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September 9th, 2011
Welcome to the Vangelis Solutions News Room!
Now available on your iPhone, iPad, Blackberry and Android PDAs…. to name but a few!
Our aim is to present a set of the most important and interesting IT news articles to keep our clients up to date and informed.
We will draw from the best industry sources to present news articles on such topics as Microsoft, Disaster Recovery and Business Contingency, Virtualisation, and Email and Security related items to name a few.
Call us or use the contact us form and we will call you to discuss what Vangelis Solutions can do for your business.
Bretos Margetis
Tags: Android, iPAD, iPhone, IT support, Vangelis Solutions
Posted in General |
February 7th, 2012
Virgin Media
will complete its rollout of super-fast broadband ahead of schedule, making the service available to each of the 13m homes passed by its network this spring.
The group, which is expected to report its first annual profit on Wednesday, will announce on Monday that its super-fast service now passes 10m of the UK’s 26m homes and that its entire network will be plugged in several months ahead of the original mid-2012 deadline.
Virgin Media, which is the UK’s only cable company and was formed through rounds of mergers between loss-making predecessors, is forecast by at least two banks to report a small net profit. Analysts forecast an average of £3.988m in revenues for the year, with BNP Paribas saying this could produce a £72m profit, and JP Morgan Cazenove estimating £60m.
BT Group and Virgin Media are engaged in a broadband arms race which will see download speeds double for many households in the coming year. In a separate project, Virgin will over the next 18 months double its customers’ download speeds, with the fastest going from 50Mbps to 120Mbps from the summer. BT will move its 40Mbps customers to 80Mbps. The higher speeds ensure several members of a household can simultaneously watch internet TV, play online games, or use smartphones, tablets and computers.
The UK is outside the world’s 30 fastest for internet connections, according to speed testing company Ookla, but Virgin Media says its work will push the country into the top 20, ahead of the US, Japan, France and Germany.
Jon James, executive director of broadband at Virgin Media, said: “Soon half the country will be able to get superfast 100Mbps broadband from us. Reaching today’s milestone puts us ahead of schedule as we help propel the UK up the global broadband rankings.”
The TV and telecoms group could add 13,000 customers in its fourth quarter, according to JP Morgan Cazenove, bringing its total subscribers to 4.8m. The total, which takes into account those leaving the network, could include 30,000 more broadband subscribers. In its last quarter, BT added 146,000 broadband subscribers.
BT and Virgin Media are racing towards higher speeds in the hope that consumers will leave Talk Talk and BSkyB, which will struggle to match their service. BT and Virgin are the only two operators that own fibre cables.
Sky and Talk Talk have spent millions unbundling BT’s copper network, installing their own equipment in telephone exchanges, but the higher speeds cannot be delivered over copper.
According to analyst Robin Bienenstock at broker Sanford Bernstein: “This leaves the unbundlers (but in particular BSkyB as TalkTalk is the clear discounter in the market) in the unenviable position of having to choose between selling product that is margin dilutive or resisting its sale and seeing their premium quality status diluted.”
Sky is already considering renting fibre from BT, and has begun a trial on the former national monopoly’s network which could form the basis of a high speed broadband offer to its customers.
Nirmal
Posted in Business |
February 7th, 2012
The UK PC market faces “a long, uphill struggle” in 2012 after it once again lagged behind its western European counterparts during a miserable fourth quarter.
Figures from Gartner reveal that total Q4 UK PC shipments fell 19.6 per cent annually to 2.95 million. Market leader HP suffered a sales slump of 27 per cent, and its 618,000 unit shipments gave it a 21 per cent share of the market.
Second-placed Dell saw its quarterly shipments fall 32.2 per cent on the corresponding period last year to 408,000, giving the Texan firm 13.8 per cent of the market. Despite a 5.4 per cent Q4 decline in units shipped, third-placed Toshiba has seen its market share jump from 8.5 to 10 per cent in the past year.
Apple, in fourth, was the quarter’s only big winner, with shipments growing 17.2 per cent to 267,000. The Mac maker’s market share has swelled from 6.2 to 9.1 per cent over the past 12 months.
Fifth-placed Acer’s annus horribilis came to a suitably nightmarish end. The Taiwanese firm’s quarterly shipments plummeted 62.4 per cent to 230,000. Its market share was cut by more than half in 2011, falling from 16.7 to 7.8 per cent.
The market’s smaller players had more joy in Q4, with shipments for everyone outside the leading quintet growing 5.8 per cent to more than 1.1 million. The percentage of the market held by non-top-five manufacturers has risen more than nine points to 38.3 per cent during the past year.
Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner, told ChannelWeb that the hard-disk drive supply issues could potentially lead to inventory shortages, resulting in PC price rises in 2012. This, in turn, could slow corporate refresh cycles, he predicted.
“There is nothing that is really helping the PC industry move forward at the moment – everything is stacked against it,” he added.
Atwal claimed that many enterprises might look at a variety of client compute platforms beyond traditional desktops.
“Organisations are re-evaluating their device portfolio and are trying to understand better where PCs are most valuable within their organisations, and how they can supplement them with other devices or, in some cases, replace them,” he said.
“[This is] not necessarily [just about] getting smartphones in and looking to tablets, but also thin clients; [they are asking] ‘what is the best way to do the applications?’ ‘Do we really necessarily need a full-fat client?’”
The UK’s decline exceeded that of the other major western European markets, with French Q4 shipments falling 11.8 per cent year on year, and the German market contracting by 8.2 per cent. The PC markets in the troubled southern European economies of Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain shrank by more than 30 per cent in Q4, according to Gartner
Nirmal
Posted in Business |
January 31st, 2012
 Samsung redesigned one of its European tablets after it was sued by Apple
Samsung’s patent deals are being looked into by the European Commission.
Competition regulators are investigating whether the firm used some of its intellectual property rights to “distort competition in European mobile device markets”.
The commission says it wants to know if Samsung has failed to live up to a commitment to license key technologies to rivals.
The action comes as the company is involved in patent battles with Apple.
A spokesman for Samsung said it did not have a statement to make on the case at this time.
The inquiry centres on Frand commitments – a promise by industry players to license innovations that are essential to an industry standard on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.
This means that the owner cannot discriminate who gets to use its invention and that its fee cannot be excessive.
The commission notes that in 1998 Samsung offered an “irrevocable commitment” to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to respect Frand terms.
But the regulator says that: “In 2011, Samsung sought injunctive relief in various member states against competing mobile device makers based on alleged infringements of certain of its patent rights which it has declared essential to implement European telephony standards.”
Lost lawsuits
The South Korean firm has made more than a dozen patent claims against Apple in Germany, the Netherlands, France and Italy relating to 3G-essential technologies.
So far the courts have ruled against Samsung in the cases – in part because it was felt that the firm had failed to live up to its Frand commitments.
However, patent consultant Florian Mueller, who has blogged about the various cases, notes that: “The European Commission can’t wait until Samsung finally wins a ruling based on such a patent and enforces it, potentially causing irreparable harm.”
A spokesman for the European Commission confirmed that it had instigated the proceedings. He said that the commission had not received an official complaint from Apple or any other company about the matter.
Counter-attacks
Samsung has also been on the receiving end of patent and design-rights litigation.
Some analysts view its lawsuits as a response to Apple’s legal attack.
The iPad-maker succeeded in having two of its competitors’ tablets banned from sale in Germany last year forcing a redesign.
The ruling against the Galaxy Tab 10.1 was upheld by the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court today.
Experts say the commission’s intervention is likely to further complicate matters.
“It is really difficult for Samsung to have the commission wading in when none of its competitors have made a complaint,” said Vicki Salmon, a member of the UK’s Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys.
“At a time when there is a lot of litigation between companies it doesn’t help to be on the receiving end of an official inquiry.”
Bretos Margetis
Posted in Samsung |
January 31st, 2012
 Post-9/11 USA is highly cautious of any perceived threat, Abta said
Holidaymakers have been warned to watch their words after two British friends were refused entry to the US on security grounds after a tweet.
Before his trip, Leigh Van Bryan wrote that he was going to “destroy America”.
He insisted he was referring to simply having a good time – but was sent home.
Trade association Abta told the BBC that the case highlighted that holidaymakers should never do anything to raise “concern or suspicion in any way”.
The US Department for Homeland Security picked up Mr Bryan’s messages ahead of his holiday in Los Angeles.
The 26-year-old bar manager wrote a message to a friend on the micro-blogging service, saying: “Free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America.”
He told the Sun newspaper that he and his friend Emily Bunting were apprehended on arrival at Los Angeles International Airport before being sent home.
“The Homeland Security agents were treating me like some kind of terrorist,” Mr Bryan said.
“I kept saying they had got the wrong meaning from my tweet.”
No joke
Abta, which represents travel companies in the UK, said holidaymakers need to learn to be ultra-cautious when it comes to talking about forthcoming trips, particularly after 9/11.
“Posting statements in a public forum which could be construed as threatening – in this case saying they are going to “destroy” somewhere – will not be viewed sympathetically by US authorities,” it told the BBC.
“In the past we have seen holidaymakers stopped at airport security for ‘joking’ that they have a bomb in their bag, thoroughly questioned and ending up missing their flights, demonstrating that airport security staff do not have a sense of humour when it comes to potential risk.”
In another tweet, Mr Bryan made reference to comedy show Family Guy saying that he would be in LA in three weeks, annoying people “and diggin’ Marilyn Monroe up”.
Mr Bryan told the newspaper that he was questioned for five hours about his Twitter messages.
‘Tweeter account’
After the interview, Homeland Security’s reported: “Mr Bryan confirmed that he had posted on his Tweeter website account that he was coming to the United States to dig up the grave of Marilyn Monroe.
“Also on his tweeter account Mr Bryan posted he was coming to destroy America.”
 Paul Chambers was fined after posting a message about Robin Hood Airport The US Customs and Border Protection agency said in a statement that it tried to maintain a balance between “securing our borders while facilitating the high volume of legitimate trade and travel that crosses our borders every day”.
It added: “We strive to achieve that balance and show the world that the United States is a welcoming nation.”
Mr Bryan is not the only person to suffer from a misjudged tweet. In January 2010, Paul Chambers tweeted that he would blow snow-affected Robin Hood Airport in Doncaster “sky high!” if it was not reopened in time for him to see his girlfriend.
He was fined £385 plus £2,600 in costs – a sum which actor Stephen Fry offered to pay on Mr Chambers’ behalf.
Bretos Margetis
Posted in Social Networking, Twitter |
January 31st, 2012
 The episode will see The Simpsons move next door to Julian Assange
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is to guest star on animated comedy The Simpsons, it has been confirmed.
The 500th episode will see the family moving to an isolated house and finding themselves living next to Assange.
Fox said Assange, currently under house arrest while he appeals his extradition to Sweden over alleged sex offences – which he denies, recorded his lines from the UK.
The new episode will be broadcast in the US on 19 February.
The Simpsons’ executive producer Al Jean told Entertainment Weeklythat series creator Matt Groening heard a rumour that Assange was interested in guest-starring on the series.
“We asked our casting director Bonnie Pietila – who had been able to unearth Thomas Pynchon and got Tony Blair to do the show – to find Mr Assange. And she did,” Jean said.
Jean added the show’s creative team realised Assange was “controversial” but they avoided delving into “the legal situation that he’s in”.
“We wanted to make sure it was satirical, and he was willing to do that,” he said.
Last year’s guests included 24 star Kiefer Sutherland, chef Gordon Ramsey and Glee’s Jane Lynch.
Bretos Margetis
Tags: julian assange, The Simpsons
Posted in Fun |
January 31st, 2012
 Israel, Finland and Sweden are seen as leading the way in “cyber-readiness”, according to a major new security report.
The McAfee-backed cyberdefence survey deemed China, Brazil and Mexico as being among the least able to defend themselves against emerging attacks.
The rank is based on leading experts’ perception of a nation’s defences.
The report concluded that greater sharing of information globally is necessary to keep ahead of threats.
It also suggests giving more power to law enforcement to fight cross-border crime.
The UK, with a grading of four out of five, ranks favourably in the survey – along with the USA, Germany, Spain and France.
‘Subjective view’
The rankings are based on the perceived quality of a country’s cyber-readiness – the ability to cope with a range of threats and attacks.
“The subjectiveness of the report is its biggest strength,” explained Raj Samani, McAfee’s chief technology officer.
“What it does is give the perception of cyber-readiness by those individuals who kind of understand and work in cyber security on a day-in, day-out basis.”
Countries ranked for cyber-readiness
|
| Country |
Rating |
| SOURCE: MCAFEE |
| (None) |
 |
| Finland, Israel, Sweden |
 |
| Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, UK, USA |
 |
| Australia, Austria, Canada, Japan |
 |
| China, Italy, Poland, Russia |
 |
| Brazil, India, Romania |
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| Mexico |
 |
| (None) |
 |
A good score depends on having basic measures like adequate firewalls and antivirus protection, and more complex matters including well-informed governance and education.
Sweden, Finland and Israel all impressed the report’s experts – despite the fact that the latter receives reportedly over 1,000 cyber attacks every minute.
Isaac Ben-Israel, senior security advisor to Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is quoted in the report as saying: “The hacktivist group Anonymous carries out lots of attacks but they don’t cause much damage. The real threat is from states and major crime organisations.”
He added that the country has set up a cyber-taskforce responsible for assessing threats to key infrastructure such power production and water supplies.
‘Enhancing co-operation’
At the other end of the security scale, Mexico ranked as least prepared to cope with the cyber threat – a situation which is blamed on the country’s authorities needing to overwhelmingly focus on the country’s gang and drugs problems.
China is regarded by some Western observers as an aggressor in cyberspace.
But one expert Peiran Wang said the country was itself vulnerable because it lacked a joined up strategy.
 Mexico’s drug problems means available resource is put into real world policing – and not on cybercrime “The Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of State Security and even the military are involved and they don’t communicate well,” said Peiran Wang, a visiting scholar at Brussels’ Free University.
In the UK, the report praised a £650m investment programme in cyber security.
However, the Home Office’s plans were criticised by information security expert Peter Sommer.
“A great deal depends on co-operation from the private sector, which controls about 80% of the critical national infrastructure.
“Over half of the new funding will go to the ‘secret vote’, the intelligence agencies, where value for money will be difficult to investigate. I would have preferred more emphasis on public education – helping potential victims help themselves.”
Cybercrime fighters
Among the report’s conclusions is the recommendation that greater efforts be made to improve cross-border law enforcement.
“Cybercriminals route their connection through multiple different countries,” said Mr Samani.
“If criminals are particularly clever, they go through countries where they know there isn’t any co-operation.”
 In the UK, millions has been pledged by foreign secretary William Hague to fight cyber issues “The bad guys share information – we need to do the same as well.”
Dr Joss Wright from the Oxford Internet Institute welcomed the report’s findings. However, he had serious doubts over the feasibility of its suggestions.
“They’re recommendations that people have been saying for maybe 10 years,” he told the BBC.
“I would love to see good information sharing – but when you’re talking about national security, there’s a culture of not sharing.
“They’re not suddenly going to change 70, 100, 1000 years of military thinking.”
Bretos Margetis
Posted in Security, Web and Internet |
January 31st, 2012
Britain’s retail world drew a collective gasp when John Browett jumped from Tesco to Dixons in 2007. He was swapping a retail star for one that looked destined for the knackers’ yard.
John Browett is leaving Dixons Retail to join Apple
It was a view that was only strengthened as the credit crunch hit Britain shortly after he arrived. Today, it was the turn of the global retail community to draw breath as Browett jumped from Dixons to Apple.
The Cambridge graduate has landed one of the most coveted jobs in retail. And while his jobs at Dixons was to revive a flagging brand, the 46-year old’s challenge at Apple is to build on a success that has seen the number of Apple stores balloon to more than 300 over the last five years.
It’s not clear how Browett emerged on Apple’s radar, but Dixons had been one of the two companies given exclusive rights in the UK to sell the iPad for 60 days after its release in the spring of 2010.
Browett is credited with helping Dixons survive one of the most daunting times for UK retailers as consumer confidence remains near rock-bottom. That was reflected in the drop in Dixon’s share price today.
Before joining Dixons, Browett was Tesco’s director of operations and had run the company’s website.
Bretos Margetis
Tags: Apple, Dixons
Posted in Apple |
January 30th, 2012
We recommend that you follow the provided methods in this article in order. However, if you had previously tried one of the methods to fix this error and it did not help, you can jump to another method quickly from this list:
Method 1: Check whether you exceed limits
Click here to show information on how to check Excel 2010 limits.
The error can occur if you exceed certain Excel 2010 limits, such as running too many calculations in the workbook. Some of these limits are as follows:
- The maximum worksheet size limit is 1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns.
- The total number of characters that a cell can contain is 32,767 characters.
- The maximum selected range in a calculation is 2,048.
- The maximum nested level of functions in a calculation is 64.
For a full list of Excel 2010 specifications and limitations, read the information in this Office Online article:
If you have checked and the worksheet or workbook is not exceeding Excel limitations, go to the next method.
Method 2: Make sure only one instance of Excel is active
Click here to show information on how to check if only one instance of Excel is active.
Method 3: Close all applications
Click here to show information on how to close all applications.
The error may occur if other applications are active and using computer memory while you are trying to use, open, or save the Excel workbook. We recommend that you close and exit all applications except for the Excel workbook.
You can close applications manually or you can follow the “clean-boot” steps provided in one of the following articles:
Once all applications are closed, open the Excel workbook and test. If the error continues to occur, go to the next method.
Method 4: Test Excel in safe mode
Click here to show information on how to start Excel in safe mode.
The error can occur if you have too many Excel add-in programs running. To test whether an add-in is causing the problem, start Excel in safe mode:
- Click Start
.
- In Windows 7, type excel /s in the Search programs and files box and press Enter.
In Windows Vista, type excel /s in the Start Search box and press Enter.
- Check the title. It should read Book1 – Microsoft Excel (Safe Mode).
- Click File, and then select Open.
- Locate the Excel workbook to test and open it.
Open the Excel workbook and test. If the error no longer occurs, you may have too many add-in programs or a specific add-in may cause this error. We recommend that you follow the steps in this Microsoft online article to unload add-in programs:
If the error continues to occur, go to the next method.
Method 5: Turn off the preview pane in Windows Explorer (Windows 7 only)
Click here to show information on how to turn off the preview pane.
The preview pane is used to see the contents of most files in Windows Explorer. For example, if you click a picture, video, or text file, you can preview its contents without opening the file. By default, the preview pane is turned off in Windows 7. However, if it is turned on, it may cause a conflict with the Excel workbook you try to open leading to this error. We recommend that you turn off the preview pane and test opening your Excel workbook. To do this:
- Click Start
, and then click Computer.
- Click Organize.
- Select Layout, and then click to clear Preview pane.
- Open the Excel workbook and test.
If the error continues to occur, go to the next method.
Method 6: Save as an Excel workbook file if you use relative names
Click here to show information.
The error can occur when you create a workbook that contains a relative name and then fill a range of cells referencing this relative name in a new workbook. For example, you create the workbook that contains a relative name, then, in another workbook, you press Ctrl + Enter to fill a range of cells with a reference to the relative name. You save the second workbook as an “Excel 97-2003 Workbook (*.xls)” file and then close both workbooks.
To work around this issue, follow one of these options:
Option 1
- Open the Excel workbook that contains the relative name first.
- Next, open the Excel workbook that contains the reference to the relative name.
Option 2
Save both workbooks as Excel (.xlsx) workbook files. To do this:
- Click File, and then click Save As.
- Select Excel Workbook (*.xlsx) in the Save as type box and save the file.
If the error continues to occur, go to the next method.
Method 7: Change defined names to reference cells directly
Click here to show information.
You may have used a defined name to represent a cell, range of cells, formula, or constant value. The error can occur if you define names that indirectly refer to other nested names that are more than 20 levels deep and you do one of the following:
- You add or use a name that exceeds the level of indirection in the formula
- You delete a name that is referenced by more than 20 levels of defined names
To resolve the problem, change the defined names so that they reference the given cells more directly.
If the error continues to occur, go to the “References” section of this article.
Nirmal
Posted in Microsoft |
January 30th, 2012
 Visitors to megaupload.com are now presented with a message from US law enforcement
US prosecutors have said that data belonging to Megaupload users and stored by third parties could be deleted as soon as Thursday.
Users have been unable to access data since the file-sharing service was raided.
The warning was made in a letter filed by the US Attorney’s Office, the Associated Press news agency reported.
Megaupload’s lawyer Ira Rothken told the agency that at least 50 million users had data which could be deleted.
Mr Rothken said that freezing of Megaupload’s funds meant it was unable to pay those who were storing its data.
In the letter prosecutors said that the data which might be deleted was being held by the storage companies Carpathia Hosting and Cogent Communications Group.
Neither they nor the US Attorney’s Office have responded to emails from the BBC.
Mr Rothken told the agency that he was “cautiously optimistic” that a deal could be done to save the data from being wiped.
He said that the data would be needed by the defence.
Legitimate data
Megaupload was shut down on 19 January.
It had about 150 million registered users, making it one of the most popular file-sharing services in the world.
US authorities are seeking to extradite founder Kim Dotcom, also known as Kim Schmitz, and three other defendants from New Zealand to the US.
Prosecutors have accused it of costing copyright holders more than $500m (£320m) in lost revenue.
But a number of users have said that they have been unable to access legitimately uploaded material as a result of the legal action.
After the shutdown one user tweeted, “I’m vehemently against copyright infringement: the files I lost were created & owned by me for my job.”
Bretos Margetis
Posted in General, Web and Internet |
January 30th, 2012
Adam Lashinsky’s new book lifts the lid on what it’s really like to work for one of the world’s most secretive organisations. He talks to Amy Willis
Apple’s iPhone 4S was developed under conditions of extraordinary secrecy
A 12,000-person mile-round glass mothership is about to land in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Futuristic, with its own self-contained electricity plant: plans for Apple’s new disc-shaped headquarters encompass the lasting legacy of the lateSteve Jobs – a slick design, with an uber-efficient core.
Over the years dozens of technophiles, seduced by three decades of technological smut, have made the pilgrimage to One Infinite Loop, Apple’s current base in Cupertino, in the hope of getting under the skin of the highly-secretive company.
Few make it inside the main Apple building. A throng of security guards greets them instead, escorting them back onto the sidewalk, sometimes pointing them in the direction of the on-campus shop where they can buy a token Apple T-Shirt.
But a new book, released in the UK this week, finally gives a non-partisan insight into life as an Apple employee. And it isn’t what most expect.
“Apple doesn’t talk about Apple. Apple talks about Apple products,” Adam Lashinsky, author of the book and editor of Fortune Magazine, told The Daily Telegraph.
Perhaps for good reason; the illusion of a free-spirited workforce sitting around on bean bags playing on the latest gizmos before they have their free lunch would be shattered.
Instead, a dictatorial CEO rules with an iron fist, Mr Lashinsky said. Employees don’t ask questions and they leave their egos at the door. There is only one person who was allowed to have a public ego and that was Steve Jobs, he said.
“It is a tough place to work. It is a very demanding work environment. It is not a joyous place the way Google presents itself,” Mr Lashinsky said. “It’s not a particularly happy place but it breeds people who can thrive in that environment. It’s a pressure cooker and some people like that.”
Apple employees are like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle and the only person who knows how to fit the pieces together is the CEO, a role Steve Jobs held until it was handed to Tim Cook last year.
Amid the wires, nodules and circuit board designs, is a company that is so clandestine, its own workers don’t know what they are creating, he said.
Windowless chambers, called lock-down rooms, are the only place where the next iPad or iPhone can be discussed, and even then senior vice presidents only enter the room to discuss their part in a design before being asked to leave, he said.
Information is strictly restricted to a select 100, hand-picked by Steve Jobs himself.
When it comes to product launch day, Apple employees gather around the television in the cafeteria to find out about the new product. They will be as surprised as everyone else despite having helped build it, said Mr Lashinsky.
Secrecy is engrained into every employee, Mr Lashinsky said. Anyone caught revealing Apple secrets whether accidental or intentional is dealt with swiftly: immediate termination from the company.
In the book, one employee recalled how he had nightmares over threats made to employees about breaching confidentiality.
“[Jobs would] say, ‘Anything disclosed from this meeting will result not just in termination but in the prosecution to the fullest extent that our lawyers can.’ That made me very uncomfortable. You have to watch everything you do. I’d have nightmares,” the employee told Mr Lashinsky.
Even staff members who have left the business live in fear of retribution, Mr Lashinsky said.
“Jobs’s brutality in dealing with subordinates legitimised a frighteningly harsh, bullying, and demanding culture at Apple. Under Jobs a culture of fear and intimidation found roots throughout the organisation,” Mr Lashinsky wrote.
For a company so revered for its innovation, the neutering of entrepreneurial spirit might seem counterproductive, but Apple’s draconian treatment of its workforce is actually part of its formula for success, Mr Lashinsky explained. It creates a loyal ethos among the staff, protecting the products.
Tim Cook once said: “That’s part of the magic of Apple. And I don’t want to let anybody know our magic because I don’t want anybody copying it.”
Cultish overtones or not, the Apple juggernaut shows no sign of stalling. This week Apple was valued at $415 billion – putting it neck and neck with Exxon Mobil as the world’s most valuable company.
Bretos Margetis
Posted in Apple |
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