Hashemian Blog Web Tools, Financial Markets, Technology Tuesday, April 24, 2007 Cell Phone Backlash  Those who know me, know that I have shunned and resisted cell phones with all my power. For me it's not about making a statement. Actually, it started with not making a statement at all. Back in the dark ages when having your ears stuck to a giant cell phone was a symbol of vogue, I deliberately avoided getting one so I wouldn't be viewed a privileged technophile. By the time cell phones became ubiquitous, I had managed to get along without one and my frugal side saw no reason to throw money at this inane device. Sure, there have been times when I wished I had a cell phone, like the time my car broke down on New Jersey turnpike and I had to walk 2 miles in 95-degree heat to the nearest rest stop to get help. But even that experience didn't convince the stubborn me to go mobile. And so, as of now, I continue to remain a cell phone virgin, happily untethered. Today I saw another reason to rejoice at my mobile-free status. While ordering a sandwich at a local Subway shop, I noticed this sign prominently displayed: No cell phones while ordering or you will not be helped. Be courteous. Thank you I know, not exactly customer friendly. But something egregious must've taken place prompting the manager to post this candid note. I almost wanted to commend the man for his courage. Most cell phone chatterers are probably nice people, but get them on a call and they become the rudest and most obnoxious people you could ever imagine. And the rest (specially the ones with the ear-pieces) act like deranged vagabonds talking to the devil in their heads on the streets or in store isles. No sense greeting someone you know these days, they're probably talking to the devil and you will either be ignored or be embarrassed for disturbing their communion. I can understand why that Subway sandwich store manager felt compelled to post the no-cell-phone bill. Not long ago my kids and I were at a check-out counter at a store in my town. The person in front me was talking to the devil and utterly ignored the clerk as if this lady was just a fixture. The patron certainly owed nothing to the clerk other than the cost of his goods, but by just being a discourteous jerk, and judging by the clerk's expression, he earned a spot in the clerk's jackass list. All I could do was to turn to my kids, watching this curious lack of etiquette, and say: "And that's why I don't have a cell phone." cell phones,etiquette,subway Labels: customer service <Cell Phone Backlash> // posted by rh 2 comments Sunday, April 22, 2007 Exxon Profits: $40 Billion in 2006  The other day I was reading about the companies at the top of earnings list in the US and not surprisingly Exxon Mobil was firmly at the summit, racking up nearly $40 billion in 2006. This is an income figure, not sales. I'm sure the shareholders are happy with the performance. They have seen the value of their holdings double since 2004 and with the price of oil at all time highs, there in no end in sight. Exxon has also been at the top of another list in terms of market capitalization for quite some time (currently at $455 billion). I remember when GE or Microsoft had that distinction years ago. With the price of oil at all time highs and uncertainty fueling the price ever higher, it is understandable why some people are wary of these outsized profits. I suppose the math is a simple one. Given a steady profit margin, the higher the price of oil climbs, the profits continue to march upwards in lockstep. A capitalistic view would consider the outrageous profits reaped by oil companies as quite natural and deserved. After all the windfalls are based on bets made by these companies and natural market conditions have done the rest. But should it be acceptable for these companies to have so much power and monopoly over the energy markets? Conspiracy theorists have always viewed the oil companies with distrust. I am not sure if all the negative views are valid, but one has to wonder if these companies wouldn't do anything in their power to squelch any attempt at competition from others such as those promoting alternative sources of energy. If I were Exxon (or Shell or Chevron, for that matter), I would use my clout to stifle anything that seemed deleterious to my operations and my profits. I would guard my turf with a militant zeal, I would infiltrate governments, sway opinions, and engage in espionage to make sure all potential threats are neutralized before they can reach a meaningful level. Of course I would fill my legal departments to capacity to make certain that all my efforts are perceived to be within a legal framework, at least on the surface. I would do all that and more to make sure that my position is never jeopardized while keeping an image of legitimacy. $40 billion in one year alone can be of immense help in achieving my goals. exxon,oil,oil companies,alternative energy,shell,chevron Labels: business-finance <Exxon Profits: $40 Billion in 2006> // posted by rh 0 comments Saturday, April 14, 2007 Oracle #1 Ads  It may seem that way, I don’t mean to pick on Oracle, but lately I've seen a number of boastful ads from the database and CRM giant in various media that makes me a bit wary of this company. Gloating in ads is nothing new. Politicians do it all the time and so do many other companies. Oracle and other companies in their field have been engaged in negative advertising for quite some time, but recently Oracle ads have had nothing to say other than bashing their competitors. There's nothing wrong with that, but I wonder if the exposure gained is the type that this company really wants. I, for one, am not a big fan of braggers, specially if that's what all a company does to promote itself and its products. In my mind that actually lowers a company's stature and makes me more cynical of their operations. Take a look at the first ad. It was on the back cover of a recent issue of Computerworld, a popular trade publication in the IT management industry. I understand what this ad is trying to convey, but then there's more than one way to read it. So Oracle revenues beat those of their competitors, but that also means that more money was invested in non-Oracle databases. It could also mean that Oracle is overcharging its customers for its products and services. Why don’t these customers switch to cheaper alternatives? Perhaps Oracle products are so entrenched in their operations that they don't dare extricate them. In other words, some may just be hostages to Oracle's tactics. Yet still this ad is totally useless in comparing the installation bases. I have a hunch that MySQL (a generally free and popular database product) by itself has a much wider number of installs than that of Oracle database. But that message is lost on the casual viewer who only sees the #1 claim printed in a super-sized font and the supporting pie chart below that. The second image is a partial snapshot taken from Oracle's homepage that was running until recently. Again, I can understand that Oracle is touting its earnings momentum, but what's all this competition bashing? A casual browser would have no idea how Oracle arrived at the conclusion that its earnings grew 5 or 6 times faster than those of its competitors. Oracle has swallowed up a lot of companies recently, so their comparison methodology may not be as straightforward as it seems. In other words it could be all smoke and mirrors and not based on an apples-to-apples comparison. And still, it could again mean that they are more successful at overcharging their customers. Oracle's blustering and showboating might please their shareholders who are interested in the bottom line, but as far as attracting new customers, perhaps it's time to cut back on bashing competition and focusing on the strengths and merits of their own products. Otherwise they might as well also brag about being #1 in their number of ads about being #1. Oracle,advertising,databases,mysql,sap,sql server,bea,negative ads Labels: advertising, databases, mysql, oracle, sql server <Oracle #1 Ads> // posted by rh 1 comments Wednesday, April 11, 2007 DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 3  Up to this point I had downloaded a Star Trek WMV file from Amazon Unbox to one PC. Having experienced performance issues, I had copied it to another PC and learned that the WMV film was protected by Microsoft's Windows Media DRM (Digital Rights Managements). Finally I had dismantled the first PC and had built a more powerful PC to play the WMV file on. But when I installed the Unbox software and tried to import the film, I ran into errors. It seemed like Unbox was reluctant to grant a DRM license key. At this point I was ready to consider this experience a small loss ($1.99) and move on, but curiosity got the better of me and I surfed to Unbox's site to see if I had a recourse. That's when I discovered that the downloaded film came with two license only. I guess that's the copyright regiment that Unbox was enforcing to prevent users from copying the file to unlimited devices and acquiring licenses for them. It would have been nice if Amazon had at least mentioned that point at the time of purchase. Armed with that knowledge I decided to uninstall Unbox from the other PC and in doing so Unbox must have revoked the license on that box leaving the film with one usable license. I was finally able to successfully obtain a license for the file and watch the movie on the new PC without encountering any issues. Since the original PC was now discarded, I assume the first DRM license was lost forever. Perhaps if I had contacted Amazon and explained the situation, they might have reinstated that original license, but having finally been able to watch the episode in its entirety, getting the extra license was a moot point. I also don’t know if there is limit on the number of times a license can be surrendered and re-acquired. Based on my experience I have decided that DRM is just not worth the hassle. There are too many restrictions, at least with the Unbox implementation. You pay a decent sum to purchase a movie (I saw some for about $15), you have to use the 1-Click button, Amazon gift certificates are not accepted, then you have to install a software you may not want, then you wait for the download, and you can only get two licenses for it, and you need decent computer power to decrypt and play the movie smoothly. You can't even burn it to a DVD to watch it on your TV. A colleague explained that if my TV had an S-Video interface, I could hook it up to the PC's S-Video port, start the movie on the PC and watch it on my TV. Fine, but why not just purchase a used DVD for less money and avoid all the hassle? There might have still been other restrictions too. During the course of my research I ran into a number of posts that lamented the Unbox's licensing terms, such as the fact that Amazon can revoke a license for any reason without recourse. People were also wary of Unbox's software license agreement which essentially strips user's right to privacy and can freely wander around a PC and collect all sorts of information and relay data back to Amazon's servers. It reminded many of the Sony music CD DRM fiasco from a few years back. In that case the CD's installed a rootkit spyware on users' PC's which was nearly impossible to remove without damaging the operating system itself. I haven't read the Unbox's agreement yet, so I can't comment on that with authority. I don't believe that Unbox's DRM implementation is as egregious as that of Sony's. The version I downloaded allows users to deactivate the service and the startup program and the downloaded movies play fine. The Unbox program however does need to run in order to purchase, download, and acquire a license. All in all, I wasn't impressed with Amazon Unbox. I suppose the service does have its uses if you wanted to purchase a movie or a show on a whim, but there are alternatives that are cheaper and less onerous. By the way, the episode of Star Trek I downloaded was "The Enemy Within". It's one of the earlier episodes of the original series in which a transformer malfunction creates two Kirks with opposite personalities. One gentle and indecisive, and the other mean and aggressive. Ironically, Unbox might be Amazon's mean incarnation. DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 1 DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 2 amazon,amazon unbox,windows media player,drm,digital rights,star trek,s-video,windows media drm Labels: amazon, drm, star trek <DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 3> // posted by rh 0 comments Tuesday, April 10, 2007 DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 2  I have to admit when it comes to DRM (Digital Rights Management) my knowledge is pretty dismal. I always knew that it was meant to prevent piracy but not being a fanatic of music and movies, DRM was never in my priority list of things to learn. But when I tried to run the Star Trek WMV file I had downloaded from Amazon Unbox on the new PC using Windows Media Player, I was greeted with a dialog box informing me that I needed a license to play the file. When I clicked on a link to obtain the license, the dialog box simply opened the Amazon Unbox home page and then just left me hanging. Since now I knew that Unbox movies were DRM protected, I decided to learn some more about what DRM exactly is and how it works. A quick check with Wikipedia revealed that DRM is really an umbrella term referring to various technologies to protect copyrights. In this case Unbox was using the Microsoft flavor. That means the movie is encrypted at source only to be unlocked by a separate key that is referred to as the license. The key is basically a file comprising various restrictions such as the number of permitted viewings, duration of validity, and other data. It is stored separately from the movie file under the user's profile and if everything is in order, Windows Media Player applies it to the movie (or music) file to decrypt and play. Another notable feature of the DRM key is that it can be tied to the machine that it is downloaded to. That makes the movie viewable only on the exact machine that it was configured for, preventing users from simply copying the file to another PC (as I had done) and playing the movie there. I'm not sure what parameters are used to construct this exclusivity restriction, but I assume a number of items such as the BIOS, CPU, and the network card are polled to create a unique identifier. Now I knew I had to obtain a new license to watch the Star Trek episode on this new PC and that meant installing the Unbox on the new machine. After downloading and installing the software, I imported the WMV file into the Unbox program and I had the file unlocked. The film was playing smoother now with fewer jitters but since this PC didn't have any speakers and the monitor quality was poor, I decided to use remote desktop from the original PC and watch the film that way. No luck, remote desktop just doesn't have the repaint power to handle a movie and I was back at the same position as before with lots of interruptions and jumps. I knew it was time to replace that original PC with a more modern machine. I had been wanting to do this for some time anyways. I had just the PC and now was as good a time as any to upgrade. So I dismantled the old PC, scavenged as many parts as I could and tossed out its shell. I always dread upgrading PC's. Being somewhat picky about configuring the new machine exactly as I want, it takes me days to get a new box to a level I am comfortable with. But in this case once I had the new PC running at a tolerable level, I decided to give the film a try. Having gone through the experience before, I copied the WMV file to the new PC, installed the Unbox program and attempted to import the file to acquire a new license for it. But that's when I hit yet another surprise. I'll conclude the saga in part 3. DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 1 DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 3 amazon,amazon unbox,drm,digital rights,drm license,windows media player,wmv files,encryption Labels: amazon, drm, programming <DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 2> // posted by rh 0 comments Sunday, April 08, 2007 DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 1  I have been running the Amazon Unbox ad banner atop my site's pages for a while now, but never used the service until recently. Unbox is the name of Amazon's TV and movie download service that went online a few months ago. So in the spirit of using what I advertise, I decided to take the plunge and give Unbox a try. Not that I'm much of a TV or movie buff, but why advertise something I don’t use myself? I suppose the first thing I should have done was reading the system requirements, but true to my personality I promptly skipped that part and started downloading the Unbox application from Amazon's website. The download and installation went pretty smoothly and soon I had the Amazon logo showing up in the system tray. Next came choosing a title to download, but before doing that I wanted to try a free clip just to see if everything was in order. I scoured Amazon's Web site and then resorted to a number of Google searches, but came up empty-handed. How could this be? I had just installed a program and didn't even know if it was going to work. All Amazon had to do was to provide a short, measly, home-made clip for users to test the program. I guess their plan is to force users to pay for a download just to kick the tires, revenue right out of the gate. I'm really not that versed in the motion picture field, but the movie prices I saw (in the $15 area) didn't seem so appealing, I'll stick with our Netflix subscription, thank you. Finally I chose an episode of the original Star Trek series for $1.99, cheap enough for a test, but then came two unpleasant surprises. First, the only way to buy the title was with the 1-Click button. Apparently Amazon is going all out for the impulse and buyer's remorse on this one. Second, I had a small amount of money in my gift certificate account, enough to cover this purchase. But unlike the usual purchases where Amazon pulls money out of the gift certificate balance, they went right for the credit card I had on file and hit me with the charge. Annoyed, I wrote an email to their customer service. The next day I received a reply confirming that gift certificate balances can not be applied to Unbox purchases. Why? Other than greed, I couldn't come up with a reason for this absurdity. After the purchase step was finished, I awaited for my next surprise. I opened the Unbox program and noticed that the nearly 900 meg file was finally being downloaded. As the progress bar passed around the 20% mark, I was given the green light to start the episode and that's when I got my next surprise. Admittedly this one was my own fault. The PC I was using didn't have enough muscle power to play the file. It was playing alright, but very choppy with numerous sound and image interruptions. I thought perhaps things will get better after the file is completely downloaded. No such luck, the episode was unwatchable. So I decided to search the Internet and learn about what exactly Unbox was downloading. I eventually found out that Unbox had downloaded a WMV (Windows Media Movie) file to my hard drive and that was the file the Unbox program was trying to play. After locating the WMV file in "My Videos" folder, I decided to bypass the Unbox program and play it directly using Windows Medial Player and I had the same bad results. After fruitlessly fiddling with the Windows Media Player's options for some time, I finally decided that the hardware was just not capable of handling this file. To test my theory I copied the WMV file to a faster PC on my home network. The PC is more powerful than the original but has a small display and no speakers, just the PC speaker. Still good enough to check out the playback quality. I fired up Windows Media Player and opened the WMV file. That's when the next surprise hit me in the face, in the form of DRM (Digital Rights Management). Was I able to resolve the issues and finally watch that Star Trek episode? I'm sure you're at the edge of your seat, begging to find out. I'll continue the Amazon Unbox saga in part 2 of this story. DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 2 DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 3 amazon,amazon unbox,unbox,drm,digital rights,windows media player,wmv,star trek Labels: amazon, drm, star trek <DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 1> // posted by rh 0 comments Sunday, April 01, 2007 Oracle's SAP Lawsuit  Consider this as another escalation of hostilities between the two ERP titans, Oracle and SAP. About 10 days ago Oracle filed a lawsuit accusing SAP of stealing internal tech support documents used by Oracle's clients. The story as is unfolding details how TomorrowNow, a SAP's subsidiary, logged into accounts designated for some of Oracle's large customers and downloaded thousands of technical documents relating to Oracle products. TomorrowNow is a support outfit that offers maintenance contracts to Oracle's customers at competitive prices to Oracle. Oracle maintains that it has irrefutable proof in the form of IP addresses and account logins that shows TomorrowNow as the originating traffic responsible for downloading those documents. Maintenance contracts are big business for the likes of Oracle and SAP who derive a substantial portion of their revenues from them. And since support contracts are very high-margin, they have considerable influence on the companies' bottom lines. Those contracts not only siphon support money away from Oracle, but they could also eventually steer the vendors away from Oracle's products and towards SAP's products. It is no wonder that Oracle was spooked over the downloads. The question is whether Oracle's suit is a justified one. Oracle has been engaged in quite a buying binge in the last few years. Notable companies snapped up by Oracle include PeopleSoft, Siebel Systems, and most recently, Hyperion solutions. The acquired outfits have been part of the Oracle's master plan to transform itself from a database company into a giant entity in the analytics, CRM, and business management fields. So far the plan has worked out quite well for Oracle and in the process it has made some of the most renowned companies in these areas very nervous. These include Microsoft, IBM, and SAP, to name a few. Even Google hasn't been immune to Oracle's cross-hairs. Recent Oracle ads tout its search products for internal documents as superior to those offered by the search giant. SAP, for its part, has promised a vigorous defense against what it claims to be an essentially frivolous and vindictive lawsuit by Oracle. Indeed on the surface Oracle's claim does not seem to have much merit. I don’t see anything wrong with a company competing with Oracle to provide product support for Oracle's vendors. If a friend asked me for technical support on a Microsoft product and in the process gave me his support login account so I can view or download relevant documentation from Microsoft's site, I can hardly view that as stealing documents. The fact that Microsoft might lose support dollars in the process might make the company justifiably upset, but that justification shouldn't extend to suing me for damages, even if I recommended a better product to my friend in the end. In the final analysis, this lawsuit is about sour grapes. Given Oracle's paranoia about its competitors' uneasiness stemming from its acquisition-fueled growth, this is likely only the beginning of its penchant for litigation. If a company like SAP wanted to engage in illicit activity, it would have had the wisdom not to use its own computers to achieve its goals. Hopefully the justice system will see this lawsuit as an anti-competitive move by Oracle to fortify its position through intimidation. oracle,sap,crm,erp,tomorrownow,peoplesoft,hyperion Labels: databases <Oracle's SAP Lawsuit> // posted by rh 4 comments

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