Although reports made in May 2010 indicate that Android had outsold Apple iPhones, more recent and current reports of the 2^nd quarter of 2011 made by National Purchase Diary (NPD) on Mobile Phone Track service, which listed the top five selling smartphones in the United States for the months of April-June of 2011, indicate that Apple's iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS outsold other Android phones on the market in the U. S. for the third calendar quarter of 2011. This was true for the previous quarter of the same year; The iPhone 4 held the top spot.  The fact that the iPhone 4 claimed top spot does not come as a surprise to the analysts; rather, it is a testament to them of how well the iPhone is revered among consumers. The iPhone 3GS, which came out in 2009 outsold newer Android phones with higher screen resolutions and more processing power. The list of the five top selling smartphones is depicted below:

1. Apple iPhone 4
2. Apple iPhone 3GS
3. HTC EVO 4G
4. Motorola Droid 3
5. Samsung Intensity II[1]

Apple’s iPhone also outsold Android devices7.8:1 at AT&T’s corporate retail stores in December. A source inside the Apple company told The Mac Observer that those stores sold some 981,000 iPhones between December 1st and December 27^th 2011, and that the Apple device accounted for some 66% of all device sales during that period (see the pie figure below) . Android devices, on the other hand, accounted for just 8.5% of sales during the same period.

According to the report, AT&T sold approximately 981,000 iPhones through AT&T corporate stores in the first 27 days of December, 2011 while 126,000 Android devices were sold during the same period. Even the basic flip and slider phones did better than Android, with 128,000 units sold.[2] However, it is important to understand that this is a report for one particular environment at a particular period in time. As the first iPhone carrier in the world, AT&T has been the dominant iPhone carrier in the U.S. since day one, and AT&T has consistently claimed that the iPhone is its best selling device.

Chart courtesy of Mac Observer: http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/iphone_crushes_android_at_att_corporate_stores_in_december/

A more recent report posted in ismashphone.com, dated January 25 2012, indicated that Apple sold 37 million iPhones in Q4 2011.  It appears that the iPhone 4S really helped take Apple’s handset past competing Android phones. According to research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, Apple’s U.S. smartphone marketshare has doubled to 44.9 percent.[3] Meanwhile, Android marketshare in the U.S. dropped slightly to 44.8 percent. This report means that the iPhone has edged just a little bit past Android in U.S. marketshare. This is occurred after Apple’s Q1 2012 conference call, which saw themselling 37 million handsets. Meanwhile, it’s reported that marketers of Android devices, such as Motorola Mobility, HTC and Sony Ericsson saw drops this quarter.

I suspect that many of you are familiar with the term "hard coding a value" whereby the age of an individual or their location is written into the condition (or action) of a business rule (in this case) as shown below:

if customer.age > 21 and customer.city == 'denver'

then ...

Such coding practices are perfectly expectable provided that the conditional values, age and city, never change. They become entirely unacceptable if a need for different values could be anticipated. A classic example of where this practice occurred that caused considerable heartache in the IT industry was the Y2K issue where dates were updated using only the last 2 digits of a four digit number because the first 2 digits were hard-coded to 19 i.e. 1998, 1999. All was well provided that the date did not advance to a time beyond the 1900’s since no one could be certain of what would happen when the millennia arrived (2000). A considerably amount of work (albeit boring) and money, approximately $200 billion, went into revising systems by way of software rewrites and computer chip replacements in order to thwart any detrimental outcomes. It is obvious how a simple change or an assumption can have sweeping consequences.

You may wonder what Y2K has to do with Business Rule Management Systems (BRMS). Well, what if we considered rules themselves to be hard-coded. If we were to write 100s of rules in Java, .NET or whatever language that only worked for a given scenario or assumption, would that not constitute hard-coded logic? By hard-coded, we obviously mean compiled. For example, if a credit card company has a variety of bonus campaigns, each with their own unique list of rules that may change within a week’s time, what would be the most effective way of writing software to deal with these responsibilities?

Python programming language is general purpose open source programming language. One of its main features is flexibility and ease of use. Python has a variety of useful set of utilities and libraries for data processing and analytical tasks. Currently due to the rise in demand of big data processing python has grown in popularity because its features are easy to use which are core to the processing of huge chunks of information.

Guido Van Rossum, the pioneer of python, introduced python in the year 1980 and then implemented it in 1989. The intention behind the development of python was to make it open source language that can also be used for commercial projects. The fundamental principle of python is to write the code that is easy to use, highly readable and embrace writing fewer lines of code for achieving a particular task. One of the most popular standard libraries which have ready to use tools for performing a various work is Python Package Index. It was introduced in January 2016 and contains more than 72,000 packages for third-party software usage.

Python plays a critical role in linking data to customers. Recently python has found few entry barriers and many people have had access to have experienced the power of python in the past. So, what makes python the best language for big data analytics?

One of the reasons to choose python is that python ecosystem is very vibrant, the ratings at Redmonk are a proof of the strength python community. The Redmonk ranking is based on StackOverflow discussions and contribution made in Github to determine the popularity of programming language on the method used by users to ask questions about Python and the number of the open source projects contributions.

The RSS feed, which commonly stands for Really Simple Syndication, is an internet protocol that helps spread the availability of frequently published or updated Internet content.

RSS Benefits for an Internet Content Provider or Blogger
The use of an RSS feed saves immeasurable time for a content provider. When an interested person subscribes to an RSS feed, the owner of that feed now has a way to reach large numbers of people without having to resort to spamming techniques. The RSS feed also allows a content provider to send the requested topical information without specifically asking, every time, to those people who have subscribed. The content provider uses a program, written in XML code to make the information they post available to each person that has requested a subscription to that particular RSS feed.

RSS Benefits for the Average Internet User
The Internet grows larger by the minute. It is easy for a person to have information overload. The use of an RSS feed gives an individual more control over what information they see while on the Internet. It is also very useful for anyone that wants to stay up to date. Subscribing to the RSS feed for a topic of interest automatically provides the subscriber continued availability of the latest information on that topic. The Internet user relies on a small program called an RSS Feeder to gather the information on the RSS feeds to which they have subscribed.

Most browsers these days have built in RSS readers making that gathering the desired information easier than ever to accomplish. Joining an RSS feed is a very simple thing to accomplish.
 

RSS Benefits for Small Businesses

More and more Small Business owners are adapting targeted online marketing campaigns such as RSS Feeds in order to provide relevant content to new and existing customers. Maintaining web content such as:  company news; contests; promotional events; related articles; notifications; product launches; directories; and newsletters are examples of ways of staying in touch with customers in any niche market.  As search engines retrieve information from RSS Feeds and content is syndicated to other websites, chances of increased traffic are inevitable.  For active websites, RSS feeds are invaluable tools for small business owners.

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