In Search of the Perfect Investment

From death throes to a small profit. Miracles happen.

Stocking picking is the art of reading, listening, then asking. Does this company have the right management and the right products to pull it through?

Ford’s boss, Alan Mulally, is widely considered to be Detroit’s best.  He pulled it off.

In contrast, there’s the Black Swan event at Toyota — the stuck gas pedals.

In today’s world, stocking picking is increasingly short-term and increasingly risky. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize the turnaround at Ford. I hear the Ford preferreds are the better deal.

There’s a neat article on Ford in the New York Times.

Why My Mom’s Next Computer Is Going To Be An iPad. It’s a computer. It’s a big iPod. It’s an eReader. It’s the book of Jobs.

Apple’s is the master publicity manipulator. No one ever gets the attention on the launch of a new product which Apple does. This one excites because it has the potential to revolutionize  so many industries — from computing to the  mobile, from publishing to portable gaming.   Apple’s stock ran up before the iPad release, but has since rolled over, along with the rest of the market.

I haven’t played with the iPad, yet. But all that hype got to me.  I’m thoroughly intrigued. Of all the stuff I’ve read, this one makes the most sense. It’s from a young kid named Ethan Nicholas, who’s made a small  fortune developing games games for the iPhone, including  iShoot and the newly released Kim Rhode’s Outdoor Shooting. Before the iPad was even announced, Nicholas was already concocting  his next game with the tablet device in mind. The heading on this article is “Why My Mom’s Next Computer Is Going to be an iPad.” He’s right:

The Internet is a funny place. After Apple announced its new iPad, I cringed at the hate being directed its way on sites such as Slashdot and Digg. Even the guys at Penny Arcade, whom I normally agree with, said “that iPad presentation had to be the worst thing I’ve even seen on on the Apple stage” and that Apple had failed to make a case for the device.

If you believe them, the iPad is going to be a massive flop.

Well, the unwashed masses on the Internet also predicted that the iPod would be a failure. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now.

The iPad is a computer for people who don’t like computers. People who don’t like the idea of upgrading their 3D drivers, or adjusting their screen resolution, or installing new memory. Who don’t understand why their computer gets slower and slower the longer they own it, who have 25 icons in their system tray and have to wait ten minutes for their system to boot up every day.

For what most of these people need a computer for, the iPad is perfect. It doesn’t do as many things as a “real” computer does, but the things it does do it does in a way even non-tech-savvy people can figure out, and there are far fewer ways to screw it up. So if you have managed to convince yourself that the iPad is a useless, locked-up DRM-laden failure of a ‘computer’ before even touching one, I have two words for you:

My mom.

My mother is a lovely lady in her sixties who is… well, “not computer savvy” is probably a good way to put it. I regularly have to figure out why her computer is running incredibly slowly, or why it won’t print, or any of the million other random things that happen when people who don’t live and breathe computers sit down at one daily.

The iPad is perfect for her. It does exactly what she needs. It will let her watch movies and listen to music and read books on long flights. It will make using a computer fun instead of an annoying chore.

But it also won’t allow her to install umpteen news and weather gadgets that start up on boot and slow her computer to a crawl. It won’t suddenly forget how to talk to a network, or get so confused by all of the software installs and uninstalls that you finally have to break down and reinstall the system from scratch. In other words, my mother’s next computer is going to be an iPad, and I dream of the day when I can finally throw off the oppressive chains of being the one guy in the family who knows how to actually keep a computer working.

And you know what? There are millions upon millions of people just like her out there. They outnumber us. And they finally have a chance to become productive, self-sufficient computer users instead of constantly asking family members to fix their computers or, even worse, keeping the Geek Squad in business.

No, the iPad isn’t for everyone. But I’m going to go on record as saying that, for non-computer-geeks everywhere, the iPad is going to redefine computing.

While Apple explodes, Microsoft…. Well you complete  it. From Silicon Alley Insider:

For the sixteenth straight quarter, Microsoft reported a huge operating loss in its Online Services Division.

The number this time:  a loss of $466 million.

That means Microsoft is pissing away money to the tune of $2 billion a year.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, has gained all of 3 points of search market share.

We wonder when Microsoft will finally decide to do what it should have done years ago: Save its money and flush its entire online division down the drain.

Real-life Dilbert managers.
A magazine recently ran a “Dilbert Quotes” contest. They were looking for people to submit quotes from their real-life Dilbert-type managers. These were voted the top quotes in corporate America:

+ “As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday, and employees will receive their cards in two weeks.” (This was the winning quote from Fred Dales, Microsoft Corporation, in Redmond, WA.)

+ “What I need is an exact list of specific unknown problems we might encounter.” (Lykes Lines Shipping)

+ “E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business.” (Accounting manager, Electric Boat Company)

+ “This project is so important we can’t let things that are more important interfere with it.” (Advertising/Marketing manager, United Parcel Service)

+ “No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We’ve been working on it for months. Now go act busy for a few weeks and I’ll let you know when it’s time to tell them.” (R&D supervisor, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing/3M Corp.)

+ Quote from the boss: “Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say.” (Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)

+ “We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees.” (Switching supervisor, AT&T Long Lines Division)

Harry Newton,  who wishes our president would stop campaigning and start governing. This entrenched long-term  (27weeks and over) joblessness is seriously concerning:

There’s no reason to publish this photo, except it’s a pleasant note to end today’s column.