Category: Big Business

Coke appears to have a winner with its Vanilla Coke label. It’s a massive seller so far, and the soft drink maker is now introducing Diet Vanilla Coke.

(Given the way the cans evaporate around here whenever we have a game, I can well believe this story.)

Retailers Experiment with Human Pop-up Windows.

“We’ve done some fine-tuning since we first launched the campaign,” Cochon explains. “Originally we tried to recreate the internet pop-up experience by having our associates dress in loud colors and leap out of nowhere. We also encouraged jumping back and fourth in front of the prospect if they tried to turn away – anything to make a sale, short of grabbing their shoulders and shaking them.”
After several unfortunate incidents, frequently resulting in bloody noses or pepper spray injuries, Cochon said the methods had to be refined.

Be scared. Or amused.

It’s funny how kids get stuck on a given brand.

When I was growing up in California, gas station brands meant something. Shell was the Good Guys — warm reds and golds, inviting. I liked their commericials, with the Shell Answer Man passing on great words of wisdom to consumers.

Chevron (which was still also going by the name of Standard at some of their stations) was the Bad Guys. Sure, their red-white-and-blue colors were patriotic, but they favored the blue, which was vaguely sinister, and the sharp-edged chevron logo was a harsh contrast to the scalloped shell logo.

And don’t ask me where this comes from, but to me, Shell was Arnold Palmer — the smiling, jovial, warm golf champ. Chevron was Jack Nicklaus, the fierce, unfair competitor (of course he was unfair — he was competing with Palmer, my hero).

Of course, the bottom line, the genesis of all this, was that we bought gas at the local Shell. Kids tend to dogmatize preferences like that, and take random comments (“Boy, that Chevron sure is expensive”) as Dictates from the Mount. And I’m sure my folks would be flabbergasted to hear about these attachments and associations (“We bought gas at a Shell station when we lived in Mountain View? Are you sure? Huh. I honestly don’t remember.”)

All of which was a round-about way of getting to the current topic.

One thing I noticed when I came from California to Colorado was the change in gas stations. Gone were the Shell stations that are sunnily ubiquitous in LA. Gone were those hard, cold Chevron stations. Gone were the Exxons and Mobils. Instead, we had new, strange names, like Amoco, Conoco, Total, and Diamond Shamrock.

One constant was Texaco. We’d not been a Texico family growing up — the one station I remember as a real little kid was some distance away, and there was never one close or convenient enough to be The One True Station That We Always Go To.

There seemed to be more Texacos here in Colorado than back in LA. One was even the most convenient to the apartment we first lived in. There’s one that’s the only convenient station to my office on the way home. I came to like rediscovering the T-Star logo, the bold red and black (the green trim having been dropped from the color scheme years ago). I recalled the “You can trust your car/To the man who wears the star” jingles of my childhood, and smiled fondly at the memory of the different evolutions of the Texaco station in the Back to the Future movies.

But things change. And just as every bank in the cosmos is slowly merging into a single entity, so, too, have acquisitions and mergers in the petro biz changed the landscape.

Locally, Diamond Shamrock bought Total, and has pretty much finished converting all of the latter into the former branding. The BP-Amoco merger has led to a slow vanishing of the Amoco red-white-and-blue (a hallmark of the old Standard Oil monopoly) into the cheerfully European BP green and yellow.

And now Texaco. They merged with Chevron last year, but because of anti-trust issues, they had to divest most of the Texaco service stations. Those, in turn, were bought by Shell, which will finally start showing up in the Colorado landscape, as the conversion takes place from one brand to the other over the next few years. The bold, almost unseemly black-and-red, and the simple T-Star will be replaced by the warm gold-and-red of Shell, with a stylized scallop for a logo. Though it doesn’t seem that gas stations advertise on TV much any more, so I don’t expect to hear the Shell Answer Man any time soon …

All of which would just pass unnoticed, if not for those odd childhood attachments and associations. Which makes me wonder what sorts of atavistic reactions Katherine will have one of these days, triggered by things we inadvertently do, or buying habits we have at the moment …

Isn’t it keen that these days there’s so much real estate information available on the web, that folks can search on the Internet through MLS (Multiple Listing Service) data and narrow down on their own the list of houses they’re interested in looiing at?

Yup, it sure is. Which is probably why the National Association of Realtors wants to limit the info that’s available on-line, so that Realtors don’t go the way of travel agents.

Of course, there’s a lot of other info that Realtors can provide that isn’t easily encapsulated on-line. Info on neighborhoods, on builders, and so forth. Lots of value there to add, and wouldn’t it make everyone’s life easier if the average buyer could make a first pass on the data before they start taking up a Realtor’s time?

Information priesthoods have always come crashing down, sooner or later, and the Internet has only accelerated that trend. If the NAR thinks they can hold back the tide on this, then they are setting themselves up to be made obsolete.

Think life in your little cubicle warren is stark and dehumanizing? Things look pretty damned cushy compared to the olden days.

Just in case you thought there might be a renewed commitment to customer service and customer relations — after all, there’s a recession going on, and especially in a world like, say, Internet hosting, there are plenty of players competing fiercely with you — it’s refreshing to see that some inexcusably rude jerks like Scott Trautman still exist, providing fodder for blogs the world over. Including prospective clients of GDI (Global Dialog Internet).

Hmmm. I wonder if they provide services to US Bank?

Micro$oft, ever the one to smile whilst driving the poignard deep into the vitals, has released a beta version of Windows Media Player 9. Not a big deal, probably worth evaluating, can always uninstall it if need be, right?

Wrong.

WMP9 has no uninstall feature on WinXP and WinME (it uninstalls on Win2K just fine). That’s the case both for the beta and for the final version to be released. The only way to get rid of it — sort of — is to use M$’s System Rollback feature. But that not only doesn’t remove the files, but it rolls back everything you’ve installed since that point.

One of the things that M$ was supposed to be doing — and claimed it was — under the loosy-goosy preliminary agreement they had with the DoJ was to allow the removal of “middleware” … just like WMP9. The big tool they released to do this, though, doesn’t actually remove such middleware, though — it just removes the icons to it. Big frelling deal.

And, in the meantime, M$ continues to move it’s “middleware” into being an inextricable part of the OS, as this exercise with WMP9 demonstrates. Hell, you can uninstall Service Pack 1 to WinXP — why can’t you uninstall the frelling music player (a music player that no longer supports certain file formats or sources)?

M$ claims that media playing is now a deeply embedded function, so uinstalling it would actually break the OS and expectations that other software has of it.

Of course, you could point out that M$ made it that way. But better perhaps that you complain to the DoJ about it. If they’ll listen, that is.

UPDATE: Of course, it all makes sense when you visit thesource.ofallevil.com.

UPDATE: And this seems to fit right in …

“I do, of course, regret driving under the influence and causing that accident. I have real and exciting plans to reform my life so that this never happens again — but I can only execute those plans if the DA drops the DUI charges and the person whose car I smashed up only asks for $500 in damages, so that I don’t go bankrupt. All that has to come together to make this initiative viable and successful.”

So what makes Paul Volcker think the same idea will fly any better in defense of Arthur Andersen?

Peggy Noonan writes about her involvement with Enron — and why the Republicans in particular have a special obligation to make sure that those who abuse the free market system get “one big Texas whippin’.”

I am a conservative, and so a Republican. I believe that conservatives and Republicans have a special responsibility, as the party that stands for free markets, to see to it that free markets work, and are not abused, gamed or finagled. Republicans and conservatives have, I believe, a special responsibility to come down hard on people who cheat their shareholders and their employees.

Amen.

The American Antitrust Institute (AAI) is planning to file suit against both Micro$oft and the Dept. of Justice, claiming that, in violation of the Tunney Act, the two sides have had undisclosed, undocumented meetings to arrive at the proposed antitrust settlement.

I’m shocked, positively shocked to discover that this sweetheart deal might have been brokered out of the public eye.

Monsanto has done something incredible, unbelievable, amazing: they’ve made the tobacco companies look good. Well, at least look not particularly or unusually Evil.

[F]or nearly 40 years, while producing the now-banned industrial coolants known as PCBs at a local factory, Monsanto Co. routinely discharged toxic waste into a west Anniston creek and dumped millions of pounds of PCBs into oozing open-pit landfills. And thousands of pages of Monsanto documents — many emblazoned with warnings such as “CONFIDENTIAL: Read and Destroy” — show that for decades, the corporate giant concealed what it did and what it knew.
In 1966, Monsanto managers discovered that fish submerged in that creek turned belly-up within 10 seconds, spurting blood and shedding skin as if dunked into boiling water. They told no one. In 1969, they found fish in another creek with 7,500 times the legal PCB levels. They decided “there is little object in going to expensive extremes in limiting discharges.” In 1975, a company study found that PCBs caused tumors in rats. They ordered its conclusion changed from “slightly tumorigenic” to “does not appear to be carcinogenic.”

And that’s just the tip of the ice berg from this (not metaphorically) damning story.

To all of you out there who think it’s all a matter of dollars and cents what your company does, bear in mind that even the Bush Administration just ordered GE to pay $460 billion (that’s with a “b”) dredging up PCB contaminants from the Hudson River. Your short-term profit will be fittered away by the long-term liability, clean-ups, and law suits, and your stockholders will not be happy. You might even find yourself being personally sued. Or worse.

To all of you out there who think, “Nobody will ever know,” don’t count on it. This sort of stuff does eventually come out. It can’t be hidden forever. And when it does, your company, your legacy, and you will be tarnished for just as long. How would you like your child, or your grandchild, to hand you this article and ask you if you knew about it? How about your father? Your mother? Your spouse?

(And even if it could be hidden forever, I’m fortunate enough to be of a religious faith that says it will come out, at the Least Opportune Moment, with Dire Consequences.)

To all of you out there (including my President) who think, “Industries know it is in their interest to be good neighbors. Self-regulation is the way to go,” I suggest you move, post haste, to Anniston, Alabama.

Robert Kaley, the environmental affairs director for Solutia [nee Monsanto] who also serves as the PCB expert for the American Chemistry Council, said it is unfair to judge the company’s behavior from the 1930s through 1970s by modern standards.

Leaving aside the odd assertion that the 1970s is not “modern,” no, it’s not unfair. Certainly not unfair if you’re not doing everything in your power to make good on what your company did then (as opposed to stonewalling investigations and refusing to even apologize).

“Did we do some things we wouldn’t do today? Of course. But that’s a little piece of a big story,” he said. “If you put it all in context, I think we’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.”

Yes. Yes, you do.

(Via Doyce)

Micro$oft, caught completely off-guard by the dissenting states (sh’yeah, right), is begging for a four month delay in further hearings. Never mind that the next hearing is scheduled for mid-March, over two months from now. Nor that it’s been two or three weeks since the dissenting states came back with their proposals. No, they need another four months beyond that to prepare a defense.

Feh. For all the money M$ is spending on lawyers, if they can’t come up with a response to the proposals (all of which have been floating around previously, a number of which were in parts of the original federal settlement but got edited out at the last moment) they should fire their whole legal team — and still shouldn’t get a further break.

M$ benefits for every week that goes by without solutions being implemented. Their guilt has been established and confirmed by appeals courts. If defendents are guaranteed a speedy trial, then society should be guaranteed a speedy penalty phase.

Company spokesman Jim Desler said the non-settling states had launched what amounted to an entirely new case against Microsoft, even as it began implementing parts of the proposed settlement.
“Microsoft can hardly be accused of delay, we’re already implementing a tough settlement that goes beyond the liability found by the appeals court,” Desler said.

Excuse me? M$ claims that they are already implementing the proposed solutions, when they haven’t been actually settled — and they’re using that as an excuse to show they’re dealing in good faith?

Rather, it indicates to me that they really want that settlement, and are rushing to put it into place before the bottom line has been signed so as to present a fait accompli.

The nine demurring states in the Micro$oft anti-trust settlement have put together some intriguing proposals for a settlement. Intriguing enough that they’re probably all non-starters, according to the summary in the Register.

The salient difference between this document and the previous is that the States have made a reasonable attempt at identifying previous abuses, anticipating future ones and, step-by-step, explaining how the remedies they’re proposing would tackle them. It’s a pretty big problem, so inevitably they’ve come up with something that is wholly unpalatable to Microsoft, and that therefore could never have been achieved via a negotiated settlement.
The DoJ document, on the other hand, lists the relatively few concessions that could be achieved to form a negotiated settlement, then makes a futile and unconvincing attempt to explain why these will solve all the problems and tame The Beast. There is at least intellectual merit in the nine States having tossed this approach and devised something with internal logic and coherence instead.
[…] Ed Black of the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) welcomed the proposal, while saying that additional remedies would also be appropriate. “Unlike the Justice Department’s capitulation to Microsoft, this is a serious effort to curb the illegal monopoly conduct of the company and restore competition to the software industry. Perhaps the most striking difference between the States’ proposed remedy and the Microsoft/DoJ settlement is that the States’ proposal was clearly drafted by prosecutors seeking to enforce the law, while the settlement was obviously crafted largely by Microsoft to provide a means of evading the law.”

Among the tidbits are a proposal to make Internet Explorer an open source utility, and to allow other companies to license the code to M$ Office to be ported to other computing platforms than Windows. There’s also the normal dreary stuff about preventing breakware, independent secure code reviews, etc.

Most notably, folks in the process who aren’t happy about it aren’t gagged by the settlement, either.

It’s almost certainly a non-starter, but it’s nice to see someone in the process actually looking for some remedies for the adjudged monopolistic practices of M$.

Denver’s venture capital company Altira is suing Phillip Morris to keep them from changing their name to Altria.

The closely held venture-capital firm said the name change would cause confusion with consumers who would assume the companies are affiliated, said Dirk McDermott, Altira’s managing partner. In addition to the similar spelling of the names, Philip Morris Capital Corp., a subsidiary, is an investment firm similar to Altira, McDermott said.
[…] If Philip Morris changes names, “we will be associated with the company,” McDermott said. “That would not be good for us.”

Evil, evil, naughty Micro$oft! You bad, bad company! You acted monopolistically, leveraged your economic strength to put your competitors out of business — those you didn’t destroy by manipulating your control of the OS. You are a monopoly the likes of which has not been seen since Standard Oil, and you’re darned lucky those Bushies decided not to push to break you up.

However shall we punish you, then?

Oh! Well, that Federal settlement is clearly too lax! We several states and various private parties will really hold your feet to the fire! We will! We want you to pay! Pay! Pay!

What’s that? Hey … Bill … that’s a great idea! Rather than making you pay cash, we’ll make you do something useful — like give away a bunch of software! And hardware! Well, it’s old hardware — and fully depreciated — and it will count as a charitible contribution, so it won’t really cost you any money … but think of all the people it could help!

What’s that? Hey, an even better idea! Let M$ contribute it to schools! Schools can always use more computers, right? And M$ can decide which schools, too.

What’s that? Oh, just those ingrates from Apple, noting that this is letting Micro$oft flood the educational market, the one market it does not yet dominate, with its own hardware and software, thus creating an established base for future domination of the K-12 world. And noting that M$ will get to choose which schools to contribute to, like, maybe, ones that might buy other peoples’ computers. Like Apple’s. What a bunch of trouble-makers. What a bunch of spoil-sports!

What a bunch of losers.

(Via LargelyPro)