tick80

On a side note, is it true that Rand is treated seriously by top level people in Silicon Valley?

HP did a similar thing. If I remember correctly, people who purchased between "now" and "then" got a refund for the rebate... whether RIM do that is another matter.

Basically, it's like Twitter in the early days. Full of early adopters, some waiting for it to snowball, others making full use of it before the masses come in and potentially spoil it.

In other industries, it can take years and millions/billions of investment before a product steps on someone's patent.

With software, you can design, build and sell a product overnight for virtually no cost and do the same.

Symbian powers both smart phones and feature phones. A lot of people switched this year to Android because businesses like ZTE were selling well spec'ed budget phones for carriers (to brand as their own).

So, for the last year you could get an easily unlocked pay-as-you-go Android phone for less than £100. These have been wildly popular for bargain hunters, who would normally go for a feature phone.

It always disappoints me when I hear that point number two is such a successful tactic. I have read quite a few books from people in influential positions, and even today it's mostly not "what you know" but "who you know".

You can be an alcoholic with other serious drug addiction problems, and yet powerful positions are dropped onto your lap because that very alcoholism rewards you with the best networking opportunities.

It just fuels the image that is presented to us by the likes of reality TV and gossip magazines.

Another point is you don't need a business bank account to be a sole trader. The business bank account has fees attached to it, which is why a bank wants you to use it rather than the free alternative.

This makes it ideal if you want to 'bootstrap' some ideas to see if they are worthy of pursuing - without the pressure of investors, business plans etc. You don't even have to register with the tax people until a few months into a business.