Business currents

Sun's missing mojo: MIA until when?

Steve Jobs may be the best in the business at mesmerizing a crowd, but Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems rates consideration as a very serious No. 2.

When it comes to pitching his company, Schwartz is the sort of articulate and passionate CEO that boards covet in these extra-PR-conscious times. Is he all that good? Put to the test, I think he'd have decent odds of convincing a zebra that stripes were yesterday's fashion.

But while Schwartz is steadfast about Sun's ability to achieve great things, the big difference is that Jobs sells cool stuff that its … Read more

Super Bowl dilemma: Are the ads worth the price?

Three million dollars to make a 30-second pitch? You might as well sail a Hail Mary pass into the end zone and hope for the best.

But even though Super Bowl 43 takes place against a backdrop darkened by an economic recession and rising unemployment, executives involved with current and previous Super Bowl advertising spots remained convinced that Sunday's game offers a potential payoff that outweighs any attendant risks.

"We wouldn't be doing it if we didn't think it would work," said Warren Adelman, the president and Chief Operating Officer of Internet registrar GoDaddy.com. … Read more

The Bartzometer: Off the charts

Eight days into the job and she hasn't yet fixed Yahoo! What is this world coming to? OK, I'm obviously mugging for the cameras, but Carol Bartz's first earnings conference call as the new boss was an unqualified hit.

Like a lot of people watching Yahoo through the years, I've long wondered whether a straight shooter would ever emerge to run this company. With all due respect to Bartz's predecessors, but Messrs. Koogle, Semel, and Yang usually weighed down their responses to tough questions with enough multisyllabic business cliches to sink the Titanic.

That wasn'… Read more

Layoff news won't deter techs on H-1B

The Black Monday announcement of more than 71,000 jobs lost is a stunner. Today it was Texas Instruments and Sprint Nextel adding their names to the listof tech companies handing out pink slips. Tomorrow? Anybody's guess.

In uncertain times, the only sure bet is that Congress is going to come under renewed pressure to revisit its practice of granting temporary visas to foreign workers. Already, Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) is pressing Microsoft to give Americans priority over foreigners working in this country with H-1Bs.

"My point is that during a layoff, companies should not be … Read more

Guest post: Saving the digital transition

We're turning over this space today to a guest post from Gregory L. Rosston and Scott Wallsten. Rosston is the deputy director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and the Public Policy program at Stanford University and served as the deputy chief economist of the Federal Communications Commission from 1994 to 1997. Wallsten is vice president for research and a senior fellow at the Technology Policy Institute.

The outgoing administration and the 110th Congress are leaving an impending mess for President Obama and his administration to manage. No, not that one. Not that one either.

Less than … Read more

Google's wildcard watch

Steve Ballmer, who just announced to the troops that Microsoft was firing 5,000 employees due to the recession, might be excused for wanting to slam his head against the wall at this point.

After reporting quarterly earnings, Google finished Friday up more than $18. So at this point, at least, it's still Google 1, Recession 0. The cool kids have the upper hand--at least for the time being.

I'm the last to suggest that Google is immune to the drag of an economic slowdown. Everyone these days is obviously tightening their belts, and Google is no exception. … Read more

Europe's innovation gap: Don Rumsfeld's revenge?

Andy Grove wasn't in the mood to sugarcoat his words. So it was that Intel's then-CEO bluntly told Europe's elites that they were in danger of dooming the next generation to a second class future.

That was 1997. The venue was the World Economic Forum, the annual gathering of political and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland, where Grove was invited to share his views about the impact of technology on society. He didn't waste the moment: in a speech that bordered on turning into jeremiad, Grove warned that Europe was too slow to invest in computing … Read more

If you're IBM (and maybe HP), ain't life grand?

What with a deepening recession and concern about the health of financial system, the best-case expectations for technology spending ranged between the bleak and the desperate.

So what do we get? A counter-intuitive start to the earnings season.

The sub-text to IBM's post-earnings conference call on Monday easily could have been: "We're in a recession and ain't life grand?" (We'll have to wait until next month for Hewlett Packard to report its December quarter, but barring a shocker, HP may sing a similar tune.)

Not because these are salad days for the hardware businesses-just … Read more

'The New York Times' Facebook problem

I'm an unabashed New York Times fan boy. Warts and all, it remains the best edited daily newspaper in this country. Disagree? Then come find me on Twitter and let's mix it up. (My handle is "coopeydoop").

You won't have a chance to do the same with many Times reporters and editors--on Twitter or any other social network, for that matter. Batting it back and forth with the hoi polloi just isn't part of the drill. Not, mind you, because they lack for opinions or have no stomach for engagement.

The Poynter Institute reposted the text … Read more

IBM on 2009: Yes we can

As earnings reports roll in, it's clear that 2008 will go down in the record books as a miserable year for most companies. But IBM bucked the trend, putting a coda on the year with a strong fourth quarter.

The question now is whether the company can manage itself successfully past what the wags now commonly refer to as the "econolypse." For the time being, at least, IBM's response is a measured yes.

The slump in corporate technology spending has pressured companies throughout the IT world, and IBM is no exception. The company anticipates hardware revenue … Read more