September 2005 – Page 3 – Gavinsblog.com

Is a Slimmer Sony Coming?

With the new guy in charge it looks like Sony are trying to get back on an even keel.

Few doubt that Sony, a much diminished force and brand, needs some shock therapy to revive itself. After all, its core electronics division, which accounts for 70% of sales, has lost money on an operating basis for the last two years.

Sony’s cost structure is bloated, and it has plenty of noncore businesses that could be sold off to raise cash for the main event at Sony: Turning out ultracool gadgets and must-have content that will wow global consumers once more.

Stringer is slated to roll out his restructuring plan on Sept. 22. In recent months, market chatter and the CEO’s comments have made pretty clear Sony has been looking into ways of streamlining its electronics product lineup, reorganizing its global plant network, and instituting some pretty painful layoffs.

Word has it that there will be huge lay-offs in the pipeline, perhaps as high as 15,000 people. And stock usually goes up after redundancy announcements, Sony currently trade at $36.55 a share.

Here’s an interesting graph from this month’s Foreign Policy. It show church attendance as a percentage of the population attending church at least once a week. As you can see Ireland is way out in front.

Do that many Irish people still go to Mass? I really didn’t think the figures were still that high. FP reads into the figures as following (Ireland was ranked third last in the CDI)

The CDI (Commitment to Development Index) measures whether rich states fulfill this commandment. Interesting enough, countries where fewer people go to church score higher in the index. Or, in other words, where there is more preaching, there is less practicing. Just 3 percent of Danes, who rank at the top of the CDI, attend church at least once a week, according to the World Values Survey, which tracks social and cultural changes worldwide. In second-place Netherlands, church attendance stands at 14 percent, while in third-ranked Sweden, a mere 7 percent of the population goes to church once a week. At the opposite extreme is Ireland, which ranks 18th out of 21 CDI countries, but where church attendance stands at 65 percent.

The source of this pattern may be where people put their faith—whether in government bodies or religious institutions. The Netherlands and Nordic nations are small and homogeneous, and they maintain small gaps between rich and poor domestically. As a result, citizens seem to place more trust in elected officials to represent their interests, and, in turn, have a more activist development agenda. They rank highly thanks in no small part to generous foreign aid programs—and an apparent faith in their government’s ability to do good.

The Future of Oil

Foreign Policy poses seven questions to Matthew Simmons, a chief proponent of the idea of peak oil. Some of the juicier ones:

FP: Youâve written that Saudi Arabia relies on old and overproduced oil fields that are likely to start declining in output. How has Riyadh responded to your analysis?

MS: Theyâve said âtrust me, we have no problems.â? Petroleum Minister Ali Naimi said that they could pump up to 15 million barrels per day for as many as 100 more years. The likelihood of that is as remote as me being on the moon 10 years from now. They dismiss requests for any field-by-field data as preposterous, and simply say that theyâve been a reliable supplier of oil for 70 years. My view is that itâs just good supply chain management to ask a key vendor for details about their capacity. Plus, they are shopping the market so hard for drilling rigs right now. If they can produce 15 million barrels per day for another 50 to 100 years, why do they need new rigs?

FP: Which countries are best positioned to deal with a decline in oil production?

MS: Papua New Guinea. Unfortunately, thatâs an honest answer. The countries that havenât yet built a society that needs an exponential amount of oil are in the best shape. Around 30 years ago, around half the world didnât really use oil. And now look, cities like Hanoi have millions of motorcycles they didnât have five years ago. Weâve built the global economy based on the false assumptions that oil is just another commodity, that the Middle East has basically unlimited amounts of oil, technology will improve, and that the price of oil would get progressively cheaper.

The more Iâve gotten into this, the more similar it is to what we do in our own minds with ignoring people’s getting old. When do you take your parentsâ car keys away? Itâs so painful that you go into denial that theyâre getting really old.

Apple declares war on Nigels

And on the subject of iPod nanos, don’t be called Nigel.

As Orlowski notes:

Quite so – but popular forenames, too? Is an iPod engraved with a “Nigel” really worth less? The Nigels of the world must unite and stand firm. Or before we know it, Apple will be coming after the Kevins.

NASA unveils vision for return to Moon

Well hopefully I will see this in my lifetime, to think we have left it so long before going back is strange. But I think there are reasons other than scientific here, space will become a very important place in the next few decades, and controlling it will be pretty important, the US appears to even want to control the strategically important LaGrange points (PDF).

The American Interest

So when I was at the Terrorism and Security Conference in Washington everyone received a copy of the new periodical, The American Interest. It will be published 5 times a year, and judging by the first issue it will make for some hefty reading. The contributors and editorial board are a who’s who of the best American thinkers. Oh and they have a blog too.

Google seems to be directing everyone to me when people search for ‘the american interest’, I am not sure why the official website of the magazine is not indexed. There is something odd going on.

Asian squirrels

Interesting figures:

China has overtaken Japan: it now has the world’s largest foreign-exchange reserves. The combined reserves of the People’s Bank of China and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority stood at $833 billion at the end of June. By now, given their recent rate of growth, they could be nudging $870 billion-worth, most of this in dollars—well ahead of the $830 billion in Japan’s coffers at the end of last month. Asia as a whole now has a stash of more than $2.5 trillion, two-thirds of the world total, up from $1 trillion in 2000.

Ultimately the Economist blames Americans not saving for its current account deficit, not Asian governments.

The resurrection of Steve Jobs

The Economist have an interesting take on Apple boss Steve Jobs this week:

ONE morning, about a year ago, a doctor told Steve Jobs that a cancerous tumour in his pancreas would kill him within months, and that it was time to start saying his goodbyes. Later that night, an endoscopy revealed that the tumour could be cut out. But for one day Mr Jobs, the boss of Apple Computer, as well as Pixar, the world’s most successful animation studio, stared death in the face.

The experience seems to have invigorated him. Last week, gaunter but otherwise undiminished, he was on a stage in San Francisco, putting on a show (for that is what Apple product launches are) that was as flashy and dynamic as any as he has ever thrown. When businessmen try to rub shoulders with pop stars, the effect is usually embarrassing. But âSteveâ? had arranged to have his pal, Madonna, pop up on screen and kidded around with her with panache. Does she have an iPod? Of course she has! âThat’s so duh,â? said the superstar playfully. Then Mr Jobs segued into his announcementsâa new mobile phone from Motorola that has iTunes, Apple’s music software, pre-installed and that represents a beachhead into the world of phones; and the âiPod nanoâ?, a new digital music-player that is thinner than a pencil, but still holds 1,000 songs.

I, for one, bought an iPod nano. As the Register have often noted, the sweet spot for MP3 players has always been around the 1000 song mark. I never felt enthused by the iPod, even when friends had them way back in 2001, and the iPod mini never really got me excited. But finally a solid state MP3 player, at the right size and the right price.

Jobs is certainly an interesting character as the Economist article lays out, but I needed no convincing the buy an iPod nano – it does what it says on the tin.

Google blog search

So while I was away, Google went and launched Blog Search, in Beta as usual.

It seems to be quite a handy little tool, how long before it has facilities better than those at Technorati?

I also did some searches pertinent to blogs I have an interest in.

I searched for ‘gavin‘, ‘corruption‘ and ‘eminem‘, and I ranked top in all of them – wohoo! I wonder how long before people actually start using it on a regular basis.

Back to normal posting, finally

Here’s hoping that I can increase my productivity in the blogosphere.

Month: September 2005