megamusictour.com

That said, I think the MagicJack is best used as a second phone line anyway. At the very least you should test it out for a couple weeks before making it your primary line. Mine has never given me a lick of trouble; it continues to work like a charm.

Find more deals, coupon codes, and bargains on CNET’s Shopper.com.

I should point out that many commenters have encountered problems with MagicJack’s customer service (or lack thereof). The company lists no address or phone number on its site, and even its message board is down (though just temporarily, according to the site). Clearly they’re experiencing major growing pains (understandable given the nature of the product), but that’s no excuse for shoddy support. So I’m posting this deal with a “buyer beware” caveat.

(Credit:
MagicJack)

Remember MagicJack, the VoIP phone gizmo that plugs into a USB port and provides unlimited local and long-distance calling? Normally it runs $40 plus shipping (and/or sales tax), but 1 Sale a Day has it for $29.99 (plus $5.99 for ground shipping) — but only through midnight today. Granted, the savings here aren’t huge, but why not save a sawbuck if you can?

• Up to 20 percent additional power and cooling savings.

(Credit:
VMware)

Here’s the chart detailing vSphere 4 vs. VMware Infrastructure 3 (in the “current” column):

• vSphere 4 scales better with the ability to pool 32 physical servers with up to 2,048 processor cores, 1,280 virtual machines, 32 terabytes of RAM, 16 petabytes of storage, and 8,000 network ports.

“There’s a big gap between what most people talk about as cloud and what people are doing today in the enterprise,” Gilmartin said. VMware’s plan is to get cloud providers to use its operating system and then seamlessly hook up to enterprises using vSphere 4.

It’s unclear what happens if a vSphere shop isn’t hooking up to another VMware powered cloud. Gilmartin said the company is working behind the scenes on application swapping among clouds but didn’t have details or timelines for such standards. It is clear that VMware sees vSphere 4 as a way to thwartboth Microsoft’s cloud OS, Azure, and its virtualization effort, Hyper-V.

This was originally posted at ZDNet’s Between the Lines.

With the effort, VMware is attempting to bridge virtualized data centers–now known as “private clouds”–and growing cloud computing services from the likes of Amazon.com and others. However, this bridging process is a work in progress due to the lack of standards. VMware’s big pitch is that vSphere can run your data center and allow you to bridge out when external resources are needed.

• Up to 50 percent in storage savings by allowing virtual machines to only use storage as needed.

(Credit:
VMware) In the meantime, VMware has packed these key features into vSphere 4:

Gilmartin argued that Microsoft’s approach with Azure requires too many architecture changes for enterprises. He also noted that vSphere will support more operating systems.

John Gilmartin, director of product marketing at VMware, said the company is hoping to ease enterprises into cloud computing without redoing architecture.

• A 30 percent increase in application consolidation ratios.

One of the more interesting features of vSphere is a fault tolerance option. Data center managers can keep their most valuable apps running even if the underlying hardware fails. By clicking a box to protect a virtual machine, vSphere 4 creates a shadow copy of the application to take over in the event of a failure. There is a performance hit since you’re allocating computing resources to the shadow application, but Gilmartin notes that only 20 percent to 30 percent of enterprise software would have to be fault tolerant.

VMware announced on Tuesday its cloud operating system–dubbed vSphere 4–with plans for general availability in the second quarter.

That IBM-NetApp relationship is still intact, which is sold by Big Blue under its IBM System Storage N Series, an IBM spokesman said.

Sun, in response, filed a countersuit, alleging NetApp violated a dozen of its patents.

But NetApp also has a relationship it may want to retain with IBM.

Two years ago, NetApp filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Sun, alleging its rival violated seven of its patents with its ZFS file system–a key element to its Solaris operating system. NetApp demanded Sun remove its ZFS file system from the open-source community and storage products, and limit its use to computing devices.

The ZFS file system is a key part of Solaris, and Solaris’ role in the open-source community puts it in an enviable position in relation to IBM’s efforts. IBM, as a result, may not want to lose that connection to the open-source community should NetApp prevail in its Sun lawsuit.

Back in 2005, the companies formed a manufacturing partnership, in which NetApp’s network-attached storage and storage area network products were repackaged under IBM’s brand.

NetApp did not return e-mails or phone calls seeking comment. IBM declined to comment on rumors or speculation regarding merger talks involving Sun.

For Sun, which reportedly has IBM combing through its contracts as part of its due diligence in the merger discussions, the NetApp lawsuit could pose a potential problem.

NetApp’s IP patent infringement lawsuit against rival Sun Microsystems may throw a wrench in Sun’s reported merger talks with IBM, according to a report on American Lawyer’s AM Law.com site.

It may not be state-of-the-art, but this $80 GPS will get you to your destination.

Maps of the U.S. and Canada come preloaded on an SD card, which you can swap out if you want to listen to MP3s or watch videos. There’s even an onboard Othello game for when you’re not navigating. Delphi’s optional Real-Time Traffic Kit adds lifetime traffic, construction, and weather data (and enables the GPS to re-route accordingly), but at $199.99, it costs more than twice as much as the GPS itself.

Ah, but is the NAV200 any good? Will it get you where you’re going? All signs point to yes, though CNET’s review dings it for its slow operation and lack of text-to-speech capability. The reviews on Newegg’s site are mostly positive, but sluggish performance is a recurring theme.

Of course, The Cheapskate managed to find it for $110.53, bringing your grand total to $190.52. That’s a pretty solid deal on a GPS with a lifetime traffic-service subscription. And without the kit, how can you go wrong with an $80 navigation system, even one that’s a little slow?

Find more deals, coupon codes, and bargains on CNET’s Shopper.com.

(Credit:
Newegg)

How low can GPS receivers go? Newegg cracks the $80 barrier with the Delphi NAV200, currently selling for $79.99 with free three-day shipping. Even more amazing, this is a new unit, not a refurb, and you don’t have to wait on a rebate.

Long-term revenue is a function of the number of CPUs running their products at their customers’ IT shops.

A friend sent me his thoughts on virtualization and its effects on the software industry. As he sees it, virtualization may well play a role far beyond the operating system vendors, a group I had focused a post on. It could have a deleterious effect on a wide range of business models.

Why do enterprises buy into virtualization? Primarily to make more efficient use of their existing servers. Most proprietary vendors license their products on a per-CPU basis, and have increasingly shifted to maintenance contracts as a way to boost revenue as upfront licensing costs dwindle in a market that favors spreading out payments via SaaS and open source.

So, as more and more enterprises embrace virtualization to increase the efficiency of the servers they’ve already licensed, maintenance revenue may well plunge with new license revenue.

All of this may well accelerate a move away from the traditional, proprietary license model to something more friendly to customers, and to something that more fairly measures value to that customer than a simple license. License costs and the actual value derived from them are out of whack, which is one reason Red Hat’s model continues to earn it accolades for the value it delivers.

commentary

My friend’s insight?

This isn’t a pretty thought for proprietary software vendors. It’s not much better for those open-source vendors who tie their maintenance contracts to CPUs, either, though they have more leeway to shift the calculus for support revenues to something besides a per-CPU model.

First, how we tested. We used the same Call of Duty 4 timedemo files Apple uses for its own performance assessments. At least, that’s what Apple said it sent to us. We also followed Apple’s exact recommended test procedure and settings, which were even more aggressive than we originally intended. Here’s the full breakdown, which we applied to all four systems in the charts below:

Call of Duty 4 (in frames per second)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
Pipeline   Bog   Ambush  

$999 Velocity Micro Edge Z5
74 
56 
69  Apple Mac Pro 2009 w/ATI Radeon HD 4870, Windows 64-bit via boot camp
60  52 
59  Apple Mac Pro 2009 w/ATI Radeon HD 4870
37 
34 
34  Apple Mac Pro 2009 w/GeForce GT 120
18 
20 
22  Note: Test configuration: (1,680×1,024, 4x aa)

(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)

Texture settings: Texture filtering: Trilinear
Anisotropic filtering: Maximum (drag slider completely to the right)
Texture quality: Manual
Texture resolution: Extra
Normal map resolution: Extra
Specular map resolution: Extra

We’ve received a few e-mails since our post last week on Apple’s new Mac Pro and its higher-end 3D graphics card option, AMD’s Radeon HD 4870. Echoing the comments in the original post, some folks wanted to know how we tested. Others wanted us to test the
Mac Pro in Boot Camp. Also, AMD wanted us to show actual test results to back up our claim that the combination of the Mac Pro and its Radeon HD 4870 card was not great for gaming, especially compared with competing Windows desktops.

The numbers below incorporate the Mac OS X-based scores we ran last week, as well as the
Windows Vista 64-bit scores we generated today. We made sure all relevant software was updated to its must current version in both cases, including each OS, graphics driver, and version of Call of Duty 4. Fortunately, Apple’s timedemo files also worked in Vista. The software playing field is as level as we can get it between the two operating systems.

Before anyone jumps all over us, we’re absolutely not arguing that a $999 Windows PC is a better all-around computer than the Mac Pro. In the course of our regular benchmarking, the new Mac Pro blasted through our multitasking test in 133 seconds, a new record, and posted a second best (behind only an $8,800 Maingear) 21,204 score on our multicore Cinebench test. The Velocity Micro system took 440 seconds for multitasking, and managed only a 12,931 on Cinebench. If we had to buy a system for digital media production, we’d pick up the Mac Pro in a heartbeat.

Also to the Mac Pro’s credit, its gaming profile improves considerably in Vista via Boot Camp compared with what we saw in OS X. What we want to make crystal clear, however, is that with two quad-core Nehalem-based Intel chips and a well-regarded 512MB ATI Radeon HD4870 graphics card, the Mac Pro might sound tempting as a serious gaming system. It’s certainly a more competent gamer than older models, especially if you rely on Boot Camp. But from the standpoint of pure 3D bang-for-your-buck, the Windows gaming ecosystem holds a clear advantage over the Mac Pro, with faster gaming PCs available for $2,500 to $2,600 less.

The Mac Pro gains a step in Boot Camp, but the sub-$1,000 Velocity Micro Edge Z5 is the clear winner on Apple’s own test. The specifications on that Velocity Micro system include a factory-overclocked 2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400, 4GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM, a vendor-specific 512MB ATI Radeon HD 4850 3D card (with faster core and memory clocks than standard), a 750GB 7,200rpm hard drive, and Windows Vista 64-bit. The review will hopefully post tomorrow.

Graphics options:
Video mode: 1,680×1,050
Sync every frame: No
Aspect ratio: Auto
Anti-aliasing: 4x
Every frame: No
Shadows: Yes
Specular map: Yes
Depth of field: Yes
Glow: Yes
Number of dynamic lights: Normal
Soften smoke edges: Yes
Ragdoll: Yes
Bullet impacts: Yes
Model detail: Normal
Water detail: Normal

Game options: Enable console: Yes

We’re happy to oblige everyone.

(Credit: Larry Augustin)
I managed to fracture some bone in my hand and sprain my right thumb while performing a 360 backside-air at the Open Source Goat Rodeo.

Maybe next year, you can watch me tumble down the mountain.

Blog, Interrupted…no typing for a few days.

Broken man

Conspicuously absent from Gartner’s top 5 was Apple, which shipped just 717,000 iPhones during the second quarter as it ran down the inventory of classic iPhones ahead of the July launch of the
iPhone 3G. Apple should show up in next quarter’s rankings, however, as the company sold 1 million iPhone 3Gs in just the first weekend it went on sale. Fujitsu’s 1,071,490 units was good enough for fifth place for the entire second quarter.

Nokia's still the largest smartphone vendor, but competitors are catching up to devices like the N95 shown here.

(Credit:
CNET)

The worldwide market for smartphones grew 15.7 percent in the second quarter, as vendors shipped a total of 32.2 million devices. That’s pretty solid, but earlier this year the market was growing at a 60 percent clip. Blame a slowing economy around the world and the development of more sophisticated “enhanced phones” running Java or Qualcomm’s BREW rather than true smartphone operating systems like Symbian, Windows Mobile, or Apple’s OS X, according to Gartner.

Smartphone sales slowed a bit in the second quarter amid a weak global economy, but Gartner thinks that’s about to change.

North America is the fastest-growing region for smartphone sales by far, with shipments up 78.7 percent in the second quarter. This region accounts for just 25 percent of all smartphone sales, however, as our cousins in Europe and Asia got on the smartphone train much earlier. Western Europeans bought 29.3 percent more smartphones in the quarter, while Japanese customers actually bought 24 percent fewer phones than during the same period last year.

The picture should be brighter later in the year, Gartner said. “Wider availability of new touch smartphone models together with the global introduction of the iPhone 3G will help sales of smartphones return to stronger growth in the third quarter of 2008,” analyst Roberta Cozza wrote in Gartner’s press release.

Nokia is still the market leader by a huge margin, shipping nearly half of all smartphones sold in the world during the second quarter. The company is not growing nearly as fast as its rivals, however, and lost market share; second-place RIM increased its shipment totals by 126 percent to obtain 17.4 percent market share, and HTC grew its shipments 119 percent to edge out Sharp for third place.

Poof. There goes 1/3 of that $1 billion.

… and that each unlocked iPhone results in Apple’s missing out on $370 in earnings over the phone’s two-year contract period.

With jelly on it!

If these phones are in countries where Apple has no contract, the only thing you can say is that Apple should get an exclusive contract there faster (easier said than done). If they’re being used by people who just don’t like the exclusive provider Apple’s signed with, then these are people they’ll never get anyway.

But the issue of users buying an iPhone only to “unlock” it from those carriers rose following Apple’s last quarterly earnings report. Analysts noted a discrepancy between sales figures provided by Apple and those from AT&T, and some concluded that as many as 1 million devices had been unlocked.

Oh, no, you dih-unt, girlfriend.

Hey, kids! Do you like math?! Sure you do!

$370? Each?!

This. Is. Not. Lost. Revenue.

$370 over two years implies a $15.42/month revenue share per phone. There’s a lot of debate as to what the actual amount is Apple gets from AT&T — Scott Bourne of the Apple Phone Show thinks it’s around $9/month and Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray has estimated it as high as $18/month. So, $15.42 isn’t outrageous, but it’s a little on the high side. But the key thing to remember is that number is what it is because the contract is exclusive.

The hell?!

Much of the
iPhone’s profitability comes from revenue-sharing agreements that Apple has in place with AT&T Inc., as well as its three European wireless partners.

Let’s try this one more time.

See? It’s an inverse relationship. For every X number of phones you can put on a revenue sharing contract by adding another cellular provider, you must reduce the monthly rate for all phones, and by a lot.

Banana pony lollipop!

If there are 400,000 unlocked iPhones in China — where Apple has no contract and may or may not be able to even get one — that’s 10% of all iPhones sold to date. So if Apple hits its target of 10 million phones, 1 million of them will be in China, unlocked.

If you want to play the “but they could have contracts with multiple companies!” game, then you can’t use the $15.42 multiplier. And not only for the incremental phones they’d gain, you can’t use it for phones they’ve already sold under contract. Why? Because you just threw exclusivity out the window.

[Bernstein Research analyst Toni] Sacconaghi estimated that between 25% and 30% of the more than 4 million iPhone units already sold have been unlocked to work on other wireless networks…

Could be. No one knows for sure, but that’s possible.

Apple doesn’t disclose how much revenue it gets from AT&T or its European partners, O2 in the U.K., T-Mobile in Germany and Orange in France. Those carriers each give Apple a payment every month for each customer that activates an iPhone on their its network.

Thanks to this report we can see Sacconaghi’s math and, hey, the Macalope’s 9th grade chemistry teacher (and the Macalope) was right! In a nutshell, Sacconaghi estimated that if Apple hit its target of selling 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008, that would mean that something like 3 million of them would be unlocked. 3 million times $370 is 1.11 billion!

Well, sure. Of course they do! It’s only fair!

This may not be the same estimate referred to in those pieces, but the number’s around $1 billion, so let’s take a look at what horrid alchemy went into creating it.

Right you are.

if you’ll excuse the Macalope, he’s going to go lie down and apply a cold compress right between the antlers.

Indeed. It was kind of surprisingly large to everyone, including the Macalope.

Which is why — and, jeez, how many times does the Macalope have to say this? — it makes absolutely no sense to say that Apple is losing this money.

So, hey, let’s do some more math! Since it’s just multiplication of a bunch of numbers we read on the Intramets somewhere like Sacconaghi did! Remember, being an analyst is something you can try at home, kids!

Well, how’d you like to be an analyst at a Wall Street research firm?!

Arrrrgh.

Again, please see the definition of opportunity cost and how it actually has to have a realistic opportunity, not a fantasy bozo lala gum drops opportunity.

Just after the Macalope sent off some emails to the writers of the pieces Todd Sullivan linked to to ask who the heck these “analysts” were, he noticed this piece at MarketWatch.

Seriously! It’s apparently not as hard as it sounds! Let’s have a look!

That. Makes. No. Sense.

Good god.

Splort - chortle - hack - cough.

But the bigger story on Google is that it has been a one trick pony for years. Everything that Google does is paid for by its paid search business. In the fourth quarter, Google generated $2.9bn of gross profit (gross margin) and $1.7bn of operating cash flow. That means it spent $1.2bn on operating expenses. I bet that only $200-300mm of those operating expenses had anything to do with paid search. So if that’s true, and it’s a wild eyed guess, then Google is spending close to a billion dollars a quarter on stuff that is not producing revenue right now.

Google’s precipitous share price fall seems to have abated this morning. The shares are on a rebound, after tanking more than 8 percent in the previous two days due to a decline in paid search. The decline can be explained away by the slowing economy or fewer ads on pages, but Fred Wilson exposes a nugget worth exploring in this blog post:

After a brief hiatus while transitioning from ZDNet to CNET News, I have returned to the blogosphere. It was like going without my favorite tea (tie kuan yin) for nearly a week.

In other words, Google is spending immensely to become more than a highly profitable one-trick search pony. The bubble bursting of late puts Google’s situation in bas-relief. While the company is increasing its share of the search business, and a Microsoft-Yahoo combo would take at least a year to gain any traction in search, the Googleplex is focused intensely on the next frontier–applications and services, which so far haven’t contributed much to revenue as Fred pointed out. It’s also the space where Microsoft and Yahoo have an advantage. A Microhoo union (it’s been quiet that front so far this week) could make life difficult for Google as it attempts to convert searchers into community members and application users.