First Coffee for October 31, 2005

David Sims : First Coffee
David Sims
| CRM, ERP, Contact Center, Turkish Coffee and Astroichthiology:

First Coffee for October 31, 2005

By David Sims
[email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this Halloween morning, and the music is not “The Monster Mash,” but the scariest song First CoffeeSM has on any CD: Barbra Streisand lumbering her way through “People (Who Need $22,000 A Year To Keep Their Lawns Green While Lecturing Other People On The Need To Cut Back On Waste):”

Nokia is announcing what they’re calling “the world’s first commercial service management solution for DVB-H services, the Nokia Mobile Broadcast Solution 3.0.”

The Nokia MBS 3.0 supports the broadcasting of different types of digital content such as live TV, radio and video clips over DVB-H networks to mobile devices. The key features of the MBS 3.0 include the Electronic Service Guide, a consumer interface in the mobile device for searching available services, setting alerts for upcoming programs and for the viewing selection.

The MBS 3.0 is based on open standards such as DVB-H. It fully implements the Open Air Interface 1.0 implementation guidelines, which Nokia published in August 2005. The Open Air Interface specifies how mobile TV devices connect with the DVB-H network and the servers of the overall mobile TV service infrastructure. The OAI specification was published to enable multivendor interoperability in the mobile TV industry.

Applied Wave Research, Inc., a vendor of high-frequency electronic design automation tools, has announced that its Visual System Simulator software now provides a WiMAX broadband fixed-wireless option for the design of WiMAX-certified broadband wireless access products.

It meets the IEEE standard 802.16-2004 Wireless MAN-OFDM PHY specifications, and includes all the bit level functions, framing, randomization, RS-CC coding, interleaving, modulation, pilot, channelization, and bandwidth options for uplink and downlink operations.

WiMAX capability and interoperability in BWA communications products lets network operators deliver broadband data, voice, and video services to both residential and business customers. The standard, which delivers point-to-multipoint connectivity, is backed by over 220 communications equipment companies.

PMC-Sierra, Inc., a vendor of broadband communications and storage semiconductors, has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Silver Lake Partners to acquire the storage semiconductor business of Agilent Technologies for approximately $425 million in cash.

The storage semiconductor business is part of Agilent’s Semiconductor Products Group, which KKR and Silver Lake Partners are in the process of acquiring.

The acquisition of this business strengthens PMC-Sierra’s position in the storage semiconductor market. The storage semiconductor business of Agilent’s Semiconductor Products Group (SPG) is a long-term technology leader in Fibre Channel protocol controllers with its Tachyon product line and is developing next-generation multi-protocol controllers supporting Fibre Channel and SAS/SATA/iSCSI storage systems, as well as other storage-related products. When closed, the acquisition is expected to be immediately accretive for PMC-Sierra.

Business Objects, a provider of business intelligence products, has announced that the Juneau, Alaska Police Department has standardized on Business Objects to improve reporting and information management, gain deeper insight into emergency dispatch activities, and facilitate coordination with the court system and federal agencies.

The police use Crystal Reports for secure access to current information, as well as keeping sensitive departmental information private and secure according to HIPAA regulations.

Crystal Reports lets the department track, understand, and manage all emergency calls and ongoing cases. Administrators, officers and dispatchers use it to analyze crime and incident patterns, and provide information to the City Manager and Assembly, the court system, and federal agencies.

The Juneau Police Department can track any metric they wish – for example, they have developed a set of reports related to the encroachment of bears into residential and business districts, tracking the number and type of bear incidents and sharing that information with the Fish and Game Department and city government.

The Uniform Crime Reporting required by the federal government is done a lot quicker these days, the department reports, and improved oversight of police activities, such as assessing officers’ performance based on criteria such as time in the field, the number of calls responded to, the number of citations and warnings issued, and the disposition of incidents is easier.

First CoffeeSM wasn’t aware that there was an anti-money laundering product sector out there, but evidently there is, as The Association of Bank Compliance Officers of the Philippines, facilitated by the Bankers Association of the Philippines, has selected LogicaCMG and NetEconomy as the preferred suppliers to develop the first national anti-money laundering system in the Philippines.

First CoffeeSM appreciates robust, muscular approaches to financial reform as much as the next guy, and can appreciate the feelings behind Iranian hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s idea, echoing a sentiment heard presented to the latest cabinet meeting in Tehran, that “if we were permitted to hang two or three persons, the problems with the stock exchange would be solved for ever.

Ahmadinejad was addressing a cabinet meeting held to discuss the “rapidly deteriorating situation at the Tehran Stock Exchange,” the daily Ruznet reported on Sunday, according to an unattributed news article published on Little Green Footballs.

“Ministers and experts disagreed with all the different views and proposals raised at the meeting, which came to an end without any concrete results. Tempers flew high and participants shouted at each other during the discussion, according to the daily,” the article said.

Ahmadinejad, one of the pro-Khomeini terrorists who kept dozens of Americans hostage for over a year in the 1979 raid on the American embassy in Tehran, is “frustrated with the inability of his economic advisers and experts to come up with any solution,” telling them the only way out of the current stock exchange and financial market problems was to “frighten” speculators by hanging two or three of them.

First CoffeeSM wonders how long it will be before Ahmadinejad threatens to hang his economic advisers and experts, or wipe them off the map.

The ultra-Islamist president first sent jitters through the country’s markets when he said on the eve of the presidential elections in June that “stock exchange activities are a kind of gambling and we are against them,” the article reported.

The Iranian economy has been moribund for years, unemployment is around 20 percent, so hey, might as well test the efficacy of threatened hangings. First CoffeeSM isn’t optimistic, however, and suggests the one solution that’s never failed: Ditch the central control and Soviet-style Five Year Plans in favor of free-market capitalism with protection of intellectual and personal property rights. Your economy will thrive.

Great new book out, Peter Schweizer’s Do As I Say (Not As I Do), a study of hypocrisy. Examples include avowed pro-union filmmaker Michael Moore outsourcing his post-production film work to Canada to avoid paying American union wages, pro-union loudmouth Nanci Pelosi using non-union labor on her Napa Valley Vineyard, avowed anti-racism filmmaker Michael Moore hiring very few minorities, violently anti-military Noam Chomsky making millions off Pentagon contracts, avowed anti-stock market, anti-Iraq War loudmouth Michael Moore maintaining a large investment portfolio that includes Halliburton and profits from the Iraq War… a great read.

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