When the Anti-Corruption Department is involved in corruption - then it's called the economy.
wirtschaft - 21.10.2005 - 27.11.2006
Bill Gates warns of digital divide in Germany - "Their goal is to make four million people fit for dealing with information technology in professional life by 2010." - well, "to indoctrinate for Microsoft products" probably describes the goals of an MS campaign better. And our politicians obediently hold the ladder.
Millions of Europeans sat in the dark - it's already embarrassing how they all mocked the Americans before, and now a simple shutdown of a line is causing Europe-wide problems ...
British attack on Deutsche Telekom - oh yes, now the locusts will certainly be discussed away again, because it can't be what can't be - that capitalism is stupid and short-sighted.
Companies return penitently from the East - politicians will certainly not talk about this, because you cannot justify social cuts, reductions in benefits, wage cuts and increased working hours with it.
Innen-Staatssekretär: Internet wichtiges Mittel für Islamisten - oh yes, the evil Internet and the bad users who download things there. By the way, this Hanning guy is with the SPD, just in case someone might think that he is from the right-wing camp because of his outbursts. He is. The SPD was never really left-wing, but nowadays it has also left the center to the right ...
China's Cheap Goods: Who Really Benefits? - worth thinking about.
Union sees BenQ-Mobile insolvency as a "dirty trick" - cute, how the prolethicians are now spinning up and think they have to be harnessed in front of the cart. Where was RĂĽttgers' protest during the sale? That the sale was a rigged deal to get rid of the employees was already noticeable back then - the shareholder structure and liability situation as well as the distribution of values among the three companies has not been like this only since yesterday.
BenQ Mobile files for insolvency in Germany - strange. When the part was sold by Siemens, it was loudly proclaimed that it wasn't just about buying this part for the customers and the technology, but that the location should be preserved. And now, just after the employment guarantee has expired, insolvency is conveniently filed.
Siemens board sees danger of a hostile takeover - funny, if now the economy argues with the locusts, whose existence they previously so vehemently denied ...
E.ON raises Endesa offer to 35 euros per share - isn't it nice when a German corporation can just spend 10 billion euros on buying a foreign company? About the record profits made with our money for electricity, gas etc.? And which will certainly lead to "necessary price increases due to cost pressure"? And you find that completely normal?
Idiotic examples of corporate cost-cutting - well, shocking, how much of this nonsense you also see here in this country ...
Network operators ignore Thoben deadline - oh yes, and how they all complained in the winter about being unfairly criticized, claiming they were doing everything to solve the problem... as if. Instead, flimsy justifications for price increases to secure record revenues are presented and customers are ripped off. And the next winter with wet snow is sure to come.
elektrosmog: Flickragentur - this is how business works. Utilization of images from private users in a print medium. Without paying the photographers. Convenient. Have you already canceled your Flickr account and deleted the pictures?
Kurt advises Telekom to talk about VDSL - you can think what you want about Telekom, like or not, but doesn't it seem strange to anyone but me that a supposedly now private corporation is being forced to make millions of investments, to which other large corporations like British Telecom (which was also subsidized for a long time, just by the British) expect "unrestricted access"? Is that all that the alleged free marketeers can come up with - forced giving away of services that are pushed with our tax money and built with our contributions? To foreign corporations that are also well subsidized themselves?
Banken: Vollstrecker aus Texas - Real estate locusts. Surely, many will now feel the need to explain to me why it's not that bad after all ...
RWE will Strompreise erneut erhöhen | tagesschau.de - Record profits. Of course, prices must be raised.
IT-Branchenverband will Zuwanderung gegen Fachkräftemangel - of course, immigration is important in today's world and should not be unnecessarily blocked. But still, I somehow believe that the shortage of skilled workers can be remedied through training in companies. Preferably then also foreign young people in the training positions, to get the curve back to integration. And at the same time address a series of social problems that are initially triggered by the hopeless economic situation of young people ...
Despite rising sales, industry is cutting jobs - and yet prolethicians still believe in regulation by the economy.
Sale of NRW University Hospitals? - oh yes, privatization. Alleged panacea of our time. In reality, just as much quackery as snake oil.
Phones are disposable products
Well, I've recently become the owner (well, from the company's perspective) of a Sony Ericsson V600i. A fairly new phone, if I understand correctly. Also, not bad in terms of features. But it has a serious bug in the built-in SSL library - some certificates (apparently all those signed with a certain Thawte root certificate) are rejected as invalid. Unfortunately, Google uses something like this for the mail server - I can only access my mail via the web interface with the phone, not via POP3S.
So, in May, I wrote to Sony-Ericsson support. I described my problem and asked for a comment - maybe I can work around the problem. The error causes me to be unable to install the Thawte root certificate, the phone rejects it outright. And the mail client does not allow an override for SSL connections with supposedly invalid certificates - unlike the web browser, which does allow it.
The first comment from support: they had no information about this problem. Great. But my email provided them with some, why can't they just pass it on to the technical department? Well, I described my problem again, in more detail - maybe the first email was too technical for the S-E supporters. And no, the suggestion to contact Google about the problem, or Thawte, is rather silly. SSL certificates are an industry standard.
Well, after my second email to support, the matter is at least being passed on to the technical department. So, a good sign. I thought.
What came, however, was rather embarrassing. Because in the following weeks, nothing happened. I was in the virtual equivalent of a waiting loop - every few days a note that there was still no information on the point from the technical department. Incidentally, a simple and primitive bug to replicate: try to upload the certificate I attached via Bluetooth and see the error message on the phone. Should take only a few minutes to at least confirm that the error was replicated. Well, I was in the waiting loop. For a month (pretty much exactly - the message went to the technical department on the 18th, today is the 19th).
Today, the answer from the technical department came. I can't help it, I have to quote it verbatim:
Our back office has informed us that further development for this mobile phone has been discontinued and that the conflict can therefore no longer be resolved here. This will only be possible with future models. Thank you for your understanding.
Exactly. A relatively new phone, for which there were still delivery delays due to its novelty when it was ordered. A phone that is still under legal warranty. A bug that makes an industry standard only partially usable. A bug that simply disables some functions of the phone. But I am supposed to understand that development has been discontinued. I can buy one of the mysterious successor phones. Or, as offered in the same email, buy more accessories from the store.
Hello? Reality check? You've already ripped me off once, do you really think I'll buy another phone from Sony-Ericsson? Why? So that it will no longer be developed right after purchase and I get the short end of the stick?
Phone manufacturers are just as arrogant and have the same loss of reality as the music industry - no idea about customers, no idea about customer needs, and no idea what a customer expects from a product - that it is at least supported during the legal warranty period, for example.
Take the phone as it is - bugs included? Doesn't matter, it's your problem, customer, not ours. And in the background, the bosses are rubbing their hands together, laughing maliciously, firing employees, and pocketing the big salaries. A pathetic picture, Sony-Ericsson. Quite pathetic ...
McDonald's Interactive Division - real or hoax? If it's real, then hats off to the action.
SkypeOut - The End - new business concept: simply collect customer credit after some time. Maybe send an empty e-mail as a reminder beforehand. Skype should patent this ...
RWE: The profit that came from the cold - if anyone now thinks this will change the prices downward, forget it. We also have to continue financing RWE's nonsensical expenses in other industries.
When companies meet their doppelgänger - A particularly creative form of piracy
Gazprom threatens EU with gas cut-off - again, great surprise all around. Did you really believe it would just stay with the threats against e.g. Ukraine?
The nonsense about AdSense - about the inconsistencies in Google's AdSense/AdWords programs.
Great SAP Work Environment
After so many people have cried to me that SAP has such a great corporate philosophy that is incompatible with works councils, there is now a clear statement from the company management:
SAP would then see the possibility of establishing research laboratories in Latin America or Eastern Europe, and of intensifying the competition between the ten laboratories currently existing worldwide. One would then be global enough, but nevertheless more than half of the world's development capacities would still be concentrated in Walldorf.
Yeah, people, keep telling yourselves you don't need a works council. Dreamers ...
What CEOs Learn Today ...
... contains nothing about the Works Constitution Act
The pillars of the company are "justice, openness, and common sense," not the Works Constitution Act. "With all due respect for the protection of minorities," he does not understand the "legislator when a 9% majority can dictate the conditions to the others," wrote Plattner. Around 91% of the staff at the SAP headquarters in Walldorf had voted against a works council.
First of all, to Heise: that was 91% of the employees who participated in the election. That is significantly less than 91% of the entire staff, even at the headquarters. But never mind. Because the real bombshell is that the company's co-founder and current chairman of the supervisory board actually believes that the Works Constitution Act is not the basis of his company. Dreamer. Funny enough, it's in the law book, Mr. Plattner. How stupid do you have to be as a company boss to let something so rarely stupid slip out? Well, it will probably be the new unit of measurement for company boss stupidity: one Plattner = ignoring an entire set of laws ...
According to Spiegel, the company now wants to propose its own electoral committee for the works council elections, which will most likely consist of employee representatives of the supervisory board and not those colleagues who wanted to enforce the works council with the support of IG Metall. The company would thus preempt the labor court, which could appoint an electoral committee.
Oh, and the electoral committee does not prescribe anything at all - and has nothing to do with the protection of minorities. The electoral committee simply ensures the proper conduct of works council elections, nothing more. And whether an electoral committee appointed by such a stupid company management is capable of doing so, I dare to doubt.
Perhaps it's time for the company management to finally understand what works council elections are: the election of employee representatives by all employees of a company. Regardless of how few are the reason for the election, every employee (ok, a few exceptions with AT contracts exist) may vote, and almost everyone may stand for election (a few more exceptions compared to the active right to vote - executive employees are excluded from the passive right to vote). And yes, this usually means that in companies of corresponding size, several lists are up for election - usually one from the union (or more correctly, a list of unionized employees) and often a list of loyalists. There is no limit to this - how about a list of women working in the company? That could certainly be interesting for SAP. Or a list of young employees. Or simply a list of those who don't feel like having a works council, even that would be completely legal.
But to understand this, the people at SAP would have to take the trouble to read the Works Constitution Act. You can't expect such idiots to do that, instead they prefer to embarrass themselves publicly ...
Official Google Blog: Writely so
Official Google Blog: Writely so - Writely has now also been acquired by Google. Current business model 2.0: build stupid Ajax applications and have Google or Yahoo buy them.
Does eBay taste good?
Are they really that enthusiastic about the decision of the OLG Cologne regarding identity verification in online auctions? After all, this is quite a heavy blow against online auctions - for sellers, a whole new problem arises:
According to the judges of the OLG, no valid purchase contract was concluded by submitting the offer using the defendant's account. In principle, the person who invokes a validly concluded purchase contract must prove that the other party to the contract has actually become a contracting party. The burden of proof thus lies with the plaintiff, who, however, did not refute the statements of the defendant during the hearing.
Given the rather sloppy security mechanisms on eBay and other auction platforms, this is, in my opinion, only right. Because as long as eBay still allows JavaScript in descriptions, the system remains manipulable and the security that someone has actually placed a bid is simply not given.
Sacrificing Jobs on the Altar of Stock Prices
The Deutsche Telekom presents record figures - but because the stock price is poorly valued, 32,000 jobs have to be cut. How, companies also have a responsibility? Nonsense, ownership only obliges to want more ownership. Stock prices don't buy telephones, order DSL, and download music from silly second-rate online offers.
Make a gardener out of it
And then with Monopolgarantie. Extremely clever decision, will definitely give a huge show. Which ultimately proves that ICANN does not care about the interests of the user on the Internet, nor the interests of the alternative registries.
What Company Founders Imagine
No sooner do SAP employees want to establish a works council, than the SAP founder questions the company's headquarters in Walldorf:
Two days before a works meeting is held at SAP on Thursday with the aim of electing a works council, company founder Dietmar Hopp intensifies his warnings: The installation of a works council is a "backdoor for IG Metall", said Hopp, who rejects the rigid ideas of the union officials regarding working hours: "If someone has to ask the union whether I can call California at eleven o'clock tonight, then good night beautiful SAP", Hopp illustrated his concerns to Handelsblatt.com – "in the worst case" Walldorf as the location of the corporate headquarters is in danger, said the longtime chairman of the supervisory board, who withdrew from the committee altogether almost a year ago.
Exactly. Companies with a works council are not allowed to call abroad. With such pitiful babbling from company bosses and managers, I really wonder what makes these flatheads so special that they have to rake in so much money? Competence - whether professional (because labor law belongs to the professional field of a manager for me) or human, the founder of SAP has quite simply dropped his pants here, and what comes to light is simply just an ass.
Also shocking is the incitement against the unions from the alleged employee representatives - if you read through their outpourings, you are not surprised that the employees at SAP now want a works council. At least they have a real chance that someone is sitting there who actually represents the employees and not just his supervisory board position ...
Addendum: how well FUD works can be seen in the result. And how the alleged business papers slap their thighs with joy. Too bad for the employees of SAP - because sooner or later they will probably learn the hard way how stupid the idea is to waive their co-determination rights. But the polemic that a works council would only be controlled by the union (which is ridiculous, because it still depends on the elected works council members what they do) and that a works council allegedly does not fit the corporate culture has probably worked better than common sense. It is, however, typical daydreaming of employees in the IT industry, it was the same 20 years ago in the computer center. They had to learn it later too ...
How to rip off customers
RWE makes high profits at the expense of customers:
The energy company is boasting. The operating result exceeds the expectations of experts and even the slight decline in sales is not surprising. The main reason for the windfall was the high electricity prices.
Of course, the electricity price increase was solely determined by external factors and had nothing to do with RWE simply exploiting its regional monopoly. In this context, the statement from the NRW Ministry of Economic Affairs, which might want to cut the extortion by 25%, is rather laughable - because the entire electricity price increase simply serves to enrich the RWE corporation.
Net Neutrality at Risk
Deutsche Telekom demands money from content providers - and in doing so, they are echoing the same tune as US telecoms:
Telekom CEO Kai-Uwe Ricke announced that the Telekom plans to charge providers like Google, Yahoo, Amazon, and eBay in the future. It cannot be, he told the "Wirtschaftswoche," that the customer alone pays for the broadband network.
And who guarantees that this will only affect large content providers? And who guarantees that small customers, private sites, etc., will still receive the same service as the big players? Because that's exactly what network neutrality means: that the service is the same for everyone involved. Even if Ricke acts as if he were the customers' advocate, it's really just about the backbone operators wanting to make more money, especially those in the telecommunications sector.
Heise makes it clearer what this demand from the telecoms means: ultimately, the providers will pay multiple times for the same service. First, they pay their host or provider for connectivity. Then they pay again for the same bytes to the backbones. And then the visitor also pays for the same bytes to their provider. This is classic telecoms rip-off (and by that, I mean more than just Deutsche Telekom).
Backbones actually finance themselves through peering agreements with other backbones (where there is asymmetric load distribution) and through their own direct connections to providers and users. Now they want money from parties with whom they do not even have contracts - but only through third-party contracts do they use the services of the telecoms. And that is simply extortion.
Signs of Crisis
The world's largest chemical company, BASF, ended 2005 with a record result. As the company announced, sales rose by 14 percent to 42.7 billion euros. The annual surplus increased by 50 percent to 3 billion euros. And BASF also sees itself well equipped for the current year.
Oh, yes, the profit in the field of nutrition and plant protection has a declining profit - well, the politicians will certainly provide BASF with record profits with an increasing trend with the seed regulation, if the industry has finally succeeded in tying farmers to their seeds, fertilizers, and poisons.
Also cute are the high profits in the oil and gas sector. Of course, the price increases in these areas are solely due to the high costs and have nothing to do with the fact that oil and gas companies want to increase their profits. (Yes, BASF is also busy in the natural gas sector - for example, through Wintershall, a company of the BASF Group).
What do the 3,600 BASF employees in Ludwigshafen, whose positions were cut in 2004, think of this corporate development? Especially those who were not pushed out through severance packages or partial retirement, but through transfer to a temporary employment agency?
People Sacrificed to the Markets
This is what Yahoo - which, according to Reporters Without Borders, has handed over data of dissidents to the Chinese police does:
The human rights organization Reporters Without Borders calls on the Internet service provider and portal operator Yahoo to publish a list of all "cyberdissidents" whose data the company has handed over to Chinese authorities, particularly. The organization claims to have uncovered that the dissident Li Zhi was sentenced to an eight-year prison term with the help of Yahoo in December 2003.
So people are sacrificed and betrayed just to reach the Chinese market, which is interesting for companies. What a great achievement. The arrogance of companies is sometimes really disgusting.
What can come out of such an "unholy alliance" should also be considered for Europe - because here too, the demands of law enforcement are becoming louder and louder, it is only a matter of time before authorities in Europe also ask for search queries and similar protocols from search engines. And such a demand could even be covered by the absurd laws. And whether search engine operators will really stand up against this is rather questionable in view of the recent activities of Google, Yahoo and MSN.
BooCompany - the only legitimate successor to DotComTod.de. Now open to all industries.
Erectile Dysfunction Diagnosable by Radio
Soon, it will be possible to determine from a distance of 10 meters without the owner's knowledge that he has erectile dysfunction - or thinks he does. Great idea, let's make all diseases remotely diagnosable via RFID, set up a few doctors in street cafes and they will be helped.
According to US media, Pfizer's RFID application does not even allow the distribution path of the pills from the manufacturer to the pharmacies and wholesalers to be tracked correctly.
Oh, well that's good. If total surveillance has not yet occurred, then it's not so bad. With some sentences from professional journalists, one wonders if they even think about what they are reporting on ...
What's up with the Glos?
Glos advocates for more income - because then people would have more money to spend and thus boost domestic demand. Which is why, of course, employers are demanding more work without wage compensation. It's quite amusing when even a Union politician finally understands after many years how consumption works, but the employers' representatives prove that stinginess knows no reason.
Just have some understanding now!
Altruistic impulses of the retail sector
Changes are mainly to be expected due to the planned increase in value-added tax as of January 1, 2007. "Anyone who only raises prices at the turn of the year is to blame themselves," said Rolf Pangels from the BAG retail association to the news agency AP. It is important to create enough leeway in the calculation beforehand, so that one can say on January 1, 2007, that one is keeping prices stable. The spokesman for the German Retail Federation, Hubertus Pellengahr, said that a price increase at this date "would not be accepted by consumers."
Exactly. The wonderfully selfless retail sector is raising prices in anticipation of the tax increase only for us consumers, because we wouldn't accept it otherwise. We are so to speak forcing our money onto the retail sector, we are compelling the poor, misunderstood retail sector to raise prices. We should be ashamed.
SCO probably sealed soon
Clear signs of dissolution at SCO. Not only are they almost bankrupt:
Without new capital, as shown by the financial figures now presented, the SCO Group would be threatened with bankruptcy.
They are also betting on the dead horse Unix-on-Handhelds:
SCO CEO Darl McBride expressed optimism when presenting the figures. Business would improve again because the focus is on the further development of Unix. McBride's greatest hopes lie in the new technology that SCO has outlined under the name "Me Inc." and which should soon be market-ready. In the conference call on the quarterly figures, McBride described Me Inc. as a Unix-based technology platform for handhelds and digital lifestyle products.
With this strategy, many manufacturers have already left the market - the handheld market itself is massively threatened by smartphones and what remains of the market is dominated by established players who will certainly be very enthusiastic about an SCO desperately looking for a market there. The market is absolutely promising for newcomers, as the various burst dreams of recent times show.
Wretched Swindlers
Gas prices to become even more expensive in 2006
A spokesperson for the long-distance gas company VNG confirmed Weyand's prognosis and added: "According to our findings, this will be in the double-digit percentage range."
But the whole privatization bullshit is just so great. And the market will take care of it. It's just strange that energy prices for consumers only go up and the profits of energy suppliers rise to utopian levels. Great market that regulates itself ...
How about training?
Microsoft Germany chief warns of "severe IT skills shortage":
Gallmann had already complained in November that there was a lack of young talent. IT companies would hire graduates from abroad under these circumstances, he said three weeks ago. Now the Microsoft Germany chief has backed up his warning with more figures: Even now, the demand for IT engineers can only be met to 80 percent.
Everyone can complain well, and they are masters at warning. However, most avoid the consequence of training themselves. Large companies that really lack IT professionals can easily remedy this shortage on their own: create training positions. This then has the added advantage that these employees know the company well when they become productive. But perhaps the consequence is not understandable for business graduates.
Instead, companies continue to look for employees in their mid-20s with a degree and 10 years of professional experience even for normal IT jobs. And then they complain that vocational training in Germany takes too long and that skilled workers are too expensive - well, what do you expect if you constantly only want fully qualified graduates?
Bank scandal in Italy: no small fries
The takeover of Kamps by Barilla is part of a major banking scandal in Italy:
Among other things, the top banker is said to have made millions in profits through illegal insider trading on the stock exchange for himself and selected customers. One of the most lucrative of these shady deals is, according to details that have become known today from the investigation files, apparently the takeover of the German large bakery Kamps by the Italian conglomerate Barilla almost four years ago.
Someone really didn't make small rolls here. Pasta and banks go well with the Mafia and other Italian oddities, but a German large bakery? How bourgeois ...
First impending departure of the government?
It looks like Gabriel is the first candidate for ministerial departure:
A criminal complaint has already been filed against Gabriel with the Braunschweig public prosecutor's office. He is accused of concealing an illegal sham activity for VW, perjury, and a breach of the rules of procedure of the Lower Saxony state parliament. Its president, Jürgen Gansäuer, now wants to have Gabriel's secondary activity checked for compliance with the regulations.
Well, the whole story at VW is also quite cute - the top harasser Hartz gets one dent after another (and the Berlin proletarians still don't find it embarrassing to associate the unfair treatment of the unemployed with such a name). And now there are indications that VW sponsored Viagra for the works councils for sex parties. What a pathetic bunch of louts on all sides ...
The Vienna Conclusion: Sponsorship+Politics=Influence
Strong move: according to Georg Greve, a closing statement of a WSIS working group in Austria was changed at the request of Microsoft. Instead of a sentence about the success of free software, there was suddenly a never-before-seen sentence about the advantages of DRM. This is how an unwanted voice is simply silenced - and then it is claimed that everything is fine ...
Eerie Alliance
When industry, union members, and the CDU join forces to prevent the nuclear phase-out.
Mannesmann trial this time without victory for Ackermann?
Anyway, that sounds like when judges express doubts about Mannesmann acquittals:
On the first day of the trial yesterday, judges had already expressed doubts about the acquittals of Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann, former Mannesmann CEO Klaus Esser, former IG Metall chairman Klaus Zwickel, and other defendants.