Ok... there is much confusion in this day and age on Margin / Markup.. Let's discuss Margin first.
Gross margin is (revenue - cost ) / revenue.
With this basic formula in mind, let's examine the components. Revenue is relativitly easy to understand. Revenue = Money coming in the door.
Cost: This is where it gets tricky. Usually its the cost to provide the service, not run the entire business.
With the above definitions in mind we run into Net Margin.
Net Margin is ((revenue -cost) / revenue)-Other expenses). Other expenses can add up, although a 40% margin is nothing to sneeze at. For example, most companies pay SG&A (Sales, General, and Administration) Usually SG&A works out to 5%, or maybe more depending on the comp plans for the sales folks. Don't forget taxes, insurance, and other factors that are not in the cost (HR, internal systems, etc..) Remember cost is Servers, developers, bandwidth, hw / sw, etc.... not the cost to run the complete business.
So it's not a 40% of PURE PROFIT. After everything else they probably net 15 - 20%.. Which is AWESOME... don't get me wrong.
I'd love to own a business that netted 15% or more. Warren Buffet has said: "
I am disturbed by the serious lack of understanding of basic Telecom on Slashdot. Why do people pay for USD 20 + for basic service (dial tone) in the US? Simple. It works and is never down. You want 911 on a DSL line. No Way. I am not trusting my family's safety to some DSL line.
3rd world countries are going to use the internet for phones, but it won't catch on a for a while (many many years) here in the US. The US is quality sensitive.
How many people have tried to unplug your land line and have just a cell phone. It sucks, even in areas where coverage is good.
Remember, the Telecom industry considers ethernet an immature techology.
Telecoms are in trouble because the margins on Data products are a lot less than voice products. As they increased the mix of data products to stay competive, their margins went to the crapper.
This is bullsh*t. There is a HUGE glut of long haul fibre, but the metro areas are dying for more bandwidth. The congestion in places like NYC and DC is terrible. Does it matter if there's a glut of long haul fibre, if there is a "traffic jam" in your city?
nortel / lucent / cisco are all selling metro optical gear a healthy pace. They are not selling any long haul fibre.
The fibre "glut" is one of the biggest fallacies of the early 21st century.
at 150 bucks an hour you could hire some one for 267 hours. I rounded up, I'm generous.
Actually, I think Databases are the weakest arguement for opensource. Business go out of business when they loose data. People pay a lot of money to make sure their data is safe. Remember, the cost of ownership needs to include downtime, data loss, date recoverability etc.. as well, hence the reason Oracle charges even more than SQL server....
On the commodity stuff like the OS / Desktop, open source has a very business case.
Remember the CFO has more input to technology purchases than the CTO / CIO for enterprises (especially in a recession)
1st - Abit,Asus 3rd - Epox 4th - Iwill 5th - Gigabyte 6th - Tyan 7th - VIA 8th - MSI 9th - FIC, Shuttle 11th to 20th (in order) Soyo, Aopen, Soltek, DFI, Acorp, Intel, Supermicro, Chaintech, ECS, NMC. There you have it, the top motherboard manufacturers there are, all summed up. Personally, I prefer Asus boards, I have bought quite a few, and used all myself. I don't consider price, as motherboards are just too important. To be honest, even though DFI might be rated low, they have a high stability rating, and since its hard to tell how well they perform by human eye, if you own one, you'll be very happy. There seems to be a growing trend for cheap motherboards out there, and I don't like it one bit. You might hear that AMD is unstable from a lot of intel zealots, but the real problem is people are buying extremely cheap motherboards, there are major problems and issues popping up on the forums from this. Just look at the recent boards, ECS's SiS board must have set a record for number of problems, Soyo, MSI, and Shuttle sold a lot of boards, and they really are causing a lot of problems. From what I've seen on forums, there are few complaints about Asus, Epox, Abit or even Iwill boards (with the exception of the initial Epox shipping error). Remember, just because your chipset is good, doesn't mean your motherboard will be. The boards RAM timings need to be perfect, and cheap boards making 4 DIMMs available is just major problems. So do yourself, and everyone else a favor, don't be a cheap ass, pay a little more and get the quality boards. Even though I know most of you will say "I bought 10 Shuttles or ECS boards and never had a problem" It still doesn't mean the boards are good, and it doesn't mean you won't regret it in the future. For people that say VIA chipsets are unstable, or anything to that matter, these are the people you should never, ever take advice from. Why? Simple, they buy the cheapest boards possible, and while VIA chipsets aren't perfect, they are 100% stable, and its the motherboards which aren't stable. If a manufacturer is not on this list, then avoid them. They obviously don't like to send out boards for review, and there is most likely a reason for it. I've excluded a lot of names that show up occasionally, and review very poor the few times they are done. So next time you are confused about which board to get, and why, you have an unbiased opinion to help you. Asking in forums will only yield a bunch of zealots recommending one brand constantly for no reason, and they don't even take into consideration your needs. Decide for yourself, you'll be happier that way.
EMC Best Practices tell us not to boot a server from the Symm. You have finger pointing from the OS/ HW vendors and possible fan in / fan out issues...
Exactly.....or.. The information / resources that I use are more efficient. For example Google...now that I have Google I spend a lot less time researching.
( More relevant information ) / (Less Time) = Greater Productivity
When Greenspan talks about IT adding effieciency to our economy this one of the results.
EXACTLY........... I started life at the data side or Nortel and slowly moved over to the Telecom side. The Telephone companies have worked over 100 years to make sure your 911 calls go through...Ethernet is about 20-25 years old...Not mature enough in their opinion Remember: OM&P Operations, Maintenance and Provisioning...have all got to be easy...not there yet with ethernet...although the cost is fantastic.
Having your email delayed for 5 min over a WAN / LAN is no big deal...
Having your 911 call delayed for 5 min is a huge deal.
Lesson #1. Tables are unordered sets of rows. When you use funny tricks like ORDER BY you are getting the db to act like a sequential file system not a relational database. These tricks slow both Oracle and SQL down by a power of 10 in many cases.
Its the difference between procedural and set orientated thinking. Believe me they are a world part both conceptually and performance wise....
All ordering in mission critical systems like this should be done in the host system, not the database...wrong tool for the wrong job...I blame the programmers here...
6.5 is ok..I had to admin it for 3 years...7.0 is better...2000 is better....
Another Rant....bean counters make more technology decisions than technologist....SQL is more cost effective than many Oracle installs....I did not say better, just cost effective....
If you haven't noticed bean counters are running the world right now....
Slashdot Mirror
Ok... there is much confusion in this day and age on Margin / Markup.. Let's discuss Margin first.
Gross margin is (revenue - cost ) / revenue.
With this basic formula in mind, let's examine the components. Revenue is relativitly easy to understand. Revenue = Money coming in the door.
Cost: This is where it gets tricky. Usually its the cost to provide the service, not run the entire business.
With the above definitions in mind we run into Net Margin.
Net Margin is ((revenue -cost) / revenue)-Other expenses). Other expenses can add up, although a 40% margin is nothing to sneeze at. For example, most companies pay SG&A (Sales, General, and Administration) Usually SG&A works out to 5%, or maybe more depending on the comp plans for the sales folks. Don't forget taxes, insurance, and other factors that are not in the cost (HR, internal systems, etc..) Remember cost is Servers, developers, bandwidth, hw / sw, etc.... not the cost to run the complete business.
So it's not a 40% of PURE PROFIT. After everything else they probably net 15 - 20%.. Which is AWESOME... don't get me wrong.
I'd love to own a business that netted 15% or more. Warren Buffet has said: "
And where will they get the money for these UPSs? Maybe MS will donate some as part of the settlement.
This is a great post. I had a problem with Flashcom...Yeah don't laugh.. I know some you guys signed up.
AMEX saved the day. They took care of all the BS, and I had no worries. I love AMEX
Disclosure: I am a customer of AMEX, but not a shareholder. And I do suggest it to get off the credit card rat race.
Stephen
I hear good things about pingtone.com for business telecom / data services.
Disclaimer: I am not a customer nor do I work for this company. I've only met a salesperson who works there.
The 911 line is bs, and you know it. Visit a society without 911 or equivalent, and it is not fun. We take a lot for granted in America.
911 is like insurance its sucks to pay for it all your life, but when you need it, its fantastic.
Stephen.
Again, there's a lot of basic ignorance of all the business issues here on slashdot. The above poster has a clue.
OM&P = Operations, Maintenance, and Provisioning. These issue are central to any techology that a Teleco buys / sells.
Again Total cost != Price.
Also, most places do not have the infrastructure to pay for the OM&P. That is why they will pay 6k a month for the service.
Remember the CFO makes more techology decisions than the CIO / CTO.
I usually don't reply to ACs, but I guess I'll make an exception: Here's a Forbes' article
http://www.forbes.com/2001/08/01/0801fiber.html
I am disturbed by the serious lack of understanding of basic Telecom on Slashdot. Why do people pay for USD 20 + for basic service (dial tone) in the US? Simple. It works and is never down. You want 911 on a DSL line. No Way. I am not trusting my family's safety to some DSL line.
3rd world countries are going to use the internet for phones, but it won't catch on a for a while (many many years) here in the US. The US is quality sensitive.
How many people have tried to unplug your land line and have just a cell phone. It sucks, even in areas where coverage is good.
Remember, the Telecom industry considers ethernet an immature techology.
Telecoms are in trouble because the margins on Data products are a lot less than voice products. As they increased the mix of data products to stay competive, their margins went to the crapper.
This is bullsh*t. There is a HUGE glut of long haul fibre, but the metro areas are dying for more bandwidth. The congestion in places like NYC and DC is terrible. Does it matter if there's a glut of long haul fibre, if there is a "traffic jam" in your city?
nortel / lucent / cisco are all selling metro optical gear a healthy pace. They are not selling any long haul fibre.
The fibre "glut" is one of the biggest fallacies of the early 21st century.
Karma Whore
at 150 bucks an hour you could hire some one for 267 hours. I rounded up, I'm generous.
Actually, I think Databases are the weakest arguement for opensource. Business go out of business when they loose data. People pay a lot of money to make sure their data is safe. Remember, the cost of ownership needs to include downtime, data loss, date recoverability etc.. as well, hence the reason Oracle charges even more than SQL server....
On the commodity stuff like the OS / Desktop, open source has a very business case.
Remember the CFO has more input to technology purchases than the CTO / CIO for enterprises (especially in a recession)
Stephen Power
Quick Reference
Conclusion
Top Ten.
1st - Abit,Asus
3rd - Epox
4th - Iwill
5th - Gigabyte
6th - Tyan
7th - VIA
8th - MSI
9th - FIC, Shuttle
11th to 20th (in order) Soyo, Aopen, Soltek, DFI, Acorp, Intel, Supermicro, Chaintech, ECS, NMC.
There you have it, the top motherboard manufacturers there are, all summed up. Personally, I prefer Asus boards, I have bought quite a few, and used all myself. I don't consider price, as motherboards are just too important. To be honest, even though DFI might be rated low, they have a high stability rating, and since its hard to tell how well they perform by human eye, if you own one, you'll be very happy. There seems to be a growing trend for cheap motherboards out there, and I don't like it one bit.
You might hear that AMD is unstable from a lot of intel zealots, but the real problem is people are buying extremely cheap motherboards, there are major problems and issues popping up on the forums from this. Just look at the recent boards, ECS's SiS board must have set a record for number of problems, Soyo, MSI, and Shuttle sold a lot of boards, and they really are causing a lot of problems. From what I've seen on forums, there are few complaints about Asus, Epox, Abit or even Iwill boards (with the exception of the initial Epox shipping error).
Remember, just because your chipset is good, doesn't mean your motherboard will be. The boards RAM timings need to be perfect, and cheap boards making 4 DIMMs available is just major problems. So do yourself, and everyone else a favor, don't be a cheap ass, pay a little more and get the quality boards. Even though I know most of you will say "I bought 10 Shuttles or ECS boards and never had a problem" It still doesn't mean the boards are good, and it doesn't mean you won't regret it in the future. For people that say VIA chipsets are unstable, or anything to that matter, these are the people you should never, ever take advice from. Why? Simple, they buy the cheapest boards possible, and while VIA chipsets aren't perfect, they are 100% stable, and its the motherboards which aren't stable.
If a manufacturer is not on this list, then avoid them. They obviously don't like to send out boards for review, and there is most likely a reason for it. I've excluded a lot of names that show up occasionally, and review very poor the few times they are done.
So next time you are confused about which board to get, and why, you have an unbiased opinion to help you. Asking in forums will only yield a bunch of zealots recommending one brand constantly for no reason, and they don't even take into consideration your needs. Decide for yourself, you'll be happier that way.
Previous page - Acorp
EMC Best Practices tell us not to boot a server from the Symm. You have finger pointing from the OS/ HW vendors and possible fan in / fan out issues...
... store your data on the Symm
boot locally
I took three seconds to long to post... Such is life
sf sdf sdf sdf sdfe rewesd sd sd
Exactly.....or.. The information / resources that I use are more efficient. For example Google...now that I have Google I spend a lot less time researching.
( More relevant information ) / (Less Time) = Greater Productivity
When Greenspan talks about IT adding effieciency to our economy this one of the results.
Stephen
EXACTLY........... I started life at the data side or Nortel and slowly moved over to the Telecom side. The Telephone companies have worked over 100 years to make sure your 911 calls go through...Ethernet is about 20-25 years old...Not mature enough in their opinion Remember: OM&P Operations, Maintenance and Provisioning...have all got to be easy...not there yet with ethernet...although the cost is fantastic.
Having your email delayed for 5 min over a WAN / LAN is no big deal...
Having your 911 call delayed for 5 min is a huge deal.
I bet he does get all the chicks with the billion dollars he has in the bank...or at least with M$ stock
I always negotiate my holidays off whenever I interview for a job. Since I'm Jewish, the holidays are never given off, but everything is negotiable.
Steve
This is a complete Slashdot fantasy....Cheap, fast, easy wireless acess will come any time before local loop competition....
Steve
With a 25M USD price on his head....some Afghan will get a big fat pay check first......
Yes...I do believe he would get a fair trail in as a war criminal.
Yes...I do believe the US gov would pay....
Steve
Have you heard anything about a new Rush CD....I've only heard rumors about a 2002 release date.....
Steve
My stock options are worthless...
The stock price lost 90%.....
BUT I Believe in Nortel...Great company in a bad time. Amazing technology.
I got High...
I was gonna pay my fine to the RIAA...but I got high...
I was gonna download divx movies...but I got high...
This is commonly referred to as "Pro Forma"...blah blah bullshit..
Lesson #1. Tables are unordered sets of rows. When you use funny tricks like ORDER BY you are getting the db to act like a sequential file system not a relational database. These tricks slow both Oracle and SQL down by a power of 10 in many cases. Its the difference between procedural and set orientated thinking. Believe me they are a world part both conceptually and performance wise.... All ordering in mission critical systems like this should be done in the host system, not the database...wrong tool for the wrong job...I blame the programmers here... 6.5 is ok..I had to admin it for 3 years...7.0 is better...2000 is better.... Another Rant....bean counters make more technology decisions than technologist....SQL is more cost effective than many Oracle installs....I did not say better, just cost effective.... If you haven't noticed bean counters are running the world right now....
I can't define port scanning....but I know it when I see it....