climate and comms

Google have just announced with some fanfare that they have created a mobile money eco-system.   Android users can now use their devices fitted with NFC chips to make payments at selected Points of Sale in the US.   This will only be launched on a limited scale some time in the Summer.  It is not actually ready yet. ( http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/coming-soon-make-your-phone-your-wallet.html ) There is no doubt that those of us in the ‘advanced’ West will value the utility of being able to swipe our phones (which have become extensions of our very beings) when we buy coffee  - the Starbucks app has been out for a while – ( http://www.starbucks.com/coffeehouse/mobile-apps ) or when we make our day to day purchases.   It will be  ‘cool’ just as it is cool today to flash an NFC enabled credit card at an NFC enabled POS when making small value purchases. However I would argue that the utility,  of the full functionality of mobile money transa...

The recent attack (it seems by Anonymous) on SONY which compromised the personal details of almost 100m of their gaming customers has caused massive damage to the SONY brand.   According to Interbrand in 2009 SONY’s brand value was $12bn.   You can safely assume that it will have taken a hit in the order of billions of dollars.  ( This excludes any legal action and the resultant loss.)  The same could be said of Epsilon and RSA who like SONY did not have a major financial breach but their good names have been severely compromised.   The loss to brand value as well as enterprise value could be massive due to the loss of future business.    (There is a report circulating citing research done on RSA’s customers of whom more than half stated that they would not be renewing their contracts. )    If not obvious before,  then now,  executives charged with the stewardship of large valuable corporations must r...