot make it work, when some companies are able to survive with one, the dual CEO model is no longer a fit for the company.

Time Warner Dispute with MSG Media Could Leave to No NY Sports Media

Time Warner Cable is battling it out with with MSG Media. MSG Media is the media division of Madison Square Garden Company.  According to “MSG and Time Warner Face Off” by Richard Sandomir of NYtimes.com, “MSG Media accused Time Warner Cable on Friday of threatening to remove its networks, MSG and MSG Plus, from its systems in the New York and Buffalo markets on Dec. 31… that could deprive viewers of Knicks, Rangers, Islanders, Devils and Sabres games”.

MSG Media’s position is their networks are worth more now than the price listed in the 2005 contract. Michael Bair, president of MSG Media is asking for Time Warner to “pay fair and reasonable rates consistent with what others pay” and the current price offered is “way below what is currently market rate for our product”.

Time Warner is claiming MSG media wants a 53% increase, which they consider unreasonable.

The Madison Square Garden Company’s website lists MSG Network, MSG Plus, and Fuse as their networks. The contract negotiations/dispute with between the two entities have been going on for two years. If Time Warner Cable’s threats are valid,  on New Year’s day,  New York Sports fans might wake up to no access to local sports media.

Research In Motion Renames BlackBerry Update After Restraining Order

It seems Research In Motion lacks a proper research department. The company’s next software update was originally dubbed “BBX”. According to “BlackBerry drops BBX name after court order” by Julianne Pepitone of CNNMoney.com, RIM was taken to court for using BBX, which is trademarked by “mobile software firm” Basis. 

Basis claimed RIM had “caus[ed] confusion among U.S. consumers and erosion of customer goodwill”. Basis brought their case to court on November 30 and Tuesday a judge placed a restraining order on the use of BBX by RIM. The restraining order only last for 14 days but RIM quickly responded by changing the name of their next update. The next software update is now called Blackberry 10 (the previous was Blackberry 7). 

With RIM already cutting losses on their PlayBook and admitting they could fall short of financial expectations, their next update is vital to the company’s future. The inability to do trademark research on the name of this vital anticipated update is embarrassing, - the R in RIM is supposed to stand for Research. Their fall from ruling the mobile market has some concerned that they can’t keep up with the fast pace of mobile software and technology. Hopefully, this is the only negative preview of Blackberry 10, formerly known as BBX, which is trademarked by Basis.

US Postal Service to Eliminate 28,000 Jobs

The U.S. Postal Service is attempting major restructuring for the sake of survival. “U.S. Postal Service seeks to end next-day mail” by Emily Stephenson of Reuters.com reports that the agency has proposed to “close more than half its 461 processing facilities”, eliminate next day delivery, and extend expected delivery of First Class mail.

The closure of the processing facilities would result in 28,000 jobs lost. The proposals are part of an effort to “find $20 billion in annual savings by 2015.” This large savings would come from reducing the company’s network. David Williams, USPS VP for network operations stated:

“The fact of the matter is our network is too big. We’ve got more capacity in our network than we can afford… More importantly, we’ve got to set our network up so that when volume continues to drop, our network is nimble and flexible enough to respond to those volume losses”

It is projected that the USPS will lose $14 billion this year and is hoping that the government will approve the proposals. According to the article “USPS has said it will run out of money by September of next year without a congressional overhaul of its operations.”

Research In Motion Warns It Can't Reach Financial Targets

Research In Motion is just not having a good year. According to "RIM won’t meet targets, stock slumps" by Euan Rocha of Reuters.com, the company announced today "it would fall short of its financial targets after taking a huge charge to write down inventories on its languishing PlayBook tablet".

PlayBook is going to pull an HP move and will markdown the PlayBook with the attempt to get rid of inventory and bring up sales. The markdown will result in a “$360 million after-tax inventory writedown”. In the 3rd quarter 150,000 PlayBooks were sold and in the second quarter 200,000 were sold.

The global outage also didn’t help the company as many felt the company communicated poorly with their consumers about the outage. That incident resulted in a $50 million charge.

Between outages, PlayBook markdowns, losing smartphone market share (a shame considering the company practically ran the smartphone market), overly defensive CEOs, RIM has a lot they need to get over in order to recover. I just don’t understand how a company, which came from such a powerful position, couldn’t maintain that position, especially with two CEOs running the company. Shouldn't two CEOs perform better than one? If not, the company should get rid of one.