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Here's an updated URL, although they've butchered the formatting - it doesn't say who's saying what, for example. http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol .jhtml&doc_id=00001611

This article, from only 6 weeks ago, quotes Jobs saying some pretty Anti-PDA stuff.

I think that's reason enough to dismiss this as a hoax.

It's from Apple. Read this Interview with Steve Jobs and the "attachment" (linked from the article) on Fortune.

Sixth, based on 2000 revenues of $9.421B according to Forbes.

Actually they're nowhere near the richest company in the world. They're number 201 on the fortune 500 list.

With revenues of only $22,956 million a year, they're a tenth the size of Exxon Mobil, Wal-Mart or GM. The top 3 on the list.

Most parties with patents are not required to disclose them in the standards setting process, van den Beld said.

Is this true? Consider this article from Fortune about Rambus, in which they were dinged for not disclosing a patent to a standards committee.

Remember, with the notable exception of ANSI & ISO, most 'standards committees' are industry groups formed for specific purposes and with rules based upon varying goals.

Is this true? Consider this article from Fortune about Rambus, in which they were dinged for not disclosing a patent to a standards committee.

The article mentions that Sun and Dell got in trouble for similar things, and had to license the patents royalty-free. Dell had a patent on VL-BUS technology, and Sun had one on DRAMs for SparcStations that Kingston complained about. The Dell story (from 1996) is summarized here and this is from the FTC, while the Sun case (from this year) is mentioned here and here.

- adam

There's a good article on fortune:
See here

There are on-going lawsuits to break the Machine Vision and Bar Code patents.

-blah

Compulsory licensing is the thing that let's radio stations broadcast records without negotiating a licensing agreement with every (a) music writer, (b) music performer, (c) music distributor or its designates. This is what the BMI and, to a lesser extent, ASCAP take care of, usually through the Harry Fox Agency.

In the case of Napster, all that compulsory licensing would mean is that the endless negotiations would not be necessary, just as they are not necessary for a radio station, or a restaurant playing recorded music. This is a key issue for webcasting as well as other methods for digital distribution.

A truly salient quote from The Music Men Are Out of Tune in Fortune is worth citing here:

'We gave content for free to radio, free to MTV,' grumbles Jay Samit, senior vice president for new media at EMI Recorded Music. 'We're not going to do that again.'

Compulsory licensing has been a topic in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on music distribution for the last six months or so. Until compulsory licensing or some equivalent for digital music comes into play, the record companies will be able to tie up anyone who tries to distribute music in an endless snarl of licensing negotiations.

Fortune recently wrote an article about the schemes of Jerome Lemelson, who, with his cohorts, extorted billions from various industries by similar patent manipulations.

Pleast mod this dude up!!!

--
Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness.

Fortune recently wrote an article about the schemes of Jerome Lemelson, who, with his cohorts, extorted billions from various industries by similar patent manipulations.

Pleast mod this dude up!!!

--
Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness.

I applaud these manufacturers for standing up to Rambus, and destroying their fraudulent patent-manipulation schemes.

Fortune recently wrote an article about the schemes of Jerome Lemelson, who, with his cohorts, extorted billions from various industries by similar patent manipulations. Some have said "he didn't patent inventions, he invented patents."

Cognex is going after them now, ready to fight the good fight, just like these other folks did. Hopefully they'll be as successful.

Here's to the good guys!

Also note that Greatbridge does NOT SELL PostgreSQL - it sells services. I would bet money that it is PostgreSQL that RedHat produces, and contracts out tech support to Greatbridge.

Synergies exist, there is no direct competition, and the owner is an old friend.

I think the writing is on the wall.
-Mark

LL

Oh, really? Tell me, Jonny, from which orifice did you so casually pull that statement?

Allow me to present 78 examples of companies that are each dominating an even more enormous part of the country's economy at this very second.

...and this list doesn't even take historical cases into consideration.

...and, hey! I'll be damned. There are even a few tech companies on that list.

Of course, I realize that the Fortune 500 is not a foolproof, catch-all guide to measuring a company's worth. You'll understand, though, if I have a tad more faith in it than in baseless rantings...

Fortune -- The Beast Is Back

Nobody can deny that MS has some very savvy managers. After cheery picking the high volume desktop applications (despite adobe/PDF, MP3), they are now seeking other high growth markets. The question is will it justify the risks? Plumbing is safe because it is boring plus you need it for every single house plus you don't have the high labor costs of support/maintenance. Copyright (90 year protection) is much better than patent (20 years) and they've already got the distribution channels in place (OEM + Hotmail). The alternative (Enterprise Java Beans) is supported by its competitors but given that destop sales are slowing and MS are pushing C# and consumer toys, it is debateable whether it will enter consumer mainstream (lockout from XBox + control of cable head). In short, with enough control points, MS is in the position of raining on everyone else's parade. LL

Hemos and I are planning on being in Japan for the Tokyo LinuxWorld in a few weeks, so I'll see you guys there. Bring translators and we can talk about anime ;)

In this economy, I'm really surprised VA Linux is sending the slashdot crew to Japan. Perhaps the web logs say otherwise, but judging from the lack of Japanese posts to slashdot, I don't see a lot of traffic from our .jp friends. Having cmdrTaco in a booth at a Japanese trade show isn't likely to catch nearly as much attention as if they were to have him dressed in an ultra-cutesy full-body penguin costume.

Well, Taco, enjoy the boondoggle and try to pretend it's the second half of 99. As for the translators, you might want to bring your own. I don't expect a lot of people in Tokyo are amped up about schooling some unknown American Linux celebrities on Anime.

A sample quote:

"if one had invented the stool, it wouldn't be good patent strategy to submit an application that defines the stool as "a wooden base with three legs appended." It would be much smarter to say "a base with at least three legs appended." The latter would allow the patent to cover a stool constructed out of wood, metal, or plastic--or, conceivably, a four-legged chair."

More people have been killed in the presence of a Kennedy than in a US nuclear incident.

This article from Fortune gives some great insight into the practice of a company that is nothing more than a patent hound, sniffing out and litigating patents as a strategy for generating income instead of using the patent system as it was intended.

This magnet company might be ligitimately defending unique developments, but it might also be using the same Lemelson techniques to snare other companies and extract undue license fees.

If you hate this little story, you will REALLY hate this other one.

http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol .jhtml&doc_id=202216

The Patent King. He has a staggering 558 patents, costing companies around the world some $1.5 billion in licensing fees. But what did Jerome Lemelson actually invent?

This guy just went around and patented anything he could think of and get a patent on... guess what? He made more than a billion dollars by suing companies and NEVER manufacturing anything.

http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol .jhtml&doc_id=202216

Care to explain the obvious discrepancy between your comment and the fact that Fortune Magazine rated it as one of the best places to work? Their ranking is based on employee opinions, by the way.

Just curious.

Texaco big enough for you? Jesse Jackson and his boys sure did a good job changing policy with the mere threat of a lawsuit. Any more challenges?

what Fortune 10 company has been driving the American economy in the last 10 years

Dude, what Fortune 10 company would that be: General Motors, Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil, Ford, General Electric, IBM, Citigroup, AT&T, Philip Morris or Boeing. (See the list at Fortune 500.) Microsoft is number 84 of the list (216 on the Global 500).

Just because you worship Microsoft doesn't mean that Shrub Bush thinks it is driving the American economy. Dubya knows that energy is still king in the American economy. (Read a newspaper if you haven't seen what is sending us into a "recession".) Of course, Microsoft and Bill did give a lot of money to Dubya and the party, so a slap on the wrist may be called for, but it won't be because Microsoft is so vital to our economy.

The core concept lurking in the background of all these discussions is that if there were no copyrights there would be no problem. Lots of things would be different if proprietary rights went away, but the world would not come to an end any more than it would if New York City or Los Angeles suddenly fell into the ocean, or even if everybody's financial records suddenly vanished. We'd get by somehow. Creative people would find it difficult to profit from their creations -- but that's always been true, only for different reasons. Business models depending on exclusive rights would break, but entrepreneurs would come up with other business models, not just roll over and die.

There is surprisingly little debate about whether we actually need a copyright system at all. A Google exact-phrase search for "abolish copyright" turns up only 42 pages; "eliminate copyrights" finds only 13. Very few of these pages actually discuss the idea. In contrast, you will find well over a million Napster references.

In April, 1999, Fortune magazine columnist Stuart Alsop seriously and articulately proposed eliminating government protection of intellectual property . That was almost 2 years ago. But the amount of genuine discussion of this idea has been miniscule compared to the endless volume of ranting about Napster, and what each of us feels we should have the right to do with a CD.

Can we think on a larger scale? In spite of the turmoil it would cause, I believe the complete elimination of intellectual property protection would ultimately lead to the greatest good for the greatest number -- a concept democracy is supposed to support. Can we revisit this idea as a sane, sober proposal, or is it too scary? Are we just reluctant to let go of our own pet fantasies of being the next Bill Gates (yeah, right) or what?

The core concept lurking in the background of all these discussions is that if there were no copyrights there would be no problem. Lots of things would be different if proprietary rights went away, but the world would not come to an end any more than it would if New York City or Los Angeles suddenly fell into the ocean, or even if everybody's financial records suddenly vanished. We'd get by somehow. Creative people would find it difficult to profit from their creations -- but that's always been true, only for different reasons. Business models depending on exclusive rights would break, but entrepreneurs would come up with other business models, not just roll over and die.

There is surprisingly little debate about whether we actually need a copyright system at all. A Google exact-phrase search for "abolish copyright" turns up only 42 pages; "eliminate copyrights" finds only 13. Very few of these pages actually discuss the idea. In contrast, you will find well over a million Napster references.

In April, 1999, Fortune magazine columnist Stuart Alsop seriously and articulately proposed eliminating government protection of intellectual property . That was almost 2 years ago. But the amount of genuine discussion of this idea has been miniscule compared to the endless volume of ranting about Napster, and what each of us feels we should have the right to do with a CD.

Can we think on a larger scale? In spite of the turmoil it would cause, I believe the complete elimination of intellectual property protection would ultimately lead to the greatest good for the greatest number -- a concept democracy is supposed to support. Can we revisit this idea as a sane, sober proposal, or is it too scary? Are we just reluctant to let go of our own pet fantasies of being the next Bill Gates (yeah, right) or what?

The core concept lurking in the background of all these discussions is that if there were no copyrights there would be no problem. Lots of things would be different if proprietary rights went away, but the world would not come to an end any more than it would if New York City or Los Angeles suddenly fell into the ocean, or even if everybody's financial records suddenly vanished. We'd get by somehow. Creative people would find it difficult to profit from their creations -- but that's always been true, only for different reasons. Business models depending on exclusive rights would break, but entrepreneurs would come up with other business models, not just roll over and die.

There is surprisingly little debate about whether we actually need a copyright system at all. A Google exact-phrase search for "abolish copyright" turns up only 42 pages; "eliminate copyrights" finds only 13. Very few of these pages actually discuss the idea. In contrast, you will find well over a million Napster references.

In April, 1999, Fortune magazine columnist Stuart Alsop seriously and articulately proposed eliminating government protection of intellectual property . That was almost 2 years ago. But the amount of genuine discussion of this idea has been miniscule compared to the endless volume of ranting about Napster, and what each of us feels we should have the right to do with a CD.

Can we think on a larger scale? In spite of the turmoil it would cause, I believe the complete elimination of intellectual property protection would ultimately lead to the greatest good for the greatest number -- a concept democracy is supposed to support. Can we revisit this idea as a sane, sober proposal, or is it too scary? Are we just reluctant to let go of our own pet fantasies of being the next Bill Gates (yeah, right) or what?

Um, GE has the largest Market Cap

GM has the highest Revenues

GE has the highest profits

WalMart has the most employees

So what has microsoft got?

Um, GE has the largest Market Cap

GM has the highest Revenues

GE has the highest profits

WalMart has the most employees

So what has microsoft got?

Um, GE has the largest Market Cap

GM has the highest Revenues

GE has the highest profits

WalMart has the most employees

So what has microsoft got?

It's only because of sheer tenacity and Big Three ingenuity that Detroit has survived

Survive? Please. GM and Ford occupy two of the top five slots in Fortune's Global 500 list.

Unions have helped millions of non-union workers too. Remember when 12-hour work days were "normal" for the working public? Me neither. Unions played a great part in allowing us to take paid vacations & holidays, pensions, health care, grievance procedures for granted so that we can instead worry about whether our employer is going to include enough beer in the next WebVan purchase.

There certainly are problems with labor unions, but demonizing them is just an corporate-brainwashed, intellectual cop-out. Labor unions don't exist because corporations make a habit of treating their employees as ends in themselves rather than as an expendable means to greater profits.

Disclaimer: I'm not a union worker

Umm, last time I checked, Fortune One was General Motors, not Microsoft. It looks like Wal-Mart may overtake GM in 2001... but Microsoft is down at number 84.

Not to take away from your comment - I do think the headline was flamebait and an obvious troll (just look at the comment id - it worked!) but MS isn't that huge.

Umm, last time I checked, Fortune One was General Motors, not Microsoft. It looks like Wal-Mart may overtake GM in 2001... but Microsoft is down at number 84.

Not to take away from your comment - I do think the headline was flamebait and an obvious troll (just look at the comment id - it worked!) but MS isn't that huge.

Read that article...it describes some of Lerach's tactics in detail, tactics which you can bet your ass he and his partners will employ against VA Linux. (He once sued Sun Microsystems simply because he got left out of a $30M lawsuit settlement; Sun eventually had to pay him $1.5M just to get him to go away.) And check out this Fortune sidebar, too...not even Pikachu is safe from this man...

But he can be beaten...just check out this article...

Eric
--

This Cisco exec should then be sued by the shareholders of Cisco for not making a business decision with solely the interests of Cisco the company and its shareholder value in mind. If someone is employed/appointed to the board of a company it is their responsibility to act solely in their interests with respect to his/her authority in the company.

I feel the same way but the truth is that dotcomm boards have been getting away with things that would seem unethical in traditional companies for quite a while. Here's an article on Fortune about some more weird dealings by the board of a dotcomm, most of these seem like fraud or at least seem unethical but so far not that many people seem to be getting punished.

Here's an expose on the shadiest dealing of the New Economy entitled MISADVENTURES IN THE ME-FIRST ECONOMY: Four tales from the ethical gray zone of the Internet economy from Fortune.

Grabel's Law

Recently, Fortune updated their "40 Richest Under 40" Index. Meaning, it lists the 40 richest people under 40 living in America.

Every single person on that list is an executive or founder of a technology company - with the exception of Number 40: Michael Jordan, and even he is on the Board of Directors for MVP.Com.

Now, guess how many graduated from college? More than half? Hah. The site is slow, so I wish I could go and count how many of them actually did, but I remember that many of them dropped out, and one never even went - the former CEO of Datek Online was once Datek's mailroom clerk.

Should techies not going to college expect to become that rich? Certainly not, but there's no reason that forgoing academia can lead to a dismal life...

The list is here.

General Motors is the richest company, leading Wall Mart by about $23 billion (US).

Nope. That's REVENUE, not VALUE. Of course GM generates more revenue then MS does. The average GM car costs, what, $25k? The average MS product is what $250? But, the key question is which is more profitable? The answer is MS by a large margin. MS passed GM about a year & a half ago or so as the most valuable corporation in the world. Six months or so ago, Cisco passed MS, but MS is back in the lead per the article you cited. As far as market valuation, GM is only #46.

General Motors is the richest company, leading Wall Mart by about $23 billion (US).

Nope. That's REVENUE, not VALUE. Of course GM generates more revenue then MS does. The average GM car costs, what, $25k? The average MS product is what $250? But, the key question is which is more profitable? The answer is MS by a large margin. MS passed GM about a year & a half ago or so as the most valuable corporation in the world. Six months or so ago, Cisco passed MS, but MS is back in the lead per the article you cited. As far as market valuation, GM is only #46.

Microsoft is barely the running at number 84, and Cisco is right out, ranking 146.

Of course, if you include national governments in the list of "organizations" then even GM doesn't stand a chance.

--

This article in the new Fortune issue is kinda illuminating. Asking for what possibly legitimate uses there could be for Gnutella? Here they are. Fortune seems to have published an article whose author gets it.

And as for the signal-to-noise problem... Dr. Lincoln Stein, of Perl CGI.pm fame and also a genetic researcher, is quoted in the above mentioned article about how Gnutella-style distributed sharing and searching could help him in his genetic research, and he suggests tagging the files with various criteria... such as, in his example, tagging the information as from and for genetic scientists to limit search range.

Seems like first generation Napster started the noise, second generation Gnutella gave it immortality (in theory)... and the third generation will probably bring metadata tagging facilities, more powerful searching and search path optimization. A lot of good stuff in that Fortune article.

So, how about we start working on Son of Gnutella with an XML-based protocol, meta-data rich, with optional anonymized distributed UDP-based transfers (anyone remember FSP?), and monster searching.

:)

This article in the new Fortune issue is kinda illuminating. Asking for what possibly legitimate uses there could be for Gnutella? Here they are. Fortune seems to have published an article whose author gets it.

And as for the signal-to-noise problem... Dr. Lincoln Stein, of Perl CGI.pm fame and also a genetic researcher, is quoted in the above mentioned article about how Gnutella-style distributed sharing and searching could help him in his genetic research, and he suggests tagging the files with various criteria... such as, in his example, tagging the information as from and for genetic scientists to limit search range.

Seems like first generation Napster started the noise, second generation Gnutella gave it immortality (in theory)... and the third generation will probably bring metadata tagging facilities, more powerful searching and search path optimization. A lot of good stuff in that Fortune article.

So, how about we start working on Son of Gnutella with an XML-based protocol, meta-data rich, with optional anonymized distributed UDP-based transfers (anyone remember FSP?), and monster searching.

:)

This article in the new Fortune issue is kinda illuminating. Asking for what possibly legitimate uses there could be for Gnutella? Here they are. Fortune seems to have published an article whose author gets it.

And as for the signal-to-noise problem... Dr. Lincoln Stein, of Perl CGI.pm fame and also a genetic researcher, is quoted in the above mentioned article about how Gnutella-style distributed sharing and searching could help him in his genetic research, and he suggests tagging the files with various criteria... such as, in his example, tagging the information as from and for genetic scientists to limit search range.

Seems like first generation Napster started the noise, second generation Gnutella gave it immortality (in theory)... and the third generation will probably bring metadata tagging facilities, more powerful searching and search path optimization. A lot of good stuff in that Fortune article.

So, how about we start working on Son of Gnutella with an XML-based protocol, meta-data rich, with optional anonymized distributed UDP-based transfers (anyone remember FSP?), and monster searching.

:)

There is, however, a simpler solution--both in Bedrock and in Seattle. In our parable, the government could get rid of the monopoly by revoking the inventor's patent and letting anyone start a shoe company. The analogous real-world remedy is to make Microsoft release the source code for Windows. If Windows were in the public domain (as Linux is), new companies could offer their own improved versions. Microsoft would lose the profits from its past innovations--a penalty for its past sins. The company would remain intact, however, and could revise its version of Windows without restriction. Bill Gates would keep his highly touted "right to innovate."

What do you think? Would an open sourced Microsoft lead to real competition in the Microsoft market (which must exist if it is truly a monopoly)?

There is, however, a simpler solution--both in Bedrock and in Seattle. In our parable, the government could get rid of the monopoly by revoking the inventor's patent and letting anyone start a shoe company. The analogous real-world remedy is to make Microsoft release the source code for Windows. If Windows were in the public domain (as Linux is), new companies could offer their own improved versions. Microsoft would lose the profits from its past innovations--a penalty for its past sins. The company would remain intact, however, and could revise its version of Windows without restriction. Bill Gates would keep his highly touted "right to innovate."

What do you think? Would an open sourced Microsoft lead to real competition in the Microsoft market (which must exist if it is truly a monopoly)?

Recently Fortune published an article of Bill Joy about the "Design for the Digital Revolution:" As computers change the world, we need to make sure the new world works for humans.

I enjoyed much more the one in Wired, but in Fortune the issues are much more down to Earth, and the visionary mode is off (thank God, we would not want to scare Management!). It's about changing the landscape AND making it beautiful, with a light discussion of technology issues. These discussions are not moral like in Wired, but rather practical ones.

Amazon could be making a profit today if they wanted to, but they're still spending enourmous amounts on promotion. Folks keep sayting that some sort of bubble is going to burst, but that's not quite accurate.

I'm not so sure about this any more. The print and online editions of Fortune magazine have an interesting article on the questionable ethics and accounting practices of dot com companies. Practices that would be clearly seen as illegal or unseemly in tradition companies are par for the course at dot companies. These practices include the giving of pre-IPO shares to customers to garner favor and run up the stock price via the favorable contracts that will in turn be awarded, the quick cashing out of stock by certain CEOs (Jeff Bezos is an exception to this rule but look no further than the founder of eBay who's sold $187 million in shares or its CEO who's sold $50 million in less than a year), stocking of the executive board with so many company insiders there aren't enough outsiders to form SEC mandated audit committees and weird accounting practices.

Anyway back to Amazon, Fortune claims that upon investigation of the financial reports of certain dotcomms such as Amazon, eBay and 1-800-Flowers it was noticed that these firms tacked on several costs that had nothing to do with promotions into their marketing expense including shipping costs. This means that when Amazon claims that it isn't profitable yet due to the amount of money being spent on marketing they are fudging the truth because their books place certain permanent parts of their total cost structure as marketing expenses including shipping costs. Read the Fortune article it's really scary reading for anyone who has shares in a dotcomm because it makes you re-evaluate your thinking about the viability of the dot comm market.

Market capitalization is how much capital the corporation has raised by selling stock. This doesn't usually equate to a corporation's worth. In Amazon's case (who has yet to post a quarter with a net profit), they have to use the capital for operating expenses and to cover their losses.

In order to "buy" a company, there are a couple ways. The first (and friendliest) way would be to negotiate with the company to buy them or merge with them and offer a bid, which the board and shareholders must accept. The second way is a hostile takeover, which means buying at least 51% of the company's stock (51% of market cap).

To find out how much the big corporations are really worth, check out the Fortune 500. It's updated annually, and based only on annual revenue.

From the 1999 Fortune 500:
GE #5 Revenue: $100.5B Profit: $9.3B Assets: $355.9B
MS #109 Revenue: $14.5B Profit: $4.5B Assets: $22.4B
Cisco #192 Revenue: $8.5B Profit: $1.4B Assets: $8.9B

Amazon's revenue and profit from their 1999 Income Statement, assets from their Balance Sheet:
Amazon (not in the Fortune 500) Revenue: $133.8M Profit: -$124.5M Assets: $1.8B

Maybe you should do a little more research next time.

It isn't a damn computer for gods [sic] sake.

Wow, you are wrong. I can't believe you troll slashdot.(TM) Not comparing PSX2 to a computer would be a sin of omission. Myself's initial idea of "can we put Linux on it" might reak of karma whoreage, but the secondary idea of emu heaven is pure genius. What the world needs now is a new kind of console, one which actually has fierce backwards compatibility to the early days of gaming. I.e., MAME, among others, should run on it & more companies like Wish Tech should put out products like the Adaptoid which allow for this intergenerational compatibility.

It is really shitty that PSX2 is not going to be compatible with all PSX-1 games as initially thought. Stupid move on Sony's part. These companies invariably fail to see that good backwards compatibility is key to advancement & not a hinderance as simple economic theory might suggest.

The other thing to look for: how well will Sony support the de facto standard for Internet music access. Will Sony try to cripple MP3 playback as they have on their latest music playing products? Reference: http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/alsop/20 00/02/21/index.html

Sony just may be the next company I have to boycott.