I find it interesting how big business can spend money when they’re reporting losses. For example, Sprint just committed $483 million to puchase Virgin Mobile (who recently purchased Helio).
This at rougly the same time they are reporting loses of $384 million and dropped 257,000 subscribers.
How do you sit in front of the Board of Directors and say “Yes, I know we lost $384 million this quarter, and we lost 257,000 subscribers, but if I could just spend this $483 million we could have a bunch of pre-paid customers that also want to jump to a different carrier.”
Hmm, let’s see. Maybe they should spend some money on creating a service that people like and want to stay with. You could hire a lot of consultants for $483 million…
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I came across an interesting comparison…back in the early ’90s, Chevrolet came out with the Geo Metro (also called the Chevy Sprint, but I think Suzuki actually manufactured them). This was a small hatch-back with a three cylinder engine. It was rated at about 50mpg, a truly great rating.
These were fairly successful, I still see them on the road from time-to-time. I’ve often wondered why nobody has created something similar…especially with our current gas pricing.
As Smart USA is about to release it’s fortwo in the US, I found it interesting that somebody (Soren) created a comparison of the two vehicles.
You can find the comparison at http://shocauto.com/blog/2007/12/15/08-smart-fortwo-vs-92-geo-metro/.
I made a couple if interesting observations in the comparison. First, even though the engines are about the same size, the fortwo has about 40% more horse power, and 20% more torque. The fortwo’s mileage is lower.
The other thing I find interesting is the performance. One of the topics that comes up in every fortwo review I’ve read is the low acceleration. Yet, the Metro is slower on both the 0-60 and 1/4 mile.
Anyway, I think the Smart fortwo is going to do fine. I’m still looking forward to mine…