Slashdot Mirror

The internet is buzzing withspeculation that Steve Jobs may step down over reports that he profited $7.5 million in stock options by falsifying an executive board meeting. The financial times has a good overview of the unfolding story.

From the Article:

"Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple Computer, was handed 7.5m stock options in 2001 without the required authorization from the company's board of directors, according to people familiar with the matter.

Records that purported to show a full board meeting had taken place to approve Mr Jobs' remuneration, as required by Apple's procedures, were later falsified. These are now among the pieces of evidence being weighed by the Securities and Exchange Commission as it decides whether to pursue a case against the company or any individuals over the affair, according to these people."

That was a big one for a while.

Seems now the rumors have flipped on that one.

Morgan Stanly appranently thinks exactly the opposite:

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?g uid=%7B0A04C303-6960-4ECC-9604-D63575E48ACC%7D

Here's to the stock price recovering as a result ;-]

Of course they're missing out on making tons of money.

Newspapers, and old media, are considered a contraian value play.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/story.aspx?s iteid=mktw&guid=%7BA2499749-E385-4B70-B7D2-31C1D10 8C2A1%7D

It doesn't matter. It's still morally wrong to invest other people's money in thing that you know are not good investments.

Who's advocating that? Open Source contributing companies can make money.

Actually, it's criminal too, I'd have to guess. If real fund managers did this, they'd be fired, sued, arrested, and ripped apart by mobs in the streets (as they should).

So there are no speculative funds or ones that have down periods? You seem to be saying Open Source companies do, always have, and always will lose money but offer no evidence to back that up.

I'll bet global methane emissions can be shown to track the gross sales of Taco Bell.

Hmmmm... their stock has climbed steadily since August. Perhaps the methane readings are due to their recent switch to Canola oil.

11/20/06

According to iSuppli's most recent analysis, the premium version of the Xbox 360 game machine equipped with hard disk drive has a manufacturing and materials total of $323.30, based on an updated estimate using costs in the fourth quarter of 2006. This total is $75.70 less than the $399 suggested retail price of the Xbox 360. Even though it is obvious that Microsoft still has to subtract freight, toll, retail partner's profit and other possible charges, it is highly likely that Microsoft has either managed to reduce its loss to minimal, or is making a tiny profit selling the $399 flavour of the Xbox 360.

The article was actually written by John Dvorak for MarketWatch, not Microsoft. MSN MoneyCentral is just rehosting it. MarketWatch is a standard business news source.

this version of Windows will be the "Most Secure Evar".

As I recall they billed XP the same way, and in the middle of their "most secure ever" ad/launch campaign, the FBI (I think on prime time TV) warned USA computer users of the terrible security vulnerability of XP's plug and play facility which should be disabled before it caused the computer to morph into a flesh eating zombie (or words to that effect :-) ).

re:

"Now, the republicans and dems are virtually the same when it comes to fiscal policy (spend, spend, spend) "

Your statement is not borne out by the evidence. See:

"In the bond market, Treasury prices ended higher, sending yields lower, after a significant Democratic party victory in the mid-term congressional elections was viewed as ushering in an era of increased fiscal prudence."

from
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/story.aspx?s iteid=mktw&guid=%7B6E79BD26-CD0B-4C87-ABD6-0F20E90 68305%7D

The market is making the exact opposite argument you are.

Now, who is more correct, some guy on slashdot, or thousands of people investing real money? I'm going to go with the market.

Age doesn't matter. But, vendor support does. The day that Oracle announces that they will support their applications (and Oracle now owns --> PeopleSoft, Oracle Apps, JD Edwards and Siebel) not to mention Oracle Database on Ubuntu, then large enterprises will consider Ubuntu. Until then, I doubt anyone will consider it. To explain why this matters, I will give you a simple example: If I am running my Payroll system on an unsupported OS, then I will run the risk of having an employee revolt when I run into an error in the middle of a payroll run. When I call the Payroll Software Vendor and tell them that I am running it on Ubuntu, they will hang up and make me fix the problem on my own. Trust me, most major enterprises only run purchased software applications. Oh, you do find some shops that build their own systems, but the TCO of building your own versus purchase usually leads to the latter.

If you want Ubuntu to become a real player in the world, then you need to convince major software vendors like Oracle, SAP and many of the vendors listed here to actually support their application on the OS. The problem is that this usually costs money.

I didn't send you there expecting to trust their assertions. I sent you there because they compile all the research there and source it, which you can independently verify, such as the Malkiel's A Random Walk Down Wall Street. I'm really not asserting a bold thesis here; any independent source on the matter not after your money (consumer advisor Clark Howard, the various academic researchers they list) and some that aren't independent (Warren Buffet and Peter Lynch) will tell you the same thing.

Or, go to MarketWatch and run your favorite mutual fund against the S&P 500 for its life.

Yes, IFA explains the superiority of index funds, but their arguments apply to any index funds, not just theirs.

The person who you shouldn't trust is the John Edward-type mutual fund salesman who will erase the fund family's misses, show you the hits, and say, "See the ones that outperformed? That was because of great management, really! Now, cough up the cash."

I found this article particularly salient to the subject. http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?d ist=newsfinder&siteid=google&guid=%7B984BDADB-4BC6 -4B0F-BAAE-2CC966C369E1%7D&keyword=

And anyway, how do you think I'll get all that financial security Adams was talking about if I just suddenly up and decide to "live life to the fullest"? I get 3 weeks a year. MS give about the same I think. I used part of my time to go on a specific tour to certain places in Europe. It was well-planned and I liked that.

Wait... what the hell was your point again?

-B

May I suggest he read through this?

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Story.aspx?g uid=%7BBE57F0AA-03D9-4320-BC4D-83363B6372F6%7D&sit eid=

All well and good, but the whole business certainly produced an impressive bulge in plenty of time for SCOX shareholders to line their pockets by selling stock that had been practically worthless the year before.

The legal soap opera is interesting, but the real question is whether anyone profited from that stock bulge... and if so who and how much... and whether anyone intends to go after them for securities fraud. If not, then the whole charade may have been immensely worthwhile for SCO's insiders. IBM wins a pyrrhic victory, SCO goes bankrupt, thanks to the concept of a corporation the officers have no personal liability, and if they owned SCO stock and managed to sell it in 2004 they could well be laughing all the way to the bank.

To be clear, you are a fanboi moron who doesn't check reliable sources:

"Apple has received such a delisting notice" according to MarketWatch.

I wonder if this is a way to avoid being labeled a mutual fund by the SEC. They drew attention from the SEC for investing in projects outside their core business and ascting more like a mutual fund than a company.

How about this, from a CNET interview with the Calif. AG Bill Lockyer:

"Q: What is covered under California law with regard to pretexting?
Lockyer: There are two relevant statutes that may provide for criminal liability to someone who does pretexting. There's an identity theft statute, and there's a law that was designed to mostly address computer hackers, but it's getting information illegally from someone's computer system. Essentially it's pretending you're some other person to get a business that has a lot of personal information about a customer, to get that information disclosed by pretending you're that customer.

This practice is not illegal under federal law with respect to telephone records, correct? But from what I understand, that's not the case in California.
Lockyer: Yes, we have a stronger California law than the federal statute."

(probably this section)

Sooo, the AG believes that the pretexting, while not specifically addressed by statue, may fall under these other state laws. That'll be fun to watch in court, if it ever gets there.

Then there's the matter of the all-but-fraadulent SEC report on Perkin's resignation. HP just left out one or two minor details - such as the reason for his departure. Details that are *required* in an 8-K. All they said was:

"On May 18, 2006, Thomas J. Perkins announced his resignation as a director of Hewlett-Packard Company ("HP"), effective immediately. The text of HP's press release relating to Mr. Perkins' resignation is filed with this report as Exhibit 99.1." (link)

That's all.

So HP's in a bit of a fix with the State of CA, *and* with the SEC. Not to mention their customers, who've noticed the decline in product and support quality over the last decade. Sad really - they used to be great.

You want speculation? John Dvorak wasted no time: http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?g uid=%7B3C8F8E30-3A0A-4991-9A9C-17B89E611038%7D&sou rce=blq%2Fyhoo&dist=yhoo&siteid=yhoo Dvorak is always good for fun 'n' games at /.

>Meanwhile they tell the rank-and-file to keep their heads down 'cause their jobs just might go to India and market company stock to the public as though it were just another product.

That would be like CA. But add to it that after they lay off the 700 American jobs most of them will be refilled back in India. Also since the stock holders are not seeing any profit, the execs will inflate the stock price by going into debt with a two billion dollar buy back. Yes, that's right, the number looks like this $2,000,000,000.00. Oh what fun to work for a company whose "core value" is "share holder value".

And how did this whole mess unravel, it was all about manipulated stock for the big boys at the top.

You can read it and weep here:
http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?g uid=%7BC98E0520-4EC4-46A4-827A-45C3F899CAF9%7D&sou rce=blq%2Fyhoo&dist=yhoo&siteid=yhoo

After announcing record earnings and stating that the company DOES NOT feel like they would have to restate earnings, Apple's stock went sky high. And now they are saying to opposite, with their stock falling dramatically. I'm betting some execs got rich during this large fluctuation in Apple's stock. Just proves that Apple is as bad as Microsoft when it comes to shady dealings. Its the reason I refuse to buy products from either company.

Apparently, not enough of a fortune. Their stock lost 8% last Friday because they missed earnings estimates.

He never claimed that they were doing something illegal. You're conflating the argument of an analyst (that Apple is a risky investment) and that of a Slashdot poster (that Apple may be breaking the law).

Analysts trying to do their job need more clarity regarding segment operations. Apple, of course, believes its current way is within its rights, under current accounting rules.

Renck doesn't. If Renck is proven to be right, Apple will be forced to disclose more.

He never claimed that they were doing something illegal. You're conflating the argument of an analyst (that Apple is a risky investment) and that of a Slashdot poster (that Apple may be breaking the law).

Analysts trying to do their job need more clarity regarding segment operations. Apple, of course, believes its current way is within its rights, under current accounting rules.

Renck doesn't. If Renck is proven to be right, Apple will be forced to disclose more.

Computers (and peripherals) are Consumer Electronics. You see inside that tiny Consumer Electronic Ipod thingy your kids have there is a tiny computer running tiny software. Ipods are specifically a peripheral to a computer, be it Mac or PC. Same business model, Apple makes attractive easy to use consumer electronics. (Covers up Newton>) BTW, why not just link to the artcle three links and two blogs deeep. http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?g uid=%7BEE4732BB-BCFC-49FE-9CA3-6E11FC25122D%7D&sit eid=mktw&dist=

FTA:
Accounting standards, he adds, require that segments generating more than 10% of a company's revenue be broken out by several metrics, including sales, profit and assets. The iPod first passed that threshold in early 2004. Commenting on the issue, in a statement on current accounting and disclosure issues, the SEC staff has said it believes segment information should be broken out unless "separate reporting of segment information will not add significantly to an investor's understanding of an enterprise [because] its operating segments have characteristics so similar that they can be expected to have essentially the same future prospects." Renck goes so far as to say he believes Apple should do a separate breakout for computers, iPods, music-related products, peripherals and software and service. "Their business has changed and they should be doing it differently," he says. "Transparency is what everyone wants, and they don't want to be transparent."

Dude, I want a transparent Ipod too.

You are right regarding government intervention, of course, but the damage from the government granted monopolies is done. Even if all of the cities and municipalities walk away from the fees they collect for granting Bell permission to lay the only phone lines in the city (and comcast the only cable lines), who is going to come in now and lay new ones?

What's needed is not more laws, but to apply business transaction laws we already have in place. The peering arrangements these ISPs have all dictate who pays what for which traffic, why are they not pursuing payment through their contractual routes? If ATT gets a lot of traffic from UUnet, they should charge UUnet, and UUnet can then pass that charge on to its customers like Google, YouTube and Amazon. I posit that the answer is that ATT (and other ISPs) are in fact not dealing with excessive amounts of traffic, and therefore can't use the balance provisions of their peering agreements to charge the backbones for their traffic. After all, when was the last time you had trouble pulling up Google's website when it wasn't your computer's fault?

Additionally, I can safely say that the issue is not traffic related, as TCP and some applications that use UDP will retransmit a packet until the packet makes it through. Any ISP that started dropping packets after they receive them will start seeing their traffic go up as they end up handling copies of the packets they dropped the first time around. If they start dropping the acknowledgement packets as well, they're handling a copy of the packet they actually delivered the first time, plus a copy of the ack packet they dropped. Sure, TCP will slow down if a lot of packets drop, but that doesn't change the fact that if you drop half the packets of a 10MB transfer, you're now stuck carrying 20MB (10MB file + 5MB of retransmits + 2.5MB of retransmits that got dropped + 1.25+0.75+...).

Secondly, there has historically been some level of fraud in consumer-level ISP options, carefully negotiated in the fine print. Namely, the common practice of overselling capacity. When an airline oversells a flight, it at least makes an effort to recompense the customers who are unable to board through a replacement ticket for a later flight, and sometimes even a free night at the airport hotel when there are no more flights that day. However, when the ISP oversells its capacity, there is typically no recompense for being unable to attain the advertised speeds, and furthermore some of those ISPs intentionally throttle customers to a fraction of their rated speed (an earlier slashdot story told the tale of one person who was getting 700kbps on a 1.5mbit dsl line, so they downgraded to a 768kbit line... and got 300kbps).

Finally, what certain CxOs have publically announced they wish to do is clearly fraudulent. Consider this analogy: You are a company that produces brownie mixes (content). You pay a distributor (your ISP) to obtain shelfspace and deliver your product to supermarkets across the country. How they do this is not your business. Your distributor contracts (peering arrangement) with a grocery (consumer ISP) to get 3 shelf-feet of product space at eye level, for $500,000. The grocery takes the distributor's money, then calls you: "Hi, your distributor paid us $500,000 for 3 shelf-feet of space. Unless you pay us another $500,000 we can only give your product one foot on top of the shelves, out of reach." What exactly did the distributor pay half a million dollars for?

This is exactly what Bellsouth's CTO is proposing. Apple already pays their ISP to get iTMS's music to the internet. Their ISP already pays other ISPs to get the music to the customers. Bill Smith thinks that he should be able to charge Apple an additional nickel per song in protection money or something "might happen" to that nice packet they have there, despite the fact th

Yep. Like JavaLord above said Dv's trolled Windows users, too, e.g. here. I sort of remember some trollish article on Office couple of years bac, hmmh ... this, perhaps? Although the last sounded like legit complaints. Whatever, page-hit$ are page-hit$: ka-ching!

The real irony is that content companies have nothing to worry about. Telecom and cable companies will never have the leverage that content companies fear, because content is king, not pipes. It is content that customers care about, not wires. Network operators won't ever be able to use content as leverage to block or degrade the content their customers want because their customers would reject it, their competitors would pounce on it and the market won't tolerate it.

I find it constantly surprising that articles like this continue to argue that the telcos would never use paid pipes to their advantage or say that this is a non-existent problem. They seem to forget the fact that the net neutrality debate really heated up because BellSouth is already trying to make it happen. So how do they continue to get away with the argument that this is a 'non-existent problem'?

This is hardly hypothetical. The CEO of AT&T pretty much announced that as soon as he can get away with it, he's going to hit up Google for money. The CTO for BellSouth said much the same thing.

In a free market where everyone has perfect information the situation would quickly self balance. But not everyone has perfect information. Say SBC penalizes Google with bandwidth throttling. Nothing big, just a slight slowdown. Google starts responding more slowly. Videos stutter a bit more. While techies might notice and get angry and switch providers, is Joe Random User going to? Is MySpace slow because MySpace sucks, or because MySpace refused to pay protection money to AT&T? How can you be sure?

Ultimately these are industries which are already heavily regulated, both on a local and national level. The net neutrality provision is a relatively minor regulation.

build labor camps

They're already under construction, by Halliburton's trusty subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root. Don't know about the gas chambers, killing off potential labor is a bit wasteful IMO.

...can be read here

Now, you've got this ISP throttling some sites, and making others faster, how does this benefit the user?

Ummm, it doesn't? That's the entire net neutrality point. Absent these safeguards companies like SBC have incentive to offer Google and Yahoo special deals: say, whoever pays us more gets 50% more traffic than your competitor. As long as they're careful, the slowdown will be relatively minor. Your average consumer is completely incapable of determining why Google is a bit slower than Yahoo; maybe Google is overloaded. Maybe your ISP is throttling you.

The claims that some sites will be totally blocked off are implausible; if Google stopped working an ISPs customers would be furious. But a slight throttling of a non-compliant site's bandwidth would work just fine.

This isn't about saving the consumer money. Broadband rates are pretty reasonable already. This is about a new source of revenue for ISPs. This is about figuring out how to charge twice for service. I pay my cable company for my broadband. Google pays for its network pipes. My cable company shouldn't be asking Google for more money.

I dunno, I just see this as being more US-centric FUD, ooh the big bad companies are out to make money by "extorting" the "good guys"....

This isn't hypothetical worrying. The CEO of SBC wants to charge both you and the content provider. The CTO of BellSouth wants the same thing. They're both essentially claiming that because I run a web site that their customers visit, I'm somehow "stealing" from them, completely ignoring that their customers already paid them so they can get access to my site.

Well I guess Sony themselves are spilling the beans about the lack of dual-layer (although they aren't explicitly explaining that blu-ray movies sold in the near future will need to be be fit into less space than current HD-DVD movies):

"The Japanese electronics giant's U.S. counterpart will initially start production with three lines at its plant in Terre Haute, Indiana, to produce 25,000 single-layer 25 gigabyte Blu-ray discs per day..."

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?d ist=newsfinder&siteid=google&guid=%7BC6230FBA-3890 -4561-B5FD-F7FEAF06D4CC%7D&keyword=

Here is part of my reasoning. I have been investing 20% international (evenly split between Europe and Asia--mostly UK and Japanese companies) for 2 years. So, taking it to 30% international stock (again, mostly UK and Japanese companies) and 10% in an emerging market bond fund wasn't that big of a deal to me. Trust me, it's not like my 401K has millions of $ in it. And, I have at least 20 years before I can retire.

A long time ago, I read that US investors should put about 20% of their investments into overseas stock. For the rest of this year, I am increasing that overseas investment ratio because I believe China will continue to grow very quickly for the rest of this year before slowing down. The emerging market bond fund is strictly a diversification move on my part.

If, as I assume, we have a bear market before 2007 begins (meaning a 20% correction), I will then reduce my foreign investments and my US Bond holdings and put more back in the US Stock Market.

We are NOT seeing a rise? Huh?

Each chart includes the last 12 months. While whether or not this data is a bubble is indeed debatable, the fact is that the market has been on a strong long-term rise for at least the last year.

We are NOT seeing a rise? Huh?

Each chart includes the last 12 months. While whether or not this data is a bubble is indeed debatable, the fact is that the market has been on a strong long-term rise for at least the last year.

We are NOT seeing a rise? Huh?

Each chart includes the last 12 months. While whether or not this data is a bubble is indeed debatable, the fact is that the market has been on a strong long-term rise for at least the last year.

Their SEC filings are here.

A story on it over at VoIP Magazine is here.

Their (not yet active) trading charts can be found here under the symbol "VG".

If this is a fishing scam, it's a pretty darn good one. More likely, Vonage wanted their financial issues to be separate from their marketing site and didn't think about how that would look.

If you get that high, you'll never be completely unemployed ...

Todays news: Carly Fiorina to join board of heavyweight chipmaker Taiwan Semi. And she's a member of the board at Cisco too. And I guess she has some other seats too ...

Bye egghat.

On a conference call to discuss the results, Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said iPod gross margins were above 20% during the quarter, and that according to NPD Techworld, the company now holds 78% of the U.S. market for MP3 players.

I would say everyone whose life isn't centered around Slashdot. Rhapsody. Real Arcade. Real Networks does rather well in its chosen markets:

RealNetworks, Google Shares Rise

During Amelio's tenure, Apple's stock hit a 12-year low, and in the second quarter of 1997, the company lost $708 million. Amelio was widely criticized as lacking vision and marketing ability. Many did not appreciate his "wooziness" (Ed Fullenmauker 1997). Board member Ed Woolard announced his termination on July 4, 1997, and Amelio left the company the next day. He was replaced by Steve Jobs.

Interestingly, there is some opposition to Google's ad-supported free aspect of this service. You can't please everybody...

this was the fourth headline on the page when i looked....

What are you hiding there?

Those who do nothing wrong have nothing to hide, my liberally challenged friend.

What your post tells us is that you are:
1) A wrongdoer that is scared of exposure for one reason or another
2) A deeply cynical, aspiny gloater

People like you will soon have a chance to repent at Freedom Camps. http://www.marketwatch.com/news/newsfinder/pulseon e.asp?dateid=38741.5136277662-858254656

Megadittoes!

Instead of whining about the machinations of capitalism, join it. Go here, or here, or go through your bank, open an account, and start buying the shares these companies have out on the market.

Way before Katrina came along, I bought $10,000 worth of VLO, back when this company was $10. My mouth was watering after they became the biggest oil refining company in the United States (they took over Diamond Shamrock not too long ago).

After Katrina hit, I had well over 5x my original investment and dumped the stock. So, now I have almost a year's worth of wages I'm sitting on, and I can take this money and go put it somewhere else.

These companies that layoff workers are only doing it for one single reason: to please Wall Street. Any Wall St. analyst would be shocked if a merger or acquisition did NOT involve layoffs, since that is primarily a driver for the merger in the first place (increase market share + lower costs == higher returns).

So, if the company is doing the layoff is a sincere, sound manner... why not invest? Oracle and SAP have pretty-much shutout all the other accounting (er... "ERP") systems on the market... MAS-90/100, Solomon, J.D. Edwards, and a myriad of other big speciality systems... they are ALL going the way of the dodo.

POS vendors are probably the next target to be consolidated after this (which I would breathe a HUGE sigh of relief if that happened... do you know how many different POS systems are out there???)

There is more info about the legislation proposed to stop this sort of thing in the article Congress mulls Internet-freedom bill

There's something very asshat-ish about it

Those analysts don't have complete information.

Google said that if their tax rate hadn't been running 41.8%, they would have outperformed the analysts projections

here's a googd article explaining why their tax rate was higher
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid={A8 C3D767-35C8-474B-814B-0A368475955B}

Or, you can pick your own article
http://news.google.com/news?q=google+tax+rate

The large investors & smart analysts stuck by Google once they heard the explanation.