As a result, Linaro's resources and open source solutions will allow device manufacturers to speed up development time, improve performance and reduce engineering time spent on non-differentiating, low-level software.

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After years of ignoring credit risk (big companies were rarely allowed to fail), it was clear that deregulation would encourage banks that had previously lent at uniformly low and undifferentiated margins to start raising and differentiating the price of their lending.

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Not only does the state generally feature a low cost of living, but Wei says its cities have done a nice job differentiating themselves.

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The company that can be very profitable on the low-end is the exception and in some respects that was one of the differentiating factors for Nokia (NOK) before the mobile phone industry transitioned to smartphones.

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