Based on the comments I've read in response to this post I have gathered up several generalizations about this group:
1. You've never owned your own business 2. You've never taken a class on business or competitive business practices 3. You believe competition is standing by and letting your friendly competitor take away your market share.
In a competitive capitalistic business environment your goal is to constantly increase your profits. Because of inflation, just maintaining regular customers will achieve this goal however this is not enough. Businesses always want to grow infinitely and so they will strategically accumulate resources (be it money, securities, other businesses, raw material sources) to make this infinite growth possible. If I own a plumbing outfit that is growing rather large in size, I may one day decide to buy out a local plumbing supply warehouse. This guarantees me lower prices on the parts used for installation thus I can charge the same price to my customers and make even more money. On top of it, I now have all the purchasing data for every competitor in my area. Does this make me an evil company? No, if anything it shows the brains behind the operation by expanding your business into relevant markets as a way to increase profits while enhancing your original outfit.
For whatever reason when Microsoft expands into relevant markets everyone gets into an uproar. Suppose you are a well-off computer application development corporation and Microsoft shows up one day offering you $500 million. The book value of your coporation (plus goodwill) is valued at around $300 million with industry average earnings. Your forecasts predict your corporation will hit a value of $500 million in a minimum of 5 years. What do you think your board of directors is going to do? They're going to sell out since you'll probably get 166% of the share value per share. For Microsoft, they can offer deals noone can refuse because they have the capital to do so. For these companies, the wisest choice is to sell the company and collect the money.
Addressing the 'quality' of products back when Microsoft & Apple were close competitors, why is it that Microsoft thrived? Gee, maybe because they targetted a market that actually had money to spend: the corporate market. Sure, Apple had easy to use products and an intuitive GUI but they went after the educational market. And on top of it corporations shied away from cutesy little boxes in favor of IBM's more mature (and boring) looking alternatives.
I'm not saying that Microsoft isn't a fun company to rag on but don't hate on them just because they're not afraid to run a business and do what it takes to be number one.
If your house is electric only, you receive your electricity at a discounted price since all the appliances in your house only use electricity. However, if you have natural gas in your house the price of your electricity is marginally higher than houses without natural gas.
Why the discount, you ask? Because you are _solely dependent_ on one provider for your energy needs. If you're not solely dependent on the electric company, why should they give you any perks? For some reason nobody wants to sue their electric provider...
When I was forced to learn typing in the fourth grade we taped a piece of paper to the top of the keyboard so it covered the keys. Yes, you could cheat and flip up the paper as needed but for the most part it was a good solution, even for grade-schoolers.
Re:Americans need a serious wake up call
on
Our Ratings, Ourselves
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Actually, I used to make the exact same comments about the exact same refrigerators until a (not so close) friend moved to Korea. Apparently the living space in the majority of apartments there is excruciatingly small, thus they learned to combine appliances to reduce wasted space.
Inevitably an international company is going to inject new products into a foreign market with the hope that the recipient country will be as receptive as the domestic market.
This was a well formed post, shooting information onto the internet that probably 95% of viewers would have taken as solemn truth without so much as a peep. Just a few questions regarding your information:
"Hopefully, politics be damned, he will show that schools which teach abstinence-only sexual education have significantly higher rates of teenage pregnancy than districts with real sexual education courses" What source did you get this information from? What is defined as 'real sexual education courses'?
"Or even that 50% of high school students are already sexually active" What source did you get this information from?
"Of course, it might be stepping over the line to point out that the bible belt has the highest rates of teenage pregnancy, higher than the hedonistic blue states" What source did you get this information from?
While I respect almost anyone's comments don't be so hasty to bash the religious yet neglect the "scientific superiority" of cited sources. The well known and well-cited 'they' always come back to haunt you.
If Google and the Mozilla foundation are in bed together, why does the Google Desktop Search product support IE exclusively? If the Mozilla Foundation (or even Google) wanted to move users over to FireFox, they need to have guaranteed compatibility on most (if not all) applications.
And while I wouldn't call Google Desktop Search a 'vital' application for the majority of casual web users, it's a given that many core users switched to a competitor's Desktop Search product (read Copernic) when migrating to FireFox.
Slashdot Mirror
Based on the comments I've read in response to this post I have gathered up several generalizations about this group:
1. You've never owned your own business
2. You've never taken a class on business or competitive business practices
3. You believe competition is standing by and letting your friendly competitor take away your market share.
In a competitive capitalistic business environment your goal is to constantly increase your profits. Because of inflation, just maintaining regular customers will achieve this goal however this is not enough. Businesses always want to grow infinitely and so they will strategically accumulate resources (be it money, securities, other businesses, raw material sources) to make this infinite growth possible. If I own a plumbing outfit that is growing rather large in size, I may one day decide to buy out a local plumbing supply warehouse. This guarantees me lower prices on the parts used for installation thus I can charge the same price to my customers and make even more money. On top of it, I now have all the purchasing data for every competitor in my area. Does this make me an evil company? No, if anything it shows the brains behind the operation by expanding your business into relevant markets as a way to increase profits while enhancing your original outfit.
For whatever reason when Microsoft expands into relevant markets everyone gets into an uproar. Suppose you are a well-off computer application development corporation and Microsoft shows up one day offering you $500 million. The book value of your coporation (plus goodwill) is valued at around $300 million with industry average earnings. Your forecasts predict your corporation will hit a value of $500 million in a minimum of 5 years. What do you think your board of directors is going to do? They're going to sell out since you'll probably get 166% of the share value per share. For Microsoft, they can offer deals noone can refuse because they have the capital to do so. For these companies, the wisest choice is to sell the company and collect the money.
Addressing the 'quality' of products back when Microsoft & Apple were close competitors, why is it that Microsoft thrived? Gee, maybe because they targetted a market that actually had money to spend: the corporate market. Sure, Apple had easy to use products and an intuitive GUI but they went after the educational market. And on top of it corporations shied away from cutesy little boxes in favor of IBM's more mature (and boring) looking alternatives.
I'm not saying that Microsoft isn't a fun company to rag on but don't hate on them just because they're not afraid to run a business and do what it takes to be number one.
Peter: "Brian, look, there's a message in my Alphabets. It says 'Ooooooooooooooh'"
Brian: "Peter, those are Cheerios"
the electric and gas company.
If your house is electric only, you receive your electricity at a discounted price since all the appliances in your house only use electricity. However, if you have natural gas in your house the price of your electricity is marginally higher than houses without natural gas.
Why the discount, you ask? Because you are _solely dependent_ on one provider for your energy needs. If you're not solely dependent on the electric company, why should they give you any perks? For some reason nobody wants to sue their electric provider...
When I was forced to learn typing in the fourth grade we taped a piece of paper to the top of the keyboard so it covered the keys. Yes, you could cheat and flip up the paper as needed but for the most part it was a good solution, even for grade-schoolers.
Actually, I used to make the exact same comments about the exact same refrigerators until a (not so close) friend moved to Korea. Apparently the living space in the majority of apartments there is excruciatingly small, thus they learned to combine appliances to reduce wasted space.
Inevitably an international company is going to inject new products into a foreign market with the hope that the recipient country will be as receptive as the domestic market.
This was a well formed post, shooting information onto the internet that probably 95% of viewers would have taken as solemn truth without so much as a peep. Just a few questions regarding your information:
"Hopefully, politics be damned, he will show that schools which teach abstinence-only sexual education have significantly higher rates of teenage pregnancy than districts with real sexual education courses"
What source did you get this information from?
What is defined as 'real sexual education courses'?
"Or even that 50% of high school students are already sexually active"
What source did you get this information from?
"Of course, it might be stepping over the line to point out that the bible belt has the highest rates of teenage pregnancy, higher than the hedonistic blue states"
What source did you get this information from?
While I respect almost anyone's comments don't be so hasty to bash the religious yet neglect the "scientific superiority" of cited sources. The well known and well-cited 'they' always come back to haunt you.
If Google and the Mozilla foundation are in bed together, why does the Google Desktop Search product support IE exclusively? If the Mozilla Foundation (or even Google) wanted to move users over to FireFox, they need to have guaranteed compatibility on most (if not all) applications.
And while I wouldn't call Google Desktop Search a 'vital' application for the majority of casual web users, it's a given that many core users switched to a competitor's Desktop Search product (read Copernic) when migrating to FireFox.