I used Linux for my desktop for about five or six years. I got tired of the perpetual beta aspect, especially when it came to always being a step behind on new hardware integration. I learned a ton, though.
It seems that Linux's best chance to take over the desktop is Android. As tablets gradually morph into laptop equivalents, Linux may very well become a top desktop OS, only nobody will focus on the Linux part.
The only benefit I can see here is increased availability of wifi in public places could put pressure on mobile phone companies to keep their data plan pricing more attractive.
And that's a maybe.
I got a vasectomy a few years ago and I was told that there were about 20 'loads' in storage past the vas deferens. So this is not something you can switch on Friday afternoon and expect to be sterile over the weekend.
Having worked at a restaurant in the Fashion Square during college, I can only assume that when they say "hot markets" they mean "frequented by a wealthier demographic".
Not that I expect an MS store to compete with WalMart, but these first two locations seem to target flush consumers.
Flint's recovery efforts have been helped by a new state law passed a few years ago which allowed local governments to buy up empty properties very cheaply.
It doesn't say how little it costs, but it may not be much more than this. I would think it means it's cheaper for them to buy the homes and raze them than it is to continue with upkeep on roads and utilities where nobody lives.
Besides, if you completely walk away and don't even pay your property tax, the city/county can seize the land and auction it off. Or in this case, maybe hold it to sell later on when and if the region recovers.
I grew up suffering from allergies in Phoenix and I remember reading the various pollen levels in the paper every morning during spring. I could see the different types of pollen levels and decide on whether or not to take my sleep-inducing antihistamines (this was waaay before Claritin and Zyrtec were readily available).
I later read that the local pollen reporting organization was prohibited from reporting the levels of marijuana pollen in the air, even though it often jumped into the top 5. I don't think I'm allergic to bud pollen, but I felt bad for those who were.
One thing about all these discussions is everyone assumes the cap won't move. Comcast hasn't said either way, but if it doesn't then we're screwed. If it does, then no big deal. It's just a way to get people who hog bandwidth to upgrade to business class. I already know what everyone here thinks about this, but I believe there is just barely enough competition in the US broadband market to think that this will be moving in the future.
Ideally, TVs would simply support grabbing content from the internet using the service of choice.
This will happen the day that TVs go away and are replaced with convergence PCs with big screens. But that day is a long way away.
Does Netflix have any exclusive film rental deals?
Not for physical DVDs, but their online library is limited and I bet lacks some titles that are only available on the other services. The day that everything goes online, Netflix's logistics advantage for shipping DVDs disappears. Online providers need some exclusivity to maintain advantage. It's the same thing that drove HBO to start creating its own shows and movies years ago to distinguish itself from the Showtimes and Movie Channels of the world.
True, and this is the real barrier to progress. We can't have excellent services at low prices with innovative solutions when the internet connection industry is broken up into local monopolies and duopolies and regulated by corporate shills.
It's not really that surprising. In an industry with such large penetration but high barrier to entry, either you have one large player that controls everything to the detriment of the customer, or you have a lot of medium players (in this case studios, production companies, movie distributors, service providers, software companies, and ISPs) who don't trust each other and are all looking to create some advantage, all to the detriment of the customer.
A subscription service over the internet, run by people who actually care if their customers are happy and competing on price and quality with similar services would revolutionize television watching for many americans.
AppleTV, then, but with a fixed monthly cost instead of individual product purchases? For a subscription service to succeed it has to have something its competitors don't, which means unique content. This means customers will have to use multiple services to get at everything they want. Which means multiple subscription fees. Which adds up and eventually you're missing out on something because you can't pony up all the fees.
Plus, these services will have to deal with entrenched national oligopolists known as the movie studios. The service's commitment to customer service will only be able to go so far.
OnDemand does this now. You pay the cable provider for HBO, and you get to watch whatever they make available each month. Any reason to think this can't be expanded on a larger scale?
I don't buy that many DVDs. Owning a movie isn't as important to me as being able to watch something worthwhile where I control the time frame. DVR, OnDemand, and PPV all provide this at a reasonable cost. I don't understand the need to own copies of everything, and the thought of paying more than $5 for something that only exists on my hard drive isn't that appealing. Hardware failures and DRM obsolescence issues make that too unattractive. So few movies are good enough to keep around forever (or at least as long as the format is usable). Almost all my DVD purchases are for TV series, where the cost/benefit ratio seems more reasonable and I can watch things in the order they were originally released.
The watch-stuff-interrupted-by-advertising model isn't so evil provided the signal-to-ad ratio is acceptable, but the DVR is making it hard for the advertisers to feel like they're getting their money's worth. Although I have noticed that more ads seem to be noticeable when fast-forwarding through some show. Are they actively trying to be recognizable at higher speeds, or am I only noticing this on nights where I had more than one beer with dinner?
They are interesting numbers considering the phenomenon of karoshi, which, AFAIK, is unique to Japan.
There is also a study about the growth of mental health problems in the workplace and the increased use of prolonged employee leaves.
So maybe it's not just the hours, but how intense those hours are.
It would also be interesting to know how the numbers were calculated and if they measure work times based on tools like Blackberry usage and VPNs, two things that "help" me work more hours than just those when I'm in the office. I couldn't find the report gaebler referenced. Quick googling didn't show it and the search function at JPC-SED is broken.
The Japanese do have universal health care, but compared to Americans they don't work fewer hours or get more vacation time. But the public transport sure is better.
Does being able to do whatever they like extend as far as changing the order in which competitors finish races ?
Perhaps there is a legal argument that deceitful editing to boost ratings and thus advertising income constitutes a fraud.
LOL! Then you're going to have to prosecute every documentary film maker ever for not showing events in the order they shot them. truesaer was right in his comment above. The opening ceremony show wasn't news. It was entertainment. Comparing the order of countries entering the ceremony with the order competitors finish in a race is a very entertaining leap of logic. Park your hysteria at the door.
Exactly. It was tape-delayed. They can do whatever the hell they want. They always have with stuff like this. Why is it a big deal? Did someone lose money on the order the countries entered the stadium? Let it go people.
In other words, it's essential to avoid free market capitalism?
Yes, that's their goal. You said it yourself:
you just don't presently have a great amount of choice in what you pay.
Mobile phone companies limit consumer choice with phone subsidies, control of phone distribution, phone locking, keeping unlocked phones off of networks, etc. Without these things, the service is just a commodity. They'd be like ISPs but without the limitation of having to run wires around your neighborhood. Then they lose any marketable advantages like unique phones, special services on their locked networks, no charges to call your friends, etc. When you're selling a service and you're not vertically integrated, the last thing you want to be is just the transport mechanism. Everything may depend on you, but you're not going to be the killer app and you can't shine in any way. Customers are only going to notice you when you don't work. When you're doing well, you're just taken for granted.
No contracts, any phone you want. Compete on bandwidth * (latency)^-1/dollar. That's how competition happens and it's the best system so far. Like democracy, it's broken, but less broken than other things.
And it works in the beginning, but then the carriers have to complete solely on price, and then suddenly you're left with one or two players who survive the bloodbath. And then they have no competition and prices rise for no real reason. And then everybody screams for regulation.
Even without the $$$ lock-in, there is an implicit switching cost to changing carriers, consisting of the search-and-compare cost + time spent making the actual change.
I think for a lot of people the act of changing is on an impulse, for the reasons you describe below.
I suspect that the primary motive to jump carriers is to get a free new phone as it's presently fashion-forward to have the latest handheld
Agreed. It's like auto leasing. It's a subsidy that allows a buyer to purchase something they otherwise wouldn't normally be able to afford, by letting them focus on the monthly cost instead of the actual cost.
I'm suggesting they spend some money on retention rather than spending most of it on attempts to snipe from other carriers. This is the basis of the downward spiral to price-based differentiation.
Barriers are far more effective than incentives. Especially an incentive that isn't any good until the contract is about to expire and comes and goes without notice. I bought a phone on the TMobile upgrade special you mentioned once. It was a pretty good deal but I had to pick a new contract that cost more. It was essentially identical to the cost of moving to a different company. I liked TMobile, so I stayed, but if I hadn't there wasn't enough there to keep me.
America is also in the unusual situation of having two incompatible networks. The majority of US mobile phone customers are on CDMA, while only TMobile and AT&T are GSM. Even if you wanted to switch, the tech limits the choices.
Thanks. I actually got the phone for free (company xmas party prize), so I figured what the hell. Call quality is definitely poorer compared to my PEBL on TMobile, but I haven't figured out if its the phone or the network. Email and web browsing is the best, though. Maybe by the time the contract runs out I'll be able to go back to TMobile with an Android phone.
Better customer service for a commodity purchase isn't usually enough of a differentiator for the average American consumer. Most of us don't even care about quality over price (WalMart!). Nextel used to push the business angle but ever since they got absorbed by Sprint you don't see those ads anymore.
Only Verizon really pushes quality in their advertising, and they're really talking more about call quality than customer support.
Most US phone providers focus on specific price reductions (Alltel's ads about calling your friends and TMobile's Fave5 or whatever it's called) or hardware exclusivity (iPhone on AT&T or Sidekicks on TMobile, and the Samsung clone on one of the CDMA networks).
So as much as I would like to see better service from mobile phone companies, I don't see them making the effort and then promoting it and expecting to get results.
I don't know about Asia, but I know in the UK all providers offer free phones for 18-24 month contracts. Termination fees are prorated, in that you have to pay for the remaining months on the contract. If you get cold feet early on, this is a helluva lot more than the $200 you have to pay Sprint today.
The primary difference is that it's much easier to buy any old (or new) phone and buy a sim on any provider. The networks aren't anywhere near as locked down as they are here.
Prorated termination costs seem reasonable, especially given the subsidies on the hardware. I was surprised to see that Sprint is the only company that doesn't prorate. I figured the wireless companies would avoid any change that makes it easier for customers to change providers. When selling a commodity it's essential to avoid the profit-killing, competing-on-price, race to the bottom.
This will be appealed, so I don't see anything changing in the short term. The figures on the $55 million in uncollected fees is impressive. It would be interesting to know how much of that would be profit after subtracting the depreciated cost of subsidized hardware.
The disappearance of the 1-year contract bugs me, but at least it's easier to move up and down in rate plans once you've signed up.
And yes, it would be nice to have the option to buy unlocked phones from any vendor and use them with any provider, but I'd bet that less than a quarter of the customer base would make use of this on a regular basis. TMobile comes closest to supporting this now, but I left them when I got an IPhone and really do miss dealing with them. Their customer service web site is far superior to AT&T's.
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I used Linux for my desktop for about five or six years. I got tired of the perpetual beta aspect, especially when it came to always being a step behind on new hardware integration. I learned a ton, though. It seems that Linux's best chance to take over the desktop is Android. As tablets gradually morph into laptop equivalents, Linux may very well become a top desktop OS, only nobody will focus on the Linux part.
The only benefit I can see here is increased availability of wifi in public places could put pressure on mobile phone companies to keep their data plan pricing more attractive. And that's a maybe.
I got a vasectomy a few years ago and I was told that there were about 20 'loads' in storage past the vas deferens. So this is not something you can switch on Friday afternoon and expect to be sterile over the weekend.
Agreed. Episodes 1-3 sucked. With Pixar's influence on future films possible, this is good news.
Only when you have multiple iPads in a Beowulf cluster.
Not that I expect an MS store to compete with WalMart, but these first two locations seem to target flush consumers.
From TFA:
Flint's recovery efforts have been helped by a new state law passed a few years ago which allowed local governments to buy up empty properties very cheaply.
It doesn't say how little it costs, but it may not be much more than this. I would think it means it's cheaper for them to buy the homes and raze them than it is to continue with upkeep on roads and utilities where nobody lives.
Besides, if you completely walk away and don't even pay your property tax, the city/county can seize the land and auction it off. Or in this case, maybe hold it to sell later on when and if the region recovers.
I grew up suffering from allergies in Phoenix and I remember reading the various pollen levels in the paper every morning during spring. I could see the different types of pollen levels and decide on whether or not to take my sleep-inducing antihistamines (this was waaay before Claritin and Zyrtec were readily available).
I later read that the local pollen reporting organization was prohibited from reporting the levels of marijuana pollen in the air, even though it often jumped into the top 5. I don't think I'm allergic to bud pollen, but I felt bad for those who were.
The catch: you'll need to peel your tape in a vacuum
I've been practicing this for years. I knew it would come in handy some day.
One thing about all these discussions is everyone assumes the cap won't move. Comcast hasn't said either way, but if it doesn't then we're screwed. If it does, then no big deal. It's just a way to get people who hog bandwidth to upgrade to business class. I already know what everyone here thinks about this, but I believe there is just barely enough competition in the US broadband market to think that this will be moving in the future.
If it works on TMobile, it's GSM.
Ideally, TVs would simply support grabbing content from the internet using the service of choice.
This will happen the day that TVs go away and are replaced with convergence PCs with big screens. But that day is a long way away.
Does Netflix have any exclusive film rental deals?
Not for physical DVDs, but their online library is limited and I bet lacks some titles that are only available on the other services. The day that everything goes online, Netflix's logistics advantage for shipping DVDs disappears. Online providers need some exclusivity to maintain advantage. It's the same thing that drove HBO to start creating its own shows and movies years ago to distinguish itself from the Showtimes and Movie Channels of the world.
True, and this is the real barrier to progress. We can't have excellent services at low prices with innovative solutions when the internet connection industry is broken up into local monopolies and duopolies and regulated by corporate shills.
It's not really that surprising. In an industry with such large penetration but high barrier to entry, either you have one large player that controls everything to the detriment of the customer, or you have a lot of medium players (in this case studios, production companies, movie distributors, service providers, software companies, and ISPs) who don't trust each other and are all looking to create some advantage, all to the detriment of the customer.
A subscription service over the internet, run by people who actually care if their customers are happy and competing on price and quality with similar services would revolutionize television watching for many americans.
AppleTV, then, but with a fixed monthly cost instead of individual product purchases? For a subscription service to succeed it has to have something its competitors don't, which means unique content. This means customers will have to use multiple services to get at everything they want. Which means multiple subscription fees. Which adds up and eventually you're missing out on something because you can't pony up all the fees.
Plus, these services will have to deal with entrenched national oligopolists known as the movie studios. The service's commitment to customer service will only be able to go so far.
OnDemand does this now. You pay the cable provider for HBO, and you get to watch whatever they make available each month. Any reason to think this can't be expanded on a larger scale?
I don't buy that many DVDs. Owning a movie isn't as important to me as being able to watch something worthwhile where I control the time frame. DVR, OnDemand, and PPV all provide this at a reasonable cost. I don't understand the need to own copies of everything, and the thought of paying more than $5 for something that only exists on my hard drive isn't that appealing. Hardware failures and DRM obsolescence issues make that too unattractive. So few movies are good enough to keep around forever (or at least as long as the format is usable). Almost all my DVD purchases are for TV series, where the cost/benefit ratio seems more reasonable and I can watch things in the order they were originally released.
The watch-stuff-interrupted-by-advertising model isn't so evil provided the signal-to-ad ratio is acceptable, but the DVR is making it hard for the advertisers to feel like they're getting their money's worth. Although I have noticed that more ads seem to be noticeable when fast-forwarding through some show. Are they actively trying to be recognizable at higher speeds, or am I only noticing this on nights where I had more than one beer with dinner?
They are interesting numbers considering the phenomenon of karoshi, which, AFAIK, is unique to Japan.
There is also a study about the growth of mental health problems in the workplace and the increased use of prolonged employee leaves.
So maybe it's not just the hours, but how intense those hours are.
It would also be interesting to know how the numbers were calculated and if they measure work times based on tools like Blackberry usage and VPNs, two things that "help" me work more hours than just those when I'm in the office. I couldn't find the report gaebler referenced. Quick googling didn't show it and the search function at JPC-SED is broken.
The Japanese do have universal health care, but compared to Americans they don't work fewer hours or get more vacation time. But the public transport sure is better.
Does being able to do whatever they like extend as far as changing the order in which competitors finish races ? Perhaps there is a legal argument that deceitful editing to boost ratings and thus advertising income constitutes a fraud.
LOL! Then you're going to have to prosecute every documentary film maker ever for not showing events in the order they shot them. truesaer was right in his comment above. The opening ceremony show wasn't news. It was entertainment. Comparing the order of countries entering the ceremony with the order competitors finish in a race is a very entertaining leap of logic. Park your hysteria at the door.
Exactly. It was tape-delayed. They can do whatever the hell they want. They always have with stuff like this. Why is it a big deal? Did someone lose money on the order the countries entered the stadium? Let it go people.
In other words, it's essential to avoid free market capitalism?
Yes, that's their goal. You said it yourself:
you just don't presently have a great amount of choice in what you pay.
Mobile phone companies limit consumer choice with phone subsidies, control of phone distribution, phone locking, keeping unlocked phones off of networks, etc. Without these things, the service is just a commodity. They'd be like ISPs but without the limitation of having to run wires around your neighborhood. Then they lose any marketable advantages like unique phones, special services on their locked networks, no charges to call your friends, etc. When you're selling a service and you're not vertically integrated, the last thing you want to be is just the transport mechanism. Everything may depend on you, but you're not going to be the killer app and you can't shine in any way. Customers are only going to notice you when you don't work. When you're doing well, you're just taken for granted.
No contracts, any phone you want. Compete on bandwidth * (latency)^-1 /dollar. That's how competition happens and it's the best system so far. Like democracy, it's broken, but less broken than other things.
And it works in the beginning, but then the carriers have to complete solely on price, and then suddenly you're left with one or two players who survive the bloodbath. And then they have no competition and prices rise for no real reason. And then everybody screams for regulation.
Even without the $$$ lock-in, there is an implicit switching cost to changing carriers, consisting of the search-and-compare cost + time spent making the actual change.
I think for a lot of people the act of changing is on an impulse, for the reasons you describe below.
I suspect that the primary motive to jump carriers is to get a free new phone as it's presently fashion-forward to have the latest handheld
Agreed. It's like auto leasing. It's a subsidy that allows a buyer to purchase something they otherwise wouldn't normally be able to afford, by letting them focus on the monthly cost instead of the actual cost.
I'm suggesting they spend some money on retention rather than spending most of it on attempts to snipe from other carriers. This is the basis of the downward spiral to price-based differentiation.
Barriers are far more effective than incentives. Especially an incentive that isn't any good until the contract is about to expire and comes and goes without notice. I bought a phone on the TMobile upgrade special you mentioned once. It was a pretty good deal but I had to pick a new contract that cost more. It was essentially identical to the cost of moving to a different company. I liked TMobile, so I stayed, but if I hadn't there wasn't enough there to keep me.
America is also in the unusual situation of having two incompatible networks. The majority of US mobile phone customers are on CDMA, while only TMobile and AT&T are GSM. Even if you wanted to switch, the tech limits the choices.
Thanks. I actually got the phone for free (company xmas party prize), so I figured what the hell. Call quality is definitely poorer compared to my PEBL on TMobile, but I haven't figured out if its the phone or the network. Email and web browsing is the best, though. Maybe by the time the contract runs out I'll be able to go back to TMobile with an Android phone.
Better customer service for a commodity purchase isn't usually enough of a differentiator for the average American consumer. Most of us don't even care about quality over price (WalMart!). Nextel used to push the business angle but ever since they got absorbed by Sprint you don't see those ads anymore.
Only Verizon really pushes quality in their advertising, and they're really talking more about call quality than customer support.
Most US phone providers focus on specific price reductions (Alltel's ads about calling your friends and TMobile's Fave5 or whatever it's called) or hardware exclusivity (iPhone on AT&T or Sidekicks on TMobile, and the Samsung clone on one of the CDMA networks).
So as much as I would like to see better service from mobile phone companies, I don't see them making the effort and then promoting it and expecting to get results.
I don't know about Asia, but I know in the UK all providers offer free phones for 18-24 month contracts. Termination fees are prorated, in that you have to pay for the remaining months on the contract. If you get cold feet early on, this is a helluva lot more than the $200 you have to pay Sprint today.
The primary difference is that it's much easier to buy any old (or new) phone and buy a sim on any provider. The networks aren't anywhere near as locked down as they are here.
Prorated termination costs seem reasonable, especially given the subsidies on the hardware. I was surprised to see that Sprint is the only company that doesn't prorate. I figured the wireless companies would avoid any change that makes it easier for customers to change providers. When selling a commodity it's essential to avoid the profit-killing, competing-on-price, race to the bottom.
This will be appealed, so I don't see anything changing in the short term. The figures on the $55 million in uncollected fees is impressive. It would be interesting to know how much of that would be profit after subtracting the depreciated cost of subsidized hardware.
The disappearance of the 1-year contract bugs me, but at least it's easier to move up and down in rate plans once you've signed up.
And yes, it would be nice to have the option to buy unlocked phones from any vendor and use them with any provider, but I'd bet that less than a quarter of the customer base would make use of this on a regular basis. TMobile comes closest to supporting this now, but I left them when I got an IPhone and really do miss dealing with them. Their customer service web site is far superior to AT&T's.