Daily Archives: November 28, 2008

John Gapper The dangers of shopping at Wal-Mart

November 28, 2008 11:46 pm by John Gapper

Black Friday indeed. The annual Friday after Thanksgiving tradition of teaser sales in US shops claimed a victim today when a Wal-Mart employee at a suburban New York store was trampled to death by bargain-seekers.

Elsewhere, someone filmed a crowd fighting over the last Xbox 360 at another Wal-Mart store (via Drudge).

The US retail industry is watching nervously to see whether Black Friday sales match past years. But this sort of thing makes one wish for a little bit of sanity to return to American shoppers.

At least those who shop online cannot get injured in a mouse-click frenzy.

Posted in Retail |

John Gapper BlackBerry fails to get ahead of the Curve

November 28, 2008 11:27 pm by John Gapper

I agree with Fred Wilson about the challenge Research in Motion faces in improving on the BlackBerry Curve. I use a Curve and it feels like a near-perfect combination of size, weight and practicality, despite not being a 3G device.

That sounds dandy for RIM, but it brings with it a problem: its efforts to improve upon the Curve – and match the iPhone – feel vaguely doomed. I have a bad feeling about the BlackBerry Storm and the BlackBerry Bold is nice but not compelling.

My feeling about the Storm – the supposed iPhone rival that BlackBerry has just brought out in the US in combination with Verizon – is based on two things. One was holding the device for a couple of minutes and the other was David Pogue’s memorably dismissive review in the New York Times.

Mr Pogue went through all the problems with the device but simply playing around with one for a minute or two was enough for me. It felt too heavy to keep comfortably in my suit pocket and too complex and unintuitive to use.

Continue reading: “BlackBerry fails to get ahead of the Curve”

Posted in Telecoms |

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John Gapper is an associate editor and the chief business commentator of the FT. He has worked for the FT since 1987, covering labour relations, banking and the media. He is co-author, with Nicholas Denton, of All That Glitters, an account of the collapse of Barings in 1995.

Andrew Hill is an associate editor and the management editor of the FT. He is a former City editor, financial editor, comment and analysis editor, New York bureau chief, foreign news editor and correspondent in Brussels and Milan.

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