Steve Balmer and Michael Dell may make their BFF status official: Microsoft may invest $1-$3 billion in a Dell buyout.

and…

Verizon posted its 4th quarter earnings today, taking a hit for subsidizing — you guessed it — the iPhone 5.

Oh goody. We have the Apple tax to go along with the Microsoft tax.

The key to “success” in America nowadays is to make dang nigh everyone your customer, whether or not they want to buy your products or not.

-stewartm

The Carmen Ortiz article was truly appalling. Trying to seize a independent motel because of a half dozen small time customer busts over years. I doubt there’s any rundown motel in my Maine neighborhood that doesn’t have a similar record. I hope the local prosecutors have a shred of decency which Ortiz obviously doesn’t.

The Microsoft iinvesting in Dell idea needs watching down the road. This could close off another avenue the open source based software groups (Linux, etc.) use as their get-the-foot-in-the-door. (Microsoft is not a big fan of competing operating systems running on the hardware, especially free ones.)

Me thinks Verizon protests too much. They also get a two year contract for every I phone5 they sell. Do we know the net of the matter, like did they disclose that?

Dell has had some trouble for awhile now. They tried TVS too. But the computer bus is not like it once was. Curious why Microsoft wants it. Their stock was down today so maybe some are not seeing it.

It’s dog eat dog out there. You either change and grow or go the way of Dell.

In Israel the Jewish Home party led by tech mogul Naftali Bennett, which is even to the right of Netanyahu-Lieberman on Palestinian issues (so much for the supposed progressivism of the high-tech sector), was expected to do well in today’s election. However, according to exit polls it’s coming in fourth, behind Netanyahu-Lieberman, the upstart centrist party Yesh Atid, and Labor.

Yup, change is constant.

WhoWhatWhy says Aaron Swarz perescutor Carmen Ortiz has a “sordid rap sheet.”

This hag is known to have political ambitions.

Good luck with that now, Persecutor Dumbass. I’d be surprised if she was elected to be head trash-hauler for a glow-in-the-dark toxic waste dump.

Me thinks Verizon protests too much. They also get a two year contract for every I phone5 they sell. Do we know the net of the matter, like did they disclose that?

It’s the simple injustice of forcing consumers to buy something whether they want it or not. With the “Microsoft tax”, it’s OEMs essentially charging you for a copy of Windows and/or OFfice anyway whether they install it or not. With the “Apple tax”, it’s the telecoms making up the costs of those IPhones (by seemingly giving them away at low cost while Apple refuses to come down on its 70 % profit margin) by charging people who *don’t* buy IPhones or even smartphones more on their monthly phone and data bills.

If we really had a “free market” it would require more government regulation to separate the transactions of buying the computer vs buying the computer OS/software, and buying the phone versus buying the connectivity.

-stewartm

Srsly? You can’t have a free market when a company makes an integrated product that you are not required to buy?

“What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders,” Michael Dell said before a crowd of several thousand IT executives.

in truth if we had a free market our mobile phone services would be more the foreign market. You buy the phone of your choice, yes it is an upfront outlay. You select the carrier of your choice and buy a sim card to use in the phone you purchased on their system. You pay for the service you get. You do not like the service you change carriers and replace the sim card. You do not like the phone you change phone and put in the sim card of your carrier. This would be the true free market we hear about where the businesses compete to provide the best phones and the best service because the customer is free to walk away at any time.

Instead we have a situation where you are locked into long term contracts because you got a subsidized phone. A phone, which is also locked to that service. And where long term customers who do not change their phones ever year and a half subsidize those who do by paying increased rates used to cover the cost of the subsidized phones AND give them a profit after ten months of the contract term.

Curious why Microsoft wants it. Their stock was down today so maybe some are not seeing it.

I agree. I guess they’re regretting not getting into the hardware business earlier, but Dell seems a weird buy.

You can’t have a free market when a company makes an integrated product that you are not required to buy?

Assuming you’re being serious and not sarcastic, with neither “tax” is what the consumer is being forced to pay for (even though they don’t own it) “integrated”, as in being a necessarycomponent of the purchase on technical merits. It’s both Apple and Microosoft leveraging their power, and yet another example of captured regulatory agencies not protecting the public good.

If these markets were properly regulated, consumers would win–Apple would be forced to swallow lower prices and profits on its IPhone lines, and Microsoft would probably end up having to charge OEMs and consumers the same price for its software (i.e., a $200 copy of Windows for an ordinary Joe consumer would cost $50, which is probalby close to what the OEMs pay).

-stewartm

> If these markets were properly regulated, consumers would win

Sorry, I don’t see it. When Microsoft had a software monopoly, consumers lost, bigtime, in dollars and in productivity. Apple has no monopoly, not even close, and they’re not illegally leveraging their power as Microsoft did. Their value proposition is one of quality and increased productivity. It sounds to me like you just want everything you want to be cheap or free, and you want the government to keep it that way. Might not be so bad — or it might be a nightmare. I myself would love a usable and flexible open-source software and hardware computing platform. In my opinion, Linux falls far short of that goal and I don’t see anyone else stepping up.

When Microsoft had a software monopoly, consumers lost, bigtime, in dollars and in productivity. Apple has no monopoly, not even close, and they’re not illegally leveraging their power as Microsoft did.

Not using their leveraging authority? What Microsoft and Apple do is essentially IDENTICAL. In both cases consumers who don’t want or don’t buy the products are being required to subsidize them anyway even if they choose competitive products.

Their value proposition is one of quality and increased productivity.

Apple’s “value proposition” consist of their deals with the telecomms to cover up their price-gouging on their overpriced and overhyped products by forcing non-Apple users to pay the “tax”. If there were no such “tax”, if the device purchase and connectivity purchase were separated.

If that were the case, then would-be IPhone users would have to consider the merits of Apple’s offerings against those of much cheaper Android or Windows competitors—assuming that Apple stuck to its guns on its $650, 70 % profit devices. But what would more likely happen is that the cost of IPhones would come down–gawd, with a 70 % profit margin, they could easily half the price and still make loads of money.

So even Apple users would benefit as well as non-Apple users. Meanwhile, connectivity cost for everyone would become much cheaper as that would become a more straightforward purchase as well.

It sounds to me like you just want everything you want to be cheap or free, and you want the government to keep it that way.

I don’t want to have to pay a company anyway for something I don’t buy from it, and especially oligopolistic companies like Microsoft and Apple (you claim Apple isn’t a oligopoly. ITunes? Just google “Apple + Monopolistic Practices”) Fair enough? It astounds me that you do not seem to grasp the both the simple injustice of the matter and the fact that the “free market” really fails to operate when the freedom *NOT* to buy something is taken away, when a company can force non-users to subsidize its products anyway.

What we’re talking about is regulatory capture, the failure of regulatory agencies to step in and have prevented these collusions in the first place.

-stewart

> Fair enough?

Not really. A federal conviction, which apparently is nowhere in the works, will go far to convince me. Speculation on the internets does run rampant. The criticism about its subscription model, and the legal win for Amazon in that area, ensure that consumers and authors lose in favor of Amazon and its profits.

> It astounds me that you

It astounds me that you hate Apple so much you single it out prejudicially for what is currently standard business practice and the popularity of its products and solutions. I don’t like big business and big profits, but it’s a systemic problem, not Apple’s.

> Not using their leveraging authority? What Microsoft and
> Apple do is essentially IDENTICAL.

The Microsoft monopoly forced OEMs to pay for Windows whether it was installed or not. The OEM had to cut a check to Microsoft for each computer they sold, whether it had Windows on it or not. For this, they were convicted. What is the “essentially identical” behavior from Apple? I believe you can currently buy an iPhone outright and choose connection services from any of several networks. I think it was ATT that demanded exclusivity 5 years ago.