Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ Communications and Technology Blog - Latest news in IP communications, telecom, VoIP, call center & CRM space en-us Copyright 2012 2012-05-16T05:46:37-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 GM to Facebook: Your ads Don't Work http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/facebook/gm-to-facebook-your-ads-dont-work.html 49364@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/
To put this in perspective, GM is the third largest advertiser in the US and its budget is absolutely huge. Last year in fact it was  $1.8B. The interesting part of the situation is that even though GM won't be continuing its ad spend this year it plans on continuing to spend $30M or so for Facebook content.

What this tells us is Facebook is just becoming a driver of the Splinternet or another Internet which advertisers and developers need to take into account. While having free content is great for Facebook and moreover GM will no doubt continue to drive massive web traffic Zuckerberg's way, the challenge becomes how to monetize it all.

Now one could argue that Facebook can just show ads from other companies on all the content GM creates and they currently do this. The issue worth wondering about is what if other advertisers come to the same conclusion and there are no ads from major companies like Ford or Toyota to show on all the GM content.

Let's further consider GM wastes massive amounts of its ad budget on TV. By waste I mean branding is a very tough business in that it is tough to target branding ads directly to your audience. In other words when you see an ad on TV for a Chevy truck - a category which only a percentage of the population would buy, the rest of the ad spend could be considered wasted.

So GM is comfortable with wasted ad spend - most companies realize this is just the way branding works.

But on the web there is more measurability meaning that GM likely compared its click through rates on Facebook with other sites like Google, etc and decided there weren't enough people clicking to keep the ad campaign running. Typically the online advertising division of companies is more results oriented than those in the TV or radio areas.

Let's remember people have likened advertising on social networks to an interuption of a conversation between friends and this GM news seems to echo the sentiment.

And perhaps most importantly if you had to surmise what sort of ad would be most successful on Facebook you would no doubt say those targeting consumers - and automobiles would likely be at the top of the list. And here we have this massive consumer automobile advertising company complaining about advertising effectiveness.

Now it is worth pointing out that advertisers use different metrics to measure ad effectiveness. In my career I have seen one company decide an advertising product isn't for them and their direct competitor loves the exact same product. This happens at trade shows as well where the booth of company A does poorly but company B competes directly with company A and has a full booth of people and signs up for a larger booth at the next event.

So this could be an issue of a single company using measurement tools which put a poor spotlight on Facebook's results.

But it could also be the equivalent of IBM pulling out of COMDEX and subsequently sinking the largest trade show in the US virtually overnight.

Now I am not trying to be over-dramatic here - Facebook isn't going to go away any time soon but if this example becomes a trend it may have to refocus its ad push on advertising outside its network using the rich targeting data it continues to amass.

And while the Facebook IPO seems to be the hottest thing since the launch of the iPhone it remains to be seen if in one year the stock becomes more like high flyer Google or sinking ship Vonage.

See Henry Blodget's take and the original article in the Wall Street Journal.]]> Tags: , , , , , , , Related tags: , , , , ,

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    ]]>     E-Commerce Facebook Financial Google Technology advertising bi facebook gm google ipo vonage wsj facebook advertising company largest content companies Wed, 16 May 2012 05:46:37 -0500 2012-05-16T05:46:37-05:00     Two Get Prison over $4.4M in VoIP Fraud http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/voip/two-get-prison-over-44m-in-voip-fraud.html 49363@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/
    Using companies Paradise Communications, Reach Communications and Airtel Holdings they resold wholesale telecom service which didn't exist according an article in the Wall Street Journal.

    They both pleaded guilty to one count to commit wire fraud.

    Unfortunately they also damaged the trust level of the wholesale telecom market - and whether this is permanent damage or not remains to be seen. I expect upstart telecom wholesalers to have to deal with more red tape to prove they are legitimate going forward.]]> Tags: , , , Related tags: , ,

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    ]]>     VoIP fraud voip wholesale wsj wholesale telecom telecom fraud Wed, 16 May 2012 05:28:35 -0500 2012-05-16T05:28:35-05:00     Pirate Pay Blocks BitTorrent Sharing. Is it Illegal DOS? http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/microsoft/pirate-pay-blocks-bittorrent-sharing-is-it-illegal-dos.html 49362@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/
    The idea makes sense but the challenge is it could be illegal to use a targeted attacks on computers. In fact, a number of laws to prosecute hackers may come into play making it conceivable that the movie studios could get in trouble for sabotaging downloads.

    At this point the discussion is theoretical since no one knows how Pirate Pay works but it presents a fascinating look at the battle between content producers and those who are looking to pirate content.

    For more check out this article on companies in the Skolkovo region, one on the Microsoft investment and another on the legality of disrupting these downloads.]]> Tags: , , , Related tags: , ,

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    ]]>     Broadband Microsoft Technology bittorrent file sharing microsoft skolkovo movie studios content pirate Tue, 15 May 2012 16:11:45 -0500 2012-05-15T16:11:45-05:00     Kickstarter: Sometimes the Cloud Can't Keep a Secret http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/e-commerce/kickstarter-sometimes-the-cloud-cant-keep-a-secret.html 49359@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ Microsoft Word and scheduled the post for later in the week,the tag pages - for things like "word processor," "microsoft," "pc" and any others would be immediately visible to readers and search engines.

    Yours Truly was hit by this bug a few times and was even accused of not honoring an embargo as a result.

    Point being - data breaches are real and they happen in the cloud as well as in-house systems.

    Kickstarter recently had a breach as well where 77,000 projects became accessible via an API which the Wall Street Journal was able to access until around 1:40pm EST this past Friday, May 11th.

    If there is good news it is that Kickstarter has 77,000 projects and financial data wasn't disclosed - as a refresher, the company helps get new products off the ground by crowdfunding and taking a 5% cut. The highest profile project may be from Arianna Huffington who is trying to use the platform to buy back the company she founded The Huffington Post from AOL for $1B.

    Will this breach result in a major problem for Kickstarter? Probably not - unless it happens repeatedly. At this point I think we all expect breaches to happen and although the cloud can't always keep a secret, you could argue in-house systems are sometimes bad at keeping things confidential as well.]]> Tags: , , , , , , , , Related tags: , , , , ,

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    ]]>     E-Commerce Technology aol api arianna huffington crowdfunding hacker huffington post kickstarter moveable type wsj house systems breaches happen kickstarter happen cloud breaches Tue, 15 May 2012 10:30:10 -0500 2012-05-15T10:30:10-05:00     Ultrabooks Finally Get Needed Attention From Intel http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ultrabook/ultrabooks-finally-get-needed-attention-from-intel.html 49320@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ Intel for finally acknowledging this category needs marketing I am still at a loss. You see battery life is one of the features which makes a MacBook great and so is the wonderful design. We all know Ultrabooks exist almost exclusively so PC makers can compete with Apple.



    So this being the case why do all the Ultrabooks except the ones from Asus and possibly Samsung look like absolute crap? In other words if you are competing with Apple - do it properly and design something which looks as good as it can look.

    dell-xps-13.png

    Dell recently had strong sales of its XPS 13 Ultrabook (pictured) and to be fair, it too is certainly one of the better looking devices on the market. Perhaps the company's success will light a fire under the rears of HP's designers. And Best Buy for that matter - do they realize this is a new and emerging category? Remember what I said about the retailer this past December? Here is a reminder:

    I was in a local Best Buy last week and this past weekend and I spent some time with the salesman in the Apple portion of the store. I queried him as to how many people are asking him about Ultrabooks and he said there is no comparison as they get viruses and have no SSDs. His lack of knowledge about the new models from companies like Lenovo, Toshiba and Asus which do indeed have SSDs surprised me. After all Best Buy had the Asus and Toshiba on display no more than fifteen feet away. You figure any salesperson would know what the competition was doing. And you guessed it – the salesperson worked for Apple, not Best Buy.

    The Ultrabook category while superhot to the people in the know is not known much outside the bleeding-edge - yet. Many techies I know in fact have never heard of them. Moreover, Best Buy markets Ultrabooks like they were dog droppings. The salespeople don’t know much about them. There is no sign pointing to them as special – or at all different from laptops and notebooks. Most consumers in the store in fact avoided them as they sat in relative obscurity.

    It is really inexcusable for Best Buy to have such poor marketing for a killer category of product with potentially higher margins than many other products in the store. Moreover, these devices are perhaps the biggest reason to visit the store – besides perhaps checking out the latest flat screen TVs.

    In May of 2009 I praised Dell for launching a high-end stylish line of computers called Adamo. At the time I said:
    So my advice to Dell would of course be to move up market. Go after Apple head-to-head. Give those people who want an ultra-thin Mac laptop a way to get the sleekness of a Mac with the ability to run Vista.

    In the same entry I disagreed with Chris Dawson at ZDnet who said the economy is not ready for a laptop which is so expensive. Well Adamo didn't make it so Chris either was right on, partially right or there was a marketing/execution problem from Dell which caused the company to withdraw this product at a later date.

    Funny thing - I am not sure the economy is really that much better nowadays but at least the cost of Ultrabooks seems to be generally under $1,000 which is far more palatable.

    So hats off to Intel for starting the marketing blitz for Ultrabooks - now the war with Apple is on. Let's see if the momentum at Dell continues and whether other computer makers will be able to see similar amounts of growth. And let's hope these computers start to look even better so future Intel ads can actually brag about how good they look and sleek they are.
    ]]> Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Related tags: , , , , ,

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    ]]>     Apple Consumer Electronics Financial Gadget Microsoft Technology Ultrabook advertising apple asus best buy dell hp intel laptop mac macbook marketing tablet toshiba ultrabook xps zdnet zenbook ultrabooks apple intel category marketing store Fri, 04 May 2012 16:55:11 -0500 2012-05-04T16:55:11-05:00     Important Stories From This Week's Business Insider Startup 2012 Event http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/apple/important-stories-from-this-weeks-business-insider-startup-2012-event.html 49315@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ Jamie Epstein and Juliana Kenny covered this event. Enjoy:

    ]]> Tags: , , , Related tags: , , , , ,

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    ]]>     Apple Financial Google Social Networking Technology apple arianna huffington google kickstarter business insider arianna huffington startup event insider startup startup business Fri, 04 May 2012 06:20:25 -0500 2012-05-04T06:20:25-05:00     Brightcove Sales Reflects well on Video, Cloud, HTML5 http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/video/brightcove-sales-reflects-well-on-video-cloud-html5.html 49314@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ announced earnings of $19.9 million which is up 53% YoY. Sure, this isn't a huge number but the percentage is obviously intriguing.

    Moreover, gross profit for the first quarter was up 56% at $13.6 million. Still, the company reported an operating loss for the quarter of $3.2 million compared to a loss of $4.4 million for the same quarter, last year.

    In the video below Jeff Whatcott of Brightcove discusses Brightcove 4, an iPhone SDK and other new offerings with TMC's Erik Linask


    New customers added this quarter include Allianz France, Pfizer International Operations, Toyota and Starwood Hotels & Resorts and NBC.

    Over my career I have seen many companies look at video as a growing market but few have been able to monetize this space beyond content producers and perhaps YouTube. It remains to be seen if Brightcove will be able to generate large profits in video but their list of top customers, earnings momentum and reinvestment in their business shows they could become a solidly profitable business video company in the next few years.]]> Tags: , , , , , Related tags: , , , , ,

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    ]]>     Android Apple Broadband Cloud Computing Consumer Electronics Gadget HTML5 IP Communications Technology Unified Communications Video Wireless brightcove cloud computing html5 mobile smartphone tablet brightcove sales video brightcove million quarter company Fri, 04 May 2012 05:54:33 -0500 2012-05-04T05:54:33-05:00     Pirated Music, From Napster to Kazaa and Now VPNs http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/technology/pirated-music-from-napster-to-kazaa-and-now-vpns.html 49308@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/
    I remember something similar happening when Airlines provided WiFi for the first time and blocked VoIP yet Andy Abramson found a way through.

    So it should come as no surprise that music sharing which started with Napster, moved onto other services like Kazaa, Pirate Bay and has now evolved to use VPNs.

    Now the challenge for record labels and others looking to determine who is sharing and what has grown substantially. The downside? Well as the BBC points out, VPNs cost users 5-6 pounds per month in the UK making file sharing a more expensive proposition.

    Still, when you have a motivated audience with plenty of free time on their hands thanks to record unemployment in much of Europe and the US - it seems there are no lengths they won't go through to share music for free.]]> Tags: , , , , Related tags: ,

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    ]]>     Broadband Consumer Electronics Skype Technology kazaa music napster pirate bay vpn sharing music Wed, 02 May 2012 19:58:37 -0500 2012-05-02T19:58:37-05:00     Avengers Tech and Toys Assembled http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/consumer-electronics/avengers-tech-and-toys-assembled.html 49306@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ few others, most of them are low tech.

    Try for example to post a status update with a hammer. wink_smile

    But wait, when you merge low-tech superheroes and the desire for studios to offset the millions of movie investment dollars, you get the opportunity for lots of new movie-branded paraphernalia. And who better than Rich Steeves at TMCnet to go through the numerous toys and other products which go along with the movie?

    Check out the video for more.

    ]]> Tags: , , , Related tags:

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    ]]>     Consumer Electronics Technology avengers hasbro rich steeves tmc movie Wed, 02 May 2012 16:07:06 -0500 2012-05-02T16:07:06-05:00     Why Samsung Must Have a Successful Media Player http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/android/why-samsung-must-have-a-successful-media-player.html 49303@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ If Samsung is the anti-Apple and with their success in the smartphone space you have to consider them a strong alternative, then they have to have a strategy which allows them to emulate Apple in order to be as successful. By this I mean, Apple has the amazing ability to sell a range of products which are highly similar and yet each is in its own category.

    You want an inexpensive music player for the kids? The Apple answer, an iPod Touch. They become teenagers and need a phone? The Apple answer is the iPhone. They need a gaming device on the go and something to help them read books for school, etc? The Apple answer is an iPad.

    The efficiencies here are truly awe-inspiring… They use similar processors and other components – especially the iPod the iPhone.

    Samsung, in order to compete on the top and especially bottom line needs to do the same. They need to sell millions of music players – entry level devices which are considered iPod Touch alternatives.

    Although the company has tried before, their recently announced Samsung Galaxy Player 3.6 and 4.2 are supposed to be the devices which cut into Apple’s growing marketshare.

    As Walt Mossberg points out however at 480x320 the 3.6 has inferior graphics to the iPod Touch but the flipside is it comes with a charger, earbuds with a microphone, expandable memory and the flexibility of Android (assuming you see this as an advantage.) All this and you save $50 over the similar Apple device. Mossberg further opines the Samsung feels more flimsy than the iPod Touch but Samsung counters that the 4.2 will be a better competitor – priced at $199.

    I haven’t followed Samsung’s media players and moreover they haven’t received much press. So already there is a troubling lack of momentum in this product line. So the challenge for the Korean company is they need to make a device far cheaper and better for them to receive mass adoption. Moreover, at this point many people have gone down the iOS ecosystem road with iCloud, iTunes and myriad chargers and accessories. You have to do something dramatic to win them over.

    One Direction singing What Makes You Beautiful

    A celebrity endorsement perhaps? Would the cast of Jersey Shore be good ambassadors for the product? I am semi-serious here but I do think pop sensation One Direction could be one strong candidate to consider as they give you the youth market as well as the general pop space and they are new enough that an endorsement probably wouldn't be as expensive as a more established band. Not that Samsung hasn't shown a propensity to spend as much money as needed and more on marketing.

    Moreover, if Samsung, Google and the rest of the Android community doesn’t act quickly – it may be too late to compete in the media player and tablet space.

    On the flipside, Samsung is able to leverage its truly breathtaking display technology developed for TVs across its entire line of consumer products. This is one of the reasons the Galaxy S II smartphone is so impressive - it uses Super AMOLED technology which is gorgeous.

    See a video interview between myself and Tom Chun Director and head of Wireless Terminal Strategy at Samsung discussing the ability to leverage TV technology across consumer electronics products

    But with Apple rumored to be coming into the TV business, now is the time for Samsung to look to diversify with more serious and competitive offerings so they can match Apple product for product.

    ]]> Tags: , , , , , , , , Related tags: , , , , ,

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    ]]>     4G Android Apple Technology Unified Communications Verizon Wireless android apple google ipad iphone ipod media player samsung tv apple answer media player samsung apple touch product Wed, 02 May 2012 10:52:32 -0500 2012-05-02T10:52:32-05:00     Where the SIP Operations and Engineering Community Converge http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/sip/where-the-sip-operations-and-engineering-community-converge.html 49301@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/
    The two-day conference, which focuses on the challenges and opportunities related to the deployment of SIP-based services in global service provider networks has attracted technical leadership from MSOs and carriers from North America, South America and Europe including ADP, babyTel, Broadvox, Comcast, Cbeyond, COX Communications, Lumos Networks, iBasis, IntelliVerse, Socket Telecom, Sorenson Communications, Time Warner Cable, TDS Telecom, Telefonica International Wholesale Services, XO Communications, Uni-tel, Verizon and Vocalocity.

    What many love about SIP is also what they hate - interoperability. In fact the reason for SIP to exist is to enable easy communications between carriers, enterprises, consumers and equipment providers. Many of my readers know however that the SIP irony is that you need a SIP to SIP gateway to connect some equipment correctly. All the more reason for a central organization to help facilitate standards adherence and interop.

    The show will take place in Herndon, VA, June 25-27, 2012 and you can register here.
    ]]> Tags: , , , Related tags:

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    ]]>     SIP Technology Unified Communications VoIP sip sip forum sipnoc voip communications Tue, 01 May 2012 20:14:30 -0500 2012-05-01T20:14:30-05:00     Google and Facebook Gone in 5 Years? http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/google/google-and-facebook-gone-in-5-years.html 49299@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ article by Eric Jackson details the pace of change and how difficult it is for companies to adapt to new paradigms and new disruptors. The prediction he makes is Google and Facebook Gone in 5 Years. Does this mean we won’t need to share socially and search in the somewhat distant future? Well that is the theory or perhaps another way of looking at it is that there will be new ways of sharing and searching in the future and these companies may not be able to hitch their wagons to these new trends quickly enough.

    Update: See the accompanying video of me discussing if Facebook and Google will be gone in 5 years.

     

    What is amazing to me however is that Yahoo! was the Google of the past and they were also the Facebook of the past along with AOL. In other words we have to remember the current category leaders do not always retain their leads. Having said that, Google is hedging its bets by launching products in virtually every space it can think of from green energy to self-driving cars to laying residential fiber. It remains to be seen if this company won’t be turned into a massive bureaucracy laden with politics because of the sheer size of it all. Facebook on the other hand has been much more focused on social and with all the data they have amassed over the years, it remains to be seen how another company could compete from a page-view perspective.

    Again, Yahoo was in the same position and look what happened there.

    Whatever happens however, it will certainly be an interesting ride.

    ]]> Tags: , , , , Related tags: , , ,

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    ]]>     Amazon Facebook Google aol facebook forbes google yahoo google facebook google facebook years Tue, 01 May 2012 16:49:34 -0500 2012-05-01T16:49:34-05:00     Comments on Last Week's DevCon5 HTML5 Conference http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/html5/comments-on-last-weeks-devcon5-html5-conference.html 49297@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/
    This isn't to say that app stores don't have advantages to them - they do... Consider their ability to promote your apps, host the files for you and deal with billing are a few of these. But still, for many, the write-once, run-everywhere nature of HTML5 makes it an important resource in their development.

    devcon5-santa-clara-0412.jpg

    Last week's HTML5 event DevCon5 (disclosure, TMC is a co-producer of the event and I am CEO of TMC) was well-attended (pictures) and although I wasn't at the conference I felt like I got a great taste of all that happened by reading the 8bitrocketblog by Jeff Fulton.

    My favorite part of the post is the page where the HTML5 iOS demos live - I like Brickbasher Mobile but Retro Blaster Touch is my favorite. A coworker saw me using the game in a meeting earlier today and try as I did, I am not sure I convinced her I was actually absorbing the finer points of HTML5, not ignoring her presentation. smiley-laughing]]> Tags: , Related tags:

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    ]]>     HTML5 devcon5 html5 Tue, 01 May 2012 16:07:53 -0500 2012-05-01T16:07:53-05:00     Blackberry 10 like Siri uses Productivity to Differentiate http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/blackberry/blackbe-rim-use-productivity-to-differentiate.html 49295@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/
    RIM, who is fighting to regain market share has come at the productivity game from a different angle - the predictive text technology in its soon to be released Blackberry 10 OS is much-improved and has the potential to drastically reduce the amount of time it takes to communicate on a smartphone or tablet.

    For information workers - it seems the more you work, the more there is to do. Especially when you consider the huge time suck associated with social networking, watching online video and gaming and book-reading on the go using the latest crop of tablets.

    Although it is soon to say that RIM has nailed it with its new OS, it does look better than previous operating systems from the company. Now the question is how long before the functionality is copied by others and the patent war over this feature begins?

    See analysis from the AP, a hands-on review from CNet and comments fom USA Today.]]> Tags: , , Related tags:

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    ]]>     4G AT&T Android Apple Blackberry Consumer Electronics Gadget Microsoft Speech Technologies Technology Verizon Wireless apple rim siri Tue, 01 May 2012 15:24:58 -0500 2012-05-01T15:24:58-05:00     Does the New York Times Have it in for Apple? http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/apple/does-the-new-york-times-have-it-in-for-apple.html 49290@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ In my career I have never seen so many attacks on a single company coming from the same source. A while back the New York Times “broke” a story that Chinese workers assembling iDevices and working for Hon Hai/Foxconn in China aren’t treated as well as workers in the US. And this actually became “news.” Does anyone think anything manufactured in China is made with workplace conditions similar to the US or many parts of Europe?

    Moreover, where were the high and mighty journalists when Foxconn was making products for pretty much every other consumer electronics company of size?

    Now it is onto how much Apple pays in taxes – there was what you might want to call a “hit piece” on Apple this weekend discussing how the company pays a small share of taxes and is able to use the fact that it sells virtual goods such as music to move revenue to jurisdictions which charge little to no taxes.

    Here is an excerpt:

    Apple, for instance, was among the first tech companies to designate overseas salespeople in high-tax countries in a manner that allowed them to sell on behalf of low-tax subsidiaries on other continents, sidestepping income taxes, according to former executives. Apple was a pioneer of an accounting technique known as the “Double Irish With a Dutch Sandwich,” which reduces taxes by routing profits through Irish subsidiaries and the Netherlands and then to the Caribbean. Today, that tactic is used by hundreds of other corporations — some of which directly imitated Apple’s methods, say accountants at those companies.

    Without such tactics, Apple’s federal tax bill in the United States most likely would have been $2.4 billion higher last year, according to a recent study by a former Treasury Department economist, Martin A. Sullivan. As it stands, the company paid cash taxes of $3.3 billion around the world on its reported profits of $34.2 billion last year, a tax rate of 9.8 percent. (Apple does not disclose what portion of those payments was in the United States, or what portion is assigned to previous or future years.)

    By comparison, Wal-Mart last year paid worldwide cash taxes of $5.9 billion on its booked profits of $24.4 billion, a tax rate of 24 percent, which is about average for non-tech companies.

    None of this is news – companies routinely look to minimize taxes – some like GE for example have paid little to no taxes and have huge departments looking to pay as little as possible.

    If we explore the reason companies are in business the primary reason has to be “to make a profit.” You might even say it is to make as much profit as possible – legally of course. Part of this mission in fact means looking to minimize payments for everything from raw materials to rent. Taxes are no different.

    In fact if you do something to minimize profit you risk a shareholder lawsuit – and if you lose the shareholder lawsuit you put your company at risk and definitely have less money left over to pay taxes.

    The point here is the New York Times seems to be on a mission to tarnish Apple.

    And I might add I am no Apple fanboy – I was responsible for installing desktop publishing here at TMC in the eighties and intentionally avoided Apple because the company had no future in my opinion. The cost/performance curve of the PC market was much better and moreover I was able to save the company tremendous money by building the computers we used myself. And at the time, this was no easy task – fonts were an issue, Xerox Venturi Publisher stunk and the memory allocation of PCs at the time made life difficult – thankfully we had memory management products from Quarterdeck to ease the pain.

    But now I am an Apple user – I also use PCs mind you but Apple is setting the tone in tech and is the company to follow.

    But if you consider the New York Times to be the liberal newspaper of record and one of the liberal talking points is that large corporations are bad, don't pay their fair share, etc. then going after Apple repeatedly makes sense.

    Again, I am not taking issue with the accuracy of reporting just that Apple is doing things which many other companies also do. It’s also worth  pointing out that even if Apple started to use complex tax-dodging strategies before others in Silicon Valley it is because of the age of of the company.

    Point being, there is nothing to see here. Apple, like many other companies manufactures in China where working conditions are poor and moreover the company pays little in taxes and maximizes profits for its shareholders. You would think this is a good thing.

    One final point worth making which was mentioned on CNBC early this morning by Joe Kernan is that the New York Times often makes conclusions in its articles and this particular piece seemed to be a great opportunity to push for lower corporate taxes in the US. After all, if capital flows to the jurisdiction with the lowest tax rates then what on earth does the US gain by having the highest tax rates in the world? The answer is nothing and as the liberal paper of record, the omission of the obvious conclusion was certainly not a surprise to many.

    In fairness, the Times did have an article on GE's tax avoidance strategies. Here is an excerpt:

    Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore. G.E.’s giant tax department, led by a bow-tied former Treasury official named John Samuels, is often referred to as the world’s best tax law firm. Indeed, the company’s slogan “Imagination at Work” fits this department well. The team includes former officials not just from the Treasury, but also from the I.R.S. and virtually all the tax-writing committees in Congress.

    ]]> Tags: , , , , , , Related tags: , , , , ,

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    ]]>     Apple Google Technology apple foxconn hon hai ipad iphone ipod new york times little taxes taxes billion shareholder lawsuit united states profits billion apple Mon, 30 Apr 2012 13:28:08 -0500 2012-04-30T13:28:08-05:00