Sometimes opportunity knocks ..... But we Don't answer the Door . Anyone ever have this happen to Them ?

Betallsports · Feb 7, 2012

Sometimes opportunity knocks. Other times it pounds the door, screaming to be let in. Yet the rapping is sometimes unheeded -- there's the date you didn't ask to the dance, the email not sent, the salad ordered when everyone else got steak.

For business leaders, a missed opportunity can cost a fortune. It's not hard to imagine the regret of the ABC-TV executives who passed on a sitcom proposal featuring comedian Bill Cosby that NBC later rode to billions of advertising dollars over a dozen years.

Or to empathize with the Mars officials who failed to realize why it might be advantageous for the candy maker's M&Ms to be featured in the 1982 film "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial," which did wonders for a new product, Reese's Pieces, from rival Hershey (HSY).

Yahoo (YHOO) likely would be on stronger financial footing today had it not backed away in 2006 from a $1 billion buyout of Facebook, despite a handshake agreement between Terry Semel, then Yahoo's chief, and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. Subsequent efforts to salvage the deal fizzled.

Betallsports · Feb 7, 2012

Here are the 5 Biggest

Making iTunes 'real'
Steve Jobs, the late chief executive of Apple (AAPL), won raves for making design a crucial aspect of the company's products. Apple didn't invent the MP3 player, but its iPod became a category killer because of its sleek look, intuitive interface and the masterstroke of creating that money-shoveling ecosystem known as iTunes.

Credit for what the iPod became should go to Tony Fadell, an engineer at Philips Electronics (PHG) who unsuccessfully pitched both his employer and streaming-media pioneer RealNetworks (RNWK) on his concept for pairing a music player and a Napster-like content-delivery system.

But it was Apple that seized on the idea, bringing in Fadell to turn the concept into reality.

Real Networks squandered an undeniable lead in the technology that could have allowed it, not Apple, to dominate digital music.

Betallsports · Feb 7, 2012

Cool cats rescue cool CATs
CT scanners -- often called CAT scanners -- are a staple of hospital diagnoses. But it took two missed business opportunities to make the technology as commonplace as it has become.

In 1959, neurologist William Oldendorf thought of using a series of X-rays to construct the image of a head's topography. His initial creation, the earliest prototype of what would become a CT scanner, was cobbled together using pieces of a toy train, a record player and an alarm clock.

Oldendorf patented his idea in 1963. Manufacturers of traditional X-ray technology rejected the concept, however, dismissing it as impractical and expensive.

"Even if it could be made to work as you suggest, we cannot imagine a significant market for such an expensive apparatus, which would do nothing but make a radiographic cross-section of a head," read one of his many rejection letters.

It took the meteoric rise to fame of the Beatles to give the CT scan a second chance.

Godfrey Hounsfield was a researcher at EMI, a company that in 1962 was floundering after selling its computer division. Salvation came from EMI's music unit, which signed the Beatles after Decca Records decided that the band had insufficient commercial prospects.

The Beatles' meteoric success allowed EMI to afford to let Hounsfield pursue an even more polished, marketable and faster version of his medical scanning device, which, like the Beatles' music, continues to sell.

Betallsports · Feb 7, 2012

Windows of opportunity
Microsoft (MSFT) co-founder Bill Gates almost missed his biggest business break. Had he done so, Gary Kildall and his company, Digital Research, might have become the king of the personal computer, relegating Gates to the "where are they now" file. (Microsoft publishes MSN Money.)

In 1980, IBM (IBM) was on the hunt for an operating system for its new personal computer. Gates, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and their small band of software engineers were in the running, as was Digital Research.

The story of what happened next is right out of "Rashomon." The more commonly repeated tale is that IBM was ready, willing and able to give Digital Research and its CP/M operating system the nod, but the plan fell apart because Kildall decided to go flying, leaving his wife in charge of negotiations. In this version, Dorothy Kildall found aspects of IBM's offer to be lacking and killed the deal, freeing IBM to put its eggs in the MS-DOS basket after Gates proved his alternative would be less expensive.

Kildall's defenders tell a different tale; they allege that IBM and Gates intentionally waited until Kildall was in-flight, bringing documents to the negotiations, when the fateful call was made.

Betallsports · Feb 7, 2012

Better late than early
Xerox (XRX) offers perhaps the best-known example of a company frittering away a revolutionary technology, an oversight that led to the birth of Apple (AAPL). While both companies continue to innovate and prosper, Apple has grown to about 40 times the size of Xerox.

The story begins in 1973, when Xerox engineers at its Palo Alto Research Center created the Alto, the first computer to use a graphical user interface and a mouse instead of on-the-fly coding.

Xerox had little use for the system -- the personal computer was still nothing more than a futurist's flight of fancy. Flash ahead to 1979, when a forward-leaning Steve Jobs struck a deal with Xerox for the technology, which found its way into the consumer-friendly desktop computers designed by Jobs' startup.
The mouse and graphical user interface were instant hits with Apple's customers, as Jobs figured they would be.

When Xerox finally launched the Xerox Star, a successor to the Alto, in 1981, it was too little, too late. Apple had an insurmountable lead in converting a tool for academics and scientists into a gadget nearly everyone wanted.

Betallsports · Feb 7, 2012

The anti-social network
There is no denying that Google (GOOG) is one of the most successful companies on the planet. But it might have been much bigger.

In its early years, Google was far from the pre-eminent search engine. Standing in its way were myriad competitors, including AltaVista, Infoseek, Snap, Ask Jeeves, Excite and, of course, Yahoo (YHOO).

Over time, Google rose to the top for a very simple reason: Its underlying process was faster, more efficient, more targeted and more accurate. Google wasn't the first, but it may very well have been the best.

Given its focus on mining, interpreting and selling data, one might imagine that Google would have been in a position to nudge its way into the social-networking space. It tried but failed.

Google Buzz was a disastrous attempt that ran afoul of Gmail users who found themselves "opted in" without their say and exposed to privacy-related blunders. Lawsuits and action by the Federal Trade Commission followed.
Google is again trying to wedge itself into the social-networking space, via Google+, but its fits and starts mean it faces a long uphill climb to try to overtake Facebook.

Facebook, in fact, poses an enormous threat to Google's status as the leader in search. Facebook users increasingly find online content of interest via links encountered on the social-networking site.

Could Facebook eventually prove better at search than Google? It probably has a better chance at that accomplishment than Google+ does in unseating Facebook's popularity in social networking.

NES · Feb 7, 2012

good thread BAS

NES · Feb 7, 2012

PS you spend too much time online

Betallsports · Feb 7, 2012

NES said:
PS you spend too much time online

Thanks puff_>>

ANOTHERDAY · Feb 7, 2012

A year before I got my MBA, I should have left town for bigger and brighter things in life............cost myself 500K in salary over the years. Oh well

quantumleap · Feb 7, 2012

Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo! for $31 per share in 2008 which would amount to roughly $45 billion. Yahoo! is currently priced just below $16 per share. The difference? Around $22 billion.

BAGIANT · Feb 7, 2012

I remember when my uncles both had pharmacies in New Jersey. At the time, most pharmacies carried photo products. Both had a guy come visit them who wanted them to invest in his camera that could produce "instant" photos after one minute. Even though they both had plenty of money to invest, they both showed the guy the door, and were talking about it at a Thanksgiving get together, and laughing at the fact that someone thought they could develope pictures after one minute.

Turns out, the mans last name was "LAND" and he invented the Polaroid Land Camera. How's them apples?

Sometimes opportunity knocks ..... But we Don't answer the Door . Anyone ever have this happen to Them ?

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