There aren’t really words to describe that feeling when you’ve boarded one of the final EasyJet flights out of Barcelona on the Thursday evening. As the Informer looked down the row of heads in front, every one listing to the left and leaning up against the window or resting on its neighbour’s shoulder, he couldn’t help but feel like part of a platoon being shipped out after an arduous tour of duty. Industry heroes to a (wo)man.
Bond aficionados will recognise this week’s title as the groan/titter inducing pun from the closing scenes of Moonraker, arguably the most preposterous of the films that featured the most preposterous of the Bonds. Don’t get me wrong, Roger Moore has a strong case to be named the best Bond (he’s certainly the only one to have ever attended Mobile World Congress, back in the days when you could come home from the show with a tan) but he was far and away the most preposterous.
It’s not the strongest that flourish, it’s the most adaptable. Well, sometimes it’s the strongest, of course; usually in fights – the playgrounds of the world are littered with weaklings spitting teeth and crying that at least they’re adaptable. Anyway, this kind of quotation is not to be taken literally. The point is that flexibility and willingness to move with your environment can be crucial to success. Just look at aspiring US songstress Lizzy Grant. She wasn’t getting anywhere four years ago so she morphed herself with remarkable success into Lana Del Rey and now everybody’s raving about her.
The Informer doesn’t like goodbyes, but sometimes they’ve got to be said, a fact proven this week as big names have been bidding farewell to parts of their operations overseas.
Getting out of Dodge has been a recurring theme; corruption in India is beginning to take its toll on overseas investors, in Greece, the country’s financial woes are making foreign firms think twice about their business sustainability there, Nokia is scaling back operations in Hungary, Mexico and Finland. On these shores, meanwhile, disagreements over the justice system have seen the England football team’s Italian manager pack his suitcases.
Still three weeks out from MWC and the news has already gone colder than most of Europe. The mercury in the thermometer outside the Informer’s hovel has gone south of zero for the fourth time this week but it’s nowhere near as cold as for some of our cousins further east.
It was all about the numbers this week as the great and the good of the industry played show and tell with their bank statements. There weren’t many in the market revelling in unreservedly good news on the financial front but, true to form, Apple had another bonanza to report.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away lived a little green Jedi master who fought valiantly against the forces of the dark side. Today though, Yoda is feeling the squeeze of these tough economic times as much as anybody and has had to make that unenviable move from shooting genre-defining Hollywood blockbusters to filming advertisements for Vodafone in the UK. Ah, the perils of being typecast – but the Yodafone is not the only one finding himself out of pocket these days.
Ah, the London skyline. Such a distinctive view the Informer considers, whenever he finds anywhere high enough to enjoy it. The London Eye, St Paul’s Cathedral, the Gherkin and of course, Big Ben – or St Stephen’s Tower as it should technically be referred too. Impressive symbols of man’s ingenuity for sure, but these tall structures also hint at darker economic times, according to Barclay’s Capital, which made some rather insightful claims this week, suggesting that skyscraper building is linked with imminent financial doom.
Welcome back readers and a very happy new year to all of you who subscribe to the Gregorian calendar. Don’t worry, that sluggish feeling will probably have gone by next week, it’s just your body going into shock from the suddenly reduced calorie intake that accompanied the return to work.
The Informer spoke to Santa Claus this week and the good news is that, if you want a Blackberry 10 device for Christmas, you should be able to get one. The bad news is that you’ll have to wait until Christmas 2012. Research In Motion’s Annus Horribilis kept on delivering right unto the death, with the firm this week reporting a 71 per cent drop in net profit for its financial Q3, and revealing that its latest range of devices – the Blackberry 10 suite of products – will not be available until late next year.
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