Nothing to buy or sell until I hear more from Bernanke today. He’s appearing before Congress.His testimony is already available. Click here
Our TIPS are up to 83 1/2. Probably going a little higher.
What is going on at Apple? Low spending on R&D? Click here.
Gold is rallying. No one knows why. But it appears to be cheap. For a small flyer, try SGOL.
Reader Mikeancey comments on MSFT:
Something wrong with MSFT thinking. From reader The Surface RT was such a bad idea on so many levels. So, they create this little tablet (it’s a god choice of hardware, actually), but it uses an ARM processor that is incompatible with Win 8 apps. Any apps have to be rebuilt / recompiled for the ARM processor. It’s a whole different platform.
Then they go and price it ‘at’ a comparable iPad. Again, the hardware is quite GOOD! It’s the choice of processor / software to run on it that was ill-conceived. There’s no compelling reason to switch from an iPad to an RT. It’s really a product with no problem or solution associated with it.
Then, (what was it) 6 months later, they release the Intel processor version (Surface Pro) which runs Win 8. Well, now there’s no damn reason for the RT any more, is there?
Reduce the price to $0, in my opinion. Then maybe some hacker kids can figure out how to put Android on it and turn it into a really good TV Remote…
Something’s seriously wrong with their thinking at MSFT.
And, to completely beat a dead horse, here are comments from Preston Gralla in the latest issue of Computerworld. This piece is neat because Warren Buffett was asked recently if he had his life to do all over again, what would he do differently? He answered: learn more about tech. So, to Gralla:
Microsoft has derailed for lack of an engineer in chief
People give plenty of reasons for Microsoft’s fall from the top of the tech heap. Two of the more common explanations are internal turf wars and the inevitable decline of a near monopoly that got fat and happy.
But I think there’s something much simpler at work: It’s been years since Microsoft has been run by an engineer. Bill Gates stopped working full time for Microsoft in 2006, and since then the company has been run by non-engineer Steve Ballmer. Before joining Microsoft, Ballmer worked as an assistant product manager for consumer products giant Procter & Gamble and spent a year in the MBA program at Stanford. That’s not the set of job skills and background the CEO of a tech company needs today.
Take a look at the tech companies that have surged since Ballmer took over from Gates. Google is headed by engineers. True, people thought that founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page needed some adult supervision. But who stepped in to run the place? Eric Schmidt, a former director of software engineering at Sun.
Facebook is run by an engineer. Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were engineers, and though Jobs couldn’t rival Wozniak’s prowess, he could code and build hardware, and he lived for overseeing product design. Tim Cook, the current CEO, has a degree in industrial engineering.
Why does all that matter?
Because in tech, the product rules. Products trump marketing, strategy and even smart management. What drives technology isn’t dividing up an existing market. It’s creating entirely new markets by developing products that people crave.
Google succeeded for a very simple reason: At launch, it was by far the best search engine on the planet. Facebook became a success because it was far more useful and “sticky” than any other social media service. As for Apple, its history suggests that, while engineers can’t always save a struggling tech company, a marketer has almost no chance. When Jobs was forced out in the mid-1980s, the CEO was John Sculley, an MBA who had been, among other things, a vice president of marketing at Pepsi. Sculley’s ouster was preceded by a misstep on the tech side — moving the Mac to the PowerPC chip. Although he was followed by two tech-oriented CEOs, it wasn’t until Jobs returned that Apple took off again. The spate of new products Jobs developed was remarkable and spurred Apple’s meteoric rise.
Engineers succeed as tech leaders because they live and breathe products and care about them in visceral ways that managers — even very good managers — don’t. For people like Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Brin and Page, building products is a calling, not a job.
Not so for Steve Ballmer. Listen to him talk about products. He’s robotic, his enthusiasm is artificial, and his message never strays from whatever marketing campaign has been designed for him. During the launch and early days of Windows Phone 7, he incessantly repeated that the new phone operating system would “delight” users. It was by far one of the most inauthentic, marketing-driven performances I have ever seen.
Jobs, Brin, Page and Zuckerberg never needed to gin up their enthusiasm for what they created. If Microsoft wants to get its mojo back, it should be looking for a leader who’s similar to those four: an engineer who loves tech products, not someone who just sells them.
Preston Gralla is a Computerworld.com contributing editor and the author of more than 35 books, including How the Internet Works (Que, 2006).
So China is slowing? From today’s Business Insider daily newsletter 10 Things You Need To Know Before The Opening Bell, July 17, 2013
Foreign direct investment in China rose at the fastest pace in two years in June, advancing 20.1% year over year. Economists had only expected a 0.7% increase after FDI rose 0.3% in May. Investment from the United States rose 12.3%, while investment from Europe rose 14.7%.
For the full Reuters story, click here.
Brown bears fishing in Alaska. Live web cam. Fascinating. You’ll watch for hours until they finally catch a fish. These are patient, handsome bears. Remember Alaska time. It’s nighttime now. Wait till our afternoon. Click here.
Great magic. Click here.
Florida considers eliminating laws altogether.
TALLAHASSEE (The Borowitz Report)—Arguing that its current system of laws is out of step with life in today’s Florida, a growing chorus of lawmakers in the state are arguing for a measure that would eliminate laws altogether.
“Florida is rife with laws that say ‘Do this, don’t do that,’ ” said Gov. Rick Scott, a supporter of the measure. “Speaking as a Floridian, I have found it exhausting pretending to obey them.”
There is broad support in the state for abolishing laws, according to a poll commissioned by the political action committee Citizens For a Lawless Florida.
According to that poll, a majority of Floridians favor ridding the state of laws, while a sizable number did not know that the state had any.
“We’ve been trying to remove laws piecemeal for the past few decades, but this measure seems like the most efficient way to take care of the whole problem,” Gov. Scott said.
For those who fear that eradicating Florida’s laws would wreak havoc on life in the state, Gov. Scott offered this reassurance: “Honestly, I don’t think you’ll notice a difference.”
Harry Newton who loves words. The EU has something called The Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market. Are you ready? It handles trade marks and designs. It spells trademarks as two words.
I will admit to being fascinated with Syria and the the psychology of how one man is willing to destroy the thing he loves — his country. From the New York Times:
Two years of war have quintupled unemployment, reduced the Syrian currency to one-sixth of its prewar value, cost the public sector $15 billion in losses and damage to public buildings, slashed personal savings, and shrunk the economy 35 percent, according to government and United Nations officials.
The pillars of Syria’s economy have crumbled as the war has destroyed factories, disrupted agriculture, vaporized tourism and slashed oil revenues, with America and Europe imposing sanctions and rebels taking over oil fields.
Increasingly isolated in the face of a growing economic crisis that has reduced foreign currency reserves to about $2 billion to $5 billion from $18 billion, a government that long prided itself on its low national debt and relative self-sufficiency has now been forced to rely on new credit lines from its main remaining allies – Iran, Russia and China – to buy food and fuel.
I’ve watched how CEOs have destroyed their own companies, by refusing to listen to advice or, most often, the handwriting on the wall. It’s an interesting madness.
I have seen a plethora CEOs destroy their own companies over the years. It’s not new. Here’s just one example…After selling all my DPT stock except one share on the day it reached it’s highest price, I kept that single share so DPT would have to send me an annual report. That way I could watch top management drive DPT into non-existence.
Syria and their leader’s willingness to destroy the country “that he loves” appears to be a contradiction. However, this “leader” or any other egomaniac from history, does not love his country – only his obsession with himself and his control of that country at any cost based on a loosely contrived combination of religious and nationalistic beliefs to satisfy his supporters and enough money to buy them off. Every dictator seems to be able to persuade – using money and fear – a group of supporters to attempt to annihilate the opposition, fight to the death (or until defeated), and then, when the game is over, (if still alive), disappear into the population hoping to escape justice and appear like nothing happened..
This is not love of country -the basic idea is that if I can’t have control of the country, then I will destroy it, so they can’t have it.either. What is really astounding is the amount of losses it takes to get rid of an egomaniac, when a single low cost bullet early on would have eliminated the problem. The other requirement to control a country is to hire enough supporters to provide an environment of fear and terror providing them with a license to murder and kill that brings praise rather than condemnation from their government. It seems to work every time until a large percentage of the people and the infrastructure are unnecessarily destroyed, when only a single bullet would have done the job – cleanly and effectively.
There are some that say that this is happening here in the US of A.
Aw, jeez, don’t make your investments based on what Bernanke says.
And — so Microsoft is struggling? Could’ve fooled me. I’m up about 35 percent YTD with my Microsoft purchase.
Harry, please, for the love of god, stop listening to financial media! The other day when you ranked the worst of the lot, that was a good column. I just wish you would NEVER listen to Cramer, who changes 180 degrees in the course of 24 hours. “This market’s going up, up, up!” Then – “There’s nothing worth buying.”) And, it’s time someone called out Suze Orman for her AWFUL ADVICE, such as recommending gold about a year ago, and bragging about ow she only invests 5 percent of her money in stocks.