Posted on 12/09/2009 7:34:19 AM PST by SeekAndFind
NO SPACE FOR COMPLETE EXPLANATION, CAN ONLY POST EXCERPTS. READ ENTIRE ARTICLE BY CLICKING ABOVE LINK :
Potentially fatal flaws come in many forms. But three crop up the most when you talk to experts: excessive debt, superior competitors and the inability to keep up with technological change.
1. Palm
With the Treo, Palm (PALM, news, msgs) was an early pioneer of the move to smart phones. So it doesn't seem right that stronger competitors such as Apple (AAPL, news, msgs) and Research In Motion (RIMM, news, msgs) are now going to crush it. But that seems to be Palm's fate.
2. Sears
Sears remains one of the great mysteries in retail: It's not clear why it still exists. Yes, we know consumers love Craftsman tools, DieHard batteries and Kenmore appliances. But there's a fuddy-duddy aspect to its stores that makes it a wonder Sears has survived the current decade.
3. Blockbuster
Video rental icon Blockbuster is a great example of how technological change can crush winners that fail to keep up.
4. Eastman Kodak
The company that brought us Kodachrome spent most of its life as a near monopoly. Back in the good old days, it only had to face down Fujifilm.
5. Borders
Like Blockbuster, Borders (BGP, news, msgs) is getting hit by technological changes that leave it dazed and confused.
6. Magellan
Once a novelty, GPS -- the technology that plots your location via satellite -- is now ubiquitous. Besides dashboard GPS devices in cars, consumers can now get GPS access in smart phones and even cameras.
7. McClatchy
Technology has been particularly hard on the news business, as content has moved online but advertising dollars have been slow to follow. For smaller, undiversified newspaper companies burdened with huge debt loads, time is running out.
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.moneycentral.msn.com ...
What’s wrong with Borders?
GE has recently sold control of NBC Universal to Comcast.
Newspaper companies began diversifying as early as the 1960’s by buying up small daily papers in markets—like the Sunbelt—that would later grow. They also began buying network-affiliated television stations in the same markets. This foresight by one generation of publishers was later wasted, in many instances, by the next generation. For example The New York Times Company two years ago sold off all their television stations—potentially the one sector of their holdings with a future—for half a billion dollars. They used this money to prop up their stock price, invest in on-line projects and pay off bills at the flagship paper in New York. More recently the Times Company has been selling some of its chain of small dailies across the South. The mentality is to cannibalize their assets in a doomed effort to keep publishing the New York Times each day to a shrinking population of loyal readers.
The current administration has shown severe incompetence with the U.S. budget and I suspect GPS will start to fall by the wayside in the not-to-distant future due to their malfeasance.
Add the communist seized General Motors, Chrysler, and Bank of America.
Their debt is back stopped by Uncle Sam. $500 billion. The rating agencies are lying again. They did pretty well rating mortgage backed securities.
And Verizon goes on & on
There is no God
??? I like Blockbuster ... At my Blockbuster,'old' movies are $.99 per night & $2.99 for new releases for 1 night. Probably because there were 2 RedBoxs across the street.
I hate RedBox ... long lines at the ones where I live & nothing good ever there.
RE: What’s wrong with Borders
The article explains thusly :
Like Blockbuster, Borders (BGP, news, msgs) is getting hit by technological changes that leave it dazed and confused. First came the Internet, which brought the competitive pricing of Amazon. Lately, price competition has gotten even worse, with Wal-Mart slashing prices on best-sellers and Amazon matching the cuts.
Now Amazon’s e-book reader, the Kindle, is gaining in popularity. With the Kindle, readers just download books, which are sold at lower prices. Next, readers will be using computers and computer notebooks to do the same. All of this eviscerates the need for a brick-and-mortar bookstore such as Borders, with the high costs associated with stores and inventory, Stevens says.
Borders has dealt with these challenges by aggressively cutting costs. But it’s running out of room for that tactic, says Credit Suisse analyst Gary Balter.
This means that, for Borders, the final page is being written.
Borders responds that bookstores will continue to coexist with digital book formats and online vendors because people who love books will continue to seek “community,” or a place where “they can be surrounded by the books they love, meet others who share their passion for books and engage in the sheer joy and indulgence of spending hours exploring.”
Why would I go to Blockbuster when I can discipline myself to NOT watch a movie until 6 months later when my PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM will have it and I can borrow it for free ?
Thanks!
I hate Blockbuster. Their selection strinks and they’re a massive strip mall eyesore.
I read the article. I was responding to a poster who said they ‘deserved’ it.
Well you could use that argument for pretty much every source of entertainment. Meanwhile library usage is actually going down in this country, so apparently people aren’t into waiting.
Nothing...if they are protected and enforced.
I agree with you, but in truth NO companies will survive past the end of the Mayan Calender 2012.
BofA?Why?
Although you may be right (and I happen to think that, since the military uses the GPS system they’ll find a way to keep it maintained despite the Zer0), that’s outside the scope of the original article, which looked at the problem solely from a company viability perspective.
I love the chaos of Borders and much prefer it to the regimented B&N.
As for Blockbuster their problems go well beyond “a great example of how technological change can crush winners that fail to keep up.” Their constant and egregious abuse of their market position had many customers abandoning them well before Netflix asserted its might. From the retail spaces which were more concerned with add-a-sale than core business to the army of snotty staff and ‘managers’ to the naked avarice of ever-changing late fees (for which they were pummeled in court) no ‘industry leader’ ever did more to alienate its customers and justify its ignominious end.
Sears and JCP are two of the anchors at our local mall. Sears carries Land’s End clothing which seems to be keeping it alive. For the life of me I don’t get JCP at all. Horrible stuff.
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