Starbucks by the Numbers

Don't you love "infographics?"
[Source: Online MBA]

Small Businesses Own 9 Million Tablets

Small businesses are using 8.9 million tablets, according to Techaisle, surveyed 1,356 small and medium businesses before making its estimate. Techaisle estimates that slightly over half of tablets have been purchased by consumers and used for business purposes.

Surprisingly, given the rather informal way smaller businesses handle information technology decisions, 48 percent of respondents said they already have policies in place regarding tablets.

The Apple iPad, given its early launch, dominates among very-small businesses but Android is making inroads among medium-sized organizations. About 64 percent of respondents say they use only a single operating system.

You might not be surprised that 71 percent of respondents are using tablets as a supplement to existing PCs, rather than as a replacement. Mid-sized organizations, on the other hand, report a greater willingness to replace PCs with tablets.

The survey suggests that lighter notebooks, with better battery life and instant-on capabilities will be seen as direct substitutes for tablets. That is an interesting finding. More than anything else, the instant-on feature, plus longer battery life and light weight seem to be key advantages that business owners and managers seem to clearly understand.

But security, lack of a keyboard and compatibility with the rest of existing software and hardware also seem to be key inhibitors to more-robust tablet adoption.

So far, as you also might expect, initial purchases have been for the use of owners and top managers.

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How Much Will People Pay for Music?

A new survey by Nielsen suggests there is reasonable hope that some percentage of users will pay for online or mobile music. The bad news is that an overwhelming majority of consumers in every age category say they are not willing to do so, over the next three months.

It isn't clear whether the percentages would be meaningfully higher if the respondents were asked whether they would be paying for music any time during the next 12 months.

Especially among digital music’s early adopter 20 to 24 year old segment, the mobile phone is fast becoming the mainstay of how they stay connected to the world and how they listen to and increasingly buy music.

The good news is that nearly one in four (24 percent) of the 20 to 24 year old segment globally indicated they aer prepared to pay to download music videos on their mobile phone. According to the Nielsen survey, males aged between 20 to 24 clearly are the global early adopters for digital music consumption.

The bad news is that more than 75 percent of respondents claim they will not pay for any online or mobile music, streamed or downloaded, over the next three-month period. Up to this point, buyers have proven comfortable with a 99-cent price for a single song, extrapolated from, or to, roughly that same amount per song, for a compact disc.

But lots of executives in the media business still see more hope for subscription products of one sort or another, compared to any form of pay per view or downloads.

Twitter Investor Says Twitter's Valuation Is "Ridiculous"

Henry Blodget, who doesn't think we are in the middle of a tech bubble, says he asked a Twitter investor what the Twitter investor thought of Twitter's current private-market valuation.

"It's ridiculous," the Twitter investor said, given that private market benchmarks put the company's value at between 30 times and 50 times revenue. But Twitter is not your run of the mill application startup, either. Lots of other firms with "social" as part of their pitch will never amount to anything. If you had to bet, and clearly some people are, you'd likely think Facebook and Twitter will be survivors, after the inevitable shakeouts happen.

Twitter Investor Says Twitter's Valuation Is "Ridiculous"

"Mobile Wallet" Tutorial

This "mobile wallet" tutorial points out why application providers, mobile service providers and traditional payment providers all are working on mobile payment and mobile banking applications, at least in terms of the "payment transaction" parts of mobile payments.

Some of us are pretty sure it is all the other stuff that ultimately going to be more important. In part that's because the current business of making money supplying payment services using credit cards and debit cards is likely going to face regulatory pressure in any case, shrinking the total size of that business.

But there are lots of substantial businesses that can be transformed by better application of smart phone capabilities, ranging from advertising and promotion to loyalty programs and in-store promotion, not to mention actual retail shopping.

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Best Buy Lags Online Sites

It probably was inevitable that Best Buy would start to feel the impact of competition from online sites. It now appears as though the serious pressure has arrived.

While Best Buy remains the largest electronics retailer, consumers these days are used to having multiple options for everything, and many of the other retailers are rapidly encroaching on the space. It goes without saying that the competition is online.

Simplicity, for Sprint Means Unlimited Usage

Sprint has been pushing the value of "simplicity" for its unlimited usage plans. It still is.