Cory g. E. s shares responded rising the most in five years. Blackstone group also agreed to buy a Shopping Center owner excel trust, roughly 2 billion. The twin deals today cement blackstones position as a worlds biggest private Equity Investor in real estate. Blackstone oversaw 81 billion in real estate assets. Hillary clinton will make an official announcement for candidacy for president of the United States with an online video. The democrat will then head to iowa and new hampshire. Clinton forgoing the typical big announcement in favor of meeting with voters in small groups, according to a person close to her campaign. The u. S. Senate is working on a bill that would give congress the authority to review the Iranian Nuclear deal. Such a bill would allow congress to block the Obama Administration from lifting sanctions on iran. Here is former u. S. Ambassador to israel on whether any iranian deal will get done. If it continues to be the case that they want the deal, in the end it is more likely than not if they get a deal i suspect it wont be by that june 30 deadline. Eventually there will be a deal. Cory are are some questions about whether the leadership in a run once a steel. Both the ayatollah and a ron have warned they wont accept any deal that does not lift all sanctions against iran. Nokia may sell its maps business, called here. Nokia was to focus on wireless networking. Google maps competitors is attracting interest from both companies and private equity firms. Now to the lead. Preorders have started for the apple watch, apples first entirely new product since the ipad. Already you will have to wait many months to get some of the watches, with many additions not available to ship until june. There were lines at apple locations around the world including australia and japan, among others, but we did not see great lines for the iphones we have become accustomed to in the past, perhaps because you cant bring the watch him today and you can only try it out. Apple is encouraging people to make appointments for those tryouts ahead of the april 24 shipping date. One of the people who did try it out, Stephen Pulver and roughy mohammed, raffi mohammed. Stephen, let me start with you. This approach to selling stuff i have long believed that the lines in front of apple stores are a pr gimmick. The press dutifully show up every time they release a new product to use those lines to make it look like the products are popular and they cant manage the demand. Stephen short. What apple is going for here is a different kind of marketing strategy. Apple wants customers to be happy and feel like they have access to the product. You can go in the store and look and try them on a demo everything, then place your order online or you wont have unhappy customers the wait in line and then go home emptyhanded. Cory as part of the image restructuring, roughy mohammed price is an interesting part of this product. Weve never seen a product im thinking of macs with every amount of ram you good stuff into it, would never cost you 17,000. How are they using price to convey image . Guest its an interesting point. Apple is really pioneering moving the merger of technology with fashion. What apple understands is there is a wide variety, spectrum of taste. This is why they have gone from will this pricing strategy, 349 to 17,000, which i think is a detriment to the future of the apple watch. Cory why . Rafi we know apple suffers from the curse of awesomeness. Initial reviews have been good and encouraging, but at the end of the day we all know that apple is going to come out with a vigor and better version probably within a year, if you look at the cycle they do for the iphone. The big question is, forget about 17,000, are they going to be spending even 1000 for a watch which is in essence disposable . In one year the fashion will look outdated and the technology will be inferior. Its a big question, and this is further compounded by the fact that we upgrade with iphones all the time, but that is because they are subsidized by carriers, and you are not going to have the subsidy right now. The big question now is pricing strategy, are people going to say, this is cool, i went to the apple store and so it, but then they will sit back and say should i buy now or wait for a year . That is the big challenge they are facing with this pricing strategy. Cory i dont know who knows more about pricing than you do. I think hes wrong. What the you think do you think . Stephen it is New Territory for apple. There is no feature upgrade and going to the 17,000 apple watch edition or going for the 600 april watch apple watch. Even within the apple watch additions, the difference in price between the sport band and the leather with the magnetic clasp is 7,000. Even brands like rolex and omega are not charging 7,000 for a leather band with a gold clasp. Cory go ahead, stephen. 16 something guest my counter to Stephens Point is that it is great there are a lot of people looking at the watch, but apple is the Largest Company in the world with 183 billion worth of revenue could you need something bigger than diehards and diehard people big pocket people to get this watch going. From a pricing standpoint, i think they need to focus more on the massmarket instead of the highend watches, which lets face it cory i dont think they are focused on the 17,000 watch. I think the 17,000 watch it is a gimmick. It is a way to say, this thing is really cool. I dont think anyone thinks they are going to sell 51 of the watches are going to be of the 17,000 model. It is an image leader and the same reason they bought ads in vogue, even though it is more efficient i would encourage them to buy ads in bloomberg businessweek. They are leading with functionality. Rafi, why isnt that the model here, the same model we see in the fashion industry, where you can buy a polo suit for 5,000 to help them sell polo shirts . Guest two points. We have to remember that that polo suit is timeless, so to speak, versus a new apple watch. In a year, it is somewhat disposable. Thats a big difference between your example. They really should be focusing on the massmarket spirit great to have a 17,000 watch, but they need to be focused on the 500 i would have gone down to 249 and gone up to 2000 and even offered a Monthly Payment plan to make this thing of it being disposable little easier for people. I would have bundled this with the iphone 6. Most of the iphone 6 sales have been done. It would have been a nice counter to Samsungs Galaxy six released today to say, we have this new apple watch and we are bundling with the iphone for a value bundle. Cory stephen, what do you think of the role that the high end watch does to pull consumers to this product line . Stephen its a marketing tool. Its not going to be their biggest seller. They are using it as a way to get exposure. When you have people like pharrell wearing them on national tv and positions and pop stars and public figures out wearing them, it gets exposure for the apple watch in general. Like rafi said, they need this to become a massmarket thing that everybody wants and feels like they need to have if its going to move the needle for apple. Cory you have all these companies writing apps for the product, even bloomberg writing an app for this product that you really want to get a bunch of watches out there so we can find out what the use case is. Are you saying the highpriced watch will prevent that from happening . Rafi i dont understand how seeing for all wearing the 17,000 watch is going to affect the person looking at the 249 model. It is a misuse of the marketing strategy. Cory glad to have you both on. We will keep looking at technology. The powers apple pay coming up next. Coming up next, we will talk the future of education. Cory im cory johnson. Coming up, how the apple watch can be a major player in payments, and well talk to the game of thrones cast about tech. Goldman sachs giving Ceo Lloyd Blankfein a longterm incentive compensation, eligible for 7 million in bonuses paid out in eight years. New bonus brings blankfeins total comp to 31 million last year, making him the highestpaid u. S. Bank ceo. China is using a new tool to disrupt access to foreign websites. Researchers at the university of toronto say the deployment of a new system represents a significant escalation of the chinese governments great firewall of china. The report says the system, this one is nicknamed the great cannon, was used in a recent attack. Amazon its new approval to test out delivery drones. The faa is given amazon a waiver on flights 400 feet above the ground and as fast as 100 miles an hour. An earlier faa approval said no for use of amazon because it applied to specific drones that amazon no longer uses. Imagine making all your payments with the flick of your wrist making it easier to use is one of the new features of the apple watch, which is now available for preorder today. Lets look at apple pay. One of apples big corners, first data, the coveney powers half of all credit card and debit Card Transactions in the u. S. Guest it is a 40yearold company. We have 6 million businesses as clients, and we are the indispensable component in the payment 8 am not sure why people dont know us better, but our job over the last two years when the ceo came to the company and myself as president s has been to move away from that anonymity and bring prominence to silicon valley, Financial Systems and districts, as well as the world. Cory your ability to get the money from the bank to the merchant or really from the consumer to the bank to the merchant like that, and controlling the whole process behind the scenes. Guest this is waterfront property. We happen to be there. That is why we issued 800 million cards. Merchants are dependent every day on everything from the authorization of those transactions to the security and trust that goes with it, and the settlement payment that goes with it. We are that nexus in the middle of the activity. Cory consumers are starting to see some of the innovations going on in the industry. I dont think they have any idea what they are about to see. In october there is a change in the laws which means that merchants that dont accept the cards with a chip in them will be liable on their end for fraud and theft there. That says to me we are going to have a huge upsell of pointofsale systems throughout the country. Guy thats right. The shift in my ability has driven Large Business to Small Business to rethink where they are today. They all need to reterminal eyes reterminalize to accept the chips. Cory i love that term. Guy you try to move to the forefront rather than just catching up to a the current law is. People will go to the terminal cory the chip inside [indiscernible] guy they will dip their credit card into a terminal. That chip will be read. It will stop counterfeiting and fraud. People move to encryption and tokenization. They will look at a whole different set of activities. From a pointofsale terminal all the way down to [indiscernible] with the terminal in between to provide that capability and enrich the overall capabilities of business. Cory tim cook was boasting that two thirds of all transactions that are cordless were done with apple pay in the First Quarter of apple pay. Guy apple pay has been one of the few things i can rub her in history remember in history that improves the Consumer Experience. Cory when security gets better, the Customer Experience doesnt. Guy in this case, the Consumer Experience got better. Every transaction is completely encrypted and tokenized, which makes it one of the most secure Digital Payments in the industry. Any issues that have been written about as it relates to Security Issues are much more about the registration process. The actual transaction itself is as secure as it can get right now. Cory tokenized, every transaction, rather than being connected up through the system as a transaction moves all the way up to the bank, being connected to that consumer and the credit card number becomes a token and a completely anonymous transaction. Guy thats right. That token cannot be connected except by the person doing the authorization, or reused. It is never seen across that whole transaction. Cory does this mean you guys will make more money . Guy we will make more money and our customers will make more money if we make commerce secure. Safe, trusted commerce will increase that drive. I think the Consumer Experiences will get better and better. We are seeing the uptake significant across the board because people are making this leap to not just driving a secure transaction, but building into consumers experience. Cory you have a long history working in Trading Systems working on wall street. Ease of use is not what Trading Systems are known for. How does that work with what youre doing with first data and Payment Systems where you want great easeofuse . Guy in Trading Systems, the idea is highfrequency, low latency capabilities. Build good strategy to make sure fraud and security are out of that system. Its the same with payments reduce fraud, improve the safety of the transaction, splitsecond capability for authorization. And along the way, build in a series of capabilities and enhancement. Cory first data president guy chiarello. Next, game of thrones, technology. Cory big day for hbo, launching a standalone web service for cord cutters, people without a premium cable subscription. The ceo talked about it with charlie rose. We went our subscribers to say over the course of a month this is more than worth it or it if we provide flexibility for how you get that Service Going forward, we think this is multilateral. Its not binary. Cory catch the full interview on charlie rose at 7 00 and 10 00 eastern. Hbos hit show game of thrones coming back with a new season this weekend. I caught up with the actress at the shows premiere. We talked about the characters would do if they had access to hightech smartphones in the land of game of thrones. Took two episodes to get from Kings Landing at the beginning of the show all those years ago. And apparently now has taken four seasons to try to get back again. Maybe she could do it with a map. May be a relaxing game would be good for him, something with cute characters or something. Is angry birds to angry for your character . To angry too angry. Maybe he would have a property app. I think he would take two years and still not be able to work it out. She might die if she saw a phone. It would be too much. Would probably reverse it. I do not think he would get on with it too well, actually. I think it would be smashed up a wall or something. And a kind of gps would be helpful. I still get confused when i see maps. If i could just pinpoint, now im in winter phil that would be great. She desperately needs some loving. Cory this is bloomberg west. Im cory johnson. Lets check the Bloomberg Top headlines. President obama spoke with cuban president raul castro on the phone. Both are attending todays summit of the americas in panama. There is a chance of an informal meeting. John kerry met with his cuban counterpart, bruno rodriguez. Country after country, the people of the americas have strengthened their democracies and taken steps to ensure the fundamental freedoms of their citizens. Cory the state department called the kerryrodriguez meeting lengthy and constructive. Hillary clinton is running for president. Clinton will make the announcement on video before heading to iowa, and enters the race as an unprecedented front runner facing little to no cup edition for the democratic nomination. Chinas centralbank pumped billions of dollars of loans as an effort to boost the economy. Last china last year china had its weakest Economic Growth in more than 20 years. In florida he said today that recent soft figures in the economy will be only temporary. Last month said policymakers were split on the beginning of raising rates. Nycs most expensive home purchases ever, bill ackman paid 91. 5 million for a duplex at 157 tower in manhattan. Last year ackman told the New York Times it was the mona lisa but apartments. What a linkedin spent 1. 5 billion on an education site . Who better to ask than the linkedin ceo, jeff weiner. Jeff it works for individuals it works for companies that want to invest in their employee basis. A big portion of the Current Customer base is universities, and its administrators professors, and students of those universities. Is a broad crosssection of folks, and it is increasingly international as well. Lynda. Com is producing contents not only in english, but german, french, and japanese. We are excited about taking that an expanding that global footprint. Cory you guys give helpful guidance about what the Building Business is doing. About 1 3 of that is a corporate business. Do you see the corporate aspect of this becoming a bigger aspect of the lynda. Com business because it will be matched with your big sales team . Its growing faster than the Consumer Base today. Both businesses are growing. We do think there are strong synergies with our platform in both the segments, with regard to individual members, we think it aligns well with our subscription model and were looking forward to a number of different points of integration. We have tens of thousands of enterprise customers. Weve got a Global Sales Force with regard to our Talent Solutions business. We think there are exciting opportunities to grow the business. Cory when i look at this, it seems like the kind of thing that your guys have just taken and run with it. Do you think it grows faster under linkedin that it woul