BlackBerry Cool

This is awesome news… especially if it applies to us in Switzerland. Swisscom and Orange are the two mobile operators who have a contract with RIM, and only Swisscom offers BES. As of now, it costs approximately $2.50-$3USD per MB of data downloaded inside Switzerland, and no apparent “unlimited data” option. For a bb user who only reads his emails… i can understand this… but for anyone who does more than this… its a nightmare. Google maps or any other data intensive app will require a second income to pay for the charges unless there is a serious capping! I hope that Switzerland is included in this….! Bring it on!

This isn’t good news.

If you were renting a condo for $1000 and your cost was $700 excluding any other physical repair or upgrade costs. Your gross margin is $300. What if the government told you that you can’t charge more than $800? Because they think that $100 is a good gross margin, 10%.

What would you to do your condo and how would you manage it?

1. You can delete some features from the condo to reduce the actually cost from $700 to something else.
2. You can raise price from some where else to meet the margin target. So you can charge $800 but then charge higher prices for utilities or whatever that comes with the condo.
3. You might have to raise prices from some other condos that aren’t affected by this govt edict, meaning other markets have to make up the loss.
4. You are less likely to offer future offering since the margin is only 10% or less. It tells other condo/apt owners in the market to stay away unless some other costs can change to enter the market to earn enough profit margin. Why invest in this market @ best 10% when they can invest in somewhere else to make greater profit margin.
5. By the way, you don’t always break 10%. Because you know, there will be some vacancy when occupants move out or renters market goes south. It maybe that @ 10%, margin may be lower in longer term since there will be some gaps.

All in all, this is a bad news for customers because it will limit what companies can offer. In fact, the innovation will be stifled and it will come in cost of others.

You might say, companies are greedy for charging $3 per MB. Oh, Yeah?
Why don’t you tell govt to force Starbucks to charge their coffee $2 per cup instead of $5.
Tell govt to force Whole food to lower their prices by 20% because their profit margin is at 35%.

Principle of this argument is that there is an acceptable average profit margin, profit that an entity can earn. So, the entity shouldn’t have “out-side profit.”

Per capita income of US is about $40,000. Lets’ say, govt decided that individual should make outside of %20 margin, meaning, maximum a person can earn is capped at $48,000. So, those who agree with above posts should return any salary that’s earned above $48,000 and next time when you get a new job, tell them that you don’t want to earn anymore than $48,000.

Also, when you sell house, you can’t sell your house above 20% of an original purchase price. It doesn’t matter how long you lived there. Why should anyone have out-side margin on selling houses?

I highly doubt anyone would do this, counter intuitive.

This isn’t good news.

If you were renting a condo for $1000 and your cost was $700 excluding any other physical repair or upgrade costs. Your gross margin is $300. What if the government told you that you can’t charge more than $800? Because they think that $100 is a good gross margin, 10%.

What would you to do your condo and how would you manage it?

1. You can delete some features from the condo to reduce the actually cost from $700 to something else.
2. You can raise price from some where else to meet the margin target. So you can charge $800 but then charge higher prices for utilities or whatever that comes with the condo.
3. You might have to raise prices from some other condos that aren’t affected by this govt edict, meaning other markets have to make up the loss.
4. You are less likely to offer future offering since the margin is only 10% or less. It tells other condo/apt owners in the market to stay away unless some other costs can change to enter the market to earn enough profit margin. Why invest in this market @ best 10% when they can invest in somewhere else to make greater profit margin.
5. By the way, you don’t always break 10%. Because you know, there will be some vacancy when occupants move out or renters market goes south. It maybe that @ 10%, margin may be lower in longer term since there will be some gaps.

All in all, this is a bad news for customers because it will limit what companies can offer. In fact, the innovation will be stifled and it will come in cost of others.

You might say, companies are greedy for charging $3 per MB. Oh, Yeah?
Why don’t you tell govt to force Starbucks to charge their coffee $2 per cup instead of $5.
Tell govt to force Whole food to lower their prices by 20% because their profit margin is at 35%.

Principle of this argument is that there is an acceptable average profit margin, profit that an entity can earn. So, the entity shouldn’t have “out-side profit.”

Per capita income of US is about $40,000. Lets’ say, govt decided that individual should make outside of %20 margin, meaning, maximum a person can earn is capped at $48,000. So, those who agree with above posts should return any salary that’s earned above $48,000 and next time when you get a new job, tell them that you don’t want to earn anymore than $48,000.

Also, when you sell house, you can’t sell your house above 20% of an original purchase price. It doesn’t matter how long you lived there. Why should anyone have out-side margin on selling houses?

I highly doubt anyone would do this, counter intuitive.

In reply to Russell above, although I understand what you’re saying, all your comparisons are flawed. They are flawed because you’re comparing highly competitive markets to the cellphone data market which in most countries is nothing but an oligopoly or in some cases a monopoly. If I want coffee, I’m not forced to pick between 3 coffee providers who are all selling me a cup at $5, there’s millions of options out there. Again, with food, tons of consumer choice out there, you don’t necessarily have to pay $10 for those organic strawberries, I can get them for $4 at my local Piggly Wiggly.

It has nothing to do with the government deciding how much is a reasonable margin, and everything to do with making technology more accessible. If governments were really out to get industries who are charging excessively high margins, I can say with certainty there’s many that would be a much higher priority than the wireless market.