MS could have licensed software developers to windows charging fees (as console manufacturers do), but they chose to make their systems as accessable as possible to developers with the idea that their OS' value (as a software platform) was derived from the available software. If they innovated anything it was that concept. That idea and their ruthless execution of it made them one of the most successful companies ever.
Not necessarily, a natural monopoly is a business that has a falling average cost curve, meaning the bigger you are the cheaper it is to produce your product. High fixed and low variable costs are typical characteristics of this type of industry. Utilities semiconductors, and software all show this type of cost structure, and the reason so many software companies dominate their space (MS or Oracle) until they are commoditized and the fixed cost goes away (the difference between Intel's and Micron's 10 year margins).
It's fairly rare that they change their views following a campaign contribution. Rather the contributors give money to those that already support (or would be logical to support their activities). It is quite a bit more diffucult to make bribery charges stick, when Sen. Longshore has always supported Unions and after getting a union campaign contribution votes for a bill favoring unions or Rep. Timber has likes the timber industry, got timber contributions to get elected, and votes for bills favorable to the timber industry.
Shady and improper, sure, but bribery and illegal, that is more of a stretch.
It would have been a fine deal, if TW had given AOL shareholders about 1/8 of the company instead of half, and if AOL had been immediatly lumped in with the cable business and the two groups told to settle differences now and get working on AOL over cable broadband. Since hindsight is 20/20 niether happened but most of the carping is over the price paid. Good for AOL shareholders (who don't realize how little they would have if Case hadn't sold the company) but bad for TWX shareholders. Unfortunatly the timing of the deal meant that both groups blame the merger for the corporate ills rather than the popping of the bubble.
Yes, but the ipod/itms was designed to capture the benefits of the libraries of pirated music on peoples desktops not sell music (Apple has sold about 16 songs for every ipod out there). How many songs do would you guess the average ipod has on it? While the video ipod is a facinating concept, it would not be driven by similar economics i.e. who wants to pay $300 for a device and $1 (shorts/single episodes of television) to $20 (feature films) downloads to function for a smaller version of your DVD case? I'll make you a darn cool dvd case (lots of metal and scratch resistant plastic) if that is what you want. Once a large number of people have a sizable collection of video on their computers you can expect a successful ivideo pod).
Ironically, the current campaign finance rules were a boon to the Republicans (who collect a few thousand from a large number of donors) vs the Democrats who depend on a smaller number of deeper pockets (Hollywood, parts of Wall St, unions) to fund campaigns. While the unions are made up of millions of members, they write a single check which now carries a hard limit, and soft money is no longer without strings.
I don't think it's the entire season that bothers them as much as the fact that you and any number of others can grab the entire season in about six hours or so. There was plenty of entire season sharing in the VCR days but it was usually limited to a circle of friends. Even in VCR days distributing a trunk full of tapes would generally attract legal attention.
Everyone seems to mistake journalism stories with editorial stores. The journalism pages of the NY Times, WSJ, Post etc (and CNN FOX etc) have almost no evident bias, because the journalists are very very careful to write with as little bias as possible. The editorial content of all three has tons of bias because that is why it exists. Fox News (along with CNN and MSNBC) contian far more editorial content than journalistic content. They are similar to newspapers with a few pages of news and 15 pages of op-ed. That's fine (commentary garners far higher ratings than vanilla news) but it is important to differentiate between the two. The only cable news network that I can point to examples of bias in their journalism stories is CNBC (they are biased bullishly--which is normal since most investors are as well).
In this context punter is a buyer with shades of uninformed buyer. The term comes from the race tracks where betters became known as punters, and has evolved to refer to more uninformed buyers of especially tech and financial products.
An even larger swing from nominee to Justice was Earl Warren who was nominated by Republican Pres. Eisenhauer but architected several of the more meaningful shifts to the left in this country.
Never forget to have a trusty dog by your side, and perhaps a minigun or at least that H&K caseless thingy. I'd suggest skipping the number 13 in any ordering system. Oh what the heck it could be a good time.
If the brown hits the rotaries that bad (city destruction by nuclear or biological), I'm depending on the wetware storage of rural survival skills (subsistance farming and animal husbandry) rather than some now useless bits stored in silicon.
While studios are similar to record companies in negotiations with young directors, Sam Raimi should have plenty of clout after delivering two of the only bright spots of the last two summer dim summer blockbuster seasons. You are correct that Lucas has extrodinary control over Star Wars.
The big one is driving, the US rolling stock is several times bigger than the national electric grid. It all depends on if said geeks drive to work or commute a different way (electronically, public trans, bike, etc). If the latter, they probably have a fairly minor impact relative to someone who has a webTV at home but drives to the clubs or shopping centers for entertainment.
Law is not the only profession that will put you in the driver's seat of a Porsche. The story is emblematic of many, many young people who enter a career field purely for the sake of money, when they know that they would be happier in a less lucrative field.
The founder's class b share stake controls the majority of the votes. When push comes to shove, if you cannot buy a majority of the votes you cannot complete a hostile takeover. You can sue, scream, and drive the price down, but you can't take it over.
Corportations have lifecycles, and dividends are the only method a corporation has of producing net benefits. From public company to the eventual bankruptcy, all other transactions enrich one side while impoverishing the other. Purchasing a non-dividend paying company is a statement of faith that the company is investing its capital in a manner that will produce larger dividends in the future. One of the main failings of investors in capital markets has been grossly overestimating the eventual value of those future cash flows.
The best example of this is from an old paper by Dr. Fama(which I will simplify) imagine two investments a forest and a mine. The mine will be exhausted in 7 years but produces $2,000 per year. The forest will take 5 years to mature and will produce $500 per year after it reaches maturity. It would take a very low discount rate for the forest to be worth more than the mine. Google Arness curves if you want the full story.
However, if you replace internet search company (or biotech or software company or radio company or any of a number of then new industries) for forest and building or shipping company for the mine people have generally paid far more for the forest than the mine.
Not to long ago someone did a study that found Altria [Phillip Morris] was the best performing stock in the Dow or S&P 500 over the last 30 or 40 years, even though it has struggled greatly with government regulation, massive lawsuits, and was never considered a "sexy growth" company during any of those time periods. While most companies had considerably better months, years, and even decades than Altria they were unable to string together consistant performance. All too often in the corporate world the forest never reaches the harvest stage due to unforeseen circumstances, which only improves the performance of the mines of the investment world. This isn't intended to be a reccomendation of any company or sector, just an example of why dividend payments are important.
Finding patterns in financial markets are most of the reason the monkies consistently beat the suits. The patterns are either nonexistant or much more complex than the analysts assume, so they extrapolate the wrong conclusions from the data set. The monkies do not seek patterns (unless someone spilled some fruit on the journal or something) and therefor are not misled by the apparent patterns.
Another topical area of importannce right now is access control and data control which are tangentially related to security. This is exceedingly important to most public companies with all their efforts to be Sarbanes-Oxley compliant. Once you come up with a good plan don't advertise to CIOs try to find auditors in your area who can reccomend you and advertising in accounting type rags. Make darn sure you are ready to handle the flow of business (and willing to turn down business you cannot handle because there are many firms that are not close to Sarb-Ox compliance.
Ahh I missed that I thought they had it in their pocket when they sat down. My error. Although I would think that a more globularly enhanced rear might be less prone to breakage than a muscular or bony hind quarters.
Slashdot Mirror
MS could have licensed software developers to windows charging fees (as console manufacturers do), but they chose to make their systems as accessable as possible to developers with the idea that their OS' value (as a software platform) was derived from the available software. If they innovated anything it was that concept. That idea and their ruthless execution of it made them one of the most successful companies ever.
Not necessarily, a natural monopoly is a business that has a falling average cost curve, meaning the bigger you are the cheaper it is to produce your product. High fixed and low variable costs are typical characteristics of this type of industry. Utilities semiconductors, and software all show this type of cost structure, and the reason so many software companies dominate their space (MS or Oracle) until they are commoditized and the fixed cost goes away (the difference between Intel's and Micron's 10 year margins).
It's fairly rare that they change their views following a campaign contribution. Rather the contributors give money to those that already support (or would be logical to support their activities). It is quite a bit more diffucult to make bribery charges stick, when Sen. Longshore has always supported Unions and after getting a union campaign contribution votes for a bill favoring unions or Rep. Timber has likes the timber industry, got timber contributions to get elected, and votes for bills favorable to the timber industry.
Shady and improper, sure, but bribery and illegal, that is more of a stretch.
It would have been a fine deal, if TW had given AOL shareholders about 1/8 of the company instead of half, and if AOL had been immediatly lumped in with the cable business and the two groups told to settle differences now and get working on AOL over cable broadband. Since hindsight is 20/20 niether happened but most of the carping is over the price paid. Good for AOL shareholders (who don't realize how little they would have if Case hadn't sold the company) but bad for TWX shareholders. Unfortunatly the timing of the deal meant that both groups blame the merger for the corporate ills rather than the popping of the bubble.
Yes, but the ipod/itms was designed to capture the benefits of the libraries of pirated music on peoples desktops not sell music (Apple has sold about 16 songs for every ipod out there). How many songs do would you guess the average ipod has on it? While the video ipod is a facinating concept, it would not be driven by similar economics i.e. who wants to pay $300 for a device and $1 (shorts/single episodes of television) to $20 (feature films) downloads to function for a smaller version of your DVD case? I'll make you a darn cool dvd case (lots of metal and scratch resistant plastic) if that is what you want. Once a large number of people have a sizable collection of video on their computers you can expect a successful ivideo pod).
Ironically, the current campaign finance rules were a boon to the Republicans (who collect a few thousand from a large number of donors) vs the Democrats who depend on a smaller number of deeper pockets (Hollywood, parts of Wall St, unions) to fund campaigns. While the unions are made up of millions of members, they write a single check which now carries a hard limit, and soft money is no longer without strings.
I don't think it's the entire season that bothers them as much as the fact that you and any number of others can grab the entire season in about six hours or so. There was plenty of entire season sharing in the VCR days but it was usually limited to a circle of friends. Even in VCR days distributing a trunk full of tapes would generally attract legal attention.
Everyone seems to mistake journalism stories with editorial stores. The journalism pages of the NY Times, WSJ, Post etc (and CNN FOX etc) have almost no evident bias, because the journalists are very very careful to write with as little bias as possible. The editorial content of all three has tons of bias because that is why it exists. Fox News (along with CNN and MSNBC) contian far more editorial content than journalistic content. They are similar to newspapers with a few pages of news and 15 pages of op-ed. That's fine (commentary garners far higher ratings than vanilla news) but it is important to differentiate between the two. The only cable news network that I can point to examples of bias in their journalism stories is CNBC (they are biased bullishly--which is normal since most investors are as well).
In this context punter is a buyer with shades of uninformed buyer. The term comes from the race tracks where betters became known as punters, and has evolved to refer to more uninformed buyers of especially tech and financial products.
An even larger swing from nominee to Justice was Earl Warren who was nominated by Republican Pres. Eisenhauer but architected several of the more meaningful shifts to the left in this country.
ROT 13 of course. Good enough for Ceasar is good enough for me.
Never forget to have a trusty dog by your side, and perhaps a minigun or at least that H&K caseless thingy. I'd suggest skipping the number 13 in any ordering system. Oh what the heck it could be a good time.
If the brown hits the rotaries that bad (city destruction by nuclear or biological), I'm depending on the wetware storage of rural survival skills (subsistance farming and animal husbandry) rather than some now useless bits stored in silicon.
While studios are similar to record companies in negotiations with young directors, Sam Raimi should have plenty of clout after delivering two of the only bright spots of the last two summer dim summer blockbuster seasons. You are correct that Lucas has extrodinary control over Star Wars.
The big one is driving, the US rolling stock is several times bigger than the national electric grid. It all depends on if said geeks drive to work or commute a different way (electronically, public trans, bike, etc). If the latter, they probably have a fairly minor impact relative to someone who has a webTV at home but drives to the clubs or shopping centers for entertainment.
"There are no intergalactic council troops occupying our star system, our victory is imminent."
Minister of Information in small star system.
I'd add one more, live with roommates until you buy the first place with cash.
Law is not the only profession that will put you in the driver's seat of a Porsche. The story is emblematic of many, many young people who enter a career field purely for the sake of money, when they know that they would be happier in a less lucrative field.
The founder's class b share stake controls the majority of the votes. When push comes to shove, if you cannot buy a majority of the votes you cannot complete a hostile takeover. You can sue, scream, and drive the price down, but you can't take it over.
His name was King Gillette and he started the company. The business model is typically refered to as razor and blades (or cartridges).
Corportations have lifecycles, and dividends are the only method a corporation has of producing net benefits. From public company to the eventual bankruptcy, all other transactions enrich one side while impoverishing the other. Purchasing a non-dividend paying company is a statement of faith that the company is investing its capital in a manner that will produce larger dividends in the future. One of the main failings of investors in capital markets has been grossly overestimating the eventual value of those future cash flows.
The best example of this is from an old paper by Dr. Fama(which I will simplify) imagine two investments a forest and a mine. The mine will be exhausted in 7 years but produces $2,000 per year. The forest will take 5 years to mature and will produce $500 per year after it reaches maturity. It would take a very low discount rate for the forest to be worth more than the mine. Google Arness curves if you want the full story.
However, if you replace internet search company (or biotech or software company or radio company or any of a number of then new industries) for forest and building or shipping company for the mine people have generally paid far more for the forest than the mine.
Not to long ago someone did a study that found Altria [Phillip Morris] was the best performing stock in the Dow or S&P 500 over the last 30 or 40 years, even though it has struggled greatly with government regulation, massive lawsuits, and was never considered a "sexy growth" company during any of those time periods. While most companies had considerably better months, years, and even decades than Altria they were unable to string together consistant performance. All too often in the corporate world the forest never reaches the harvest stage due to unforeseen circumstances, which only improves the performance of the mines of the investment world. This isn't intended to be a reccomendation of any company or sector, just an example of why dividend payments are important.
Finding patterns in financial markets are most of the reason the monkies consistently beat the suits. The patterns are either nonexistant or much more complex than the analysts assume, so they extrapolate the wrong conclusions from the data set. The monkies do not seek patterns (unless someone spilled some fruit on the journal or something) and therefor are not misled by the apparent patterns.
I still think Iago's making the beast with two backs is one of the better euphimisms in the english language.
Another topical area of importannce right now is access control and data control which are tangentially related to security. This is exceedingly important to most public companies with all their efforts to be Sarbanes-Oxley compliant. Once you come up with a good plan don't advertise to CIOs try to find auditors in your area who can reccomend you and advertising in accounting type rags. Make darn sure you are ready to handle the flow of business (and willing to turn down business you cannot handle because there are many firms that are not close to Sarb-Ox compliance.
Ahh I missed that I thought they had it in their pocket when they sat down. My error. Although I would think that a more globularly enhanced rear might be less prone to breakage than a muscular or bony hind quarters.