If you follow business news this company has been making headline news over the past few weeks. Last week the media was covering its war with ride sharing competitor Lyft. This is why people talk about business as warfare. It’s been a while since we have witnessed such fierce competitiveness.
Uber vs. Lyft: the drama, the intrigue, the canceled rides
Early this morning, ridesharing startup Lyft made a severe (yet unsurprising) claim: that Uber employees have requested and canceled as many as 5,560 rides over the past 10 months in order to sabotage Lyft.
The claim shouldn’t shock anyone; it mirrors a January report in which Uber apparently did the same exact thing to Gett, a significantly greener competitor. It’s the transportation startup’s equivalent to a DDoS attack. (Source)
Tech’s Fiercest Rivalry: Uber vs. Lyft
The Two Heavily Financed Upstarts Also Aim to Supplant the Taxi Industry
Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. operate just blocks from each other in San Francisco, yet their bitter war has spilled into dozens of cities where they are racing to provide the default app for summoning a ride within minutes.
Lyft has crafted a friendly image by attaching fuzzy pink mustaches to its cars and encouraging passengers to greet each other with fist bumps.
The two rivals are undercutting each other’s prices, poaching drivers and co-opting innovations, increasingly blurring the lines between the two services. (Source)
Now Uber is testing its potential as a package delivery system. This is huge news.
Uber Announces New Delivery Service Program. Could Google and Amazon Be In Their Cross Hairs?
This program, if successful, would take Uber from a simple transportation company into a full-fledged logistics company – which many analysts think plays into CEO Travis Kalanick’s long-term vision. How will it’s success be measured? As stated in the blog, “The more you love it, the more likely it will last.” And as Kalanick told CNN Money last December, “We’re in the business of delivering cars in five minutes. And once you can deliver cars in five minutes, there’s a lot of things you can deliver in five minutes.” So it seems that Uber might have a laser like focus on a new market segment they want to be a part of and the drive, determination and following to make it happen. (Source)
Until The Walking Dead and Boardwalk Empire start up again in the fall there’s little to watch, so you might as well set up a news alert for “Uber.”
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