Hotel Death Star

This may be the coolest hotel ever! It is the preliminary design of a hotel that looks like the Death Star. It is to be built in the capital of the Asian country Azerbaijan.

Talk about Star Wars fans!

Dell in the Dumps

According to an article in the recent issue of Forbes, Dell is not making the turnaround that Michael Dell had hoped that it would. Chief Executive Michael Dell told analysts in a conference call that "it's very clear we have significant work to do on our cost structure."

The PC market has been a sprint to the bottom for a few years now. Trying to compete in a commodity market based on price is a loosing proposition for everyone involved. There is only so much cost that can be taken out of a product. Dell's goal is to have levels of profitability comparable to its competitors in the consumer market. Unfortunately, they have a long way to go.

I contend that Dell's primary problem, other than selling $400 computers at Wal-Mart, is their deplorable customer service. It has become legendary according to the Wall Street Journal. How much customer service is build into the price of a $400 computer? Not much! Think about it. Do you actually know anyone that has not had a bad customer service experience with Dell?

Unfortunately, there is not one PC maker that can compete with Apple on customer service. Why is that? The PC manufacturers are focused only on costs. Long ago Apple decoupled the price of customer service from its actual hardware. Apple's customer service is not cheap but it is second to none in terms of customer satisfaction. The PC manufacturers could learn a lot from that business model.

Personally, I would like nothing more than to see Dell return to its days of glory. One way to do that is move up market and focus on great customer service!

No No - Bad Microsoft!!!

Turns out that Microsoft knew that Vista was full of bugs and driver problems well before they released the software. So what did they do, they released it anyway.

A federal judge today unsealed internal Microsoft e-mails that have been used to support the plaintiffs’ case in the lawsuit over the “Windows Vista Capable” program. An attorney read these emails aloud in court, but the full messages go further to reveal extensive hand-wringing, at the highest levels of the company, over Windows Vista’s hardware and software compatibility problems after the operating system was launched.

I would imagine that we are only minutes away from the EU jumping all over this one.

Underwater Car

This is one of the craziest things that I have ever seen. An underwater car. It is built by Rinspeed, a Swiss boutique automaker. It can be driven on the road as well. For those nice sunny days, it is also a convertible.

Bad Snow Day

You know that you should stay off the roads when you come upon this.

Photo of the Day

A picture really is worth a thousand words!

MicroHoo ?

This may be the biggest tech news of the new year! Today Microsoft offered $44.6 billion for Yahoo. This is going to be interesting. The notion is that neither Microsoft or Yahoo will be able to compete with Google on their own. In an open letter to Yahoo this week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said, "a year has gone by, and the competitive situation has not improved ... Today, the market is increasingly dominated by one player who is consolidating its dominance through acquisition. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a credible alternative for consumers, advertisers, and publishers."

This is the story to watch!