| |
 "Making Sense of It All" -
Feb 2003
|
|
|
 |
Friday,
28 February 2003 8:30 am
by Reid Watts
The results are in. The popularity winner among
the February Making Sense of It All columns was the February
3 column on how the people currently in charge of our
high-tech assets do not have the background and education to
understand technology, and the effect this is having on the
corporate growth rates. That column received almost 450 visits.
More |
|
|
|
Thursday,
27 February 2003 8:30 am
by Reid Watts
With the gloom that is hanging over the
financial markets, I thought a little humor is in order.
More |
|
|
|
Wednesday,
26 February 2003 8:30 am
by Reid Watts
H-P's first quarter results, announced
yesterday after the market close, provides some excellent insight
into what the computer market has become. Although H-P reported a
9% drop in revenues from the year-ago quarter, missing analysts'
expectations by $600M, it also reported pro-forma earnings two
cents above expectations as a result of cost cutting. In after
hours trading as well overnight on European exchanges, computer
companies traded lower on the news.
More |
|
|
|
Tuesday,
25 February 2003 8:30 am
by Reid Watts
Did you know that Information Technology
is the only S&P Sector whose stock values are up for 2003?
More |
|
|
|
Monday,
24 February 2003 8:30 am
by Reid Watts
Would you make a long term
investment in an environment where what it legal and illegal can
change in an unpredictable manner at any moment in time? I
wouldn't, and neither would most other successful investors.
You probably think I am referring to investments in an unstable
third world country. But I am actually referring to the
telecommunications industry in the US. More |
|
|
|
Friday,
21 February 2003 8:30 am
by Reid Watts
The FCC decision yesterday is being
declared in the press as a win by the competitive local exchange
and long distance carriers and a loss for the "baby
bells" (RBOCS). My view is that this judgment is premature.
The US telecommunications industry is one of the most complex
industries on earth, and it will take time and experience to
determine the real impact of the new regulations on the various
participants. There are a few
things that are clear, however.
More |
|
|
|
Thursday,
20 February 2003 8:30 am
by Reid Watts
Stanley Gold, CEO of
Shamrock Holdings, wrote in the Manager's Journal column of the
Wall Street Journal on Tuesday: "At
the beginning of the 20'th century managers and directors of
corporations were primarily concerned with the deployment of
labor. By the mid-century, the job of managers and directors
was to determine the best way to allocate capital. Today,
the focus is on the products. Microsoft's success is not that
it has the cheapest labor or the best capital allocation plan (it
has neither), but rather that its products and services are
terrific and fill a specific need of their customers."
More |
|
|
|
Wednesday,
19 February 2003 8:30 am
by Reid Watts
Yesterday's Wall Street
Journal ran a story with the headline "PC Industry's Foray into
Cellphones Is a Siege". "The U.S.
personal-computer industry's attempt to capture a big chunk of
the cellphone market is turning into a protracted siege.
After years of trying to become leading suppliers of
cellphone technology, Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp. and others
in the computer sector still have little in the way of sales to
show for their efforts", the Wall Street Journal reported.
More |
|
|
|
Tuesday,
18 February 2003 8:30 am
by Reid Watts
Over the weekend I was
performing the annual ritual of cleaning out old files.
That gave me the opportunity to review corporate strategies of
seven to ten years ago which were gathering dust in my filing cabinets.
Many of the strategies and plans in my filing cabinet were never
actually implemented, or were not implemented in the way
envisioned. So reviewing them in retrospect, with the
knowledge of what actually happened in the intervening years,
one can assess with some accuracy whether they would have
worked, and whether the assumptions and projections being made
at the time were accurate. More |
|
|
|
Friday,
14 February 2003 8:30 am
by Reid Watts
Gabor Garai, a partner in the Boston office of
national law firm Epstein Becker & Green, wrote an article in
Business Week online on February 11 titled "What
VCs Want to Hear". In that article he made the point that
entrepreneurs seeking venture capital funding need to focus their
business plan on turning their startup into an interesting
acquisition for another company, as opposed to focusing on an IPO.
More |
|
|
|
Wednesday,
12 February 2003 8:30 am
by Reid Watts
In my first
column published last November 4, I wrote: "Things are
tough. The expected recovery in the second half of 2002 did not
materialize. Deflation is well entrenched in Japan, and showing
signs of spreading to other parts of Asia, Europe, and the US.
Although interest rates are at 40 year lows, raising capital has
become extremely difficult if not impossible for many
businesses, large and small, young and old. Capital spending
budgets are still being reduced. The consumer may be close to
being tapped out. And war may be around the corner."
More |
|
|
|
Tuesday,
11 February 2003 8:30 am
by Reid Watts
Last summer a senior writer from one of the
major business magazines sent me an email message asking for my
assistance. He said that he was in the process of writing a book
about how a handful of people conned $750 billion out of hapless
telecom investors in the 1990’s, and was hoping to get my
thoughts, ideas and leads.
More |
|
|
|
Monday,
10 February 2003 8:30 am
by Reid Watts
I finished writing The
Slingshot Syndrome: Why America's Leading Technology Firms Fail
at Innovation in October 2001, and it became available
for purchase in January, 2002. It struck me in retrospect that
some of the things in the book that were most controversial only
12 months ago are now treated by everyone as fact, while some of
the things that were treated as fact at that time now appear to
be the most controversial. It's amazing just how much our
collective worldview has changed in only 12 months.
More |
|
|
|
Tuesday,
04 February 2003 8:30 am
by Reid Watts
I'm sick as a dog with
the flu today, so I won't write much of an article.
Instead, I will let others do the talking by referring you to a
good discussion over on zdnet about one of my favorite topics:
the lack of innovation in high tech. Charles Cooper's
article is worth reading, but even more worth browsing is the
feedback his article solicited. Here is one response by David
White
More |
|
|
|
Monday,
03 February 2003 8:30 am
by Reid Watts
Most of the people currently in
charge of our high-tech assets, do not have the background and
education to understand technology!
More |
|
|
|
Saturday,
01 February 2003 8:30 pm
by Reid Watts
A
very, very sad day today. I followed the space shuttle
Columbia disaster almost all day long, and felt the loss very
personally, even though I do not know any of the astronauts
involved. In the 1960’s, as a young boy, I wrote NASA and asked
how I could become part of the space program. To my surprise and
delight, they responded to my letter, sending me a variety of
materials including a large poster that I proudly attached to my
wall above my bed. Although I never ended up having anything to do
with the space program, it was an inspiration to my whole
generation of engineers and scientists, including me.
More |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
