Archive for the ‘Thoughts’ category

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Microsoft to launch retail chain

February 17th, 2009

Computer software giant Microsoft has announced plans to open its own stores, at a time when many other retailers are struggling in the economic downturn

BBC news article…

My thoughts;

MS are moving more towards services and away from software, and more towards hardware/providing platforms rather than software. The big issue at MS atm, and they recognize this internally, is that they don’t, and everyone knows that they don’t innovate.

The surface is the first interesting thing from an innovation pov to come out of MS for a long time. They’ve provided a hardware platform, and are letting others dream up the applications/uses. The restaurant application on the surface is very cool, and you can already see uptake (the vegas flirting app is just stupid imo!).

The retail stores do well in the US, and aren’t a new thing there. Just seems like an extension of the same thinking applied in the UK. Whether or not it will work here remains to be seen – but the Apple stores do well, not because of “fan boy” mentality, but because you can go and get help from a human being – not a call center that wants a credit card number before they can help you (consumer support side).

Apple puts a lot of time, energy, and money into building its community, and it pays off, not just for the brand following – but also for the fact that most apple users go from beginner to intermediate level very quickly – the workshops and classes they run are free, and useful.

Where do you get that with MS? Perhaps they will try and offer more of the same. Hopefully we’ll see some more innovation, rather than just reinventing what others are doing and calling it their own.

I’m not a “fan boy” of either. I like my mabook, never gives me any trouble, then again, nor do my Windows machines, or my Ubuntu laptop – each to their own, horses for courses, $insert_cliche_saying_here;

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Posted in Business, Geekery, Thoughts

I’m still alive…

February 4th, 2009

… yep, its true. Heres a quick run down of all the things I havent been able to talk about until now – either due to a complete lack of time, or a contractual “gagging”;

  • Sold part of my IT business
  • Had a major outtage on a heavily used platform – thanks to Microsoft
  • Celebrated XMAS
  • Garage that screwed up my old SAAB finally paid up – replacement SAAB 95 sourced
  • Feeling the crunch; cutting the costs within my IT company in a big way
  • New venture/business is formed and underway – pipeline building nicely
  • Going to the gym again!
Need to start blogging on a regular basis again, as you all know, I have so many interesting things to say :)

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Posted in Thoughts

New Microsoft “I’m a PC” advert

October 21st, 2008

I quite liked this, mainly as it challenges some of the stereotypes brought about by Apple with their PC vs MAC adverts.

I had issue with the old Apple adverts, mainly as they are framed in such a way to suggest that “PC” is “Microsoft”, where a PC is actually a hardware/computing platform running soime form of operating system.

Anyway, an old arguement that doesnt need rehashing.

Southpark version, and again, the guy that made it doesnt realise that “Computer” is a computing platform, and that his MAC is also a computer – unless thats a general “Computers Suck” message at the end of course!

To clarify – I use MAC OS, Windows XP, Slackware, FreeBSD, Ubuntu, Debian and a whole load of other operating systems on a daily basis, so I’m not being a biased “interweb idiot”, just sharing some funny/interesting vids :)

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Posted in Rants, Thoughts, Video

Wordle

October 12th, 2008

This would be the “wordle” of my blog (click for the bigger version).  Thanks to Paul Johnston aka pjnet for bringing this service to my attention.  Very cool way of displaying just what a blog/body of text/rss feed/site is all about.  Go check it out – http://wordle.net.

For me, it was a real suprise to see “financials”, “FSA”, and “markets” in such big letters – I always think of myself as a tech entrepreneur with an interest in the markets.  It would seem that i’ve been talking about the markets a lot recently, both here and on twitter… then again, so have most people!

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Posted in Geekery, Thoughts

My 2P: FSA ban shorting of financials

September 19th, 2008

Righto, so this morning the FSA has banned shorting certain financials, and to the suprise of a lot of people (mainly consumers) the markets are rallying in a big way.  We are seeing gains of over 100% for some banks, even Bradford and Bingley (BB.) saw a swing of almost 60% this morning after not having moved from their bottom for over 2 weeks.  This morning we’ve also seen a mass exodus from gold, which is usually seen as a stable place to put money (although if you look at the 2 day intra day of gold its been bouncing around – which is worrying behavior).  The media is starting to use phrases such as “recovery from worst financial crisis since…” and so forth.

Dear oh dear… right, the markets are a “free market economy”, so the market sets the value of assets and companies, by banning shorting financials, in one sense it can be seen that the FSA has said “these financials cannot go down in value”, or another way to look at it, is that even if you hold physical stock of these financials, they cant now decrease in value (on the short term anyway), as one of the main mechanisms has been banned.  This means that the price can ONLY go upwards, a shortage in volume on the market will drive the demand higer and higher – causing this rally and upsurge in the financials.

Now, dont get me wrong, in many ways I think this is a good move by the FSA.  They have created huge amounts of money for the financials in the short term (very short term).  I would imagine the logic is that once there has been enough of a rally the ban shall be lifted.  This is essentially just buying time, if the FSA don’t lift the ban on shorting, then the markets will find another mechanism to drive down the price and reflect the true/perceived value of those stocks.  In the short term traders are out to make money, this rally wont last, the financials were valued low for a reason, a lot of them are over leveraged, and their balance sheet value is greatly exaggerated.

It is indeed a very interesting time on the markets, especially for a novice like me, I am learning a lot through observation, and have been able to predict a few events before they happen in an intuative type of way.  This is crucial for markets success.

Please, I want to hear your thoughts, and get some debate going – you know how to get hold of me :)

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Posted in Business, Finance, Thoughts