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Forbes did an article last April about what some companies pay in taxes. Here's a few of the more recognizable companies.

Exxon Mobil - 42% ($27.3 billion paid on $41 billion in net income)
Chevron - 43.3% ($17.4 billion paid on $26.9 billion in net income)
JP Morgan Chase - 29.1% ($8.2 billion paid on $19 billion in net income)
WalMart - 32.6% ($5.9 billion paid on $15.7 billion in net income)
Microsoft - 15.9% ($5.3 billion on $23.5 billion)
Wells Fargo - 31.5% ($4.9 billion on $15.9 billion)
IBM - 24.5% ($4.2 bil on $15.9 bil)
Apple - 24.6% ($4 bil on $33 bil)
Intel - 27.2% ($3.3 bil on $12.9 bil)
Oracle - 23.6% ($2.93 bil on $9.7 bil)
Walt Disney - 33.8% ($2.3 bil on $5 bil)
McDonald's - 31.3% ($2.1 bil on $5.5 bil)

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/04/16/which-megacorps-pay-megataxes/

Apple's rate is a typo: 4 bil out of 33 bil = 12%

Forbes did an article last April about what some companies pay in taxes. Here's a few of the more recognizable companies.

Exxon Mobil - 42% ($27.3 billion paid on $41 billion in net income)
Chevron - 43.3% ($17.4 billion paid on $26.9 billion in net income)
JP Morgan Chase - 29.1% ($8.2 billion paid on $19 billion in net income)
WalMart - 32.6% ($5.9 billion paid on $15.7 billion in net income)
Microsoft - 15.9% ($5.3 billion on $23.5 billion)
Wells Fargo - 31.5% ($4.9 billion on $15.9 billion)
IBM - 24.5% ($4.2 bil on $15.9 bil)
Apple - 24.6% ($4 bil on $33 bil)
Intel - 27.2% ($3.3 bil on $12.9 bil)
Oracle - 23.6% ($2.93 bil on $9.7 bil)
Walt Disney - 33.8% ($2.3 bil on $5 bil)
McDonald's - 31.3% ($2.1 bil on $5.5 bil)

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/04/16/which-megacorps-pay-megataxes/

Can you stop this explainable hatred on this tablet?

If it's as explainable as you say you should understand why we can't stop it. If its inexplicable, then you will never understand why we can't stop it, because we can't explain it to you.

It's a tool aimed at professionals like myself. I want productivity and ability to work with a full OS, not a castrated version barely capable of browsing porn. When iPad/Android will be able to run Diablo 3 on maximum settings we will have an adult discussion.

OK, you start off calling yourself a professional, but then you complain about castration, inability to view porn and promise "adult discussion." Exactly what sort of "professional" are you, sir?

Can you stop this explainable hatred on this tablet? It's a tool aimed at professionals like myself. I want productivity and ability to work with a full OS, not a castrated version barely capable of browsing porn. When iPad/Android will be able to run Diablo 3 on maximum settings we will have an adult discussion.

Its just another example of the daily anti-Microsoft drivel. Some days its better than others, but all days it gets their target audience whipped up into a near-orgasmic frenzy of glee.

Can you stop this explainable hatred on this tablet? It's a tool aimed at professionals like myself. I want productivity and ability to work with a full OS, not a castrated version barely capable of browsing porn. When iPad/Android will be able to run Diablo 3 on maximum settings we will have an adult discussion.

Extension cord is not recommended for Volt. Other EVs may or may not work, depending on what they need and how their built-in chargers are constructed.

Since this Tesla has a pretty long range, and a large battery, I suspect that the voltage drop on a cord would be too much. Some power supplies may become unstable because of that. I had a device that failed in any extension cord, and worked right only when plugged directly into the wall. (But that was, of course, a bad design.)

A pair of #10 wires will give you 2V drop at 100' under 10A, and 3V drop at the same length under 15A. You can be sure that an EV charger will suck all it legally can out of the outlet; the breakers there are typically 15A, so I'm afraid 10A is all that one can draw.

Outside of the voltage drop, another problem may be in the impedance of the cable. 60 Hz is a pretty low frequency, but still the long cable will be a transmission line with distributed inductance and capacitance. If the TL is not matched to the source and destination then it can present random impedances to the source and to the sink, all the way from infinity to a dead short. This also can cause instability of the charger. But the cable must be pretty long for those effects to become measurable at this frequency; a quarter wave piece will have to be about 930 miles, ignoring the velocity factor. Power distribution grids have to take this into account all the time, but most homeowners only have cables that are somewhat shorter.

There's always malware on any operating system, including IOS. While Apple does a good job at preventing it, they can't prevent it 100% of the time. Here are a few articles talking about malware on iOS for those who think it doesn't exist.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/adriankingsleyhughes/2012/07/06/first-ios-malware-hits-app-store/
http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2012/08/29/finfisher-malware-goes-mobile-infects-android-iphone-blackberry/
http://www.redmondpie.com/another-malware-app-sneaks-into-ios-app-store/
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/238101/scitech/hacker-reveals-ios-malware-vulnerability-gets-punished
http://www.techpluto.com/ios-malware/

Actually...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/09/03/yep-obamas-a-big-spender-just-like-his-predecessors/

Reagan's federal spending averaged about 22% of GDP. Obama in his first 4 years spent about 24% of GDP

So even returning spending to Reagan's levels isn't going to be the magical panacea

Have a look at Brazil. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2012/08/11/brazils-ridiculous-80000-jeep-grand-cherokee/

surveillance that is implied by Obamacare

Well this should be amusing. What the frack are you babbling about now?

Probably the clause that states physicians aren't required to or prohibited from asking about firearm ownership.

I read it myself, doesn't seem all that onerous - Of course, I'm one of the seemingly small handful of people who realize the medical industry is exactly the same as any other retail operation, and thus I have a right as a patient to tell any doctor who gets too nosy about my personal life to go fuck him/herself.

I guess I fail to see how this is new

Who said it was new? What is great about it is that the superbowl was classified as a "Level I National Security Event" - the very tippy-top of Homeland Security's classification system. These are the events they spend beaucoup (but not published) dollars on "securing" from oogy-boogy terrorists.

So, despite all this focus on security and crap, these kids just waltzed on in. Yet more proof of how much of a waste of money DHS's 43 billion dollar budget really is.

MS and Google are really in the same business, but I would submit this to you;

http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/07/18/did-microsoft-change-the-architecture-of-skype-to-make-it-easier-to-snoop/

If you don't see the problem here, you're not thinking hard enough.

If you let others insert scripts into your pages they can steal your visitors.

Maybe it'll make sites think about who they script src from.

One of the bad things I've noticed recently is that HSBC is including objects from third party organisations in their ebanking login pages. I do wonder if any thought has gone into the security of such things, or if HSBC simply don't care (my experience of banks tells me that none of them have a single clue when it comes to internet security).

HSBC launders money for drug kingpins and terrorists.

You should really find a new bank.

You're not understanding his point. Amazon frankly doesn't even rate in those few sectors where Blackberry is still king; no Android product to date does. The call to move to Android is essentially a call for them to abandon their remaining marketshare (to follow Amazon which sells its hardware at cost as a delivery platform for their real products, whereas Blackberry makes their money on hardware and does not have a significant revenue model beyond that).

It was perhaps slightly obnoxious of him to summarize the Kindle Fire as "connecting Android to Amazon services" -- though its experience *is* pretty sub-par outside of Amazon services -- the rest is not condescending or obnoxious at all. It's just responding in kind to knee-jerk "Android solves all" with differentiating factors that Android doesn't have.

You try running a small tech business when in the 80's IBM threatens to take you to court over 7 "alleged" patent infringement and forces you to "settle" for $20 million.

http://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html

Ok, so what is stopping some enterprising person or entity from purchasing huge reserves of helium at these rock bottom prices?

The fact that the "helium shortage" is nonsense made up by bloggers that are dumb enough to think they are smarter than the market, but aren't quite dumb enough to put their money where their mouth is. America's proven reserves of helium will meet current demand for centuries. Unproven, but extractable, reserves are probably an order of magnitude higher. We are not running out of helium, at least not in this millennium.

We do not need to conserve helium
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/08/27/what-great-helium-shortage/

There are 120 (USA) college football teams. That's $4.16 mill spread over every college. The AVERAGE salary of a head coach is $1.6 mill (Fucking hell!). Assistant coaches makes $200,000. There are usually... what? 5-9? You've still got a million dollars left over, but you haven't yet paid for anything to actually play the game, you've just paid $360,000,000 per year for people to tell you how to play the game. You've still got the tuition of all 2,520 players, travel expenses, all the little crap like uniforms, oh and stadiums that cost hundreds of millions to build and something like a quarter million to upkeep.

Let's hope those shirts are selling well.

I dare you, I double dog dare you, to try an argue that it helps bring in donations to the college.

Sigh. Ok. I'm sorry. I know I'm angry and bitter over this. I need to work on that. I understand that people can spend their money on whatever they want, even if it's not productive. That's culture. That's art. Even... ugh... sports. But at some point you have to tell the addict to get a fucking grip and put down the pipe. Even if the metaphorical drug is fine art or college football. There comes a point where you because sickened at how much a society simply pisses away to watch people ram their heads into each other. And it angers me that the educational system has been subverted to... this.

Wow, that was an incredibly long list of FUD distortions. Let's tackle this one at a time, shall we?

1.His reform doesn't involve government taking over healthcare, it fines people who don't buy health care insurance. People still buy from private insurance providers. Having young, healthy people buy insurance is solves the problem ensures that young, healthy people won't freeload off the of system by buying insurance only when they get sick. Having everybody insured also reduces uninsured people freeloading by getting their healthcare in the emergency room, subsidized by other taxpayers.

2. His executive orders are for stricter enforcement of existing gun laws, something well within his power to do.

3. He doesn't want children to be killed by guns, and he doesn't want victims of rape and incest to carry their attackers' babies? That's just fine with me.

4. Taxes are the price of civilization. They ensure I have a military to protect my country, that the roads stay safe, that police and fire departments are there to protect, that snake oil stays out of the pharmacy, that the food I buy is free of melamine, and that I can drink water safely out of any tap in the country. It sure does matter to who they were raised on. Romney paid less taxes on his millions, using the carried interest loophole to count his commissions as dividends, than his janitor or secretary did. The janitor or secretary are far more likely to spend money on daily necessities, than to transfer gains off to the Cayman Islands. Oh, and during the period of our country's greatest economic boom following WW2, the top marginal tax rate was 90%.

5. Take out the big bailouts which passed under the Bush administration but took effect under Obama, and he's the most frugal spender since Eisenhower. Citation: http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/05/24/who-is-the-smallest-government-spender-since-eisenhower-would-you-believe-its-barack-obama/

6. The stimulus saved the car industry and brought it back to life. As for temporary jobs, it keeps people working and prevents them from joining the ranks of the "takers". If I had the choice between either losing my house and going out into the streets, or taking a temp job, I'd do the latter. I suppose you'd rather have the unemployed out in the streets (with no health care), because they're all just "takers" anyway.

7.If you don't believe economic theory, feel free to move to Europe where they're basically slashing government spending during a recession, and places like Spain have 20% unemployment among young people joining the workforce.

8. Energy prices grew under the Bush administration but remained stable during the current one. Citation: http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_5_3

9. The number of food stamp recipients grew by 14.7 million under the Bush administration, more than under the Obama. And part of the reason it grew under Obama is that the administration expanded the number of households able to receive the benefit, while decreasing the benefit per household. Now, certain poor working families can continue qualify for food stamps, with ramping down benefits, which makes sense, as those people have an incentive to keep working to increase their personal income, rather than having the perverse incentive to not find a job to avoid losing benefits. As a result, unemployment has been steadily decreasing under the administration. Citation: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/report-15-americans-food-stamps-980690

Bwuahahahaha.... that was ... oh... wait... you are serious?

Windows 8 will succeed not because it's any good, but because it has to - MS has a lot riding on this one, more than on ME or Vista or the other dogs. They will spend billions to make it successful, but it doesn't stand a chance at beating competition that is actually somewhat good.

You can buy market share. But you can't buy being good.

They really will spend billions. The esimates are that M$ will flush over $1.5 billion in marketing Vista 8. Some estimates are a little higher. Whether that is enough to overcome the suckiness and buy some market share still remains to be seen. So far it's not doing well on the desktop and is still a no-show in the tablet space. And what they are about to try with Dell might tip the hands of the other OEMs over to Android/Linux or GNU/Linux

This seems like criminal exploitation to me

At least in the USA, it is. Unpaid internships are illegal in the USA ....

So is speeding, of course, and multiple other things that people do on a daily basis. No offence intended - it's just that because something is illegal, doesn't mean it's not done.

This seems like criminal exploitation to me

At least in the USA, it is. Unpaid internships are illegal in the USA unless they meet all of the following criteria:

• the internship is similar to training in an educational environment
• is for the benefit of the intern
• does not displace regular employees
• is closely supervised
• does not provide the employer with an immediate advantage
• promises neither a job following the internship nor wages in exchange for the intern’s time.

If your unpaid internship violates any of these rules, it is illegal.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/06/17/u-s-government-requests-for-google-users-private-data-spike-37-in-one-year/

You do not recall correctly. Apple did not say they were redesigning the Mac Pro for 2013.

"Apple said today that it is working on new models and designs for its Mac Pro desktop that will be released in 2013."

Apple does not plan to modify their machines and will simply pull them from market in the EU.

In all likelihood it's because they've got a new Mac Pro model ready to launch. The Mac Pro hasn't had a significant update in years, it's the only Mac that doesn't have a Thunderbolt port, for example.

A new Mac Pro is being released in 2013, confirmed by Apple.

While a new MP may be coming - all the referenced articles said were - MP customers are important, great things are coming to the desktop in 2013, we are working on MP designs which probably will be coming in 2013. Hardly a solid statement on the MP future.

Apple does not plan to modify their machines and will simply pull them from market in the EU.

In all likelihood it's because they've got a new Mac Pro model ready to launch. The Mac Pro hasn't had a significant update in years, it's the only Mac that doesn't have a Thunderbolt port, for example.

A new Mac Pro is being released in 2013, confirmed by Apple.

First: To label any government monopoly as "non-profit" is misleading; it only means that they aren't incorporated, really, and have no investors to grovel to. Most government-run monopolies are behemoths that only passably serve customers if all profits are channeled into large parasitic private interests - most of which wouldn't exist if the government hadn't bloated them to gross extremes. Example: the military-industrial complex, the pharmaceutical industry, education, agriculture, energy, telecommunications, etc. etc.

Second: you seem to largely believe that I'm a "Bug". Let me clear the record: I'm not a gold bug. Tying any currency to a single commodity is disastrous, and the reason for a lot of our problems in the late 19th century. The silver act I was talking about? It put us on a de facto gold standard, and that is what ruined us. Multiple commodities - and I mean 50+ strong, stable commodities (think energy, or agricultural staples, or heavy metals - or all of the above) - would tie currency into the very web that it is supposed to represent, preventing shocks and fluctuations without apocalyptic economic conditions (in which case, we'd all have bigger problems to worry about anyway).

Third: I'd like to dispel some misconceptions: Glass-Steagall wasn't completely repealed, and those parts of it that were had absolutely nothing to do with the financial crisis.

Hoarding does one thing: it allows prices to rise. This only becomes a problem when suddenly someone is dumping things back into the market. However, this isn't a problem if you have a currency based on multiple, stable commodities. Hoarding would only cause a rise in a particular market (and a loss to the hoarders), while providing an advantage to competitors that use the rise of demand to elbow into the market. Hoarding doesn't make sense to any businessman. Anywhere.

Debt-to-asset ratios are nothing to the Fed. The expansion of their books? That's like writing a ton of zeroes at the end of their listed bonds, and for some reason they don't think this will create wild changes when those bonds spread around... sigh...

Systems only wipe out everyone in interdependent webs of finance. If you have your own backed currency with controls based on contracts with private interests, your currency is essentially tied to its own micro-economy, and truly earth-shattering effects would have to be felt across the board in order to shake it.

Why would Amazon partner with BlackBerry when they already have their own phone coming to market.

Thanks for the obvious strawman and not addressing anything I wrote. Should I take this to mean you will not be parroting your bogus and unsubstantiated supplier report anymore?

But sure, I'll take this opportunity to add some more links. How about NPD's report on Holiday sales, showing that average selling price of PCs actually increased over the Holidays even though net total shipments were down. Further "Sales of Windows notebooks under $500 fell by 16 percent while notebooks priced above $500 increased 4 percent." So if people are buying fewer cheap Windows notebooks, how do you think that looks to a manufacturer who has a reputation for selling almost exclusively cheap Windows PCs? Acer's definition of Windows being a success is if it lifts the entire PC industry.... but Windows 8 was never designed to do that; Windows 8 is designed to sell more high end touch screens and tablets, and it looks to be doing exactly that. People are shifting away from cheap systems, and Acer, known for selling cheap systems, is hurting. Big surprise there.

Some manufacturers have embraced Windows 8 and have released some really innovative laptop designs that take advantage of its strengths, rather than releasing just another laptop with Windows 8 installed. Let's see what they have to say about it. Dell says Windows 8 demand is high. Lenovo is enthusiastic after huge tablet demand. Lenovo also says they didn't realize how big touch screen demand would be. Coincidentally, these are bigger manufacturers than Acer and especially Fujitsu, who are actually taking Windows 8 seriously. It's not surprising they're getting all the demand.

Or maybe you care to look at actual physical Windows 8 adoption instead of what CEOs have to say. According to Statcounter, Windows 7 was growing at a rate of .027 percentage points per day in the months leading up to Oct 26. Windows 7 hit a wall on Oct 26 and has been declining since. Today, Windows 8 is growing at a rate of... wait for it... .025 percentage points per day, statistically the same rate. So to say Windows 8 is experiencing terrible growth is to say that Windows 7 was experiencing terrible growth.

So that "megabomb"? It sold 60m copies in 2 months and earned Microsoft 6 billion dollars. I'd love to have that kind of "megabomb".

Unfortunately, the ratings can't be trusted. Just as an example of this argument: http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/11/05/the-ten-worst-fact-checks-of-the-2012-election/ Mostly true, half ture, and mostly false should really be true but slightly misleading, misleading, incredibly misleading. Alll the misleading entries are partially the opinion of the author about whether specific inferences are actually justified.

Hosting top foreign students is about as close to "win/win" as you get, depending on how it's managed. They pay tuition. They do research. They spend money on basic necessities while here (rent, food, etc.). Sometimes, if we're lucky, they stay here after graduating and become citizens. Highly paid citizens who are likely to contribute more in tax revenue and economic activity than they consume in govt. services. That is to say, the exact type of citizen we want to attract.

Someone with a similar opinion:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2012/10/09/the-20-billion-export-industry-that-the-government-is-holding-back/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/03/23/shopping-for-zero-days-an-price-list-for-hackers-secret-software-exploits/

Chrome: $80-200k

Of course, one is legal and legit and the other is pretty evil. So for some people I imagine it's the only real option.

"The days of 'Club Fed'--think golf courses and lobster bakes--are long gone."

Because the whales being hunted for "research" are not only endangered, but are being fished on a commercial scale.

That's Japan. It's in Asia, not in Europe, you know. I specifically said "in a well regulated way on a population which is large enough". Try answering the question.

To be specific, the quota for Norwegian whale hunting has been between 500 and 1000 whales per year for the last decades. This is of a species called "common mink whale", estimated global population 184 000 individuals, being cited as "of least concern" on the IUCN Red List for endangered species. That's the same "endangeredness" category as Alaska Moose. Should we stop hunting that as well?

And regarding the temperatures leveling off post-2000, that's fairly easy to find data for (GIYF): here's a plot showing the global temperature anomaly from Hadley data, NOAA data and NASA data. All are roughly flat for the ten years following 2000.

AC is enough to justify it. Of course people also attribute a pile of mysterious weirdness to Telsa and do not understand that on the cutting edge your speculation is sometimes just speculation about what lies out there in the dark.

But again you perpetuate the myth.

Tesla didn't invent AC, and it was being pursued by a wide number of other researchers by the time he got involved. So too, the AC motor was actually invented by others. Anything Tesla added would have been discovered in the course of time. He was not as much of a visionary as you seem to think.

He was a showman, and a self promoter, something he shares with Jobs.

Hopefully this is going to be a bit easier over time as everyones moves to LTE (does this mean that CDMA finally bites the dust?) and phones become standardized like the rest of the civilized world.

Don't bet on it.
There is already segmentation in what bands get used in different countries and of course The US carriers are deploying FDD LTE while the rest of the world leans more to TDD LTE. ClearWire being a notable exception. AT&T likes being able to charge you global roaming fees so they go out of their way to make sure you can't just hop on a European competitors network when you are in town. Here are a few good articles on just the iPhone 5 models.

Probably by screaming (profanities|about developers).

Seriously, though, some IVR systems can detect stress levels in the caller's voice, or are programmed to trigger on certain keywords that indicate they may be about to lose a customer. For instance, the quickest way to get to an AppleCare CSR is apparently via the f-bomb.

Being Dell, though, I hear pressing 0 a bunch of times works.

Bush tried to get rid of Fannie Mae.

No, he wanted to investigate what was going on inside Fannie Mae, but some people stopped him - and when it was later found out that they were cooking the books to inflate their bonuses, those who defended Fannie Mae acted surprised.

Bush wanted Congress to get rid of Social Security.

No, he wanted to offer people the choice to invest some of their Social Security payments in the stock market or other, more conventional investment vehicles (other than US Treasury debt)

Bush opposed Federal regulation of electricity sales in the aftermath of the 2001 California electricity price runup.

Did you ever notice that the 2001 California price runup was limited to the state of California? The 49 other states had no problems - suggesting that California created their own problem, and the imapct of the problem was contained within the borders of California. Typically "national issues" impact more than one state - the need for federal regulation was not proven by California's inability to regulate their electricity/energy markets.

Bush greatly restricted federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

He limited the creation of federal funding that includeed the creation of new "lines" for study, but left the private sctor free to invest their own money in such efforts - apparently the private sector never saw the huge potential embryonic stem cell research supports claimed was there.

Dedupe update:

"Deduplication is done based on the entire encrypted file and only happens if you either upload the same file encrypted with the same key twice (unlikely) or if you copy or import an existing file in your file manager (more likely)."

I was saying something about wild assumptions... Yep..

http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2013/01/21/facebook-graph-search-runs-on-likes-that-advertisers-have-already-paid-for/

Never thought I'd look to Forbes for insight but the author has somewhat of a point. Graph Search is not a new feature rather it's a "mop and bucket" revision of an old and broken feature, the "like".

the funny part is that on one hand you have users trying to protect their privacy while marketers are trying to actively exploit it. from what i have read on forbes (links here and here) graph search is more for marketers rather than users. after all, which users care about searching for anything besides people on facebook?

and all of this is happening on the same website! so essentially facebook is now creating products/features which are basically opposing eachother.

it must be tough to work in privacy department at facebook. privacy at facebook is being slowly shoved aside in favor of the marketers. and we all know how this story plays out.

the funny part is that on one hand you have users trying to protect their privacy while marketers are trying to actively exploit it. from what i have read on forbes (links here and here) graph search is more for marketers rather than users. after all, which users care about searching for anything besides people on facebook?

and all of this is happening on the same website! so essentially facebook is now creating products/features which are basically opposing eachother.

it must be tough to work in privacy department at facebook. privacy at facebook is being slowly shoved aside in favor of the marketers. and we all know how this story plays out.

This is just a followup to the "article deleted" problem. It has been reinstated at the original link (and the original headline in the link) but with the less dramatic headline "Microsoft Still Can’t Find Its Future. Is It Too Late for the Company?"

Apparently Forbes is learning how the Internet works. Now if they would just fix their website.

This is the same author who wrote "Sell Research in Motion. Now." That in April, 2011 as it began its precipitous dive from $53 to $6.50. His views are controversial, but he has a better track record than many official analysts.

so he predicted one thing - which was hardly an outlandish suggestion at the time - and you're gushing about him and defending this obviously ridiculous piece?

You can still find page 1 of the article in Google cache. Thanks to ~darkeye, who submitted that.

This is the same author who wrote "Sell Research in Motion. Now." That in April, 2011 as it began its precipitous dive from $53 to $6.50. His views are controversial, but he has a better track record than many official analysts.

The article has inexplicably vanished. Here's the text from the Google cache while it lasts:

Microsoft needed a great Christmas season. After years of product stagnation, and a big market shift toward mobile devices from PCs, Microsoft’s future relied on the company seeing customers demonstrate they were ready to jump in heavily for Windows8 products – including the new Surface tablet.

But that did not happen.

With the data now coming it, it is clear the market movement away from Microsoft products, toward Apple and Android products, has not changed. On Christmas eve, as people turned on their new devices and launched their first tweet, Surface came in dead last – a mere 2% compared to the number of people tweeting from iPads (Kindle was second, Android third.) Looking at more traditional units shipped information, UBS analysts reported Surface sales were 5% of iPads shipped. And usability reviews continue to run highly negative for Surface and Win8.

PC sales declining

This inability to make a big splash, and mount a serious attack on Apple/Android domination, is horrific for Microsoft primarily because we now know that traditional PC sales are well into decline. Despite the big Win8 launch and promotion, holiday PC sales declined over 3% compared to 2011 as journalists reported customers found “no compelling reason to upgrade.” Ouch!

Looking deeper, for the 4th quarter PC sales declined by almost 5% according to Gartner research, and by almost 6.5% according to IDC. Both groups no longer expect a rebound in PC shipments, as they believe homes will no longer have more than 1 PC due to the mobile device penetration – the market where Surface and Win8 phones have failed to make any significant impact or move beyond a tiny market share. Users increasingly see the complexity of shifting to Win8 as not worth the effort; and if a switch is to be made consumer and businesses now favor iOS and Android.

Microsoft’s monopoly over personal computing has evaporated

From 95% market domination in 2005 share has fallen to just 20% in 2012 (IDC, Goldman Sachs.) Comparing devices, in 2005 there were 55 Windows de

The article has inexplicably vanished. Here's the text from the Google cache while it lasts:

Microsoft needed a great Christmas season. After years of product stagnation, and a big market shift toward mobile devices from PCs, Microsoft’s future relied on the company seeing customers demonstrate they were ready to jump in heavily for Windows8 products – including the new Surface tablet.

But that did not happen.

With the data now coming it, it is clear the market movement away from Microsoft products, toward Apple and Android products, has not changed. On Christmas eve, as people turned on their new devices and launched their first tweet, Surface came in dead last – a mere 2% compared to the number of people tweeting from iPads (Kindle was second, Android third.) Looking at more traditional units shipped information, UBS analysts reported Surface sales were 5% of iPads shipped. And usability reviews continue to run highly negative for Surface and Win8.

PC sales declining

This inability to make a big splash, and mount a serious attack on Apple/Android domination, is horrific for Microsoft primarily because we now know that traditional PC sales are well into decline. Despite the big Win8 launch and promotion, holiday PC sales declined over 3% compared to 2011 as journalists reported customers found “no compelling reason to upgrade.” Ouch!

Looking deeper, for the 4th quarter PC sales declined by almost 5% according to Gartner research, and by almost 6.5% according to IDC. Both groups no longer expect a rebound in PC shipments, as they believe homes will no longer have more than 1 PC due to the mobile device penetration – the market where Surface and Win8 phones have failed to make any significant impact or move beyond a tiny market share. Users increasingly see the complexity of shifting to Win8 as not worth the effort; and if a switch is to be made consumer and businesses now favor iOS and Android.

Microsoft’s monopoly over personal computing has evaporated

From 95% market domination in 2005 share has fallen to just 20% in 2012 (IDC, Goldman Sachs.) Comparing devices, in 2005 there were 55 Windows de

The article has inexplicably vanished. Here's the text from the Google cache while it lasts:

Microsoft needed a great Christmas season. After years of product stagnation, and a big market shift toward mobile devices from PCs, Microsoft’s future relied on the company seeing customers demonstrate they were ready to jump in heavily for Windows8 products – including the new Surface tablet.

But that did not happen.

With the data now coming it, it is clear the market movement away from Microsoft products, toward Apple and Android products, has not changed. On Christmas eve, as people turned on their new devices and launched their first tweet, Surface came in dead last – a mere 2% compared to the number of people tweeting from iPads (Kindle was second, Android third.) Looking at more traditional units shipped information, UBS analysts reported Surface sales were 5% of iPads shipped. And usability reviews continue to run highly negative for Surface and Win8.

PC sales declining

This inability to make a big splash, and mount a serious attack on Apple/Android domination, is horrific for Microsoft primarily because we now know that traditional PC sales are well into decline. Despite the big Win8 launch and promotion, holiday PC sales declined over 3% compared to 2011 as journalists reported customers found “no compelling reason to upgrade.” Ouch!

Looking deeper, for the 4th quarter PC sales declined by almost 5% according to Gartner research, and by almost 6.5% according to IDC. Both groups no longer expect a rebound in PC shipments, as they believe homes will no longer have more than 1 PC due to the mobile device penetration – the market where Surface and Win8 phones have failed to make any significant impact or move beyond a tiny market share. Users increasingly see the complexity of shifting to Win8 as not worth the effort; and if a switch is to be made consumer and businesses now favor iOS and Android.

Microsoft’s monopoly over personal computing has evaporated

From 95% market domination in 2005 share has fallen to just 20% in 2012 (IDC, Goldman Sachs.) Comparing devices, in 2005 there were 55 Windows de

Interesting. Mega seeks to achieve profitability by sharing revenue with participating artists - creating a channel with as little rent-taking as possible. As opposed to the super-rent-seekers: today's media and telecom conglomerates.

Kim says Megaupload was killed by the Obama administration, as a gimme to the media cartels - in return for financing and as a replacement for failing with SOPA. I'd add that Megaupload was SPECIFICALLY targeted over Eastern European hosters for enforceability, and over others because of Dotcom's incipient "MegaKey" agreement with big-name urban artists.

So, from where will the source of this revenue come? Ads are obvious - but really another nut to crack. I don't think this is what the new Mega has in mind for a foundation pillar.

Rather, I suspect that the artist agreements are expected to drive enough subscriber interest, for real takes, vs. simple freeloaders. The volume of signup in the past 24 hours is a great validation for Dotcom, if prospective participants need prompting.

If you think Kingsoft is a tool, think again. That company is owned by Lei Jun, which is like China's Steve Jobs. That guy is creating a complete hardware/software solution not unlike the iPhone, by heavily modifying Android. They are offering their new cell phones at a very competitive price in continental China and it's been selling like hot cakes.

Here is a good article about the guy http://www.forbes.com/sites/simonmontlake/2012/07/18/xiaomis-lei-jun-chinas-answer-to-steve-jobs/