Sekar

GE's $8 Billion Downgrade Timebomb

What everyone fails to realize is that GE's downfall started when Jack Welch was at the helm of this conglomerate. All his groomed successors like Bob Nardelli, Immelt and McNerney have failed miserably. Bob Nardeli is the biggest loser having screwed up Home Depot and Chrysler. Immelt is going to lose his shirt and pants very shortly. The most hyped executive in recent history is Jack Welch and he has done immense harm to GE with his unstoppable cost cutting measures. GE's glory days as a big conglomerate is all over and the company has to be diced and sliced into multiple pieces and sold off. GE is a large, leaking tanker that has run ground and there is no way it can continue sailing. Mindless layoffs in the name of cost reduction will sap precious human resources from company's talent pool and these CEOs should be thrown out first. Welch has made immense wealth with his crappy book releases, hefty bonus/ retirement package and talk shows. Does anyone read his corporate advise that he regularly writes in Business Week? I guess more companies will go underground with his stupid preaches. Looking at GE's assets and performance of all divisions, it's clear that they were hiding everything behind their Financial division's performance.

GE's $8 Billion Downgrade Timebomb

Hello HardToLove - GE's stock was on a downslide even before the economic crisis began. Jeffrey Immelt is not the right leader to steer a grounded ship like GE. The days of mega corporations in US are over. Companies should be lean and nimble to handle any crisis that's thrown their way. If the CEO cannot handle the heat, then he better quit the job. I bet that's what is going to happen. Remember RCA and Westinghouse?

GE: The Decimation Continues

What everyone fails to realize is that GE's downfall started when Jack Welch was at the helm of this conglomerate. All his groomed successors like Bob Nardelli, Immelt and McNerney have failed miserably. Bob Nardeli is the biggest loser having screwed up Home Depot and Chrysler. Immelt is going to lose his shirt and pants very shortly. The most hyped executive in recent history is Jack Welch and he has done immense harm to GE with his unstoppable cost cutting measures. GE's glory days as a big conglomerate is all over and the company has to be diced and sliced into multiple pieces and sold off. GE is a large, leaking tanker that has run ground and there is no way it can continue sailing. Mindless layoffs in the name of cost reduction will sap precious human resources from company's talent pool and these CEOs should be thrown out first. Welch has made immense wealth with his crappy book releases, hefty bonus/ retirement package and talk shows. Does anyone read his corporate advise that he regularly writes in Business Week? I guess more companies will go underground with his stupid preaches. Looking at GE's assets and performance of all divisions, it's clear that they were hiding everything behind their Financial division's performance.

Blockbuster: No Plans to File for Bankruptcy

Blockbuster's earlier CEO John Antioco was one of the biggest corporate idiots, joining the ranks of disgraced and fallen guys like Jack Welch (GE is now $6), Charles Prince, Immelt and numerous idots. The current 7-Eleven savior has no clue on how to run this business. Are the board members in a drunk state? Blockbuster will eventually collapse. Hollywood studios are going to realize that their tight grip over content distribution will come to an end sooner than they think. Customers are not willing to pay $4 to rent movies and watch. Movie distribution and consumption will go the way like music has become and no one has time to step into a store to checkout content. How much will I pay to watch a movie? Not more than 50 cents. The studios and their overpaid stars should realize that sky high production costs will eventually kill movie distribution. The entire movie industry requires a shake-out and the time is right now. Look at how many stuios have scrapped costly productions. The country has plenty of talented faces and studios should promote new blood in movies rather than overpaying existing actors. That way production cost will reduce and consumers can pay less to watch a movie. The collapse of Blockbuster will be a death knell to retail movie distribution in US.

Satyam: A Shameful End

Ramalinga Raju was spinning cotton in 1992 when I owned Satyam Spinning Mills shares. Raju's crude luck brought him into IT area without any strong foundation. Raju leapfrogged TCS and Wipro (by the way was selling Hair oil and assemblying PCs) in 10 years using dubious practises. H1B Visa system was completely abused by Satyam using political connections in US and India. All the glitzy office complexes in Secunderabad are just empty coffins of greed. I hope Satyam's downfall will expose more skeletons with India's outsourcing madness.

What's Driving Toyota Down?

Most auto analysts including this author are missing an important point in Toyota's weekness. Watanabe and his American team became so bullish in 2004-05 that they jumped to open two new plants in US (San Antonio to build Tundras and Mississippi to build Highlanders). This decision is the nail in the coffin for Toyota. Toyota hastily jumped into making full-size pickup trucks and competing with F-150 and Silverado. The cost of building two auto plants is enormous and Toyota completely missed the point on selling these gas guzzlers in a downturn economy. Toyota has to either abandon San Antonio and Mississippi plants altogether and focus on making small and medium cars in US. I have driven Tundra truck and it rides like a Camry sedan. All American truck fans like a truck that roars like a truck and not mew like a cat. Nissan was clever to abandon Titan's progress and decided to rebadge Dodge Ram as Titan starting 2010. Carlos Ghosn is clever than Toyota's drunk management. Moreover Toyota's reliability is also falling. The 2009 best reliable sedan is Ford Fusion and not Camry. Consumer Reports rates Fusion higher than Accord and Camry and just below Altima. This endorsement speaks volumes in itself. Starting this spring, gas prices will start going up and Toyota is going to feel the pinch much stronger.

Apple Investors: The Bottom's Not In - Just Yet

Morons like Brewer try to trash anyone who are critical of Apple. Idiots like Brewer claim that "Keep in mind, the rotary dial phone is also a touch based device". Are these guys living in fantasy world? Look at where Apple stock is. In Jan 2008, I predicted the share price to drop to around $85-90, when there was a big hype about iPhones crossing 10 M mark soon. Yes, Apple indeed sold nearly 10 M as analyzed by Turley Muller of seekingalpha. Steve Jobs boldly predicted that Apple would sell 10 M iPhones in one year and he thought that consumers would queue up to buy these phones. In reality this did not happen, until the price was slashed after 45 days and a cheaper 3G version was introduced. To continue this momentum, Apple has to slash the prices to appease frugal consumers in other countries. Hey Brewer, I didn't know that rotary phone is also a touch based device - what a great discovery ??? Try to sell few Apple shares to Wall St. with your discovery. You can also stand in front of NYC 5th Avenue store to demonstrate that rotary phones are also touch based device. Toni is a bigger MORON than Brewer. These two misguided fools should be chased out of all forums.

Dell's New Laptop: Getting into the Innovation Game

Why would you give Windows 7 a big thumps up when it's an extension of Vista? Dell is clever to launch this laptop on XP rather than Win7. All analysts are expecting a big turnaround for Microsoft with Win7 release. Anyone who has been testing or using Win7, including me, didn't find any big difference with Win7 performance or features. Users who knew to work around Vista annoyances still applied the same changes to Win7. Win7 is technically a Service Pack 3 for Vista and nothing more. MSFT will not see much sales bounce with Win7 because corporate users are pretty happy with WinXP. Poor ignorant home users will shell out $100 to buy a Service Pack for their Vista OS. Same applies to home users who purchased Snow Leopard OS, which is a service pack for Leopard MacOS.

Bing Keeps Pecking Away at Search Share

This is how Google grew to start with. Everything starts with a nibble. Bing's search results are clutter free and neatly organized. Why are users sticking to Google for search? Common wake up, there are better tools out there.

Nuclear Poised for Comeback: GE, Hitachi Win Design Approval for Passive Reactor

All the technical experts who are betting on Nuclear comeback in US is in for a rude shock. Whatever technology, these companies offer, the common folks in small towns and cities are going to gang up and shoot down these proposals. Isn't it obvious that numerous proposals to install Wind turbines in many states are being rejected by people who are against installing anything in their backyard. Many transmission line corridors are slowly winding through city hearing councils for approval and will never be constructed. People have become suspicious and cynical on having any ugly object in their backyard or neighborhood. This mindset will kill all new construction proposal whether it's Solar, Wind or Nuclear. What's the guarantee that a giant Nuclear reactor complex will be approved anywhere in US? This is just a day dream for all Nuclear vendors and reality will set in very soon. The Yucca Mountain storage is completely shelved and where will spent rods be stored in US. These issues will have to be solved first before approving any new reactor in US. To begin with, let voters decide on an alternate prison site for Gitmo somewhere in the country. I doubt if this will ever happen.

RealNetworks: Court Upholds Injunction Against Use of RealDVD

MPAA will eventually lose this battle. RealDVD is using a similar technology as Kaleidescape does and why discriminate these two companies. It's not too far before all media consumption becomes online and MPAA will scramble to put new rules in place. The music industry has already lost the battle with copy protection and MPAA is just behind them.

Blockbuster's Investment from Wattles: Expect Chapter 11

Blockbuster's earlier CEO John Antioco was one of the biggest corporate idiots, joining the ranks of disgraced and fallen guys like Jack Welch (GE is now $6), Charles Prince, Immelt and numerous idiots. The current CEO (7-Eleven savior) has no clue on how to run this business. Are the board members in a drunk state? Blockbuster will eventually collapse. Hollywood studios are going to realize that their tight grip over content distribution will come to an end sooner than they think. Customers are not willing to pay $4 to rent movies and watch. Movie distribution and consumption will go the way like music has become and no one has time to step into a store to checkout content. How much will I pay to watch a movie? Not more than 50 cents. The studios and their overpaid stars should realize that sky high production costs will eventually kill movie distribution. The entire movie industry requires a shake-out and the time is right now. Look at how many stuios have scrapped costly productions. The country has plenty of talented faces and studios should promote new blood in movies rather than overpaying existing actors. That way production cost will reduce and consumers can pay less to watch a movie. The collapse of Blockbuster will be a death knell to retail movie distribution in US.

Blockbuster: No Bankruptcy Plans

Blockbuster's earlier CEO John Antioco was one of the biggest corporate idiots, joining the ranks of disgraced and fallen guys like Jack Welch (GE is now $6), Charles Prince, Immelt and numerous idiots. The current 7-Eleven savior has no clue on how to run this business. Are the board members in a drunk state? Blockbuster will eventually collapse. Hollywood studios are going to realize that their tight grip over content distribution will come to an end sooner than they think. Customers are not willing to pay $4 to rent movies and watch. Movie distribution and consumption will go the way like music has become and no one has time to step into a store to checkout content. How much will I pay to watch a movie? Not more than 50 cents. The studios and their overpaid stars should realize that sky high production costs will eventually kill movie distribution. The entire movie industry requires a shake-out and the time is right now. Look at how many stuios have scrapped costly productions. The country has plenty of talented faces and studios should promote new blood in movies rather than overpaying existing actors. That way production cost will reduce and consumers can pay less to watch a movie. The collapse of Blockbuster will be a death knell to retail movie distribution in US.

Media Moguls Are Ready For Recovery

Hollywood studios are going to realize that their tight grip over content distribution will come to an end sooner than they think. Customers are not willing to pay $4 to rent movies and watch. Movie distribution and consumption will go the way like music has become and no one has time to step into a store to checkout content. How much will I pay to watch a movie? Not more than 50 cents. The studios and their overpaid stars should realize that sky high production costs will eventually kill content distribution. The entire movie industry requires a shake-out and the time is right now. Look at how many stuios have scrapped costly productions. The country has plenty of talented faces and studios should promote new blood in movies rather than overpaying existing actors. That way production cost will reduce and consumers can pay less to watch a movie. The collapse of Blockbuster will be a death knell to retail movie distribution in US.

Will TiVo's Partnerships with Comcast and Cox Pay Off?

TiVo is on bare life support and all set-top box vendors like Vudu, Roku, AppleTV are fighting for a small slice of savy American consumers who can afford multiple boxes in their living room and juggle with complex user interfaces. With a souring economy, TiVo will not even get a buyer unless Telcos like AT&T and Verizon (FiOS) are interested. There are no compelling reasons for anyone to invest $140 to $200 on a device and then continue to pay $20 every month. TiVO should look at European, Japanese and Korean markets where there are much better DVRs and set-top boxes.