Category: Business

Well, At Least the Editorial Page Can’t Get Any Worse

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Here are some links about the possible takeover of Dow Jones (including the Wall Street Journal) by Rupert Murdoch’s news corp.

The bottom line is this: It would be impossible for the Wall Street Journal editorial page to get any worse. It has been dutifully publishing lies, frequently lies that are directly contradicted by the front page stories.

The issue is whether or not it will make the news in the WSJ worse, and the answer is that over the long term, it almost certainly will.

The real question is whether this is a bad thing. Any number of people buy the Journal in spite of its editorial page, and to the degree that the WSJ becomes less “essential” it means that fewer people will be exposed to this, and and it will become less of a spring board for pundits to do the shows.

All in all, the loss of a source of legitimacy to the insane right wingers might be a net plus.

Would Someone Pleas Throw Him In Jail for the Next 8-12 Years

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Let me get this straight. This snake oil salesman gets fired over his financial shenanigans, and Fannie Mae is told NEVER to hire him again, and they are still giving him stock options?

Would someone please throw this corrupt jerk in gaol?

Raines Sues OFHEO Over Stock
By David S. Hilzenrath
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 6, 2007; D01

Former Fannie Mae chairman Franklin D. Raines has mounted a new challenge to the government’s power over the federally chartered mortgage funding company, arguing that regulators have no authority to delay his receipt of a $3.9 million stock award.

Raines sued regulators this week to get the shares released, and yesterday a federal judge scheduled a hearing on the question for July 16.

The fresh challenge comes as legislative efforts to give federal regulators more power over the company have stalled.

Raines is one of many current and former Fannie Mae executives who have been waiting to receive payouts pegged to the company’s performance from 2003 through 2006, including periods when Fannie Mae’s earnings were misstated and, regulators allege, the company was mismanaged.

Raines left the company after the Securities and Exchange Commission ordered it in 2004 to correct years of financial reports that overstated profit by billions of dollars. In reaching a $400 million settlement with regulators last year, Fannie Mae agreed never to employ Raines again.

As the company worked on straightening out its books, it delayed deciding how much stock its executives should receive under certain incentive plans. Last month, Fannie Mae’s board proposed releasing millions of dollars of awards — subject to approval by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.

The agency has since sought more information from Fannie Mae about how it arrived at the amount of the awards and told the company to keep the payments on hold until it completes its review.

The agency has warned Fannie Mae that any stock awards it released “could prove irretrievable” and could leave the company liable if later found to be excessive, according to a document filed in court yesterday.

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SiliconValley.com – Court upholds ruling vs. publisher

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This was actually a VERY important decision. If it had gone the other way, you would have seen much of the internet based credit card activity simply stop.

It’s nice that someone has FINALLY found a limitation to “compensatory infringement.

Court upholds ruling vs. publisher

FIRM SOUGHT TO PUNISH CREDIT CARD ISSUERS OVER PIRACY OF ADULT IMAGES
By Dawn C. Chmielewski
Los Angeles Times
San Jose Mercury News

Credit card companies that process payments for Internet pirates are not liable for copyright infringement, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco decided that a judge in San Jose was right in dismissing a lawsuit brought by a publisher in Beverly Hills against Visa International, MasterCard and other financial companies.

The 2-1 decision found that Perfect 10, a publisher of adult magazines and Web sites, failed to prove that credit card providers were liable because the financial companies played no role in helping people find or download the infringing images.

The decision dealt a setback to Perfect 10’s efforts to cripple Web sites that sell access to its erotic photographs without permission. The company said it would request a new hearing by a larger panel of appeals court judges.

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Developers Moving Away from Windows?

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One of the major draws of Windows is that everyone in the development community feels that they have to do Windows.

This advantage is decreasing.

Developers diss Windows client
By Gavin Clarke in San Francisco
Going niche

The Windows client hegemony is breaking down with developers targeting different operating systems and multiple client devices.

The latest Evans Data Corp poll of North American developers found 12 per cent fewer building applications for Windows than a year ago.

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Sony PlayStation 3 is Done. Put a fork in it.

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They are so crushed by the Wii (what a stupid f$#@ing name) that they are going to pimp their already meager fan base.

Product placement won’t bother the fans, but the privacy issues of reselling gamer data will.

Look at Real. People hate them more than Microflaccid now, and there are multiple open source Real players because of this.

Sony PlayStation to sell user data to advertisers
There’s already plenty of product placement in video games, but Sony (SNE) appears to have plans to take the nascent industry — in which advertisers only spent $80 million last year — to a much more sophisticated level. The company has agreed to let Nielsen track the behavior of PlayStation gamers to let advertisers better understand gamers’ demographics, how much time they spend on a given game, and how closely they pay attention to the product placement. Sony and Nielsen aren’t being totally clear yet on how they’re going to acquire the information, but it could be a combination of self-reported data and stats gleaned directly from the consoles themselves somehow.

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Huge Indian Fighter Jet Tender Enters Final Stage : Military Aviation : Defense News Air Force Army Navy News

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The Russians have the cheapest plane of the lot, and transitioning crews and maintenance personnel from MiG to MiG should be easier.

As to the price issues mentioned at the end, I would think that the F-16 would be the next cheapest, but I think that the Gripen would be cheaper than the F-18E/F.

I’ve always been a fan of the Gripen, so that may color this.

Additionally, the US might use export restrictions to attempt to kill a potential Gripen sale.

They tried this is South Africa, when they attempted to use export restrictions to get them to buy a US plane, but the response from South Africa was to forbid any US companies from bidding on Defense contracts, and the US relented.

Huge Indian Fighter Jet Tender Enters Final Stage

A scramble for a piece of the world’s largest fighter plane deal in over a decade moved into its final stage Friday with India examining the final bids from global weapons giants.

Indian defense ministry and industry sources said the choice appeared to have narrowed down to the Russian-built MiG-35 and MiG-29 aircraft, and U.S. offerings the Lockheed Martin F-16 and Boeing F-18.

A top defense procurement committee meeting had been expected to result in an announcement of the vendor of the 126 war planes, but an official statement late on Friday only said the tender has been “fine-tuned.”

The deal is potentially worth $9 billion to $10 billion.

Also in the race to replace a chunk of India’s aging fleet of 700 MiG-21s are Eurofighter’s Typhoon, Saab’s Gripen and Dassault’s Rafale and Mirage — although price considerations have left these contenders at a disadvantage, defense officials and industry sources said.

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It’s the Gameplay, Stupid

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The article mentions price, and lack of titles for the PS3, but it’s the Wiimote (what an in-bloody-credibly stupid name).

Having to do “rocker switch, left, left, a, b, a” to swing a golf club is simply inferior game play.

Six Wiis sold for every PS3 purchased in Japan
By James Sherwood
Published Tuesday 3rd July 2007 12:24 GMT

Nintendo’s Wii continued to reign supreme in Japan last month, with sales outstripping Sony’s PlayStation 3 by a staggering six to one. The Wii outsold Microsoft’s Xbox 360 by an even greater margin.

According to figures from Japanese market watcher and publisher Enterbrain, some 270,974 Wii consoles were sold in the four weeks to 24 June. This compares to just 41,628 PS3s and a measly 17,616 Xbox 360s, during the same period.

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The RIAA Has Me Rooting for the Russians

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Heck, if the choice was between the RIAA and Dick Cheney, I’m not sure how I’d choose.

Russian copyright wars to continue despite AllofMP3 shutdown
By Chris Williams
Published Tuesday 3rd July 2007 10:47 GMT

AllofMP3.com, the UK’s second most popular source for music downloads after iTunes, has been shut down after diplomatic pressure was piled on Russian authorities.

MediaServices, the combative firm behind the site, is still selling cut-price music however, meaning the international legal posturing is set to continue.

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI), which had won the right to sue AllofMP3 in the UK, told The Reg this morning it was unsure how the shutdown would affect its legal attack.

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These are Called “Death Throws”

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Basically, all that the private equity firm was interested in was the dealer network. Chrysler will not be manufacturing cars in 5-10 years. It will simply be rebadging them.

Chrysler reportedly near import deal with Chinese automaker
greement to import Chinese subcompacts reportedly close to final approval; news comes as concerns linger over the safety of Chinese-made goods.
July 3 2007: 8:21 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Chrysler Group is set to give final approval to a deal that would have a Chinese automaker build small cars for it to sell in the United States and Western Europe, according to a newspaper report Tuesday.

The deal between Chrysler and China’s Chery Motor Co., which comes in the wake of growing concern among U.S. consumers over the safety of Chinese-made goods, was in question after DaimlerChrysler agreed to sell a majority stake in Chrysler to private-equity firm Cerberus Management.

But the Detroit News reports that Chrysler CEO Tom LaSorda is in China finalizing the agreement.

The paper said the deal will be announced in Beijing on Wednesday, which, given the difference in times zones, is just before the Independence Day holiday here.

Chrysler had first confirmed that it was holding talks with Chery on the Friday before the New Year’s holiday here, another time that minimized news coverage.

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Under Achiever, and Proud of It

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I just want to say that Matt Groening is a bloody genius.

7-Elevens turn into ‘Simpsons’ Kwik-E-Marts
DALLAS, Texas (AP)– Over the weekend, 7-Eleven Inc. turned a dozen stores into Kwik-E-Marts, the fictional convenience stores of “The Simpsons” fame, in the latest example of marketers making life imitate art.

Those stores and most of the 6,000-plus other 7-Elevens in North America will sell items that until now existed only on television: Buzz Cola, KrustyO’s cereal and Squishees, the slushy drink knockoff of Slurpees.

It’s all part of a campaign to hype the July 27 opening of “The Simpsons Movie,” the big-screen debut for the long-running television cartoon, which loves to lampoon 7-Eleven as a store that sells all kinds of unhealthy snacks and is run by a man with a thick Indian accent.

For 20th Century Fox Film Corp. and Homer’s creators at Gracie Films, the stunt is a cheap way to call attention to their movie, since 7-Eleven is bearing all the costs, which executives of the retail chain put at somewhere in the single millions.

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Universal Attempts to Screw )tunes, Two Great Retister Headlines Edition

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No mistake about this. The labels are doing this for control, and once they have control, they will make the music experience total hell for listeners.

I wonder who writes the headlines for The Register. They are the best heds on the net.

World’s biggest label kneecaps iTunes store
By Andrew Orlowski
Published Monday 2nd July 2007 10:34 GMT

Universal Music Group (UMG) has dealt a serious blow to Apple’s music ambitions by refusing to renew its contract with the iTunes Store.

The New York Times reports that the decision not to continue the annual contract was made by UMG executives last week.

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Update today

Universal downgrades kneecapping to kick in nuts
By Andrew Orlowski (andrew.orlowski@theregister.co.uk)
Published Tuesday 3rd July 2007 14:02 GMT

Universal Music Group (UMG) has responded to yesterday’s report in the New York Times by declaring that it will continue to supply its catalog to Apple’s iTunes store. It’ll just do so on new terms, far more flexible than it previously enjoyed.

The Times reported that UMG had refused to renew its new annual contract with Apple. Apple therefore faced the prospect of seeing the world’s biggest record label withdraw its repertory from the iTunes store. But Business Week reports today that UMG is keeping this nuclear option dry.

It cites anonymous sources who explain that UMG has made an “at will” arrangement, that “enables [UMG] to strike exclusive distribution deals with other digital music providers for individual artists or tracks, though it will continue to sell music through iTunes. Under the new arrangement, for example, Universal could charge another music e-tailer (or Apple, for that matter) a premium to sell Jay-Z’s latest single exclusively for a limited time”.

With Apple facing competition from ad-supported download services, it’s hardly surprising UMG wants to retain flexibility with its pricing. But what UMG wants even more than Apple is to maintain a higher unit price for music, as competition from service providers drives the per-unit cost down, reducing the value of its assets.

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Senior execs targeted in ‘precision’ malware attacks

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Evil techno geeks vs. evil MBAs. Hopefully, there is a way for BOTH of them to lose.

This is very smart on the part of the scammers. Most exploits are found because they are millions of copies floating around the web. In this case, they might not be found until well after the criminals have put a few million bucks in Zurich.

Senior execs targeted in ‘precision’ malware attacks
By John Leyden
Published Monday 2nd July 2007 12:36 GMT

Hackers are targeting senior managers of large firms – along with members of their families – in a new wave of highly-focused email attacks.

On 26 June, net security services firm MessageLabs intercepted more than 500 individual email attacks targeted against individuals in senior management positions. The attack email often featured the name and job title of the intended victim in their subject lines. Chief investment officers accounted for 30 per cent of the attacks, 11 per cent were directed against chief executives.

Other job titles among the top 10 targets included chief information officers, chief financial officers, directors of research, directors of development, and company presidents.

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First completed Boeing 787 leaves assembly hall for paint shop-27/06/2007-Flightglobal.com

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My money is that there will be some delays in deliveries of the aircraft, and then the bankers wringing their hands over Airbus, will whine about boeing.

PICTURES: First completed Boeing 787 leaves assembly hall for paint shop

Flightglobal.com has obtained pictures of the first Boeing 787 Dreamliner headed for the paint shop earlier this week at Boeing’s assembly plant in Everett, Washington. The aircraft is scheduled to be formally rolled out on 8 July (7/8/7 using the US date convention) and fly for the first time in August or September. Entry into service with launch customer, All Nippon Airways, is slated for next May.


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Now THIS is Customer Service

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It would appear that I’m not the only one sick to death of iPhone mania. I just want my phone to complete calls.

Tired of iPhone and/or Apple news on Engadget?

Ok, we’ll level with you. It’s our job to cover the gadgets and consumer electronics space the best we possibly can — and that often includes covering gadgets that one crowd or another isn’t particularly interested in. (See: iPod fans when we blew the door off the Zune launch; or Microsoft fans when we took over WWDC this year.)

So here’s the straight dope: it’s not like we’re going to ignore the iPhone or anything, so for those of you told us you wanted to opt out of our iPhone or Apple coverage, we hear ya! We whipped up some slightly modified Engadget RSS feeds with Yahoo Pipes; we wouldn’t suggest using these forever, but until we get our blog platform up to speed on exclusionary news it’s a good enough temporary solution.

Opt out of Apple / iPhone news
Engadget classic without any iPhone news – RSS feed, Pipes page
Engadget classic without any Apple news – RSS feed, Pipes page

Engadget Mobile without any iPhone news – RSS feed, Pipes page
Engadget Mobile without any Apple news – RSS feed, Pipes page
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Is Opera Software In Trouble?

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Generally, this sort of shakeup does not occur in a vacuum.

Disclosure: I do NOT use their software.

Norway’s Opera Software reshuffles board after power struggle

Associated Press
Article Launched: 06/22/2007 01:02:56 PM PDT

OSLO, Norway – Key shareholders in Opera Software ASA have reshuffled the board of directors after a reported power struggle between board members and the company’s chief executive and founder, Jon S. von Tetzchner.

Five of the seven board members, including chairman Nils A. Foldal, were fired at a shareholder’s meeting Thursday, company spokesman Tor Odland said Friday.

They were replaced by three new board members, and the total number of board members was reduced to five.

Norwegian business daily Dagens Naeringsliv reported that the move came after the ousted board members failed to remove Tetzchner as head of the company, which makes Web browsers for personal computers, mobile phones and personal digital assistants.

The paper reported that the board was growing impatient with Tetzchner because of the company’s poor performance – the share price has dropped more than 50 percent in the past year.

The chief executive declined to comment on the power struggle but told Dagens Naeringsliv he had no plans to step down.

“I feel that I have an important job for the company, shareholders and the board,” Tetzchner was quoted as saying.

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Criminals in Journalism

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This guy moved to a competitor, and stole proprietary data. He thought he could get away with it because of who his father is (see last paragraph).

I’ve always thought that the large corporate media chains were pond scum, and now it is confirmed.

Ridder says he shared Pioneer Press data
Publisher denies breaking noncompete pact
BY JENNIFER BJORHUS
Pioneer Press
Article Last Updated: 06/25/2007 09:46:57 PM CDT

Star Tribune Publisher Par Ridder acknowledged taking confidential financial information from his former employer, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, to his new job at the Minneapolis paper; separately, he insisted his noncompete agreement with the Pioneer Press had been waived, making him free to go.

Ridder’s videotaped testimony, played Monday in Ramsey County District Court, started a three-day hearing for a temporary injunction against Ridder’s employment at the Star Tribune. The Pioneer Press has sued the Star Tribune over Ridder’s departure in March and is seeking to hold Ridder and two other former Pioneer Press employees to their noncompete agreements, barring them from working at the rival paper for one year.

In addition to determining whether the noncompete agreements are valid, Ramsey County District Court Judge David Higgs must decide whether the spreadsheets Ridder allegedly purloined constitute trade secrets. The judge also must decide whether the Pioneer Press will be irreparably harmed by the Star Tribune’s having them.

In a brief filed last week, the Star Tribune argued that the noncompete contracts aren’t binding. It also argued that the electronic data Ridder and the other employees took may have been sensitive but weren’t all that important. The Star Tribune said it didn’t use the data and it didn’t hurt the Pioneer Press.

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Ridder said it was “inappropriate” for him to have taken Pioneer Press personnel paperwork – the disputed noncompete agreements – from the Pioneer Press building. He also said he told his new bosses at the Star Tribune “that I would do this differently,” referring to loading up his laptop with confidential Pioneer Press financial information and then distributing it via e-mail to top executives at the Star Tribune.

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Ridder testified that after speaking with Cartalucca about how to handle the paperwork, he called his father for advice. Ridder’s father is Tony Ridder, former CEO of the dismantled Knight Ridder newspaper chain.

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Why You Should All Read The Register

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Most computer publications won’t use terms like “Crapware”, but the Register does, and in so doing eliminates 3 boring paragraphs of explanation.

Dell cleans up crapware
By Austin Modine in Mountain View
Published Monday 25th June 2007 21:11 GMT

Dell’s tradition of shoveling bloatware into newborn PCs may be coming to a close. All it took was a few years of outrage.

Previously, only Dell XPS systems had the privilege of shipping with a “no software preinstalled” option. But vigilant e-coniptions on Dell’s IdeaStorm (http://www.ideastorm.com/) feedback site has prompted Dimension desktops and Inspiron notebooks to join the party.

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There’s also the fact that Dell has been hemorrhaging, because it decided to save a few bucks by hiring incompetent Indian tech support, and users, particularly business users, have been fleeing to HP.

Their tech support could be either incompetent or Indian, and they would probably have been OK, but together, not so good.

Customers who configure either system on Dell.com can now choose to forgo unhappy hours of removing unwanted “productivity,” ISP, media software such as QuickBooks Trial, NetZero Installers, Earthlink Setup, Wanadoo Europe Installer, Norton Ghost 10.0, MS Plus Photo Story 2LE, MS Plus Digital Media Installer, AOL US, AOL UK, MusicMatch Music Services, Corel Snapfire Plus SE, Yahoo! Music Jukebox, Roxio RecordNow, Sonic RecordNow Audio, Dell Search Assistant — and the rest of the gang.

But not all software gets cut by Occam’s pre-configuration razor. Dimension and Inspiron systems will still ship with trial version of anti-virus software, Acrobat Reader and Google tools.

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And in the “F%$@ the Consumer” Category.

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They really don’t realize how they are driving consumers to Bit Torrent, do they?

If I wanted to make a tape of my LP for my boom box in 1981, that was simple, and now they want to prevent this.

The customer base is increasingly technically savvy, and they increasingly understand how the industry is all about ripping off the artist, so they do not see the industry as benefiting anyone but themselves.

The regime required for the future will make Beria’s NKVD look like a kiddie show.

DVD ripping to be rendered impossible?
By James Sherwood
Published Monday 25th June 2007 12:52 GMT

Buying a DVD and then copying it for use on your PSP, iPod or laptop could soon become impossible, if the DVD Copy Control Association gets its way.

The association wants to amend the licence underpinning the use of its DVD copy-protection technology, CSS (Content Scrambling System). This would, if successful, oblige you to have the original disc in your DVD drive every time you watched it.

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However, the move is already prompting industry opposition. Michael Malcolm, CEO of Kaleidescape, a company that manufactures video servers to copy DVDs legally for use in multi-room display systems, has already written an open letter to the US Senate, claiming such a move could destroy businesses like his.
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Tax Fairness on Private Equity Will Define the Democrats in This Congress

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Seriously, this is a defining issue for Democrats.

The idea that the commissions that people get for investing other people’s money should be taxed as capital gains is a disgrace.,

Bill Is Offered to Increase Tax on Private Equity

By JENNY ANDERSON and ANDREW ROSS SORKIN

Interest on Capitol Hill in raising taxes on private equity and hedge fund managers reached a peak yesterday as leading Democrats introduced a bill that would more than double taxes on most of the income earned by partnerships, including private equity managers, venture capitalists and some hedge funds.

Representatives Charles B. Rangel of New York, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Sander M. Levin of Michigan joined 12 other Democrats in introducing the legislation to tax the performance income earned by many partnerships, including private equity firms, at ordinary income tax rates of 35 percent instead of the current 15 percent capital gains rate.

“Congress must ensure our tax code is fair,” said Mr. Levin, who has been looking at the measure since a friend of his, a retired tax lawyer, brought the issue to his attention a few months ago. The congressman insisted the bill was meant to address equitable tax treatment and was not an attempt to penalize success. “Some Republicans have attacked us for trying to soak the rich,” he said. “I am not trying to soak the rich; I am trying to find tax equity.”

Exactly the point.