Samsung Plans To Develop Robots

Samsung is not leaving innovation behind and now has announced its plans to build robot for educational and industrial usage.

Samsung Electronics Corp. never stays behind when it comes to giving its customers with the most advanced technology. It is now another step forward toward innovation by building robots for educational and industrial purposes.  The South Korean tech giant made an announcement on Monday regarding its plans of developing robots.

The Galaxy maker has already hired people who will play a part in the construction of these robots; these employees are form the telecommunications departments of the company who will help make this new plan turn into reality. Samsung does not hesitate to give its customers with smart technology; it recently showcased smart shoes build for athletes and coaches. The tech giant also opened a platform for Internet of Things and it believes that drones and robots are considered as the top two products that make up IoT.

Samsung is already known for the mobile phones it builds, and is known for building the best display screen and semiconductors.  The tech company faces tough competition in terms of its products from many Chinese organizations, hence is has made a decision to start another business where the competition is not as tough for now. The chairman of the company, Oh-Hyun Kwon informed the shareholders that the business is seeking to switch to another platform and build something new and reach the market of B2B and content service to generate more profit.

Samsung is switching from business to consumers to business to business now, as an effort to generate more profit and avoid competition. No details regarding what kind of robots will be built and witnessed have been revealed by the tech organization. One thing is known that the company has plans to develop smart things tech for the introduction of IoT. The robots that will be built might be used in the industry, health treatment, educational purposes and many other uses.

The South Korean organization announced on October 15th that the government will work in with the company to help in the construction of robots and grow the business. $16.75 billion of investments is going to be used for the development of parts for the robot in South Korea. The local partners of the company are going to benefit immensely form this and the stock can be expected to rise in the future. The electronics business is pushing all boundaries and is not scared to take risks and build new products and make new additions to its portfolio. Robots will be seen in the future having the name of Samsung on them, in universities and even hospitals. 

Apple Builds Own Data Centers To Avoid Dependence On AWS

Apple is likely to transit away from rival Amazon's AWS cloud computing services.

According to AppleInsider, Brian Nowak, an analyst from Morgan Stanley, claimed that Apple might soon move away from Amazon Web Service (AWS) cloud computing offerings. Last month, in its quarterly earnings conference call, the tech company hinted that it might decrease dependence on AWS Cloud. The complete transition may take over two years.

Standing ahead of Microsoft and Alphabet, AWS parent – Amazon – is the top provider of infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). It lets customers rent data storage and computer servers via the Internet cloud. The proposed strategy will help Apple to reduce some expenditure, as last year, it has spent nearly $1 billion for AWS cloud services, fellow analyst ‘Katy Huberty’ estimates. For 2016 and 2017, the company is likely to pay the fees of $1.05 billion and $1.18 billion respectively to AWS.

Apple’s fees make up almost 6% of AWS revenue and if the Cupertino, Calif. firm moves away, then AWS profitability will be highly affected. The shift is not astonishing considering the competition between Apple and Amazon for consumer products.

Nowak stated in his report that the tech business is about to open three new datacenters. The datacenters expansion plan will take around two years and the company is reportedly spending $2 billion for its “global command center” in Mesa, Arizona. A sum of around $1.86 billion (1.7 euros) is likely to be spent on two data centers in Denmark and Ireland.

Apart from this, the $535 billion tech organization announced that in 2016, it would raise its capital expenditure by 30%. The budget is likely to be assigned to build datacenters for services like iCloud, iTunes, and App Stores. Allegedly, the datacenters will be built on approximate space of 2.5 million square feet. AWS datacenter facility is sprawled over the area of 6.7 million square feet – almost 40% more than Apple’s proposed plan.

Both Apple and Amazon were unavailable to comment. In fact, the Silicon Valley business has never announced officially that it has been availing AWS cloud services. A report, forwarded in 2011, indicated that it had been using both, Microsoft’s Azure and AWS, as its iCloud data storage support.

Stanley analyst, Nowak, has not given a definite figure of how much AWS would lose its data traffic and business. He expressed that AWS, due to its strong growth, has the ability to absorb losses. In 2015, Amazon’s cloud services division has reported commendable 69% revenue in its fourth quarter. Moreover, it has an annual run-rate of almost $10 billion. By the looks of it, the Apple’s shift from AWS may not be too harsh on Amazon’s subsidiary.

Apple has put immense importance on self-reliance. By detaching itself from public services, it can balance its superior operational ecosystem. Through its cloud services, it will be able to create greater efficiencies.

At the market close on Tuesday, Apple stock price stood at $94.48.

Gilead Sciences Threatened By State To Lower Its HCV Drug Prices

The pharmaceutical giant is all set to provide justification of its high priced drugs.

Over the high price of its ground-breaking drug for Hepatitis C treatment; Sovaldi and Harvoni, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey threatens to sue the American biggest pharmaceutical company, Gilead Sciences Inc., claimed in a letter made public on Wednesday, January 27, 2016. Ms. Hailey puts forward her argument by stating that the company has violated the state Consumer Protection Act on unfair trade practices. However, the onus of proving that the high price is unfair or how high is too high rests with the attorney.

The attorney further carried on by stating that due to its high cost not everybody could get access to the drug which is essential in treating chronic Hepatitis C. She further stated that the cost of the drug is heavy burden on prison program and state Medicaid which care for large number of patients suffering from such disease.

According to Journal, in the letter forwarded to the company the attorney wrote: “At a minimum, Gilead Sciences should consider innovative approaches to pricing and payment that would expand access to Sovaldi and Harvoni in the United States, as it has done in other countries.”

The Harvoni drug has a list price of $1,125 per pill while a full course treatment using the drug costs about $94,500 whereas course of treatment with Sovaldi has accumulated cost of $84,000 around $1,000 per pill. In the year 2015’s first nine months, the company scored a sale of $10.1 billion in sales in the U.S. of the two drugs.

According to Journal, around 200,000 people in Massachusetts suffer from Hepatitis C. The HCV can cause serious infections which can cause death of a person. Ever since the Californian based company introduced its hallmark in the medicine industry Sovaldi in 2013, it has credited a lot of criticism to its account. A year later, the company introduced Harvoni, a pill which combines with the former in a lot of treatments. Likewise, due to their high costs, medical insurances don’t cover their costs.

Earlier in 2015, the company has encountered a similar situation when it had a lawsuit lodged against it in Pennsylvania federal court. The court ruled out that the state law couldn’t be used to force the company to dismiss its profit from the sale of its patented drug by lowering the price.

An associate professor at Boston College Law School, Dean Hashimoto said that a lawsuit which requires the company to lower its price in compliance with state’s consumer protection law would be odd. He said that usually in Massachusetts companies are sued over deceptive advertisings. Moreover, Mr. Hashimoto has also expressed that a lawsuit can prompt the company to say lowering the price for the prisons of the state.

The company has contacted with the attorney to have a detailed discussion on the topic so that company could provide justifications of the pricing. Attorney general spokeswoman has said that she was confident that the matter will be solved without having the company to go to court.

In 2015, the company projected that it would negotiate discounts of around 46% for Medicaid. Under the federal law, the companies are required to sell to the federal programs for poor like Medicaid at a price less than 25% of the retail price. One of the spokeswomen from Gilead has said that the Department of Veteran Affairs and Medicaid receive 50% or more discounts on Harvoni. .

However, in the complaint lodged by the state, the officials have argued that they couldn’t treat many patients just because of the high prices. According to the letter, Ms. Healey demands increased access to the new treatments.

All-Day Breakfast By McDonalds: A Success Story

McDonald's all day breakfast has changed the company's fate

It now seems like McDonald’s Corporation has achieved its target of redeeming itself with an all-day breakfast offering. The company decided this fall that they will come up with breakfast items all day long in the United States. This has now become the core reason behind the company’s upswing and has helped McDonald’s come out of the slump.

Under the able leadership of the Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Steve Easterbrook who took over the company in March has improved their comparable store slaes. This means that the sales happening at restaurants open at least once in a year. Moreover, it is also rising on the year earlier level for the first time ever in FY13.

As a result the McDonald’s stocks have soared by 25% since August with significant highs. Apparently in the Dow Jones industrial average the stocks are being ranked as top performing according to the industry average.

Apart from the all-day breakfast, the CEO has pushed the company to streamline the menu and has also emphasized on the need of making the quality of chicken sandwiches, hamburger and other items better. The company has also been asked to overcome the bureaucratic nature and improve its presence on digital media.

Irrespective of the fact the market presence of McDonalds is enormous and has stable brand identity, Mr. Steve Easterbook mentioned to investors during the meeting last month, "no business or brand has a divine right to succeed.”

"The plain fact is we were not executing to our standards," he added. "We were missing customer expectations in too many places."

The growth has been steady for the company since a decade and the company embraced a menace earlier in 2013 where the company had major rivals like Carl’s Jr. and Burger King were doing better. Moreover, the trend for gourmet burgers led to chains like Shake Shack that took the industry by a storm which allowed buyers to customize their meals as per their liking.

The company had a much cluttered menu that affected their surface and several scandal regarding the meat used in their products also tinted their image.

Hence now, an all day breakfast has turned out to be a game changer for the company which will help them to restore their image and build their credibility once again. The company now just needs to continue with its efforts and come up with better and innovative offerings that change the game for them completely making them the kings once again.

Mac And Cheese To Make Its Way To McDonalds Menu

McDonalds improvises its menu again by coming up with Mac and Cheese

McDonald’s Corporation is one of those companies that are not ready to give up under any circumstances. The company has been struggling since a fairly long span of time and has been making constant efforts to redeem its previous market share.

McDonalds recent made several changes to its menu where many new products were added to their menu. Some menu offerings were for a limited time whereas some were released to last for good.

MCD is currently in its infancy stage where they are working on launching Mac and Cheese for a limited time period. Mac and Cheese has a history of being a comfort food offering that has paved its way on the McDonalds menu. In the Cleveland region of Ohio, the company is coming up with an offering in 18 such restaurants where Mac and Cheese will be served.

Lisa McComb, the spokesperson belong to the fast food company stated, "We're always looking for new ways to offer relevant tastes to our customers, so we're giving mac and cheese a try and gathering valuable feedback from our customers.”

McDonalds is current selling the Mac and Cheese in a Happy Meal worth $3. The Mac and Cheese will serve as an entrée that will have fruit, fries and milk served as sidelines. The meal is also low on calories where four ounce of the serving offered will comprise of 200 calories. Moreover, 5 grams if whole and protein respectively will be present in the meal.

From November, it has also been reported that the company has been selling the Mac and Cheese for $1.75. so far the company has plans to continue serving the meal till February and then the company will decide if they want to continue with it or not.

The fast food behemoth will make its decision based on the feedback observed from consumers. She claimed, "It's premature to draw any conclusions from this test and it wouldn't be appropriate to speculate on it being offered anywhere else."

The move made by the company is quite aggressive and show that the company is adamant to redeem its position. They recently introduced an all-day breakfast menu that allowed all breakfast lovers to enjoy the menu whenever they wanted. Moreover, in the United Kingdom, the company is coming up with gourmet thicker patties that are simply tantalizing. Mac and Cheese is pure comfort if it tastes warm, oozing and delicious. McDonalds effort are commendable and deserve appreciation.

Apple Reduces iPhone 6s Price In India

Apple has decided to reduce the price of iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus amidst decline in sales.

Apple Inc. has almost reduced the price of iPhone 5s in India to nearly a half. So now, the company plans to deploy a similar strategy for its recent flagship smartphone – iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus – in the region. The reason why the tech behemoth has decided to slash the prices is that the sales are quite staggering in the region.

As per a local publication house in India, namely ‘Times of India’, during the fourth quarter, there has been a significant decline in demand although it was retailing quite well during the Diwali season. On an average, the difference in terms of pricing of all the Apple iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus from the day they were launched to date is almost 15%. The company had extremely strong sales in October; thus, it must be quite disappointing now since it had a high expectation from the emerging market.

India is considered one of the largest smartphone markets all over the world where the company shipped almost 32,000 units of its smartphones. According to the data gathered by the local analytical firms, the import figures have now dropped significantly by 62% in November. China, in terms of its economic growth, is far more important for Apple in comparison to India but India has extremely ‘fast growing’ grip on the smartphone fraternity that is of immense importance for the organization.

In India, tech giants, such as Facebook and Google, are trying quite hard to bring internet access to the masses in the region. Thus, the demand for smartphones and Internet compatible phones is likely to rise there. There are high import taxes because of which the locals have to pay hefty prices that have contributed to the decline in smartphone sales. Samsung was successful in reducing the cost since it established its factories in the region to excuse itself from such hefty taxes.

It is now assumed that Apple will follow the lead of Samsung and establish its factories in the region. In September, the Chief Executive Officer of Apple, Tim Cook, met the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to discuss the possibilities of establishing a factory and manufacturing products locally. Foxconn, known for manufacturing components for the iPhone, is likely to establish almost 10 to 20 factories in India. It is still not clear whether these factories will cater to iPhone components or not but the boost in economy is inevitable. 

Visa Signs Major Deals With USAA And Costco

Visa's new deals will guarantee the company to improve its market position in the upcoming year.

It is believed that Visa has experienced a dry year so far and this would create troubles for the upcoming year. Analysts predict that Visa Inc. has created a tough situation for itself prior to the fiscal year of 2016. It has happened due to lower commodity prices, which significantly influenced several markets, such as Australia, Brazil, Canada, and Russia. Furthermore, this will also affect the revenues generated from the cross border operations of the company. However, the payment service provider has taken steps accordingly ‘which could turn up better prospects’.

As of now, sources suggest that the multinational financial services corporation will soon be signing to mega deal in 2016, which includes deals with USAA and Costco. Analysts say that this would have a positive impact on the company’s overall performance that could be seen in the first half of the fiscal year 2016.

On the other hand, Deutsche Bank says, “net revenue growth will prove to be an accurate indicator of Visa’s long-term prospects as good contracts will result in multiplied effect in future when its clients expand their business.”

It is known that the Visa’s deals will be contributing heavily in the revenue growth of the company in 2017 as well. All of this is currently reflected by the market price of the company. The price to book value of Visa is 5.91x, which has slightly increased from October’s 5.15x when it had not announced the USAA and Costco deals. Regardless of the fact that it was not performing at its full potential and things were going bad, these deals have brought life back in company’s business.

So far, Visa stocks are rated as a Buy from the analysts working for Deutsche Bank and UBS. The current market price of the company’s shares stands at $79.82 but UBS has given a price target of $90. Various analysts are currently in favor of Visa stocks as 32 out of 40 analysts have rated Visa as a Buy whereas 8 rated the stocks as a Sell.

Apart from this, Visa is looking for ways to begin cost-cutting strategies in its European operations, which its thinks can easily be done through the integration of technology. Visa’s focus now is to bring the margins of Visa Europe near to what it is currently producing as well. Thus, it has a lot to do on its plate and is currently focusing to keep improving its business in the near future. 

Facebook Wants To Keep Its Employees Close To Itself

Facebook to offering monetary incentives to employees moving close to office.

Facebook Inc. is now making an offer to its employees present at the company’s headquarter situated in Silicon Valley where they will get $10,000 if they move close to the office.

All those employees who wish to get this payment need to rent or buy a house that is within 10 miles of the Facebook campus situated at hacker Way, in Menlo Park. The area is an uninhabited space of land close to a marsh that is almost 30 miles in the south of San Francisco. The massive amount being offered is a clear reflection of the barriers the tech behemoths have to deal with considering the expensive and congested spaces they get in the Bay area of San Francisco.

As per the former and present employees at FB, the social media giant started to offer this incentive a year ago. Those employees that have to support their families can actually get a onetime payment worth $15,000 or even more in certain cases as the housing benefit.

This initiative by the company is quite similar to the offerings being made by other tech giants. This includes Addepar –a company that deals in investment management technology; Palantir- a data company along with the unit of Salesforce.com Inc. known as SalesforceIQ.

Through such initiatives, the tension in the San Francisco region can be eased down to a great extent. The flow of rich and young employees that make their way to Silicon Valley by making use of private transportation make it very difficult for low waged residents to commute.

According to Daily Mail, “But Silicon Valley has a housing affordability crisis of its own, and if Facebook's program gains traction it could further accelerate the gentrification of nearby communities, especially the low-income city of East Palo Alto.”

Many of the local families in the region are destined to get hurt through this initiative. This creates a lot of concerns according to the Chief Executive Officer of Able Works- the East Palo Alto community advocacy group.

However, Facebook at this point of time is not really bothered about social consequences. According to a spokesman belonging to Facebook, “Our benefits at Facebook are designed to support our employees and the people who matter most to them at all stages of life.”

Many skeptics now believe that the initiative taken by the company is to make sure that employees spend more time at work. Also this will also help them to curb on the cost of the luxury bus service. 

Microsoft Might Not Be Able To Redeem Itself In The Smartphone Industry

Microsoft struggle in the smartphone industry seems like their destiny

Smartphones that are equipped with high end features are considered to be a necessity in the modern tech world. Apple Inc. through its flagship smartphone iPhone and Google Inc. through its Android powered smartphones are known for dominating the market with high end features that are offered to their consumers. These companies are presently dominating the smartphone market that causes other companies like Microsoft Corporation to stumble with the sales of its Windows Phones.

The company wishes to come out of the present state of obscurity by launching the Windows 10 smartphones. So by coming up with a new smartphone, the company vowed to cater to all those features which it initially failed to offer to its users previously. So by coming up with Windows 10 Mobile, the company might have dealt with the issues that were pending however, they have certainly not offered anything better to intrigue buyers. Moreover, by not offering the apps that are present on the ecosystem of Google, the company has actually again created a vacuum that needs to be filled.

The app store of Microsoft has succeeding in catching the big fishes like Twitter and Microsoft , however consumers are now spoilt since they are used to the availability of thousands of app on their smartphone. The Windows 10 Mobile certainly has apps that cater to the basic needs of consumers to stay connected. However, it still does not boast of other luxury app that make the entire experience worthwhile.  The app collection of Google Play Store and Apple App Store is far beyond what Microsoft is offering.

As per the recent reports published by IDC, the Windows 10 Mobile is not likely to improve the company’s standing in the operating system fraternity since their market share is quite stagnant. So now it seems like it actually quite late for the company to redeem itself in the smartphone fraternity.

Another issue that is encountered is that the company has failed to make its smartphones readily available in the market. So all those who even would want to get their hands on the Lumia 950 or Lumia 950 XLL might not be successful to do so. Apart from Microsoft’s online stores the smartphones are only available with AT&T. the company has also struggled with giving a tough time to Google and Apple thus their reign is likely to continue for the years to come. It is high time that they realize that its actually not their game.

McDonalds To Come Up With Its Coffee Shop

McDonald's is going to come up with a coffee shop to target caffeine lovers.

McDonalds Corporation has been trying its best to pave its way to redemption. Recently the company has come up with several offerings that are targeted to regain their loyal customers. It recently came up with all day breakfast that is doing quite well. It has also come up with a festive menu to add to the joy and spirit of the holiday season, including other incentives that are targeted to make people crave for McDonald’s all over again.

Clients have now started to become very reticent at any point of time when MCD starts to offer a new experience. However now, the company’s recent endeavor might just be worth the talk. Mickey D’s recently announced of establishing a McCafe in the Canadian market.

However, the McCafe is actually fading away the thin line, which used to distinct McDonald’s from renowned coffee shop Starbucks. Moreover, considering the paradigms of the Canadian market, this is actually a rival to Tim Hortons too.

This initiative is taken by the company to establish its image as a "build on its reputation as a leading coffee brand," which is actually a very charitable self-image. This is actually great news for all those consumers who consider it quite hard to look for a popular chain offering them the instant buzz they require from their coffee. According to Grub Street, “Coincidentally, franchisees might, too: One big complaint of theirs has been the difficulty of operating what's, in effect, a mini coffee shop over at the corner of the counter.”

This is one of a kind standalone McCafe being launched in Toronto, Canada. The café is situated at the transit of the Union Station conveniently. At this point of time, the company is just trying the concept out but another one will also be launched in the fiscal year of 2016.

Since it is a café, McDonald’s menu has to be tweaked where a range of pastries needs to be added. Items like croissants, tarts, cheese danishes, Mini Chocolatine, hot chocolates etc. need to be added to the menu to make it attractive. The company has come up with an affogato, which is derived from the Oreo McFlurry.

Coffee shops are doing quite well in the west since many consumers prefer to have their daily caffeine on the go. Moreover, business meetings, small gatherings are preferred at such locations. The idea of a McCafe is quite intriguing and is likely to disrupt the industry.

Google CEO Approaches Indian Consumers

Google wishes to tap on Indian consumers to increase user base

Alphabet Inc. is a tech behemoth that is reigning all over the globe through Google. The company since a long span of time has been serving the developed parts of the world on their PCs. However, now the company is trying to target a new genre of audience to bolster growth: these are the people using cheap smartphones in economically instable countries.

The search engine giant is now putting in efforts to reach out to the developing countries. The initiative was fueled when Mr. Sundar Pichai, the Chief Executive Officer of Google for the first time made an official visit to India since he has taken charge of the company back in August.

Mr. Pichai was born and brought up in India and now he is scheduled upon meeting the software developers to chalk out ways through which they can enable the masses in the region to come online for the first time. The idea is to provide them a new canvas and then motivate them to make use of services like YouTube and Gmail.

For the trimester that ended in September, the biggest digital advertisement firm across the globe has recorded a $3.98 billion in terms of net income. This has gone up by $2.74 billion in comparison to the same quarter a year back. India however does not contribute quite significantly to the earnings of GOOG. Irrespective of this, the company has been trying its bests to make a mark in India. This initiative is in compliance with their long term goal of capitalizing on the emerging markets.

As per the company’s quarterly earnings report, Google does not chalk out the revenues on the basis of countries particularly. However over the past two years they have been calculating the average according to which sales in United States accumulate to 45%, in United Kingdom its 10% and almost 45% in remaining parts of the world.

According to Wall Street Journal, “The bulk of the world’s four billion people not yet connected to the Internet reside in developing countries, according to the International Telecommunication Union. Consultancy McKinsey & Co. says about one billion people in India alone are still offline.”

This actually indicates that India is a potential market for Google to add on new users since most of the consumers remain untapped. Google has already bid farewell to the Chinese market since the company could not adhere to the nasty censorship laws implanted on foreign companies in the region.