Thursday, September 06, 2007
You Know What This Means...
by Tom Bozzo
The Rocky Mountain News (via) quotes a Corporate Library analyst calling the arrangment "ridiculous." A forthcoming report from this analyst on personal use of company jets shows only 28 out of 215 companies allowing such arrangements (not including Qwest).
Am I too cynical, or am I hearing the sound of 187 CEOs getting on the horn to the lawyers who handle their employment contract negotiations?
Bonus:
For the boards, at least, the better argument would be that paying someone a few thousand bucks an hour to cool their heels in a security checkpoint line isn't a great use of resources. But that argument probably only gets them into a Citation (and not the Citation X, either). Cue the Boogeyman to make the leap to the G550.
So Qwest shareholders and/or ratepayers will get to pay for the CEO's wife and stepdaughter to commute between Denver and their present California residence on the company jet (apparently a Falcon 2000).
The Rocky Mountain News (via) quotes a Corporate Library analyst calling the arrangment "ridiculous." A forthcoming report from this analyst on personal use of company jets shows only 28 out of 215 companies allowing such arrangements (not including Qwest).
Am I too cynical, or am I hearing the sound of 187 CEOs getting on the horn to the lawyers who handle their employment contract negotiations?
Bonus:
"I don't have a problem with a board saying, 'We think there are security issues here,'" [Corporate Library analyst Paul] Hodgson said.Bah. Corporate aviation departments have pretty good safety records, but they're no better than Part 121 airlines. Nor is it very credible to suggest that there's a significant threat to corporate managers and/or their families between airport curbsides and gates beyond the indignities of shoe removal and the occasional frisking.
For the boards, at least, the better argument would be that paying someone a few thousand bucks an hour to cool their heels in a security checkpoint line isn't a great use of resources. But that argument probably only gets them into a Citation (and not the Citation X, either). Cue the Boogeyman to make the leap to the G550.
Labels: conspicuous consumption, The New Gilded Age, Trains Planes and Automobiles, Unintended Consequences
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Annals of Price Discrimination
by Tom Bozzo
To my admittedly non-legal mind, it's a test to see whether some gullible judge would uphold Microsoft's arrogation of the right to prevent Vista from being installed on a computer by method A (dual-boot) while permitting installation on the exact same hardware by method B (virtualization).
Microsoft's statement is:
Back in the day, I used SoftWindows (purchased at an educational discount) to play Civilization II on my 100 MHz Power Mac 7500 long before the Mac version of the game came out. The PowerPC chips were pretty hot for the day (1996) and so Civ was more-or-less playable until the display had to scroll because some unit was moved off-screen. At that point, the game slowed down to an extent that it felt like a monkey with an abacus was doing the computations.
In contrast, Parallels only costs $70 (plus the price of the copy of Windows) and works so well that few users thereof — hardcore PC gamers being a notable exception — would ever want a stinkin' PC after seeing a Mac do its stupid computer trick.
Ben Rudolph of Parallels told Cohen that Microsoft may well lose some sales for its efforts:
This is not the only attempted exertion of market power via EULA. At the Toronto Star, Michael Geist writes that Microsoft is attempting to constrain user behavior in some novel ways:
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(*) The other potential target is businesses who would want to run multiple virtual Windows PCs on powerful server computers, though why such businesses would want to save money by running crippled Windows "Home" versions is unclear.
At MacWorld news, Peter Cohen reports that the license for the "Home" editions of Windows Vista forbids its use with virtualization software:
“USE WITH VIRTUALIZATION TECHNOLOGIES. You may not use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system,” reads the EULA.What this means is that you can't install a home version of Vista on an Intel-based Mac using the superlative Parallels Desktop for Mac software, but you may do so using Apple's "Boot Camp" dual-boot software. (*) The virtualization-friendly license is part of the $70-$200 upgrade to the "Business" and/or "Ultimate" versions of Vista.
To my admittedly non-legal mind, it's a test to see whether some gullible judge would uphold Microsoft's arrogation of the right to prevent Vista from being installed on a computer by method A (dual-boot) while permitting installation on the exact same hardware by method B (virtualization).
Microsoft's statement is:
Home users have rarely requested virtualization and so it will not be supported in Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic and Home Premium SKUs.This is true but misleading. For home users, virtualization used to mean using expensive emulation software to run essential Windows applications on non-Wintel PC hardware v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y. Today's virtualization software is something completely different.
Back in the day, I used SoftWindows (purchased at an educational discount) to play Civilization II on my 100 MHz Power Mac 7500 long before the Mac version of the game came out. The PowerPC chips were pretty hot for the day (1996) and so Civ was more-or-less playable until the display had to scroll because some unit was moved off-screen. At that point, the game slowed down to an extent that it felt like a monkey with an abacus was doing the computations.
In contrast, Parallels only costs $70 (plus the price of the copy of Windows) and works so well that few users thereof — hardcore PC gamers being a notable exception — would ever want a stinkin' PC after seeing a Mac do its stupid computer trick.
Ben Rudolph of Parallels told Cohen that Microsoft may well lose some sales for its efforts:
“To me, this strategy could hold back users who embrace cutting-edge technologies like virtualization, which means they won’t upgrade to Vista. This means that Microsoft has effectively lost an upgrade customer (in the case of Windows PCs) or an entirely new customer (for Mac and Linux users),” writes Rudolph.Cool as Parallels is, I have it on the MacBook Pro mainly because I work in an otherwise all-PC shop, and we have Windows-only licenses for some job-critical third-party software. My home needs to run Windows are extremely limited, and adding the price of a big LEGO set to that of legally using Windows under OS X via virtualization pretty much ensures that Bill Gates would get nothing out of me.
This is not the only attempted exertion of market power via EULA. At the Toronto Star, Michael Geist writes that Microsoft is attempting to constrain user behavior in some novel ways:
The frightening thing is that there probably are judges out there willing to enforce such terms.
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(*) The other potential target is businesses who would want to run multiple virtual Windows PCs on powerful server computers, though why such businesses would want to save money by running crippled Windows "Home" versions is unclear.
Labels: Economics, MSFT, Unintended Consequences
Someone Didn't Think This Through
by Tom Bozzo
This was in my e-mail inbox this morning, from the American Economic Association:
The Fidelity Research Institute has created a new research award, the Pyramid Prize (SM). The $50,000 financial award will be presented annually to the author(s) of published, applied research that best advances the Institute’s goal of helping Americans achieve life-long financial security, whether through new retirement income approaches, innovative healthcare financing strategies or other financial initiatives. [Emphasis in original.]Avoiding pyramid schemes is a good start.
Labels: Branding, Economics, Unintended Consequences
