I'M LATINO VOTING FOR MITT ROMNEY

For the ones that do not know me, I am Spanish, born in this great country that has offered my parents and me countless opportunities.   For the vast majority of adult years I have voted and supported a Democratic presidential candidate,; had the chance of voting for Al Gore in 2000 with the hope that it would have been a continuation of the Clinton years, later in 2004 I voted for John Kerry because I believed that George W Bush did not deserve a second term, and boy was I correct.  In 2008 didn’t like my choices that much, and didn’t fall for the Obamania that was taking over America, however with not that many choices I did vote for Obama knowing very well that not change was going to take place, but we indeed needed a new face since the world was in boiling water. 

You could see the trend: me, voting for the Democratic  party in presidential elections, however you might be mistaken if you think I vote for the Democratic Party, I vote for candidates and the circumstances of the moment, I never go by the perception of people of a particular party, for example, people have the perception of Democrats being the big spenders, meanwhile Bill Clinton did produce a surplus  (in great part cause of the Reaganconomis) but he deservers credit to follow through meanwhile W.Bush  being a “conservative” skyrocket spending. In the other hand we have the fallacy of the Republicans being the party of  war, but most wars of this country  have been started  by and under a Democrat President, just look at this table:

World War I - Woodrow Wilson - Democrat World War II - FDR - Democrat Korean War - Truman - Democrat Bay of Pigs - Kennedy - Democrat Vietnam War - LBJ - Democrat Grenada - Reagan - Republican Persian Gulf War (IRAQ I) – H.Bush - Republican Bosnia and Herzegovina - Clinton - Democrat War on Terror (IRAQ II) – W Bush – Republican

As we see 6 were under Democrat presidents and 3 under Republican presidents

Today giving the circumstances and challenges that we face ahead of us I am voting for Mitt Romney. This is not an emotional vote, this a vote for a person that I have been following for a very long time, years back before the 2008 Republican primaries, when the media shut him down maybe for his religion preferences or maybe not, but before I make my case for Mitt Romney,  I need to make my case of why I am not voting for Obama.

It has been a trend for the “Hispanic” community to vote for the Democratic party no matter who the candidate is, I must say that the Republican Party has done a very poor job in selling themselves to this big and important segment of the USA society, meanwhile I do not think any President in history has received a higher support among  “Hispanic” than Barack Obama, not even Bill Clinton, and the truth of that matter is that ironically under this administration is that have been recorded the highest rate per capita and also in quantity of deportations in US history. 48 % of these deportations have been “Hispanics”, jumping from 26% in 2006,.

Somehow now at the end of his first term Barack Obama comes with the DREAM  ACT…..why he couldn't do it on his first 3 years?...... Simple, Do I need to spell this out?, is all about: “Hey I remember you guys  …vote for me please ” is about his reelection not conviction….unlike Ronald Reagan in 1986 who wasn’t seeking reelection since it was the last year of his second term, when he signed the biggest amnesty in US history, that allowed  more than 3 million illegal immigrants to be granted amnesty  which later on many of  became part  of the foundation of the economic success of future generations,  ironically Reagan's amnesty law was introduced by the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate 

But lets go to the most important issue in this elections: The economy.  To be fair we cannot judge Obama without judging George W. Bush and highlighting the conditions that the country was in 2008, and furthermore how we got to the financial crisis of 2008.

It’s not a secret that one of the main reasons of the financial crisis that shock United States and the rest of the world in 2008, was the easy credit that led to a bubble, added to an increase on spending by Bush’s administration….well if you take the name of the just look at the economy policy (2004-08) and (2008-12) you will realize that Barack Obama is Bush on steroids, the only thing Bush did right was the Bush tax cut, although as many people criticizes it , it did raise revenue year by year since 2002, the problem was Bush spent way more than what he got. Obama is not the exception.

After more than a $a  trillion given away on behalf  of "the world is coming to an end” today's job growth had an average  of 157,000 by 2012 around the same by 2011 that was 153,000, the problem with this is not the amount, the problem is  that if we keep this pace of the past 4 years we still be 15 millions jobs below of 2008 by the end of 2016, in top of that the economy is growing to slow to fill up the gap of the job lost as a result of the 2008 crisis, which means that as time passes by the closer we get to recover jobs at this pace, the more likely  this unemployment rate will be  normal.

Why it has been so slow?...unlike  Bill Clinton, you either like him or not,  he did work with both parties and as Alan Greenspan said on his book “The Age of Turbulence”: “I was amazed by the capacity of listening of President Clinton, Obama on the other hand is his way or the highway, it has created this Welfare class, and still hasn’t understood  that Corporations are not individuals, that they are institutions that create wealth not just for CEO’s but for many Americans on their 401k, IRA and other private funds,  he still hasn’t understood that we need a tax  reform that rewards investment, he still hasn’t understood that wealth is created by innovators not regulators.

In terms of  OBAMACARE, I will be lying if I tell you that I don’t believe in some sore of health plan choice for the most needed, and I will go even further, I believe in as much aid as possible for education to the most needed, because at the end education and health are the exclusive tools for the individuals to move on the 3 ladders of social system, however the way Obama health plan is built scares capitals and even worse is the TIMING is horrible, this is the time to create jobs and accelerate the economy, which in real terms it has decreased if you take into account the actions by the FED of inflating the economy and buying the government debts to keep bond rates low.

Why Mitt?...

To begin,  last time I checked this is the land where people try to achieve their dreams, and become rich and wealthy, it never was or has been a  sin, and I hope is still not.

He has been a successful businessman that wherever he goes has make things work, I believe we need a Man with business background, with a great record on the private sector, why? …. Great ideas have been created in moments of difficulties, with the right leaders; look at Apple and Microsoft who are pioneers in the tech sector. These companies were created during recession. Does anyone see a business under this administration,  the new Microsoft or Apple....I guess we all have the answer, and the answer is NO….because we are not welcoming businesses which are the ultimate motor for ideas and jobs.

I always say that we should manage government as private entities, in the sense of fiscal responsibility and instead of how much you spend, focus in how you spend it, for example: Microsoft today spent in a ration 3: 1 more than Apple on research and development but Apple is a more successful company, also ,by the way, Apple has more cash available than the US Government.

For this we need a men like Mitt a men that took the winter Olympics on his wing, that historically have been losing money and making them profitable, took companies in financial troubles like Staples, Domino Pizza, Sport Authority and Brookstone and made them profitable, also in the public sector has proved himself more than competent as the governor of Massachusetts working with Democratic legislature and plugging a $3billion budget hole while holding down taxes, and managing to keep Massachusetts as the #1 in education and #1 in Health in the whole United States

At the end of the day:

1. In the beginning of Obama’s term He became the most powerful President that America had since Abraham Lincoln, with majority in the House of representative, Senate, Supreme Court, and media that was literally in love with him, and he failed to pass any of his meaningful policy’s, today he is falling to work we both parties. A president suppose to se the tone, and negotiate with congress, you can always have you want, you give and take in good faith…look how Reagan worked with a Democrat majority congress, look how Bill Clinton worked with Newt Gringrich, and came together what was known as the “THE PACT OF AMERICA”…. Obama so far hasn’t been able to exhibit that kind of leadership of accomplishments.

2.We have a president that doesn’t get business as a result we have  unemployment rate above what he took office, high fiscal deficit of more than 1 trillion every single year for the last  past 3 years, accumulating a debt of more than 16 trillion dollars, meaning more than 100% the GDP. Lowest approval for a President running for reelection since the Great depression,  in other words that has been unable to produce nothing with the strategy  of borrow and spend, focusing in regulation and distribution.

3. When Reagan took office, we were in the verge of a Hyperinflation and the Iran crisis, by the second year of his term, we beat inflation, economy growing and the Iran crises solve, when Clinton took office we  were in a recession , by the 2^nd year recession was over, and experience one of the longest and biggest boom of economic growth in US history…..with Obama with still waiting for results.

4.Today ¾ of the Federal budget goes to Medicaid, Medicare, social security,  and welfare , this has to stop, it has to stop that what is a luxury today it becomes in 5-10 years a right,  we are in a point that a cell phone It’s  a right, so if you don’t have one,

Government will provide you one. I think this November 6^th of 2012 is the day to draw the line and say enough is enough before its too late.

This is why I am voting tomorrow for Mitt Romney. 

It’s the world ready for Apple?

In 2000 Steve Jobs introduced a device to the market that was able to play and hold all your music. The reaction at first was negative many of Apple fan boys were forecasting that this will be the next "Newton" (Failed attempt of Apple of conquer the PDA market)., but it’s a saying that goes " Give time to the time", This device well known for us today as the "IPod" which arguable is the most revolutionarily device of this century, as for today like one of my colleagues mentioned me: " IPod is Apple bread and butter".

IPod produce above 40% of Apple revenue, and the potential of growing is unlimited it , but Apple hasn’t let the glory come to their head and has keep pushing for innovation, and like I mentioned in a another post, Steve’s guys work hard to get a good perception from the users, and the whole society as market. Last year we got in our hands the sweat , and slick device IPhone which merge a Smartphone and IPod in one. The reviews since day one has been outstanding, it seems like every person either has one or at least want one.

The situation is very favorable right now for Apple Inc, we remember as today how Apple was isolate it from the rest of the Tech market where everything was about PC. Today is not a secret the Apple is growing in exponential numbers. Today Apple enjoy a "favorable" 8% of market share in the Operating System world, which 8 years ago, was almost at 1%.

This amazing comeback of Apple has been produce by many factors, mainly of how they use ironically the PC platform as their gateway to the world. With ITunes which has perfectly blend the Pc world with the IPod.

We just have to look at this rough numbers published by Eweek Magazine:

• ITunes since April 2003 when it open to the world until July 12 of 2004 sold 100 million songs.
• By July 18 2005 ITunes sold 500 million songs.
• Amazingly by July 31, 2007 it spike to 3 billion songs.

Apple has become the no.2 musical retailer behind Wall-Mart (at the time I am writing this post it became #1) , but more important with a different business model which lower the operation cost, since most activities are done in a online level.

Having said that, they are some issues that Apple most overcome :conquer the corporate market. This is the key for them to move from been a successful company, to be one of the most important companies in the world. Unlike many people believe, the "big" money for the Tech world is in the corporate level. Corporations in USA spent 4 to 1 ratio when we compare with regular users, Apple is aware of that, and is already making the first baby step in the right direction, announcing that IPhone will sync with Microsoft Exchange which controls must of the mail servers in the corporate world (70%).

Now they are many suggestions that come to my mind that Apple should go for, in order to capture a piece of the corporate market:

• They have to understand that they are hardware company more than a Software company. It’s even some experts that suggest that Apple should limit them self to make Macs and load Windows OS. (I will explain more about this in another post).
• Lower prices in order to maximize revenues. (it’s so many people around the world that will love a Mac, but it is so overprice).
• Have more SKU models, as for now Apple just have 6 computer models.
• Should be more open to the open source community, since Apple OSX is a product of the open source community.
• Now that they are in their peak with those "MAC vs. PC", commercials, keep the same approach, but involve somehow advantages in a corporation environment.

Although I do not own the absolute true I just hope that Mr. Jobs will listen here and there, from us the people that are asking for a affordable Mac for the day to day users.

Blue Ray?.........I don't think so

If my mind does not betray me, my first blog was about how HD DVD and Blue Ray of how this promising technologies were about to take over the market and supremacy over the DVD. It has not been a year since I made that statement. Now Looking around and how we are in the verge of substantial changes in our broadband networks around the world specially in USA, ASIA and Europe; perspectives about the supremacy of Blue Ray in this case (since HD DVD is officially dead ) is not as sure as many people believe.

Yes we must admit that the quality of sound and video with Blue Ray is incredible, and probably it will get better as much better TV's get into the market, and more studios are adopting the format, but I believe the idea of holding a physical device to watch a movie or a show, are almost over. Like I mention before, the introduction of better broadband for regular people like you and me, such as Verizon Fios, and rumors of Cable making a complete restructure of their network, it is more likely that we will se more and more distribution of movies, and even software through the Internet.

We just have to look at the approach that big companies like Microsoft and Apple are taking, in one side you have Microsoft, that was very shy in supporting HD DVD; a lot of analyst claim they push more for their Xbox Live, which allow you to download movies to your Xbox with a 75% smaller storage size than a HD DVD, but with the same quality, plus the Media Center which support IP TV (TV through the Internet). Then we have Apple, they have been a lot of rumors that we will have a MAC with Blue Ray by the end of this year 2008, meanwhile they are focusing more in the APPLE TV, you could download movie rentals, with a very rich catalog, although they just star growing in the HD end, and last but not least you have the second largest carrier of Movie Rentals, Netflex. which jump from 1 million subscribers in 2005 to 9 million subscribers in 2007. offering their whole catalog through streaming video in your computer, which means, you could watch as many movies as you want, with the same quality than cable Tv, this it's all include it on the basic monthly fee. It's evidently that this 3 key players are betting in future of video distribution through the web.

To all this unique services we add the very good argument of a more environment friendly with media distribution through the web, since promote the production of less plastic, and paper, since all this movies would be hold on a single hard drive, which by the way every day are getting cheaper and cheaper.

I definitely do not have a magic ball, but as I always say Napster was a turning point for not just technology but for the whole world. I strongly believe we are in the verge, of a whole revolutionary change in the way we watch TV and enjoy our media room.

CEO welcome to IT

My enthusiasm for computers, and the tech world in general, started back in 1997 once my parents understood the importance of having a PC at home to facilitate and enhance our general knowledge. Back at this time, I clearly remember the big euphoria about Windows 95, and the integration between computers and multimedia.

Back then corporations like Microsoft and IBM arguably were in another level respect the rest of the Tech sector. After more than a decade, of constantly advances and revolutionary changes, now we are facing new challenges. What was the competition of 2 giants, today is the fierce battle of many companies, such as Google, Apple, Cisco, and others.

All this companies, understand how important is to conceptualize and then excute their business model in order to accomplish their goals and furthermore survive in a every day more competitive market. That’s why tech corporations year after year have prioritized the position of a CEO.

*I put here the top 5 CEO of IT, in this past 2007 accordin to eweek magazine:

1.Larry Ellison, Oracle

2. Steve Jobs, Apple

3. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft

4. Sam Palmisano, IBM

5. Marissa Mayer, Google

to be continued......

PERCEPTION

Sometimes people get so into earns and revenues by companies, and follow these stats like a religion, but they still do not understand that business in particular, technology business is surrounded by an inexact science. Technology has some many ways to approach a problem and still get a solution. Taking this into account many business men and CEO of technology companies still do no get the message.

We have seen in these past 5 years a great comeback of Apple in part by the revolutionary Ipod. Apple a company that almost went bankrupt in the 90’s; today is probably one of the most desired stocks in NASQAD. With this entire “buzz”, it seems like Apple is taking over the world, but once again if we go by numbers Steve Jobs Company just represents 5% of the desktop market in the USA and around the world is even smaller, but the executives of Apple lead by Steve understood a very important ingredient in the business, this is perception. Probably one of the most underestimated ingredient in companies today.

Apple has focused in presenting a “cool” and attractive device, even that sometimes are not translated the same in functionality. The best example of this is the Apple Iphone. I have to go years back to remember a device that has made so much noise in the tech community. But the reality is that the Iphone has left out many features that any other regular “Smartphone” will include. For instance, this device lacks MS Office support which is a key to get in the corporate business, or include a 3G technology for United States. Having that said, the Iphone has something that the competition does not have, the looks and the “woo” impact.

Apple with their premium products has been allowed to tag a high price which consumers pay happily; more important than the performance, for perception. For example, users of Mac believe that the systems don’t get viruses, or that it’s not possible to get hacked. Once again, its all about perception. In the MacWorld magazine of July 2007 on page 26, Thomas Krinstensen the chief technology offices of security- research firm Secunia agrees: “Mac systems are as vulnerable as most other operating systems, so anyone with reasonable skills should be able to compromise them”.

In conclusion Apple is a company that has understood the computer business and how perception is a very important factor in the consumers final decision, others companies like Dell finally got the message and introduced “vivid” colors to their new laptops and HP with innovating designs to attract the eyes of ordinary consumers. Even Microsoft has been force to remake the whole GUI of the operating system vista to create that “wow” and throw to the garbage their Windows Classic graphic interface.

How much we could achieve

Is a song in Spanish that says: “20 years are nothing”. Lately I have been thinking of how fast time goes, and how we change our approach to live, which somehow has been shape up and determine by technology, especially computers. I just remember the first time I use a computer and how amazing was the fact to run DOS and also play video games, use word processing like Word Star and Word Perfect. Today the world has changed we jump from text file interface to GUI interface, what IBM control is control today by Microsoft, instead of Word Perfect, today we use the well known Microsoft Word, before we as miracle could connect through physical phone modem to another computer, today we have LAN’s, before we have huge PC today we could fit laptops in our book bags, and the list could go on and on.

I make this reference because couple of weeks ago I was discussing with one of my co-workers the future of technology and where we leading to. We made the point and came to the conclusion that if the last 20 years of technology have been amazing like my “friend” Bill Gates said: “In the next 20 we will accomplish 4 times what we did in the last 20 years”. It sound scary, but we analyze and look very careful how well prepare kids are today in terms of technology we can not expect less, I mean in the present we have 12 years old kids that easily could do basic motion in flash. You compare this with my generation we badly used to see computers in movies; it was like another world that we could not reach, and let’s not forget the fact that this coming generation has a whole industry already set, that support any improvements and their new ideas.

After thinking deeply my question still prevail how much we could achieve in this coming 20 years?

Give me a T1
Is not a secret that technology has been growing enormously this past two decades, making the human more dependable of infinitive devices, from PDAs to amazing high resolution TVs.
Everything seems that it just going up and keeps growing making us more and more attach to technology and the comfort that it bring us new mp3 players thanks to nanotechnology, like IPod, Zune and other. We could also see promising products that require more memory. In my opinion all this sounds great, since every day the price of hard drives, and memory ram is more accessible to our pockets.
If you ask me…I will say everything in the technology area is growing simultaneously for the good of us, except a very important and key aspect in the developing of technology, internet speed. I remember when we customers could it move up from dial up to cable and DSL. Now we are in a position where we have bigger files, more complex websites, which require a lot of speed, and even worse, we already reading of ideas of live operating systems that just require us to log in to server. I believe is time that we customer could have access to a T1, wit an affordable price, is also refreshing to see Verizon with Fios, I personally haven’t test it, but I think we are due to more speed, to satisfy the new challenges and advances of the technology.
Another issue is our bureaucracy in our congress; we in United States are staying behind when it comes to internet speed access, compare with countries like Japan, China and the rest of Europe, in my personal experience, I was witness of the speed and access of internet in Japan, and in Spain. You probably will say that this will cost, but is more about policies of our government, for example the city of Philadelphia suppose to become the first city in the world to have wireless internet for the public in 2006, all the design and infrastructure was already set, but the congress outlaw it arguing that will put in risk against terrorism.
I think the access and resource to bring competitive prices for internet through T1 are there, is just a bunch of laws and rules that stop it.