Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

We would like to welcome Bryan Glanzberg back from London. He will contribute The Water Cooler every Monday, a column that bridges the gap between technology and business. Evan Cabat will still be with us reporting on new tech IPOs and other business news as it pops throughout the week.

NEW, BOLD, EXCITING…all are words overly used by marketers these days.  Microsoft has unveiled their WMP11 for Windows XP in an attempt to regain market share from the dominant iTunes software from Apple.  I don’t know about all of you, but I just don’t get it…if you want to gain market share, make a product that is INNOVATIVE, not designed very similar to Apple’s platform. There is such a thing called market research and Microsoft makes a big effort to collects lots of data (with or without our discretion) on what customers like and dislike about the platform that they are using.  In my opinion, the reason why Microsoft has been so stagnant lately is because they are too busy trying to catch up to Apple’s advancements in their GUI and software applications. 

To me, Windows Vista seems like a Mac OSX platform…there is actually a mock of Bill Gates video on the internet showing what Vista looks like, but its actually a Mac GUI and you honestly can’t tell the difference.  NEW, BOLD and EXCITING are words of today, but they should be tossed.  Innovation is what is going to drive interest as long as it is aligned with consumer preferences.  Someone over at Microsoft needs to build on all this data that they have and spark some interest for newer products.  I honestly don’t remember the last big risk Microsoft has taken in order to gain more market share. 

This was written during Bryan’s final days from his hotdesk in London (not cubicle because apparently that is the same thing as a bathroom stall).

Download at your own risk

• Office 2010 beta open to the public
• Teen calls police because his parents took his Xbox
• Deal of the Day: Xbox Live Gold membership free throughout the weekend

Every Monday, Bryan Glanzberg contributes The Water Cooler, a column that bridges the gap between technology and business. This week he is reporting from good ‘ol London

In the news the last few weeks, I have been reading a lot about SPAC.  At first, I questioned why they were talking so much about the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in the Wall Street Journal.  After a little further research, I learned that a SPAC is a special product acquisition company that is essentially a spin-off of a publicly traded company that goes out and searches for investors.  What makes them different is that the investors are pooling their money into a trust that is going to be used for some future merger, one which they have no idea about, nor do the SPAC that they are donating funds too.  The advantage of this investment tool is that you are essentially guaranteed to break even (except for interest).  This is known as a reverse IPO where a private company goes out and raises public funds before they announce they are actually going public.  It helps build up their infrastructure much better and makes them more attractive to the capital markets.  They typically receive the investment back in shares of stock valued at around $6/share.  If the company never goes public, the investors get their money back (minus interest of course).  It is a very interesting and hot tool in the market today. 

Now that I have just bored you to tears about what a SPAC is, the reason I found this interesting is because Apple just released some news about their former executives:

Three former Apple Computer executives, including former chief Gilbert Amelio and co-founder Steve Wozniak, have raised $150 million for company whose sole purpose is to search for technology-related acquisitions.

Their company, called Acquicor Technology, is just the latest in a recent flurry of special-purpose acquisition companies — also known as blank-check companies or SPAC’s — that have sold shares to the public even before finding a business to buy. Another SPAC, called Services Acquisition Corporation, agreed earlier this week to buy privately held Jamba Juice in a $265 million deal.

I am sorry, but what the hell is Steve Wozniak doing with Jamba Juice?  Does he want to get jacked up and beat the s**t out of his computer?  Did Excel get the best out of him?  I love geeks that just invest in whatever looks nice to them, despite whether they know the business or not….sad thing is….I wish I had that kind of money.  If you care to donate please email me…I am an attractive male, 5’11”, blonde hair…...ahh forget it. 

Read [Dealbook]

• Office 2010 beta open to the public
• Teen calls police because his parents took his Xbox
• Deal of the Day: Xbox Live Gold membership free throughout the weekend

Every Monday, Bryan Glanzberg contributes The Water Cooler, a column that bridges the gap between technology and business.

No, no, no. I am not going to break out into the Prince song and put on my best leopard skin outfit (save us all if I actually had to do that). Vonage is filing for an IPO; one of the pieces of news in the now noisy telephone and VOIP market. What is intriguing about this situation is that Vonage is one of the fastest growing VOIP companies. They more than tripled their subscriber base in 2005 which is leading to expansion and growth or is it?

“In the first nine months of 2005, Vonage lost $189.6 million against $170 million in sales. It cost the company $213 in marketing dollars to acquire every customer“up from $137 per subscriber the year before. That means, based on Vonage’s most popular, $24.99 monthly residential subscription, it would take roughly nine months to break even on marketing costs for each new subscriber

Not only does it cost that much to develop the relationship with the customer, but the profit per customer has declined from $31 to approximately $26. It will be very interesting to see where this IPO takes the company; we are no longer in the 1990’s folks, and although the market has been around its 5-year high, tech investors are still sore from the *insert obscene remark* they faced in the late 90’s to early 2000’s after the bubble burst.

Consistent revenue streams and above average returns are what attract long term investors. Many companies are looking for a quick and easy buck in order to sell their ideas, but by the time they raise the capital, it seems as if there ideas are obsolete I may be very wrong here, but time will tell.

Read [News.com]

• Office 2010 beta open to the public
• Teen calls police because his parents took his Xbox
• Deal of the Day: Xbox Live Gold membership free throughout the weekend

Every Monday, Bryan Glanzberg contributes The Water Cooler, a column that bridges the gap between technology and business. This week we’re bringing you a double whammy.

Well college students nation-wide, your favorite stalker site Facebook is on the block.  Mark Zuckerberg turned down $750 million a few months back…everyone thought he was out of his mind!  Now he is looking to earn as much as $2 billion on the sale of this popular college and high school website. 

Viacom is looking to purchase the site as they feel it might be a good strategic fit and it could directly tie to their recent attempts to drive social networking.  Advertising revenue is hot now and could be a great source for Viacom.  This development will be very interesting.

Read [Business Week]

• Office 2010 beta open to the public
• Teen calls police because his parents took his Xbox
• Deal of the Day: Xbox Live Gold membership free throughout the weekend

Every Monday, Bryan Glanzberg contributes The Water Cooler, a column that bridges the gap between technology and business.

RFID technology has been around for a long time tracking everything from raisins to nuclear weapons in the armed forces.  Until recently, not many companies paid much attention to this technology except as an inventory management tool.  Think again…recently development has shown the ability of some hackers to purchase a product at a grocery store (or anywhere for that matter) and return items after switching RFID tags on the product.  When the products are re-scanned, inventory files become corrupted, updating prices, changing quantities, increasing orders….you get the point.

In an article from Business Week, they interviewed Larry Blue, a VP from Symbol Technologies, a company that develops RFID security technology, and he stated:

“It’s great in theory, it’s almost impossible in practice…”  He cites tight security safeguards that are part of the chip’s design and related system software…

Trying to save business a little bit?  Get on your horse Larry…the next couple of months are not going to be so easy. 

Read [Business Week]

• Office 2010 beta open to the public
• Teen calls police because his parents took his Xbox
• Deal of the Day: Xbox Live Gold membership free throughout the weekend

Every Monday, Bryan Glanzberg contributes The Water Cooler, a column that bridges the gap between technology and business.

So just when you thought the iPod was the best thing since sliced bread…those French had to come back and screw things up.  Apple might be considering to pull the iPod from France because of legislation that might force them to open up the iPod to support other music download stores rather than just iTunes. 

“France is the third-largest digital music market in Europe, after Britain and Germany, according to GfK, a market research company based in Nuremberg, Germany. Downloads in France last year totaled 20 million songs worth $23.3 million, while 4.7 million digital music players were sold, the company said.

As of Thursday, the copyright bill still had more than 400 amendments, many of them having to do with how devices interoperate. The most prominently affected device would be the iPod, but Sony’s Walkman digital music players operate on a similar principle. In both cases, purchased online music can be transferred to the hardware only from a site owned by the same company — the iTunes Music Store for iPods and Sony Connect for the Walkman. Sony declined to comment.

The development is especially rich in irony for Microsoft, a target of European antitrust action, which licenses its digital music format, called WMA, to any company willing to pay for it. Most non-Apple digital music players, like those produced by Samsung, Creative and Archos, allow WMA songs, while most online music merchants, like Rhapsody from RealNetworks, Music Now from America Online and Napster, sell songs in that format.” (New York Times)

We will keep you posted on any future developments!

Read [New York Times: DealBook]

• Office 2010 beta open to the public
• Teen calls police because his parents took his Xbox
• Deal of the Day: Xbox Live Gold membership free throughout the weekend

So just when you thought the iPod was the best thing since sliced bread…those French had to come back and screw things up.  Apple might be considering to pull the iPod from France because of legislation that might force them to open up the iPod to support other music download stores rather than just iTunes. 

“France is the third-largest digital music market in Europe, after Britain and Germany, according to GfK, a market research company based in Nuremberg, Germany. Downloads in France last year totaled 20 million songs worth $23.3 million, while 4.7 million digital music players were sold, the company said.

As of Thursday, the copyright bill still had more than 400 amendments, many of them having to do with how devices interoperate. The most prominently affected device would be the iPod, but Sony’s Walkman digital music players operate on a similar principle. In both cases, purchased online music can be transferred to the hardware only from a site owned by the same company — the iTunes Music Store for iPods and Sony Connect for the Walkman. Sony declined to comment.

The development is especially rich in irony for Microsoft, a target of European antitrust action, which licenses its digital music format, called WMA, to any company willing to pay for it. Most non-Apple digital music players, like those produced by Samsung, Creative and Archos, allow WMA songs, while most online music merchants, like Rhapsody from RealNetworks, Music Now from America Online and Napster, sell songs in that format.” (New York Times)

We will keep you posted on any future developments!

Read [New York Times: DealBook]

• Office 2010 beta open to the public
• Teen calls police because his parents took his Xbox
• Deal of the Day: Xbox Live Gold membership free throughout the weekend

Product:  Good Sync

List Price: $19.99
Rating: Great - 9.0/10.0
Pros: Easy way to sync files between various devices
Cons: Slightly overpriced since you can use CDRs
Overall: Great to keep files intact and up to date.

Nifty little program we have here.  GoodSync has produced a software system that syncs up your external storage/backup drive with your hard drive, computer to computer, mp3 player to computer,  at just the click of a button.  For $19.95, if you are one of those people that get very frustrated not knowing what files you have updated recently, GoodSync does an excellent job of figuring that out for you.  By clicking the analyze button, you can quickly identify the files that are not up to date from your hard drive to your USB drive and vice-a-versa.

I would say that the user interface should be a little bit more friendly, but that is just being over critical.  It lists the new files, unchanged files, excluded files (the one’s you specify not to sync), and an option to view all of the files. 

Personally, if this was priced around $9.99, I would buy it in a heartbeat.  If you are concerned with updating files on a daily basis and need to ensure that your backups are updated as well, I would strongly advise you to splurge a little bit and spend the money on this program.  You will not regret it!

Check It Out! [GoodSync]

• Office 2010 beta open to the public
• Teen calls police because his parents took his Xbox
• Deal of the Day: Xbox Live Gold membership free throughout the weekend

Every Monday, Bryan Glanzberg contributes The Water Cooler, a column that bridges the gap between technology and business.

Ok…so I think we all can tell by now that I nor anyone else has any idea what Google is doing.  Trust me, I have been a proponent of them from the start.  Until recently, I was telling everyone I knew to get on that stock NOW! At $400/share I was still game for it. But in the last few weeks, boy am I glad I laid off considering the stock is almost $120 off of it’s 52-week (and all-time) high. 

Now that they raised all this capital, Google has started a random string of buyouts which would make any internet start-up very, VERY happy.  Their most recent acquisition is @Last Software which specializes in 3D technology on the internet, an interesting addition to Google Earth and other search features….wait…search features?  What could you possible search for in 3D that extends beyond Google Earth?  I am very interested in feedback on this one because I do not see where the synergies lie in this arena unless Google is trying to stop Microsoft or Yahoo from doing something else. Maybe @Last has a substantial amount of intellectual property that is hidden in a vault somewhere. Who knows…but this software runs for approximately $500 and seems just to be a plug-in for Google Earth in order to enhance imaging. 

I guess once they integrate this, you can watch your kids every move from satellite…Wave hello to the terrorists while you are playing baseball in the yards boys.

Read [Dealbook]

• Office 2010 beta open to the public
• Teen calls police because his parents took his Xbox
• Deal of the Day: Xbox Live Gold membership free throughout the weekend

Weekly, Bryan Glanzberg contributes The Water Cooler, a column that bridges the gap between technology and business.

We have been hearing for years that the Asian Revolution led by China will lead to the fall of the United States, but will it really happen?  Now that word has come out that Intel has a Vietnamese license for a new $605 million semiconductor assembly and test plan outside the largest city, Ho Chi Min.  There is also talk of Apple going into China. On the surface, that can not be good, those jobs are lost jobs that belong to Americans right?  Don’t worry about it; you won’t need to move to Canada to save yourself.

Continue reading to learn why we will be ok and should just take a xanax and stop blaming Dubya.

There are three simple reasons why, most American jobs are in the service industry, not manufacturing and according to a survey at our good friends McKinsey only 11% of those jobs could be performed in the foreseeable future outside our borders. 

1. First, any manufacturing jobs we lose too cheaper labor in Asia will be offset by the lowering in costs, not overshadowed.
2. Second is the fact that Americans are just more intelligent and skilled, minus the democrats who complain about our president. In reality it will take years to educate the lower classes of the Asian populations, the prospective workers in these new plants, to the point where they are as efficient in production, so not every company will go over there for cheap labor, it depends on the potential rework costs, the more expensive the more likely it will remain in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
3. Finally the supposed rapid globalization in the last decade is a myth.  American Prospect Online writes that there a few companies that will be able to globally scale their production and those that do spend 75% of their money in the United States.  A job in Asia does not mean one less job in the United States, in fact from 1991-2001 American multinational firms added 5.5 million jobs at home, or 5 jobs here for every 3 jobs in Asia. 

So don’t worry about the downfall of our country, take a xanax and stop blaming Dubya.

[This weeks The Water Cooler has been contributed by Evan Cabat]

Read [Business Week]

• Office 2010 beta open to the public
• Teen calls police because his parents took his Xbox
• Deal of the Day: Xbox Live Gold membership free throughout the weekend