List of Global Brands Keeps Coke on Top, and Apple Jumps Up

 

From the New York Times:

List of Global Brands Keeps Coke on Top, and Apple Jumps Up

Just a quick thought or so --

The sidebar to the left shows the 2012, 2011 and 2010.  Note that Apple jumped way up and Nokia fell like the proverbial rock.

If you go to the actual survey (link in the NYT article and here), you'll notice the presence of a number of luxury brands:

17.  Louis Vuitton
38.  Gucci
63.  Hermés
68.  Cartier (here's the Cartier commercial from the evening class)
70. Tiffany & Co.
84.  Prada

Remember where the growth for these brands is?  If you said China, you'd be right. 

Gucci on growth in China (video)

China’s rich feeds luxury brands and tourism in Europe

The Top 50 Most-Searched for Luxury Brands in China.

That is all.

Internet Censorship

Real quick -- here it is. Note that this also happens in Europe.

Google: China decision painful but right - Yahoo! News

Microsoft, Google, and Sun Microsystems

News today:

Google, Sun Challenge Microsoft's Office

Note in the 4th paragraph that Office is referred to Microsoft's "cash cow". This is a perfect example; Microsoft, of course, has the vast majority of market share and most people have an office package (so not a lot of market growth).

But the really interesting question is whether or not Sun & Google can displace Microsoft. [Note here that the 2 companies are hoping that their partnership will create synergy -- remember that concept? Some feel, though, that the big winner here will be Google, that "partnership" really isn't in the picture]

Microsoft has a big competitive advantage here. Its office suite is on most everyone's computer, meaning that:

1. Support and help (college & continuing ed classes, magazine articles, etc.) assume you're using Microsoft Office -- so if you go with a different product, where's the support?
2. Most companies and schools use MS Office -- if it's on the computer at school, you might as well have the same program at home.
3. Sharing files -- passing on a document to co-worker for editing, for example, is possible because everyone is on the same platform.

Here's the big if, though. We also said that competitive advantage had to be sustained, as well as created, and that sustainable competitive advantage depens on innovation. Ok. What Google and Sun are talking about is a competing way of distributing software.

Your comments???