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Black Friday’s Top Tech Deals
Posted by: | CommentsBlack Friday discounts bleed a little red as tough times in retailing call for sharp cuts on prices at a few big tech shops. These ten top deals show just how much pressure is riding on holiday sales.
No. 10: Apple
Apple is traditionally the stingiest of tech discounters in the gadget market, and this year will continue that grand tradition. If reports of Apple’s Black Friday specials are true, Macs and iPods will get a one-day price break of about 10%.
The numbers. Apple’s “cool” gizmos have enjoyed a remarkably resilient status among consumers. That position is reflected in the company’s tightfisted pricing stance. Apple’s implied theme here is big discounts are for big losers. But retail partner Costco seems eager to dangle some marked-down coolness to lure its members. Costco is selling the latest Apple iPod nano for $129, a 13% discount on the $149 regular price.
he stock. Like its gadgets, Apple’s stock attracts an eager crowd willing to pay top dollar to be part of the action. Costco, however, could use a few tricks to keep its bargain-hunting customers from finding deals in Wal-Mart’s aisles. In the past month, Wal-Mart shares have doubled the rise of Costco’s stock.
 HP |
No. 9: Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard grabbed the top place in PCs from Dell two years ago by jumping on the notebook bandwagon as consumers went shopping for desktop power in portable devices. Hewlett-Packard hopes to cash in again in an emerging category of hybrid laptops called super netbooks.
The numbers. One of the most-watched devices in this category is the DM3, a 13-inch, thin, lightweight notebook with an eight-hour battery life, four-gigabyte memory and no DVD drive. HEWLETT-PACKARD introduced the DM3 in July priced at $599. On Friday it will sell on Amazon for $499.
The stock. Hewlett-Packard branched into IT services last year and hopes to get a chunk of Cisco’s networking market with the pending acquisition of 3Com. But computers are still its biggest business and if hybrid notebooks are a winning category, Hewlett-Packard could continue to punish Dell.
 Garmin |
No. 8: Garmin
Garmin was a top destination in the GPS device boom, but navigating the post-boom is proving to be a challenge.
The numbers. While rivals like Magellan and TomTom have typically offered the cheaper options in GPS, Garmin is going on the offensive this Friday. For the first time in a national retail offering, Garmin will break the $100 barrier with a $99 device. The Garmin Nuvi 205W is being advertised for $99 at Best Buy this Friday, a 29% discount from the $140 regular price.
The stock. Garmin shares are down 16% in the past month as analysts and investors absorb the shock of weaker margins on new devices like the Nuvi phone. Deeper discounts, it seems, aren’t exactly the right road toward alleviating those concerns.
 Dell |
No. 7: Dell
Dell has been paddling furiously, but still lagging behind and losing business to Hewlett-Packard and Acer, among others.
The numbers. Dell told analysts last week that it would not build its turnaround on deep price cuts on PCs. But Dell didn’t mention computer monitors. Black Friday will see another $100 price barrier shattered when Dell’s S2009W 20-inch desktop monitor goes on sale for $99 at Best Buy. That price is 37% below the monitor’s regular mark up of $159.
The stock. Dell shares are down 8% from Thursday levels when the company reported disappointing numbers, thinning margins and eroding market share. Dell’s lousy performance came amid a surprisingly strong period of PC industry sales giving investors the sense that Dell may be missing out on a recovery.
 Palm |
No. 6: Palm
Palm’s Pre phone was expected to spark the revival of a smartphone pioneer. With a bright touch screen, a slide-out keypad and a new WebOS operating software, the $200 phone debuted as the best challenger yet to the Apple iPhone.
The numbers. After a dismal debut and meager sales, the Palm Pre, sold exclusively by Sprint, quickly fell in the bargain bin. In three months, the Pre price fell to $149. Getting into the spirit of Black Friday, Amazon has begun to offer the Pre for $80, a 46% discount on the previous price of $149.
The stock. Despite a 23% drop in the past month, Palm shares are still up more than 400% over the past year. A lot of that appreciation is tied to the value of the Pre as a contender in the booming smartphone market. But with the Pre prices falling so fast, it’s difficult to stay as hopeful about Palm’s revitalization plan.
 Western Digital |
No. 5: Western Digital
Western Digital drives down prices of external hard drives in its battle with rival Seagate Technology. The newest crop of hard drives offer twice the capacity at half the price of last year’s models.
The numbers. As a Black Friday special, Wal-Mart is offering the Western Digital portable 320 gigabyte external hard drive for $49, a 50% markdown from the $99 regular price. Seagate’s popular FreeAgent 320-gigabyte external hard drive goes for $80.
The stock. Storage has been a popular theme for tech investors this year. With component costs falling, manufacturers have been able to cut prices profitably as higher sales offset lower prices. Shares of Western Digital and Seagate have tripled this year.
 SanDisk |
No. 4: SanDisk
SanDisk is flashing some astounding Black Friday prices on flash memory devices. Flash drive prices have fallen faster than those of hard drives. USB thumb drives now pack three times the memory capacity at a third of last year’s prices.
The numbers. The SanDisk 4 gigabyte flash drive is available for $8 at Wal-Mart, a 73% discount from the $30 regular price. In contrast, Target sells a Lexar 4 gigabyte flash drive for $20.
The stock. Falling memory prices haven’t hurt SanDisk shares. The stock has doubled this year. A big part of that enthusiasm, however, was due to a positive resolution to a licensing dispute with Samsung in May.
 Palm |
No. 3: Palm
The Palm Pixi, the diminutive follow up to the Pre, hit stores last week priced at $100 with a Sprint contract. However, Sprint quickly started the discounts to stem the flow of subscribers from its service.
The numbers. Amazon is now selling the Palm Pixi for $25, a quarter of the price it went for when it was introduced Nov. 15. Falling prices on new smartphone models suggest demand may not be strong.
The stock. Palm’s Pixi was designed to compete with the $99 Apple 2G iPhone and lower cost BlackBerries from Research In Motion. Investors have been concerned the Pixi could cannibalize Pre sales. The timing of Pixi’s arrival also puts it up against Motorola’s Droid at Verizon. Palm investors, who cheered the company’s revival, are now looking at a very crowded market.
 BlackBerry |
No. 2: BlackBerry
Research In Motion’s BlackBerry Curve at Sprint is also battling it out in that market. Nothing in tech gets cut deeper than the price of a three-year-old phone. The best example was the Motorola Razr. The ultrathin trendsetter debuted in 2004 with a $600 price tag, but by 2007, it was a promotional freebie.
The numbers. Best Buy, along with desperate partner Sprint, is giving free Curve phones to people who sign up for two-year service contracts on Black Friday. The phone was recently advertised for $50 to $200.
The stock. Sprint’s willingness to subsidize customers’ phone costs is a bold strategy to keep and lure customers. Last year, Sprint lost more than 1 million subscribers because of neglected service and rival offers, such as those for AT&T’s iPhone. Fewer contract cancellations will be seen as a major accomplishment. And while Sprint shares are well below their one-year high in May, the stock has still doubled this year.
 BlackBerry |
No. 1: BlackBerry
Research In Motion takes the top two spots with the BlackBerry Curve. This model, the Curve 8900, is one of the newest from the three-year-old line. Its sold by Amazon on behalf of AT&T.
The numbers. Amazon has already opened the Web doors with its online Black Friday special on the Curve 8900. The phone costs 1 cent if you sign up for a two-year contract with AT&T.
The stock. While free Razrs once sounded the game-over bell for Motorola, free Curves aren’t as dismal a warning sign for RIM. Unlike Motorola, RIM has new models to keep the smartphone momentum going. Even with a 9% drop in its share price over the past month, RIM is still up nearly 50% for the year.
How a Self-Educated HS Dropout Became the Youngest Manager at Apple
Posted by: | CommentsJames Bach, a legend in the software-testing field, just published Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar, the tale of how he dropped out of school, became a self-taught games programmer, and scored a sweet gig at Apple—all before turning 21.
The book’s main purpose, as illustrated by the excerpt James has kindly permitted us to publish, is to show how education is not about pieces of paper on the walls, but the knowledge you cram inside your own head. His book is a discussion of his mindframe as he embarked on a life of self-education, as he became what he calls a “buccaneer-scholar.” Here, in a riveting passage, he manages to swing a gig at the hottest company in the Valley, circa 1987:
In May of 1987, nearing my twenty-first birthday, I was down to my last hundred dollars, and the only marketable skill I had was for [programming video games,] something I could no longer force myself to do.
Then a recruiter called. She’d found a resume I had sent months before. Would I like a job in Silicon Valley?
“I thought the industry had taken a downturn. Aren’t there programmers starving in the streets of Sunnyvale?”
No, actually there’s lots of work available. Would I like a job at Apple Computer, for instance?
“Sounds wonderful. What kind of work is it?” All feelings of burn-out were instantly replaced by a blazing electric neon YES in my heart.
Apple Computer needs me. Needs me. I am being called to service.
The job was managing a team of testers.
“What do you mean, testers?” I asked the telephone.
The recruiter explained that testers examine a product someone else has created and find problems in it.
“They pay people to do that?” Interesting. I’d always tested my own work. Then again, I’d never worked on a team with more than two other people. In terms of the software industry, I was a crazy-eyed mountain man.
On the way to Apple I bought a copy of The One-Minute Manager. It looked thin enough for rapid learning. I skimmed it as well as I could in the hour before the interview.
Walking into Apple may have been the first time I ever set foot inside an office building. First time seeing cubicles and conference rooms. First time seeing a carnival-sized cart of free hot popcorn parked in a hallway. Imagine working near the smell of melted butter! (Your eyes sting and you come to hate the smell of butter, it turns out.)
I’d been worried about my clothes. I didn’t own a suit. But looking around, I fit right in. Everyone was dressed like me.
Two guys in a conference room asked me questions. I answered them and showed the portfolio of games I’d worked on. When they asked me about management, I repeated some of what I’d read in The One-Minute Manager. When they asked me about testing, I said what every programmer says: “I’ve tested my own stuff.” Its not a good answer, but I didn’t know that. Neither did they. No one in that room knew much about software testing. There are no university degrees in it. It’s one of many new crafts that have emerged along with modern technology.
After the interview, I went outside and walked twice around the building. This is where I belong, I thought. I will rock this place. Please please please hire me.
A couple of days later, they did.
***
I was a nervous man on my first day at Apple. At twenty, I was the youngest manager in the building. In all the gatherings and reorganizations we went through during the four years I worked there, I never met a younger manager. I was younger than many of the interns.
Also, I was a contractor. That meant Apple could fire me without notice or severance. I had little money and no credit.
The worst thing was that nearly everyone around me had a university degree. A good many had graduate degrees.
I had to catch up to the college kids. I brooded on it every day. I came to work with desperate fire in my soul to learn. Learn everything. Learn it now.
As a manager, I supervised five testers, but no one closely supervised me. My boss, Chris, was in meetings most of the time. He needed me to get on with the work as best I could. This meant I could sneak away and read. I spent part of each afternoon in a donut shop across the street from my building, studying without interruption.
Chris was supportive. “You should not just read about software,” he suggested. “Try to find solutions to our problems in other disciplines.” Maybe Chris was more supportive than he ever knew. I treated that one casual suggestion as permission to spend work time to learn anything. I browsed many of the two hundred or so academic journals that came through the library. Even crazy stuff. I read “Anthropometry of Algerian Women,” and “Optimum Handle Height for a Push-Pull Type Manually-Operated Dryland Weeder.”
Of course I read every testing book I could find. I discovered software testing standards and studied those, too. I studied most evenings and weekends.
At first I thought I would learn a lot from the other testers. There were more than four hundred of them in my building. But talking to them revealed a startling truth: nobody cared.
The pattern I experienced at Apple would be confirmed almost everywhere I traveled in the computer industry: most people have put themselves on intellectual autopilot. Most don’t study on their own initiative, but only when they are forced to do so. Even when they study, they choose to study the obvious and conventional subjects. This has the effect of making them more alike instead of more unique. It’s an educational herd mentality.
I talked to coworkers who wanted to further their education, but they typically spoke in terms of getting a new piece of paper, such as a bachelor’s degree, a masters, or a PhD. For them, education was about the doors they believed would open because of how they were labeled by institutions, not about making themselves truly better as thinkers. Buccaneers, on the other hand, don’t take labels too seriously. A buccaneer studies in the hope of unlocking Great Secrets! Wonder! Mastery! A buccaneer lives for the excitement of deciphering the mysteries of human experience. A buccaneer wants status, too, but only if that status is justly earned and sustained through the quality of his work.
Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, and DARPA To Create Military-Friendly Internet
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Lockheed Martin is getting a $31 million contract by the US government to work on reinventing TCP/IP for a new Military Network Protocol. Also lending a hand in this effort to create a proper cyber-arsenal is Microsoft. What a team!
Based on what Lockheed Martin’s John Mengucci is saying, the contract’s main focus is to make preparations for attacks through our most beloved medium:
“New network threats and attacks require revolutionary protection concepts. Through this project, as well as our cyber Mission Maker initiatives, we are working to enhance cyber security and ensure that warfighters can fight on despite cyber attacks.”
We’re not really seeing much more information about the details of what Lockheed and Microsoft will be doing, but we can start shouting about Skynet anyway, right?
PCI Express 3.0 Specification Formally Delayed Until 2011
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We’ve been enjoying (or just dealing with, depending on perspective) PCI Express 2.0 since early 2007, and it now looks as if we may still be utilizing said protocol come early 2011. Way back in June of ’08, we began to hear whispers that the next iteration of the technology would be finalized by the end of this year, but now the PCI SIG has formally delayed the release of the specification until the second quarter of 2010. What does that mean for the consumer? Try coping with the fact that you won’t see a PCIe 3.0 product until 2011. As the story goes, the delay was needed in order to “maintain backward compatibility with current PCI Express standards,” and while the technical details of all that may interest some, it’s the awfully unfortunate setback that’s most notable here. But hey, at least all those PCIe 1.0 cards that are still totally relevant will work with your next (next-next?) PC!
MSI To Roll Out AMD Yukon Notebooks
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Word has it that MSI from Taiwan will roll out their new range of AMD Yukon-powered ultra-thin notebooks sometime this October, although there could be unforseen circumstances where the October release date will have to be pushed back until further notice. MSI has already finished testing their Yukon-based models but hasn’t decided on a launch date mainly because not many people are adopting the Yukon models as MSI would like to see. Well, best of luck to MSI – delaying the launch won’t do it much good either as you know how fast computers and their innards get obsolete.
Apple Building Secret Massive Data Center
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Apple is building a new data center facility in North Carolina. Nobody knows what is it for, but according to Data Center Knowledge editor Rich Miller, it will be one of the largest in the world:
Apple is planning about 500,000 square feet of data center space in a single building. That would place it among the largest data centers in the world.
Let’s put things in perpective: Apple’s current data center in Newark is a little over 100,000 square feet, while most data centers around the world don’t pass the 200,000 square feet mark. The new one, located near one of Google’s large facilities in Maiden, NC, will be a colossal 500,000 square feet. That’s a lot of computing nodes, and massive storage space.
The big question here is: Why? Is this designed to accomodate the iPhone family growth? Or is there a secret product and service plan that will require this gargantuan power and storage? New expanded content for new devices? Books? It can’t be only that.
Your guess are as good as Miller, myself, or anyone else’s, like with everything about Apple. Tell us your ideas in the comments.
Here is mine: According to the note I got in this bag of Cheetos, Apple is building a massive neural network to hold a duplicate of Steve Jobs’ brain, so he can run the company for ever and ever.
NVIDIA Inks Deal For SLI Support On Intel Core i5, i7 Systems
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The relationship between the two companies may have descended to the level of a schoolyard fight at times, but it looks like NVIDIA and Intel are now doing their best to get along — in public, at least — united, in part, by AMD’s entirely in-house CrossFire graphics solution. This latest gesture of goodwill comes in the form of an announcement that NVIDIA will indeed be licensing its SLI graphics technology to Intel and various motherboard manufacturers for use in upcoming Core i5 and Core i7-based systems, which Intel describes as the “perfect complement” for each other. Intel further goes on to say that “NVIDIA and Intel share a combined passion for furthering the PC as the definitive platform for gaming,” while unconfirmed reports also have NVIDIA holding up its fingers in a comical gesture behind Intel’s head during the announcement.
Microsoft’s New Retail Logo Revealed In Trademark Application
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You know how serious Microsoft is about those new retail stores it’s currently building? New logo serious, fool. This artful rethink of the familiar Windows logo just popped up in a trademark filing saying it’ll be used to identify “retail store services and online retail services” for computers, media players, cell phones, video games, and more. Sounds like this is one box you’ll be seeing in person sometime soon.
