It should have been a no brianer, and it took far too long. The Department of Justice has finally filed an Anti trust complaint against AT&T. As expected AT&T and T Mobile Parent DT are protesting.
Why do I think this is the right move when so many in government have been singing off the same free market sheet of music in support of AT&T? Simple. Wireless is not a free market. AT&T deliberately avoids playing in free markets. Rightly or wrongly, government has decided that fixed connections will have limited right of ways, and the limited wireless frequencies will be divided between a small, limited number of operators. Put simply, AT&T is the #1 land line operator, the #1 spectrum holder in most major markets and the #2 wireless carrier. I have serious doubts that the company’s current pre T Mobile structure would would get a clear pass from the Sherman Act as is. (more…)
HP, the company that at one time was a solid investment for both its customers and shareholders has been going through an identity crisis ever since the merger queen, Carly Fiorina landed in its Chairman’s office. She engineered a combined company with Compaq that was supposed to become more than the sum of the two. In the end, only the investment bankers who handled the transaction realized any benefit. The Fiorina era saw the end of HP’s tradition of placing high value on its human capital and R&D. The company tried furiously to grow in services and it languished. Even with R&D cut to the bone, the company did become the #1 PC maker, due largely to the acquisition of Compaq’s retail shelf space.
Fioria was forced out by the board and was followed by the HP’s general council come CEO Patrica Dunn. Her short tenure ended with a pretexting scandal. While this harmed the company’s reputation, its a safe bet that HP would have suffered more if she had remained in power for any length of time.
The Mark Hurd era brought war in the boardroom, exposing the dirty business of selling outsourced services at the highest level with Hurd’s ethics being brought into question. Hurd was nailed by innuendo for using the the typical high stakes tactics that are never publicly discussed. The Hurd mess at HP is far from over. With a freshly minted lawsuit from Hurd’s new employer, Oracle it could be around for another decade.
Enter Leo Apothecar, who came to HP from ERP stalwart SAP. Rumored to have been championed by board member Marc Andreeson. (more…)
DT denies charges that US layoffs are a result of the proposed AT&T takeover of T Mobile. I’m sure AT&T would love to tout minimal layoffs after the fact and DT does want to close the deal. Coincidences happen. And if you hear an animal barking, it’s probably a dog.
Yahoo News completely looses credibility: An ill informed political hack writes for technology news. In his post, he blames Apple’s legal trolling on Republicans and casts President Obama as Android’s only potential savior. Like most pol hacks, this one is a sub-genius who assumes that average reader is even less intelligent. Apple is making war on Android in the courts, but you will find Android devices for sale everywhere except the Apple store. An independent contributor may have written the piece, but a Yahoo editor decided to front page it….and it isn’t even April 1st!
Did you miss the $99 HP Touchpad? Don’t worry, it’s back at full price. The company’s UK boss adds that it’s in the PC game to stay. Has Apothecar completely lost it or are the UK suits smoking something?
Boffins find major vulnerabilities in cell networks. What too so long?
Rumor mill: Amazon and Android could be working together on a new recipe for applesauce.
Add Rolling Stone Magazine to the dead tree dead pool.
Google kills its open data set project. There are many other repositories for open source data sets, but it’s still sad to see this one go.
Wall Street’s spreadsheet kids aren’t a patient lot. They’ve decided AOL is mortally wounded. So, they’ve been looking to sell while the company still has some value. There have been no takers. The conventional wisdom is that waiting won’t improve prospects, at least on the near horizon. The next best option for Wall Street is to sell the company off like a totaled car wreck – with the most valuable parts being sold peace meal, crushing the remaining carcass for scrap.
Ironically, the very same spreadsheet kids that want to cash out are major contributors to AOL’s demise. In the days of dial up, AOL was dominant. As broadband began to take market share, the company squandered an opportunity to move to new technology and/or to a portal while its user base was intact. That opportunity was nixed by a short sighted fund managers’ love affair with colossal dial up margins. Broadband and open content were seen as threats to this cash cow. It took a near fatal erosion of AOL’s customer base to finally bring change.
Apple has had an ongoing battle with Samsung over their Galaxy Tab being too much like the iPad. Well here is the most unusual angle. Samsung is throwing up a `prior art` defense against Apple from a most unlikely source — Hollywood.
Did you catch it? The items that looked like video screen IN the table? Well if you look closer that really is a pad like device with a flat panel screen and a few controls on the front. Another words, a black iPad.
Pretty thin gruel you say? Well I might tend to agree except for the fact that defenses for enforcement of patents has been thinner still in many cases. There is a chance that Samsung might prevail. If they do that opens up the iPad/tablet market by leaps and bounds. It would also deal Apple a mighty blow. This also raises an interesting question. If Samsung prevails what happens to many of the Motorola patents that Google bought? I suggest the reader refresh themselves with the old StarTrek series with any away team segment in it. Is that communicator a flip-phone Captain Kirk is holding? TOS was circa 1965, predating the first Motorola phone by nearly two decades. Its something to watch.
HT: Consumerist.
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