Financial markets are holding together. The news today about the EU exempting Ireland or at least considering that it should be considered as an EU ‘special situation island’ is encouraging. The ECB separately did not move interest rates. I also monitored chatter about the role of Germany dominating the EU’s decisions; and the views are fairly glib; so I think most in Europe are resigned to Berlin’s dominance. This doesn’t play as poorly with the French as one might think; as they know they are ‘almost’ an equal player with Germany in shaping Europe’s future. Stock market stability may be helped by the ECB statement of holding firm to their semi-stimulus (QE) approach. The inference is that the US Fed will tend not to be too hawkish or dovish either; since they likely coordinate this. The significant rally of the Euro is certainly felt; but is this accommodation a bit much as Europe’s economy does tend to be picking-up. Mostly there was no sense of foreboding or gloom among the key participants at IFA; and my thinking is that was not just upbeat marketing, but they remain positive.
This dovetails with Europe doing the best now that it has since the financial crisis and then the peripheral banking issues in Spain and Greece later-on. Draghi expects the fasted growth rates in 10 years; but no inflation or need to revise monetary policy or interest rates. Nor ‘real’ currency reflections (a good reason the Euro is now slightly over 1.20 to the Dollar today).
Finally, ahead of all the iPhone focus next week; here’s this I’ve learned in discussion. It relates to my previous comments about Apple expanding into IT in a big way, though (especially with IBM) it would take some time for the revised business model to evolve.
Most presumed this would be about iPad use; and to a degree it sure is. But as you know wrestling with Windows has been a security challenge greater than with MAC OS (though there are various weak points for hacking so that IT security will be an important field for years to come). Here’s what I have had confirmed to summarize: Apple in 2010 put lots of investment into iOS 4 security solutions and reached out to partners (such as JAMF, MobileIron, of course IBM, and others) in an attempt to make it much easier for enterprise IT to support its platforms in mixed OS networks.
Apple meanwhile continues to build strong partnerships across the existing enterprise ecosystem, while survey after survey shows the IT industry, that where its products are deployed by enterprises, businesses see employee satisfaction, usage and productivity benefits.
