AT&T is cutting the price on I-Phones

AT&T is cutting the price on I-Phones. Which is good because I don’t think I phone should cost anyone nearly $400. AT&T is preparing to subsidize $200 of the cost of a new iPhone, bringing the price down to $199 for customers who sign two-year contracts, the source says. Apple is expected to have two versions of the new iPhone, an 8-gigabyte-memory and a 16-gigabyte-memory model with price tags widely expected to be $399 and $499. It is said that at $200, the iPhone would be within reach of a much wider consumer market and give AT&T a strong magnet to pull lucrative customers away from rivals like Verizon Wireless , Sprint and T-Mobile . The $200 rebate would be limited to AT&T customers and not available through Apple’s stores. The new iPhone sold by AT&T will likely be locked or programmed so buyers can’t take the cheaper iPhone to another phone service. Looks like AT&T is trying to better deals than the other companies. Most customers search for the best phone; myself I’d rather have the best service and plan. In my personal opinion would be AT&T anyway. This new phone is due to be released on June 27, which is the anniversary of the original I-phone. A few weeks prior to that Apple is planning to stop supplies of the older model I-phone, which should help the demand for the new device. The iPhone will also have a GPS chip for navigation and other location-based services. I like phones that have GPS systems in them. I’m sure there will be some many people who don’t know about this half price I-phone and will continue to pay $400 for one..

Microsoft

This week is beginning to shape up to be the big one in Microsoft’s almost 3-month effort to gain Yahoo. Microsoft software maker has set a Saturday deadline for Yahoo to come to the bargaining table or else other actions will take place. Yahoo reported it’s numbers on Tuesday and Microsoft is set to releases their numbers on Thursday. Those reports are said to be more important in that Microsoft’s bid is half stock. A large earnings report from Yahoo will likely put pressure on Microsoft to up its bid; meanwhile a negative one might increase the strength on Yahoo to sell. Yet other players are discussing that there is still talk of Yahoo partnering with AOL. And they are still continuing an advertising test with Google.
Microsoft is beginning an automatic distribution of Windows Vista Service Pack 1; this is the first major update to the year-and-a-half-old operating system. The company will start sending it to Vista users who have Windows’ automatic update feature turned on. The company has cautioned that not everyone will get SP1 immediately. Vista SP1 was made available to customers last month. Service Pack 1 doesn't add much in the way of new features, but rather is a collection of changes designed to fix bugs and improve performance, as well as address competitive concerns raised by Google over Vista's desktop search system.

Sun Microsystems

Jonathan Schwartz, the CEO and President of Sun Microsystems was the guess speaker on the GigaOm show this week. He helped the company earn $3.615 billion in revenue for 2008 fiscal Q2. This was an increase of 1.4% compared to last year’s second quarter results of $3.566. Sun is a company who address networking marketing. Known as open office and Java, or a systems company. Java reaches billions of people and is a very simple model. He compared Pets.com, which is a former dot-com enterprise that ceased operations in November of 2000. Sun was a hardware or box company but they aren’t a box company. They basically want to expand by touching millions of people, if you touch them once then you can reach out and serve them with other products. They are a systems company, which basically means they have to worry about the client’s side, as well as the networks side of the system. Sun provides Amazon type programs. He makes it clear that they are not a server company they are a systems company.
ZFS, which is a system for managing files and data. Zettabyte File System, which was given away for free to gain customers. Jonathan mentioned how in 2007, Sun spent 14.5% (2.0 billion) of its total revenue on research and development. Innovation goes were people can make money. The U.S, online advertising market is expected to reach $50.3 billion in revenue by 2011. There is less innovation going into the networking. Sun basically allows the customer to get the product of choice, if you like it then you purchase it if not then you return it.

Seesmic The video blog

On the GigaOm show the guest for the week was Loic Le Meur. He has a successful history of four Internet startup companies and making millions. He is currently working on his newest startup Seesmic, Seesmic that is a video micro blogging web application in the alpha stage. His plan is to make video uploading easier for those using web cams. Seesmic made its debut called the “twitter of video”. There is a downfall the conversations won’t take place in real time. This service now has about 20,000 users, with 70,000 viewers per month. This program is basically removing anonmious traditonal bogs. Seesmic’s videos cover a lot of different topics. The company doesn’t have a high overhead cost. A lot of browsers are overlooking this site due to the low quality of direct video recordings with web cams. He is a Frenchman who came all the way across the Atlantic to start his new business Seesmic. In 1966, Loic Le Meur founded his first company, interactive agency B2L, which was sold to advertising agency BBDO in 1999 for an undisclosed sum. Seesmic is basically a video conversation site, and is open to 25 countries. These are global conversation.

Wikipedia's Jim Wales on the GigaOm Show

Jimmy Wales the founder of Wikipedia and Wikia talks on the gigaom show when he talks about the social networks. They talked about the g file, which you can purchase for more storage. This software is known as the Google Get Set and G Drive. According to Gartner, Inc the worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users in the third quarter of 2007 reached 289 million units, a 15% increase from last year. Jimmy Wales from Huntsville, Al, he studied game theory. He talked about his Wikiapedia, which is a very straight forward when doing a research. Wikia is basically like a traditional library. It gives the tools people will need as if they were at the library. He wants his program to be a free source and open source, he is using existing sources. He planned to collaborate with different people to find out what is redundant. They talked about how there are more social adoption for blogs than wikis, basically because communities tend to come together. People usually go where there’s already action, and its hard to build a community. The trust metric is a measure of how a member of a group is trusted by the other members. Armchairgm which allows you to write a story, others can come and blog, but can still be edited. Different people can post and there is a vote for who gets the front page. A lot of people on wikipedia that edits there own bibliography, which they are not suppose to do.

Second Life (GigaOm Show)

Phillip Rosedale is the founder and CEO of second life. They talked about HULU is now open to the public. It’s an easy way to watch some of you favorite TV shows. Second life is said to be worldwide. Second Life has more than million registered accounts, although many are inactive, some residents have multiple accounts, and there are no reliable figures for actual long-term consistent usage.
Second Life is considered a 3-D virtual world created by its residents. It opened to the public in 2003, it has grown a great bit, and today has millions of residents.
Wagner James Au (in second life) is the GigOm editor and author of “The Making of Second Life.” Second life is basically an online world, which the people who are there build everything. Second life is now about five years old. It started out with about sixteen severs. The size then was about the six of a few area blocks, and could be explored in about an hour. Now Second life has grown so rapidly there are almost, 18,000 servers. Second life continues to develop, it’s expected that all of second life will not be consumed. They talked about an island which they were currently at, they lady who created this digital ecosystem, profiting from donations left due to frustrations with second life. The question of if second life will survive, it’s now over a half billion dollar economy over a million dollars a day. Phillip Rosedale has stated that his goal with second life is to demonstrate a viable model for a virtual economy or virtual society.

Buzz out loud 675 Piracy

As most know, the MPAA has been claiming that piracy is killing the industry. Actors and Actresses are soon to be losing jobs and indeed the whole movie industry itself is being crushed by piracy. The MPAA just reported it's largest profit ever in 2007, $9,630,000,000 or 9.63 billion dollars( in case you lost count of the zeros). Piracy is obviously not keeping people out of the theater, and as the Buzz Out Loud crew suggested, piracy may even be good to a certain extent. Piracy promotes business as people who see the movie online usually end up buying it or going and seeing it in the theater. The ones who pirate movies and do not buy them would not have seen the movie otherwise, but they will still talk about it, and perhaps others will be interested and actually pay money to see the movie. Also, people do enjoy the whole theater experience of seeing the movie on a much larger screen than any television could provide.
Regardless of rather piracy helps or hurts the movie industry, one thing should be obvious; the MPAA is stretching the truth. Pirating is bigger now than it ever has, yet somehow the MPAA manages to earn more than ever before. One can not help but believe the MPAA might be exaggerating some of their statistics. Actually one does not have to believe as the MPAA has been caught exaggerating the affects of piracy in a 2005 report on collegiate piracy. The MPAA originally stated that the collegiate file sharing contributed to 44% of movie losses to piracy. Later however, it was discovered that collegiate piracy equals about 15% of movie losses! Obviously, someone made a minor error in their calculations. The MPAA will never receive wide-support, regardless of how people feel about piracy, if it does not use legitimate tactics to prove its case.

GigaOm 2/28/08

On the last GigaOm show, Josh Vyomesh, EVP imaging and printing for HP was talking about many technologies that HP/Hewlett Packard is interested in. One that stuck out in my mind was Electronic paper, or E-paper. E-paper is a technology that looks very similar to paper. Unlike other flat displays which utilizes a back light to display the picture. E-paper reflects light like a regular piece of paper. Vyomesh's point was that HP tries to be environmentally friendly and unlike traditional paper, e-paper is not processed from trees and is reusable, so once it has been used, you don't have to archive it or throw it away. The biggest drawback is that e-paper does not display color nearly as well as a traditional ink-jet printer.
E-paper can be used for a variety of things besides emulating traditional paper. Computer screens can be made using E-paper. The difference between these screens and LCDs, CRTs, and Plasmas is that E-paper screens can be worn, are flexible, and can even be rolled up. E-books may be used on E-paper as well. This is a very practical application for E-paper. Many people do not want to sit at a computer screen to read an E-book, yet printing it would take several pages, but an entire e-book could be read using one piece of E-paper. Another interesting use of E-paper is in watches. The entire watch, including the face display, is as flexible as the band when using E-paper. These are just a few of the hundreds of applications for E-paper.
E-paper will most likely become more available in the next few years. Even now, companies are investing heavily into E-paper. The problems right now with E-paper is that the uses, such as clocks and E-book readers are more novel than serious markets. E-paper has the potential to be used in everything from street signs to computer displays however.

Free Games Profitable?

This post is based on a older GigaOM video Free-to-play MMOs Profitable- on January 31. For those that do not know, MMOS are massively multiplayer online games that have hundreds, thousands, or even millions of players. The traditional business model for MMOs were simple. Buy the game. Pay a monthly subscription to play. While there is nothing wrong with this mindset, MMO players typically are more “hardcore”, or into gaming, than your typical Wii player. These gamers are not going to pick up a new MMO just because a company releases one. New PC games generally cost around fifty dollars; add that to a fifteen to twenty dollar monthly subscription fee and it is understandable why so few MMOs are popular.

This brings us to the new business model for MMO gaming. Now, many retail-quality MMOs are being offered as a free download without any monthly subscription service. Revenue now comes from items such as clothing, weapons, enhancements, land etc...that players buy for their characters. This concept was developed in South Korea and has now been brought to the USA by K2.network.net. This company has made millions by simply selling these customization items. The biggest drawback to the Free-to-play model is that launching an MMO can be very expensive. Also, the free game model is somewhat slower profit wise than the traditional pay to play mode. It takes some time for gamers to get caught up in the game so to speak Obviously, there is great potential for long term benefits, as the creators can always add new customizations The best way to look at the new model is a service model. If the producers provide a good game and good service to back it up, then players will naturally buy the little customizations and add-ons. The traditional model comes with more-less everything the player will ever have in one package, so the initial investment may be higher, but the long term benefits quickly diminish as players get bored.

HD-DVD Vs. Blu Ray Compared to Betamax Vs. VHS

This blog will sum up Buzz-Out Laud's past few episode segments that have followed the format war. The HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray war is finally coming to a close. Blu-Ray is being supported by most major retailers while HD-DVD is either being dropped or, as in Best-Buy's case, simply not being recommended. Several times, this format war has been compared to the Betamax-VHS format war in the 70s. What everyone fails to mention is that Betamax was owned by Sony, so with all the comparisons being drawn, I find it ironic that no one has mentioned that Sony is the winner(as of now) this time around. Still, comparisons could easily be drawn between the two format wars. Like HD-DVDS and Blu-Ray discs, both Sony's Betamax and JVC's VHS offered similar video resolutions and sound. The Betamax, like HD-DVDS had a few different features that set it apart from the VHS, the most notable probably being HIFI sound. Eventually VHS gained the HIFI sound ability however, which could be compared to Blu-Ray's update to gain the special features that HD-DVD offered. Also worth comparing would be the Betamax runtime compared to the HD-DVD storage capacity, both were the biggest criticisms of the two formats(both were smaller compared to their competitor's products), which is why the respective technologies failed.
With HD-DVD gone, Blu-Ray may find new opponents(mentioned in Buzz-Out Loud 662) such as High Def movies on demand, downloadable High-def movies and the like. Also worth mentioning are the up-converting DVD players. These players play standard definition movies up-scaled to higher resolutions. While this does not make standard DVDs play in high definition, it does offer a better picture than a normal DVD player would. These up-converting players run much cheaper than Blu-Ray disc players, with the up-converting players starting around $50.00 and Blu-Rays around $300.00. Obviously the Blu-Ray format will be around for a while now, but the death of HD-DVDs does not mean that there will not be any competition for it. One last note, if the consumer does not have a high definition television, then high definition format movies, or even upscaling dvd players will look exactly the same as a standard DVD.

Buzz Out Loud 654

Maximus, a software distributing company based in Taiwan, is responsible for the production of over 90% of all pirated Microsoft technology. Huang Jer-sheng is the owner of Maximus and the mastermind behind this pirate-based company. He was arrested in 2004 and sentenced to four years in prison for the counterfeit software. Considering the fact that the company was responsible for nearly all of Microsoft's pirated software, most would agree that the sentencing was quite lenient.
Unlike downloading software illegally where it would be quite obvious what the consumer was getting him or herself into, these products were virtually indistinguishable from their legitimate counterparts. Every detail of the packaging was reproduced professionally, all the way down to the holographic stickers. Of course, many consumers still know the difference between burned copies and professionally pressed discs. Maximus, however, worked with several illegal CD reproduction plants to make their finished product identical to Microsoft's. Thus, the consumer would have no way of knowing which product is the "real" one.
As stated on Buzz Out Loud, it is good to finally see companies going after the large pirating operations rather than threatening individuals, who may have downloaded a few dollars worth of music. Hopefully, other companies will follow Microsoft's example both for their benefit and ours. After all, Microsoft would have never stopped the production of over 90% of their software by going after random individuals; take note RIAA!

IT makes Cents- GROUP 6

1. Is 99 Cents Only the leading edge of IT? Is it on the bleeding edge?

99 Cents Only is clearly on the leading edge of IT in one-priced stores. Unlike many of the fixed price stores who are slow to adopt new technology, 99 Cents has used IT automate their warehouse management, restock inventory, and to manage the volumes of their various products.

2. What characteristics of the dollar store industry make it so important to increase efficiency? Dollar stores purchase their inventory by price rather than item.

It is often difficult for them to reorder the same merchandise at the same price. IT can help these stores find the best price by automatically searching for the best deal, or find other suitable merchandise. Also, to maximize profits, dollar stores must be able to quickly receive their products at their distribution centers and quickly redistribute them to their retail-outlets without over or under stocking.

3. The company has performed better than its competitors. In terms of the eight initiatives discussed in this chapter, which initiative or initiatives has gained it the competitive advantage?
Reduce Cost-, by automating many tasks, 99 Cents is able to save money(and time) otherwise spent on human employees.
Raise barriers to market entrants­- Any new dollar store will need IT to help close the gap since 99 Cents is 19,000 sq ft with annual revenue of $4.8 million compared to its competitors that are less than half of both figures.
Enhance products or services- 99 Cents appeals to a larger audience than the lower income, so it obviously stocks a broader range of items. Also, on the service side, 99 Cents has a higher restocking rate than other companies, so customers can find the items they want easier.

4. 99 Cents Only must modify its information systems frequently. Why? Forty percent of the inventory is purchased in one-time-only close-outs, so the system must accept new items quickly.

5. Often, CIOS are frustrated with the time it takes senior management to support their strategic initiatives and with the difficulty of earmarking funds for such initiatives. How is 99 Cents Only different in this respect?
99 Cents is a family owned business, so decisions are made much faster since there are no formal meetings. This makes the time of request to implementation much shorter.