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MS shareholders need to do something about the state of that company, otherwise they're just going to continue to piss money away and eventually find themselves just like IBM in the early 90's.


Well, most of MSFT shareholders don't take their cues from Linux Weenies & Mac Fanbois bitching about Vista on Slashdot.
Check how MSFT stock has done in the last year.

I'm glad you put free in quotes because quite obviously your x-ray and cast were not free. You, and the millions of your countryfolk, paid for those things from the higher tax rates you pay.

In other words, you're living a true socialist dream by having someone else subsidize or pay for your medical bills. Redistribution of wealth and all that.

But let's turn it around. Let us say for the sake of argument that from the age of five until the age of 70, you never needed medical care. You never broke anything, never had any serious illness, etc. Now, based on those 65 years of healthy bliss, do you think it is fair that you paid what probably amounted to well over $250K in taxes to subsidize someone else? In other words, you paid for something but got no benefit from your spent money.

I know people like to think that socialized medicine is a panacea but I don't like the idea of being forced to pay for something and not getting something in return. By the same token, I don't think paying huge premiums for medical insurance and then having the insurance company tell me they won't cover me for X procedure unless I cough up more money is the way to go either. Either you're going to cover me or you're not. That's why I'm paying you the premiums.

To see how really screwed up medical insurance coverage can be, read this story from MarketWatch.

AT&T plans to help find alternative payphone operators for people who need them. The AT&T decision only applies to 13 states serviced by AT&T (SBC) payphones. AT&T only operates about 65,000 of the 1 million payphones in the US, while Verizon operates about 225,000. AT&T plans to sell as many of the phones and lines to independent operators as they can. They expect the majority of the phones to be bought by someone. They even expect to continue selling wholesale payphone service to payphone owners.

It sounds to me they just decided to let someone else field the equipment. There's a lot of exaggeration around this story, but the facts are all over the web. Death of the payphone, indeed. This reaction is kind of like saying IBM getting out of the consumer laptop and desktop PC market was the end of the Windows computer.

It appears to be a technical term for certain types of stock. MarketWatch says that it means NASDAQ has listed them as a type "G" stock, meaning "Deficient and bankrupt" -- deficient meaning that it doesn't meet NASDAQ listing requirements, and bankrupt meaning that the company's currently in bankruptcy. A third term, delinquent, is also possible -- that's when the company missed regulatory filing deadlines.

"Moving from computers to consumer electronics is dangerous for Apple. It's especially dangerous if the company thinks that MP3 players and its variants are the future."

1) Distributing MS software to employees (doesn't make sense) http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/microsoft-executive-fired-violating-company/story.aspx?guid=%7B3C9D5FC9-8119-4559-93AE-8FA7ED975002%7D&dist=hplatest

2) Affair with subordinate
http://www.pollsb.com/polls/poll/3617/microsoft-fires-cio-stuart-scott-possibly-for-inter-office-affair-with-his-subordinate

probably not pr0n as he seems to be a religious guy.

Says here 'Scott was charged with the distribution of Microsoft products among employees.'

So, was he bootlegging Halo betas?
  I cant see them firing him for giving out copies of Vista.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/microsoft-executive-fired-violating-company/story.aspx?guid=%7B3C9D5FC9-8119-4559-93AE-8FA7ED975002%7D&dist=hplatest

Inflation is what counts, and its under control.

Sure, after you quit publishing M3, start dumping gold reserves, and remove everything that keeps getting more expensive from the "basket" like gas and food.

Did the bubble pop before he could cash in?

The first part of my answer is "I'll do nothing, until next June". Because I'm a VA board member, under SEC regulations there's a six-month lockout on the shares (a regulation designed to keep people from floating bogus offerings, cashing out, and skipping to Argentina before the share price crashes). So it's not strictly true that I'm wealthy right now. I will be wealthy in six months, unless VA or the U.S. economy craters before then. I'll bet on VA; I'm not so sure about the U.S. economy :-).

Did the bubble pop before he could cash in?

The first part of my answer is "I'll do nothing, until next June". Because I'm a VA board member, under SEC regulations there's a six-month lockout on the shares (a regulation designed to keep people from floating bogus offerings, cashing out, and skipping to Argentina before the share price crashes). So it's not strictly true that I'm wealthy right now. I will be wealthy in six months, unless VA or the U.S. economy craters before then. I'll bet on VA; I'm not so sure about the U.S. economy :-).

I will give your advice back to you: Remember to fact check. The management of the new company called "AT&T" is very different from the more trustworthy company that was AT&T. That's the point. Should Apple have partnered with that new company? I think not.

Why do I think that? Apple will get criticism for everything bad the new "AT&T" does. For example, see the August 23, 2007 article AT&T Ditches 'Fewest Dropped Calls' Ad Campaign, which was apparently fraudulent. This article notes that AT&T's new slogan, "more bars in more places", seems to be exactly the same claim, in different language: AT&T Drops 'Fewest Dropped Calls' Claim.

To understand the new management, consider the history. For $16 Billion SBC got AT&T's VOIP customers, and the AT&T name. Quote from the Business Week: "It isn't clear whether or not AT&T CEO David Dorman, who will earn about $20 million from the sale of AT&T, will stick around."

So, a manager who presided over the failure of his company made $30 million (not $20 million) from selling the company to other managers who are reputed to be just as inept.

The Wikipedia article says, "Dorman's management finesse can be ascertained by tracking the value of AT&T stock during his tenure." Dorman became president in 2000, Wikipedia says. The stock performance tanked beginning just before that, and continued down until the AT&T name was sold to SBC.

It looks from the stock quotes that AT&T is doing well now, but apparently that is only because the AT&T name was pasted on a new company. (It's like unscrewing the radiator cap and driving a different car underneath. That's not real car repair.)

That's Apples new partner. Does that seem like a partner that will enhance a reputation?

soon you iHackers will have an iBrick.. permanently disabled iPhone.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/apple-warns-customers-about-unlocking/story.aspx?guid=%7BF8A6288E-9315-41B9-AD64-1B9CC8E95658%7D

when he has iDisabled your iLifeline to the iAuthorities?

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/apple-sends-customers-isicilian-message/story.aspx?guid=%7B5B49C36A-8B2B-4055-8CD9-32D227F11887%7D&dist=TNMostRead

Check this link out. All of the Rats are jumping off the ship to the tune several 10's of thousand of shares. You've got to love it.

http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/intchart.asp?symb=SCOX&time=1&freq=9&comp=&compidx=aaaaa~0&compind=&uf=0&ma=&maval=&lf=1&lf2=&lf3=&type=2&size=1&txtstyle=&style=&submitted=true&intflavor=basic&origurl=%2Ftools%2Fquotes%2Fintchart.asp

> Yahoo Edges out Google in Customer Satisfaction

Of course. The Chinese Government is extremely satisfied with Yahoo. Unfortunately for Yahoo, Congress has just announced they're going to investigate their compliancy with the Chinese Government. Treason is still a crime, Jerry Wang.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/congress-inv estigate-yahoo-involvement-china/story.aspx?guid=% 7B1286B45B-AE3F-426B-B832-1F5E35C677D0%7D
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/07/31/yahoo_and_jai led_jou.html

OK, I found some real numbers.
In 2006, "H-P claimed the top spot with 2.26 million units... Dell was second with 1.78 million shipments... IBM placed third on shipments of 1.3 million units... while Sun sold more than 368,000 servers"
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/gartner-says -server-shipments-revenue/story.aspx
So, the top four sold about 5.7 million servers, and considering that 4th place is about 1/6 the size of first place, I'd say it's safe to assume that the numbers drop off considerably after that.

(Another site says that the 8th, 9th, and 10th most popular servers--Acer, Hitachi, and Apple--sold 15,000 servers or less in one quarter.
http://www.digitimes.com/systems/a20070604PD204.ht ml
So yeah, the tail gets pretty thin, pretty fast.)

So let's say that there were about 6 million servers sold in 2006. Guess what: in 2006, Apple sold over 5.6 million Macs.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/apr/19results .html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/jul/19results .html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/oct/18results .html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/01/17results. html

So the number of Macs sold roughly equals the number of servers sold. BUT, as we all know, Apple only has about 5% of the market, so there are roughly 20x more consumer computers sold than servers. And as I said above, "in order for the number of Linux boxes to equal Macs, there would have to be one server for every 20 desktops."

Wow. Am I a good estimator or what? :-)

And remember--the point of this is not whether there are more Linux boxes or Macs out there. I know that the number of servers sold does not include all those boxes that someone put Linux onto for server use, and I don't know if servers or desktops last longer, etc etc etc. But no matter how far you push the numbers, the point is clear--Apple and Linux are probably very close to each other. One might be one-half or twice the size of the other, but they are both obviously QUITE large and they in the same league and neither should ignore the other. The fact is, Apple and Linux have comparable market share, and for this guy to totally dismiss Apple--by talking about a world where there is only MS and Linux--was wrong in several ways.

There. Happy?

I am inspired repeatedly by what I see in China.
Oh yes, the have such a good record of human rights. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_prot ests_of_1989/

And all the wonderful government regulation of exports.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/story.aspx?g uid=%7BF8F452C5-6985-4EDC-9572-62BBD4FF24BE%7D&sit eid=rss/

No kidding it's not true. Look at what happened to Bridgestone's stock around 2001 after the Firestone incident..

I pleasantly choose to do the former.

What is the reason for the pardon? An employee of the president is told to publicly expose a CIA agent, whose husband is a career diplomat, and said husband does not agree with the president, about the war in Iraq. For now, I will ignore what the other CIA staff members are thinking about what happened to one of their own. The employee, after being found guilty, and sentenced accordingly; Then is told he can go free by the president. Right about now, I think that if I saw the husband take a poke at the president, the president would get what he so desperately needs. And if I were the president, I would not flinch. Sometimes, when your ego gets to obese, a diet of Crow seems to help. Now, compare this to the hummer that President Clinton got, and at no time did Miss Lewinsky have the presidents ear.

But the one thing that no one on this parent thread has mentioned is, Why? Look at the public facts. Iran is an emerging nuclear power. Iran will then be able to control the Red Sea, see map. The Red Sea is a major shipping lane for oil tankers sailing up and down the Red Sea; To Iraq. Running a pipeline from Iraq to the Mediterranean would have three positive things happen. One, cheaper oil from Iraq. Two, no Red Sea issues. Three, Halliburton share price.

Now, what about the war in Iraq? Let us look at what has happened since the president committed Regicide. Suicide Bombers have all but left Tel Aviv and are now happily wondering around Baghdad. Kurdistan is beginning to take shape; The Turkish government is currently in control of some of that real estate. The Shiites and Sunnis are in an undeclared civil war with each other. Oil is now at $70.00 a barrel, before this president, oil was about $40.00 a barrel; Thanks Mr. President.

All this stuff is flying around because our president has decided it is a superior decision to spend billions of U.S. Tax Dollars on maintaining the status quo. If the president really wanted to attack the Terrorists, then convert the U.S. from the oil dollar to the solar dollar. OPEC would have the Islamic Terrorist hauled into their respective Mosques, and told to Shut The F--- Up.

All the same, I never saw a chart that said "distribution" more clearly than this one:

http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/intchart.a sp?symb=AAPL&sid=609&dist=TQP_chart_date&freq=1&ti me=3mo

"But don't take my word for it, go and see for yourself" (RD Laing).

If you're at all interested in the forces at work behind the "car of the future" topic, you owe it to yourself to see the movie Who Killed the Electric Car?

The state of California mandated in the 1990's that 10% of the cars sold in California be emission-free, so GM and Toyota put out all-electric vehicles. The cars had a top range of 80-100 miles before recharging, but since most people only drive around 36 miles a day, that was a non-issue for many people.

Here are some of the issues the film discusses:

1) the people who leased the cars were absolutely in love with them and thought that they were very well-engineered
2) The people who leased the cars tried desperately to buy them, but were never allowed to. GM turned down $1.9 million for the 78 uncrushed EV-1's before they were finally crushed.
3) All of the electric cars were crushed, even the brand-new ones, after the companies who made them promised that wouldn't happen.
4) The drivers of the electric cars really loved the engineering and handling of the cars.
5) The federal government joined the car manufacturers in a suit against the state of California fighting the 10% zero-emissions law.
6) one person in the movie told about a congressman who told him to get the electric car killed before it spread to other states (or the congressman would "battle" him)
7) The electric cars were so simple to work on that major dealership revenue sources would have been lost.
8) Consumers were very interested in lowering emissions and helping the environment, and were also willing to pay to do it.

The top 3 oil companies in America pulled in well over $700 BILLION for the last two years, without even looking at the record profits for the previous years. The movie makes a serious case that there was a serious push against the electric car to preserve those future profits from harm and keep the electric car from being a mainstream idea / product.

Some might call this a conspiracy theory and there are market forces involved, but it also really just sounds like intelligent business practices by the oil companies. Given the tremendous needs in the marketplace now, and the advances in technology, it will really be very interesting to see how this market develops.

AT&T is not AT&T now, because the name was sold to SBC. My understanding is that the SBC trademark was worse than useless because the company is so abusive. So, the managers decided to use another name.

Those interested in how that happened can watch Stephen Colbert explain in a 1 minute 14 second video: The New AT&T.

SBC taking the name AT&T is, in my opinion, a kind of legal fraud, but fraud nevertheless. People are bound to be confused and misled. AT&T had a very good reputation. SBC-AT&T is a completely different company, and has no connection in its culture with the old AT&T. At the very least, the SEC should require the company to disclose in the first sentence of any prospectus for its stock that there is no connection whatsoever.

The growth in market capitalisation, in this case, apparently does not necessarily mean success. The growth is only because SBC is buying companies. (I have done little research on the history of SBC, so I say apparently.) So, there is a huge potential for investors to be fooled.

The recent history of the former AT&T is interesting. David Dorman, a manager who presided over the failure of his company made $30 million from selling the company to other managers who are reputed to be just as inept and corrupt.

The Wikipedia article says, "Dorman's management finesse can be ascertained by tracking the value of AT&T stock during his tenure." Dorman became president in 2000, Wikipedia says. The stock performance tanked beginning just before that, and continued down until the AT&T name was sold to SBC.

Is this a correct summary of the story? The suspicion is certainly raised that the former AT&T manager got $30 million for reducing the value of his company so that the cost to the buyer, SBC, would be less.

AT&T is not AT&T now, because the name was sold to SBC. My understanding is that the SBC trademark was worse than useless because the company is so abusive. So, the managers decided to use another name.

Those interested in how that happened can watch Stephen Colbert explain in a 1 minute 14 second video: The New AT&T.

SBC taking the name AT&T is, in my opinion, a kind of legal fraud, but fraud nevertheless. People are bound to be confused and misled. AT&T had a very good reputation. SBC-AT&T is a completely different company, and has no connection in its culture with the old AT&T. At the very least, the SEC should require the company to disclose in the first sentence of any prospectus for its stock that there is no connection whatsoever.

The growth in market capitalisation, in this case, apparently does not necessarily mean success. The growth is only because SBC is buying companies. (I have done little research on the history of SBC, so I say apparently.) So, there is a huge potential for investors to be fooled.

The recent history of the former AT&T is interesting. David Dorman, a manager who presided over the failure of his company made $30 million from selling the company to other managers who are reputed to be just as inept and corrupt.

The Wikipedia article says, "Dorman's management finesse can be ascertained by tracking the value of AT&T stock during his tenure." Dorman became president in 2000, Wikipedia says. The stock performance tanked beginning just before that, and continued down until the AT&T name was sold to SBC.

Is this a correct summary of the story? The suspicion is certainly raised that the former AT&T manager got $30 million for reducing the value of his company so that the cost to the buyer, SBC, would be less.

Quote from the Business Week article, linked above: "It isn't clear whether or not AT&T CEO David Dorman, who will earn about $20 million from the sale of AT&T, will stick around."

So, a manager who presided over the failure of his company made $30 million (not $20 million) from selling the company to other managers who are reputed to be just as inept.

The Wikipedia article says, "Dorman's management finesse can be ascertained by tracking the value of AT&T stock during his tenure.". Dorman became president in 2000, Wikipedia says. The stock performance tanked beginning just before that, and continued down until the AT&T name was sold to SBC.

It looks from the stock quotes that AT&T is doing well now, but apparently that is only because the AT&T name was pasted on a new company. (It's like unscrewing the radiator cap and driving a different car underneath. That's not real car repair.)

  I honestly wonder if they will eventually "get" that releasing MS Office code to the open source community is their only option


Open sourcing office is their ONLY option? What about the second option, the one that involves keeping it closed source and continuing to generate billions of dollars in profit off of it each quarter?

Actually, you're absolutely wrong.

Filesharing has little to no effect on sales. In fact, very popular songs actually have a proportional increase in sales when they are shared frequently online.

In fact there are a host of other issues which the RIAA major labels completely ignore in favor of going after the one factor that irks them. You see to greedy assholes who routinely bite the hand that feeds them, the fact that anyone is listening to "their music" for free is galling. The ignore factors like entertainment diversification, the consistent growth of independent labels (yes, independent labels have increasing CD sales not decreasing sales), the negative publicity associated with lying, cheating, stealing, bribing, price-fixing being exposed to the public, the end of an upgrade cycle (sales declines are compared to the top ever sales level of the music industry ignoring the cyclical and temporary nature of upgrade cycles), and the narrowing of industry channels through the disappearance of retail music stores and do we even need to go into the general agreement that the major labels have been producing inferior albums for years?

There are plenty of reasons for falling revenues, the problem is the only reason that doesn't put the blame on the executives in charge of the music industry is the only one that given any credence by the music industry. That's in their own selfish best interest (not that of the music companies or the music industry), if they admit to making huge mistakes and covering them up years, then they could lose their cushy jobs. I understand why they do it, I just am not willing to tolerate it.

Hell, considering how little artists get paid for music the coming changes in the efficiency of music distribution are long overdue. The CD system of the music distribution is insane in a digital world. Completely insane and since the wholesale price of CD sales is the determining factor for the "size" of the music industry it's no wonder they're falling. At best the artists get to split $1 of a CD sale between them. Often it's less, I've heard of the musicians earning less than one cent per copy sold. So the rest of the $15-$20 of the CD price is overhead. That means 75%-95% of the "industry" revenues are waste.
We should expect the revenues to fall dramatically as they shift from traditional distribution to digital. However, these are professional money grubbers here, you can also expect profits to rise once they've finally admitted they have to do this and have begun to figure out how to work the system. Right now, the major labels all still appear to be in denial.

Yeah, except inflation is down.

So a person might wonder what the hell you're talking about.

... they're in a lot of trouble. oh, they're doing just fine: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/comcast-prof it-almost-triples-fueled/story.aspx?guid=%7BF768A0 CE-B1E3-40B7-BB1A-9AC17427B7F7%7D If anything, the youtubes and googles of the world _should be charging the ISPs to carry their content, not the other way around_. Its the comcasts that are getting a free ride, charging me $40 to access content they didn't make.

Google doesn't just censor in China it does so in the US as well but follows it's own agenda at home. Even it's own board of directors objected to a proposal to block pro-active censorship: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/googles-boar d-objects-anti-censorship-proposal/story.aspx?guid =%7BE4924442-BA3A-4F47-A5B8-DCA66F1A9CB0%7D Google also wants to index more government records at home while working to censor abroad. I think Google hs been going down a slippery slope, and when Google's own actions are considered against the governmnets desire to force Google to be an investigative/monitoring tool I think Google is more vulnerable to a viable backlash then Microsoft ever was. In any case that "do no evil" bit doesn't work anymore.

Ah yes, the GMAC business model. Lose money selling cars, make money charging interest.

Apple is about four times the size of AMD based on annual sales.

http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/financials .asp?symb=AMD

http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/financials .asp?siteid=mktw&key=value&symb=AAPL&sid=609

Apple is about four times the size of AMD based on annual sales.

http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/financials .asp?symb=AMD

http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/financials .asp?siteid=mktw&key=value&symb=AAPL&sid=609

Google plays along with China in censoring but it lobbys in the US for opening government records? While at the same time its board is advising it's sharholders to not vote for proposals to bar any "proactive" censorship (and Google is censoring a lot)? Google is getting creepy and I already use another search engine to get unbiased results. Google's board objects to anticensorship proposal http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/googles-boar d-objects-anti-censorship-proposal/story.aspx?guid =%7BE4924442-BA3A-4F47-A5B8-DCA66F1A9CB0%7D

Vista is selling slow on Planet Slashdot only; in RL, Microsoft just announced today the financial results, and it roundly beat analysts' expectations. Here is MarketWatch's take on this.

I actually submitted the real story but it has not been approved yet.

Vertical is not going after MVC or Visual Studio. Vertical's patent pertains to something much more devistating to Microsoft: the CLR.

Vertical's patent directly covers taking arbirtrary object code and transmuting it for use on arbitrary platforms - think VB.NET, c#.NET, COBOL.NET, etc.NET...... This is/was .NET's claim-to-fame: create an interpreted platform by letting the developers write in whatever language they are comfortable in; eventually it all ends up as CLR bytecode.

Trade surpluses, Mr. Fat Cho Kreme. It's all about the trade surpluses.

Here is you:
http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?g uid=%7B0E5A2A2E-B134-4ACB-976E-D15B12DD6007%7D&sit eid=mktw&dist=

Here is Russia:
http://www.rbcnews.com/free/20070410174512.shtml

And China:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/business/6353183.stm

Or in your language:

"Aw shit I gots no $. A-rabs and Commies stole my $. Ken git no mo donutz...."

Some credit unions have 10% CDs

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/high-cd-yiel ds-out-there/story.aspx?guid=%7BB790BE3E-60C0-4D71 -8D9B-C8D0A9AC45EC%7D

If you were affected by the storm that hit parts of the East Coast over the weekend, the IRS has granted a 2-day tax extension. Just write "April 16 Storm" on your return.

With a stock price above $450, Google needs to start making a lot of money to keep the shareholders happy

This news release seems to have been timed to divert attention from a bigger issue. Herb Greenberg points out that the iPhone is in trouble. A late iPhone is a real problem for Apple, because the other phone vendors aren't standing still. Apple could get into the position Sony finds itself with the PS3 - last to market at the highest price.

I give Vonage six weeks.

You probibly are right, I think it is a good time to buy some call and put options. I got to get off my ass and open a brokerage account.

VG option info here

Your post would be really insightful if IBM wasn't making money hand-over-fist. Unfortunately for you, the dollar signs in the 'profit' lines appear to back up the article. Apparently, IBM's track record also happens to include a few customers that are happy with their purchase.

http://www.acfnewsource.org/science/ethanol_woes.h tml

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/corn-based-e thanols-flawed-concept/story.aspx?guid=%7BEC55D7AD -6E1C-4AD8-912F-A2A0BD4D4299%7D

There is evidence that ethanol is a technological dead end because of the amount of energy required to produce it, and we may not be able to grow enough crops to support really widespread use without clearing more land.

I don't know the real answer, but it seems wise not to commit to a technology unless you can be sure of it's consequences.

Karlheinz Brandenburg did much of his work on MP3 as a postdoc working under JJ Johnston at Bell Labs. JJ Johnston had done pioneering work on the psychoacoustic aspects of audio encoding, including a codec called PAC (Perceptual Audio Codec). Do a patent search for audio patents under the name "James D. Johnston".

JJ Johnston later went on to help develop AAC. These days, JJ Johnston works at Microsoft, developing audio technology.

In 2006 the IEEE awarded the James L. Flanagan Speech & Audio Processing Award to JJ Johnston.

http://home.comcast.net/~retired_old_jj/

http://www.ieee.org/portal/pages/about/awards/bios /2006FlanaganSpeechAudioProcessingAward.html

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/ex-bell-labs -researcher-played-role/story.aspx?guid=%7B6D73DA9 E-AA07-4A2B-9D2B-25C7815974A3%7D&dist=MostReadHome

PLEASE!

Whine, whine - like IBM Needs protection ?

What are they? A rare striped, albino, flat footed platypus?
IBM afraid of little mom and pop companies?

I remember from an economic modeling session that the Planet Earth global economy can only support a handful of IBM sized corporations,
but an infinite number of small 2 person companies ( Think: # of Elephants vs # of Bacteria ).

If IBM wants to actually produce more patents per capita:
#1 - make more innovations,
#2 - reduce head count.

Stop running to momma like the Government is supposed to guarantee your existence.
IBM should show protect itself the old fashioned way - CRUSH the Competition,
not sell off chunks of itself and then expect to increase in profits automagically.
Spend a little more time at the old work bench, and keep delivering Excellent 5 Star service.

If IBM can't adapt, well - economic survival of the fittest.
Good bye dinosaur.

First, already this is the top story on MediaPost, a web site for ad buyers. This is very bad for a radio station.

Then their big mistake: On Nov. 14th Melanie Morgan said this about Nancy Pelosi: "We've got a bulls-eye painted on her big laughing eyes." (from the Daily Kos)

That might be a felony. 18 USC Sec. 871

• ...Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect, or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the President, President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President, or Vice President-elect, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."

They said that after the November election, when Ms. Pelosi was Speaker-elect of the House. (The Speaker of the House is second in line for the Presidency, after the Vice President.) Somebody is probably going to be asking some hard questions of the people at that radio station.

There's a legitimate First Amendment issue here, but it's in that grey area between political speech and death threats. Morgan, KSFO and Disney may have some unpleasant months ahead. This could create liabilities that would interfere with the planned sale of the station to Citadel Broadcasting. That sale was supposed to happen during 2006, but on November 22, the deal was postponed and repriced, and not to Disney's advantage. ("the potential amount of cash retained by Disney has been reduced by $300 million in the aggregate, $100 million of which is an outright reduction in the cash...")

In terms of financial losses by a media company, this could be bigger than the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction."