Who or what are Fund Managers, Traders and Investment Managers?

Self serving or Greedy?

Is the technology industry really being held back the greed of Venture Capitalists, Investment Bankers and Speculators?

Recently there has been an abundance of “Money” people appearing in the news, on the radio and on television over the last weeks talking about Apple, Blackberry, Facebook, Google, Lenovo, Microsoft, Motorola and Yahoo amongst many technology and Social Media companies, saying that this needs to be done, this needs to be sold, break this company up, is this the right person etc, etc…..

Hello – why?

Oh, the reason is simple! You are greedy and just want to make money for yourselves in double time! Make money for your clients to get your bonuses plus get rewarded by expanding your client base and all your media appearances and impressions more like!!

As many people  – including myself – have written about this on numerous occasions! Just let’s look at a recent examples…..

• investors criticising Marissa Mayer for under-performing with generating sales at Yahoo and that was this a signal that Yahoo was going in the wrong direction and maybe she wasn’t doing well! What? This is the person that in the 18 months or so that she has been in charge at Yahoo, she has increased the share price by around 141% – is this not a success? Now who is smart? Marissa Mayer and Yahoo of course….

• Google moves in the limelight by buying Motorola for $12.5 Billion and everyone thought wow they are moving into mobile phones and then they go and sell Motorola Mobility to Lenovo for $2.9 Billion along with 2000 patents! Analysts jumping all over the place saying what a mistake Google have made and losing nearly $10 Billion – how wrong were they! Firstly analysts then remembered that Google had already made a deal selling the Motorola set-top box division that when added to the Lenovo deal produces nearly $6 Billion – short memories as they raved about what a good move it was selling the set-top division!  Then later that day, analysts, bankers, investors, etc,etc start releasing details that had been in the public domain starts to finally came out, Google was left with over 15,000 patents! Best not explain what patents are as you will think of money and completely miss the point! Oh and plus during all this deal, they got a sharing deal with Samsung which produced a deal where neither party would sue each other over Patent’s! Now who is smart? Google of course….

• Then of course there is Lenovo, and such confusion with them here too! Excellent news of Lenovo buying IBM‘s computer division a few years back and disappointment when the IBM‘s small server division sale to Lenovo fell through. Yet joy when that sale reappeared and completed last month together with the above purchase from Google too. Yet now, with rumours circulating that Lenovo will possibly make some more purchases including today’s rumour mill (2012/02/05) that they are likely to announce purchasing the VAIO Computing Business from Sony – what is happening? These same people are now saying too much debt, more borrowing, share dilution, etc, etc… Hang on a minute…. Lenovo has a history of buying divisions or companies which couldn’t make money or are starting to lose money and turning them into profitable operating divisions with Lenovo
  

There is a bigger picture forming around the Technology and Social Media and this is not money – or is it? Let’s see, companies need to grow, they need to invest and develop new products that are open to two markets. Yes “Money Makers” there is two markets – business and consumers – which need to be both keep separate and in some cases together. So why do you interfere where you don’t understand how business works….

You are slamming mismanagement as to how things have happened at Blackberry yet you are the ones that compared it to Apple and killed the business but blamed management!

Blackberry has always been a business tool over a consumer tool and the majority of all its income came from large Corporate and Government contracts – yet hey….Apple comes along and then you compare it and kill it!

Let me give you a quick lesson………..

• Blackberry was a telephone with web access and the ability to work with Microsoft on a variety of levels via two platforms in which was the secure network and hence it was used by Governments and Financial sensitivity businesses

• Apple, was a computer which ran a different computer system to Microsoft and they tried to compete but lost by having to finally allow software that would make Microsoft Office products workable on Apple computers. Then they launched a portable music device – iPod – which then was aimed at the consumer market. Yes the CONSUMER market! With the growth of this, they then looked at adding camera and telephone technology to it and hence the iPhone was born! The Consumer was happy as they could do so much on the move and if you actually look at the iPhone today, you will see that the majority of iPhone‘s usage is actually leisure usage. (A quick lesson for you, leisure time is something we try to find when we aren’t working which I know may be a foreign concept to you!)

So, by you saying that Blackberry is not doing well when comparing the numbers of their handsets against the iPhone, you were comparing figures from High Street telephone retailers – not like for like! As stated above previously, Blackberry‘s are mostly sold by Business (b2b) telephone companies, who do not sell to consumers. With you slating Blackberry and their products (look again at what you did by comparing the Playbook to the iPad) – you destroyed the brand and blamed the management!

Over the last fifteen plus years, you have killed and potentially ruined so many companies by falsely comparing them to the consumer market, commenting on products and services that you don’t understand and trying to make a quick buck by forcing companies to sell divisions which they have then had to buy back later which has cost them more money then they made! Oh, wait you guys made money, so I guess that is OK then…..

In summary, stop being greedy and self-serving Banks, Bankers, Investment Bankers, Investors and Venture Capitalists – leave Social Media and Technology alone….

Social Media and Technology will only grow through development and innovation via the people within these companies and technology experts and users.

Thus, if you want to understand the industry, talk to myself or any of the other experts here that are around with knowledge within Social Media and Technology and we will, by all means, happy to educate you – as you clearly need educating……

This article is further expansion of articles previously written on this topic by Ian Calvert at The Social Piggy and financial topics at Service Address – to discuss this more, please feel to either pick up the telephone and call, email or complete the form below:-