There are a number of things that any company can do to bring in extra customers. In some cases it helps your business appeal to a new set of customers, in other cases it helps strengthen the customer base you already have.

One of the things that is readily available for any business owner is booklet printing and other kinds of printing. Say, you have a company that needs to get out information about products and / or services, well remote printing can be quite beneficial to you and your company. With remote printing, you don’t have to buy expensive equipment and you can easily design pamphlets, pdf documents, catalogs, and other items to be printed and then delivered right to your business.

Many places that offer printing services also offer things like binding services. It is always a good thing to have a binding service that you find affordable and convenient. Whenever someone has to turn in a huge report, it is always nicer to see that paper in a nicely bound book rather than the sheets of paper stapled together. Professionalism is always extremely important in any business and reports can show that.

Blackberry maker Research In Motion increased its share of the U.S. smartphone market to 50 percent in the quarter — up 15 percentage points from the previous three months, the research firm said. By contrast, the market shares of both Apple and Palm declined 10 percent.

RIM’s success was largely due to Verizon’s aggressive marketing of the BlackBerry Storm and its buy-one-get-one BlackBerry promotion to its large customer base, explained NPD Group Director Ross Rubin. “The more familiar, and less expensive, Curve benefited from these giveaways and was able to leapfrog the iPhone due to its broader availability on the four major U.S. national carriers,” Rubin said. Source

Blackberry is, and will likely be for some time, the company to beat in smartphone sales. As more people, who may not necessarily be business users, begin buying more data-centric phones then there will be a larger market for smartphones and there may be some room for another brand such as HTC to take some market share away from RIM, Apple and Palm.

Of course, there will always be consumers, like me, who will go for the cheaper plan versus the cheaper phone. I don’t have a Blackberry because, on Sprint, it was an extra $30 a month for the Blackberry plan, while my Palm didn’t cost anything extra. Now, I’ve come to the realization that if I really want to get a “next-generation” phone then I will have to upgrade to a more expensive plan (but it was nice while it lasted).

GM is hurting not only because consumers are looking for more fuel efficient cars, but are also looking for quality. Last night Chris and I were watching a special called "Saving GM" on CNBC and one of the head researchers said that the quality of the cars has improved, but that won’t change the minds of thousands of previous GM owners (like me) who were burned by a poor GM vehicle. However, when someone pulled off a lot in China with a new Chevy Aveo, it still sounded like a Chevy…puttering right off the lot.

I believe they have a lot of ground to make up and really need to appeal to their "burned" customer base.

Thousands of jobs being lost is definitely not good for any local economy either. Hopefully those who are losing their jobs will find something.