Posts by Mitch 10 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Jul 2007
For the life of me, I can't understand why these morons fail to see what is coming.... and act *proactively*. They can choose their destiny or have it chosen for them.
This is a fantastic opportunity for the networks and content creators to separate themselves from the cable/satellite providers and come up with a reasonable model that is beneficial to both consumers and content providers.
I had the misfortune of working for years on a software interface to allow a tax engine to interface with a given accounting system.
Very few people understand how complex and difficult it can be to accurately calculate sales tax. There are multiple jurisdictions, inside/outside city, inside/outside county, point of sale, product taxability, etc. Throw in some tax holidays and ever-changing local tax codes for good measure.
It's a mess. It's expensive to do it correctly.
On the flipside, retailers like NewEgg are given an advantage over local NY retailers with a sales tax discount. Why should somebody buy locally when it's convenient to order the same product off the Internet discounted 5-10% because sales tax is not being charged.
If states could establish a relatively uniform way of charging sales tax it is feasible that states might also cooperate with each on collections. Unfortunately, that would require some intelligent politicians with proper motivation... and that ain't gonna happen.
If I were NewEgg, I would do exactly what they are doing. Keep your competitive advantage and don't EVER collect or pay unnecessary state sales taxes. Once you pay them, you will always be required to pay them.
If Firefox were not so popular, this story/thread would not be here. We are seeing concessions by Microsoft.
Now, Microsoft will have the product that has to contend with poorly designed sites and web apps. Things that worked for IE 6 and IE 7 will not necessarily work with IE 8. This is for the short-term.
After 3-4 years pages will be refreshed, rebuilt or obsolete... it won't be an issue. The playing field will be much more level though, as sites will conform to international standards.
My dream of not needing to use two web browsers may someday become a reality!
Somebody made the WordPerfect analogy - I was thinking more along the lines of Time-Warner and AOL.
The acquisition made little sense and the value of companies like Yahoo is tenuous at best. I was watching with great interest... I thought the combination of Vista with a "successful" acquisition of Yahoo might yield a crippling blow to the company.
I'm not advocating AOL's service, but you've got to hand it to them - they made using the Internet easy for the masses. AOL was good at what it did and enjoyed unprecedented success as an ISP.
Now, if only they could figure out how to get people to pay $3 an hour again they might be able to rehire those terminated employees.
Intel can carry on at this pace indefinitely. While AMD is *close* to unveiling Barcelona at a slower-than-expected clock-speed, Intel is ramping up 45nm production.
Don't forget that Intel is preparing for a new mobile chipset, has gobs of cash, and fabrication/distribution isn't an issue.
Meanwhile, AMD is floundering in debt, falling behind it's own schedule, and falling even further behind Intel.
As a geek, I enjoy the competition and do not have a favorite (I type this on a machine with an AMD CPU). As an investor, Intel is clearly in the lead and the difference is only increasing.
I picked up some INTC months ago and have not regretted it.
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