anactofgod

As I said in the comments field of the article, in response to a VC acquaintance's post...

A "land grab" strategy implies there is a means to lock out competition, and a strategy to defend and retain the land that is grabbed. So, one has to ask, what is Groupon's retention strategy for all this wallet-share they are grabbing?

Vendors and customers who are of the mindset to avail themselves of a Groupon-like service are driven by the value of the deals. There is no inherent loyalty to the voucher provider, or automatic lock-in of mindshare. If vendors and consumers can get a better deal from someone else, they will.

So, while Groupon, LivingSocial and the rest may currently enjoy decent margins, what prevents them from being locked into a race-to-the-bottom of razor thin margins as the markets saturate? To my mind, having the largest list of emails to spam with targeted offers is not a sufficient defense against this. It just slows the attrition.

So, then the question is, if there is nothing that prevents a race-to-the-bottom, aren't the companies that maintain the highest operational efficiencies (and profitability) - not the ones that grab fastest the most of the ultimately indefensible lands - going to be the ones that prevail, in the end?

And, let's not forget, this land grab strategy is/will be failure unless Groupon can actually raise the capital required to actually stay in operations and see through to fruition.

“Market cap" represents a "perception of future performance", not an assessment of a company's "value to society”.

Investors are just expressing a sentiment that Apple - a company that has rebased its product and service offerings at least five time during its 35 years of existence, in many instances cannibalizing the incumbent cash-cow to pioneer a new business opportunity - may have better long term business prospects than ExxonMobil - a company that has an 100+ year history of providing the petroleum-based commodities that are the current basis of our civilization, but has arguably demonstrated no other competencies.

As usual, Gruber is right.

And, the Wall Street Journal turned into the Yellow Journal years ago. I wouldn't wipe a parrot's ass with it, let alone lend any credence to what's printed in it.

"Dwarf Fortress unfolds as a series of staggeringly elaborate challenges and devastating setbacks that lead, no matter how well one plays, to eventual ruin."

Soooo.... One can play this game, or one can be in charge of a real country's economic policies. Same outcome. ;)

Here is a NASA page with more info about the Sphere project... http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/spheres_smart...

From their site (http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/mission), we find that the Lexington Institute's mission is...

"The Lexington Institute believes in limiting the role of the federal government to those functions explicitly stated or implicitly defined by the Constitution. The Institute therefore actively opposes the unnecessary intrusion of the federal government into the commerce and culture of the nation, and strives to find nongovernmental, market-based solutions to public-policy challenges. We believe a dynamic private sector is the greatest engine for social progress and economic prosperity."

Thompson's article does not align with this mission.

Jobs drives towards elegant, uncluttered solutions. Much of his "vision" stems from his ability to say "No." to crappy stuff (http://blogs.forbes.com/carminegallo/2011/05/16/steve-jobs-g...).

This being the case, if I were Jobs - and if I wanted to own and operate a network - I'd want to build my own. But licenses for bandwidth are scare resources, and building a mobile network from scratch takes a long time. The most apparent way around this is to buy a carrier, as the author points out.

So, if Apple were to buy a carrier, yes, it'd be under very specific conditions. Basically, the Apple M&A team would be using a due diligence period to slice and dice the deal (and the carrier) in such a way to make sure Apple skims the cream, and is able to slough off the rest to someone else, and recuperate money off the divestiture, in the process. They would know how they were going to get this done, before they sign any contract, or there wouldn't be any deal.

The problem is, it's hard to see why another carrier would buy the legacy mobile infrastructure from Apple, w/o all the shiny new bits. Also, it's not clear that Apple would want to have to operate, manage, and upgrade a wireless network. I can't see Apple wanting to own a utility company.

So, on a different track, I think the author discounts the "soft carrier" approach too easily. In addition to saying "No." to crappy stuff, Jobs wants to enter markets where Apple can change the game. So, how would one change the game as a wireless carrier, not just as a mobile device manufacturer?

If I were Apple, I'd license spectrum from multiple carriers, depending on who has the strongest coverage in a particular geographic area.

Apple is already using the chips/antennas in the iPhones that support both the CMDA & GSM standards across all freqs. With licenses to operate AppleNet over multiple carriers, Apple would be uniquely situated to create smartphones and other mobile devices that could seamless operate over a multi-spectrum/multi-protocol virtual wireless network. Ultimately, Apple could license spectrum from multiple carriers in the same market, and have their iOS devices automagically switch from one to another without the customer noticing the handoffs. Plus, Apple can do the same in different markets, scaling AppleNet globally. Customers would have one AppleNet account, with "local" billing, regardless of where in the world they are.

Now, that would be a mobile market game changer. Again.

Of course, this multiple-licensee "soft carrier" approach to an AppleNet is probably a pipe dream, as well. The roadblock to innovation in the wireless industry, as always, are the wireless carriers. While stupid and slow, the carriers are cunning operators. They would likely see this move by Apple as being against their long-term interests, and resist Apple treating them as the utilities that they really are. Apple may be able to overcome their concerns by appealing to their short-term profit interests (a weakness of any publicly traded company), just like they did with AT&T and the original iPhone. But this time, if Apple were to make it happen, the short-term bait wouldn't be a shiney iPhone. It'd be good, old-fashioned, cold, hard CA$H monies.

I have a singular criterion: The most capable (for the 10 years, Mac) laptop that I can fit into the saddlebag of my Harley.

I don't intend to imply that security products/services will address the problems inherent to badly architected/implemented IT systems.

Just that we can expect to see an upswing in expenditures for these sorts of tack-on products/services from CIOs seeking silver-bullet assurances from those naive about their corporate infrastructures' security exposure, or blame deflection, from those savvy about the same.

In other words, it might be a good time to start a white-hat IT security audit tools/services company.

HB Gary... Sony... Fox/X-Factor... others/more to come...

Prediction: Web security products/services will be the hot ticket for the rest of 2011-2012.

Hogwarts has a new Headmaster.

LOL!

Exactly what came to my mind, as well.

Heh.

I suspect that this is happening in a less transparent way with automated commodities trading systems.

April Fools?!?

Now, I'm really angry... nerds...

"You don't actually need to know a lot of the groundwork and the basics to appreciate the exciting bits of mathematics. The more technical things are still awesome as tools and are necessary in some places. But luckily I am usually with other people who do know that stuff."

How about this not being an either/or? Anything that exposes more people to the beauty and power of the maths, and convinces some of them to more of the "technical things" is goodness, IMHO.

"He ... wrote operating systems in FORTRAN."

Now, that's talent. smile

These young whippersnapper roboticists have it so easy these days, what with their new fangled flying robots. Back in my day, we were happy if we could get our robots to walk. In the snow. Up hill. Both ways.

Actually, it's at 41:53, not 13:18.

Though the lead-in just prior (41:38), is worth hearing, too.

Is he showcasing the extent of his expertise via the design of his personal Web site? http://www.billbuxton.com/

It looks to me to be a mock-off of Jakob Nielsen's http://www.useit.com/

People have been predicting the death of console gaming for decades. Console games were supposed to have been dead in the early 1980s, replaced by the explosive growth of affordable home computers. Then Nintendo released the NES.

Everything has its place and function. Specialized gaming hardware will likely outperform general mobile platforms for years to come. I think either our friends at Rovio expressed a simplistic view of gaming, or the nuances Vesterbacka and Co. expressed were lost in translation. Or, the author of the article removed any nuance that was expressed to make his job of writing an article with a clear theme easier.

Sorry. I did understand what was being shown, even though I couldn't read the language. I was just making a joke about how the map looked like a SimCity game.

Actually, I was making two jokes, the second being how the map was out of date the instance it was published, because of how quickly a city's buildings and streets can change in China.

Still, it is very nicely done!

Hmm... is it perhaps because one may require more resources to develop and support the an app across multiple Android platforms than to do the equivalent for iOS?

Just a thought...

And... it was out of date the minute it went live...

Can't read the language. What is this? The SimCity version of China?

I made the comment at HNDC last night that "Are crowds wise? That's arguable. But it definitely moves in herds."

The value of a well executed stock "betting" game is that, since what is being wagered is of little or no value compared to an actual market position, the herd may reveal it's intentions in the game before a similar movement is noticeable in the actual market.

For this to to be true, though, two necessary, but by no means sufficient, pre-conditions need to be satisfied: a sufficiently large and well-informed herd; playing a game that maintains the proper balance of care-free (not too much at risk) -vs- care-full (enough is at risk) gameplay.

Nice, Conrad! I haven't tried to balance weasels on a rake in a while. I'm looking forward to seeing how you did it. SMILE

Yes. I am not a tax professional, but my understanding is that business entities operating in the US are required to have a business tax ID number, called an Employer Identification Number (EIN).

You may find better and more detailed answers at these links to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS)...

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/international/index.html

or

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=98350,00.h...

As for applying for an EIN, that can be accomplished online, here...

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=102767,00....

No "Tron AI" design pattern?

smile

Yup. And the GRiDPad pre-dates the MessagePad, but was also not a smartphone.

And, as the article's author point out, none anyone else had built previously sans keyboard achieved the mass market appeal that the iTouch, iPhone or iPad has.

Interesting retrospective presentation. But I have two quibbles with the stated facts. First, some pre-iPhone smartphones had touchscreens, but required a stylus to be effective. Secondly, tablets weren't being ignored pre-iPad. They just weren't being done particularly well, outside of a few industry-specific verticals.

BTW, these aren't the first instances Apple changed the design norms for the mobile industry. Anyone remember what laptops looked like before the PowerBook 100? Moving the keyboard forward towards the screen to make room for the trackball provided the rest of the laptop manufacturers the template for laptops that continues to be used to this day.

We benefit because we have room to rest our wrists between typing spells.

Lots of failures, a few epic.

No regrets.