Are you accounting for splits? There was a 2 for 1 split in 2003, although, even so, on the numbers you cite, that's only a $5 gain in a decade. I would also ask what dividends were paid, which a savings account would not.
I'm still somewhat at a loss to find a savings account that would net a 13% gain in ten years... that's about a 1.3% APR which isn't unachievable but the market went below that for long chunks. And again, plus dividends. In 2003, they were 8 cents a share post-split. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/Jan03/01-16ds.mspx
I kinda get the feeling that Microsoft had done the majority of their best work by 1999, but considering their product prices since, having sold at least one license for windows and office to almost every work computer in America, I'm shocked they haven't made more.
The choice of whether or not to buy the router is up to the company, so their is natural efficiency in the choice (will spending X save or make >X?).... taxes are the opposite of efficiency -- it is money spent with a zero ROI.
Costs imposed by government that have no benefit to the company (zero ROI) are gross efficiencies and efficiencies hurt everyone... they are indeed passed on to the customers.
In fact, you are wrong.
You are wrong because costs imposed by the government in fact have substantial benefit to the company. When the company's shipments are not captured by pirates on the high seas, their taxes financed a navy to make that possible. When they ship their products over toll-free roads, taxes paid for that. Ditto when employees commute on those roads, or on subsidized rail systems. GPS satellite systems. Industrial safety standards. Antitrust provisions preventing their competitors from unfairly squashing them. Libel and slander laws preventing their competitors from falsely advertising against them. Laws in general. The police preventing or investigating the overnight burglary of their facilities. Etc. Etc.
Furthermore, like the router, the company clearly has a choice about the taxes: it can select where to do business. Those "decisions" led to tech companies being concentrated on the West Coast, for example. If the taxes genuinely provide no added value to the company, then the company should move to a place without taxes, since clearly the taxes are of no value. But perhaps, on top of all of the above, companies value the location of doing business itself, perhaps for its proximity to quality labor (financed by tax-supported education systems) or its proximity to a prosperous market (supported by all of the protections of that government.)
I hope that you wrote this from a tax-free country, lest you be oozing hypocrisy.
In reality this doesn't work, the idea that "as the physical workforce is being reduced, re-school the freed up people into idea producers..."
The reasons are sad, but ultimately, my experience working with all manners of the mythical "poor people in America" (they actually do exist) shows them.
First, you can't just expect people to go from "physical workforce" to "idea producers" because you tell them to. Unfortunately, not everyone is creative. Not everyone is intelligent. Similarly, not everyone is strong or has manual dexterity. Some people are very well suited to chopping down trees, digging holes, and assembling circuit boards. Other people are very well suited to inventing things, drafting documents, making things pretty, and directing/managing. Some people are good at both categories, and choose the one that they prefer, in places where they have the choice. But it is not true that MOST people are well suited to idea work. Many, but not most.
Second, you can't assume that Americans naturally make for better "idea producers" than Chinese etc- if you try to set up America as a country of designers and managers, while having other portions of the world simply be the labor force, you (ie, corporate America) are attempting to set up a global caste system. Very dangerous. Yet, even then, there would remain jobs which must be performed physically and locally. Janitor. Pavement repairer. McDonalds cook. Chef. Doctor. If you set up an economy where "most people" are "supposed to be" concept workers, then you are conveying the social message that other work is inferior, and thus, other workers are inferior. Not a good message for a government, of all groups, to promulgate.
Additionally, consider that, even if they are capable of it, many people would despise office-type work. Myself, I am bound to it by ability (err, by lack of physical ability otherwise) but, especially working with the physically disabled, I meet people all the time who would rather starve to death than work in an office- they would rather build things or chop down trees. Many people feel that they haven't worked if their muscles don't feel it at the end of the day, and in fact, my father, being one of those people, actually looked down on people who worked with paper and computers.
The trouble with this line of thinking is, as is often the trouble with unrestrained capitalism, the inherent short-sightedness of the thought process.
If MS feels that the taxes associated with doing business in the US are a hindrance, they have failed to consider that the US government might actually "value" those taxes.
That is to say, if MS becomes a foreign company whose retail products are being imported, expect the US government to set up tariffs on software imports. Expect those tariffs to draw substantially more revenue for the government than the present corporate income tax draws. Consequently, expect the net impact on the MS bottom line to go down, and go down further as the cost advantage they now enjoy over their principal competitor (Apple) evaporates, and as the security-minded DOD switches all of their computers to a US-made operating system such as Snow Leopard or a custom system from Sun, costing them an enormous contract.
I don't see how this would be a good move for Microsoft, but honestly, it would be exemplary of a larger trend: that short sighted "I only want to good parts" thinking is motivating US corporations to move most of their operations abroad to save money by avoiding US laws- such as, minimum wage and human rights standards, environmental standards, and taxation. For a few months or years, the profits of these companies SKYROCKET as their costs evaporate, but, keeping retail prices constant, they continue to sustain revenues. Until, that is, enough companies follow suit. When the US marketplace collapses due to the decimation of its labor (and thus, spending) base, there will be nobody left to sell products to- and the government begins to bleed out, as expenditures escalate on human services to mitigate unemployment, while revenues tank due to dropping taxes on all fronts.
In this move, Ballmer has stated his values. Specifically, he does not feel adequately patriotic to even want to pay his taxes, and he cares more for his stock value than for the value of the economy his products "serve".
If Microsoft leaves, let them. I will contentedly go on not buying their products, and smugly advise anyone (in the US) who cares about their country to buy an Apple product instead, which is at least designed in (and pays taxes to) America, or for that matter a product from an originally European or Asian company which at least has chosen to support its homeland.
By the way, if they were talking about "Moving to India so that we can save money on labor and taxes while simultaneously bettering the lives of our future employees there", which they are not, I would ironically be less opposed. But this is just about shouting a big "screw you" to the country that bred them.
If you add in the average rate that Americans pay privately for the things that are included in the European tax dollar, does the comparison hold true? Most corporate employees I know here pay somewhere in the range of 5% to 10% of their income as insurance premiums for health care. The national average is actually about 7%, accounting for copays and the myriad non-covered expenses. When evaluated in that apples-to-apples context, American taxes are only lower for a select percentage at the bottom and top of the economy.
As a driver in New York, I pay about $300+ extra each year in thinly disguised taxes, ie tolls, license and registration fees, and the occasional roadside tax-collection stop, not to mention the "tax" of legally compulsory auto insurance at cartel-controlled prices. Add in property taxes which are rarely determined democratically (democratic budget votes wherein certain administrators extort the voters by threatening important, popular programs with the axe if chosen budget initiatives are not supported; congressionally, this is called "Earmarking")
Anyway, the whole thing is a sham. I wonder, if I lived in a place where taxes were fixed at 40% total, while it would sound high, it might be less than I pay in the US... earning 35k, I pay about 15% federal, 6% OASDI, 2% Medicare, 10% state, 9% sales, ?% fuel, $300+ (1%) licensing, 20% on my phone bill, and 7% health care... that's 50% or more, and I'm a mid to low earner. I forgot the property tax, which I don't directly pay, as a renter, but my landlord pays $4k, or 3% of his family income, per year. Ouch. And Manhattan bees pay an extra city income tax, too, plus more tolls.
If the taxes in Europe actually were somehow higher than here, I can't see how they'd have any economy left.
Battle cry of the conservatives, I guess. The weak are weak because they deserve to be.
Have you stopped to wonder what everyone does in this country? Think about it. For every thousand people in the population, how many teachers are there? Doctors? Lawyers? Engineers? Whatever it is you do that required grad school?
13% of Americans live below their respective federal poverty line. Are all of those due to their own fault? And lets say they all are. Lets say every one of them made some kind of mistake at some point, maybe they got knocked up in high school and couldn't go to college, maybe they had a fight with their parents and lost the daddy scholarship, or maybe they just lost in the genetic lottery when the brain configurations were passed out.
First off, I congratulate you on your apparent intelligence and drive, really its good for you, but don't assume that because something is possible for you, it is possible for everyone. I made the same mistake once. The truth is, you and I are simply fortunate. We had the right allocation of resources and education. The right genes. Place and time to succeed. Many didn't, and they suffer for it. There is no need for you to grind their face in the mud over it.
Ugh. I had a lot more to say but I am too tired to do the research and I'd rather not talk out my ass. But take a look at the allocation of jobs. A tremendous segment of our population is forced to work in jobs that you consider non-jobs.
Because otherwise, you wouldn't have fast food, garbage conveniently taken from your curb, the ability to pay for (and therefore acquire) good, which you take off a shelf and not a truck directly, which of course had to be driven and maintained by someone, while another guy pumped its fuel, and others drilled that nasty stuff out of the ground, e t c. None of them have master's degrees. And none of them are convinced that you're the better person than them that you seem to think you are.
Dammit, I think I just blew all my Karma. -1 Asshole.
It is true that the unions historically are responsible for many of the better labor conditions in the US.
In an amusing sidestep, they are also therefore responsible for the massive overseas outsourcing.
Simply: due to the unions, the cost of labor in the US skyrocketed. Increased by a factor of 20 in less than a few decades. This got the corporate heads churning as to how they could get the labor costs back down.
Enter China and most of the "developing" world. No unions, few labor laws, Wild Wild West. Cheaper labor by far, and therefore that's where the labor is being purchased. Humanity as a commodity.
So some would argue that this is evidence that the unions are harmful, because in the end they just cost us all our jobs. In fact the reverse is true; the problem is not the unions but the inequity thereof internationally. The next necessary step is to bring the union concept to the margins where it is needed most. First, bring it to the laborers being exploited by predominantly American corporations, whatever countries they are in. Organize them, introduce the idea of supply control (strikes etc, where the "commodity" that is human capital establishes a voice for itself, rather than allowing themselves to be treated as cattle) and allow the cost of labor to rise. Not to rise beyond reason but to realign with reason.
One of the key causal factors of the world's economic problems- and lets face it, economics are at the root of most of the world's other problems (see UN MDGs)- is the inequity between value, price, and cost. For instance, oil costs less than US$27 on average to produce and ship per barrel, yet the world price is set above $140. Capital costs for a 2000 square foot house are barely six figure if well built, yet they go for quadruple that in many American suburbs. And all individuals living in a major American city require something like $15,000 annually to "survive" yet the minimum pay is something like 2/3 of that.
The establishment is supported by ingenious social concepts, ingrained as religion. It is considered not merely acceptable but *right* that the individual at the top of a company makes more than the 500 individuals at the bottom combined. Because one person is *worth* 500 times more than another? My numbers are examples from the extreme but should they exist at all? And that's only looking at same-country employees. What does the chairman of Wal-Mart make in comparison to his average factory worker in China? Quite a disparity.
Unions help to level this playing field. The basic problem that causes the huge disparity in wealth distribution is power distribution. As such, peasants have no power almost by definition. But they do have a hidden power against the elites: need. Individually a peasant is powerless; stop working, and you will be disposed of and replaced. But in quantity, in unity, you cannot be disposed of, because the ruler would destroy himself in the process. What a union does is it organizes the coordination of power plays by the little guys. Collective bargaining is necessary because individual bargaining is impossible.
In my company, certain people are represented by the union while others are not. Generally the split is at management regardless of department. Our tech workers and sales team are part of the same union. Incidentally, our competitors techs are in the union with us, though their sales team is not. I briefly worked for the competitors sales team- and quickly switched back. The union helps keep our pay satisfactory, helps keep us from being fired at random, minimizes the fluctuations in our commission structure, and is currently battling along with seemingly every other union to keep our health benefits. I make about US$60k a year, so I would say I'm in a slightly higher labor caste than the typical call center worker. Why shouldn't they be represented by a union?
The simple pragmatic answer is that, in today's global economy, if the cost of running a US ca
I'm sorry to waste my time saying this... but the human animal has very few instincts left, and two of them are directly related to the process of suckling. First is the rooting instinct, whereby the baby knows (without the use of sight) to turn his mouth toward a soft stimulus that brushes up against his cheek. Then there is the actual sucking instinct, wherein most babies will suck when something is stuck in their mouth.
Both of these instincts are eventually unlearned, and for the better... but they are there from the start.
While I'm generally confused where you come off saying that most babies have to be taught how to nurse... it should be noted that the reverse is true, and there are in fact some doctors (medical and research) who feel that our collective efforts as a society to unlearn nursing (through the shortening of maternity leave and the reduction of the tactile bond between mother and child, and specifically the use of bottles and formula) are distinctly harmful to children and therefore to society.
To keep this somewhat on topic... shame on Apple:P
Posted from a Macbook on Leopard, stable for over 6 months:)
The blog and Slashdot posters have missed the point to a spectacular degree. Let me summarize it:
Currently, Official communications from House members to the public have to be on the house.gov web site. Each member gets his own section of that site, of which he or she controls the contents.
The House web servers are overwhelmed and underequipped to handle new technologies such as video, while external sites such as Google/Youtube and Yahoo are equipped to provide such hosting services.
This letter recommends allowing congressmen to use such sites, which they are not presently allowed to, for official communications.
This has nothing to do with campaign or office web sites or social networks. If a congressman wants a facebook account, that has nothing to do with this. If he wants to comment on a Blog, that has nothing to do with this.
What I don't grasp is where censorship or Nancy Pelosi come into this.
In case that wasn't clear enough, let me be more specific:
The claims of the post are blatantly, demonstrably, shamefully false.
The original letter upon which the blog post is based is both "generally a good thing" in its content and significance, and "completely misinterpreted." I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out how we go from Capuana saying, "We should allow Congressmen to express themselves through more avenues than they presently have" to "Pelosi wants to put a stranglehold on congressional free speech."
In the PC world, people have had to buy new machines or drastically upgrade for every major OS release. Machines that ran XP don't tend to run Vista nicely. I know better than to try running vista on my 4 year old powerbook. Yet I'm running Leopard on my four year old iMac... score 1 for Mac, 0 for PC.
However, it used to be like that even on Mac, to some extent. My PPC Performa 6360 (or some dog model like that) can't run more than 8.5. My 68000 Classic can't go above 7.0 IIRC. And my Mac SE is limited to 6. And aren't G2 machines limited to 9, G3 machines to 10.4, and G4 machines limited in advanced features? Its only a matter of time before your hardware no longer runs the latest software. That's the way of this industry.
Nope. Optimum has effectively 100% coverage in his area. I'm somewhat surprised that he was able to get FIOS as the north shore are he lives on is inaccessible for a lot of things.
This is also the guy who, as an AT&T customer, lobbies in his community association to disallow new cell sites, and then calls AT&T to complain there's no reception by his house.
So he's a truly intelligent and consistent individual, but I only know this from my dealings with him.
Except that Qualcomm has all of the US 3G standards patented. WCDMA is CDMA derived and thus the world of mobile phones will soon deviate from openness. Sorry boyos but that seems to be how it will play from here. At least until 4G hits or an antitrust suit goes through against Qualcomm.
If you want email that is more than a novelty, you don't get a Razr.
If you want your internet to be good for more than a quick movie time, stock quote, or weather report, you don't get a razr.
If you want a phone that won't break in half, you don't get a razr. Working in the phone industry, I can safely tell you that the #1 thing that motivates people to "choose" winmo over blackberry or anything simpler is Outlook Mail, the #2 being "familiar" interface, a distant #3 being the rest of Office Mobile, and very occasionally someone who wants a particular application for WinMo, and 85% of those are doctors who are tired of buying Treos just to run ePocrates.
I am a fairly heavy Blackberry user on the consumer side. While I have a few third party programs on it, most of those are just games or novelties. There's nothing (worthwhile) on my BB that isn't already announced for iPhone or already available through the web, besides the built in killer app which is push Gmail, which I'm sure will arrive as a form of the already extant Gmail Widget. Err, and picture messaging.
OTOH most of the interest I've seen in iPhone has been expressed by two discreet categories of people: those who want something much cooler and more powerful than Razrs and Sidekicks, who have never considered a smartphone before other than perhaps the relatively accessible Blackberry Pearl, or those who are pining for an escape from Windows Mobile.
In other words, the same as the people who are buying Macs: those who don't want to figure out Vista who just need a computer to handle "basics" that aren't that basic on a PC (web, email and chat, music, and digital photos), and those who are trying to break away from the Windows cycle. And the strange thing is that there's a huge market for $1099+ macs among the people who otherwise would buy Dell's $499 loss leader, as well as a huge market for $499 iPhones who might otherwise sign on with Verizon for a $99 crippled Chocolate.
Every Blackberry I've owned has been able to do this, and it's really simple.
When you take a call waiting, a menu comes up and it lets you "answer and hold current", "answer and drop current", or "ignore"
When you have two calls, it says "on hold: " and who/what number and "Active: " and who/what number.
You then push the "menu" button and select "Merge calls."
Maybe I'm just incredibly technical, but I fail to see how that is any less easy than the iPhone setup.
More importantly, I find it hard to believe that any of that is reliant on the subsidy lock. Which, by the way, is probably referred to by that term for some reason.
...Bill Gates finally got his bachelor's degree and also spoke at the commencement.
But since he didn't talk about Star Wars, I guess it's not news?
For all the issues many/.ers may have about the guy, he is a significant figure in the tech industry. His completion of a degree should be an inspiration to all of us dropouts like myself:)
After all, if the richest computer nerd in the world got there without a degree, then maybe there's hope for me too.
While your final line makes logical sense in the lab, it does not apply in the womb, nor does it apply to an organism that one creates for that purpose. There is a distinct moral difference between directly destroying life, and by inactivity failing to protect it. A simplified (but admittedly straw man) analogy would be to say that there is in fact a difference between allowing an acorn to be eaten by a squirrel, and cutting down a tree. Or more aptly, eating a fresh chicken egg vs killing a chicken. There is in fact a great difference between actively destroying life and allowing it to end, and while verbose arguments may soothe an individual's conscience, they do not erase moral or ethical implications.
The fact that there is any doubt whatsoever is what gives many of abortion's moral opponents issue with in vitro fertilization, as well. One need not share the view to comprehend it.
This entire issue seems to be clouded over by emotionalism. And admittedly the problem seems to be that most of those who publicly vocalize opinions on the issue are so polarized, usually pandering to one side or the other in hopes of gaining political support. Ultimately, the trouble with logical or technological answers to these issues is that those on both sides of the actual "debate" so deeply fear the end of the dispute itself.
plethora of closed-source or poorly-documented Apple formats that simply don't have the support.
Can you please clarify?
You're not the first person to mention these "closed source Apple formats" (actually, the word I hear misused more often is "proprietary".) As a Mac user who occasionally has to use a PC, I have yet to encounter any of these formats. In fact, the only "proprietary" format I can think of that occurs frequently on the Mac is Quicktime. Other than that, every program I use is eiher an open (ie, AAC) or defacto (ie,.doc) format.
I hear this argument way too frequently, but never backed by a single fact. For most mainstream things, such as office tasks and multimedia playback, and communications tasks, there is no dearth of applications to interact between platforms. I can read and write MS word documents and presentations in iWork. For Excel, I can use Thinkfree Office, OpenOffice, or Google Spreadsheets.
On the other hand there are a ton of tasks that I do near automatically on my Mac that most windows PCs simply can't do. Transfer data to/from 80% of the cell phones on the market? Done. Print to a PDF for storage or sharing? Done. Run 20+ windows simultaneously across 5+ programs without getting lost? Done. Not worry about viruses? Done.
Every day at work on my Windows terminal, I catch myself smacking the ol' forehead half a dozen times for things that could be one click away, but instead just can't be done at all.
Before I realized you were talking about political parties, I thought a comment was being made on the structure of the government, and I was very confused. Are there still states that are democratic? Then the thought of republican... is there a true republic left in the world? I guess hypothetically most of this country should be, but it would only be true is a real fraction of the public participated in the selection of representatives, and if votes were not tradable commodities.
A further statement he could have made would be, "Gimp is a replacement for Photoshop the way Linux is a replacement to Mac OS, which is similar to the way Vista is a replacement for a usable operating system."
I guess even there I couldn't resist the urge to get a little biased. But seriously, I can't imagine how that post could have been construed to be putting Linux and OS X on an equal footing, when the other compared items were so disparate.
And honestly, the '73 Mustang is, in my eyes, equal or better to the Navigator. You seem to completely miss the concept of perspective. I can see the sense in a sports car. I can't see the sense in a luxury SUV. They are equals in practicality, environmental consciousness, off road capability (well, almost... the Mustang is a bit less prone to Rollover), and social responsibility. They differ in seating capacity, cost, and fun factor.
While Linux and Mac OS are different in a lot of ways, one cannot ignore the certain advantages that Lin actually does enjoy: cost (hardware and software), hardware choice, ease of (physical) upgrade when starting from a Windows system; with Linux you merely download a disk image and repair your hard drive, while with Mac you must buy a whole new system. Sure, you get what you pay for, but for a lot of people, paying a premium for quality just isn't an option. that's why we have Windows and Piracy.
While there is the capability to manually enter numbers into your phone book, I wonder what proportion of the typical user's book will get in it that way. I can safely tell you that the typical at&t customer utterly balks at the notion of having to manually enter even a fraction of their phone book. With sim cards and data transfer devices, the initial batch is generally already there before the user gets home with the device- though I doubt that, out of the box, this will be compatible with most (cellebrite) number copiers.
Not unlike a typical smartphone, this one will be able to seamlessly sync your contacts (well, the typical users contacts) from whatever PIM they are likely to use. Don't be shocked if they tack in an "import phone book from Razr" option in the bundled version of iTunes, if for no other reason than to save time in customer service at Apple stores.
I still fail to grasp the general anti-apple sentiment I sense here. It's just a product. If you don't like it, don't buy it. And especially, don't bitch about its "horrible keyboard" or other elements that you have yet to actually lay your bare eyes or hands on. I'm pretty sure a lot of us said that about the Mouse back in 1985.
PS. I have utterly no intention of buying one, but I'm still extremely excited about it. I'm more leaning toward the Blackberry 8300 which, incidentally, costs less than a bad week's salary.
The iPhone is not going to change the face of communications, but it already shows some serious potential to restructure the wireless industry, and perhaps I dare say, it's about time.
The US wireless market is such a strange beast that the vast majority of its users have very little clue how it works. In general, US phones are sold "subsidized" with 2 year contracts, or stripped down models sold "full price" with prepaid service. However, even the "subsidized" prices are, at many companies, not often an actual discount; very commonly, mid to high end phones are sold "at cost" (per obtainable wholesale prices) with two year contracts, and at a ridiculous markup without.
The first area in which the iPhone is revolutionary is its abandonment of this strategy. While the phone is requiring the two year contract, the subsidy concept has been removed. The single line of fine print speaks volumes. "Use requires minimum new 2 year activation plan." The use of the word "use" in place of the word "price" indicates a reversal; whether or not this is good for the consumer remains to be seen, but the fact that the pricing is not related to the contract is inherently a benefit for customer understanding. It seems (anecdotally, working at a wireless store) that most customers have little to know comprehension of the subsidy system, and often "value" a piece of phone hardware at $50 or less, based on the price they paid. With fixed pricing, there may be two direct consumer benefits: first, no more confusing hardware pricing or rebates, no conditions, nothing to mail in, no questions. Second, replace or change your phone at any time, just like a computer, ipod, or appliance, without having to wait for your service obligation to be fulfilled enough to get another discount.
Yeah, the price is higher. At the moment. The iPod was introduced at similar price; the iPod Nano 4 gb, closest in features to the original now sells for less than half the price the original was introduced with, and has better battery life, smaller size, color screen, and (in some opinions) a cleaner interface. Do we doubt that will happen with the iPhone?
Phone "subsidies" are a scourge on the US wireless industry. Perhaps they should be more like cable boxes and modems, leased and owned by the telco's, or perhaps they should be more like landline phones, merely commoditized at all but the top end. A typical house phone sells for more and has less features than a typical cell phone, as it is.
The other side of this coin, especially considering the possibility that the iPhone may be offered as a prepaid or hybrid, is that we may see this as the beginning of a new style of billing. Imagine a future in which per minute/per kilobyte bandwidth rates are lowered to a reasonable point, at the expense of all the "unlimited bundles" we sell now. Imagine if "a minute is a minute no matter what" but calls cost a penny a minute, data a dime a megabyte. It could happen, but only if the profit model of the industry changes. With Apple taking on an unprecedented hardware support role (in the standard consumer sphere; Vertu and B&O have done it before) it frees up the network/bandwidth providers to be just that. Utilities. Like water or electricity.
I'm not saying that the iPhone will bring about all this in a single fell swoop. But contract independent pricing, profitable retail prices on smartphones, consumer friendly high end hardware, and distributed support costs, could spell the start of a real revolution in this particular backward industry.
(By the way, does anyone here remember, from history, a time when power companies like Edison distributed and supported everything from the grid itself to the motors and lamps you ran on it? What broke that model?)
Slashdot Mirror
I'm still somewhat at a loss to find a savings account that would net a 13% gain in ten years... that's about a 1.3% APR which isn't unachievable but the market went below that for long chunks. And again, plus dividends. In 2003, they were 8 cents a share post-split. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/Jan03/01-16ds.mspx
I kinda get the feeling that Microsoft had done the majority of their best work by 1999, but considering their product prices since, having sold at least one license for windows and office to almost every work computer in America, I'm shocked they haven't made more.
Let's use your router analogy....
The choice of whether or not to buy the router is up to the company, so their is natural efficiency in the choice (will spending X save or make >X?).... taxes are the opposite of efficiency -- it is money spent with a zero ROI.
Costs imposed by government that have no benefit to the company (zero ROI) are gross efficiencies and efficiencies hurt everyone... they are indeed passed on to the customers.
In fact, you are wrong.
You are wrong because costs imposed by the government in fact have substantial benefit to the company. When the company's shipments are not captured by pirates on the high seas, their taxes financed a navy to make that possible. When they ship their products over toll-free roads, taxes paid for that. Ditto when employees commute on those roads, or on subsidized rail systems. GPS satellite systems. Industrial safety standards. Antitrust provisions preventing their competitors from unfairly squashing them. Libel and slander laws preventing their competitors from falsely advertising against them. Laws in general. The police preventing or investigating the overnight burglary of their facilities. Etc. Etc.
Furthermore, like the router, the company clearly has a choice about the taxes: it can select where to do business. Those "decisions" led to tech companies being concentrated on the West Coast, for example. If the taxes genuinely provide no added value to the company, then the company should move to a place without taxes, since clearly the taxes are of no value. But perhaps, on top of all of the above, companies value the location of doing business itself, perhaps for its proximity to quality labor (financed by tax-supported education systems) or its proximity to a prosperous market (supported by all of the protections of that government.)
I hope that you wrote this from a tax-free country, lest you be oozing hypocrisy.
In reality this doesn't work, the idea that "as the physical workforce is being reduced, re-school the freed up people into idea producers..."
The reasons are sad, but ultimately, my experience working with all manners of the mythical "poor people in America" (they actually do exist) shows them.
First, you can't just expect people to go from "physical workforce" to "idea producers" because you tell them to. Unfortunately, not everyone is creative. Not everyone is intelligent. Similarly, not everyone is strong or has manual dexterity. Some people are very well suited to chopping down trees, digging holes, and assembling circuit boards. Other people are very well suited to inventing things, drafting documents, making things pretty, and directing/managing. Some people are good at both categories, and choose the one that they prefer, in places where they have the choice. But it is not true that MOST people are well suited to idea work. Many, but not most.
Second, you can't assume that Americans naturally make for better "idea producers" than Chinese etc- if you try to set up America as a country of designers and managers, while having other portions of the world simply be the labor force, you (ie, corporate America) are attempting to set up a global caste system. Very dangerous. Yet, even then, there would remain jobs which must be performed physically and locally. Janitor. Pavement repairer. McDonalds cook. Chef. Doctor. If you set up an economy where "most people" are "supposed to be" concept workers, then you are conveying the social message that other work is inferior, and thus, other workers are inferior. Not a good message for a government, of all groups, to promulgate.
Additionally, consider that, even if they are capable of it, many people would despise office-type work. Myself, I am bound to it by ability (err, by lack of physical ability otherwise) but, especially working with the physically disabled, I meet people all the time who would rather starve to death than work in an office- they would rather build things or chop down trees. Many people feel that they haven't worked if their muscles don't feel it at the end of the day, and in fact, my father, being one of those people, actually looked down on people who worked with paper and computers.
If MS feels that the taxes associated with doing business in the US are a hindrance, they have failed to consider that the US government might actually "value" those taxes.
That is to say, if MS becomes a foreign company whose retail products are being imported, expect the US government to set up tariffs on software imports. Expect those tariffs to draw substantially more revenue for the government than the present corporate income tax draws. Consequently, expect the net impact on the MS bottom line to go down, and go down further as the cost advantage they now enjoy over their principal competitor (Apple) evaporates, and as the security-minded DOD switches all of their computers to a US-made operating system such as Snow Leopard or a custom system from Sun, costing them an enormous contract.
I don't see how this would be a good move for Microsoft, but honestly, it would be exemplary of a larger trend: that short sighted "I only want to good parts" thinking is motivating US corporations to move most of their operations abroad to save money by avoiding US laws- such as, minimum wage and human rights standards, environmental standards, and taxation. For a few months or years, the profits of these companies SKYROCKET as their costs evaporate, but, keeping retail prices constant, they continue to sustain revenues. Until, that is, enough companies follow suit. When the US marketplace collapses due to the decimation of its labor (and thus, spending) base, there will be nobody left to sell products to- and the government begins to bleed out, as expenditures escalate on human services to mitigate unemployment, while revenues tank due to dropping taxes on all fronts.
In this move, Ballmer has stated his values. Specifically, he does not feel adequately patriotic to even want to pay his taxes, and he cares more for his stock value than for the value of the economy his products "serve".
If Microsoft leaves, let them. I will contentedly go on not buying their products, and smugly advise anyone (in the US) who cares about their country to buy an Apple product instead, which is at least designed in (and pays taxes to) America, or for that matter a product from an originally European or Asian company which at least has chosen to support its homeland.
By the way, if they were talking about "Moving to India so that we can save money on labor and taxes while simultaneously bettering the lives of our future employees there", which they are not, I would ironically be less opposed. But this is just about shouting a big "screw you" to the country that bred them.
This isn't such a simple question as that.
If you add in the average rate that Americans pay privately for the things that are included in the European tax dollar, does the comparison hold true? Most corporate employees I know here pay somewhere in the range of 5% to 10% of their income as insurance premiums for health care. The national average is actually about 7%, accounting for copays and the myriad non-covered expenses. When evaluated in that apples-to-apples context, American taxes are only lower for a select percentage at the bottom and top of the economy.
As a driver in New York, I pay about $300+ extra each year in thinly disguised taxes, ie tolls, license and registration fees, and the occasional roadside tax-collection stop, not to mention the "tax" of legally compulsory auto insurance at cartel-controlled prices. Add in property taxes which are rarely determined democratically (democratic budget votes wherein certain administrators extort the voters by threatening important, popular programs with the axe if chosen budget initiatives are not supported; congressionally, this is called "Earmarking")
Anyway, the whole thing is a sham. I wonder, if I lived in a place where taxes were fixed at 40% total, while it would sound high, it might be less than I pay in the US... earning 35k, I pay about 15% federal, 6% OASDI, 2% Medicare, 10% state, 9% sales, ?% fuel, $300+ (1%) licensing, 20% on my phone bill, and 7% health care... that's 50% or more, and I'm a mid to low earner. I forgot the property tax, which I don't directly pay, as a renter, but my landlord pays $4k, or 3% of his family income, per year. Ouch. And Manhattan bees pay an extra city income tax, too, plus more tolls.
If the taxes in Europe actually were somehow higher than here, I can't see how they'd have any economy left.
Battle cry of the conservatives, I guess. The weak are weak because they deserve to be.
Have you stopped to wonder what everyone does in this country? Think about it. For every thousand people in the population, how many teachers are there? Doctors? Lawyers? Engineers? Whatever it is you do that required grad school?
13% of Americans live below their respective federal poverty line. Are all of those due to their own fault? And lets say they all are. Lets say every one of them made some kind of mistake at some point, maybe they got knocked up in high school and couldn't go to college, maybe they had a fight with their parents and lost the daddy scholarship, or maybe they just lost in the genetic lottery when the brain configurations were passed out.
First off, I congratulate you on your apparent intelligence and drive, really its good for you, but don't assume that because something is possible for you, it is possible for everyone. I made the same mistake once. The truth is, you and I are simply fortunate. We had the right allocation of resources and education. The right genes. Place and time to succeed. Many didn't, and they suffer for it. There is no need for you to grind their face in the mud over it.
Ugh. I had a lot more to say but I am too tired to do the research and I'd rather not talk out my ass. But take a look at the allocation of jobs. A tremendous segment of our population is forced to work in jobs that you consider non-jobs.
Because otherwise, you wouldn't have fast food, garbage conveniently taken from your curb, the ability to pay for (and therefore acquire) good, which you take off a shelf and not a truck directly, which of course had to be driven and maintained by someone, while another guy pumped its fuel, and others drilled that nasty stuff out of the ground, e t c. None of them have master's degrees. And none of them are convinced that you're the better person than them that you seem to think you are.
Dammit, I think I just blew all my Karma. -1 Asshole.
Ahh unions.
It is true that the unions historically are responsible for many of the better labor conditions in the US.
In an amusing sidestep, they are also therefore responsible for the massive overseas outsourcing.
Simply: due to the unions, the cost of labor in the US skyrocketed. Increased by a factor of 20 in less than a few decades. This got the corporate heads churning as to how they could get the labor costs back down.
Enter China and most of the "developing" world. No unions, few labor laws, Wild Wild West. Cheaper labor by far, and therefore that's where the labor is being purchased. Humanity as a commodity.
So some would argue that this is evidence that the unions are harmful, because in the end they just cost us all our jobs. In fact the reverse is true; the problem is not the unions but the inequity thereof internationally. The next necessary step is to bring the union concept to the margins where it is needed most. First, bring it to the laborers being exploited by predominantly American corporations, whatever countries they are in. Organize them, introduce the idea of supply control (strikes etc, where the "commodity" that is human capital establishes a voice for itself, rather than allowing themselves to be treated as cattle) and allow the cost of labor to rise. Not to rise beyond reason but to realign with reason.
One of the key causal factors of the world's economic problems- and lets face it, economics are at the root of most of the world's other problems (see UN MDGs)- is the inequity between value, price, and cost. For instance, oil costs less than US$27 on average to produce and ship per barrel, yet the world price is set above $140. Capital costs for a 2000 square foot house are barely six figure if well built, yet they go for quadruple that in many American suburbs. And all individuals living in a major American city require something like $15,000 annually to "survive" yet the minimum pay is something like 2/3 of that.
The establishment is supported by ingenious social concepts, ingrained as religion. It is considered not merely acceptable but *right* that the individual at the top of a company makes more than the 500 individuals at the bottom combined. Because one person is *worth* 500 times more than another? My numbers are examples from the extreme but should they exist at all? And that's only looking at same-country employees. What does the chairman of Wal-Mart make in comparison to his average factory worker in China? Quite a disparity.
Unions help to level this playing field. The basic problem that causes the huge disparity in wealth distribution is power distribution. As such, peasants have no power almost by definition. But they do have a hidden power against the elites: need. Individually a peasant is powerless; stop working, and you will be disposed of and replaced. But in quantity, in unity, you cannot be disposed of, because the ruler would destroy himself in the process. What a union does is it organizes the coordination of power plays by the little guys. Collective bargaining is necessary because individual bargaining is impossible.
In my company, certain people are represented by the union while others are not. Generally the split is at management regardless of department. Our tech workers and sales team are part of the same union. Incidentally, our competitors techs are in the union with us, though their sales team is not. I briefly worked for the competitors sales team- and quickly switched back. The union helps keep our pay satisfactory, helps keep us from being fired at random, minimizes the fluctuations in our commission structure, and is currently battling along with seemingly every other union to keep our health benefits. I make about US$60k a year, so I would say I'm in a slightly higher labor caste than the typical call center worker. Why shouldn't they be represented by a union?
The simple pragmatic answer is that, in today's global economy, if the cost of running a US ca
Clearly you're not a mother.
:P
:)
Clearly you've never raised puppies.
I'm sorry to waste my time saying this... but the human animal has very few instincts left, and two of them are directly related to the process of suckling. First is the rooting instinct, whereby the baby knows (without the use of sight) to turn his mouth toward a soft stimulus that brushes up against his cheek. Then there is the actual sucking instinct, wherein most babies will suck when something is stuck in their mouth.
Both of these instincts are eventually unlearned, and for the better... but they are there from the start.
While I'm generally confused where you come off saying that most babies have to be taught how to nurse... it should be noted that the reverse is true, and there are in fact some doctors (medical and research) who feel that our collective efforts as a society to unlearn nursing (through the shortening of maternity leave and the reduction of the tactile bond between mother and child, and specifically the use of bottles and formula) are distinctly harmful to children and therefore to society.
To keep this somewhat on topic... shame on Apple
Posted from a Macbook on Leopard, stable for over 6 months
Did anyone bother researching this?
The blog and Slashdot posters have missed the point to a spectacular degree. Let me summarize it:
Currently, Official communications from House members to the public have to be on the house.gov web site. Each member gets his own section of that site, of which he or she controls the contents.
The House web servers are overwhelmed and underequipped to handle new technologies such as video, while external sites such as Google/Youtube and Yahoo are equipped to provide such hosting services.
This letter recommends allowing congressmen to use such sites, which they are not presently allowed to, for official communications.
This has nothing to do with campaign or office web sites or social networks. If a congressman wants a facebook account, that has nothing to do with this. If he wants to comment on a Blog, that has nothing to do with this.
What I don't grasp is where censorship or Nancy Pelosi come into this.
In case that wasn't clear enough, let me be more specific:
The claims of the post are blatantly, demonstrably, shamefully false.
The original letter upon which the blog post is based is both "generally a good thing" in its content and significance, and "completely misinterpreted." I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out how we go from Capuana saying, "We should allow Congressmen to express themselves through more avenues than they presently have" to "Pelosi wants to put a stranglehold on congressional free speech."
I know this is covered before, but...
what "fiasco"?
I haven't met anyone who used Leopard for a while and didn't like it.
Sure there were some early glitches, but its called software update, and its currently the most stable and powerful OS I've ever used.
Really now, is this anything new?
In the PC world, people have had to buy new machines or drastically upgrade for every major OS release. Machines that ran XP don't tend to run Vista nicely. I know better than to try running vista on my 4 year old powerbook. Yet I'm running Leopard on my four year old iMac... score 1 for Mac, 0 for PC.
However, it used to be like that even on Mac, to some extent. My PPC Performa 6360 (or some dog model like that) can't run more than 8.5. My 68000 Classic can't go above 7.0 IIRC. And my Mac SE is limited to 6. And aren't G2 machines limited to 9, G3 machines to 10.4, and G4 machines limited in advanced features? Its only a matter of time before your hardware no longer runs the latest software. That's the way of this industry.
Keep Austin Weird!
Nope. Optimum has effectively 100% coverage in his area. I'm somewhat surprised that he was able to get FIOS as the north shore are he lives on is inaccessible for a lot of things.
This is also the guy who, as an AT&T customer, lobbies in his community association to disallow new cell sites, and then calls AT&T to complain there's no reception by his house.
So he's a truly intelligent and consistent individual, but I only know this from my dealings with him.
Except that Qualcomm has all of the US 3G standards patented. WCDMA is CDMA derived and thus the world of mobile phones will soon deviate from openness. Sorry boyos but that seems to be how it will play from here. At least until 4G hits or an antitrust suit goes through against Qualcomm.
No, not really.
If you want email that is more than a novelty, you don't get a Razr.
If you want your internet to be good for more than a quick movie time, stock quote, or weather report, you don't get a razr.
If you want a phone that won't break in half, you don't get a razr. Working in the phone industry, I can safely tell you that the #1 thing that motivates people to "choose" winmo over blackberry or anything simpler is Outlook Mail, the #2 being "familiar" interface, a distant #3 being the rest of Office Mobile, and very occasionally someone who wants a particular application for WinMo, and 85% of those are doctors who are tired of buying Treos just to run ePocrates.
I am a fairly heavy Blackberry user on the consumer side. While I have a few third party programs on it, most of those are just games or novelties. There's nothing (worthwhile) on my BB that isn't already announced for iPhone or already available through the web, besides the built in killer app which is push Gmail, which I'm sure will arrive as a form of the already extant Gmail Widget. Err, and picture messaging.
OTOH most of the interest I've seen in iPhone has been expressed by two discreet categories of people: those who want something much cooler and more powerful than Razrs and Sidekicks, who have never considered a smartphone before other than perhaps the relatively accessible Blackberry Pearl, or those who are pining for an escape from Windows Mobile.
In other words, the same as the people who are buying Macs: those who don't want to figure out Vista who just need a computer to handle "basics" that aren't that basic on a PC (web, email and chat, music, and digital photos), and those who are trying to break away from the Windows cycle. And the strange thing is that there's a huge market for $1099+ macs among the people who otherwise would buy Dell's $499 loss leader, as well as a huge market for $499 iPhones who might otherwise sign on with Verizon for a $99 crippled Chocolate.
Every Blackberry I've owned has been able to do this, and it's really simple.
When you take a call waiting, a menu comes up and it lets you "answer and hold current", "answer and drop current", or "ignore"
When you have two calls, it says "on hold: " and who/what number and "Active: " and who/what number.
You then push the "menu" button and select "Merge calls."
Maybe I'm just incredibly technical, but I fail to see how that is any less easy than the iPhone setup.
More importantly, I find it hard to believe that any of that is reliant on the subsidy lock. Which, by the way, is probably referred to by that term for some reason.
...Bill Gates finally got his bachelor's degree and also spoke at the commencement.
/.ers may have about the guy, he is a significant figure in the tech industry. His completion of a degree should be an inspiration to all of us dropouts like myself :)
But since he didn't talk about Star Wars, I guess it's not news?
For all the issues many
After all, if the richest computer nerd in the world got there without a degree, then maybe there's hope for me too.
While your final line makes logical sense in the lab, it does not apply in the womb, nor does it apply to an organism that one creates for that purpose. There is a distinct moral difference between directly destroying life, and by inactivity failing to protect it. A simplified (but admittedly straw man) analogy would be to say that there is in fact a difference between allowing an acorn to be eaten by a squirrel, and cutting down a tree. Or more aptly, eating a fresh chicken egg vs killing a chicken. There is in fact a great difference between actively destroying life and allowing it to end, and while verbose arguments may soothe an individual's conscience, they do not erase moral or ethical implications.
The fact that there is any doubt whatsoever is what gives many of abortion's moral opponents issue with in vitro fertilization, as well. One need not share the view to comprehend it.
This entire issue seems to be clouded over by emotionalism. And admittedly the problem seems to be that most of those who publicly vocalize opinions on the issue are so polarized, usually pandering to one side or the other in hopes of gaining political support. Ultimately, the trouble with logical or technological answers to these issues is that those on both sides of the actual "debate" so deeply fear the end of the dispute itself.
Can you please clarify?
You're not the first person to mention these "closed source Apple formats" (actually, the word I hear misused more often is "proprietary".) As a Mac user who occasionally has to use a PC, I have yet to encounter any of these formats. In fact, the only "proprietary" format I can think of that occurs frequently on the Mac is Quicktime. Other than that, every program I use is eiher an open (ie, AAC) or defacto (ie, .doc) format.
I hear this argument way too frequently, but never backed by a single fact. For most mainstream things, such as office tasks and multimedia playback, and communications tasks, there is no dearth of applications to interact between platforms. I can read and write MS word documents and presentations in iWork. For Excel, I can use Thinkfree Office, OpenOffice, or Google Spreadsheets.
On the other hand there are a ton of tasks that I do near automatically on my Mac that most windows PCs simply can't do. Transfer data to/from 80% of the cell phones on the market? Done. Print to a PDF for storage or sharing? Done. Run 20+ windows simultaneously across 5+ programs without getting lost? Done. Not worry about viruses? Done.
Every day at work on my Windows terminal, I catch myself smacking the ol' forehead half a dozen times for things that could be one click away, but instead just can't be done at all.
Such funny statements.
Before I realized you were talking about political parties, I thought a comment was being made on the structure of the government, and I was very confused. Are there still states that are democratic? Then the thought of republican... is there a true republic left in the world? I guess hypothetically most of this country should be, but it would only be true is a real fraction of the public participated in the selection of representatives, and if votes were not tradable commodities.
I think you may have missed the point.
A further statement he could have made would be, "Gimp is a replacement for Photoshop the way Linux is a replacement to Mac OS, which is similar to the way Vista is a replacement for a usable operating system."
I guess even there I couldn't resist the urge to get a little biased. But seriously, I can't imagine how that post could have been construed to be putting Linux and OS X on an equal footing, when the other compared items were so disparate.
And honestly, the '73 Mustang is, in my eyes, equal or better to the Navigator. You seem to completely miss the concept of perspective. I can see the sense in a sports car. I can't see the sense in a luxury SUV. They are equals in practicality, environmental consciousness, off road capability (well, almost... the Mustang is a bit less prone to Rollover), and social responsibility. They differ in seating capacity, cost, and fun factor.
While Linux and Mac OS are different in a lot of ways, one cannot ignore the certain advantages that Lin actually does enjoy: cost (hardware and software), hardware choice, ease of (physical) upgrade when starting from a Windows system; with Linux you merely download a disk image and repair your hard drive, while with Mac you must buy a whole new system. Sure, you get what you pay for, but for a lot of people, paying a premium for quality just isn't an option. that's why we have Windows and Piracy.
While there is the capability to manually enter numbers into your phone book, I wonder what proportion of the typical user's book will get in it that way. I can safely tell you that the typical at&t customer utterly balks at the notion of having to manually enter even a fraction of their phone book. With sim cards and data transfer devices, the initial batch is generally already there before the user gets home with the device- though I doubt that, out of the box, this will be compatible with most (cellebrite) number copiers.
Not unlike a typical smartphone, this one will be able to seamlessly sync your contacts (well, the typical users contacts) from whatever PIM they are likely to use. Don't be shocked if they tack in an "import phone book from Razr" option in the bundled version of iTunes, if for no other reason than to save time in customer service at Apple stores.
I still fail to grasp the general anti-apple sentiment I sense here. It's just a product. If you don't like it, don't buy it. And especially, don't bitch about its "horrible keyboard" or other elements that you have yet to actually lay your bare eyes or hands on. I'm pretty sure a lot of us said that about the Mouse back in 1985.
PS. I have utterly no intention of buying one, but I'm still extremely excited about it. I'm more leaning toward the Blackberry 8300 which, incidentally, costs less than a bad week's salary.
The iPhone is not going to change the face of communications, but it already shows some serious potential to restructure the wireless industry, and perhaps I dare say, it's about time.
The US wireless market is such a strange beast that the vast majority of its users have very little clue how it works. In general, US phones are sold "subsidized" with 2 year contracts, or stripped down models sold "full price" with prepaid service. However, even the "subsidized" prices are, at many companies, not often an actual discount; very commonly, mid to high end phones are sold "at cost" (per obtainable wholesale prices) with two year contracts, and at a ridiculous markup without.
The first area in which the iPhone is revolutionary is its abandonment of this strategy. While the phone is requiring the two year contract, the subsidy concept has been removed. The single line of fine print speaks volumes. "Use requires minimum new 2 year activation plan." The use of the word "use" in place of the word "price" indicates a reversal; whether or not this is good for the consumer remains to be seen, but the fact that the pricing is not related to the contract is inherently a benefit for customer understanding. It seems (anecdotally, working at a wireless store) that most customers have little to know comprehension of the subsidy system, and often "value" a piece of phone hardware at $50 or less, based on the price they paid. With fixed pricing, there may be two direct consumer benefits: first, no more confusing hardware pricing or rebates, no conditions, nothing to mail in, no questions. Second, replace or change your phone at any time, just like a computer, ipod, or appliance, without having to wait for your service obligation to be fulfilled enough to get another discount.
Yeah, the price is higher. At the moment. The iPod was introduced at similar price; the iPod Nano 4 gb, closest in features to the original now sells for less than half the price the original was introduced with, and has better battery life, smaller size, color screen, and (in some opinions) a cleaner interface. Do we doubt that will happen with the iPhone?
Phone "subsidies" are a scourge on the US wireless industry. Perhaps they should be more like cable boxes and modems, leased and owned by the telco's, or perhaps they should be more like landline phones, merely commoditized at all but the top end. A typical house phone sells for more and has less features than a typical cell phone, as it is.
The other side of this coin, especially considering the possibility that the iPhone may be offered as a prepaid or hybrid, is that we may see this as the beginning of a new style of billing. Imagine a future in which per minute/per kilobyte bandwidth rates are lowered to a reasonable point, at the expense of all the "unlimited bundles" we sell now. Imagine if "a minute is a minute no matter what" but calls cost a penny a minute, data a dime a megabyte. It could happen, but only if the profit model of the industry changes. With Apple taking on an unprecedented hardware support role (in the standard consumer sphere; Vertu and B&O have done it before) it frees up the network/bandwidth providers to be just that. Utilities. Like water or electricity.
I'm not saying that the iPhone will bring about all this in a single fell swoop. But contract independent pricing, profitable retail prices on smartphones, consumer friendly high end hardware, and distributed support costs, could spell the start of a real revolution in this particular backward industry.
(By the way, does anyone here remember, from history, a time when power companies like Edison distributed and supported everything from the grid itself to the motors and lamps you ran on it? What broke that model?)
Ironically, AT&T is currently selling handheld video phones in the form of the LG CU500v.
The two-way video service, on the other hand, is still in a pending status.