“The Vine that Ate the South” (source: WolfeReports)
When is a “green shoot” not a “green shoot”? When it’s kudzu…
In yesterday’s New York Times, Andrew Ross Sorkin reports on two recent corporate mergers– Abbott’s purchase of a Solvay unit and Xerox’s absorption of ACS, each valued at over $6 Billion. Good times are back, he suggests.
… taken in the context of what has been a merger drought — in the wake of the financial crisis, deal-making is still off by more than 50 percent from last year — the transactions suggest that the most senior ranks of corporate America may now have a more optimistic outlook on the economy than some people thought.
“Will you see us move with a lot of acquisitions over this next year? You betcha,” John Chambers, the chief executive of Cisco Systems, said in a recent meeting. “Especially if it plays out economically the way that I think.”
In fact, as noted here before, M&A activity has already run hot and heavy in the financial services arena, not despite, but because of the economic crisis and the bailout. TARP and related funds, ostensibly meant to loosen credit for consumers and commerce, has instead been largely used to fund investments on the receiving banks’ own accounts– to help the favored “too large to fail” banks buy up competition and expand their market shares. (See the illustration here for a graphic– pun intended– depiction of your tax dollars at work.)
Now, Sorkin suggests, the imperial expansion moves to other arenas.
The greatest concentration of deal-making appears to be in the health care and technology sectors. Warner Chilcott made a $3.1 billion deal for Procter & Gamble’s drug business last month, for example, and Dell bought Perot Systems, a technology services company, for $3.9 billion. But deals are also being made in other sectors, like food; Kraft’s $16.7 billion unsolicited bid for Cadbury, which was rejected but remains a possibility, is the largest outstanding offer to date.
“If you’re healthy, it’s a great time to acquire inexpensively,” adds Ted Rouse, a head of Bain & Company’s global mergers and acquisitions practice. “But it’s an awful time for two weak companies to merge.”
The experience of the last several decades has trained us to see increased M&A activity as a sign of economic strength. And indeed, when the economy is fertile– when every company that disappears via acquisition is replaced by two or three new start-ups with world-beating plans, it probably is a sign of economic health.
But when the companies that are swallowed up are not replaced– because funding/credit isn’t available or because IP laws are too restrictive or because oligopolists’ channel power freezes new players out or… well, you get the picture– the prognosis is not so rosy. At best, we get a return to the “gray flannel suit” 50s; at worst, a decline into the turbidity of the 30s.
As suggested in “Beware the Land of the Giants…“:
When oligopolies emerge, they do all they can to retard competition and innovation; it’s their self-interest. But in a growing economy, their impact is measured in “decreases in the rate of growth,” “slowing rates of innovation.” On balance, things are still trending up. And to the extent that new entrants succeed, that innovation trumps defensiveness, the oligopolies fade.
But when oligopolies form by default in troubled times, their self-protection can salt the earth around them, can make it hard-to-impossible for ferment– for start-ups or disruptive innovation– to take root… and it’s from those seeds that strong growth in a recovering economy can emerge.
We have a huge stake in making sure that the more concentrated economy with which we’ll emerge from this downturn is as “un-oligopolistic”– as free and open– as we can make it.
The problem is that it can be very hard to tell one kind of M&A activity from the other while in the midst of the deal stream. A slide into oligopoly can feel, as it’s unfolding, just like the good old days of the 90s– one exciting deal after another– until it’s too late to do anything about it. And when so many of the parties to the transactions are paid– and richly paid– on the transactions, as opposed to the longer term outcomes of the deals (much less their utility to the economy as a whole), there is, to put it politely, no incentive for the actors to pause to consider.
But pause we should. Vulnerable as we are in what may or may not yet be the trough of economic decline, We can ill afford an implosion of competition that resolves into a tar-baby of oligopolies.
I am really glad to hear that Dell has officially released wireless charging for laptops. Granted, the laptop cost $2000, but it does have some other amazing advances (a camera that can scan) along with other advances. The laptop is also very light, sleek, and pretty powerful. For this blog though, I’m going to focus on the advancement of putting out wireless charging into the public domain.
I think in about 2-3 years this wireless charging will be standard on all laptops. This really excites me, because I personally HATE having to plug in my computer every night to charge it. Also, it’s my guess that the charging won’t overcharge the computer if it’s in the area of the wireless charger for too long. I have had this problem, running a couple of batteries through the ground by having to charge overnight, and if my computer is on and it’s overcharging, the heat gets pretty ridiculous underneath (I have a hole in a sheet to prove what a laptop left charging and on overnight can do to a batteries heat).
Anyways, I’d just like to give Dell the thumbs up on this one. If I wasn’t a Mac user, I’d be extremely interested in buying the new laptop. Hopefully Apple will imply the technology soon enough so that Mac users can enjoy the freedom of not having to use a cord to keep their laptops alive.
(Originally published in Small Business Computing, September 25, 2009)
Technology insiders tend to throw around technical terms and business jargon, assuming people outside the industry understand what it all means. By its nature, technology vocabulary is often confusing and complicated, and insiders often add to the confusion by over-complicating things. To help add a sense of clarity to the confusion, each month, Laurie McCabe, a partner at Hurwitz & Associates (a business consulting firm), will pick a technology term, explain what it means in plain English, and then discuss why it may be important to you. This month, Laurie takes a look at managed services.
What are Managed Services?
Managed services let you offload specific IT operations to a service provider, known in tech parlance as a Managed Services Provider. The managed service provider assumes ongoing responsibility for monitoring, managing and/or problem resolution for selected IT systems and functions on your behalf.
Managed services providers can offer services such as alerts, security, patch management, data backup and recovery for different client devices: desktops, notebooks, servers, storage systems, networks and applications. Offloading routine infrastructure management to an experienced managed services professional lets you concentrate on running your business, with fewer interruptions due to IT issues.
Managed services providers usually price their services on a subscription basis. Depending on the services they provide, pricing is usually based on the number of devices, with different packages priced at different levels. Some provide customer support onsite when required. Basic services often start with a monitoring service, which notifies you of problems, which you resolve on your own. At the upper end of the spectrum, service providers offer fully managed services that cover everything from alerts through problem resolution.
Typically they perform an initial assessment of your current IT environment and management requirements to help you decide what services and service levels you need.
Why Should You Care?
Just like larger companies, small businesses need technology to operate efficiently and to compete effectively. But as reliance on IT grows, the resources to support an increasingly complex IT environment may not. In many small businesses, IT resources are scarce, and can be quickly overwhelmed with the day-to-day responsibilities of keeping the IT infrastructure that the business depends on up and running.
If you fall behind in keeping up with things such as backups, patches and security, the odds are that you’ll face an IT outage or another problem down the road that will negatively impact your business. For instance, if your e-mail server, customer relationship management system, financial application or network goes down unexpectedly, you face substantial productivity and revenue losses as a result.
MSPs act as an extension of your IT department, taking care of routine IT infrastructure monitoring and management around the clock—freeing up your IT staff to focus on higher-value projects. By proactively monitoring and maintaining your systems, an MSP can help you avoid many technology problems in the first place. Should an issue occur, an experienced MSP can troubleshoot and resolve it more efficiently.
Unlike traditional outsourcing situations, where you surrender complete control of your IT assets, you decide what you want the service provider to take care of, and what you want to handle. You retain full visibility into the process and management of your systems. In addition, the MSP subscription model gives you more expense predictability than a consultant-type time and billing model.
What to Consider
MSPs offer a wide range of different services. Many focus on managing specific areas and functions, such as storage and related management services, or desktop management and help desk services. Some provide management services for server hardware, operating systems and middleware, but limited support for applications such as e-mail. Many provide onsite services as required, but may have limited regional or local coverage areas.
If you are looking for more comprehensive services, including alerts, monitoring and management services for a wide range of client, network, servers and applications, Dell offers ProManage-Managed Services for SMBs. The service offers small businesses a choice of service levels, priced on a per-device, per-month basis. Most services are provided remotely, but Dell and its channel partners supply onsite service when required.
With so many different types of MSPs and offerings, the MSP label can be a confusing one. So, when considering managed services, think first about your requirements. How satisfied you are with the level and quality of support that you have today? Where are the gaps, pain points and inefficiencies in IT infrastructure management? How do downtime, outages and other problems impact your business?
With these requirements top of mind, evaluate MSPs that map to your IT, business and budget requirements and provide a flexible, proactive approach that can adapt with you as your needs evolve.
We see this as a good sign for the investment community, the willingness to invest and seek opportunity is a very good indicator that the VC industry is warming up. As M&A serves as an option to IPO, this deal and a score of other show that there is light in the end of this downturn tunnel. This article is by way of The Day.
“Dell Inc. will spend $3.9 billion for the technology services company Perot Systems Corp. in an attempt to expand beyond the PC business and compete more aggressively with Hewlett-Packard Co., which recently bought another tech-services company founded by H. Ross Perot.Dell said Monday it will offer $30 per share in cash for Perot Systems – a 68 percent premium over its closing price Friday.
Former presidential candidate H. Ross Perot Sr., now 79, serves as chairman emeritus of Perot Systems, which he founded in 1988. According to an April regulatory filing, Perot and related trusts controlled at least 25 percent of the company’s stock, though it was not clear who is the beneficiary of those shares. The company did not respond to a request for comment on Perot’s stake.
Perot had already made a fortune from founding Electronic Data Systems Corp. in 1962 and selling the company to General Motors Corp. in a 1984 deal worth $2.5 billion. Hewlett-Packard bought EDS last year for $13.9 billion as it, too, tried to augment its services offerings and diversify beyond hardware.
In a conference call with analysts, Dell’s founder and CEO, Michael Dell, said Perot Systems will serve as an “anchor” acquisition for a global information-technology services business.
Plano, Texas-based Perot Systems would bring Dell more than 1,000 customers in several sectors, including the U.S. military and the Department of Homeland Security. About 48 percent of its revenue comes from the health care industry and 25 percent from government. Last year Perot Systems earned $117 million on sales of $2.8 billion.
Dell’s services business is more basic than those of its larger competitors; Perot Systems would add more lucrative consulting and systems-integration services to Dell’s lineup.
”This would, at least from a product standpoint, put them definitely more competitive with HP and IBM,” said Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu. “It’s a step in the right direction.”
Enjoy cinema-quality full 1080p HD resolution from your PC with the stylishly designed 22-inch Dell S2209W LCD widescreen monitor, enabling you to watch movies at the resolution the filmmakers intended, or play games and view multimedia with rich, vibrant colors and unbelievable detail. The 22-inch screen (21.5-inch viewable) features a full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution, 16:9 aspect ratio, and lightning-fast 5ms response time for seamless, fluid, fast-action video. It has inputs for analog VGA and digital DVI video connections–with the DVI-D offering HDCP support for playback of protected high-definition content–and it comes with a stand that tilts for getting the optimal viewing angle. This monitor is Energy Star 4.0 certified, and has received a Silver EPEAT designation for meeting standards to help reduce its environmental impact.
The 22-inch Dell S2209W full 1080p HD monitor.
Features
1920 x 1080 resolution and a 16:9 aspect ratio combine to create simply gorgeous results. Now you can watch HD movies on your PC and get the full cinematic experience.
DVI-D with HDCP lets you view protected high-definition multimedia content from Blu-ray Disc drives on desktops and notebooks.
The fast 5ms (millisecond) response time delivers crisp, clear images during fast-action video, making the S2209W an ideal solution for serious gamers, video editors, or anyone who appreciates fluid, high-definition content.
300 cd/m2 brightness allows you to see the high-quality resolution in well-lit rooms and areas with lots of sunlight.
A high contrast ratio of 1000:1 serves up vibrant blacks and rich, saturated colors.
The sleek, glossy frame matches the Dell Inspiron systems and works beautifully with most household decor.
A quick-detach stand and optional wall mount permits easy wall mounting.
The tilt-adjustable panel lets you position the screen to your preferred, most comfortable viewing angle.
The optional Dell AX510PA multimedia soundbar provides dynamic stereo sound that enhances any viewing experience.
Specifications
Video inputs: VGA and DVI-D
Viewing angle: 160°/170°
Color support: 16.7 million colors
Pixel pitch: 0.248mm
Security port: Yes (cable lock sold separately)
Power consumption – operational: 42 watts
Power consumption – sleep: Less than 2 watts
Dimensions: 20.6 x 8.76 x 15 inches (WxDxH)
Weight: 8.5 pounds (LCD panel only)
What’s in the Box This package includes the S2209W LCD monitor, power cord, VGA cable (VGA to VGA), DVI cable, and CD user guide and documentation. It’s backed by a Dell 3 Year Limited Hardware Warranty and includes our 3 Years Advance Exchange (AE) Service. And should you need technical support, you can call toll-free within the U.S. for the duration of the warranty.
The Dell S2209W features Full HD 1920 x 1080 (Optimal) Resolution – Enjoy cinema-quality movies at your desktop. Full HD also brings out the very best in games, videos and digital photos. 16:9 Aspect Ratio – Experience seamless HD entertainment in the widescreen format for which it was intended. 5 Millisecond Response Time (Typical) – Creates seamless, fluid, fast-action video. DVI-D with HDCP – Supports playback of protected high-definition content from Blu-ray Disc™ drives on PCs. Finishing Touch – The sleek black frame matches the new Dell InspironTM systems and complements just about any interior.
Available at Amazon Check Price Now!
*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Sep 23, 2009 01:30:20
Related : Sale More for sell work at home Christmas Day Gifts America’s Generally Cautious
These are this Tuesday’s top pre-market analyst downgrades or cautious research calls we have seen out of Wall Street early on:
Dell (DELL) downgraded to Neutral at Credit Suisse.
Martin Marietta (MLM) downgraded to Neutral at UBS.
Novatel Wireless (NVTL) Started as Underperform at BMO Capital.
Sierra Wireless (SWIR) Started as Market Perform at BMO Capital.
Unit Corp. (UNT) Cut to Neutral at Sun Trust Robinson Humphrey.
Vulcan Materials (VMC) downgraded to Neutral at UBS.
You can join our open email distribution list which goes out several times per week for top analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader alerts, IPO’s, key secondary offerings, guru investor data on Buffett and others, mergers, and more.
Dell announced Monday that it will buy IT services provider Perot Systems for $3.9 billion.
The two companies expect to provide a broad range of IT services and packages, expanding the global reach of Perot Systems and selling Dell computer systems to additional Perot customers. The move could be a shot in the arm for Dell, giving it a way to diversify beyond its bread-and-butter business of selling hardware.
“This significantly expands Dell’s enterprise-solutions capabilities and makes Perot Systems’ strengths available to even more customers around the world,” said Dell CEO Michael Dell. “There will be efficiencies from combining the companies, but the acquisition makes such great sense because of the obvious ways our businesses complement each other.”
Perot Systems, founded by one-time presidential candidate Ross Perot, provides IT services and business solutions to customers in health care, government, manufacturing, banking, and insurance. The company has built a large customer base in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia.
“Today’s announcement is the next step in formalizing a relationship that has flourished for some time,” said Perot Chairman Ross Perot Jr. “When my father founded Perot Systems he envisioned a global information-technology leader. The new, larger Dell builds on that promise and its own successes by taking Perot Systems’ expertise to more customers than ever.”
Under the agreement, PC and server maker Dell will acquire all outstanding common stock of Perot Systems for $30 a share in cash, a 65 percent premium over Friday’s closing price. Subject to the usual government approvals, the deal is expected to close in Dell’s November-January fiscal quarter.
In Monday morning trading, Perot Systems’ shares were up by essentially that same margin, to $29.60. Dell’s shares were down about 4 percent to $15.92.
Once the deal is completed, Perot Systems will become Dell’s services unit, headed by Peter Altabef, current Perot Systems CEO. Ross Perot Jr. is expected to be considered for a slot on Dell’s board of directors.
Shares of Perot Systems (PER) are up 65% to $29.69 on news that the company will be bought for $3.9 billion. Perot’s 52-week high.
Dell is substantially overpaying to get into the technology and IT infrastructure business, industries where it is far behind rivals including IBM (IBM) and HP (HPQ). Dell may believe that it has no choice other than to pay a financial premium that it cannot defend on an ROI basis because of a strategic need that it cannot fulfill within its current operation. Dell has been criticized on Wall St. for relying too much on PC and server sales, where margins have come under more and more pressure.
Dell will pay Perot shareholders will pay cash for a company that made only $31 million last quarter on $628 million in revenue. That revenue was down from $705 million in the same period the year before. Net profit for that period was $30 million. In other words, Perot is shrinking.
Perot’s two major lines of business did particularly poorly in the quarter ending in June. Revenue from its healthcare business fell 8% to $302 million. Revenue from its commercial segment was down 21% to $173 million. The results also show how heavily Perot relies on one industry. Healthcare sales are almost half of the company’s total.
Perot also has a very modest balance sheet $260 million in cash and equivalents and $316 million in long term liabilities.
Dell investors should be outraged at paying such a large sum for such a small, vertical operation.
GigaOm’s Mobilize is live streaming right now, so if you can’t be there, tune in at http://www.livestream.com/gigaomtv. If you can be there, drop by the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco where close to 1000 industry execs are discussing the future of the mobile web. Great networking as expected in the audience and onstage are Accenture, Adobe, Adaptive Path, AllThingsD.com, Ars Technica, Benchmark Capital, Business Week, CBS Market Watch, Cisco, CNET, Economist, Engadget, Finanical Times, Flixster, Forbes, Foundation Capital, French Maid TV, frog design, GameFly, GDGT.com, Geek Sugar, GetJar, Gizmodo, Google, Granite Ventures, Handango, HP, InfoWorld, Intel, InterWest Partners, Khosla Ventures,LG Mobile, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mashable, Mayfield Fund, mig33, Mobile Monday, MEF, MobiTV, Moconews, MocoSpace, Motorola, Mozes, NATPE, NYT, Nielsen, Nokia, Opus Capital, Palm, PayPal, PC World, Qualcomm, Samsung, SF Chronicle, SJ Merc, Scobleizer, Sony Ericsson, SVB Capital, Sprint, Sun, TechCrunch, Thom Weisel, T-Mobile, USVP, Ubergizmo, USA Today, Venrock, Venture Beat, Verizon, WSJ, WF, Wired, Y!, Zannel, ZDNet and others.
Om Malik opened the conference. His research venture, GigaOM Pro, which provides subscribers research on-demand, reports that the US is on track to produce by end of 2009: 280mm wireless subscribers, $160B in service revenues, $45B of that in data revenues, 2.3T minutes of voice use and 1.7T text messages, translating to $160 per subscriber of data plan spending per year and 829 minutes per user. A huge opportunity.
MONETIZING MOBILE APPS
Raven Zachary, Small Society
Considering Apple’s event yesterday it seemed fitting to have Raven lead with the first panel who advises companies like ZipCar and Whole Foods on their mobile strategies, and is known well to these parts as one of the pied pipers of iPhoneDevCamp. We are seeing more carriers wanting to have their own app store, look at Verizon with VDC, it makes sense, they have the billing relationship with the end user. Vodafone ramping up too.
Mark Curtis, Flirtomatic
There’s been a dramatic rise in popularity of the freemium model, free monetize with ad network although CPCs and CPMs have come way down in this economy, belive in time mobile ad marketplace will be massive. See freemium as a walk in the park, every now and then you’ll want an ice cream, it’s nice to have the option. At Flirtomatic, have had great success selling users greater visibility on site, they’re willing to pay if there profile will be seen by more women, experiencing 4x the CPMs from user-based ads.
Mark Jacobstein, iSkoot
There used to be enormous expenses associated with porting/QA of mobile games. Focusing just on iPhone makes things easier, and yet for all it does so well (powerful SDK, screen real estate) there is so much that iPhone doesn’t do. iPhone can’t multitask, apps don’t run in the background. Few client based apps like time-wasting games. Not going to make much selling a $2 app, money is in client/server services, free to end user like Skype (big applause from panel). MMS limitations, photos via SMS from a friend are sent with password and link – that’s a huge turnoff. Mobile increases web engagement, those that access sites via phone are twice as engaged. Developers now building in social context/gifting of virtual goods into game mechanics to take advantage of in-app commerce.
Dorrian Porter, Mozes
Most marketers not sure what to do with the mobile consumer, have yet to see mobile as a point of inspiration for impulse buy. Most market with voice and SMS. (Recently became a huge fan of SMS, now can text kids whenever he wants.) Mozes focuses on the browser-based experience. There are SMS limitations to web-clipping Adam Zbar, Zannel
ATT networks are slammed with data. Will see services becoming more interoperable than islands. Carriers for the longest time wanted to be entertainment companies and content creators, now some like Comcast are starting to see themselves more as a distribution platform – good for the developer community.
LOCATION: CONTEXT IS MONEY
4000 LBS apps today, a small % but impressive considering 18 months ago there were only 5 LBS apps in the world.
KEYNOTE: Innovation on Android – Introducing MotoBlur
Dr. Sanjay Jha, Co-CEO, Motorola
Number of mobile users doubled between 2008-9 from 10.8mm to 22mm devices accessing daily. 20% access web via mobile device. Going from 1:1 SMS to 1:Many Social collaboration. Ubiquitous availability of wireless broadband. Rapid expansion. Mobilizing the internet is the single biggest opportunity today. Netbooks, eBooks, gaming devices, smartphones. Smartphones being the backbone where mobilization will occur. Broadband definition – minimum 500kb data connectivity to mulitple users without regard of location. What makes a smartphone – larger high-res display, anytime anywhere broadband connectivity, over the air updates (key), rich media, voice quality, coverage, multi-thread, multitasking operating system. Android gives us a platform to mobilize the internet, enhance consumer experience, mulitple simultaneous transaction, competitive differentiation, Motorola supporting development of Android, have put meaningful resources behind the Android ecosystem, consumers overwhelmed by options. Half of US mobile traffic is 180mm social networkers, will grow to 800mm (Gartner). Aggregate media, music, address books, email addresses. MotoBlur service allows your entire life to exist on a single stream, enables you to focus on being social, syncs contacts, posts, media, photos, FB, Twitter, Myspace, Gmail, Y!, corporate email customized on home screen and integrated deep into corners of device, so consumer can focus on being social not on how its sent. Have it all one finger swipe away. Widgets: Social status, happenings (feeds, tweets, updates), messages, weather, Android marketplace and browser. Create rich text email. Easy to navigate streams, syncing push contacts into address book photos, birthdates. Integrates contact info through device, receive a call and caller’s profile info pops onscreen, get turn by turn direction to where they are, and it’s worry free – phone can be found by GPS in case its off on a cab ride without you – remote wipe – wipes device but keeps data in the cloud, set up once, good to go. Phone as primary computer device, if it doesn’t fit in your pocket, the consumer won’t use it. price points and memory costs are drivers to computing becoming mobile. Regarding palm, it’s not a zero sum game, all boats float, with 300mm smartphones, its the biggest technology opportunity there is, MotoBlur will eventually evolve, this is just the starting point, the first step in a long journey. Motorola is excited to integrate location, social graph and web info in an easily digestible way, Motorola does both sw and hw and can decide how to integrate, solve problems and deliver experience that simplifies life, health, fitness, media, build trust to share info, no rationale for 4G if its not for multimedia.
Cole Brodman, T-Mobile
Watch for Click with MotoBlur in time for the holidays, next chapter in Android innovation, open highly customizable platform, inviting 3P innovation to the network, first phone with social skills, always on connection, glance on the go, network can handle the traffic, T-Mobile has invested $9B in last 4y, has 200mm US customers with 3G coverage, T-Mobile customers text more than anyone in the world started with Sidekick, connected socializers 30-somethings like to stay in touch, have lead the smartphone adoption. T-Mobile will have product out in time for holidays with the best value, coverage, must have alwayson devices, Click in two colors white and titanium, with google browser, video capture.
(Very cool demo – if only iPhone would push birthday reminders to home screen when turned on, and autoemailed birthday wishes)
Andy Rubin, Google Smartphone is a communications device first and voice device second, data differentiates the smartphone but still need voice to carry it around with you at all time, interface with mobile internet, as powerful as a desktop PC from 15 years ago, internet is the destination, the window to the world, now cloud computing, network connected devices, we’re all personally participating in the ecosystem, what is good for the internet is good for Google, the bigger the base the better it is for Google’s primary ad business, the modern os brings the webto people’s pockets. As for Palm and Symbian, let the best OS win. Regarding which came first Android or iPhone OS – os developers have long history and have worked everywhere, who knows which came first, the important thing is that they came together to develop an open system. Moving web forward as a platform, modern browsers more capable with HTML 5.
ULTRABAND: Fast Platform for Innovation How will we be at 100mbps or 1gbps wireless broadband by 2012. In 1991 Xerox ParC stated its vision for pervasive computing. 18 years later still discussing what broadband is, what bandwidth is needed to be broadband, always there, omnipresent, delivering compelling user experiences at the speed of thought, a world in which the consumer knows that they desire it and suddenly it’s there.
Phil Asmundson, Deloitte Exciting time for mobile, phones are our remote control to the world, look out 5-10y, fundamental changes to the marketplace, will find that apps that require ultraband eat up spectrum, as we watch video, primary entertainment devices for the millennials and gen xers, mobile mobile and fixed mobile still dont play with each other, two separate worlds, need to play together, cause of spectrum issues. (Chetan Sharma: The term smartphone will be an oxymoron in 5 years) There is an innovation iceberg, the more broadband you provide, the more they’ll use, sw is driving the market, advances far faster than hw, then there are FCC challenges around spectrum, cells are going to be gone, need something more powerful than finite spectrum. SW is driving force for mobile, need more partnerships, not one company can do it alone. carriers rpus will increase, innovation cycle will advance, great new world coming sooner than you think.
Ken Denman, Openwave Systems An all IP world is slave to consumer experience, beyond phones and smartphones there is a data tsunami coming, all things non-phones, all connected devices including things not mobile, appliances, cars , netbooks, wonderful soup coming up, exciting times, the key enabler is all IP environment, convergence will absolutely happen with mobile as the default. Ethernet will appear to have more relevance. There will be tiering of price around bundled services for a particular experience like Kindle. As market evolves and consumers get snappy apps they may not have a problem with price tiering. Offloading of multiple networks is key middleware solution, #1 RFP of CXOs.
Abhi Ingle, ATT Increasing speeds and feeds with wireless broadband, 5y widely deployed LTE 100mbps, 10y fungibility of networks become more transparent switching the networks, evolve beyond cell tower, go way beyond phones to connected devices, internet of things, explosion of innovation, ATT Austin lab, connectivity extend to things never even imagined before, connected 30-somethings used to cloud computing environments, ATT has 38 data centers for cloud computing alone, powerful networks. You need massive amounts of capital to achieve 1gbps, there is not enough spectrum to achieve those speeds, need capital, spectrum and transformation of network, unimaginable costs ($100B?). One approach is to blend the networks, make it transparent to end user.
Rick Keith, Motorola Underlying principle of delivery of apps (Twitter, FB), what is broadband relative to those apps, taking experience already familiar with moving to airwaves, to that thing previously known as cell phone, broadband is a marketing term, we’ve had wimax since 2007, for Pakistan and Brazil its the first connection ever had to home, what is broadband to them is not broadband to us. Its an issue of latency, needs to be a subsecond from send to receive, must be snappy, cost doesn’t stop at capex, there is enormous operating expense as well. Hybrid networks need be transparent to user, right now if you have Boingo can use ATT wireless at airport, that doesn’t make sense. Must be a bridge service.
THE NETBOOKS & ULTRAPORTABLE BOOM
Mark Spoonauer, LAPTOP Magazine
1 of 5 pcs sold are netbooks, not funny Apple yesterday showing pocket ripping from Dell Inspiron not fitting, netbooks outgrowing notebooks 2:1. Cheap notebooks have existed before, small, easy to carry, low cost, voting with dollars due to economy, is there a cannibalization threat, netbook integrated broadband 3g attaching $60 fee to go unlimited data makes it not a low cost, carriers need to subsidize netbooks to take off
Noury Al-Khaledy, Intel
Price point needed for internet use, compact, companion, evolving of the mobile web, different form factors and uses, dependent on different devices for different needs, infrastructure to provide bandwidth is key, bill monthly per user or per device, majority shipping are wifi, open econsystem platform, battery life better and better CPU not draining battery, netbooks with 8hrs, sw ecosystem will grow,chrome runs best on pc, better battery life, integration, lower power, new processors handle full flash.
Keith Kressin, Qualcomm
Smartbooks – browsing, social networking, email, integrated 3g, 10x higher in netbooks than pc, $100-200 3g value of connectvity, carriers new carriers, western europe carriers sell them, connectvity web centric use, great battery life and connectivity, $60 all you can eat, one user gets rids of landline cable, watch video all day on 3G, SAHM wifi take on vacation, $60 month doesnt make sense rather pay per use, needs to go mifi model, by user instead of by device, have multiple devices, noone has a monopoly on the internet more migrating up to the browser like phones, Adobe open screen project with flash, getting full browsers on smartphones, need an os with great internet experience, thin light always on compelling user interest, simple, instant boot, benefit to speed and simplicity, instantly on, broadband experience for pc push mail, flash has been the one thing you can do on phone that you can do on pc, clamshells and tablets multitouch thin and light, interest from user, oems, carreirs form factor on the growth curve.
Don Paterson, Microsoft IDC research folks buying them as pc companion, completely incremental, opening up new markets in the 6-12y old kid space enable ecosystem to take it where they want to go, all about choice, consumer may get lost as line blurs, 10.2″ form factor deliver premium experience with nvidia, rich experience cost more, windows 7 with starter decide which option is best for you, starter doesnt support multitouch, affordable price point, netbooks small notebook pcs, windows app store-no comment.
Brian Pitstick, Dell Incremental category, doesnt replace pc, customers using them for vacation than laptop, sit in bed on couch with it, not in an office, stationary environment, buy for mobility, price point, connected, purpose had to come together for space to take off, interested across globe vodafone dell device in store of carrier, price points will mature over time, nextgen networks more flexible options, session-based experiences connectivity on the go, radios in devices, people will expect and demand to be always connected, tremendous pent up need for connectvity on the go, see market how people interact with it, 3 min, 30 min 3hr experience, smartphone quick fix interface gathering, not going to be engaged 10-30min, netbooks is that device, looks like pc based device, expecting mouse and printer to work is expected, true pervasive connectivity, need offline mode on airplane, etc. need solid os.. will see more experimentation in netbook space, further segmentation, consumption device than a creation device, media streamed content, different tiers of product depends on what customer values.
LOCATION, MEDIA & MONEY: The Next Enablers
Len Lauer, Qualcomm Qualcomm is starting with Smartbooks moving to broader consumer electronics category. Problem with netbooks is that they don’t last all day. Want a Smartbook that lasts all day, always on, email pushed, no need for fan to cool off, very sleek design. (Three kids (18/16/13) and three netbooks not enough) Right now Smartbooks do not have full support of office environment, Microsoft not porting XP86 yet. Adding connectivity to everything. Amazon Kindle makes network connectivity invisible, built into price of book. Opportunity of machine to machine. Smart Grid technology, energy companies putting in mobile radio into thermostat in home, intelligence in smart cars where to recharge, digital cameras, navigation devices. Lots of opportunities. US/Europe carriers embracing machine to machine arpu higher, Verizon, ATT, Sprint, T-Mobile. Start out with thin file apps without user involvement (not large PPT decks or media files) 4-5% royalty rate on CDMA for 3G (830mm of 4B are 3G, 3.25% royalty rate for 4G when LTE comes out.) Interconnectivity multimode when not connected on 4G still get 3G, voice will run out on 3G til 2020. Rate needs to come down from $60 for mass adoption, balance economics, higher cost of bandwidth costs. Amount of data being consumed going up. Qualcomm helping operators with network offload, Media FLO sits on its own network. Data traffic up 400%, half from video streaming. FLO is 1:Many, can push out top ten YouTube videos over broadcast/datacast network, or P2P if two are within a kilometer to have handsets talk to each other and send info to each other different spectrum band, low power and fast – new radio technology – going point to point via phones. Longer R&D project. Can also get it on to cable networks to offload but need to manage interference. Media Flo $10-15/month subscription – 15 channels of linear feeds – Qualcomm pays for content from ESPN.. (CDN offload) 700mhz auction 10 years to get that spectrum out. Think about lots of devices in your home being connected should be P2P, better to manage on a licensed spectrum basis. Where its most populated is where its free – Korea, Japan, China – 45% devices watching tv. Italy, Germany, US not hitting expectations, Qualcomm doesn’t have nationwide network yet, need to be on more devices, expand next year, platform capability not just restricted to mobile devices, should be on other consumer electronics like MP3, live tv in car (on fridge?). Launching with AudioVox this month for cars, rear screen videos in cars will go live tv. Watch for MP3 device with FLO coming out soon.
INNOVATION THROUGH OBSERVATION & DESIGN
Denise Gershbein, frog design Take products from strategy to market, brand, design, physical, digital. Augmented reality has a lot to do with context that’s the moment when you move from looking down at a device toward holding up a lens to the world. Likes Evernote. Looks to Twitter for creative sources, inspiration, follows interesting people. Envisioning LTE 4G, look at parallel and analogous paths make meaning out of cultural chaos so you can meet the market. Arthur C Clark, Childhood’s End – getting into one universal consciusness. What does it mean that you can be connected and have access to knowledge at the same time.
Jesse James Garrett, Adaptive Path Observational research can be misused to dictate design and not room for innovation. Design is a greater differentiator to stand out in crowded marketplace. Integration of mobile platforms into larger universe as barriers to technologies and networks breakdown will start seeing new opportunities to be exploited for services to work across platforms. Uncovering patterns in people’s behavior and psych, extend beyond how they interact with your product. Be inspired by things beyond the technology space.
Crysta Metcalf, Motorola Team tying different devices to each other, tying mobile device to tv. Looking at how you would use mobile device in social tv experience.
Prashant Agarwal, Fjord Noone has cracked mobile marketing yet. Context is huge. My phone knows my tweets, contacts.. Best experience is Amazon Kindle, get it, turn it on and there is nothing else to do except buy books. Last time you bought a phone, just to get voice is not that simple.
Robin Boyar, thinktank research and strategy Don’t always have a pencil but always have your phone. Mobile device can monitor your health, use as tool to make life easier, better. Young kids aren’t using smartphones, using the free feature phones. Apps need to match 30y+ audience who own the smartphones. How do you beat Apple at its game – recognize how to make user experience easier and cooler – build the brand experience – with Apple have extended relationship with them via iTunes, the store. Used to head up research for gaming company, to get holistic view need all stakeholders in the focus group. If 7 year old and 70 year old gets it, you have a great product.
CARRIER PERSPECTIVE ON THE EVOLVING MOBILE ECOSYSTEM
Cole Brodman, T-Mobile Social communications root of T-Mobile. Largest per user text base than any other carriers in the world – 600 messages per user per month – more texting than calls. Update FB status many times a week. (Om asks if its possible we one day see voice as an add-on) Android 10,000 apps, average T-Mobile user 40 apps per user in last 11 months. Abundance use of apps. Front home screen always on with context and location so info is relevant is very powerful, allows user to act quickly without logging in to web page. Too many apps, over 60,000 apps, only a few make money. Google working on how to make apps more discoverable as app store inventory grows. T-Mobile to use retail footprint, 1700 stores, sales reps can aid discovery. Paid and new apps, categorizing and merchandising stores need to be improved. Once they discover an app make it easier to recommend to friends and family, word of mouth is key. Not setting up T-Mobile app store, working with Android for an open marketplace but playing a role in discovery, and of course improve ways for app developers to leverage carrier billing, make it more frictionless, to pay with one click, next accelerant for app store consumption. Phone company has to evolve from closed telco mindset to open web-based infrastructures to allow more rapid development to get things to market, allow application innovation. T-Mobile is a communications company, it’s what occurs on the desktop, internet, devices we haven’t even thought of yet, need to breakdown the way we’ve traditionally gone to market. Mobile internet 3-5y from today, starts with ubiquitous wireless broadband network $9B investment in 3G married with increasingly open operating systems, open APIs, increases in memory, battery life, processing power. Front screen access mashed up with location and context, social graph, offer smarter network in the future, won’t have to keep re-entering data. Likes Android as the first one to live up to expectations – open to carriers, manufacturing partners, developers to innovate. Give consumers opportunity to personalize and customize, make it their own. Apple viewpoint – everything is the same. (Om – PCs guys don’t make that much money, Mac guys makes lots of money on same product) Consumers will have viable choices, different price points. Customization without fragmentation. That’s the work the ecosystem needs to do. (Om – problem with iPhone is ATT network) T-Mobile network will hold up, existing customers over-consume, set us up for increased capacity to handle increased consumption. No announced plans for LTE in US, but its a natural migration, T-Mobile International leader in LTE early on. Thoughts on VOIP – not a threat, wireless pricing will continue to evolve, future consumption is moving away from voice, can only talk so much, first carrier to launch voice over wifi, concern so far has been quality, 3G not built for latency needed for VOIP. Forgone conclusion, matter of timing, T-Mobile has embraced voice apps in Android market. Front counter for services, thoughts on DRM – makes it easier if there is no DRM, important to share with others (limit time-sharing), leans toward a DRM-free world to allow sharing, subscription models naturally fit that way consumers want to consume media vs. transactional formats.
FACEBOOK PHONE AND SOCIAL MOBILE Frank Meehan, INQ Mobile GSM Wolrd Congress winner of best handsets designed around Skype and Facebook. Carrier developed phone that aloowed you to make Skype calls. Old voice and text handset manufacturers are stuck - got to be fast, stay ahead, have to be able to put next FB on your phone quickly. Brand naming has to be cool and catchy, need great distribution, retail, marketing – Apple does it very well, not many others. Nokia is a very big company, they’ll fight their way back, what’s going to happen operators are keen to differentiate, each carrier has segmented behind a handset, INQ gives operator great customization. Sony Ericcson and Nokia nder $200 feature phone market are competitors – boring, dull, most users don’t get data, INQ phones very easy. INQ is now also moving into Android. Android phones has struggled to compete on networks that carry iPhone. User experience has to be better to get that iPhone out of user’s hand. Need a hit handset every year. Owner of INQ is investor in Spotify, Meehan sits on board of Spotify, huge in Europe. (Om: $50 Peek email device, BB for everyone) Location not there yet but coming. iPhone sells well to 35y+ who buys Macs. But iPod market is under 35y, sell INQ phones to that market.
JUST A BROWSER OF FUTURE OF MOBILE OS Jon von Tetzchner, Opera Software
Browser has potential to be a unifying force to deploy across wide range of mobile devices without having to create a whole bunch of native apps. 80% of phones not running OS, thus web is natural choice for these phones, HTML 5 local storage and drag and drop, deliver rich app experience. Browser started as a document viewer, then added Java, developers moving faster than that, now running applications. Scalable vector graphics is coming in the browser. Microsoft held the browser market back for years. If doing it web-based, it will run everywhere. Widget is a web app running in a separate window, can run everywhere, PC, Wii, TVs, media players. Webkit vs Opera mini. Opera Unite service – there is just one web, see all devices working together. People haven’t really taken to MMS, hard to get photos over to PC, bluetooth is a hurdle.Opera 10 downloaded 10mm times in the first week. More than 700ees in 10 countries. Still focus on the end-user, make peoples lives easier, FF, rewind, speed dial..people expect that, now 40mm active users. In some countries, #1. Touch based gestures, mouse gestures very popular. Take pride on running on 10 year old PCs. Core of the browser hasn’t changed. Apps will be web-based, more power to play with.
INVESTMENT OUTLOOK: THE VC PANEL Lawrence Aragon, Venture Capital Journal
Panel raised $2B need to invest. Seed and Series A not looking good for 2009.
Mitch Lasky, Benchmark Capital Infatuated by iPhone comes out of being burnt. App store has been great for developers and Apple but not venture, opportunity to aggregate market share hasn’t materialized, will soon be back in multi-platform world, will need to be on more than just iPhone. Would invest in a company contingent on partnering with carrier. Did 200,000 store keeping units serving global wireless market. Now 27,000 games on iPhone, noone can make money. Don’t mind high-friction environment. ARPU has been flat at $50 for years. Will see higher RPUs when virtual goods comes to iphone apps. ATT $18B to built out network to support data consumption. Network build out is a significant issue.
Dixon Doll, DCM Portfolio includes mig 33. Series B in mig33 last mobile investment, in the midst of a Series A not announced. Can’t justify monetization on advertising – wont get VCs excited. Must look beyond US, US carriers at best are 3rd best in the world, lots of innovation in China and Japan. Cynical about business model where carrier determines outcome of business, better to create competitive environment, e.g. MLB.com doing well with its subscription on multiplatforms, competitive dynamic is useful. Economist talks about innovative mobile apps: augmented reality. DC does not understand job creation role of the VCs. Primitive emerging market nations live off their mobile phones, creating microeconomies, money transfer payments exciting new applications.
Rob Coneybeer, Shasta Ventures Portfolio includes Eye-Fi. Prefer companies that don’t require carrier relationship, then can focus on value of partnership instead of imbalance of power. When both parties have alternatives, its best. People get hung up on ARPUs, want revenues higher than cost, voice down, data up, wave of growth around the corner, some new business models of advertising and promotion enabled by location and intent, can be explosive, developers can write to a platform without talking to carriers to see if it will go on a deck. New features (accelerometers, touch screens) to get to a multibillion dollar industry. Seek to build a portfolio of 25 exciting companies. Plays Foursquare, gaming + location drives explosive adoption.
Bob Borchers, Opus Capital (Fmr Apple iPhone exec) Portfolio includes Eye-Fi. Mobile startups don’t require as much capital as before. Can easily get fulfillment on your own, may need capital for awareness. Venture community is so burned by the 500 feature phones they tried, soured on the space. Many have great proof of concept. iPhone 2+ years old and App Store 1 year old. Traditional carrier-focused metrics voice RPU, data RPU may be $50, other ecosystems $80 ARPUs on iPhone apps. All do seed deal, have to have money to add people, need capital to keep company going.
John Balen, Canaan Partners Last Series A India mobile company. Series A is down because the whole market is down. Seeing now an upswing in deals. Activity level will rise in 2010. Coming out of recession. Every web app has to have mobile window because browser is so prevalent. Not everything is showing up as mobile, might be categorized as web app. Change is happening. Need leverage with carrier. Carriers operate differently abroad. iPhone best over the top payment system and the outsourcing of cell phone business. Watch the unbundling of what a cell phone company is. Disaggregation of cell phones towers. Win-win for consumer. Happened in India even with low RPUs. Augmented reality is next. New ventures around location, cameras..
IN SUMMARY Mobilize was terrific! A comprehensive look at a world where all devices are connected, where the trend toward network offloading will bridge bandwidth constraints, where integrated app experiences will challenge Apple to do better. And there was so much more than we could cover including their LaunchPad competition jusged by Granite Ventures, Microsfoft and Qualcomm Ventures, as well as workshops including one on the Future of Mobile App Stores (report available from GigaOM Pro). Producer Om Malik knows his stuff and was incredibly entertaining with thought-provoking questions. As for the venue, much appreciated were the media tables with outlets, quiet press room, live streaming cafe, and vast space to interact with the sponsors. The winner of Best of Schwag goes to MobiTV for their eye-catching iPhone lounge chairs. Honorable mentions go to GetFugu (brand new iPhone and Android app) and OpenBox for their memorable tees, eBuddy for their white mug, Qualcomm for their business card case, and mSpot streaming mobile movies for their sleek marketing collateral.
A imagem que vê é de uma nova obra de arte da Dell. Um portátil tão fino, que até o próprio utilizador terá medo de usá-lo para não partir…
Não sabemos características, nem preços…simplesmente nada! De acordo com o Engadget, é esta a imagem que aparece no site da Dell Adamo e que aparece um formulário para preenchermos o nosso e-mail e nome, para estarmos a par das novidades ou campanhas de promoção.
Fique atento, pois nós andaremos em cima desta notícia.
El inicio del curso académico o laboral tras las vacaciones está poniendo de nuevo las pilas a muchos fabricantes clásicos como HP o la misma Dell y andan estos días anunciando nuevos equipos. Entre los que parece que resucitan un poco tras el año más movido en el mundo de los ultraportátiles, nos encontramos con los ordenadores de sobremesa clásicos, los de toda la vida, los de torre y monitor.
Los nuevos Dell XPS 8000 y XPS 9000 cumplen con esos requisitos. De entrada nos encontramos con el diseño clásico un poco renovado con líneas más curvas. Y como pasa con los sobremesa, la novedad viene en el interior.
El modelo Dell Studio XPS 8000 es el modelo más pequeño de los dos. Ambos cuentan con los nuevos procesadores Intel Core i5 y i7 y gráficas de ATI y Nvidia donde escoger. Entre ellas nos encontramos con la HD 3450, la Nvidia GT220 o la GTX260. La memoria RAM puede ser de hasta 16 GB, lo que es el complemento perfecto para el resto de componentes del ordenador de sobremesa.
Siendo equipos en los que el campo multimedia tendrá mucha presencia, el disco duro puede llegar a una capacidad interesante de 1.5 TB. Ocho puertos USB, Ethernet 1 Gb, Firewire y un puerto eSATA completan las conexiones de ambos modelos.
Como opciones interesantes nos encontramos con el sintonizador de televisión y por supuesto con la unidad grabadora de discos Blu-Ray.
En la parte de software específico, Dell ha introducido el llamado MediaShow Espresso, tecnología para coordinar el trabajo entre procesador y gráfica de manera que la codificación y de vídeo sea más fluida. Para ello usa la tecnología de Nvidia Cuda.
Como pasa con los equipos Dell, el precio de cada ordenador dependerá de lo profundo que busquemos en sus mejoras.
Okay, here is the story. I ordered a bundle that was on sale at Dell’s UK Web site on Sunday 6 Sept. I placed an order and checked out using my debit card, received order confirmation email with the order number. I was looking forward to receiving my order within a few days. Then after two days, I receive an email (below) telling me that my order was cancelled because they made a pricing error. Well, I didn’t know it was a pricing error, in fact, it wasn’t that cheap to be considered a pricing error (it was listed as 50% off from the RRP!). I thought you were supposed to respect the price that is displayed and at which you allow your customers to place an order. They send the email as if I made a mistake by placing an order when they had their apparent pricing error. I’m really annoyed with Dell now. And after enquiring, they tell me its their policy and I should have read the terms. What the heck!?! I’ll think many times now before buying anything from Dell, that’s for sure. And looking at the forums (including Dell’s own forums) it seems it’s not just me what has been treated like this by Dell.
Después de las declaraciones de Rob Helm, directivo de Microsoft, reconociendo por primera vez que Red Hat y Ubuntu son competidores en el campo de las notebooks, ahora lo que hace Microsoft para competir, fiel a su filosofía, es mejorar sus productos continuamente, …mmm no exactamente, están muy ocupados en mentir, engañar, y simplemente salen a trollear, después de la falsa noticia de que cada 5 notebooks devueltas, 4 son de GNU/Linux y 1 de Windows, que fue desmentida por Dell, la compañía de Redmon aparece otra vez como protagonista, el caso es el siguiente:
Microsoft da cursos a empleados de Best Buy, cadena de grandes almacenes especializados en la venta de productos electrónicos, uno de sus empleados publicó en un foro de Overclock, capturas de pantalla e información sobre el tipo de adoctrinamiento que imparte Microsoft.
En base de argumentos vagos, y mentiras, se encargan de atacar sin vergüenza:
Se imaginan ir a comprar una notebook y que el empleado te diga estas cosas, increíble, por cierto espero que se vayan aprendiendo el nombre es “GNU/Linux” no “Linux“. Por otra parte, hay que rescatar el hecho de que se tomen el trabajo de hacer estas cosas, por algo será, la batalla por las notebooks a comenzado!.
I’ve had a few strange days lately; days when I’m not running all all cylinders and I’m certainly not making much sense. This morning was one of those days.
All I wanted to do was make a pot of coffee – seems pretty simple. I got the French Press out; I got the super airtight plastic bag filled with coffee beans out, and took the coffee grinder out of the cabinet and put it on the counter. All ready to make the coffee. I noticed that there were only a few beans in the bag – but I knew I had just opened a new shipment of my favorite Peet’s coffee and put the contents in an airtight plastic bag stored in a basket on the counter. So I emptied what remained of the first bag into the coffee grinder and went after the second bag of beans up in the basket. As I opened the basket and turned it upside down to dump in the beans it suddenly hit me with a blinding flash.
Those weren’t coffee beans in that bag, they were chocolate covered graham crackers – specifically the diet kind. And they were making their way in slow motion down the plastic toward my brand new Krups coffee grinder. Ack. What was going on in my brain and could I stop it in time before I ground up chocolate graham crackers instead of coffee beans? The answer is yes, in the nick of time I snapped out of it and realized I had grabbed the wrong plastic bag – but in my defense it was a plastic bag and there were small items brown in nature inside and my brain equated that with coffee beans.
beans or cookies, what to do, what to do?
How does one retire one’s brain because I honestly think that’s what I need to do now; retire my brain. Or at least send it on a little vacation of its very own. Because somewhere along the way in this story I looked down and realized I had my flip flops on the wrong feet — oh those were my feet alright, but the left shoe was on the right foot. Now you might think with flip flops that’s not a big deal, but it was uncomfortable and it simply didn’t register why in my brain my feet hurt. Gah…
I’m thinking this can be residue stress as a result of the massive refrigerator mess of 2009 – coupled with the fact I have studied my heart out and been doing very well, only to receive an 84 on a quiz Friday (which in the Seminary’s strange grading mind equals a “C” and in my mind should equal a “B”) – yes, that has to contribute to my fuzzy headedness this morning. Otherwise, I’m just going batty in my old age, and I’d rather not accept that just yet.
As for battiness, it isn’t just me – my laptop seems to have developed dementia all on its own – this morning as I opened my laptop the key which is used for double and single quotations (”,’) popped off and will not go back on — so as I use these grammatical marks I’m forced to hit this strange little button where the key once was – now I’ve been down this road before with this laptop – the “e” button popped off but I snapped it right back on. Unfortunately, my quotation mark key isn’t in the mood to snap and if I glue it, well then it won’t work at all – I may be slightly challenged this morning but I’m not totally whacked out. This is definitely going to slow down my typing – or I shall be forced to write without the use of quotations or contractions.
Dell makes crap keyboards; yes there is the key that fell off
At least if I get my homework reading done this morning, I can reward myself with watching Ohio State beat the pants off the Navy today. Or I can sit here and figure out how to toss this laptop and its quotation key out my front door without further damaging my back or the door – should probably open it first, eh?
For the safety of all of you I’m staying inside today. Carry on.
Aujourd’hui je vais vous parler de ce que j’utilise au quotidien en matière d’appareils multimédias.
Tout d’abord en ce qui concerne les ordinateurs.
J’ai à a ma disposition un Mac Mini early 2009 à la maison ainsi qu’un Macbook Black lorsque je pars faire mes études.
Le Mac Mini est épaulé par un écran Dell 22’’ S2209W, d’enceinte Logitech 5.1, d’un clavier Apple et d’une souris MX1100 (toujours de chez Logitech).
Pour la musique, j’ai quasiment toujours sur moi mon Ipod Touch 2G et pour téléphone j’ai récemment acquis un Nokia N85.
Voilà donc pour le matériel, j’essaierai de vous les présenter un par un dans différents tests.
