The PS3 is not supporting dual HDTVs. It supports one single HDTV. Otherwise, your argument is correct, except by fall, the PS3 will still cost $150-200 more, depending on how MS handles price drops.
With the PS3 being $499-$599, the Wii estimated to be no more than $249, and the Xbox being $249-$399 by next fall, you can actually get both a Wii and an Xbox 360 for the price of the PS3. The PS3 in an of itself is not that expensive compared to other consoles in the past; the Saturn sold for today's equivalent of $509, the 3DO for $949 and the Neo-Geo for $1010. But, just like those consoles, when faced with much more reasonable alternatives, we may find more people choosing the Wii or the 360. Time will tell.
I think it's pretty clear that the market is still in control of these transactions. Witness, for example, the uproar over the horse armor for Oblivion. I'm about as big an Oblivion fan as you can find and I did not buy any of the add-ons that Bethesda offered. I simply thought they weren't that great of a value and they came out by the time I beat the game and had gotten sick of playing it so much.
If you remember, the uproar over the horse armor pack led them to offer the next content at a much better price.
If two missions for GTA4 cost $15.00, then people are going to balk and not get it, which prevents further releases at that price.
At this point my concern would be elevated if I was a retailer. How does Gamestop get a cut of this? One thought is offeting kiosks with this stuff to download and Gamestop getting a certain cut. For those without an internet connection or who don't want to sit and wait 6 hours for a 400MB map pack to download, they can go to their local Gamestop and get it there locally. Retailers are also currenty selling the points you use to get this content in the first place. For many people, the way they get points is to go into the store, plunk down $25, and walk out with a card.
Rockstar has said that the current GTA Series are all part of the "GTA3" universe. That is, Grand Theft Auto: 3, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Grand Theft Auto: Electric Boogaloo are all "GTA3" in a sense. Rockstar has said that after San Andreas they want to take a long hard look at the series, and retool it so that GTA4 is going to be a leap like the one you saw from the second to the third.
I don't know if this is still the case but I remember them making a big deal about it between the release of Vice City and San Andreas.
Its popular and newly released Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has now been re-rated "Mature" and recalled by the ESRB because Take-Two and its co-publisher have been caught embedding nude figures and scenes in the game which can be unlocked with a code provided by the developer. This is not a modification or "mod" of the game by gamers. It is an unlocking of content that was put there by Take-Two with the unlocking code provided by the developer!
You have to be kidding me. I hope this guy appears on a few call-in shows. I'd love to ask him some questions.
I wouldn't say the next Halo but then again I would say that (except for easily set-up 16 player lan games) Halo was an over-rated game that was outshined in practically every way by PC first person shooters when it was released.
You sir, are quite right; the point, however, is still missed. Up until Halo, there were two or three (maybe less) good first-person shooters for consoles. I can think of Goldeneye for the N64, maybe someone else can mention the other two (Perfect Dark?). Everything else was an adequate PC port or a very bad PC port.
IIRC, Halo was originally going to be for the PC, so it still has PC roots, but while it's not the best shooter ever, it's certainly one of the best console shooters ever and arguably the greatest non-handheld launch title since the "64-bit" era. That it had a sequel that (for many) improved on the first only helped.
Sure, it's not as good as a decent PC-centric FPS. But it has its merits and a lot of fans.
If you don't want to get rid of the liquor cabinet, at least give the poor kids a game that allows them to drink, but also necessitates they are responsible for the consequences.
Parents! Heed this advice... Never leave the whiskey out by itself or within your teenager's reach. Always leave it out next to some playing cards and dice and let the game, er... social learning begin! I suggest we start with social learning studies that have long been followed at the hallowed halls of higher learning, such as Kings or Three-Man.
Well, my Xbox 360 said that it's the only place to turn of exciting E3 footage. Although something tells me I won't find any Metal Gear Solid information on it...
Aside from the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis, I don't think I remember there ever being a cool-sounding console or hand-held name. Nintendo 64? Dreamcast? Xbox... 360? PlayStation? Wonder... [i]Swan[/i]?
To me, all these names sounded ridiculous, and I know I'm not alone. We made fun of the 360's name but now it's pretty much accepted and any complaints about it have nothing to do with the name.
By July, at the latest, this will be a non-issue.
Re:Imitiation is the sincerest form of flattery
on
Faking a Company
·
· Score: 1
I'm assuming it would be embarassing if the top execs looked at this fake company and saw that it was running more profitably than the real company or building better products.
When they talk about China and India, western business executives can't stop using the word "scale." Take the experience of Blizzard Entertainment, based in Irvine, Calif. It took a year to attract a million paying subscribers in North America for World of Warcraft, its popular online video game; in one month, the company signed up 1.5 million for the Chinese version of the game. How about cellphones? There are 400 million cellphone users in China, and, on average, they replace their phones every three to six months. Consumers in China can choose from something like 900 different models, compared with only 80 or so in the United States. Companies like Samsung offer a new handset model in China as often as once a week.
I can stream HD content right now. It's not always 100% great, but it works OK, better than any internet streaming I've ever seen. And it's real HD.
But it irks me when people think that movie streaming will be done through a central server, or even a de-centralized server farm.
Why can't movie streaming be done from down the street?
(At this point, I had several paragraphs of calculations and estimates done for cost feasibility -- but I'm neither in telecom nor in datacenters so my guesses would be wild at best. As such I did not put them in).
Why can't the content come streaming from my own neighborhood, or one down the road? You (the VOD provider) keep this content in servers holding the top X number of movies and it's right down the road. Would this minimize traffic issues? Is it cost feasible?
I think it's unfair to say that VOD will never work. It will, if the right business model can be created. People complain about "not owning a disc" yet people still rent, people still Pay-per-View, and people still go the theaters. We might still be another 10 years away, but we'll get there. At that point, it won't replace whatever new holographic disc format is "next gen" but it will be pretty common. For all we know, this might be right around the corner.
I've recently been introduced to a wonderful Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle, which usually secretes only a small amount of a sodium chloride / urea solution. Through imaginative manufacturing, the costs of these vehicles have been reduced greatly. I believe they are mostly used in European and Asian countries, as they are a bit small for Americans, outside of an interested hobbyist. They run on kinetic power, and the fuel cell takes any kind of organic matter to be powered: scientists are still discussing the proper blends of ingredients, but most will work.
On top of that, throughout the transportation process there's been shown some health benefits. Since it is a bit unconventional, specialty equipment is recommended or required depending on local statutes, although this being a new technology most commuters and local governments seem to be unaware of it.
I can't find too much more information about this online, but a gentleman at a university was able to provide me with a schema of this vehicle, which you can find here.
I remember there being phone support in IE5. This one time I was browsing some foreign sites to meet beautiful ladies, and my IE had a warning pop-up that said I needed to be authenticated to proceed. My modem started to dial and mere minutes later, I was finally viewing the pictures and movies that I had wanted to access in the first place.
Sure, this "phone support" was expensive, since I got a $89.22 phone bill for a three-minute call to Bulgaria a month later, but all in all everyone had a great time.
The article was more in-depth than I had imagined it would be. However, it leaves out the simple explanations for inadequate expertise in these stores.
While the Best Buy experience was inexcusable, the other stores seemed to have pretty good service, even if their expertise was less than ideal. But their expertise only needs to be limited.
First, retail is not the line of work you want to go into to get rich. Unless you're in management (at which point you're not talking with the customers), if you're well versed in computer hardware you can probably do better for yourself somewhere else where you'll enjoy greater pay, less hassle, and better hours. If you're in high school or college and need to raise some cash and already like computers, it's not a bad fit, but I would never expect to find a graphics card guru at my local electronics store.
Second, most consumers buying computers don't care to be educated in their choices beyond avoiding a bad choice. As long as the computer runs what they need to and won't break, that's all they really care about. One exception in this might be laptops, although I imagine discerning businesses are not getting their laptops from Circuit City but some other source. (At which point a knowledgeable salesperson is useful, as they are selling dozens of these systems at any one time). Knowledgeable consumers, expecting uninformed salespeople at retail locations, will research first and may have limited their choices to only a few models once they get in the store.
Third, with the exception of gamers, most people would have almost the same experience with any random computer that you select out of a store. As the article suggests, most people just want to go on the internet, check email, and run basic applications (Office, The Sims). There's no one computer that's best for that.
Therefore, retail stores don't need to have experts on hand to assist everyone. It would be nice for them to know some of the basics and you certainly want them to be honest to the extent where it doesn't hinder their job, but not much more is needed.
And if you really ache for that one-on-one advice, get in contact with a speciality seller like WidowPC or better yet, visit your local computer shop run by a bunch of geeks in shorts and ponytails, who will probably not steer you wrong.
Twenty years ago, no one thought comic book movies were going to be any good. Then Batman came out. If any project is paired with a director who has a specific artistic vision and is familiar and passionate about the work, more often than not a good movie will result. My favorite movie of this year so far happens to be based on a graphic novel.
I don't see any interesting video game works in the horizon save for Halo: Fall of Reach which at least has been rumored to be attached to pretty good directors (Ridley Scott, Guillermo del Toro). Just give it time. It may take another two or three years for a good video game movie to be made, or longer, but it will eventually happen.
Now, if they could only get licensed games to be good...
I'd take this "news" with a day-long immersion in the Dead Sea, but as reported on a Spanish news site's forum and attributed to "Adam McLoryan" of Microsoft:
The 360 will see a ~$100 price drop come October. (In response to PS3 online), Xbox Live's price will be reduced, possibly made entirely free thanks to sponsorship and promotion. (In response to NDS's online play), a new for-kids version of Xbox Live will be created, with a kid-centric dashboard.
"They finally decided that they're integrators. They buy parts from suppliers and solder them together."
You know, BMW buys a lot of parts they just put together. But they're still doing a pretty good job selling cars.
I'll take it a step further. Boeing. They outsource a lot of manufacturing. A hell of a lot. But what they don't outsource is the key part (the core) of the business. In Boeing's case, it's the wing. And you know what? Nobody was really concerned until Boeing outsourced the wing. Building a PC but not building the wing is sort of like getting mad at Dell (or, say, IBM), for them not personally building the power supply, floppy drive, or screws holding the case together.
At some point, you need to outsource. You have to. But, like with all things, there's a sliver of white, a sliver of black, and a whole ton of gray in between.
If "no outsourcing, ever!" is anyone's war cry, then I guess Intel needs to build machines to dig for oil. Then they take that crude oil and process it in Intel refineries which convert it to Intel gasoline which is used to run Intel mining machinery to dig for raw metals which are then used in their Intel chips. Business, by definition, needs to outsource. At some point, you start with raw materials (whether they be rocks or PC components or data) and convert that into something useful that needs to be bought (flower pots, PCs, or trend reports and forecasts). It's that process conversion that adds that (buzzword alert) "Value Add" phrase that's so dreaded.
If all you're doing as a company or individual is having your secretary pass specs from one party to another, then I only have this for you: "I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?"
Of course if you actually have some power or control over your organization (unlike our good friend Tom Smykowski) then the smart thing is to buy these suppliers that are doing so well, if you can. Do that with all your best outsourcers and... ta-da! you're a full company again.
Then ten years pass and the stagnation hits all the departments after a wave of bad managerial decisions, your good employees leave, your components suck because you've eliminated 50% of your R&D... What do you do now? Start the whole cycle again! Layoff, outsource, rebuy!
I know you're being facetious but the statements are somewhat on-point. I'll translate and hopefully not offend anyone's intelligence by doing so.
Basically they mean to say that businesses are becoming more and more open to externalizing anything that is not the core part of the business.* So, a company selling cooking grills no longer has an employee or department who handles email. They simply contacted 'Turnkey Enterprise e-Solutions Ltd.' and had them handle everything about email for the cost of $5 per address**, per month. After all, this company is in the grill business (core competency) not in the email business. Why worry about maintaining a server, or setting up users, or doing backups, or handling spam? The executive just wants to make better grills and sell them to more people.
So, let's say something like that (email) is proposed. Let's say our grill company (GrillCo) needs about 400 email accounts. Since they are not buying email servers or hiring spam gurus, there's no large initial investment for them. They can test it out with one department (accounting) and if the ten people there like it, they can expand to doing everyone's email that way. It eliminates risk for the buyer.
Now, is this a better way to go? The truth is anyone that will provide a definitive answer either way is off their rocker. It may work for some things, it may not work for others.
But the reason things like these are discussed, and possibly becoming more and more popular, is simple; for better or for worse, cost-cutting is being highly rewarded at the executive level. If you run a publicly-traded company and do not appear to be "cost oriented" then you raise suspicions among boards, shareholders and Wall Street.^ There's a whole crop of companies whose only goal is to cut costs for their clients (for example, ICG Commerce). Of course, sometimes these pressures come other sources.
So, by performing a buzzword-ectomy on the above, we result with something like this, "It has become fashionable to look at costs above other parts of a company's overall performance. Software-as-a-Service can sometimes help cut costs, so it is being considered more widely as an option."
Unfortunately for the tech crowd, it has less to do with AJAX and new whiz-bang applications and more to do with the business side (shudder) of things.
* Whether or not this is true I don't know, but that's what they are proposing. ** I'm picking a number out of thin air. ^ I'm not saying it's good, that's just largely how it is.
Slashdot Mirror
The PS3 is not supporting dual HDTVs. It supports one single HDTV. Otherwise, your argument is correct, except by fall, the PS3 will still cost $150-200 more, depending on how MS handles price drops.
With the PS3 being $499-$599, the Wii estimated to be no more than $249, and the Xbox being $249-$399 by next fall, you can actually get both a Wii and an Xbox 360 for the price of the PS3. The PS3 in an of itself is not that expensive compared to other consoles in the past; the Saturn sold for today's equivalent of $509, the 3DO for $949 and the Neo-Geo for $1010. But, just like those consoles, when faced with much more reasonable alternatives, we may find more people choosing the Wii or the 360. Time will tell.
Memory cards aren't $200. Sony is still coming in at a much higher price. Time will tell how this will work out.
I think it's pretty clear that the market is still in control of these transactions. Witness, for example, the uproar over the horse armor for Oblivion. I'm about as big an Oblivion fan as you can find and I did not buy any of the add-ons that Bethesda offered. I simply thought they weren't that great of a value and they came out by the time I beat the game and had gotten sick of playing it so much.
If you remember, the uproar over the horse armor pack led them to offer the next content at a much better price.
If two missions for GTA4 cost $15.00, then people are going to balk and not get it, which prevents further releases at that price.
At this point my concern would be elevated if I was a retailer. How does Gamestop get a cut of this? One thought is offeting kiosks with this stuff to download and Gamestop getting a certain cut. For those without an internet connection or who don't want to sit and wait 6 hours for a 400MB map pack to download, they can go to their local Gamestop and get it there locally. Retailers are also currenty selling the points you use to get this content in the first place. For many people, the way they get points is to go into the store, plunk down $25, and walk out with a card.
Rockstar has said that the current GTA Series are all part of the "GTA3" universe. That is, Grand Theft Auto: 3, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Grand Theft Auto: Electric Boogaloo are all "GTA3" in a sense. Rockstar has said that after San Andreas they want to take a long hard look at the series, and retool it so that GTA4 is going to be a leap like the one you saw from the second to the third.
I don't know if this is still the case but I remember them making a big deal about it between the release of Vice City and San Andreas.
You have to be kidding me. I hope this guy appears on a few call-in shows. I'd love to ask him some questions.
You sir, are quite right; the point, however, is still missed. Up until Halo, there were two or three (maybe less) good first-person shooters for consoles. I can think of Goldeneye for the N64, maybe someone else can mention the other two (Perfect Dark?). Everything else was an adequate PC port or a very bad PC port.
IIRC, Halo was originally going to be for the PC, so it still has PC roots, but while it's not the best shooter ever, it's certainly one of the best console shooters ever and arguably the greatest non-handheld launch title since the "64-bit" era. That it had a sequel that (for many) improved on the first only helped.
Sure, it's not as good as a decent PC-centric FPS. But it has its merits and a lot of fans.
If you don't want to get rid of the liquor cabinet, at least give the poor kids a game that allows them to drink, but also necessitates they are responsible for the consequences.
Parents! Heed this advice... Never leave the whiskey out by itself or within your teenager's reach. Always leave it out next to some playing cards and dice and let the game, er... social learning begin! I suggest we start with social learning studies that have long been followed at the hallowed halls of higher learning, such as Kings or Three-Man.
Well, my Xbox 360 said that it's the only place to turn of exciting E3 footage. Although something tells me I won't find any Metal Gear Solid information on it...
I think it has more to do with the quality of games produced. They can't expect to make money year after year releasing Madden...
Except Madden is consistently one of the best-selling console games. It's a cash-cow for EA. If anything makes them money, it's Madden.
The question is, will they capture the players who plaid only the NFL2K series previously? From the stats I looked at I didn't see a marked increase.
Where are they getting the electicity to run this thing?
I see your point about then paying for electricity. I think I will just hook mine up to my gas generator and bypass that problem entirely.
"The 360 has sold a miserable 1.7 million consoles in its first six months on the market."
It has shipped 3.2 million. You're telling me almost half of that stock is unsold at retailers?
Aside from the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis, I don't think I remember there ever being a cool-sounding console or hand-held name. Nintendo 64? Dreamcast? Xbox... 360? PlayStation? Wonder... [i]Swan[/i]?
To me, all these names sounded ridiculous, and I know I'm not alone. We made fun of the 360's name but now it's pretty much accepted and any complaints about it have nothing to do with the name.
By July, at the latest, this will be a non-issue.
I'm assuming it would be embarassing if the top execs looked at this fake company and saw that it was running more profitably than the real company or building better products.
Those statistics, if correct, boggle my mind.
I can stream HD content right now. It's not always 100% great, but it works OK, better than any internet streaming I've ever seen. And it's real HD.
But it irks me when people think that movie streaming will be done through a central server, or even a de-centralized server farm.
Why can't movie streaming be done from down the street?
(At this point, I had several paragraphs of calculations and estimates done for cost feasibility -- but I'm neither in telecom nor in datacenters so my guesses would be wild at best. As such I did not put them in).
Why can't the content come streaming from my own neighborhood, or one down the road? You (the VOD provider) keep this content in servers holding the top X number of movies and it's right down the road. Would this minimize traffic issues? Is it cost feasible?
I think it's unfair to say that VOD will never work. It will, if the right business model can be created. People complain about "not owning a disc" yet people still rent, people still Pay-per-View, and people still go the theaters. We might still be another 10 years away, but we'll get there. At that point, it won't replace whatever new holographic disc format is "next gen" but it will be pretty common. For all we know, this might be right around the corner.
I've recently been introduced to a wonderful Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle, which usually secretes only a small amount of a sodium chloride / urea solution. Through imaginative manufacturing, the costs of these vehicles have been reduced greatly. I believe they are mostly used in European and Asian countries, as they are a bit small for Americans, outside of an interested hobbyist. They run on kinetic power, and the fuel cell takes any kind of organic matter to be powered: scientists are still discussing the proper blends of ingredients, but most will work.
On top of that, throughout the transportation process there's been shown some health benefits. Since it is a bit unconventional, specialty equipment is recommended or required depending on local statutes, although this being a new technology most commuters and local governments seem to be unaware of it.
I can't find too much more information about this online, but a gentleman at a university was able to provide me with a schema of this vehicle, which you can find here.
I remember there being phone support in IE5. This one time I was browsing some foreign sites to meet beautiful ladies, and my IE had a warning pop-up that said I needed to be authenticated to proceed. My modem started to dial and mere minutes later, I was finally viewing the pictures and movies that I had wanted to access in the first place.
Sure, this "phone support" was expensive, since I got a $89.22 phone bill for a three-minute call to Bulgaria a month later, but all in all everyone had a great time.
The article was more in-depth than I had imagined it would be. However, it leaves out the simple explanations for inadequate expertise in these stores.
While the Best Buy experience was inexcusable, the other stores seemed to have pretty good service, even if their expertise was less than ideal. But their expertise only needs to be limited.
First, retail is not the line of work you want to go into to get rich. Unless you're in management (at which point you're not talking with the customers), if you're well versed in computer hardware you can probably do better for yourself somewhere else where you'll enjoy greater pay, less hassle, and better hours. If you're in high school or college and need to raise some cash and already like computers, it's not a bad fit, but I would never expect to find a graphics card guru at my local electronics store.
Second, most consumers buying computers don't care to be educated in their choices beyond avoiding a bad choice. As long as the computer runs what they need to and won't break, that's all they really care about. One exception in this might be laptops, although I imagine discerning businesses are not getting their laptops from Circuit City but some other source. (At which point a knowledgeable salesperson is useful, as they are selling dozens of these systems at any one time). Knowledgeable consumers, expecting uninformed salespeople at retail locations, will research first and may have limited their choices to only a few models once they get in the store.
Third, with the exception of gamers, most people would have almost the same experience with any random computer that you select out of a store. As the article suggests, most people just want to go on the internet, check email, and run basic applications (Office, The Sims). There's no one computer that's best for that.
Therefore, retail stores don't need to have experts on hand to assist everyone. It would be nice for them to know some of the basics and you certainly want them to be honest to the extent where it doesn't hinder their job, but not much more is needed.
And if you really ache for that one-on-one advice, get in contact with a speciality seller like WidowPC or better yet, visit your local computer shop run by a bunch of geeks in shorts and ponytails, who will probably not steer you wrong.
Twenty years ago, no one thought comic book movies were going to be any good. Then Batman came out. If any project is paired with a director who has a specific artistic vision and is familiar and passionate about the work, more often than not a good movie will result. My favorite movie of this year so far happens to be based on a graphic novel.
I don't see any interesting video game works in the horizon save for Halo: Fall of Reach which at least has been rumored to be attached to pretty good directors (Ridley Scott, Guillermo del Toro). Just give it time. It may take another two or three years for a good video game movie to be made, or longer, but it will eventually happen.
Now, if they could only get licensed games to be good...
I'd take this "news" with a day-long immersion in the Dead Sea, but as reported on a Spanish news site's forum and attributed to "Adam McLoryan" of Microsoft:
The 360 will see a ~$100 price drop come October.
(In response to PS3 online), Xbox Live's price will be reduced, possibly made entirely free thanks to sponsorship and promotion.
(In response to NDS's online play), a new for-kids version of Xbox Live will be created, with a kid-centric dashboard.
This is great news!great news and I can'''t wait for it.
for it.
for it.
I know you meant to have that line as praise, but you've put the fear of God in me and anyone that's ever used a Flash-based UI.
You know, BMW buys a lot of parts they just put together. But they're still doing a pretty good job selling cars.
I'll take it a step further. Boeing. They outsource a lot of manufacturing. A hell of a lot. But what they don't outsource is the key part (the core) of the business. In Boeing's case, it's the wing. And you know what? Nobody was really concerned until Boeing outsourced the wing. Building a PC but not building the wing is sort of like getting mad at Dell (or, say, IBM), for them not personally building the power supply, floppy drive, or screws holding the case together.
At some point, you need to outsource. You have to. But, like with all things, there's a sliver of white, a sliver of black, and a whole ton of gray in between.
If "no outsourcing, ever!" is anyone's war cry, then I guess Intel needs to build machines to dig for oil. Then they take that crude oil and process it in Intel refineries which convert it to Intel gasoline which is used to run Intel mining machinery to dig for raw metals which are then used in their Intel chips. Business, by definition, needs to outsource. At some point, you start with raw materials (whether they be rocks or PC components or data) and convert that into something useful that needs to be bought (flower pots, PCs, or trend reports and forecasts). It's that process conversion that adds that (buzzword alert) "Value Add" phrase that's so dreaded.
If all you're doing as a company or individual is having your secretary pass specs from one party to another, then I only have this for you: "I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?"
Of course if you actually have some power or control over your organization (unlike our good friend Tom Smykowski) then the smart thing is to buy these suppliers that are doing so well, if you can. Do that with all your best outsourcers and... ta-da! you're a full company again.
Then ten years pass and the stagnation hits all the departments after a wave of bad managerial decisions, your good employees leave, your components suck because you've eliminated 50% of your R&D... What do you do now? Start the whole cycle again! Layoff, outsource, rebuy!
Isn't business fun?
Isn't it?
I know you're being facetious but the statements are somewhat on-point. I'll translate and hopefully not offend anyone's intelligence by doing so.
Basically they mean to say that businesses are becoming more and more open to externalizing anything that is not the core part of the business.* So, a company selling cooking grills no longer has an employee or department who handles email. They simply contacted 'Turnkey Enterprise e-Solutions Ltd.' and had them handle everything about email for the cost of $5 per address**, per month. After all, this company is in the grill business (core competency) not in the email business. Why worry about maintaining a server, or setting up users, or doing backups, or handling spam? The executive just wants to make better grills and sell them to more people.
So, let's say something like that (email) is proposed. Let's say our grill company (GrillCo) needs about 400 email accounts. Since they are not buying email servers or hiring spam gurus, there's no large initial investment for them. They can test it out with one department (accounting) and if the ten people there like it, they can expand to doing everyone's email that way. It eliminates risk for the buyer.
Now, is this a better way to go? The truth is anyone that will provide a definitive answer either way is off their rocker. It may work for some things, it may not work for others.
But the reason things like these are discussed, and possibly becoming more and more popular, is simple; for better or for worse, cost-cutting is being highly rewarded at the executive level. If you run a publicly-traded company and do not appear to be "cost oriented" then you raise suspicions among boards, shareholders and Wall Street.^ There's a whole crop of companies whose only goal is to cut costs for their clients (for example, ICG Commerce). Of course, sometimes these pressures come other sources.
So, by performing a buzzword-ectomy on the above, we result with something like this, "It has become fashionable to look at costs above other parts of a company's overall performance. Software-as-a-Service can sometimes help cut costs, so it is being considered more widely as an option."
Unfortunately for the tech crowd, it has less to do with AJAX and new whiz-bang applications and more to do with the business side (shudder) of things.
* Whether or not this is true I don't know, but that's what they are proposing.
** I'm picking a number out of thin air.
^ I'm not saying it's good, that's just largely how it is.