"Those who fear deflation buy bonds; those who fear inflation buy gold; those who cannot decide buy both. But few investors or corporate managers wish to take on any longer-term investment risks."

Source - Martin Wolf, FT

We considered getting rid of PCs — for about two seconds

Apart from the many synergies (including cost advantages) that might be lost if H.P. abandoned the PC division, the move would seem to undo years of strategy. The status of the PC division had been under constant review during the Hurd regime. But as one former H.P. executive told me, “We considered getting rid of PCs — for about two seconds.” It’s true that the PC business has lower margins — currently 5.8 percent compared with the rest of the company’s average of 11 percent. But given H.P.’s sales and marketing channels, the huge PC division was considered the foundation that supported servers, storage, software and eventually services, enabling H.P. to compete across the $150 billion infrastructure market as the world’s largest computer company.

Source: nytimes

Are there any good buys out there for HP?

HP’s deal to buy Autonomy seems expensive for leftover of a software company.

Software is a big part of IBM’s profits and it is growing rapidly.  IBM and Oracle have been on buying sprees, picking up one software firm after another.  HP has not.  Software is only three percent of HP’s business.  Are there any good buys out there for HP?  Again it could be a matter of timing.  HP is late getting started.  The best deals may already be gone.

Source: Cringely

Rare and prestigious stamp: Made in the USA

But that is some way off. For now Messrs Lee and Hughes, and their workers, keep busy shearing, steaming, shaving, cutting and drying huge logs into rough chopsticks. They still need to be finished—to eat with a pair of Georgia Chopsticks right off the Americus line you would need tweezers in your other hand and a high pain tolerance. For that they are shipped via the Port of Savannah to China (later this year they will start sending them to Korea and Japan) in boxes with a rare and prestigious stamp: Made in the USA.

Source: Economist

"The odds are very high that there would be knock-on consequences of other borrowers getting downgraded – both corporate and public, in the US and overseas,” said Mr Fisher in a note to investors. “What really ends up happening is a downward shift of the entire spectrum of fixed-income securities,” he said."

Source: FT

Not rebellion, but luxury

The result is that Apple’s image in China now emphasizes not rebellion, but luxury — or as Wolf puts it, “exclusivity.” Its gorgeous glass-walled stores are located next to high-end clothing boutiques like Armani, Versace, and BMW Lifestyle. Apple is seen as the choice of “top white-collar professionals,” as stylish 30-something Lily Ou told me, glancing up from a row of brightly colored iPhone cases at Beijing’s Sanlitun Apple Store. Ou is a sales manager for an international food distributor. “I like to show off my Apple identity,” she said.

Source: Foreign Policy

Inverse Law of Sanity?

Aristotle was the first to point out the link between madness and genius, including not just poets and artists but also political leaders. I would argue that the Inverse Law of Sanity also applies to more ordinary endeavors. In business, for instance, the sanest of CEOs may be just right during prosperous times, allowing the past to predict the future. But during a period of change, a different kind of leader—quirky, odd, even mentally ill—is more likely to see business opportunities that others cannot imagine.

Source: WSJ

Software shouldn’t be eligible for patent protection?

In my view, the solution is straightforward: software shouldn’t be eligible for patent protection. That might sound simplistic, but there are good reasons to think abolition of software patents is the right reform. Software is fundamentally different than other types of inventions. For starters, software is virtually alone in being eligible for both patent and copyright protection. This makes patent protection mostly superfluous. Second, writing software is an individual, expressive activity at least as much as it is an engineering discipline. We don’t expect novelists to hire patent lawyers, and computer programmers shouldn’t have to either. Finally, the “software industry” is radically more diffuse and diverse than the typical patent-eligible industry. Every business with more than a handful of employees has an IT department producing potentially patent-infringing software. No other category of patents has this characteristic.

Source: Forbes

"The problem with US manufacturing is not that it has been shrinking – despite the “offshoring” of textile and electronics manufacturing to China, US manufacturing output rose by 3.9 per cent a year between 1997 and 2007. However productivity grew 6.8 per cent annually in the same period, so millions of jobs were lost."

Source: FT

Zynga goes to China

This will be interesting to watch how it plays out, online gaming is one space China famously sets the stage.

“As a social game developer, Zynga fully recognizes the value of Tencent’s Open Platform and their professional service capability,” said Andy Tian, general manager of Zynga China.

“CityVille is Zynga’s largest and most popular game and Zynga is proud to partner with the leading open platform in China to bring the innovation and delight of the game to Chinese players. We are excited that a fully localized Zynga City will be introduced to the Chinese audience and look forward to enabling them to connect in a fun, harmonious way.”

Source: Telegraph