Tech Bosses who have lost it!

Happy Friday and welcome to Prof Particpant's blog, your favorite online membership, ticket and registration software, even if you don't know it yet.

Today we begin our latest series "Tech Bosses who have lost it". A self explanatory title with frankly horrific content. Not has horrific as this website (see what happens when developers and designers aren't paid on time)

Our inaugural subject is Mr Jim Balsillie, 52 year old Canadian and co-chief executive of Blackberry. Estimated to have been worth roughly $800 million in 2011, Basillie today sold his entire share for a meager $434 million (roughly). Yep, that's right, a staggering loss of half his estimated worth within 18 months, or in relative terms it might be easier to stomach; that's a loss of $24 million per month for 18 months, no, actually that's not easy to stomach at all.

We're not sure how BB will recover, with further share prices set to fall after this very embarrassing and very public vote of no confidence by Basillie. 

It may be too early to start engraving tombstones for Blackberry or "Research In Motion" as they are now officially called, but what is certain, that RIM jobs will be at risk over the next coming months, with retailers already shunning the new blackberry device for the iPhone and windows phone, the future certainly holds bleak things for RIM. We look forward to seeing you here next week.

Prof Participant.

                                                       

A Brief History of Transactions. Part 2. As told by Prof Participant.

Hello all! Last week on our ticket management and online registration blog we were talking about the death of the cheque. And how our old friend is now looking increasingly frail and decidedly worn out. So, introducing part two of two; A brief History of Transactions. As told by Prof Participant from www.particpant.co.uk the online leaders of event management systems.

Continued from last week....

The final nail in the coffin for our friend, the cheque, was the introduction of the big banks vendetta against the cheque. Vendetta may be a strong word, infact, very possibly used in entirely the wrong context, unless you read the Daily Mail in the UK. Surprisingly enough The DM has refrained from calling the cheque "The last true British institution" or something else equally as sensational, however, their beleaguered defence is of interest.
"Many big stores, such as Tesco and Marks & Spencer, refuse to accept them, and most utility firms impose a penalty on those paying by cheque" Reference

Unfortunately this statement isn't exactly reliable, however it does highlight how some high street companies are beginning to phase out paper for pin. But does anyone actually mind? Cheques are inherently fallible in terms of security, so are there people clinging on to the hope  that we will never see a demise of the cheque?

"We need to give people a choice. I want cheques to be kept. I am sure if you go out and talk to people, they will say they want cheques." Reference

So that's exactly what we at Participant did, out of the few people we asked, not one of them agreed with the above statement. We received opinions that cheques can easily be forged and therefor were untrustworthy  others believed strongly that technology had already taken over, one young person even admitted they had never written a cheque, therefor why should they begin now?

In conclusion, it is apparent that cheques are already obsolete to the younger generation. However! There may well unexpected savior for the cheque, infact, the very nemesis in which the cheque is embroiled in battle with, yes, that's right, technology may well come to the rescue of the cheque. With the rate of advancement of technology it is highly plausible to hypothesize that through new technologies the cheque may find itself being brought back from the brink, although we doubt it.

Thank you for reading, happy eventing!

Prof.