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The job description is going to be something like, "Designed and developed Swing interface. Developed probability engine for calculating permutations and combinations."

The gambling industry, especially the electronic slot machines is pretty impressive firmware. I'd be bragging about it myself.

Writing adult websites, on the other hand, I I would stick to being as vague as possible.

Electronic Arts pre-tax profit margin -25.2%

Either they are selling games at too high a price to sell enough, or they are not charging enough for the games they are selling, because they aren't making a profit!

Ubisoft net profit margin 6.5%

Not much profit...

Nintendo net profit margin 15%.

Of course, they actually make physical things as well (Wii).

Actually the Great Depression occurred in large part because in the 1920s the Secretary of the Treasury was the de facto head of the Frederal Reserve. As such he, along with the administrations in the 1920s, were interested in a loose money policy which set up the great fall in 1929. The Bank Act of 1935 gave the fed its own Chairman and a revised charter. It also neutered the powers of the branches to just day-to-day operations.

I think the history of recessions in the 20th century speaks for itself. Most recently we were on the brink of global financial collapse, but economic indicators have signaled we've already pulled out of the recession. That's less than a year long.

The Fed did in fact contribute to the latest recession, but it wasn't about money supply. It was about keeping the interest rates incredibly low, a problem compounded by the Republican Administration's refusal to enact stricter regulation. This is a GREAT article explaining the details: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/01/081201fa_fact_cassidy

I seriously cannot understand your position. Nearly every developed country in the world has a central bank. It's absolutely vital to have a body independent from the shenanigans and partisan politics that take place in Congress. Monetary policy and its effects are well understood and much more predictable than the effects of fiscal policy.

If not the Federal Reserve then who do you want in charge of monetary policy?

There are some other things I have to take issue with. First of all, the Fed doesn't print money. That's the National Treasury's job. The Federal Reserve simply buys government bonds for a small price, or sells them, creating an increase or decrease in interest rates.

Furthermore, your accusation's of the Fed's true purpose and corruption are amusing. The Office of Inspector General is charged with auditing The Federal Reserve, and Congress can directly force The Federal Reserve to release its records after 5 years if the Fed tries to withhold them.

In addition, I will quote another website: "The general impression one gets is that the Federal Reserve System is owned by international bankers who get all the Federal Reserve income. This is just not true.

The Federal Reserve System is headed by the Board of Governors which is a government agency (look it up:http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/ind⦠) There is no structure for private ownership at this level. The Governors are appointed by the president and confirmed by congress and are forbid my law from having a financial stake in any bank. All the B-of-G employees are considered government employees.

The Fed branches, however, can be considered highly regulated member-owned corporations. (look it up: http://www.hoovers.com/free/search/simpl⦠) By law, all member banks must buy shares into their local branch. Only domestic banks can be members. They vote for 6 of their 9 board members (the other 3 are appointed by the BofG). Each bank gets one vote so J.P. Morgan has as many votes as the First National Bank of Pocatella, ID.

For sheer political influence, large banks, corporations, and foreign interests are better off lobbying congress."

As for the national debt, if you take a look at this chart: http://traxel.com/deficit/deficit-percentage-50-years.png it's self-evident when the greatest increases of our national debt were incurred. Generally during the Reagen and Bush I administration, as well as the Bush II administration.

Keep in mind our approximation of the federal deficit today adds the cost of the war, which Bush Jr. kept "off the books".

I think it's also self-evident that the Democratic Clinton administration was the first one to experience a surplus since '69.

Really, any argument for the fiscal sanity of Republicans can be easily ignored.

what? Walmart operates on a 3.4-3.6% net profit margin

are you saying walmart is not doing well?

http://www.hoovers.com/wal-mart/--ID__11600,period__A--/free-co-fin-income.xhtml

They went out of their way and expended extra effort to prevent Linux from working on their system.

I doubt the issue is active malice from Foxconn (trade name for Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. LTD ).

Usually the way BIOS gets done is the mfg. buys a kit from Phoenix or General Software or whomever, and they run a customization program (which super-IO chip, what flash, you want to allow clocking modifiers, a zillion other options) and maybe add a few specific files for their setup and then compile an image.

I'm willing to bet that some firmware engineer was under the gun to crank out a release. He skipped over the section for configuring ACPI for anything but windows and some bogus defaults were left in a config file somewhere. They got compiled into the image.

QA says "what do we have to test?", marketing says "windows xp and vista", and they go ahead and test that by playing solitaire and minesweeper. They ship to make their quarterly number. The customer e-mails, support handles it badly, blogs are posted, and slashdotting ensues.

From the summary:

You can find out more about Minerva Networks here.

By the way I am comparing wifi hotspots. I signed up in Tokyo for Mopera/Mzone which is only $8/month (half price) since I have a FOMA phone. In Kentucky Fried Chicken and lots of other places you get 11 Mbps and it is awesome.

But my new Buffalo Skype phone (the nice black one) doesn't work on it because Mzone wants an additional login through a web browser, which sucks. Of course the phone will work near any open signal (though it must be strong) so I have hopes for it.

I would pay more if there were more hotspots, either free and strong or for a small amount and strong. And they shouldn't require the extra login. I even think it would be good business for the shop to beam some signal outside it. And Sony Ericsson could even build wifi enabled phones.

Time Warner, whose subsidiaries include numerous entertainment firms and content delivery companies, may at the very least look at a restraint of trade suit in the making.

I hear the saliva splatting on the floor from the lawyers dripping jaws already.

Reading comprehension is important. You wrote: Microsoft has a HUGE stake in NBC.

Yes he did, when Microsoft in fact owns _no_ stake in NBC. But this is Slashdot..

From: http://www.hoovers.com/nbc/--ID__47376--/free-co-factsheet.xhtml?cm_ven=Biz_Dev&cm_cat=Google&cm_pla=Free&cm_ite=Factsheet

"The company is part of media conglomerate NBC Universal, which is 80%-owned by General Electric; Vivendi (formerly Vivendi Universal) owns the rest."

Nintendo's warchest is peanuts compared to Sony and MS. That's what allows Sony and MS to hemorrhage at the seams; their game division is but one of many. They won't leave this game simply because that one division isn't turning a profit this quarter or year. Nintendo lives or dies by its games division since that's all it has.

Incidentally, this pretty much dictates that Nintendo has to be more conservative economically with their offerings. MS and Sony can, instead, gamble, be a bit more aggressive and hope it pays off in 3-4 years rather than next quarter.

I'm willing to bet that actually you know absolutely nothing about this. Nintendo's stock is traded over-the-counter (OTC) on American exchanges, and they do not file regulatory financial information with the SEC, not being an American company. So finding financial information about Nintendo is very difficult unless you speak Japanese. Try it: go to yahoo finance's page on them. There's like nothing there. This is why I have not invested in them, despite my enthusiasm for their business--too risky for me, trading in a company that I can't get financial info for.

The best English info I can find is here. If accurate, then Nintendo had over 7 billion in the bank at the end of fiscal 2005--two years ago. An English summary of the fiscal 2007 results are here, and they indicate the net income was 174.290 Billion yen, or roughly 1.43 Billion dollars, up from 809 Million dollars the year before. Add it all up, and it indicates that they currently have between 9 and 9.5 Billion dollars in cash. Cash. As in in the bank cash.

Now Sony's information is easier to find, so I won't provide links. Currently, Sony has about 10.5 Billion in the bank. And that's for all of Sony, keep in mind. Admittedly, Sony has a shit ton of other assets that Nintendo probably doesn't (but it's hard to say unless you read Japanese), but cash in bank is what you can spend/risk easily, which is why you brought it up. Now, Nintendo's year on year growth was 150% in operating income, while Sony saw about a 69% *decline* in operating income. In absolute numbers, Nintendo's operating income was almost 3 and a quarter times larger than Sony's (1.86 Billion dollars vs 579 Million dollars). Oops... Which means it is perfectly plausible, maybe even likely, that Nintendo will have a larger war chest than Sony within the next year. Think about that. Nintendo, who *only makes games* could have more cash in the bank than Sony.

However, MicroSoft is a different story. Even after giving out a bunch of dividends a while back, they've still got 30 some odd Billion in the bank. More importantly, though, is that their yearly revenue is *much* higher. Their operating income was a shade less than 16.5 Billion (almost nine times as much as Nintendo's) and is steadily marching upwards, though not quite as dramatically as Nintendo's. So in theory, yes, MicroSoft could give away an XBox 360 to every household in the major markets it targets that could possibly want one, say 100 Million for easy math, and let's say each cost $300 (I don't think they cost that much anymore), for 30 Billion dollars, which it has in the bank with room to spare. Problem is, they *still* wouldn't own the whole market. 100 Million free XBox 360s might kill Sony completely, but still wouldn't kill the Wii or the DS. As Nintendo shows, you can make 1 Billion a year on nothing but games--but a lot of that comes from portables, which MS doesn't offer. It would take a lot of years to make up a $30 Billion giveaway, and what happens for the next gen? Everybody's expecting a freebie, right? Seeing as how MS is already $4 Billion in the hole from the first XBox, you can understand that they're hesitant to keep hemorrhaging money on the division.

All in all, Sony

$4.4 billion in revenue, with a $1.3 billion profit. http://www.hoovers.com/microsoft/--ID__14120--/fre e-co-factsheet.xhtml

If you look at it with a little better granularity you'll note that they do lose money for half the year (although that is common in the industry) and as a company are not looking incredibly healthy when compared with a few of their sort-of-peers in consumer electronics including Matsushita (Panasonic) and Samsung (quarterly data not available).

Sony had an amazing Q4 in 2005. With the way everythings stacking up on the PS3, it will be interesting to see if they can again use it to crutch their yearly data.

In fairness, they're a bit difficult to compare directly because both MC and Samsung have semiconductor components that make up a substantial portion of their revenue and neither have recording companies (Sony is a many-tentacled monster), but with a bit of browsing around it becomes apparent that Sony isn't gaining ground quite as quickly as some other companies in the same very competitive markets. What is also apparent is how much wider their margins are (how much harder they stick it to the consumer).

If you look at it with a little better granularity you'll note that they do lose money for half the year (although that is common in the industry) and as a company are not looking incredibly healthy when compared with a few of their sort-of-peers in consumer electronics including Matsushita (Panasonic) and Samsung (quarterly data not available).

Sony had an amazing Q4 in 2005. With the way everythings stacking up on the PS3, it will be interesting to see if they can again use it to crutch their yearly data.

In fairness, they're a bit difficult to compare directly because both MC and Samsung have semiconductor components that make up a substantial portion of their revenue and neither have recording companies (Sony is a many-tentacled monster), but with a bit of browsing around it becomes apparent that Sony isn't gaining ground quite as quickly as some other companies in the same very competitive markets. What is also apparent is how much wider their margins are (how much harder they stick it to the consumer).

If you look at it with a little better granularity you'll note that they do lose money for half the year (although that is common in the industry) and as a company are not looking incredibly healthy when compared with a few of their sort-of-peers in consumer electronics including Matsushita (Panasonic) and Samsung (quarterly data not available).

Sony had an amazing Q4 in 2005. With the way everythings stacking up on the PS3, it will be interesting to see if they can again use it to crutch their yearly data.

In fairness, they're a bit difficult to compare directly because both MC and Samsung have semiconductor components that make up a substantial portion of their revenue and neither have recording companies (Sony is a many-tentacled monster), but with a bit of browsing around it becomes apparent that Sony isn't gaining ground quite as quickly as some other companies in the same very competitive markets. What is also apparent is how much wider their margins are (how much harder they stick it to the consumer).

> What will the ISP do with thr money saved?
> Because of competition, they'll spend
> it on service quality improvements for services their customers do use.

You're not familiar with Rogers, are you? These are the guys that I waited for ~1 week to send a tech for setting up my cable internet, when it was ready to go all along (They just omitted telling me that they *weren't* then going to send a tech). But I still had no modem... No problem, we'll send one over. A few days later... still no modem. Then they send me to one of their stores that has modems, but not the one I needed. In the end, I did all their leg work, picking up a modem at a diff't location some distance away. Now it pretty much works.

Now my phone service, on the other hand (also Rogers)... was working for months. Then nothing. No dial tone. WTF? Call Rogers "well, we have a note here that you've moved." I had moved, two months previous, to the very place they've cancelled the service. I'm right here! It's been working! They're sending bills to this address!! (and they're getting paid). Needless to say, three weeks later, I *still* don't have phone service, and a grand total of 1 of probably 20 people we've talked to have done what they've said they'd do. In some cases, they try to sell me more stuff to fix my problem (would you like to try our digital phone service, and get your internet/phone bill on one statement?). Uhh...no. I just want a dialtone.

Our phone number went back to "the pool" of available numbers for others to choose from, and our line was dead at a critical time (my gf had just sent out grant proposals for her Phd work, and was expecting calls about them)...

Can I get at least a recorded message saying "call this other number" (our cell phones)? Well, as this is a courtesy of Rogers, you realize you'll have to pay for it. What?!!! The helpful agent that told us that wouldn't even let us speak to his manager! Eventually this *did* get fixed.

The latest is that the guy who's able to reconnect our phone is on holidays. The Guy?? You've got ~20,000 (or more) employees, posted 4.6 billion in sales in 2004, and 11 million in profits, and you've got 1 guy doing installations and trouble-shooting? I hope he gets paid well, but I also think he needs help.

Better service with the money they save by closing USENET? Let's hope so.

It only makes sense. Cisco has:

198.133.219/24
128.107/16
128.108/16
64.104/16
64.100/14

I count 524,544 ip addresses right there. It's pretty amazing because cisco only has 34,000
employees, or 15 IP addresses per person.

No wonder they don't want to give any addresses back. It's a lot of work to use public addresses effectively.

Meanwhile, convince everyone else to spend umpteen-trillion dollars to switch to IPv6 or only the people who want to get on the Internet in the next few years, and they don't have to do a damn thing.

Oh, and I'm almost certain cisco has other netblocks. Those are only the ones I know of off the top of my head.

You're right- The record companies just dont realize how things work in the digital era. The iTunes music store is not just another sales venue-- it's backed by a gutsy, competitive company. Apple has assets of $7 Billion lying around (http://www.hoovers.com/apple-computer/--ID__12644 ,period__A--/free-co-fin-balance.xhtml), which dwarfs Warner's $1.5 Billion (http://www.hoovers.com/warner-music/--ID__103153, period__A--/free-co-fin-balance.xhtml). Apple has zero debt, Warner has $1.8 Billion debt. You get the picture. Warner has a market cap of $2.9 Billion-- Apple could buy them on the open market and pay CASH! But who would want to buy a company that goes around burning bridges?

You're right- The record companies just dont realize how things work in the digital era. The iTunes music store is not just another sales venue-- it's backed by a gutsy, competitive company. Apple has assets of $7 Billion lying around (http://www.hoovers.com/apple-computer/--ID__12644 ,period__A--/free-co-fin-balance.xhtml), which dwarfs Warner's $1.5 Billion (http://www.hoovers.com/warner-music/--ID__103153, period__A--/free-co-fin-balance.xhtml). Apple has zero debt, Warner has $1.8 Billion debt. You get the picture. Warner has a market cap of $2.9 Billion-- Apple could buy them on the open market and pay CASH! But who would want to buy a company that goes around burning bridges?

True, $5 million a day isn't much compared to the their cash reserves. However, the fine will affect their stock holders. MS made about $9 billion net last year but if they are fined 1.8 billion (20% of net) their stockholders might be a little upset. The stock would drop somewhat.

Also the imposition of the fine might harm future business. Businesses tend to avoid doing commerce with companies that have negative publicity unless they have to. So in the end it might affect their bottom line in the long run.

Although MS has $56 billion in cash, their operating expenses were $27 billion. So hypothetically if no new money were to come in, that cash reserve would only last 2 years or so. That is why MS is so worried about Linux. Imagine if nobody bought Windows anymore. The company would not have long before the cash ran out. With each version of Windows taking longer and longer to develop, MS would have problems.

http://www.hoovers.com/zomax-incorporated/--ID__51 171--/free-co-factsheet.xhtml

Zomax mostly serves customers in the computer hardware manufacturing and software publishing industries. It provides replication, telemarketing, and fulfillment services to software giant Microsoft, which accounts for about 22% of the company's sales. Another 19% come from Dell. Zomax operates through facilities in North America and Europe.

Seems legit, although aren't they breaking the law by not supplying a legitimate phone number? My registrar send me ominous messages about once a year about how I am LEGALLY REQUIRED TO KEEP MY CONTACT INFO UP TO DATE, blah blah blah....

According to Hoovers, Hynix's NET income for 2000-2002 was $7.5 Billion with a "B".

Better look at those numbers again. Hynix's net LOSS was $7.5 billion over that time period.

Sorry for the reply to my own post, I should have done some quick homework before posting.

According to Hoovers, Hynix's NET income for 2000-2002 was $7.5 Billion with a "B".

I'm not an accountant, and I'm sure there is a ton of expenses to come out of that figure...still, $185M just doesn't seem like that much.

Isn't it funny how those record breaking profits never seem to come up in the discussions about high fuel prices?

That would be because they're mostly irrelevant. Exxon had a 9.6% net profit margin last year. So if they decided to forego profits and sell oil at cost, you'd see at most a drop from $2.20/gallon to $2.00, still way higher than the recent past. I find it amusing when people are more willing to invent elaborate conspiracy theories than look at the plain facts of supply and demand and the OPEC cartel.

There's more info on the 8K filing here

<rant>

Why does everyone spread FUD over the size of the porno industry? This is from an earlier post I made on the same subject.

Nice to have 11000 titles but what is the volume per title? For years I have read so many articles that companies made so much money off of porn. The largest porno movie company is Vivid Entertainment Group [hoovers.com] their volume was $150 million for 2003. How many movies a year have a gross larger then that in US ticket sales? Not counting world wide ticket sales,DVD and VHS sales. Seems like there are a zillion porno sites out there. How many of the porno sites are all owned by the same company on a handful of servers? Porn companies have a virtual presence more then a real one. I would think one or two block buster movies would sell more DVD's then the top 10 porno companies combined. They aren't the driving force that most people think they are.

Other then selling a handful of dirty movies the porno industry is a very minor economic force. Just wanted to clear up a few misconceptions about the porno industry.

</rant>

I'm no fan of his business practices, but let's give the man his due. (And as international corporations go, there are a lot worse around.)

1. BitTorrent does not conform to a standard port like webservers (port 80). In fact many torrent tracker sites won't allow you connect to their trackers with the standard ports. So BitTorrent traffic could be on virtually any port, making it significantly harder to block.
2. BitTorrent users are paying customers. Alienating them or terminating their service agreements would result in a significant drop in revenue. As long as the increased costs associated with this traffic do not exceed the revenue generated by these users, you're making money.

Matsushita is Panasonic's parent company. Thay also make products under/for the following brand names: Quasar, GE, JVC, and Technics.

sources:
http://www.hoovers.com/matsushita-electric-industr ial-co.,-ltd./--ID__41873--/freeuk-co-factsheet.xh tml, instruction manual from my GE VCR.
Note: Matsushita doesn't own everything, they just make everything for everyone else

Nice to have 11000 titles but what is the volume per title? For years I have read so many articles that companies made so much money off of porn. The largest porno movie company is Vivid Entertainment Group their volume was $150 million for 2003. How many movies a year have a gross larger then that in US ticket sales? Not counting world wide ticket sales,DVD and VHS sales. Seems like there are a zillion porno sites out there. How many of the porno sites are all owned by the same company on a handful of servers? Porn companies have a virtual presence more then a real one. I would think one or two block buster movies would sell more DVD's then the top 10 porno companies combined. They aren't the driving force that most people think they are. They will have less of an effect then most people think. Do they have a very large audience that buy a few DVDs each or is it a small audience that buys a lot of DVDs? To drive the mfg of a new type DVD requires a large customer base that will buy hardware not a small customer base that buys a lot of DVDs. How many /. have rented or actually bought a porn DVD in the past 2 years? If you have bought porn how many non porn DVDs have you bought? I think most people will find that porn isn't as much of a driving force as it seems. YMMV

ok, you have too much time on your hands, proof: you can go through my posts line by line and take them out of context (similar to being narrow minded) and refute them. This is easy. I'm asking you look at the big picture, not the tiny world view you seem to enjoy.

I started slinging an insult because I'm tired of the rich getting richer while the poor are uncontrollably getting poorer. Can you argue that this is just?

I said you are narrow minded because you are taking everything I said into your context, not the context in which I am saying it. Also, you're looking at one thing and thinking everything else should follow the same rules. The world doesn't work like that!

I don't think the Pizza Hut guy only makes 500,000 a year, but I could be wrong. And last time I checked 1 million was (well about twice as much) more than 500,000. Again, ignoring what I am saying to refute the argument you think I am making to fit your rebuttal. This is ignorant.

College is not a right, you can argue health care isn't either...but wouldn't it be better if everyone could afford appropriate education and health care? I mean, isn't this the goal we should be aspiring towards, rather than making the poor even more unable to afford these things?

Here's another example of your ignorance, I said 'just a hunch' and you immediately responded demanding proof. Do you know what that means if I say 'just a hunch'. Look it up yourself, but I'm still pretty sure I'm correct. Home Depot had over 64 billion dollars in revenue (Jan 2004), I think it's safe to say the president (to whom you were referring--in context) makes more than 500,000 dollars a year. I'm sure most of the cashiers may not have full benefits, but I also feel safe in saying most of the top half of the administration, etc... has benefits. Again, this is a hunch, but maybe more of an educated guess. So please, please, please read my posts and not take them out of context when arguing back. One can easily argue that that is an ignorant thing to do. Plus, it only makes you look more ignorant and foolish when you ignore these warnings and continue to take what I say out of context to fit your argument.

Very few Americans know much at all about China.

People THINK they do but to someone like me (i.e. a white guy who spends months at a time each year in China, is married to a Chinese woman, is well versed in China's history both recent and ancient and speaks Mandarin), listening to American folks discuss China is almost always very frustrating.

The country is not nearly as oppressive as some of you seem to think. Communism is really just a WORD over there... not an ideology... not anymore. Yes the government has it's problems and for the most part are not too well liked but daily life in China (well, for city dwelling, college educated people anyway) is little different from life here. People own pets, they don't eat them, they have cars, cell phones, high speed internet, live (and thus, not so controlled by the government) news on TV, they go shopping, walk in the park, meet friends for coffee, hit the clubs on Friday and Saturday night or go see a soccer match, whatever.

Many places in China would strike the most ardent neo-conservative as the very height of capitalism. Contrary to what one person posted you CAN talk about/criticise/make fun of the government. I have talked with so very many Chinese about their government and they are usually quite frank. No one is hiding behind their hand whispering, no one is "disappeared". Last time I was there (May-August 2004) there were even some fairly large labor protests in a nortern city. Protests that were not crushed, put down, blocked. We just don't hear about this sort of stuff in the states. Viewed objectively (my wife, a professor of communications, has done much research in the area of media coverage between China and the USA), our government's opinions regarding China, the average citizens beliefs on China and the stories we get about China from our media leave us with a general impression that is, quite simply, wrong and negatively biased.Statistically about equal to the bias you would find in the Chinese press about the USA.

Technologically, China IS rapidly pulling ahead of the U.S.A. in many areas (cell phone technology and IT in particular) and China has it's "Microsofts" waiting in the wings eyeing the world market (the Lenovo Group (formerly known as Legend Group) in particular). Bottom line is, most Americans don't know enough about China to make any sort of accurate commentary regarding it. Yes there are many problems in China and with it's government but it is much closer to life here (once again, in the cities, not the countryside) than you probably think.

Nope. It's 81% owned by another media conglomerate.: Viacom

Splendid! Geek paradise. LINUX AND PORN!

Market capitalization is just one piece of the puzzle. Taking a look at Amazon's financials, they've got about $2.1 billion in assests, $3.2 billion in outstanding liability and another $1 billion in shareholder equity. From where I stand, that's still $2.1 billion in the hole.

Also, that $3.6 billion for Marshall Fields is cash. For fifty+ profitable brick-and-mortar stores. Target didn't jettison MF because they were losing money on the chain; they sold it because they weren't making money as fast as they wanted.

So, yes, if they were to purchase every outstanding share of Amazon stock, yes, it would cost them $21 billion. When was the last time one company bought another company by purchasing every outstanding share, though? I think a wad of cash and taking on outstanding debt would make quite an attractive buyout package, especially if it included stock in the resulting company.

Take Amazon's brand and knack for staying alive on the Web, cut it with Target's business sense and bleeding-edge-of-hip sensibilities (well, in their minds, anyway), and you might have a company that works. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if it happened; if Target figured out how they could make Amazon into a cash-cow. It's not like they don't have experience managing a mail-order company.

Making Amazon consistently profitable, though - aye, there's the rub.

Wow, that's harsh.
I suppose that the money that Bill donates to medical research (read this) would not count for anything...
Do you really think Windows is used for mission-critical hardware environments?

SGI seems to dissagree with the AC. From their 2003 SEC Filing:

We are concentrating our research and development efforts on products and technologies that we believe hold the highest growth potential, including global shared memory system architectures, visualization and storage. Our strategy is to derive maximum leverage from these efforts by using a foundation of industry-standard components such as the Intel Itanium family of microprocessors and the Linux operating systems. We also continue to invest, although at a lower rate than in the past, both on a percentage and absolute dollar basis, in our own MIPS microprocessors and IRIX operating system. There are no assurances that we will maintain or create sufficient differentiation to achieve and sustain a competitive advantage.

Sounds like a ringing endorsement of free software to me. SGI is good but they admit that it is difficult to keep up with free software so they are using it to their advantage.

Sun should take a lesson and quit screwing around with Microsoft, SCO and all of that trash. Free software is the future, commercial code is dead. Those who cling to the corpse are likewise dead.

Hoovers.com allows you to search for businesses, including the assumed name a company may be operating under. If the company pays taxes you can get informatin on them, although if you haven't paid money for the service they will ask you either to buy a subscription or a report. Still, the Information you'll find if you search their site should give you enough leads to track down the business and let the FTC know who to go after.

Hoovers.com allows you to search for businesses, including the assumed name a company may be operating under. If the company pays taxes you can get informatin on them, although if you haven't paid money for the service they will ask you either to buy a subscription or a report. Still, the Information you'll find if you search their site should give you enough leads to track down the business and let the FTC know who to go after.

Looks like they bit off more than they can chew, even before winning a single case

No, they haven't bit off more than they can chew. Their business model isn't about winning court cases, it's about squeezing money. The fact they're willing to go after the feds means that they're not afraid of anybody, particularly YOU, Mr. CEO, so pay up now, before we drag you in too.

Meanwhile, MS has been having some problems with governments defecting from the 1 Microsoft Way) so this helps them out.

Microsoft has gone out of it's way to point investors at SCO because any crap SCOX throws at Linux only makes them look less awful. It's a classic case of MS saying "Lets you and him fight!"

Of course, if they can get federal agencies (who aren't playing with their own money anyway) to pay them to shut up and go away, so much the better! I'm suprised that they haven't thought of this earlier.

There's even a tiny chance that they'll be able to argue for a change of venue based on the courts using FOSS now, and therefore not being disinterested parties. It won't throw the case out, but it might be a good delaying tactic, and time really is money.

A lot of people have followed George Soros on his very vocal position against outsourcing. He's the funder behind moveon.org and has claimed he'd be willing to part with his billions of dollars of wealth in order to get rid of Bush, the "outsourcing nightmare president." (Soros has launched a new ad campaign through MoveOn.org that specifically blames Bush for outsourcing job loss and lack of overtime pay which unfortunately ignores the same campaign finance reform laws. Just like Martha Stewart, Soros apparently feels that laws are for little folk, not rich folk like him).

Interestingly, if one looks at the companies Soros's investment company, Soros Fund Management, holds, (specifically check the Form 13F-HR), you'll discover outsourcing company after another. I spent an hour looking at just the companies starting with "A" and "B" and found over 90% were aggressively outsourcing. Several had financial reports literally bragging about how they've saved investors money through this process.

I had wondered where Soros was at. A few years ago, a Soros disciple approached a company I worked for and strongly recommended the company dispose of its information technology and call center operations to India as a precondition of the fund looking at the company. The disciple insisted outsourcing had worked well and Mr. Soros used it as part of his investing strategy to differentiate investments.

Imagine my surprise when I've heard Soros himself (as well as his moveon.org group) blaming the current president for the flight of jobs. How is Bush supposed to stop Soros from demanding his holdings "optimize"? Is it Bush's fault that he hasn't stopped Soros before he moves-jobs-on to India again? For those of you who've fallen sucker to the moveon.org ploy, do your own research and you'll confirm what a few of us who have crossed Soros's path have learned first hand. You're unfortunately playing in the guilt trip of a very rich man who must not like how he makes his money. For anyone in IT supporting moveon.org, it'd be like a Linux advocate joining a SCO fan club.

Take a look at the list. Search google for the company name. It's shocking. My only theory is that Soros has the typical upper class guilt trip going where he wants to be thought of a better person than he is per his destruction of IT in the US.

For these Fortune 1000, it's not easy to tell Soros (who may be holding 5% or more of your company) to blow off and keep those jobs in the U.S.

In other news (which didn't make a dent in the U.S. press), Soros apparently has one-upped Martha Stewart. Just like Martha, he's liberal, a Bush hater, a rich fat cat, big business guy, believes he's immune to trading laws, and liberal. Warren Buffet, the U.S.'s second richest man, is also a big time Democrat and despises Bush. I think we can put away the myth that Republicans have a monopoly on "big business/special interest." Democrats seem to be leading the pack these days.

A lot of people have followed George Soros on his very vocal position against outsourcing. He's the funder behind moveon.org and has claimed he'd be willing to part with his billions of dollars of wealth in order to get rid of Bush, the "outsourcing nightmare president." (Soros has launched a new ad campaign through MoveOn.org that specifically blames Bush for outsourcing job loss and lack of overtime pay which unfortunately ignores the same campaign finance reform laws. Just like Martha Stewart, Soros apparently feels that laws are for little folk, not rich folk like him).

Interestingly, if one looks at the companies Soros's investment company, Soros Fund Management, holds, (specifically check the Form 13F-HR), you'll discover outsourcing company after another. I spent an hour looking at just the companies starting with "A" and "B" and found over 90% were aggressively outsourcing. Several had financial reports literally bragging about how they've saved investors money through this process.

I had wondered where Soros was at. A few years ago, a Soros disciple approached a company I worked for and strongly recommended the company dispose of its information technology and call center operations to India as a precondition of the fund looking at the company. The disciple insisted outsourcing had worked well and Mr. Soros used it as part of his investing strategy to differentiate investments.

Imagine my surprise when I've heard Soros himself (as well as his moveon.org group) blaming the current president for the flight of jobs. How is Bush supposed to stop Soros from demanding his holdings "optimize"? Is it Bush's fault that he hasn't stopped Soros before he moves-jobs-on to India again? For those of you who've fallen sucker to the moveon.org ploy, do your own research and you'll confirm what a few of us who have crossed Soros's path have learned first hand. You're unfortunately playing in the guilt trip of a very rich man who must not like how he makes his money. For anyone in IT supporting moveon.org, it'd be like a Linux advocate joining a SCO fan club.

Take a look at the list. Search google for the company name. It's shocking. My only theory is that Soros has the typical upper class guilt trip going where he wants to be thought of a better person than he is per his destruction of IT in the US.

For these Fortune 1000, it's not easy to tell Soros (who may be holding 5% or more of your company) to blow off and keep those jobs in the U.S.

In other news (which didn't make a dent in the U.S. press), Soros apparently has one-upped Martha Stewart. Just like Martha, he's liberal, a Bush hater, a rich fat cat, big business guy, believes he's immune to trading laws, and liberal. Warren Buffet, the U.S.'s second richest man, is also a big time Democrat and despises Bush. I think we can put away the myth that Republicans have a monopoly on "big business/special interest." Democrats seem to be leading the pack these days.

from Comcast's perspective because IIRC Disney also owns ESPN. ESPN and the Disney Channel are the two most expensive basic cable channel groups, responsible for much of the annual cost increase in cable rates. If Comcast owns Disney then the "cost" of Disney's channels is suddenly a much smaller problem.

I "solved" this problem by going with the $10/mo economy cable TV plan, which has broadcast networks and not much else. Heck, and even that's only because I have a Comcast cable modem. Up yours, Mickey Mouse!

Inet 2002 NET after tax profit -> 3,117.0 (Millions of US Dollars)

Lemme see, Intel could fund the development of current optimized and up-to-date OpenSource drivers for their *entire* product line for (I'm just guessing here) under 1 million dollars.

That's still less than One THIRTIETH of ONE Percent of their 2002 NET After TAX Profit. (NB 2002 was more than double their 2001 NET After TAX profit)

Yeah, but considering that Apple caused it's own demise by sticking to proprietary hardware

Demise?

Net sales increased $465 million or 8% during 2003 compared to 2002...Gross Margin of 1.7 billion...recent innovation....

Helluva death. One that a lot of companies would like to be enjoying.

Yeah, but considering that Apple caused it's own demise by sticking to proprietary hardware

Demise?

Net sales increased $465 million or 8% during 2003 compared to 2002...Gross Margin of 1.7 billion...recent innovation....

Helluva death. One that a lot of companies would like to be enjoying.

For instance, I heard that Giant [the grocery store chain] made more last year selling data about their customers than in profits from items sold in their store. In some ways, this is good to the customers, as it allows them to find an alternate revenue stream, and keep their prices down.

Walt Disney has licensed Microsoft's Windows Media DRM technology

Wow, so they un-froze his head long enough to sign a license? Cool!

Oh, you mean the Walt Disney Company !!!

All of the scenarios you describe about companies sharing or obtaining information about you for advertising purposes (or worse) involve either hacking into Mobil's database once they have the number (illegal!) or colluding with other companies (also illegal!). Or maybe Speedpass (read: Exxon Mobil Corp., the largest US oil company) will go out of business and sell their member database. I doubt it.

The Speedpass is JUST A NUMBER. If a store nabs your credit card information and your Speedpass number with the intent of selling it, why would they need your damn Speedpass number? They could do just as much damage with the credit card number alone. And how often to retailers sell their customers' credit card information? Never, unless you're shopping online at The Fetish Shack. No information-selling company is going to gain anything by getting your Speedpass number. It's meaningless without Mobil's database, and they'd either have to hack into it, or have a contract with Mobil (which I doubt any shady retailer has). And Mobil's database has ALL the Speedpass numbers. The hackers wouldn't need yours.

There is only one instance I can think of where people could abuse your Speedpass number. They could build a device to scan for Speedpass numbers and walk around the street collecting them. Then they could build their own RFID device, with the number they stole, and buy gas with it. Since they wouldn't have your personal information, they couldn't change your account settings or get cash from it. They could only purchase things from Speedpass-enabled stores. And once you (or Mobil) saw the strange charges on your account, the number would be disabled, and you would be issued a new one. You are FAR more likely to have your credit card stolen by Hank's House of Horny online than you are for someone to abuse your Speedpass.

My point here is that there is not some huge corporate conspiracy to track your every move and report it to some greasy spammer. Will you stop using built-in sprinklers because someone could know your watering habits? Will you stop subscribing to magazines because Time Warner now knows where you live? Will you never use a bank account because your bank needs to know your Social Security number? Stop pretending every company is out to get you.

I don't believe they can lay claim to the SCO name, IP, assets, etc., and still claim "But that's not really us."

Dr. Pepper/7-Up is owned by Cadbury Schweppes plc (in the UK), "the world's #3 soft-drink producer" It's common to see bottling contracted out to local bottlers who may carry the name of another company. Bottling is a seperate entity from the big 3. DP/7-UP DP Bottling Cadbury Schweppes