July 2007 Archives

Just in case IT managers' jobs weren't challenging enough this summer, the Wall Street Journal has provided your enterprise co-workers with some helpful hints on getting around the corporate network for which you are responsible.

Ten Things Your IT Department Won't Tell You is full of advice for the office worker who wants to screw around on the job and cover his or her digital tracks.

Among the tips:

How to send giant files (Answer: Through any number of free online services)

How to visit the web sites your company blocks (Answer: Use a proxy site or Google's translation service)

How to store work files online (Answer: Wait, let me guess...an online storage service!)

While this list may not matter in the hands of workers for whom Secret No. 4 (you can delete your browsing history?!) is a revelation, you can bet corporate computer users more inclined toward testing boundaries will eagerly try some of these out.

Now might be a good time for that memo reiterating corporate network usage policies.

It's not supposed to be like this any more. Wireless by now is supposed to be easy and ubiquitous. The days of torturous installs and configurations should be well behind us.

At least that's what I thought. And it certainly is the seductive promise held out by Linksys, the Cisco subsidiary and leading wireless hardware vendor.

The problem started when my older Linksys Wireless-B router -- the one in my home office -- went out during a spring storm, and after several failed attempts to get it working again, I decided to upgrade and get the Linksys Wireless-G router. It has better range, it's more modern and, best of all, it has "push button wireless setup."

Plus I know this attractive feature works because I have an identical "push button" Linksys router in my house (my office is located in a separate building on my property, hence the need for two routers). And that router always has been easy to reconfigure after something (usually weather-related) knocked it off-line.

So the new one should be just as simple, right? One would think so. However, not only did the new router fail to set up at the push of a button, its presence on my property somehow seems to have taken down my other wireless router, the one that was operating. Now the push-button procedure doesn't work on that router either, and all of this is driving me crazy.

In the meantime I can connect right through my DSL modems. I'll figure out the problem too (I suspect it might have something to do with my DSL account password, which I inadvertently may have changed), even if it means the dreaded call to Linksys customer support. Then I'll be up and running with both routers. You'll see.

But really, I just want to push a button.

As someone who retains a desktop computer at home only to prevent my kids from using my laptop, I was pretty surprised that desktop PC sales surged in Q2. I thought the old boxes were slowly dying out.

But the numbers don't lie. According to this article from internetnews.com's David Needle:

The market research firm [Gartner] said PC shipments totaled 6.1 million units in the second quarter of 2007, an 11.7 percent increase from the same period last year. Gartner had earlier projected 10.6 percent growth for the quarter.

In the U.S. market, PC shipments totaled 15.7 million units in the second quarter of 2007, a 5.9 percent increase from the second quarter of 2006. Gartner had previously projected growth of 3.2 percent.

Gartner analysts say they're not sure what accounts for the surprising increase in desktop sales, though they ruled out any impact due to the introduction of Microsoft's Vista operating system.

I'd have to agree with that point, especially since Vista can be installed on laptop's as well (as it is on my new HP Pavilion). Since Gartner singles out corporate desktop sales in the U.S. as having exceeded expectations, I'm thinking the Q2 desktop surge is price-driven.

Let's just use HP as an example. In the Large Enterprise Business section of HP's web site, you can find "business desktops" ranging in price from $359 to $709. However, if you go to HP's "Large Enterprise Business: Notebooks & Tablet PCs" section and click on "Business Notebooks," the laptops start at $649 and go up to $1,399.

Pretty dramatic difference. Plus, from an enterprise's perspective, desktop's are less likely to walk out the front door. So if you really don't need a mobile computer for some of your employees, why waste money on them?

Which may not explain the unexpected rise in desktop sales last quarter. After all, desktops have been cheaper than laptops for some time. But given this year's uncertain economic picture, perhaps enterprises that had to upgrade or add computers in recent months opted for the most economical solution.

Or maybe there's a "old school" movement afoot that I don't know about.

I've never much cared for the pdf file format. To begin with, it's intrusive -- for a few seconds, Adobe invariably takes over your computer and pesters you with an Acrobat Reader update offer. No, I updated three minutes ago, remember?

Then the document pops open at 156% of normal size, which I'm told can be a danger to any user with a pacemaker. Plus you can't drag and drop, too many pdf authors go berserk with the graphics, yadda yadda yadda.

And now, this.

I think it's swell that shareholders of AOL Time Warner soon will be getting back money from a huge class-action lawsuit settlement.

But it shouldn't have taken so long, coming as it does 1) five years after numerous lawsuits were filed alleging that AOL had engaged in fraudulent bookkeeping to enhance advertising revenues, and 2) two years after the company reached a settlement with the federal Department of Justice and the Minnesota State Board of Investment. (You can read the court settlement document here.)

And no one's going to be able retire on their class-action check. Estimates in the settlement document indicate that holders of the 3.4 billion affected shares can expect anywhere from 78 cents per share to a big fat zero.

But it's the principle of the thing, right?

Meanwhile, AOL Time Warner gets to avoid long, potentially expensive civil and criminal trials that could have adversely affected its stock price and public image, plus possibly resulted in jail time for some financial employees.

And while the company's $2.85 billion payoff settlement ain't exactly chicken feed, it is deductible!

Once again, the system works.

Maybe there's something about the retail business -- both online and bricks and mortar -- I just don't understand. But in all of the coverage about the iPhone, there's one question I haven't seen addressed: Why did Apple release the tremendously hyped multimedia digital cell phone over the weekend before the Fourth of July?

That strikes me as a counter-intuitive marketing decision. A bad quarterly report (or a presidential commutation) I could understand, but launching a product at the beginning of the summer vacation season, and right before a major holiday?

Maybe the argument is that the iPhone launch wouldn't be competing with as much other news in the summer. However, I see it working another way: Since neither the media nor media consumers are fully engaged in the slow summer months, there's that much less buzz.

The iPhone would be a hit anyway, no matter when it was released. But for a company known for its pure showmanship, Apple seems to have opted for what is, calendar-wise, an off-Broadway debut.

We're halfway through 2007, so I thought it would be interesting to check this year's ticker performances to date for the four most prominent public Internet companies. Here we go:

Amazon.com

Closing stock price, Dec. 29, 2006: $39.46
Closing stock price, June 29, 2007: $68.41
Year to date: Up 74%

eBay

Closing stock price, Dec. 29, 2006: $30.07
Closing stock price, June 29, 2007: $32.18
Year to date: Up 7%

Google

Closing stock price, Dec. 29, 2006: $460.48
Closing stock price, June 29, 2007: $522.70
Year to date: Up 14%

Yahoo!

Closing stock price, Dec. 29, 2006: $25.54
Closing stock price, June 29, 2007: $27.13
Year to date: Up 6%

There's only one huge winner on the list, and that's online retailer Amazon.com. And despite the turbulence surrounding Yahoo!, shares of the embattled Internet graybeard have appreciated almost as much as auction site eBay's have so far in 2007.

Given the backlash Google has endured in recent months, one might expect some downward pressure on the search giant's stock. But it has held up well through the first two quarters.

Amazon shareholders might want to keep this in mind, however: Based on the price to earnings ratio, the company's stock is overvalued and due for a correction. For those unfamiliar with P/E ratios, basically it's how much investors are paying for a firm's stock relative to the income or profit earned per share. And the higher the P/E ratio, the more investors are paying.

Right now AMZN has a P/E ratio of 118. That compares to Google's P/E ratio of 47, eBay's 37 and Yahoo's! 51. Based on these numbers and my keen market sense, I'd put my money on eBay and Google to outperform the other two in the second half of 2007.