Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 23, 2015, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE B6 BUSINESS CITY EDITOR: SHANE MINKIN 204- 697- 7292 I CITY. DESK@ FREEPRESS. MB. CA I WINNIPEGFREEPRESS. COM THURSDAY, JULY 23, 2015 B 6 I T'S not hard for farmers to put off buying new equipment when commodity prices are low and profits depleted. That's currently the case in the agriculturalequipment business, so there is no surprise tractor sales are down in June about 25 per cent in Canada and 44 per cent in the U. S. With such a soft market across the board, Winnipeg's Buhler Versatile, the only tractor manufacturer in Canada, is using the trough in the current economic cycle to develop a whole new product - a small utility tractor. " Our dealers were demanding it," said Grant Adolph, the company's chief operating officer. " In our market, we need our dealer support to be able to sell. If they say there is a demand, it makes it that much easier to sell the product." The 170- to 250- horsepower tractor series - smaller than Buhler's current smallest tractor model - is being developed from the ground up. On Wednesday, the company announced a $ 200,000 contribution from the National Research Council's Industrial Research Assistance Program ( NRC- IRAP) to help Buhler design a continuously variable transmission that will be used in the new line. Adam Reid, the company's director of marketing, said the new line will give Buhler a product for cattle ranchers and a product for hay- bale loading and many other utilities the company previously did not have an offering for. " This is a much larger market category," he said. It's also one with many more competitors. Whereas Buhler is one of only four companies in the world that make the large four- wheel- drive tractors, Adolph said there are 25 companies that make the same type of smaller tractors. Adolph said it will likely take at least two more years of lagging sales before the cycle starts coming around again, and that's about as much time as the company needs to get to the new line on the market. Industry experts have long advocated the best time for R & D and new- product development is during periods of weak sales. That's exactly what Buhler is doing. " We're doing this now, when times are tough," said Adolph. " It shows we're in this for the long haul." Buhler's revenue and net profits have fallen for the past four quarters, but company officials are confident they are managing the decline as well as anyone. Reid said Buhler's results are faring better than some of its competitors. The large U. S. equipment manufacturers such as John Deere and Case New Holland have cut back staff significantly this year, and there has been downsizing across the board, including at Winnipeg harvesting- equipment manufacturer MacDon Industries. There are about 350 people currently employed at Buhler Versatile's plant in Fort Garry, down from about 400 more than a year ago. It has more than 800 employees in total, with a parts plant in Transcona, production facilities in Morden, Fargo, N. D., Salem, S. D., and Willmar, Minn. In 2007, Combine Factory Rostselmash Ltd., a Russian combine manufacturer, acquired 80 per cent of Buhler. Since then, inroads have been made to sell Buhler tractors in Rostselmash's network of 200 dealers in Russia and eastern Europe. As well, Buhler is testing the Rostselmash combine in North America ( rebranded as Versatile) and hopes to slowly introduce it into Buhler Versatile's North American dealer network. Although the global market is far from robust, export sales - which account for about twothirds of Buhler's revenue - are expected to grow, and the company is starting to make sales in Europe, Africa and South America. In the meantime, the Winnipeg company introduced a track version of its large 450- to 550- horsepower tractor that competes with models its larger competitors also have on the market. martin. cash@ freepress. mb. ca N EW YORK - For all those who hailed the iPhone as the " Jesus Phone" in 2007, the Apple Watch's arrival has hardly been the second coming. Sure, it can do many useful, even delightful things, such as showing incoming texts and email, tracking heart rates during exercise or sending digital doodles to friends. But is that enough to spend US$ 350 or more, especially when it requires wearing a watch again while still carrying an iPhone around? Early Apple Watch owners seem generally happy with it, but Apple's bigger worry should be those on the sidelines - even hard- core Apple fans, not to mention everybody else - who are waiting to take the plunge. The wait- and- see attitude is not exactly helping investor sentiment. Apple hasn't released Apple Watch sales figures, but the company's quarterly financial report Tuesday suggests they were lower than many Wall Street analysts expected, though Apple said they exceeded internal projections. A bigger worry for investors: iPhone sales, which at US$ 31 billion account for more than half of Apple's business. While iPhone sales are still growing rapidly, the pace of growth is slowing. Worries about the iPhone's momentum sent Apple's stock down almost seven per cent in after- hours trading Tuesday, erasing about US$ 60 billion in market value. Shares fell 4.2 per cent in trading Wednesday to close at US$ 125.22. Among people holding off on the watch, some say they are waiting for early kinks to be worked out and others, for an " aha moment." " It's been cast as a want, not a need," said Matt Quick, a Topeka, Kan., engineer and Apple fan who is holding off on getting one. " I'm kind of waiting to see what next year's model will bring." Patrick Clayton, who has had Mac computers all his life and owns an iPhone and several iPads, returned his Apple Watch after three weeks. The last straw? It nagged the physically active New Yorker to stand up during a six- hour flight. " Apple is famous for telling us what we need before we need them," Clayton said. " I thought this would be the case with the watch. But it ( just) added something to my life that I didn't need added." That's not to say the Apple Watch is a bomb. For one, it's too soon to tell. Expectations are so high it's easy to forget, as Apple said, the watch actually sold better in its first nine weeks than the iPhone and the iPad did when those came out. Most analysts and tech reviewers, including The Associated Press, see promise, especially compared with rival smartwatches from Samsung and others. Wristly, a research company created to study the watch, found early buyers are overwhelmingly satisfied, more so than with the original iPad and iPhone. And of the more than a dozen early Apple Watch owners interviewed by the AP by phone, email or in person, most of them love their watch. After all, early adopters of new technologies tend to understand what they're getting isn't perfect. " I'd recommend it to people with an open mind," said Dennis Falkenstein of Danville, Calif. He said the watch gets him " everything I want," such as the local temperature or the current time in Japan, where many of his business clients are. But even so, there's a long wish list, including smarter apps. Apple is already addressing some of this with a software update this fall. Falkenstein would also like to see the battery life improve from the 18 hours currently promised. Apple has run television commercials showing the watch in everyday life, and it has devoted tables at its retail stores for people to try one on and learn more. Connected wirelessly to an iPhone, the Apple Watch isn't meant to replace the phone, but rather provide tidbits of information readily while the phone is in a pocket or purse. There's no keyboard, so searches and messages are done by voice dictation or the selection of a canned response. You can also send doodles and emoji. David Lubarsky, a Fairfield, Conn., photographer, loves that he can get " basic information, quick" and avoid staring at Facebook on the phone all day. It lets him see texts, emails, calendar appointments and baseball scores. But he gets frustrated when using it to pay for coffee at Starbucks. " Your wrist doesn't necessarily twist to the right position to the scanner, so it's pretty awkward," he said. Apple Watch also doesn't always provide the right information at the right time. The watch version of one transit app offers bus schedules for your saved locations - even if they are far away - rather than the stops closest to you at the moment, as the phone app does. As for message notifications, it's great when it's from someone you want to hear from - but annoying when it's not. It'll take time for apps to anticipate what users need most. Apps will get better when Apple updates the watch's software this fall to permit more " native" apps - those that aren't just extensions of phone apps. Some apps could even work without the phone nearby, including games, audio recorders and tools that analyze golf swings. Apple also needs to ensure the watch gets the types of essential " killer apps" that propelled the iPhone into an extension of ourselves. For now, it's sometimes easier to just pull out the phone, and there's no app you absolutely need the watch for. With phones, you now have maps, cameras and other essentials. It might be hard to remember, but the first iPhone in 2007 was just a little more than a phone. Apps from outside companies didn't come until Apple launched its app store the following year - with just 500 apps. Now, it has more than a million. At first, iPhone apps were dumbeddown versions of websites. Now many apps, such as Instagram, do more than what's possible over web browsers. The watch could ultimately be more than just a Rolex for the techsavvy set. But for that to happen, Apple needs to show how the benefits of wearing a watch outweigh the hassles of wearing a watch. - The Associated Press Lean time a chance to innovate Buhler Versatile unveils mini- tractor JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Local MP Joyce Bateman ( from left), Buhler Versatile Inc.' s Grant Adolf and Adam Reid, and Minister of State Ed Holder check out a new tractor Wednesday. ' We're doing this now, when times are tough. It shows we're in this for the long haul' - Buhler COO Grant Adolph MARTIN CASH Lukewarm response to watch chills Apple Combined with slowing iPhone sales growth, firm's stock has taken a hit recently By Barbara Ortutay KIN CHEUNG / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES A software update this fall is expected to boost the Apple Watch's functionality. An alysis ' Apple is famous for telling us what we need before we need them. I thought this would be the case with the watch. But it ( just) added something to my life that I didn't need added' B_ 06_ Jul- 23- 15_ FP_ 01. indd B6 7/ 22/ 15 8: 52: 21 PM ;