AFAIK, Apple newer planned a 12" MacBook Pro - it was always:
MacBook Pro = 15" and 17" MacBook = 13"
Re:Specs and Prices (US and UK) (VAT anyone??)
on
Apple Unveils New Macbook
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· Score: 2, Informative
The difference is partially in VAT. If you calculate the VAT out of the price, the difference between US- and UK-price is (still) US$ 150 on the black and US$ 144 on the white 2GHz.
I don't know if there is any additional tax or whatever in UK. I guess the difference is to compensate for the current exchange rate (US$ vs GBP and US$ vs EUR) as well as for administrative overhead in Europe (Apple Europe + Apple UK)
Actually, afaik they "invented" AJaX back in 1997/98 or so. I poked around a long while with the MSDN-CDs during those days and it was really amazing what you could do with dynamic web.
The funniest thing is that though Microsoft invented it, it was the only technology they never managed to monetize and it was also the only technology, so far, invented by Microsoft and made broadly available by other people (of course, please feel free to correct me if this is wrong)
disclaimer: No, I am NOT a Microsoft employee and people who know me personally will assure you that I am the last one on this planet to *like* Microsoft...
However, with no tracking built into the business model, from landing page to product purchase, there is no way to prove return on investment because all sales are done through a completely different system including alot of handshakes and golf outings.
You don't need to have a tracking method or direct sales to prove a business case (ROI, ROCE, whatever you call it, all are numbers for one thing: business case!).
There are two business case solutions: 1) More revenue through higher sales, 2) lower costs through efficient sales (production, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, etc.)
Now, you have to choose which of the paths you want to go. You can't really go both paths at the same time, i.e. you can't really have higher sales as well as lower costs with one action (well, at least not in most cases).
Once you have chosen which way to go, you then do two calculations: 1) The result if the project is performed and 2) what happens, when you don't undertake the project (people often forget that "doing nothing" is one of the many options you have).
So, you can't say that you can't prove ROI - you just don't want to be bothered with the details of proving the business case - I am sorry, you just don't really care whether the project you are undertaking is making money for your company (or saving money = making money, too). As long as your management has the impression that you don't care about making money for the company, you will (rightfully) never get additional staff. Prove the business case of adding more people to your project - prove it to your boss, your boss's boss and so on - and if you believe in your project, then fight for it up until the CEO!
I'm talking here as someone who did it exactly this way. One day, I even went to the COO and asked him how he can live with having a department without any profits so far... Well, that gained respect.
In order to change the business model requires weeks/months of sales time to upper management as well as a complete restructure of our SAP implementaion.
Nobody is talking about changing the business model! Change your attitude to your project, your boss and other managers - as well as your attitude to your job! If you are working 100 hours a week, you're certainly making a big mistake somewhere. You're certaily not doing your correctly (or you haven't don your job correctly in the first place) - Here again, I am talking to you: a Manager!
How many people work on your company's websites, email marketing, SEO/SEM, etc...? What type of business? B2B, B2C, Both?
This doesn't solve your problem. Why do you need that information? Do you need a solution for your problem? Then go ahead, read all the very insightful comments here.
But I have the feeling that you just want to prove your boss that you need more people - nothing else! You're not trying to solve your problem, you're just trying to prove to your boss that "... other companies have a lot more people for the same task... " and that's a proof that you are definitely understaffed, etc. etc - ad infinitum!
I've been managing projects large and small for nearly a decade now (and having an MBA in Project- and Processmanagement) and having read your call-for-help, I can tell you that it seems you made most of the mistakes one can make as a project manager.
The only problem was that I didn't expect a (respected) mid-level manager to be the road block.
One of the most important issues when you plan a project is to analyze the environment of it (i.e. the environment in which the project is run) and make a list of all (potential) stakeholders. There are potential stakeholders who will definitely try to block or even sabotage your project - but there are also stakeholders who could possibly help you.
In order to have a successful project, it's not enough to specify what has to be done, when and with whom but also in which environment the project is running, what was before the project started, what will be after the end of the project, what is part of the project and specifically also what is NOT part of the project.
I am not sure if the manager you mention above existed already before you started that project, but having learned lots of lessons from all my projects, I even suggest for planning for potential roadblocking middle managers.
Planning in this sense means specifically to try to figure out who the stakeholders are and what you as a project manager (or project team member) will do ("Actions") to get the stakeholder on board or to make sure he/she cannot hinder your job (i.e. make a list of all actions/activities against your potential "foes" and a list of actions/activities to support your "friends").
A friend of mine wrote his Master Thesis specifically on "Why Projects Fail" (unfortunately it's only in German) and the main reason is usually not bad budgeting, insufficient staffing or moving targets. Of course, those reasons are valid, too, but the main reason is that Project Managers fail to account for stakeholders.
Which brings me to the subject "Project Marketing". Someone above said that "Selling the project" is not his job as Project Manager since there a "Business Development Managers" and such. That's exactly the opposite. Selling the project (inside and outside of the company) is one of the core tasks of a Project Manager. I am not talking about "Selling a Service" or "Selling a Product", i.e. I am specifically not talking about selling the Project Result but the project itself. So, it is of utmost importance to keep doing project marketing in order to gain support or keep support and in order to prevent road-blocks such as your middle manager.
We are in the middle of a major website redesign (the current site has not been updated in over 8 years) and everyone is asking why it takes so long to complete, and almost daily I have to explain that I do not have enough manpower.
This is a big mistake. Where's the Project Marketing? Where is Project Status Reports? If people do ask, then use it as an opportunity to sell the project to them. I mean, come on, when people ask - especially on a daily basis - it means, they are interested and you mus, as a good Project Manager, seize the opportunity to market your project.
Marketing a project also means gaining support from managers, making people interested in your project to project champions, your evangelists... If only you could convert those people interested in your project to your evangelists, you wouldn't have that much of a problem gaining support and probably getting more people then.
It might even help you in pushing aside the road-block. Even if he/she is a respected middle manager, he has probably lots of friends - if you could only get one or two of them to become your evangelist...
Of course, I can't prove ROI until the new site is launched (a great Catch22).
A NO-NO!! If you haven't proven the business case of your project beforehand why start it in the first place?
I assume it is about the same in the USA - give or take 5-10%.
Even if we talk only about the 30-person business, I doubt that GM is directly responsible for as much GDP as all the up-to-30-person companies in the US. Of course, then again, GM has so many suppliers,...
But that means the best solution for Howard would be to spin-off the Electronics division, since the other divisions *are* making money and the Electronics is losing money.
So, lets summarize:
Quality:
Sony has good Content
Sony has good Financial Department
Sony has bad Electronics
Financials:
Content is profitable
Financials is profitable
Electronics is... well losing hell-a-lot-of money???
So, why not get rid off of the Electronics and leave it to other companies? In which case, Sony could actually put pressure on them to develop HW with DRM otherwise they won't give'm their content? Just as a side-effect, in this case Sony would even have a better reputation since it wouldn't be Sony putting the DRM in the HW but the HW developers (in consumers' perception).
Actually, that's what I was "telling" (in fact, I was telling this to some friends at Sony DADC here in Europe) for 2 years now: Sony! Get rid off of your Electronics, it's not your core business anymore.
Actually, the numbers look differently when you download the 2005 Annual Report from Sony's website:
(Operating Income / Loss for 2005)
Electronics: -34.3 billion Yen Game: +43.2 billion Yen Music: +8.8 billion Yen Picture: +63.9 billion Yen Financial: +55.5 billion Yen SO.net: -4.1 billion Yen
So, Sony is actually a bank/insurance company with movie and gaming business. I guess they should really consider closing down the Electronics business.
The last time Electronics was profitable was in 2003, but then again in 2003 Electronics made 65.9 billion Yen whereas Games made 112.7 billion Yen (Music: -28.3, Pictures: +59, Financials +22.8).
Slashdot Mirror
AFAIK, Apple newer planned a 12" MacBook Pro - it was always:
MacBook Pro = 15" and 17"
MacBook = 13"
The difference is partially in VAT. If you calculate the VAT out of the price, the difference between US- and UK-price is (still) US$ 150 on the black and US$ 144 on the white 2GHz.
I don't know if there is any additional tax or whatever in UK. I guess the difference is to compensate for the current exchange rate (US$ vs GBP and US$ vs EUR) as well as for administrative overhead in Europe (Apple Europe + Apple UK)
Actually, afaik they "invented" AJaX back in 1997/98 or so. I poked around a long while with the MSDN-CDs during those days and it was really amazing what you could do with dynamic web.
The funniest thing is that though Microsoft invented it, it was the only technology they never managed to monetize and it was also the only technology, so far, invented by Microsoft and made broadly available by other people (of course, please feel free to correct me if this is wrong)
disclaimer: No, I am NOT a Microsoft employee and people who know me personally will assure you that I am the last one on this planet to *like* Microsoft...
You don't need to have a tracking method or direct sales to prove a business case (ROI, ROCE, whatever you call it, all are numbers for one thing: business case!).
There are two business case solutions: 1) More revenue through higher sales, 2) lower costs through efficient sales (production, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, etc.)
Now, you have to choose which of the paths you want to go. You can't really go both paths at the same time, i.e. you can't really have higher sales as well as lower costs with one action (well, at least not in most cases).
Once you have chosen which way to go, you then do two calculations: 1) The result if the project is performed and 2) what happens, when you don't undertake the project (people often forget that "doing nothing" is one of the many options you have).
So, you can't say that you can't prove ROI - you just don't want to be bothered with the details of proving the business case - I am sorry, you just don't really care whether the project you are undertaking is making money for your company (or saving money = making money, too). As long as your management has the impression that you don't care about making money for the company, you will (rightfully) never get additional staff. Prove the business case of adding more people to your project - prove it to your boss, your boss's boss and so on - and if you believe in your project, then fight for it up until the CEO!
I'm talking here as someone who did it exactly this way. One day, I even went to the COO and asked him how he can live with having a department without any profits so far... Well, that gained respect.
In order to change the business model requires weeks/months of sales time to upper management as well as a complete restructure of our SAP implementaion.
Nobody is talking about changing the business model! Change your attitude to your project, your boss and other managers - as well as your attitude to your job! If you are working 100 hours a week, you're certainly making a big mistake somewhere. You're certaily not doing your correctly (or you haven't don your job correctly in the first place) - Here again, I am talking to you: a Manager!
How many people work on your company's websites, email marketing, SEO/SEM, etc...? What type of business? B2B, B2C, Both?
This doesn't solve your problem. Why do you need that information? Do you need a solution for your problem? Then go ahead, read all the very insightful comments here.
But I have the feeling that you just want to prove your boss that you need more people - nothing else! You're not trying to solve your problem, you're just trying to prove to your boss that "... other companies have a lot more people for the same task ... " and that's a proof that you are definitely understaffed, etc. etc - ad infinitum!
The only problem was that I didn't expect a (respected) mid-level manager to be the road block.
One of the most important issues when you plan a project is to analyze the environment of it (i.e. the environment in which the project is run) and make a list of all (potential) stakeholders. There are potential stakeholders who will definitely try to block or even sabotage your project - but there are also stakeholders who could possibly help you.
In order to have a successful project, it's not enough to specify what has to be done, when and with whom but also in which environment the project is running, what was before the project started, what will be after the end of the project, what is part of the project and specifically also what is NOT part of the project.
I am not sure if the manager you mention above existed already before you started that project, but having learned lots of lessons from all my projects, I even suggest for planning for potential roadblocking middle managers.
Planning in this sense means specifically to try to figure out who the stakeholders are and what you as a project manager (or project team member) will do ("Actions") to get the stakeholder on board or to make sure he/she cannot hinder your job (i.e. make a list of all actions/activities against your potential "foes" and a list of actions/activities to support your "friends").
A friend of mine wrote his Master Thesis specifically on "Why Projects Fail" (unfortunately it's only in German) and the main reason is usually not bad budgeting, insufficient staffing or moving targets. Of course, those reasons are valid, too, but the main reason is that Project Managers fail to account for stakeholders.
Which brings me to the subject "Project Marketing". Someone above said that "Selling the project" is not his job as Project Manager since there a "Business Development Managers" and such. That's exactly the opposite. Selling the project (inside and outside of the company) is one of the core tasks of a Project Manager. I am not talking about "Selling a Service" or "Selling a Product", i.e. I am specifically not talking about selling the Project Result but the project itself. So, it is of utmost importance to keep doing project marketing in order to gain support or keep support and in order to prevent road-blocks such as your middle manager.
We are in the middle of a major website redesign (the current site has not been updated in over 8 years) and everyone is asking why it takes so long to complete, and almost daily I have to explain that I do not have enough manpower.
This is a big mistake. Where's the Project Marketing? Where is Project Status Reports? If people do ask, then use it as an opportunity to sell the project to them. I mean, come on, when people ask - especially on a daily basis - it means, they are interested and you mus, as a good Project Manager, seize the opportunity to market your project.
Marketing a project also means gaining support from managers, making people interested in your project to project champions, your evangelists... If only you could convert those people interested in your project to your evangelists, you wouldn't have that much of a problem gaining support and probably getting more people then.
It might even help you in pushing aside the road-block. Even if he/she is a respected middle manager, he has probably lots of friends - if you could only get one or two of them to become your evangelist...
Of course, I can't prove ROI until the new site is launched (a great Catch22).
A NO-NO!! If you haven't proven the business case of your project beforehand why start it in the first place?
I am sorry, but this is a wh
At least in Germany, the so called Mittelstand (SMEs) represent around 82% of the GDP (source, in de_DE: http://www.uv-vorpommern.de/info.html)
I assume it is about the same in the USA - give or take 5-10%.
Even if we talk only about the 30-person business, I doubt that GM is directly responsible for as much GDP as all the up-to-30-person companies in the US. Of course, then again, GM has so many suppliers, ...
But that means the best solution for Howard would be to spin-off the Electronics division, since the other divisions *are* making money and the Electronics is losing money.
... well losing hell-a-lot-of money???
So, lets summarize:
Quality:
Sony has good Content
Sony has good Financial Department
Sony has bad Electronics
Financials:
Content is profitable
Financials is profitable
Electronics is
So, why not get rid off of the Electronics and leave it to other companies? In which case, Sony could actually put pressure on them to develop HW with DRM otherwise they won't give'm their content? Just as a side-effect, in this case Sony would even have a better reputation since it wouldn't be Sony putting the DRM in the HW but the HW developers (in consumers' perception).
Actually, that's what I was "telling" (in fact, I was telling this to some friends at Sony DADC here in Europe) for 2 years now: Sony! Get rid off of your Electronics, it's not your core business anymore.
Actually, the numbers look differently when you download the 2005 Annual Report from Sony's website:
(Operating Income / Loss for 2005)
Electronics: -34.3 billion Yen
Game: +43.2 billion Yen
Music: +8.8 billion Yen
Picture: +63.9 billion Yen
Financial: +55.5 billion Yen
SO.net: -4.1 billion Yen
So, Sony is actually a bank/insurance company with movie and gaming business. I guess they should really consider closing down the Electronics business.
The last time Electronics was profitable was in 2003, but then again in 2003 Electronics made 65.9 billion Yen whereas Games made 112.7 billion Yen (Music: -28.3, Pictures: +59, Financials +22.8).