Originally published on Medium.com [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="291"] The author, age 22, circa 1979[/caption] The recent avalanche of #MeToo recollections has kicked me back in time to my salad days, more than 40 years ago, when a much older, closeted male boss asked me to perform oral sex on him. Despite its...
We have just entered a period of potentially enormous social turmoil. But like the 1960’s, this new season of social angst and struggle could also set the stage for some unexpectedly positive outcomes, this time, by transforming labor markets and business ownership structures. In fact, as 2017 starts, there are...
If you want to read the five ideas first, skip to the Five Ideas heading below. If you want to know why I wrote this, start here: The outcome of the 2016 election was politically crushing for me and for many progress-minded activists. But I also have a personal reason to...
The annual Open Education Conference, which is coming up again next month, may be the world’s fastest-growing academic meeting. Scheduled this year for early November in Richmond, Virginia, the conference will open its doors 13 years after the first such gathering was conjured into existence by then-Utah State University Assistant...
Hillary Clinton’s statement today about jobs and the economy, which she made during her first stop as the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, inadvertently gave millions of unemployed and underemployed American workers another reason to keep the race against Republican lunatic Donald Trump closer than it should be. I winced...
Earlier this week, California Governor Jerry Brown did something that will put thousands of dollars into the pockets of California community college students. The cash will arrive in the form of direct out-of-pocket savings as California joins Virginia and 38 community colleges in other states that are rolling out Zero...
Silicon Valley is buzzing today over the release of SLAVER(tm), a new iPhone app that promises to bring back slavery with greater convenience than ever before. “Our goal is to change the world,” says company co-founder Thad Techsmart, wearing his standard attire, black T-shirt, black pants, black shoes, black socks...
The Association of American Publishers, which represents college textbook publishers, just wrote an inadvertently funny letter to California Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. By misspelling common words, including some typos, and making other factual errors the publishers have accidentally made a case for the very same quickly-fixable open educational resources (OER)...
Everyone wants to be a successful venture capitalist. That’s the conclusion I draw from written protests lodged with the U.S. Department of Education by several higher education groups to a sensible and arguably long overdue rule change proposed late last year by the Obama administration. The Obama administration’s goal, which...
At last, we have evidence of a skills gap (shoemaking)! I had to clip this ad that ran today in our local daily newspaper, the Palo Alto Post, for the edification of the D.C. and corporate policy elite who stubbornly maintain that the so-called "skills gap" is a major problem...
One of the best things about having been a member of the Obama administration was the chance it gave me to see history unfold close up. For example, I remember the night when my heroic friend Bob Shireman, then-deputy under secretary of education, sprinted back to the U.S. Department of...
We should modernize how we approach testing in our public schools and colleges. Think about flight simulators. When U.S. Navy instructors train a new pilot they would never dream of giving her the keys to a $300 million fighter jet if she gets a passing score on a bubble (multiple choice)...
In a previous post, I expressed my dismay that President Obama and Vice President Biden have allowed their administration's victory on open educational resources (OER) to go unclaimed. It's not just a matter of failing to take a bow for a significant win. The larger problem is that by ignoring...
Today's LA Times carries a major expose on President Reagan's so-called Star Wars program, which I first investigated nearly 30 years ago. The paper's conclusion: most of the $10 billion spent to date has been wasted. That is exactly what the experts I profiled predicted back in 1986. Imagine what we...
I was saddened to see President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan try to raise the Zombie Skills Gap argument from the grave again last week. I won't mince words. The claim that there are millions of open jobs that no Americans are qualified to fill is complete hogwash....
If you want to cut to the chase to see what this is all about click here. Here's the Full Monty...
New America Foundation's Lindsey Tepe is a terrific new voice in D.C. policy circles. Lindsey is a Teach for America veteran who taught fifth and sixth grade in Chicago before getting hooked up with New America's highly respected education policy group. What has me over the top, though, is her...
Here is a link to the winning three-minute short from the Why Open Education Matters video competition I helped organize during my service as a Senior Policy Advisor in the U.S. Department of Education. I'm quite proud of this video. It does a great job, as do the two runners-up...
One thing that gets me really excited is when someone demonstrates how leadership can happen in the age of the Internet. I don't know anyone who has illuminated this better than my friend, Larry Lessig. Rootstrikers is a case in point. Day after day I am blown away by Rootstrikers....
One of the best parts of the last five years was the chance I had to travel around the country and even around the world on occasion representing the Obama administration. I'd meet new people and learn new things. In most cases, I was expected to give a little speech...
It's been nearly six years since I blogged regularly. But before I can get started again, I have to do something first. Which is to thank and acknowledge my (wo)mentor, role model, friend, and collaborator, former U.S. Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter. I worked with Martha for nearly 10...
My cousin, sociologist Jeff Weintraub, just forwarded a highly informative post, must reading, excerpting the work of his friend, Lane Kenworthy. Both deserve praise for bringing scholarly attention to a topic that often gets ignored or denied here in Silicon Valley. Perhaps some facts will help. Couldn't hurt. Here are...
www.cahealthcarecoalition.org Hospital admissions are arguably the earliest, best and fairest indicator of a local health system’s performance and the effectiveness of health plans in managing care. Here’s why: · Research shows that hospital admission rates for medical and surgical admissions vary enormously within and across cities, states and regions. For example, women...
President Obama's announcement yesterday of his community college initiative represents the most significant national leadership in the area of access to higher education in more than a generation. The proposal includes a request for a $500 million dollar investment to pay for the creation of open education courses, which will...
The following is the eulogy for Robert Kennedy given by his brother, Sen. Edward Kennedy at the public memorial service held on June 8, 1968, at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, Mr. President: On behalf of Mrs. Kennedy, her children, the parents and sisters of Robert...
From the proposal: Create a New Online Skills Laboratory: Online educational software has the potential to help students learn more in less time than they would with traditional classroom instruction alone. Interactive software can tailor instruction to individual students like human tutors do, while simulations and multimedia software offer experiential learning....
Today's issue of Politico features an excellent Op-Ed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan. I'm not sure how long it will be online so I've cut and pasted it below. You can read the whole thing in its original form here. Moving college into the 21st century By: Sec. Arne Duncan October 1, 2009...
The White House blog has an exchange of letters you really must read. In the first one, business leaders used to throwing their weight around demand an end to the Obama White House policy that has banned lobbyists from serving on federal boards and commissions. In the second letter, White...
Former San Jose Mercury News editor and columnist John Fensterwald just debuted a new blog that is bound to be worth reading. John was often on the front lines of worthwhile reform efforts and is one of the most knowledgeable journalists/experts in the Bay Area on a wide variety of...
Few of us get to see our fondest dreams realized. This announcement, below, represents the culmination of years of effort by a small group of committed individuals who overcame what at times appeared to be insurmountable obstacles to push forward an idea whose time had come. The result promises to...
Excerpted from today's Washington Post (read the original article here). Education Secretary Pushes to Revise Student Loan Practices By Nick Anderson Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, February 10, 2010; A15 Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Tuesday urged the Senate to overhaul student lending, asserting that the banking industry has had "a free ride from taxpayers...
The White House and the Department of Education recently released several new documents that explain President Obama's proposal to save taxpayers roughly $80 billion dollars over the next ten years by reforming and improving the way federal student loans are made -- and how those savings will be used to...
Just learned my recent talk at the annual Big Ideas Fest is now online (and yes, I know I need to lose some weight!)...
My old friend, mentor and former colleague, Harris Mankin, passed away recently. You may have known him by another name (see the list and obit below, courtesy of Brian Rhea). Harry would have wanted his obit published far and wide. He was somebody. The world is a smaller and less...
Few things upset me more than the free pass many media outlets give to people who say things that are just not true. In many cases, these untruths often serve some larger purpose for their purveyors. Savvy CEO's, for example, have often stampeded public agencies into decisions that fatten corporate...
Jon Stewart is our modern Will Rogers. He should have a medal pinned on his chest. In this short segment, he illuminates the use of the classic guilt by association smear tactic so often employed by Fox News: ...
I'm pleased and proud to note Creative Commons recent publication of my "Free to Learn: An Open Educational Resources Policy Development Guidebook for Community College Governance Officials," which has already been linked here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here....
Excerpted from New Job-Training and Education Grants Program Launched. "Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan ushered in a new era of hope and opportunity for millions of Americans today when they revealed the innovative application criteria for the first $500 million in grants under the four-year,...
At the precise moment when government agencies should be using available technologies to lower costs and increase access to high quality educational opportunities -- at the very moment when that may well be our most pressing public need -- California is about to take a giant leap backward by ditching...
Kevin Carey, the Public Policy Director for Education Sector, an independent think tank in Washington, DC, has the best coverage yet of what I've been up to recently. Excerpt: In the late days of March 2010, Congressional negotiators dealt President Obama's community-college reform agenda what seemed like...
Visit the contest website at Why Open Education Matters.org Read the official Department of Education blog post here....
An Open Letter to Foothill-De Anza Faculty Members inviting your participation in a higher education revolution Spring 2004 Dear Foothill-De Anza Faculty Member: As you may know, in response to my request the Foothill-De Anza Board of Trustees recently asked Chancellor Martha Kanter and her staff to begin work on formulating a new...
Visit the contest website at Why Open Education Matters.org Read the official Department of Education blog post here....
At the precise moment when government agencies should be using available technologies to lower costs and increase access to high quality educational opportunities -- at the very moment when that may well be our most pressing public need -- California is about to take a giant leap backward by ditching...
Kevin Carey, the Public Policy Director for Education Sector, an independent think tank in Washington, DC, has the best coverage yet of what I've been up to recently. Excerpt: In the late days of March 2010, Congressional negotiators dealt President Obama's community-college reform agenda what seemed like...
Tuesday, March 29, 2011 I'm happy to note that my upcoming talk at Google corporate headquarters in Mountain View is free and open to the public. Seats are limited, however, and you do have to register in advance to get thru the security rigmarole. Here are the details: ...
Excerpted from New Job-Training and Education Grants Program Launched. "Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan ushered in a new era of hope and opportunity for millions of Americans today when they revealed the innovative application criteria for the first $500 million in grants under the four-year,...
I'm pleased and proud to note Creative Commons recent publication of my Free to Learn: An Open Educational Resources Policy Development Guidebook for Community College Governance Officials," which has already been linked here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here....
Few things upset me more than the free pass many media outlets give to people who say things that are just not true. In many cases, these untruths often serve some larger purpose for their purveyors. Savvy CEO's, for example, have often stampeded public agencies into decisions that fatten corporate...
Jon Stewart is our modern Will Rogers. He should have a medal pinned on his chest. In this short segment, he illuminates the use of the classic guilt by association smear tactic so often employed by Fox News: ...
My old friend, mentor and former colleague, Harris Mankin, passed away recently. You may have known him by another name (see the list and obit below, courtesy of Brian Rhea). Harry would have wanted his obit published far and wide. He was somebody. The world is a smaller and less...
Excerpted from today's Washington Post (read the original article here). Education Secretary Pushes to Revise Student Loan Practices By Nick Anderson Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, February 10, 2010; A15 Education Secretary Arne Duncan...
Former San Jose Mercury News editor and columnist John Fensterwald just debuted a new blog that is bound to be worth reading. John was often on the front lines of worthwhile reform efforts and is one of the most knowledgeable journalists/experts in the Bay Area on a wide variety...
Today's issue of Politico features an excellent Op-Ed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan. I'm not sure how long it will be online so I've cut and pasted it below. You can read the whole thing in its original form here. Moving college into the 21st century ...
The Berkman Center at Harvard recently posted a nice write up on the early history of Open Education Resources and community colleges. While flattered, the review largely omits the critical role played by many other individuals who gave OER the running start at our community colleges that helped to successfully...
The White House blog has an exchange of letters you really must read. In the first one, business leaders used to throwing their weight around demand an end to the Obama White House policy that has banned lobbyists from serving on federal boards and commissions. In the second...
From the proposal: Create a New Online Skills Laboratory: Online educational software has the potential to help students learn more in less time than they would with traditional classroom instruction alone. Interactive software can tailor instruction to individual students like human tutors do, while simulations and multimedia software offer experiential learning....
The following is the eulogy for Robert Kennedy given by his brother, Sen. Edward Kennedy at the public memorial service held on June 8, 1968, at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, Mr. President: On behalf of Mrs. Kennedy, her children, the parents and sisters of Robert...
President Obama's announcement yesterday of his community college initiative represents the most significant national leadership in the area of access to higher education in more than a generation. The proposal includes a request for a $500 million dollar investment to pay for the creation of open education courses, which will...
I can finally confirm some great news. I have been offered and have accepted a position in the administration of President Barack Obama as a senior policy adviser in the Department of Education. I'll be sworn in at the LBJ DOE building in DC on Monday, July 13. We'll be...
May 05, 2009 I like and respect Carl Guardino a lot. Guardino is the CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group (which was formerly known as the Silicon Valley Manufacturers Group). Carl represents many of the area's leading employers. He and his group of activist CEOs have accomplished many good things...
May 11, 2009 Great news. "Heist," the documentary film project supported by ReelChanges.org about the calamity on Wall Street, co-produced by HBO vets Donald Goldmacher and Frances Causey, pulled in $30,000 today from a single donor! That makes "Heist" the most successful project in the short history of our start-up non-profit organization,...
"Heist," the new documentary film project produced by Donald Goldmacher that documents "how Wall Street pulled off the greatest theft in history," has become the single most successful ReelChanges.org documentary project so far, pulling in $5000 in just one day (yesterday). Woohoo! ReelChanges.org is a project of the Center for Media Change,...
President Obama's decision to name Foothill-De Anza Chancellor Dr. Martha Kanter to be the next Undersecretary of Education will change the course of history. Dr. Kanter's appointment was announced this morning by Education Secretary Arne Duncan and confirmed this afternoon by the White House. This may be President Obama's most...
Special thanks to CURRENT reporter Karen Everhart for her very nice write up about ReelChanges.org in the PBS trade journal's most recent issue. Karen captured both the factual details about what we are doing and the context within the world of public broadcasting, where the public is usually not invited...
CBS 60 Minutes just pulled their entire April 19th episode, which contained their controversial segment on cold fusion research, off the web sometime tonight. Curiously, at present they still feature a promo tab for the 4/19 show referencing the cold fusion report on the 60 Minutes homepage, but when clicked...
This stunning article in the most recent issue of The Atlantic reinforces what I had to say here and here and here. The author, Simon Johnson, is a professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management who was the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund during 2007 and 2008. March 17,...
March 17, 2009 My oldest friends and readers will be most amused by today's column in SFGate.com (yes, my old publisher) about David Cohn's Spot.us, which is a project of our Center for Media Change, Inc. Here is my favorite part: In thinking about how to make the editorial model more "dynamic,"...
March 06, 2009 Free Textbooks at Foothill-De Anza: First Annual Report Three years ago, at my request, the Foothill-De Anza Community College District Board of Trustees enacted the first ever Policy on Public Domain Learning Materials in the country. The policy made providing support to faculty who wish to create, use, or...
March 02, 2009 This outrageous news just in from Larry Lessig: Right now, there's a bizarre proposal in Congress to forbid the government from requiring scientists who receive taxpayer funds for medical research to publish their findings openly on the Internet. This ban on "open access publishing" (which is currently required) would...
I don't usually offer professional recommendations in this space, but my dear friend, San Jose personal injury attorney Dick Alexander, is the subject of a new video that will be of interest to anyone who needs or knows anyone who needs a personal injury attorney. Dick's been my close friend...
February 26, 2009 My previous posts on the credit crisis have been getting so many hits I'll weigh in on that topic again with a brief observation and a very simple proposal. First, the observation: Most of the talking heads attribute the current credit crisis to the housing bubble, the sub-prime loan...
February 26, 2009 My previous posts on the credit crisis have been getting so many hits I'll weigh in on that topic again with a brief observation and a very simple proposal. First, the observation: Most of the talking heads attribute the current credit crisis to the housing bubble, the sub-prime loan...
February 24, 2009 We got a nice little mention in Edward Helmore's column in the Guardian today. Excerpt: Spot.Us first solicits ideas for investigative stories, then uses an approach called "crowdfunding" to send a reporter out. "We distribute the cost of hiring a journalist across a lot of different...
February 14, 2009 Crowd-funding has come to public television! I'm pleased to announce that the collaboration between our non-profit organization, the Center for Media Change, Inc. and our ReelChanges.org project, and Maryland Public Television (MPT) hits the airwaves starting on Monday. At that time, MPT will start airing the following 15-second...
It took us a day or two longer than we had hoped but I am happy to report that ReelChanges is back in business after the nasty Denial of Service (DOS) attack that shut us down on XMAS eve. I'm still trying to get to the bottom of what happened,...
December 26, 2008 Well, I guess it had to happen. Some malicious idiot picked XMAS eve to stage a DOS brute force attack on ReelChanges.org and successfully took the site down this morning. We're currently working with our ISP to restore service as quickly as possible but I have been advised...
December 19, 2008 Bernie Madoff isn't alone. In recent weeks, as the so-called "credit crisis" has unfolded, we've seen evidence of a catastrophic failure of leadership at the highest levels of our country in both government and industry. Apologists are sure to blame the usual suspects: "a few bad apples." But...
Some great news to report about something we've been working on for months. Today, we received the official word that it is okay to announce that our Center for Media Change, Inc. project, ReelChanges, has just won a highly-coveted Public Media Innovation grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in...
And while I am it there is another thing that really bothers me about the current federal government bailout of the banking sector. Financial services firms such as Citigroup are failing because their business model does not work. Now, who would have ever guessed that a business model based on charging...
November 24, 2008 As a longtime economics and financial correspondent, I am just stunned reading today's news. Totally and completely flabbergasted. November began with us watching the global financial system starting to melt down. But it is ending with what appears to be the near-total collapse of the U.S. economy itself,...
I bet I am not the only person cheering this week at the news that the nation's largest credit card company, Citibank, may soon go broke and shut down. I closed all my Citibank accounts a few months ago (I had several) after a company representative lied to me, flat...
The scariest thing about the current global economic crisis is the look of uncertainty and sometimes even panic in the eyes of many of those who are supposed to fix the problem. They clearly don't have much of a clue. So, how could we solve the credit crunch? Really, what...
November 14, 2008 My friend and colleague, Spot.US founder David Cohn, wrote an inspired blog post today about the future of journalism and our shared responsibilities as citizens. An excerpt: What we need is inspiration, hope, a belief that yes "journalism will survive the death of its institutions."...
Some good news: Arthur Nicholls' documentary project on the recent expansion of federal executive branch power is the first ReelChanges project to bring in more than $2000 in donations. Nicholls banked most of that cash in the last ten days. His success is heartening and offers some object lessons to...
September 09, 2008 Please check out and then, if you possibly can, make a generous contribution today to Melitta Tchaicovsky's fascinating and important documentary film project, "B'nai Darfur (Sons of Darfur)," now featured on ReelChanges.org. Tchaicovsky's project is really a perfect example of why we created ReelChanges. And why I hope...
August 24, 2008 Many thanks to Gale Holland at the Los Angeles Times for her story this week about our Community College Consortium for Open Education Resources, one of the fruits of the policy on public domain learning materials I worked to enact as a community college trustee. Here is a...
David Cohn's Spot.Us, is featured in a wonderful story in today's New York Times. Spot.Us is fiscally sponsored by the Center for Media Change,. Inc., the non-profit I created to get ReelChanges.org off the ground. David is really quite brilliant so it is great to see him getting this attention....
August 05, 2008 ReelChanges.org's homepage already has a full roster of high-quality documentary projects! The response has been pretty overwhelming. One thing I've discovered over the past few weeks, though, is that if I have to explain what we are doing I am usually talking to the wrong people. The right...
May 01, 2008 We launched ReelChanges.org today. I could not be more excited or more proud. It's the project I've been dropping hints about in this space for months. Given the trailblazing nature of our venture, I never knew exactly how much I should say or write about what we were doing before...
April 14, 2008 Jokerman by Bob Dylan is one of my favorite songs of all time. A good friend just passed along this wonderful version: What an incredible talent. We won't see his likes again....
March 24, 2008 I hope today's news today that Google has written a formal letter to the Federal Communications Commissions requesting permission to use so-called "white space" spectrum on an unregulated basis is the first shot in a long overdue legal fight to free our nation's airways from unnecessary, counterproductive over-regulation...
March 21, 2008 I went shopping yesterday at Fry's and online to replace my less than 2-year old Sony Vaio desktop PC after its very large and very unreliable hard drive went fully belly up, clunk, scrape, blue screen of death and all (yes, I was reasonably fully backed up, whew,...
March 18, 2008 I've been wanting to suggest this for quite some time, so here goes. Memo to bloggers everywhere, on both the Left and the Right: Please, let's all drop the misleading and unhelpful acronym "MSM" from our shared vocabularies as bloggers and use the term "Corporate-Owned News Media" or "CONM" (pronounced...
March 15, 2008 Is anyone else getting just a little bit sick of the corporate news media's relentless guilt by association smears on Senator Barack Obama? After months of pummeling him with charges that did not stick, his critics have evidently decided one way to cut him down to size is...
March 13, 2008 I just learned that Blogged.com has named my humble little outpost in the blogosphere the 10th best blog focused on higher education policy issues. Poking around, I also found out I am 12th on their list of best blogs with content related to the Democratic Party and, by...
March 04, 2008 Some of my friends recently created a new website that focuses on Senator Barack Obama's appeal to working families. In addition to trying to perform a public service, I think they also want to give the Obama campaign a new online resource they can use as the two...
March 01, 2008 I hate to sound like a Hillary basher. Really, I am not. In fact, I used to truly admire the woman. But I'm simply astonished that she has stooped to Karl Rovian fear-mongering tactics in her now desperate bid to derail the Obama juggernaut. New...
My cousin, sociologist Jeff Weintraub, just forwarded a highly informative post, must reading, excerpting the work of his friend, Lane Kenworthy. Both deserve praise for bringing scholarly attention to a topic that often gets ignored or denied here in Silicon Valley. Perhaps some facts will help. Couldn't hurt. Here are...
February 20, 2008 Today's news that Stanford University plans, at long last, to waive tuition for students from lower and middle income families is so overdue, so incredibly overdue, the appropriate response is not "right on!" but "what on earth took them so long?" Along with many others, I started pushing for...
February 14, 2008 I managed to watch a bit of today's congressional memorial service for Tom Lantos. The speakers included rock star Bono, the Secretary General of the United Nations, the Speaker of the House, the Chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the Secretary of State, among others....
March 08, 2008 Okay, so I was wrong. I thought voters would see right through Senator Hillary Clinton's fear-mongering "kitchen-sink" tactics, and particularly that deplorable "it's 3 A.M" ad she ran, and toss her to the curb in Texas and Ohio. Instead, her tactic of literally scaring up votes still works...
I cringed yesterday as I watched Senators Obama and Clinton duke it out in Ohio over who is more anti-NAFTA. The whole thing left me wondering if the candidates realize they may be jeopardizing their ability to win California in the general election. To be sure, the stridently anti-NAFTA rhetoric...
January 25, 2008 Here is the question I submitted for the upcoming Democratic presidential debate sponsored by CNN and Politico.com: Many parents of young daughters would love to see a woman become president. But we want our daughters to know that they can do so based on their...
January 11, 2008 There's been lots of talk lately that the GOP may be heading for a possible brokered presidential nominating convention. I don't think that will happen. Instead, I suspect the GOP candidates who lose the next few primaries will have trouble raising the cash they need to compete in...
Thanks to the editors at the San Jose Mercury News for printing the Op Ed I wrote with Rich Hansen, President of the Foothill-De Anza Faculty Association, in support of Proposition 92 on the Feb. 5th California state presidential primary ballot. The op ed follows: Community college...
I did not originally support Senator Barack Obama for president primarily for one reason. I didn't think he could win. I simply did not believe, perhaps I would not let myself believe, that the same electorate that twice put the likes of George W. Bush into the White House would...
I've been thinking a lot about Junk Media lately. I even thought I might have coined the term until I learned that Ed R. Taylor, among others perhaps, got there first. Turns out there is even a JunkMedia website which, paradoxically, is the exact opposite of its moniker's connotation. Maybe that's...
December 02, 2007 This morning, ABC.com censored me! Here is what happened. ABC.com just ran this highly inflammatory story implying racism on the part of Senator Joe Biden. I commented on the story in their comments section and saw my comment published on their site and then, a few minutes later, deleted from...
November 28, 2007 From today's issue of Editor and Publisher: ...
November 09, 2007 I've learned a lot by reading Marketwatch tech columnist John C. Dvorak over the years. So I was pretty surprised to see him get it entirely wrong when it came to the recent dramatic, even historic, grilling of Yahoo's founder and CEO Jerry Yang and company General Counsel...
October 31, 2007 My voice mail service failed for some reason today, leaving me three partial messages from people whose voices I did not recognize (two female, one male). The messages cut off after a few seconds each so I could not get names or numbers and when I tried to...
October 24, 2007 After getting, I kid you not, 15 different excuses for service failures this year I finally dumped my longtime web hosting company, the reliably unreliable AIT, and moved my site to Hostgator, which came well-recommended despite its silly name. In the process of researching all this I read...
October 20, 2007 Dump Comcast. The news that Comcast is already blocking certain Internet traffic based on its content confirms that the battle to prevent a corporate takeover of the Internet is now underway. The big issue is data and network neutrality. Without data neutrality there is no Internet. Instead, what's...
October 12, 2007 I snapped this shot of my wife, Loren, with former Vice President Al Gore just a few hours before he won the Nobel Peace Prize. What a lasting disgrace that this good, decent and gifted man, who everyone agrees won the most votes in the 2000 presidential election,...
September 28, 2007 Some wonderful news: During our closing session at David Wiley's Conference at Utah State today a senior official from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation announced that ADA-compliance will be a feature of Yale University's eagerly-anticipated Open Education Pilot Project release of three full undergraduate courses in its...
September 26, 2007 These days, it often seems that the only time I can find time to update my blog is when I'm on the road. That's the case this time, anyway. Such is life with a rambunctious, engaging almost three-year old in the house. To be honest, the truth is...
1) How will the OpenCourseWare movement sustain itself over the long-term without dramatically increased participation by public sector higher education institutions in the United States? 2) If the OpenCourseWare movement has two possible paths to sustainability to consider, and one involves a deep relationship with the formal public higher education system...
March 02, 2007 Last week, our wonderfully dedicated and whip smart Silicon Valley legislator, Assemblyman Ira Ruskin, introduced Assembly Bill 577, which would establish an Open Education Resources (OER) Center for the California community colleges as a pilot project within the Foothill-De Anza Community College District. Ira is the second state...
February 27, 2007 Today's New York Times' article by Kenneth Chang on "table-top" fusion research marked a milestone. Reading it, I just had to grin from ear to ear. To be sure, the article left out a lot of important material -- and begged a few pretty significant questions it did...
February 22, 2007 League for Innovation OER Links Here is a link to the back-up material for my presentation on Open Education Resources (OER) at the League for Innovation in the Community Colleges CEO/Board Chair retreat in San Diego. These materials were prepared for a different meeting (ACCT) and cover OER policy...
February 14, 2007 Run, don't walk, get a good seat and get ready to laugh til you cry if you ever have a chance to see former Democratic National Committee Chair Terry McAuliffe speak. I had my first chance to hear him give a talk earlier this week and he was,...
February 12, 2007 By the way, if anyone is traveling to Washington, D.C. you should ask if they have finished the interior renovations before you pay a penny to stay at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. The loud hammering in the room just above me started at 7AM. Meanwhile, the bathroom...
February 10, 2007 I'm in Washington, D.C. today, attending my first meeting as a newly appointed Associate Member of the Association of Community College Trustees' (ACCT) Public Policy Committee (whew, try typing that sometime). The organization has an important national voice on community college and overall economic development issues. There were,...
February 08, 2007 Just hours after I posted this, Purdue finally announced the results of its investigation into this matter, exonerating Dr. Taleyarkhan. On a related note, as a journalist who has covered this controversial topic I feel a personal debt of gratitude to Science magazine editor Donald Kennedy, who recently backed...
February 06, 2007 Like many others, I was intrigued when Science magazine published a controversial paper in 2002 by Dr. Rusi Taleyarkhan, then a scientist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, who claimed that nuclear fusion had been achieved in a desk-top device through a process known as sonoluminescence. Taleyarkhan was...
January 31, 2007 I've admired Joe Biden for a long time. Year after year, on issue after issue, he's stood up for progressive values, inclusion and social justice. He's a smart and experienced leader. This excerpt of his recent Meet the Press interview avaliable on Youtube is a good example. I...
January 29, 2007 President Bush has repeatedly said that Democratic Party leaders and other opponents of his actions in Iraq have a responsibility to do more than just criticize his plan for a troop surge. Instead, he says, critics of his policies should offer up their own plan. Bush has a...
January 27, 2007 A new friend just turned me on to Kiva.org. Wow. The site reminds me how more and more these days we are seeing the Internet finally living up to its earliest promise and potential and roots as a tool designed to nurture more advanced forms of human cooperation...
December 27, 2005 Earlier this month, County Supervisor Jim Beall and I sent written invitations to the leadership of every public agency in our County, including cities, school districts and special districts inviting them to designate a representative to attend the initial organizing meeting of the Santa Clara County Health Benefits...
December 20, 2006 The San Jose Mercury News kindly published my op ed on Public Domain Textbooks and Community Colleges today, as follows: The Public Policy Institute of California's recent study into the shortcomings of our state's community college system highlighted some alarming data: While most students enter...
December 14, 2006 To answer that question, yes, I think Yahoo! is the next AOL. Apart from the shady bookkeeping - which AOL engaged in and Yahoo! has not - at least as far as I know, the similarities are striking. Like AOL a few years back, Yahoo! is another big name...
November 27, 2006 I guess it had to happen, but the big telephone companies and cable TV firms, which have a virtual monopoly on high-speed Internet access, have now brazenly played the race card (the race card!) in their fight against Network Neutrality. In a shamefully misleading editorial that appeared in...
October 26, 2006 Just back from co-leading sessions on Open Educational Resources and the role of community colleges at the annual meeting of the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT) in Orlando, Florida and the League of Innovation in the Community Colleges in Charlotte, North Carolina. I'm pleased to report that...
September 30, 2006 I'm just back from the annual Open Education Conference sponsored by the Center for Open and Sustainable Learning and led by the brilliant David Wiley on the lovely and scenic campus of Utah State University in Logan, Utah. The good news is Wiley's conference once again brought together,...
September 28, 2006 Seven full years after a columnist working for SFGate.com (okay, me) first suggested it, U.C. Berkeley has finally begun broadcasting some class lectures online. My question: what on earth took them so long? Public institutions of higher education have a responsibility to do all they can to facilitate access...
September 21, 2006 This week's initial meeting of the Santa Clara County Health Benefits Coalition went quite nicely. About 35 people attended the meeting, which was held in our Foothill-De Anza Community College District board room. Present were most members of the coalition as well as a few non-members in the...
September 15, 2006 Several people have emailed with a variation on the same question: when reporters disguise their identity to get a story, aren't they "pretexting?" The answer is no. At least, not as the term has been used to describe what the investigators working for H-P did. It is not currently illegal...
September 13, 2006 The clarification offered this morning that H-P's Board Chair Patricia Dunn will not be resigning her seat on the Board of Directors at H-P but instead will merely step down as Chair - and that no other resignations or dismissals of anyone involved in the scandal have been...
September 12, 2006 As I read the news this morning about the pending resignation of H-P Board Chair Patricia Dunn I found myself feeling a bit defensive about Silicon Valley's reputation. And then I remembered the real story here. And it is not the story we've been reading about over the...
September 09, 2006 Well, it took just over 24 hours for Hewlett Packard's leadership to back off its original line of defense -- that the actions of its investigators were not "generally unlawful" under current law -- in the so-called "pretexting" scandal. HP's retreat from this indefensible and absurd position is...
September 08, 2006 In a stunning example of group think scores of my brethren in the news media have linked hands and jumped off the same cliff today. I refer, of course, to the widespread coverage of the so-called "pretexting" scandal at Hewlett Packard. Many of these stories (here is one...
August 14, 2006 Now that we have achieved sufficient participation by local agencies to get started, County Supervisor Jim Beall and I are pleased to call the first meeting of our Santa Clara County Health Benefits Coalition Steering Committee. The meeting is set for September 18 from 1:30 to 3:30 PM and...
July 22, 2006 The crisis in the Middle East is certainly dominating news coverage. In a lamentably predictable fashion, however, for the most part, the coverage adds up to little more than a tit-for-tat scorecard. There is little or no background, no context, frequent errors of fact, and, on occasion, some...
July 07, 2006 I thought about writing a long post about the importance of winning the fight to keep the Internet "content neutral" but then came across this short video that lays out the issues better than I can. On a related note, I well recall the widespread outrage generated by my...
April 12, 2006 Please join me in supporting Measure C on the June election ballot. Our locally elected Board of Trustees put the $490 million bond measure before the voters to fund a smart and much-needed long-term, 15-year plan to maintain the physical safety and competitiveness of Foothill College and De...
March 06, 2006 On February 28, 2006, Dr. Martha Kanter, the Chancellor of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District and I traveled to Sacramento to testify before the California State Assembly Committee on Higher Education about the opportunity to create free public domain textbooks. The Committee was holding an informational hearing...
February 01, 2006 Earlier this week, state Controller Steve Westly unveiled an innovative plan to make a free community college education available to every Californian. Westly announced his plan at the Community College League of California's annual Legislative Conference in Sacramento, which I attended. The plan was met with wild enthusiasm,...
January 06, 2006 The initial organizing meeting of the Santa Clara County Health Benefits Coalition took place on Friday, January 6 at the Kirsch Center on the campus of De Anza College in Cupertino. We had nearly 50 attendees representing most of the cities, school and special districts in the county...
November 14, 2005 I have to read a lot of reports, position papers and issue briefings as a college trustee. Sad to say, much of that material is not worth the paper it's written on. That's why I was so pleased to get an advance copy of UCB economics researcher Kevin...
October 13, 2004 I just received an urgent plea for help from my longtime friend Tina Redse who, among other things, is a volunteer with the What If? Foundation, a wonderful group based in Berkeley, California with operations in Haiti that feed poor children. On Wednesday, October 13 Father Jean-Juste, a Haitian...
October 13, 2005 Sorry I have been away so long. And thanks to those who have written to encourage me to get back to blogging. As some of you know, I've been distracted lately, in a quite wonderful way, by our new arrival. Even so, I was ready to start posting...
May 13, 2005 Today's announcement that Cisco Systems wants to establish a new financial market for stock options derivatives is welcome news. The move promises to help restore public confidence in Silicon Valley's battered high-tech sector. The decision is historic. It signals - at long last - a desire on the...
February 14, 2005 The Feb. 9 Health Benefits Forum was a big success. Elected officials and senior managers from more than a dozen local jurisdictions participated, including the County of Santa Clara, the cities of Palo Alto, Redwood City, Saratoga, Sunnyvale, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Santa Clara, as well as...
Earlier this month, County Supervisor Jim Beall and I sent written invitations to the leadership of every public agency in our County, including cities, school districts and special districts inviting them to designate a representative to attend the initial organizing meeting of the Santa Clara County Health Benefits Coalition, the...
February 03, 2005 I am one of the organizers of an upcoming free public forum at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills (February 9, 1-4:30PM, in Appreciation Hall) that is designed to bring local government decision-makers and health care industry experts together to explore the question of how we can keep...
December 27, 2004 An editorial in today's New York Times carries the frightening news that a federal panel is working to grease the skids to make it impossible to detect fraud in future national elections. Here is an excerpt from the editorial: "The Election Assistance Commission, a federal body...
Joi Ito's blog carries the wonderful news that the Library of Congress is working to digitize 30 million old newspaper pages and put them online for entirely free use by educators, students and anyone else interested in the history they reveal. The articles cover the period from 1836 thru 1922 and,...
Several people have asked me whether I believe the election results were valid given my longstanding opposition to the use of electronic voting machines whose results can't be independently verified. I believe in the maxim made famous by former President Ronald Reagan: trust, but verify. This is the first national election in...
Sociologist and political theorist Jeff Weintraub passes along the following timely passage from one of Thomas Jefferson's letters circa 1798 which, as Jeff notes, seems to capture the right spirit for the present moment: "A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over,...
These two charts are definately worth taking a look at. I am interested in knowing if anyone has confirmed or rebutted this information. The first is a chart comparing the exit poll results versus official results in states that used paper ballots vs. states that used unverifiable electronic voting machines. If...
The Social Sciences Research Council recently announced the formation of the National Commission on Elections and Voting to investigate electoral process controversies from the 2004 election. The announcement was made a few days before the election in response to widespread but anecdotal reports of election abnormalities. The Commission's membership includes "18...
The commotion about charges of possible election fraud has obscured one very important fact about last week's election, which is the way President George W. Bush won. He won dirty. In fact, it was the dirtiest, most divisive and unethical national campaign I have seen since, well, since his father,...
The SF-based Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has gathered more than 1600 names on its online petition calling for an independent test of the voting machines used in eight counties where problems were reported during the 2004 presidential election. Here is an excerpt from the EFF press release: "On...
October 23, 2004 When I wrote The Case for Paper Ballots four years ago I thought I had come up with the worst possible scenario: the misuse of outrage over the Florida voting scandal to enable the installation of an even more unreliable and unverifiable computer-based system of voting. Annalee Newitz's article...
October 19, 2004 Salon.com carries news today of another disciplinary action taken against reporters who dared exercise their constitutionally guaranteed rights to free speech and freedom of association. The latest case involves the suspension of reporters Chuck Laszewski and Rick Linsk of the Knight Ridder-owned St. Paul Pioneer Press who attended, on...
October 10, 2004 You ever get the feeling an elephant is sitting in the room and you are one of the few people who can see it? That's the experience I was having last year when community leaders and members of the faculty and staff at Silicon Valley's two community colleges, Foothill...
August 20, 2004 In politics, a debate can often turn on a good euphemism. Take the "peacekeeper missile," for example. That deft turn of phrase by President Reagan enabled a huge increase in the defense budget. Likewise, the clever choice of the words "the patriot act" to describe the Ashcroft agenda...
August 18, 2004 What do Winston Churchill, Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin, Upton Sinclair, Alan Cranston, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Al Gore have in common? All of them were journalists before, and in some cases also after, they became political figures. They are among the hundreds, perhaps thousands of other important leaders who...
August 11, 2004 The news out of Iraq seems to get worse every day. To be sure, the horrific footage we see may not be giving us a full and complete picture of everything that's really happening on the ground. But even if we consider whatever good news we might be...
August 08, 2004 Welcome to my blog. This is a bit of an experiment so I ask visitors to bear with me while I get the hang of this. I've titled this blog "What I Really Want to Say" because that's what I plan to do in this space. That will be...
Tech Futures Where workers and investors will find opportunities in the years ahead Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, November 7, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/11/07/techfut.DTL As the holidays approach, Silicon Valley is brimming with jobless workers and tapped-out investors. Happy chatter about vesting stock options has long since morphed into a cacophony of woe. Today...
Picture This Government Web sites are for the people not incumbent office-holders Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, October 24, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/10/24/govtsites.DTL Quick, what do the Web sites of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors have in common? The answer: Both have been designed with a similar...
Silicon Valley Fights Back Hollywood has a worthy adversary in South Bay Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, October 9, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/10/09/zoelof.DTL In Silicon Valley, where crack computer programmers and networking aces are now competing for jobs waiting tables and tending bar, the connection between government policies that are...
Free Mickey Stanford Law Professor seeks to overturn the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, September 26, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/09/26/bonoact.DTL Opening arguments are set to begin early next month in Eldred vs. Ashcroft, a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that will decide the future of copyright law, including...
Berman-Coble Goes Too Far Legalizing hacking of P2P networks hurts start-ups, not thieves Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, September 12, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/09/12/p2pleg.DTL Longtime congressional veterans Howard Berman (D-Hollywood) and Howard Coble (R-North Carolina) recently coughed up an incredibly vivid example of how easily government officials can unintentionally screw up the economy....
Open-Source Government Free-software guru Bruce Perens has a new information-technology solution Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, August 29, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/08/29/osgovt.DTL One thing most technology experts can agree on is that California's state government has squandered billions on ill-conceived information-technology (IT) projects in recent years. Whether it was the more than $100...
Take The Medicine By not expensing stock options now, tech firms are just prolonging the pain Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, August 15, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/08/15/stckopt.DTL The tech sector's head-in-the-sand reaction to the need to reform stock-option accounting practices is surprising for an industry that likes to pride itself on its supposed...
Not a Moment Too Soon Digiportal's innovative challenge response ChoiceMail program means the end of spam Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, July 30, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/07/30/choicem.DTL For the first time in years, my e-mail inbox is totally and completely spam-free. There are no more ads for penile-enlargement services and no more appeals from...
The Disintermediation Blues On the sad state of online car- and mortgage-buying services Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, July 18, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/07/18/disintermed.DTL Back when the dot-com boom was peaking, there was a lot of talk about how online services would blow away their anachronistic bricks-and-mortar competitors. Some of that has happened....
Taxing Workers Cutting capital gains taxes could hurt Silicon Valley in the long run Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, July 3, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/07/03/capgain.DTL There is an old saying that sometimes a cure can be worse than the disease. Tech investors might be about to get a dose of just that type of...
Fuel Cell Hold-up Government's go-slow approach promises to keep the technology on the shelf Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, June 20, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/06/20/fuelcel.DTL The Bush administration's January announcement of the federal government's new $150 million annual FreedomCAR initiative to support fuel-cell research sounded like good news to many casual observers. After...
Nanotechnology's First Fruits Products nearing market promise to lead the budding industry from hype to reality Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, June 6, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/06/06/nanotch.DTL When most people think about nanotechnology, they usually conjure images of microscopically tiny contraptions such as the invisibly small submarine that was injected into a character's...
Ocean Rescue Planktos Foundation hopes to reduce global warming by fertilizing the seas Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, May 22, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/05/22/plnktos.DTL A group of scientists say it may be possible to simultaneously reduce global warming and increase dwindling supplies of fish around the world by adding relatively tiny amounts...
Hollywood's Way Out New distribution platform is solution for copyright theft Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, May 9, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/05/09/hrdwresol.DTL The debate about what to do about intellectual-property rights in the digital age usually revolves around two starkly different views about how the world should work. One side, led mostly by big...
Shooting Blanks Growing digital rights movement needs to put some political heads on stakes -- fast Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, April 22, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/04/22/geekp.DTL Earlier this month, two prominent members of the open-source-software community, Jeff Gerhardt, host of the online "Linux Show," and Doc Searls, senior editor of The Linux...
Sharing The Airwaves Spread spectrum technology could bring a new dawn for broadcasting Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, April 11, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/04/11/sprdspctrm.DTL Consumer watchdog groups cried foul last February after the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., struck down federal regulations that limited the number of television stations a single...
Cold Fusion Rides Again Science magazine publishes more evidence of tabletop nuclear reactions Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, March 25, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/03/25/tbltpfusion.DTL Science magazine dropped a bombshell earlier this month: The prestigious journal published a paper by a team of researchers at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory who say they have...
Vexing Options Accounting scandal fallout could mean positive changes for workers and investors Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, February 25, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/02/25/stckopt.DTL The golden era of virtually unlimited stock options for top executives may finally be drawing to a close, thanks to the recent accounting scandals at firms such as Enron...
All Hail Creative Commons Stanford professor and author Lawrence Lessig plans a legal insurrection Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, February 11, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/02/11/creatcom.DTL Stanford law professor and author Lawrence Lessig and a small band of collaborators at MIT, Duke, Harvard and Villanova are about to embark on a new endeavor that...
Search Me Doom ahead for search engines that charge listing fees Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, January 28, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/01/28/srcheng.DTL In a regrettable move, Internet pioneer Yahoo! recently joined competitors such as MSN.com, LookSmart and AltaVista in seeking payments from Web sites that want to be included in their online directories. Many...
Political Weapons The missile defense shield will help neutralize the tech sector Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, January 17, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/01/17/missiledef.DTL President Bush's problem-plagued missile-defense initiative promises to dramatically shift the balance of power between the technology community and the federal government. The controversial program has two key ingredients that make that...
Playing The Biotech Boom Picking biotech stocks is not a game for novices Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, December 31, 2001 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/12/31/biotch.DTL The year 2002 is expected to be a banner one for the biotech sector, with more innovative research under way and more new drugs set to reach the market...
The Westly Factor Why a usually obscure state election might matter most for tech firms Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, December 17, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/technology/beat/ Next year's hotly contested race for governor is already beginning to grab the media spotlight. But many Silicon Valley tech leaders are already much more deeply involved...
The "Last Mile" Problem ADCOs could finally bust open the local phone market Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, December 6, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/12/06/adcosbust.DTL At long last, a promising new group of firms with a sound business model might finally be about to crack open local monopoly phone and Internet-access markets to real...
The End Of Hewlett-Packard As We Knew It? Revered company is between a rock and a hard place Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, November 19, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/11/19/hpmerge.DTL The brewing battle over whether Hewlett-Packard should merge with ailing rival Compaq signals a major turning point for the legendary Silicon Valley company. History has...
War Boom More Pentagon spending could actually hurt Silicon Valley Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, October 23, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/10/23/techwar.DTL Shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Congress approved President Bush's request to boost the Pentagon budget roughly 65 percent by 2005 to more than $500 billion. Judging from the recovery...
Energy Independence Now We Need A New Energy Revolution Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, October 4, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/10/04/newenergy.DTL Amid this week's latest batch of unbearably sad stories about the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, one of the most important stories is the one we haven't read. It's the story about...
No Silver Bullets Giving Up Privacy for Security Will Leave Us With Neither Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, September 18, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/09/18/nosilvbullet.DTL The terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center has led to feverish calls for increased government use of electronic-identification technologies that will further weaken privacy rights and undermine longstanding...
Kick 'Em When They're Down Silicon Valley's Usual CEO Excuses Don't Tell the Real Story Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, August 23, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/08/23/ceos.DTL You might think we've heard enough about what's gone wrong in our tattered high-tech economy. After all, hardly a day goes by without fresh reports of corporate...
Slap the PUC It May Be the Last Chance to Protect Independent ISPs From Extinction Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, July 31, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/07/31/pucdsl.DTL The state Public Utilities Commission is expected to rule shortly on a complaint filed last week by independent Internet service providers. The ruling will help determine whether...
Profit from a Shakeout By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Jul 23, 2001 02:41 PM Stocks as a group may well frustrate investors for the next few months. But if past is prologue, today's weakness will translate into tomorrow's strength. You can profit if you pick the most-likely consolidation candidates. "We've seen all this...
CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Jul 19, 2001 11:13 AM [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="230"] SCI Systems 52-week stock performance[/caption] [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="230"] SCI Systems 52-week stock performance[/caption] Sanmina Corp.'s {SANM} purchase of larger rival SCI Systems Inc. {SCI} will create a formidable player in the electronics manufacturing services sector (EMS), but bloated inventories and...
Fund Managers Say: Get Real! By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Jul 13, 2001 03:43 PM Sagging markets make this the time for investors to formulate more realistic long-term investment goals rather than shoot for the moon, according to participants at this week's Franklin Templeton fund manager roundtable forum held in Silicon Valley. Earlier...
The New Napster The Record Industry Has Met its Match Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, July 10, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/07/10/gnucleus.DTL If the recording industry thought Napster was a headache, it's going to get a genuine migraine from the latest version of Gnucleus, a free Windows-based open source software program released last month...
Analysts Predict i2 Comeback By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Jul 9, 2001 11:32 AM i2 Technologies Inc. 52-week stock performance Shares of i2 Technologies Inc. {ITWO} fell 20 percent last week after the company pre-announced a larger-than-expected loss for its fiscal 2001 second quarter ended June 30. But several company watchers from both...
Envision the Tech Rebound By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Jun 6, 2001 04:23 PM For months now, most tech stock analysts have been roughly divided into two camps, those who expect to see a rapid V-shaped recovery in stock prices, which some think has already started, and those looking for a slower...
Isis May Hit Psoriasis Pay Dirt By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Jun 26, 2001 12:00 PM Isis Pharmaceuticals Inc. 5-year stock performance Isis Pharmaceuticals Inc. {ISIP} could get more attention from investors after the firm's weekend announcement that it will commence Phase II clinical testing of a new topical ointment for the treatment...
Oracle Under Pressure By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Jun 22, 2001 09:05 AM Oracle 52-week stock performance Oracle Corp.'s {ORCL} stock moved up roughly 20 percent this week as investors reacted positively to suggestions from the company that its sales slump may be bottoming out. But even analysts who are positive on the...
The Next Frontier The Tech Sector Needs A Nanotechnology Target Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, June 21, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/06/21/nanotech.DTL The sputtering technology community sorely needs a major new catalyst to get growth back on track. Nothing would be better than establishing the national goal of developing a practical, working, cost-efficient nanovehicle within...
PeopleSoft Gaining on Oracle By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Jun 19, 2001 03:47 PM PeopleSoft 52-week stock performance Oracle Corp. {ORCL} got all the attention this week, but several analysts think the comparatively stronger performance at rival Internet software maker PeopleSoft Inc. {PSFT} could be the bigger news in the months ahead. Earlier this...
3 Wireless Plays for 2002 By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Jun 18, 2001 02:11 PM Several analysts say the wireless sector's recent plunge has opened up attractive buying opportunities at some smaller wireless enabling firms such as 724 Solutions Inc. {SVNX}, Aether Systems Inc. {AETH}, and Openwave Systems Inc. {OPWV}. Given current market...
Intel's Visibility Only Half the Battle By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Jun 8, 2001 03:38 PM Investors gave Intel Corp. {INTC} credit this week for accurately predicting the degree to which its business is faltering. That good will won't last long without improved results. On Thursday, Intel held a mid-quarter conference call to...
Cisco's Slide Tech Bellwether Must Find A New Path To Success Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, June 5, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/06/05/cisco.DTL "Are you ready?" As you may recall, industry bellwether Cisco Systems Inc. practically beat that catchy little phrase into our heads last year as part of its since-scaled-back multimillion-dollar TV advertising campaign. One...
What's Next for Microsoft? By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent May 30, 2001 03:36 PM Microsoft Corp. 52-week stock performance Microsoft Corp.'s {MSFT, News, Boards} stock has moved up nicely in recent weeks as investors anticipate the launch of new products and fears recede that the company will be broken up as a result...
Expedia, Travelocity Make the Cut By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent May 25, 2001 03:30 PM Despite earlier concerns, leading financial and industry analysts now say it is increasingly clear that online travel firms Expedia Inc. {EXPE} and Travelocity.com Inc. {TVLY} will be among the handful of Internet operations that will survive, and...
Agile's CEO Speaks By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent May 24, 2001 03:03 PM Agile Software Corp. {AGIL} was in the spotlight again this week when the company reported pro forma net losses for its 2001 fiscal fourth quarter that met recently revised analyst expectations. On a pro forma basis, Agile's losses came...
TiVo's Future in Question By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent May 22, 2001 04:00 PM TiVo Inc. 52-week stock performance Most analysts won't be surprised to see TiVo Inc. {TIVO} post slightly lower than originally forecast losses when the company reports first quarter earnings on Thursday. But the agreement about the prospects for the...
Is AMAT Ahead of Itself? By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent May 18, 2001 03:50 PM Like several other leading names in the semiconductor manufacturing equipment group, Applied Materials Inc.'s {AMAT} stock is up significantly off its recent lows. But at least one prominent analyst is warning that if past is prologue, the...
Uncertainty Lingers for Dell By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent May 17, 2001 08:15 AM Dell Computer Corp.'s {DELL} recent termination of approximately 3000 employees is expected to help the company meet earnings expectations when the firm reports its first quarter performance on Thursday after the market close. But analysts are sharply divided...
Rambus on the Ropes By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent May 15, 2001 02:00 PM The wild ride for Rambus Inc. {RMBS} shareholders may finally be at an end. A federal jury last week found the Los Altos, California-based memory chip design firm guilty of fraud for drafting memory chip patent claims based on...
Free Higher Education MIT's OpenCourseWare Plan Fires the First Real Shot Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, May 10, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/05/10/mit.DTL In news that went largely overlooked a few weeks ago, MIT President Charles Vest announced that the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology plans to make the materials for nearly all of...
No Quick Cisco Fix By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent May 10, 2001 04:34 PM Cisco Systems 52-week stock performance Like jilted suitors returning to a past love, investors have bid Cisco Systems Inc.'s {CSCO} stock up off the bottom it hit last month in hopes the company will ride out its current difficulties...
B2B Death Exaggerated By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent May 8, 2001 04:00 PM Experts say a handful of firms selling private trading network software, such as Manugistics Group Inc. {MANU}, Agile Software Corp. {AGIL} and i2 Technologies Inc. {ITWO}, should find themselves in the business-to-business (B2B) sector's sweet spot during the next...
Exodus May Be at Crossroads By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent May 4, 2001 01:00 PM Exodus Communications 52-week stock performance A handful of optimistic financial analysts are telling investors the worst may now be over for Exodus Communications Inc. {EXDS} shareholders. But several leading industry analysts say they have real doubts about whether...
Siebel's Challenges Grow By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent May 2, 2001 08:15 AM Siebel Systems Siebel Systems Inc.'s {SEBL} stock has doubled over the past month as investors bid it up on the expectation that the company will emerge from the current tech sector shakeout with the winning hand in the online customer...
Mr. Cisco Meet Mr. Avici By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Apr 27, 2001 03:20 PM You probably already know that the economic downturn has been blamed for most of the problems that have depressed the stocks of leading networking equipment suppliers such as Cisco Systems Inc. {CSCO} and Juniper Networks Inc. {JNPR}. What...
Ariba Answers Critics By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Apr 25, 2001 05:00 PM Ariba 52-week stock performance Most experts say don't look for much from Ariba Inc.'s {ARBA} stock over the next few quarters, with some warning that the company's existing product line up might not be enough to assure the firm's long-term...
A Value Manager Names Favorites By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Apr 24, 2001 07:30 AM Successful value investing is all about buying the right stocks and then waiting for the right time to come along, says Bruce Baughman, portfolio manager of the $1.2 billion dollar Franklin Balance Sheet Fund {FRBSX}. Baughman's fund, which...
Desktop Linux Eazel Inc. Could Change the World Or Go Broke Trying Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, April 19, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/04/19/eazel.DTL Those wondering when the technology sector will get off its knees should pay close attention to what happens to tiny startup Eazel Inc. over the next few weeks. The company is...
IBM Still Has Safety Net By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Apr 18, 2001 08:00 AM Investors and corporate customers seeking security in uncertain times are expected to continue to protect International Business Machines Corp.'s {IBM} stock from the steep declines felt elsewhere in the tech sector. IBM reports earnings for its first quarter...
A Potential Biotech Blockbuster By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Apr 13, 2001 08:00 AM ImClone Systems 52-week stock performance Positive preliminary clinical data released this week by ImClone Systems Inc. {IMCL} touched off a buying spree that pushed the volatile stock up roughly 10 percent over two days and led to predictions it...
Worries Linger for Hewlett Packard By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Apr 10, 2001 04:16 PM Hewlett Packard 5-year stock performance Several tech stock specialists say they don't expect to see a sustained recovery in Hewlett Packard Company's {HWP} stock until sometime next year because of sluggish PC demand, tough competition in the UNIX...
Will Sun Warn? By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Apr 6, 2001 03:57 PM JNI Corp. 52-week stock performance Sun Microsystems Inc. supplier JNI Corp.'s recent earnings warning has led to speculation in several quarters that Sun might follow suit with an earnings warning of its own prior to the company's formal announcement of...
What's Next for Yahoo!? By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Apr 5, 2001 08:00 AM Yahoo! 52-week stock performance In an unusual twist, several leading industry analysts paint a rosy long-term picture for Yahoo! Inc. {YHOO} at the precise moment when many usually more positive securities analysts are recommending a hands-off approach to the...
Timing The Tech Stock Recovery Investors Should Trust Themselves, Not The Analysts Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, April 4, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/04/04/techstocks.DTL Given the sharp decline in tech stock prices over the past few months, many of Wall Street's best-known securities analysts are trying to coax wary investors back into the market. Just...
Red Hat: Slow, Steady Progress By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Mar 29, 2001 04:14 PM Red Hat stock performance since IPO Despite a low share price and a lack of attention from many institutional buyers, industry analysts say Red Hat Inc. {RHAT} is making the type of slow but steady progress that should...
Oracle: Another Moment of Truth By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Mar 27, 2001 03:34 PM Oracle 52-week stock performance The analyst, who leaped ahead of the pack in predicting Oracle's recent steep stock decline, remains bearish on the software maker despite the company's continued optimistic projections about its near-term future performance. But unlike last...
Pick of the Week: Coca-Cola By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Mar 26, 2001 07:30 AM Who Timothy Ghriskey, portfolio manager of the $105 million Dreyfus Aggressive Value {DAGVX}fund. Stock Pick Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. {CCE} Recent Price $20.36 Appreciation Potential $30 within 18 months. Reason to Buy Coke's additional $300 to $500 million marketing push expected to boost stock of leading Coke...
Cisco: No Bargain Yet By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Mar 22, 2001 02:32 PM Despite the carnage of recent months, several value fund managers say Cisco Systems Inc.'s {CSCO} stock still has to fall another 50 percent or so from its current level before it would begin to attract meaningful attention from...
In Intel vs. AMD, Neither Wins By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Mar 20, 2001 10:28 AM Stiffening competition between chip giant Intel Corp. {INTC} and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. {AMD} is great for consumers, but not for investors of either stock, say analysts. The very same factors that make this the best time...
Analyst Pick: L-3 Communications By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Mar 19, 2001 08:00 AM Who: John Rutledge, portfolio manager for the Evergreen Tech Fund. Stock Pick: L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. {LLL} Recent Price: $79. Appreciation Potential: Expected to outpace tech stock averages. Reason to Buy: Defensive tech stock play. L-3 Communications 2-year stock performance Investors looking for a...
Can XP Invigorate Microsoft? By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Mar 15, 2001 09:00 AM Microsoft Corp. {MSFT} is billing the pending introduction of its newest personal computer operating system (OS) for consumers and businesses, called Windows XP, as the single most significant upgrade to the firm's product line since the firm's groundbreaking...
Buying The Grid Gov. Davis' Plan Puts Taxpayers on the Wrong Side of Future Technologies Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, March 13, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2001/03/13/electric.dtl Gov. Gray Davis' plan to exploit the current energy crisis by having state taxpayers buy and maintain approximately 24,000 miles of obsolescence-bound electrical transmission lines will hobble...
Valuing VeriSign By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Mar 13, 2001 10:45 AM VeriSign 2-year stock performance It seemed a bit like old times on March 1 when Dain Rauscher Wessels analyst Stephen Sigmond reiterated his firm's "strong buy-aggressive" rating on VeriSign Inc.'s {VRSN} stock, along with a sky-high $185 12-month price target. Although $185...
Some EMS Stocks May Bounce By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Mar 8, 2001 02:10 PM After an interesting and disquieting few months, electronic manufacturing services (EMS) stocks, a soured sweet spot of the technology sector, could be ready to sweeten once more. For only the second time in six and a half years,...
Vignette CEO Counters Critics By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Mar 6, 2001 10:47 AM Vignette's stock got hammered again late last week when analysts at Credit Suisse First Boston and Morgan Stanley joined several others who had downgraded the stock a few weeks earlier. The new downgrades were the latest setback for a...
A Sad Vignette By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Mar 2, 2001 10:51 AM Given the many seemingly positive news reports about Vignette Corp.'s {VIGN} new marketing alliances, you might think the stock is a bargain now that it's trading 95 percent below its 52-week high of 100 a share. But the experts...
ReplayTV vs. TiVo TiVo vs. ReplayTV How One Little Button Could Wipe Out Commercial Television Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, February 27, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2001/02/27/replay.dtl When I went shopping for a digital video recorder (DVR) late last year, the clerk at my local Fry's electronics store told me that the identically priced TiVo...
Straight Story on Align Tech By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Feb 27, 2001 03:58 PM Now that Align Technology Inc.'s {ALGN} post-IPO quiet period has ended, the securities firms who took the company public are out with a series of lengthy initiation reports that suggest the stock is headed for 50 percent or...
Bumpy Flight for Net Travel Stocks By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Feb 26, 2001 09:30 AM Dot-com investors have learned some painful lessons over the past year about the limitations of the Internet, particularly when it comes to selling bulky items like pet food and groceries. That's why many observers predict...
Can Handspring Beat The Odds? By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Feb 12, 2001 08:37 AM Several analysts have been pounding the table hard on Handspring Inc.'s {HAND} stock lately. For tech investors, they say, HAND is the perfect antidote to the personal-computer blahs. While growth in PC sales dipped into single digits...
Webvan's Days Appear Numbered By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Feb 8, 2001 09:00 AM Quick, what are you going to have for dinner a week from now? If you're like most people I know, you haven't got a clue. Now take a good look in the mirror, because consumers like you are the main...
Akamai's Stock Soars Again By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Jan 30, 2001 01:11 PM If you are an arms merchant, you had better be prepared for the next war. That pretty much sums up the challenges facing leading Internet infrastructure providers such as Akamai Technologies Inc. {AKAM}. Akamai is one of a handful of...
Where's The Competition? How California's Leaders Helped Create the Energy Crisis Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, January 25, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2001/01/25/ctc.dtl We all know that when California's Legislature passed the ill-conceived energy deregulation bill in 1996, the stated goal was to reduce electricity prices over time by increasing competition among suppliers. Obviously, it...
New Index May Move Biotechs By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Jan 25, 2001 05:39 PM In the biotechnology arena, the Nasdaq Stock Market is taking on the American Stock Exchange, and, if you own some of these stocks, you might soon end up the winner. On Monday, Nasdaq announced substantial changes in the...
Can Stock Valuations Grow? By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Jan 23, 2001 06:22 PM If the stock market is overvalued, even good stocks are likely to go down. But if the market is fairly valued or undervalued, the most-successful companies will see their stock prices rise from current levels. This is an important...
Aether Systems Inc. Soars Again By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Jan 22, 2001 08:00 AM Aether Systems 5-day stock performance You can add Aether Systems Inc. {AETH} to the list of technology stocks posting double-digit gains over just a few trading sessions. But unlike Microsoft Corp.'s {MSFT} newly revived stock, Aether's stock, which rose...
How IBM Beat Earnings Estimates By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Jan 17, 2001 04:59 PM One-day performance of IBM. International Business Machines Corp. {IBM} exceeded fourth-quarter earnings estimates Wednesday, when it reported that profits rose 28%. Big Blue's stock has soared Thursday, rising as high as 108.50, or about 12%. The Armonk, N.Y.-based company...
IPO Recovery Possible Next Year By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Jan 2, 2001 08:30 AM Krispy Kreme post-IPO stock price In a year that began with investors salivating over the next skyrocketing initial public offering by a hot Internet or telecom company, it is interesting to note that it was the purveyor of...
Contract Manufacturing: A Second-Half Bet (part 2) By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Dec 28, 2000 04:03 PM Michael Morris, an analyst with Salomon Smith Barney, based in San Francisco, also sees Flextronic's stock going up to the mid $70 dollar range over the next 12-18 months. "It's really one of the best times...
No Security for Network Associates' Shareholders By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Dec 27, 2000 03:21 PM Chart: 1-year performance of NETA One-year performance of Network Associates' stock. Network Associates Inc. {NETA} took a bloodbath today after last night's news that the company has a big accounting problem, will post a fourth-quarter loss, and is...
Machine Error The Case for Paper Ballots Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, December 21, 2000 ,/p> URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/12/21/evoting.dtl Now that the jokes about hanging chads are beginning to subside, many are looking to new voting technologies in the hope they will help us clean up the sloppy election procedures that surfaced so alarmingly...
Critical Months Ahead for Oracle By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Dec 21, 2000 03:39 PM Oracle Corp. {ORCL} isn't out of the woods yet. First, the good news: Oracle's shares have risen about 6% since the company reported slightly better-than-expected results for its fiscal second quarter last Friday. Oracle executives also boosted their...
Symantec Charts New Course By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Dec 19, 2000 11:20 AM Symantec Corp. {SYMC}, long known for its market-leading Norton Anti-Virus brand, is in the process of getting a big makeover. The Cupertino, Calif.-based Internet security firm recently announced a dramatic change in its approach to its core anti-virus and...
Power Play: Fuel-Cell Stocks By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Dec 18, 2000 07:30 AM How much would you be willing to pay to keep the lights on? If the answer is "more than I'm paying right now," you might want to take a look at fuel-cell stocks. A number of industry analysts say...
Microsoft Warning No Surprise By Frances Hong and Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Reporters Dec 14, 2000 07:15 PM Given the weakness in the PC market and high-profile warnings by box makers like Compaq Computer Corp. {CPQ} and Gateway Inc. {GTW}, it is no surprise that vendors down the PC food chain would get hit, too. The...
Abgenix: The Mouse That Roars? By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Dec 14, 2000 03:30 PM 52-Week Stock-Performance of Abgenix Inc. You might call Abgenix Inc.'s {ABGX} transgenic rodent the mouse that roars. Although volatile, Abgenix's stock has been one of the biotechnology sector's most-lucrative performers over the past year moving up, though not always...
Will Linux Save Microsoft? By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Dec 8, 2000 01:54 PM In a week when the markets have battered every stock connected with the troubled personal-computer business, it is time to take a look at the company that, more than any other, has defined that industry. I speak, of...
PC Group: Don't Hold Your Breath By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Dec 6, 2000 05:41 PM If you have listened to the experts lately, you might have the idea that the recent slide in PC-related stocks is just another short-term setback. Don't believe it. And don't believe me either. Instead, trust yourself. When it...
TiVo Winning Converts By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Dec 1, 2000 08:00 AM My beloved 75-year-old mother-in-law can finally easily record television programs for later viewing. No blinking "12:00's." No mistakenly recorded static. And without any of the other frustrations that usually accompany first-generation videocassette recorders, such as dealing with those unsightly...
Two Hot Net Technologies To Watch by Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Nov 22, 2000 05:53 PM The death of the dot.com sector has been greatly exaggerated. I know that is cold comfort to investors who bet on the sorry likes of Priceline.com Inc. {PCLN}, Buy.com Inc. {BUYX}, or CMGI Inc. {CMGI}. Setbacks like that...
Technical Correction "The Numbers Guy" And Wall Street Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, November 21, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/11/21/peratio.dtl The stock market's resemblance to a casino is becoming increasingly hard to ignore. It's common these days to see the stocks of respected, big-name firms such as Intel, Oracle and Apple Computer rise or...
Biopure on Verge of Biotech Holy Grail By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent There could be some very good news for biotechnology investors just around the corner. If analysts are right, Cambridge, Mass.-based Biopure Inc. {BPUR} is less than a year away from achieving the long-awaited goal of obtaining government permission to start...
Adobe Systems Corners Its Market By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Sometimes the best investment ideas can be found right in front of you. Several Internet and Web-publishing analysts say that is the case with Adobe Systems Inc. {ADBE}. Adobe Systems 52-week stock price They say it is now virtually impossible for companies to...
Sign of a Top: A VC Fund for Jocks By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Looking back, it’s always easy to pick out the big milestones in technology investing. The first Hewlett Packard calculator to hit university bookstores, for example, or the creation of the wickedly addictive computer game Pong, or the...
Is McAfee the Play in Anti-Virus Stocks? By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent 001110symantec Symantec 52-week stock price Between PC virus scares, most investors probably don't pay too much attention to the stocks of firms that sell virus-protection software. But when a scare does occur, you can usually count on a spike in the...
Time to Sell Solectron, Buy SCI? By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Looks like it might be time to reshuffle your holdings in the highflying electronic-manufacturing services sector. Although no financial analysts will put it quite this bluntly, Solectron Corp. {SLR} is the stock to sell. The stocks to buy: SCI Systems Inc....
"Fiorina's Folly" at Hewlett Packard By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent One-year performance of HWP One of the biggest questions swirling around Silicon Valley these days is whether Hewlett Packard Co.'s {HWP} charismatic chief executive Carly Fiorina is about to take her company to new heights -- or right off a cliff. Many analysts...
IBM Jilts Transmeta at IPO altar By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent If you think of an initial public offering as a kind of wedding between investors and a company, it looks like much-talked about Transmeta Corp. has just been jilted at the altar. Think of it this way: Just as the minister was...
AVANT: A Biotech With Heart By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent What if you could take a pill that magically turns your "bad" LDL cholesterol into "good" HDL cholesterol? If you were one of the estimated 10 million Americans who suffer from arteriosclerosis, you'd probably race right over to the neighborhood pharmacy. Your ailing...
Netegrity Inc. Is Coming on Strong By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Everyone wants to get a foot in the e-commerce door. But owning the door is even better. That is the recipe for Netegrity Inc.’s {NETE} rather stunning success. The Web portal security company posted its first profit one quarter ahead of schedule...
A Long Wait for the Wireless Web By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent You have heard it over and over again: The wireless Internet will be the Next Really Big Thing. Now hear this: Not only are high-speed wireless Internet services further off than you have been led to believe, they may not turn...
Time to Bite at Apple’s Stock? By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent It’s bruised on the outside, but the core looks solid. Can Steve Jobs revive his revival of PC maker Apple Computer Inc. {AAPL}? That’s the 64-gigabyte question in Silicon Valley these days. This stock has been so battered, in fact, that if...
Crime Pays for Online-Security Firms By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Everyone knows the already-sizable online security market is going to grow larger. The big question up until now, though, has been whether the future of that market will belong to companies offering soup-to-nuts online-security solutions or whether you would be better off...
Faster Than Light Travel Will We Ever Travel to the Stars? Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, October 18, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2000/10/18/lightspeed.DTL In the two years I've been at this column, I've been overwhelmed by the many intelligent and well-informed e-mails that have come pouring in. The response has been so good I've decided...
Is Oracle’s E-Biz Presence Overstated? By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent If you have been paying attention to Oracle Corp.’s {ORCL} hard-to-miss advertising campaign, you probably figure that the software giant’s leap into e-business justifies its lofty valuation. After all, even the squirrels in Central Park have by now heard Oracle’s oft-stated claim...
UpShot Presents Problems for Oracle By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Much has been made over the past few years of the long-running feud between Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison and his archrival, Microsoft Corp. {MSFT} founder Bill Gates. But some industry watchers in Silicon Valley say Ellison now has an even more-important battle...
Leading B2Bs May Be Heading for Fall By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Maybe you think you can find refuge from the carnage of the Internet's business-to-consumer, or B2C, debacle by scooping up some of the supposedly less-vulnerable leading "arms merchant" business-to-business, or B2B, stocks such as Ariba Inc. {ARBA}, BEA Systems...
Transmeta’s Big-Bark, No-Bite IPO By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent If the judges are fair, Transmeta Corp. has a good chance of walking away with this year’s award for "most hype generated by an unproven pre-initial public offering company in a tiny market niche." You have no doubt already heard about Transmeta, easily one...
Cashing in on the Optics Opportunity By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent If you are still kicking yourself for not buying Intel Corp. {INTC} in the early ‘80s or Cisco Systems Inc. {CSCO} a decade later, you might want to take a very close look at optical stocks right now. Even with record valuations...
Priceline Business Model Seen Flawed By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent You might think that priceline.com Inc.’s {PCLN} shares are a bargain at less than 11, down from an all-time high of 165 back in April 1999. But so many questions have arisen about the fundamental viability of the "name your own price"...
Little Thunder Seen for Loudcloud IPO By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Ever since Web wunderkind Marc Andreessen decamped from America Online Inc. {AOL} last September after that firm acquired Netscape Communications Corp. and subsequently announced plans for a new start-up, investors have had only one question about the 29-year-old: Can he do...
PC Sales May Pick up Later in the Year By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts say saturated PC markets in the United States and slower-than-expected personal computer sales in Europe are creating ongoing headaches for leading chip maker Intel Corp. {INTC} and other players in the suddenly hard-pressed chip and PC sectors,...
Burn Your Cubicle Virtual Teams Are the Future of Work Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, September 21, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/09/21/cubicle.dtl Woody Allen once observed that 80 percent of success is just showing up. He must not have had the future American workplace in mind. These days, letting knowledge workers not show up is fast...
Analysts Talk Hot Biotech Stock Picks By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Dain Rauscher Wessels initiated coverage of 11 biotechnology stocks last week saying several of them could move up 50 percent or more in price over the next 12 months. But leading industry analysts say two lesser-known biotech firms appear to have...
Art Tech Seen as Buying Opportunity By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent E-commerce enabler Art Technology Group Inc. {ARTG} chief executive officer Jeet Singh says Hewlett-Packard Co.’s {HWP} anticipated acquisition of Art-reseller PricewaterhouseCoopers’ consulting business, if completed, would be welcome news for this already-profitable firm. Art’s stock has fallen over the past few sessions,...
Why Analysts Like Flextronics By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent If market watchers are right, electronic-manufacturing and service company Flextronics International Ltd.’s {FLEX} stock may soon see higher ground. Several analysts reiterated or raised ambitious 12-month price targets on Flextronics’ stock last week, after a conference call led to upward revisions in revenue and...
Will the Holidays Be Kind to E-Tailers? By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Some analysts say Amazon.com Inc.’s {AMZN} recovering stock will go considerably higher before the holidays are over, but others see even bigger opportunities elsewhere in the hard-pressed but seasonally hot e-tailing sector. Investors anticipating the traditional holiday run-up have already pushed...
Analysts Like Ask Jeeves’ Prospects By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts expect Ask Jeeves Inc.’s {ASKJ} stock to move higher over the next 12 months, saying the company’s focus on natural-language processing will make it a strong survivor when the dust settles from the current dot-com sector shakeout. Late last week, U. S....
Fast and Easy New Browserless Apps Allow One-Click Searching Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, August 31, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/08/31/oneclick.dtl What if I told you I could save you not just a few seconds but a few minutes every time you do an Internet search? Now you can, with a new breed of software...
Four VOIP Stock Favorites By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Several analysts say they expect to see IP-telephony stocks take over leadership in the telecommunications sector during the coming year, as both traditional long-distance phone companies and end users begin to make the transition from old-fashioned circuit-switched networks to the Internet-based phone systems...
Analysts Debate Merit of Free VOIP Telephone Calls By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent I’ve been talking to my old college buddy, David, who lives in New Zealand, a lot these days. Since I live in California, that may sound like good news for my long distance carrier, AT&T, which charges $2.85 plus...
Analysts Set Higher Targets for CIENA By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Several analysts raised their 12-month price targets for CIENA Corp.’s {CIEN} stock after the optical-networking systems company reported better-than-expected fiscal third-quarter results last Thursday. "CIENA is our top pick right now," says Hasan Imam, an analyst at Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette in...
Techs That Thrive in a Slowing Economy By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Holding high-margin electronic-manufacturing stocks is one of the best ways investors can shelter their portfolios from fears of a slowing economy and potentially higher interest rates, analysts say. Stocks in the electronics manufacturing products and services (EMPS) sector have handily overcome...
Stalled Fuel Cell IPOs Leave Upside By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Two fuel-cell companies that went public last week in lackluster initial public offerings may still offer investors upside potential, analysts say. Last week’s disappointing IPO from fuel-cell pioneer H Power Corp. {HPOW} leaves the stock well positioned to move up, as demand...
Election Imperils New Economy Stocks By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent A number of leading Silicon Valley business leaders say this November’s presidential election poses increased risks for investors, particularly those holding so-called New Economy stocks in emerging Internet, communications and high-tech markets. Business supporters of both Texas Governor and Republican nominee George W....
Obscure Tech Sector Poised for Growth By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Looking for a way to invest in today's hottest tech sectors without following the herd? You may want to consider companies that tech kingpins will outsource their work to in the future, especially in the wireless infrastructure and optical networking fields. Lesser-known...
Analysts Say Plexus Hits Sweet Spot By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts see more upside potential for Plexus Corp.’s {PLXS} soaring stock, saying the company’s focus on serving high-end, high-margin customers in the electronic manufacturing sector puts it squarely in the industry’s sweet spot. "It’s had a huge run-up, over 50 percent, in...
Little Man, Big Mind New Media Pioneer Gary Brickman's Remarkable Life Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, July 31, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/07/31/brickman.dtl Bay Area new media pioneer Gary Brickman passed away quietly in his sleep last month. He was only 38. If you've attended any big tech events here in the Bay Area over...
Solectron Stock Set to Soar in 2nd Half By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Some analysts -- spurred on by recent comments made by the company’s chief executive officer and president Koichi Nishimura -- say Solectron Corp.’s {SLR} stock could regain its momentum during the second half of the year. During his presentation last...
Will Webvan Group’s Stock Deliver? By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Although there are some skeptics, several analysts think Webvan Group Inc. {WBVN} is succeeding with its ambitious plan to bring the grocery business online, and they say now is the perfect time to buy the company’s beaten down stock. "If you’re willing to...
InfoSpace Leads Next Wireless Trend By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Several leading analysts who follow wireless industry trends see major upside potential for InfoSpace Inc.’s {INSP} stock over the coming year, saying the company is emerging as a leading enabler of mobile, wireless-Internet applications. "With wireless subscribers expected to exceed 1 billion worldwide...
Analysts Say VISX’s Stock Looks Good By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Although at least one prominent analyst disagrees, several others say VISX Inc.’s {VISX} beaten-down stock looks good at its current price level, considering the fact that the company has captured about 70 percent of a market that is growing at 50...
Analysts, CEO Talk Up MedicaLogic By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent MedicaLogic/Medscape Inc.’s {MDLI} founder and chief executive officer Dr. Mark Leavitt agrees with analysts who say his company’s beaten-down stock could generate very lucrative returns for longer-term investors. "This is not something you do in three or six months," Leavitt told CNBC.com in...
Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Coming Up With the Next Big Thing Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, June 28, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/06/28/bigthing.dtl The introduction of any major new technology usually gives rise to a fresh new crop of multi-millionaires. Often, the doting news media dubs them geniuses. But having met and covered many...
Intel Surges, But Some Risks Remain By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Semiconductor analysts still favor Intel Corp.’s {INTC} stock, even after this week’s big run-up, but some of them also warn of potential risks down the road. On Monday, Lehman Brothers’ analyst Dan Niles touched off a buying spree in Intel shares after...
Can Be Inc.’s Stock Make Comeback? By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Although financial analysts have abandoned operating system maker Be Inc.’s {BEOS) flagging stock, several leading industry analysts, along with company chairman, president, chief executive officer and founder Jean-Louis Gassée, say it is way too soon to count out the only multimedia-oriented...
Electronic Mfg Group Seen as Good Bet By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts say quarterly earnings reports from Solectron Corp. {SLR} and Jabil Circuit Inc. {JBL} this week will generate increased attention for stocks in the highly volatile but upwardly mobile electronic manufacturing services (EMS) sector. "Solectron’s stock went up almost 40 percent...
Talking Computers Microsoft's Long-Range Plan to Thwart the Feds Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, June 7, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/06/07/voicerec.dtl You've probably seen the ads yourself. A comfortably dressed, relaxed looking Bill Gates is talking directly into the camera. Blithely, he shrugs off the charges against his company, promising that Microsoft's "best days are...
Echelon Triples on Investor Enthusiasm By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent You might think that communicating with appliances or industrial machinery from afar sounds like a far-fetched concept, but Palo Alto, Calif.-based Echelon Corp. {ELON} has positioned itself to provide the technology that could do everything from monitoring jet engines while in flight...
Microsoft: Seen Solid in Long-Term By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Several leading industry analysts say Microsoft Corp.'s beaten down stock remains by far the best long-term bet in the crucial operating system market despite this week’s good news for Linux and the ongoing anti-trust case against the company. "You’d be crazy not to...
Analysts Like Nortel As Tech Leader By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Looking for a market-proof tech stock not just for today, but for the long run, too? Wall Street analysts continue to ride on the bandwagon for Nortel Networks Corp. {NT}, rather than recently grounded high-flyers Qualcomm Inc. {QCOM} and Sycamore Networks...
Digital Food Online Groceries Set Stage for Long-Awaited Revolution in the Aisles Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Friday, May 26, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/05/26/grocers.dtl Leading online grocers Webvan and Peapod are in some serious trouble on Wall Street. A growing chorus of analysts claim it's impossible for online grocers to generate decent profits by making...
Hot Biotech Stocks for the Long Term By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts say that indiscriminate selling, despite recent reports of important clinical progress leaves several biotechnology stocks attractively priced for investors with a one-to-two-year time horizon. Investors who got into biotech stocks last year saw the sector more than double in valuation...
Hot Biotech Stocks for the Long Term By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts say that indiscriminate selling, despite recent reports of important clinical progress leaves several biotechnology stocks attractively priced for investors with a one-to-two-year time horizon. Investors who got into biotech stocks last year saw the sector more than double in valuation...
Symantec Finds Favor Among Analysts By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Software security maker Symantec's stock may have been poised for a rally even before this month's virus scare. But fears of the "I Love You" virus should kick start Symantec ahead of the rest of the slowing tech sector, analysts say. To begin...
Yahoo! Wireless, B2B Plans Get Raves By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Several analysts who follow Yahoo! Inc. {YHOO} say that last Thursday’s closed-door session with senior company executives convinced them that the leading Internet portal is making the right moves to become a major force in emerging wireless and business to business,...
IBeam IPO Makes Modest Debut By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts say iBEAM Broadcasting Corp.’s {IBEM}big initial public offering could help the streaming media-delivery company become a ubiquitous part of the fast-growing broadband Internet infrastructure. The IPO has made a modest debut, trading up about 3/4, after pricing at $10 Wednesday night at...
Cisco’s Margins Seen Under Pressure By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Financial analysts who have been talking up Cisco Systems Inc.’s {CSCO} stock say they won’t be surprised to see the company beat consensus fiscal third-quarter earnings expectations next week, but several leading industry observers also warn that Cisco’s profit margins will almost...
FairMarket Business Model Seen as Solid by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts say FairMarket Inc.’s {FAIM} novel business model gives the company a good shot at carving out a lucrative online niche. "They come across as a very strong player," says Anna Giraldo Kerr, senior Internet and eCommerce strategies analyst at International Data...
Digital Video Recorder Stocks Seen Up By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts say digital video recorder (DVR) stocks will get a lift, as skyrocketing demand puts DVR makers in position to become a key platform for the next generation of value-added Internet-based interactive-television services. Last week, Dain Rauscher Wessels analyst David Lee Smith...
Highway Robbery New electronic toll collection system won't fix traffic woes Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, May 10, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/05/10/tollbooth.dtl The long-awaited electronic toll collection system for the Golden Gate Bridge that is finally slated to be up and running by mid-summer demonstrates that technology used without intelligence can be...
HomeGrocer IPO Makes Tepid Debut by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent If comparable offerings are any guide, investors who buy into HomeGrocer.com Inc.’s {HOMG} initial public offering may end up holding an empty bag, at least over the short term. Kirkland, Wash.-based HomeGrocer.com, which is 28 percent owned by Amazon.com Inc. {AMZN}, is the...
Analysts Say Rambus Ride Not Over By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Fasten your seat belts, and prepare for the wild ride to continue, say the divided pack of analysts who cover Rambus Inc.’s {RMBS} highly volatile stock. "It’s a very controversial stock," says Seth Dickson, semiconductor analyst at UBS Warburg, based in San...
Napster May Hurt Music-Firm Stocks By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent May 1, 2000 Although financial analysts haven’t factored it into their earnings projections yet, music-industry observers say the popularity of Napster’s song-sharing software is contributing to a decline in music sales to young consumers that could damage entertainment and perhaps even digital-rights management...
Future Seen Bright for Axent By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent May 1, 2000 The future is bright for Axent Technologies Inc. {AXNT}, analysts say, because the market for network-security companies is expanding. Last week, Axent posted better-than-expected quarterly results, leading two more analysts to upgrade the company’s stock, based on expectations of considerable upside...
Long-Term Trends Favor Foundries By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts say strong fundamentals and the flight to quality will continue to work in favor of foundry stocks such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. {TSM} and Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. {CHRT} for the foreseeable future. "These are real core holdings you’ll want to own...
Upside Seen for Silicon Valley Stock By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Two analysts upgraded Silicon Valley Group Inc. {SVGI} last week -- after the company beat quarterly consensus earnings estimates by 60 percent -- saying that the stock has upside potential of 40 percent or more over the next 12 months. On Monday,...
Analysts See Liberate Stock Jumping By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts say Liberate Technologies Inc.’s {LBRT} stock should get a nice boost from a big cable-TV trade show next month that could put it on track to post gains of 300 percent or more over the next 12 months. "It just takes a...
It's Time for Dot-Com Bottom-Fishing By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts say that the recent Internet stock selloff gave a haircut to several dot-com stocks that now look quite attractive. Although the stocks of second-tier, cut-rate online retailers who deliver bulky products, such as groceries or pet food, are unlikely to bounce back...
Higher Earnings Seen for PC Makers By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Gateway's first quarter demonstrates that the personal-computer sector is being revived by lower component costs, new higher-speed microprocessors and augmented product offerings. The same factors are expected to help most of the other PC makers post healthy earnings over the coming...
Chip-Sector Earnings Look Strong by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts say they expect extremely good news from several leading semiconductor firms when they announce their quarterly earnings. "The results are going to be very good, whether you’re talking about semiconductor devices or equipment," says Dan Niles, semiconductor industry analyst at Robertson Stephens, based...
Saba Shares More Than Double By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Shares of Saba Software, Inc. {SABA} more than doubled in initial trading. Analysts say the emerging leader in the online learning market has a unique business primer -- ranging from a horde of satisfied customers to an attractive commercial model -- to...
OPUS360 Shares Jump After IPO By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts say business-to-business professional services company OPUS360 Corp. {OPUS}, whose shares began trading publicly on Friday, is in the right place at the right time. "They’re in an area that’s going to grow quite rapidly," says Kazim Isfahani, senior analyst at the Giga...
Napster How free music will change the planet Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, April 6, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/04/06/napster.dtl It's hard to overstate the significance of the rise of Napster. Some say it's just another expression of human greed, a manifestation of the desire to get something for nothing. But the seemingly inconsequential act...
Microsoft Woes May Boost Linux Firms By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts say Microsoft Corp.’s {MSFT} prolonged legal woes create uncertainty in the marketplace that will further boost sales at rival companies that provide documentation and service for the competing Linux operating system, such as Red Hat Inc. {RHAT} and VA Linux...
Some See Upside for Healtheon By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Several leading health-care analysts say Healtheon/WebMD Corp.’s {HLTH} beaten-down stock may be a good buy, now that the dust appears to be settling from last week’s downgrade by Dain Rauscher Wessels. Healtheon/WebMD’s stock has taken quite a beating lately, dropping more than 60...
ArrowPoint IPO Shoots Higher in Debut By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Shares of ArrowPoint Communications Inc. {ARPT} have soared in their debut, and analysts say the firm has a bright future ahead of it, in part, because it has caught its bigger rival, Cisco Systems Inc. {CSCO}, asleep at the switch. ArrowPoint's stock...
Here Comes a Slew of Biotech IPOs By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Despite the sector’s unprecedented choppiness, analysts say there is reason to be optimistic about the slew of biotechnology firms going public over the next two weeks, because many of them are further along in the development curve than earlier groups...
Sorting Through a Slew of Biotech IPOs By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent The Medicines Co. {MDCO} and Lion Bioscience Inc. are expected to be the cream of this week’s crop of eight biotechnology initial public offerings, but analysts warn that investments in early-stage biotech firms are usually not for the faint of...
Blaze IPO Is a Flaming Success by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts say a unique combination of technologies puts Blaze Software Inc. {BLZE} in a position to prosper, and investors seem to agree, bidding the stock up in its debut Thursday. The stock opened at 35, after pricing its 4 million share offering...
Caldera Systems IPO Soars in Debut By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Caldera Systems Inc.’s {CALD} initial public offering is already being boosted in its debut by the same Linux fever that propelled the recent Red Hat Inc. {RHAT} and VA Linux Systems Inc. {LNUX} IPOs to soaring opening-day performances. The stock opened at...
Patently False Time for Bezos to get serious Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Friday, March 17, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/03/17/bezos.dtl Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos has been getting a lot of praise lately for his deft handling of the growing controversy over whether his firm's patents might enable him to impose what amounts to a...
3 Potentially Hot ASP Stocks to Watch by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent In part one of this two-part story on Thursday, we looked at whether other application service providers (ASP) would be able to match Cobalt Networks Inc. {COBT} success. Now we look at three up-and-coming ASP stocks for your radar screens. Although...
Can Other ASPs Match Cobalt’s Success? by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Although application service provider (ASP) enabler Cobalt Networks Inc. {COBT} continues to sell products at a torrid pace, several analysts who follow ASP trends say larger firms targeting the same market are facing considerable resistance from many of their biggest potential...
Analyst Pick: KEMET By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent Who: Martin Whitman, chief investment officer at the Third Avenue Value Fund {TAVFX}. Stock Pick: KEMET Corp. {KEM} Recent Price: $19 Appreciation Potential: Could hit $40 over next 12 to 18 months. Reason to Buy: Potential takeover target. KEMET 52-week stock performance The tech sector is going to need...
Selectica IPO Leaps Higher on First Day by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts see a bright future for Selectica Inc. {SLTC}. Investors seem to agree, bidding up the stock on its opening trading day. San Jose, California-based Selectica is generally regarded as one of the four leading providers of Internet selling-system software,...
IPrint.com's IPO Makes Weak Debut by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent IPrint.com Inc.’s {IPRT} position as the first-mover in an exploding new online market bodes well its long-term prospects, though its initial public offering has gotten off to a poor start on Wednesday. IPrint Post-IPO Stock-Performance Chart "iPrint is really the first quick-printer on the...
Net2000 IPO Jumps in Opening Trading by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Although Net2000 Communications Inc.’s {NTKK} initial public offering has already caught fire Tuesday, several analysts warn that profitability is proving elusive for many similar firms in the same sector. Shares of the company have already jumped in their debut, passing 30. Late...
Analysts Divided on Net Registrar Group by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Financial and industry analysts are sharply divided on the long-term prospects of the stocks of companies that help other firms register or renew Internet-domain names, despite the recent spectacular performance of market leader Network Solutions Inc. {NSOL}. Both sets of analysts, however,...
Analysts Cautious on Net Ad Stocks by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Several analysts who follow online-advertising trends say investors should approach stocks in the sector with extreme caution, despite huge projected increases in online-ad spending. "The sector is going to grow in broad terms," says Chris Hansen, an analyst with Banc of America...
Hotel Reservations IPO Opens Strongly by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Hotel Reservations Network Inc.'s {ROOM} winning business model is already boosting its initial public offering, with 5.4 million shares priced at 16 per share, above its filing price range of 11 to 13. The stock opened around 24 Friday morning and has hovered...
Deposit This On the Internet, your bank is not your friend Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, February 23, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/02/23/netbank.dtl When the notorious bank robber Willie Sutton was finally apprehended, a reporter asked him: "Mr. Sutton, can you tell us why you rob banks?" Sutton's famous reply: "Because that's where they keep...
Nextel Partners IPO Makes Solid Debut by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts say Nextel Partners Inc.’s {NXTP} success in wooing rural users of wireless-communications services should push the company’s stock to solid long-term gains after its initial public offering got a solid start on Wednesday afternoon. Nextel Partners Post-IPO Stock-Performance Chart "I think it...
Webvan's Survival Plan By Hal Plotkin CNBC.com Silicon Valley Correspondent I t seems hardly a week passes without more bad news from Webvan Group Inc. {WBVN}. The stock, which is currently trading for less than 35 cents a share, faces potential de-listing from Nasdaq as early as April 12 due to minimum price per...
Banks Face Threat from Financial Portals by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Leading online-banking industry analysts say the business model of financial services content aggregators such as LendingTree Inc. {TREE}, which went public this week, pose a daunting new set of competitive challenges to banks and other mainstream financial institutions going forward. Lending Tree...
Inforte IPO Rockets Higher in Debut by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Inforte Corp.’s {INFT} initial public offering is already being met with the same enthusiasm that lifted Lante Corp.’s {LNTE} IPO to a nearly 200 percent first-day gain last week. "Inforte is in the same league as Lante," says Stephanie Moore, research director...
Apropos IPO Leaps up on Opening Day by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts say investors should be cautious about betting on Apropos Technology Inc.’s {APRS} stock, even though the company’s initial public offering has already caught fire in early going, opening at 50 on Thursday. Apropos Technology Post-IPO Stock-Performance Chart Late Wednesday, Apropos Technology...
Repeat Buyers Boost Eloquent Inc. IPO by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Repeat business from a strong list of major customers has already pushed shares of Eloquent Inc. {ELOQ} higher. Eloquent Post-IPO Stock-Performance Chart The company priced its 4.5 million offering late Thursday at 16 a share, above its stated range of 12 to 14....
Good Track Record Boosts Lante's IPO by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent As predicted, Lante Corp.’s {LNTE} initial public offering has caught fire, thanks to the company’s long-standing technology-oriented track record. "Lante is on the list of top-tier companies that provide Internet professional services," says Stephanie Moore, research director at the Giga Information Group,...
Pets.com IPO Makes Modest Debut by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Pets.com Inc. {IPET} has made a modest debut, though analysts are positive on the company's prospects, saying it has a good chance of holding on to its ranking as one of three leading online retailers focused on a potentially lucrative market niche. "I...
Rough Seas Seen for Health-Care B2Bs by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Despite general enthusiasm about business-to-business (B2B) Internet stocks, analysts who follow health-care trends see major challenges ahead for the two health-care B2B firms that went public this week. "They’re going up against a scarier set of players," says Claudine Singer, health-care analyst...
Hacker Attacks Overshadow Buy.com IPO by Hal Plotkin and Scott Bomboy Concerns over a new set of hacker attacks on prominent Web sites overshadowed a big day for Buy.Com Inc. {BUYX} and spread to a shutdown of popular auction site eBay {EBAY}, shopping site Amazon.com {AMZN} and news site CNN {TWX}. Buy.com shares...
Mediacom IPO Makes Modest Debut by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Mediacom Communications Corp.’s {MCCC} initial public offering could set the stage for respectable gains, even though it has gotten only a modest start. Late Thursday, the company's 20 million share offering priced at 19 a share, at the top of its stated range...
Big E-Tail Enablers Seen as Best Long-Term Bets by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Although Firepond Inc.’s {FIRE} initial public offering has soared on its first day of trading, some analysts say larger companies moving toward offering similar services, such as Oracle Corp. {ORCL}, SAP Aktiengesellschaft {SAP} and Siebel Systems Inc. {SEBL}, may...
Turnstone Business Model Drives up IPO by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Turnstone Systems Inc.’s {TSTN} initial public offering has soared on its opening trading day, trading as high as 90 on Tuesday. Late Monday, the company priced its 3 million share offering at 29 a share, above its most-recent range of 23 and...
Sequenom IPO Shoots Higher in Debut by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Investors have welcomed Sequenom Inc.’s {SQNM} initial public offering enthusiastically, sending shares up past 78. "The company is in the hottest part of the genomics sector," says Jim McCamant, editor of Medical Technology Stock Letter, based in Berkeley, Calif. Late Monday, 5 million...
IPO Fever Continues with 724 Solutions by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent In the tradition of many recent IPOs, 724 Solutions Inc.'s {SVNX} has made an impressive debut, helped by continuing IPO fever and the company's strong ties to the banking industry. Shares opened at 73, after the company earlier Friday priced its 6...
InterWAVE IPO Shines as Expected by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts expected a strong debut by interWAVE Communications International Ltd. {IWAV} when its stock began trading on Friday. "I think it’s going to be a hot IPO with a steadily increasing stock price," says Hongjun Li, director of research at Parks Associates in...
Extensity IPO Gets Explosive Start by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Extensity Inc.’s {EXTN} initial public offering gives investors an early chance to bet on a technology that will become ubiquitous in the years ahead: managing employee business expenses. "The market they are in is pretty much starting from ground zero. And it’s going...
Neoforma.com Shares Soar in Debut by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Want to buy into the red-hot business-to-business market and hedge your bets with the health-care sector? If today's IPO of Neoforma.com {NEOF} is any indication, other people may have the same idea. Neoforma's initial public offering made a big splash, opening at $36.50,...
Smaller Chip Firms Seen as Value Plays by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent With major semiconductor-manufacturing stocks such as Applied Materials Inc. {AMAT}, KLA-Tencor Corp. {KLAC}, Lam Research Corp. {LRCX}, and Novellus Systems Inc. {NVLS} trading at or near record levels, analysts say that now is a good time to scoop up the...
Internet Stocks for 2000, Part Two by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent In part one of this story, we looked at three Internet stocks analysts like for 2000: Puma Technology Inc. {PUMA}, RealNetworks Inc. {RNWK}, and Modem Media.Poppe Tyson Inc. {MMPT}. In part two, we look at three more: Juniper Networks Inc., Systems...
Internet Stocks for 2000, Part One by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Are there still good buying opportunities left in the Internet sector? We asked several leading Internet analysts for their favorite Internet stocks for 2000. In Part one of this two-part series, we look at Puma Technology Inc., RealNetworks Inc. and Modem Media.Poppe...
Analyst Sees Onyx Software Doubling by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Onyx Software Corp.’s {ONXS} stock price is poised to double again over the next 12 months, says analyst Cameron Steele of Dain Rauscher Wessels in Minneapolis. "Onyx is very much overlooked from a valuation perspective," Steele says. "Near term, we expect Onyx to...
Sonic Foundry Stock Seen Extending Run by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts say Sonic Foundry Inc.’s {SFO} stock, which doubled in price this week despite the Internet-sector selloff, continues to have strong upside potential. "Sonic Foundry is going to be a great story and company," says John Todd, an analyst at C.E. Unterberg...
Future Bright for Young DSL Companies by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent . Trend-spotting analysts say there is a huge opportunity for a handful of newer companies making higher bandwidth, digital-subscriber line (DSL) Internet connections available to a greater numbers of consumers. "There are still a lot of people who are stuck with analog modems,"...
Open Source TV Broadcasters should jump on the open source bandwagon, pronto Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, January 5, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/01/05/opensourcetv.dtl "There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission...
MIPS’s Stock Seen Heading Back Up by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent "...
Don’t Count Cable Firms Out by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent With wireless sector stocks such as red-hot QUALCOMM Inc. {QCOM} leading the market lately, investors might be tempted to think the time has come to count out old-fashioned, hard-wired cable operators. Leading telecommunications analysts, however, say that would be a big mistake. "Wireless appears...
2000 Expected to Set New IPO Record by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Major technology spinoffs, renewed interest in biotechnology start-ups, action in the insurance sector, and surging venture-capital investments are expected to combine to make 2000 another banner year for initial public offerings. "It could very well be another record year," says Richard...
Exodus's Stock Seen Going Higher by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent One of the hidden powers behind the Web is getting even higher marks from Wall Street analysts who expect the company's stock to exceed expectations. Several analysts recently raised their price targets for San Jose, Calif.-based Exodus Communications Inc.’s {EXDS}, citing expectations the...
Citrix Seen as Hot Stock for 2000 by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent "People will discover that Citrix is an enabling technology for developing applications over the Internet, and we think they'll be willing to pay a higher premium for the stock." -- Wendell Laidley, Credit Suisse First Boston Networking software maker Citrix Systems...
Caching Stocks Lead Internet Sector by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Several trend-spotting analysts say they expect to see a small group of white-hot caching -- or controlled content distribution -- stocks, such as Akamai Technologies Inc. {AKAM}, Cacheflow Inc. {CFLO}, Digital Island Inc. {ISLD} and Inktomi {INKT}, continue to lead the Internet...
Our Wacky Patent System And its perilous, toothless reform Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, December 23, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/12/23/patents.dtl Back in 1912, a New York inventor named Arnold Zucker won a patent for a new device designed to prevent people from sleeping through the sound of a burglar alarm. Zucker's invention, described in...
AltaVista IPO Seen Big, Despite Losses by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts say AltaVista Co.’s pending initial public offering is likely to be a big success, despite the firm’s sizable financial losses. "I suspect the reaction to the IPO will be fairly spectacular, primarily because of the company’s relationship with CMGI," says David...
Are the Linux Backers Right? by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent "I believe open source software will have an impact on the category of Internet infrastructure software. It already has. Part of it’s because businesses don’t have to pay the extra licensing fees." -- Steve McClure, an analyst at International Data Corporation As companies such...
Maxygen Engineers Strong IPO Showing by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts believed Maxygen Inc.’s {MAXY} public offering today should fare well, thanks largely to the impressive track record of the company’s cofounder, biotechnology pioneer Alejandro Zaffaroni. They were right. Maxygen hit Wall Street at $36 a share, far above its initial pricing of $16...
Caliper IPO Tests Biotech Waters by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Biotech toolmaker Caliper Technologies Corp.’s initial public offering is another test for investors’ appetite for tech stocks that don't involve the Internet, e-business or broadband. Caliper, a life-sciences firm that make devices that speed up pharmaceutical research, hit Wall Street today at...
IPO MedicaLogic Off to Good Start by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Shares of MedicaLogic Inc. {MDLI} are already profiting from the concept of putting medical records online, debuting at 25 on Friday morning. The initial public offering of 5.3 million shares priced late Thursday at $17, above an original range of between $14...
VA Linux Tries to Overtake Red Hat by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Investors continue to buy into the Linux craze, making today's VA Linux Systems' IPO the best-performing debut in Wall Street history. The stunning debut makes VA Linux the new poster-child for the Linux business, replacing previous IPO darling Red Hat. Shares...
Preview Systems Jumps on First Day by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent ,/p> Preview Systems Inc. {PRVW} has more than doubled from its offering price on its first day trading, opening at 57, after pricing its 3.8 million share offering late Tuesday at $21 a share. Preview Systems intraday stock performance The initial public offering's stated...
NetRatings IPO Makes Strong Debut by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent NetRatings Inc. {NTRT}, one of two main rivals in the Web-rating wars, has made a strong debut, opening at 28, after pricing its 4 million share offering at $17, above its stated range of $14 to $16. NetRatings Inc. intraday stock performance The growing...
Click Here To Buy Online shopping tips from someone who hates to shop Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, December 8, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/12/08/eshopping.dtl I hate shopping. Don't get me wrong. I love buying things. And having things. It's just the getting of things I can't stand. It's annoying, for example, that most stores don't...
More Gains Seen for Keynote Systems by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent "I believe they're in on the beginning of a very big boom. I'm amazed people haven't been jumping up and down about it." -- Bill Glassman, senior analyst at the Gartner Group Several analysts say Keynote Systems Inc.’s {KEYN} stock should continue to...
HealthCentral Takes Aim at Dr. Koop by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent "HealthCentral's biggest asset is Dr. Dean Edell. If he can succeed in driving traffic to the. . .site, they'll have a very good business model." --Dr. Wally S. Buch, a physician and general partner at Atherton Ventures The success of HealthCentral.com {HCEN}...
New Issue Digimarc Opens Strongly by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Shares of Digimarc Corp. {DMRC} have gotten off to a strong start, but several analysts say there's reason to be cautious about the company, despite its strong marketing alliances and seemingly versatile technology Digimarc opened at 75 and has traded as high as...
McAfee Jumps on First Trading Day by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent New issue McAfee.com Corp. {MCAF} has moved up sharply in its trading debut, opening at 22, after pricing its 6.25 million share offering late Wednesday at $12, at the high end of its expected $10 to $12 range. McAfee.com intraday stock performance "McAfee...
Web Site Offers Gurus’ Stock Picks by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent When it comes to picking Internet stocks, conventional ideas about appropriate valuations have pretty much been thrown out the window. But sooner or later, the Internet mania could fade away like other once-sizzling investment crazes, such as tulip futures or biotechnology...
WebTrends Seen Continuing to Rise by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Several analysts say WebTrends Corp.’s {WEBT} stock should continue to move up smartly, thanks to increased demand for services that analyze Web-surfing patterns. "We think WebTrends is an undiscovered gem," says Rob Owens, senior analyst at Pacific Crest Securities, based in Portland, Ore....
Readers' Beat SF Gate column readers respond Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, November 24, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/11/24/readers.dtl When I started writing for SF Gate about a year ago, I promised myself I would respond to all emails generated by this column. It was, I thought, a matter of principle. What could be...
Push into E-Commerce Seen Driving BEA by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts are upbeat about software company BEA Systems Inc.’s {BEAS} prospects, citing strong sales, smart acquisitions, and exploding demand for the company’s products. And investors, who have driven the stock up more than sixfold this year, seem to agree. BEAS one-year stock...
by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent CacheFlow's products help the Internet run faster by speeding up the delivery of Web pages to users. But investors and analysts' speedy hopes for CacheFlow {CFLO} stock were exceeded today, when its shares opened at $110. Its initial public offering of 5.5 million shares priced last...
Investors Bid New Issue Imanage up Sharply by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Investors have bid up Imanage Inc. {IMAN} sharply, with the stock opening at $20. The company's 3.6 million shares were priced at $11 late Tuesday, above the company's stated range of $8 to $10. IMAN post-IPO performance chart San Mateo, Calif.-based Imanage,...
Quintus Corp. IPO Makes Strong Debut by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Quintus Corp. {QNTS} gives investors a chance to bet on a company that combines preexisting call-center tools with the automated e-mail and Web-based customer-interaction technologies that helped propel Kana Communications Inc. {KANA} and Silknet Software Inc. {SILK} to very successful recent...
Immersion Corp. Makes a Strong Debut by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Immersion Corp.’s {IMMR} stock has debuted strongly Friday, after pricing 4.25 million shares earlier in the afternoon at 12, above its stated range of 9 to 11. The stock has jumped to 17 3/16. The San Jose, Calif., company gives computer joysticks,...
Going Once, Going Twice, Gone! eBay is shooting itself in the foot Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, November 11, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/11/11/ebay.dtl The very popular San Jose-based online auction company eBay recently touched off a Silicon Valley range war by blocking online inquires from AuctionWatch.com, a much smaller rival based in San...
One Step Ahead: Tech Funds Give the Scoop by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Technology investors looking for an edge will find one at the Web sites of several top performing tech-oriented mutual funds that offer free information about their own recent buy and sell decisions. Most mutual funds are required by law to...
Expedia IPO Takes Off Strongly by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Despite Microsoft Corp.’s {MSFT} woes, analysts expected the company’s online travel agency, Expedia Inc., to enjoy a successful initial debut today. Expedia hit the market at $39 a share, up 179 percent from last night's pre-trading price of $14 a share. The 5.2...
Cobalt Hits It Big on Debut by Hal Plotkin and Eric Fleming Experts said appliance-server pioneer Cobalt Networks Inc. {COBT} would make a big splash when it began trading today. But the company's stock opened at $140 a share this morning, well above its $22 initial pricing. Goldman Sachs led the offering, with...
Webvan Hits Market As Expected by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent "I still expect it to go up 50 percent or so on the first day of trading. ...
One Step Ahead: More Health-Care IPOs? by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Need surplus medical equipment or an update on prostate surgical procedures? Two companies are trying to extend the concepts behind eBay Inc. {EBAY} and Amazon.com Inc. {AMZN} to the lucrative business of catering to health-care companies. Analysts say the pending Neoforma.com and...
Analysts Say Puma’s Best Days Are Ahead by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts say Puma Technology Inc.’s {PUMA} best days are still ahead, despite the fact that the company’s stock has already moved up more than 400 percent since August. "I like the stock very much and have for some time," says John...
IPO Pipeline: Content + Commerce = How2 by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Although implementation challenges remain, analysts say they’re impressed with the way IPO-bound How2.com Inc.’s business model marries content and commerce. "I’m certainly optimistic about the space they’re in," says David Cooperstein, research director at Forrester Research, based in Boston. "The beauty...
Big Idiot on Campus UC should broadcast class lectures online Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, October 28, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/10/27/lecturenotes.dtl Earlier this month, a lawyer representing the University of California system demanded that several Internet companies, such as Study24-7.com, Versity.com, and StudentU.com, pull lecture notes covering UC classes from their websites. UC's lawyer...
Investors Curious About XML Bandwagon by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent The language of business in the next decade may not be English but a new version of the lingo that powers today's Internet. Already, some publicly traded companies -- and their stocks -- are cashing in on the hype. Soaring stock prices of...
CV Therapeutics: A Heart-Stopping Stock by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Although big drug stocks led the drug/biotechnology sector’s rebound this week, several analysts say they’re more excited about the stock of a lesser-known biomedical firm, CV Therapeutics Inc. {CVTX}. "We definitely see it getting back into the $20s," says Franklin M. Berger, an...
Transactions Put CyberSource in Driver's Seat by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Analysts say CyberSource Corporation’s smart marketing and winning business model are the main reasons why the company’s stock is up more than 250 percent since its June IPO. "CyberSource has a compelling story for investors who like companies that provide e-commerce infrastructure,"...
Open Sesame How Collab.net takes open-source to the next level Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, October 14, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/10/14/collabnet.dtl Wall Street hasn't caught on to it yet, but Collab.net, Inc., a San Francisco-based open source software start-up, is about to revolutionize the multi-billion-dollar global software industry. The four-month-old company is giving open-source...
E-Stamp and Stamps.com to Duke It Out by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Although its stock is up sharply since its IPO, E-Stamp Inc.’s {ESTM} ultimate fate may hinge on what happens after rival Stamps.com {STMP} enters the fray later this month. "Some customers may find Stamps.com easier to use," says Bonnie Brooks, principal...
Is Healtheon a Buying Opportunity? by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Although one prominent analyst sees Healtheon Corp.’s {HLTH} stock as a buying opportunity, others say the company still needs to prove itself in the marketplace. Healtheon’s stock is down more than 50 percent since it topped out in May, immediately following the company’s...
Will the Palm Pilot IPO Lift 3Com's Stock? by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent "We're not negative on the stock. It's a good stock. We agree it's undervalued. It's just not the most exciting thing out there right now." -- Bert Hochfeld,Technology analyst at Josephthal & Co. Some analysts say one of next year's most...
Personal Touch Pays Off for Art Technology by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent A growing list of blue-chip customers and expectations of future industry consolidation have helped drive Art Technology Group Inc.'s {ARTG} stock price up more than 300 percent since the company's July IPO. "I'm very positive on them," says David Truog, an...
IPO Pipeline: Immersion Set for This Week by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Immersion Corp.’s initial public offering, expected this week, will test investors’ appetite for the company that gives computer joysticks, steering wheels, and other gaming products a more realistic feel. "There’s really no alternative to Immersion because of their patents," says Fred...
TiVo Soars But Challenges Remainby Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent TiVo, Inc.’s {TIVO} stock has tripled after the company’s IPO. But some analysts question if the interactive TV company is worth the price of admission to investors. Among the concerns voiced by analysts: the inability of TiVo to fend off competitors; a lawsuit...
The Great Tech Showdown I'm rooting for Bill Gates Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, September 30, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/09/30/gates.dtl I hope Microsoft founder Bill Gates wins his fight with the Justice Department. Before you fire up your flame-throwers, let me explain. I don't want to see Gates get off entirely scot-free. But I do...
The Server Boom, Part II: Cobalt Plans IPO by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent In Part One of this two-part series, we looked at the server market and how you can profit from the sector’s next big wave: the widespread distribution of digital products. Now in Part Two, we discuss other ways to...
Cashing in on the Coming Server Boom by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent In Part One of this two-part series, we look at the server market and how you can profit from the sector’s next big wave: the widespread distribution of digital products. If you know what to look for, you can cash in...
Getting Back to Business in Taiwan by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. {TSM} says it has received commitments from local authorities pledging that 85 percent of its electrical power will be restored by this weekend, according to a statement released by the company. The company posted revenue of $923.3 million...
Who Is Next After Kana and eGain? by Hal Plotkin, Silicon Valley Correspondent Post-IPO stock-price surges for both eGain Communications Corp. and Kana Communications, Inc. bode well for several other similar pre-IPO companies serving the same fast-growing market. On Tuesday, Kana's stock shot up more than 200% from its initial offering price of $15....
ExpressDoctors Combines House Calls and the Net by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent "We take care of everything the doctor needs so they can focus on patient care. That's something most doctors can't find anywhere else." -- Rob Kelly, CEO of ExpressDoctors ExpressDoctors Inc. is combining the simplicity of toll-free calling with the power of...
Searchbutton.com Sees Profit Before IPO by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Searchbutton.com Inc. is a rare breed of Silicon Valley start-up. The CEO of the nine-month-old firm says his company will actually be making money before it goes public, which could happen as early as next year. "I’d certainly buy the stock when they...
The Kids Are Not Alright Why Johnny can't compute Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, September 15, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/09/15/schoolreform.dtl The school reform movement is badly in need of reform. Right now, our nation's most prominent school reformers are almost totally ignoring one item that could go a long way toward improving our failing...
Wink Stock Outruns Company Performance by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Wink Communications Inc.’s {WINK} stock price has soared since the company’s recent initial public offering, though the money-losing Interactive TV company shows no signs of posting profits anytime soon. "A lot of people are making very aggressive forecasts for the market [Wink’s] in,"...
Start-Up Collab.Net Hopes to Follow Red Hat’s Example by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent With backing from a top-notch Silicon Valley venture-capital firm and Hewlett-Packard Co. {HWP} as its first customer, start-up Collab.Net Inc. is poised to become a major player in the fast-growing open-source software industry. "I’m very excited about what they’re doing,"...
Epinions.com Aims to Change Online Shopping by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Start-up Epinions.com Inc. is hoping to change the way people shop online, just in time for the upcoming holiday shopping season. While some analysts are skeptical, others say the company could quickly become a major force in the e-commerce sector. "Third-party intermediaries,...
Netro Soars on Broadband-Wireless Hopes by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Netro Corp.’s {NTRO} stock price has soared since its recent IPO, reflecting hopes that the company’s alliance with Lucent Technologies Inc. {LU} will make it a dominant player in the rapidly growing broadband-wireless market. "They have excellent technology, and there’s going to be...
AOL Gives Preview Travel Its Money’s Worth by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Preview Travel Inc.’s {PTVL} ads on America Online Inc. {AOL} are generating far-better results, dollar for dollar, than the company’s ad buys on Web portals Excite@Home {ATHM} or Lycos Inc. {LCOS}, according to a recent independent study. While that’s good...
Beam Me up Some Cash by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Start-up Confinity Inc. hopes to become a financial services powerhouse by pioneering an inexpensive new way to move money: wireless cash. "[The company] may have a handle on something quite good," says Robert Sterling, an analyst at Jupiter Communications, based in New York. Headquartered...
Picking the Right Internet Stocks by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Figuring out which Internet companies have the best chance to succeed over the long run takes logic, industry knowledge, and a willingness to ask unfamiliar questions. "The industry is beginning to develop a new set of metrics," that help investors determine the relative...
Agile Software Succeeds by Design by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Product-design software maker Agile Software Corp.’s {AGIL} has high hopes it can use its early success to become the dominant player in an emerging new market. "Agile has at least a couple of years lead," over would-be competitors, says Bruce Richardson, vice president...
Apple’s New TV Campaign Targets Intel by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Apple Computer Inc.’s {AAPL} new TV ads lampooning Intel might leave some investors worried that the world’s dominant microprocessor maker may be slipping. But several key analysts say few PC buyers are likely to be swayed by the tough new Power Mac...
Masters of Our Domain RealNames means just what the name says Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, August 31, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/08/31/domainname.dtl Clint Reilly's attempt to steal San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown's online thunder is beginning to backfire. Reilly, a real estate mogul and ex-political consultant running against Brown, recently tried to flummox the...
To Be or Not to Be? by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Although some industry watchers are skeptical, one analyst says demand for Be Inc.’s {BEOS} computer operating system will help drive the company’s stock price up more than 100 percent over the next 12 months. "I’m quite optimistic that when computer users find...
So, You Want to Be an Angel Investor? By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Many high net-worth individuals want a piece of the pre-IPO action "angel investors" sometimes pocket. But becoming a successful angel investor takes much more than just money. It also requires sound judgment, seasoned mentors, and a high tolerance for...
Mypoints.com Builds Loyalty and Value By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Mypoints.com Inc. {MYPT} may have faced some bad timing with its recent IPO, but online consumer incentive company has caught analysts' attention as a stock to watch over the next year. The San Francisco-based company debuted on Nasdaq on August 20 at $8.00...
Need for Speed Sends Two Stocks Soaring by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Brocade Communications Systems Inc. {BRCD} and Gadzoox Networks Inc. {ZOOX} are benefiting from soaring demand for storage area networks (SAN) -- the newest stretch of high-tech pavement on the fast-growing information superhighway -- which could pose an obstacle for the...
Corel Rides Linux Bandwagon by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Corel Corp. {CORL}, the maker of the once-dominant WordPerfect word-processing software, is hitching its wagon to the fast-rising Linux star. The Canadian company plans to release an easy-to-install version of the Linux operating system, called Corel Linux, early next year. The product drew rave...
Potholes on the Information Highway by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent The stock of tiny Tumbleweed Communications Co. {TMWD}, a provider of secure online-communications services to the United States Postal Service, among others, has jumped about 50 percent since the company’s early-August IPO. "Tumbleweed is extremely well-positioned to exploit growth in online technology," says...
Solectron Shines in Outsourcing Sector by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Solectron Corp. {SLR}, a Milpitas, Calif., manufacturer of electronics products for blue-chip customers such as International Business Machines {IBM}, Hewlett-Packard Co. {HWP}, and Cisco Systems Inc. {CSCO}, is benefiting from strong sales by its customers and high utilization of its plants and...
Two Net Companies Test Soft IPO Market by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Two Internet companies–one that’s already been priced and one slated to be priced after the close today–are testing the softening Internet initial public offering market, despite the fact that both are losing money and facing stiff competition. HeadHunter.NET Inc. {HHNT}, an...
Sun's Magic Is Its Servers by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Sun Microsystems Inc.’s {SUNW} splashy Java and Jini software and its next-generation high-performance multimedia chip, Majc, have captured a lot of attention recently. But it’s Sun’s success selling high-end UNIX servers, used in internal corporate networks and to power Web sites, that led...
Beta This Cleaning up the software industry's bug-infested nest Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, August 17, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/08/17/beta.dtl How is it the multibillion dollar software industry gets away with knowingly and repeatedly selling defective products without penalty? Cars are subject to costly and embarrassing recalls at company expense. Canned goods and toys...
Best Is Ahead for Applied Materials by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Strong demand and a pending switch to new semiconductor-manufacturing technologies means the future looks bright for Applied Materials Inc. {AMAT}. "I’ve been following the company since it went public, and this is about the best outlook we’ve ever had for them," says...
Couch Potatoes Shun Quokka by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Fears that couch potatoes aren’t ready to follow sports on the Internet have contributed to a steep post-IPO slide for Quokka Sports' {QKKA} stock. The company, based in San Francisco, portrays itself as the leader in "digital sports immersion." Recently, the stock has been...
Grove Latest to Tout Linux by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Intel Chairman Andrew S. Grove is the latest passenger to jump on the Linux bandwagon, making an unscheduled public appearance at an industry tradeshow in San Jose. The move is sure to increase investor interest in Durham, N.C.-based Red Hat, a Linux-distributor that...
Future Looks Bright for Web Sites Targeted at Women by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Despite the recent dot-com gloom, the future looks rosy for Web sites targeted at women. According to a recent study by Nielsen Media Research and CommerceNet, the number of female consumers online jumped more than 80 percent last...
Tellme Networks Isn’t Saying Much By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent CNBC.com "If it’s just another way to get stock quotes or sports scores, it’s probably not that interesting." -- Amanda McCarthy, Forrester Research Despite the recent flurry of good press generated by Palo Alto-based Tellme Networks, Inc., key industry analysts aren’t convinced the secretive...
Investor Optimism Leaves Some Worried by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Aug 6 1999 4:00PM ET Despite the market's volatility this summer, investor optimism measured in July hit record levels last month and the danger exists of a big mismatch between expectations and reality. Fully three-quarters of investors surveyed in July say they are optimistic...
New Buyer Services Pose Threat to Online Retailers by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Aug 5 1999 6:00AM ET New services that pool purchase orders from consumers are challenging not only old-fashioned brick and mortar operations but also first-generation online retailers. "If these companies build-out to where they could be, they’ll pose a real threat,"...
Running Lame Most presidential candidates stumble online Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, August 4, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/08/04/lame.dtl The Internet has the potential to transform national politics. Unfortunately, that probably won't happen this year thanks to the way most presidential candidates are using it (with the possible exception of former New Jersey...
Yahoo! Struggles With Its Valuation by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent August 3, 1999 6:02AMET “You still can’t do the math and come up with an explanation for how it’s worth [today’s price] 134.” -- Nick Moore, Jurika & Voyles analyst Despite falling roughly 40% from its 52-week high, some analysts think Yahoo!’s stock remains significantly...
Venture Investments Up, But Returns Trend Downward By Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Aug 2 1999 6:08AM ET Venture capital investments in early-stage companies were up sharply during the second quarter this year despite a big drop recently in the average return that VCs had received on their investments. "There is simply no way we...
Hewlett Packard Pulls Out the Stops by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Jul 30 1999 6:03AM ET The selection of Carleton "Carly" Fiorina as Hewlett Packard’s new president and chief executive officer sparked a flurry of well-deserved attention last week. But the bigger buzz around Silicon Valley centers on the savvy way Hewlett Packard...
The Mouse Business Is Roaring by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Jul 29 1999 9:27AM ET Strong sales of sub-$1000 PCs and Apple’s popular iMac computer are helping drive after-market computer mouse sales to record levels. According to a recent report by Intellect ASW, a New York marketing group, recent numbers show a 41 percent...
FCC Gives Boost to AT&T's High-Speed Hopes by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Jul 28 1999 9:11AM ET Thanks to an assist from the Federal Communications Commission, AT&T's {T} considerable investments in high-speed information services have a much better chance of paying off. Recently, the FCC has put its support behind cable companies, indirectly giving...
Pending Red Hat IPO Boosts Server Market by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent Jul 27 1999 9:36AM ET The recent IPO filing by software vendor Red Hat, Inc. signals increased demand in the fast-growing market for a widely accepted operating system that competes with Microsoft products. The Durham, N.C.-based company’s IPO is expected to contribute...
E-Mail Responders Get Ready for IPOs by Hal Plotkin, Silicon Valley Correspondent Jul 23 1999 9:01AM ET Investors looking for hot new Internet initial public offerings will soon have an entirely new category of Net start-ups to consider: e-mail answering services. Sound a bit dry? This new group of soon-to-be public companies solves real problems...
Third-Party Software, International Sales To Determine Apple's Future by Hal Plotkin Silicon Valley Correspondent CNBC.com Jul 21 1999 6:06AM ET Steve Jobs' expected rollout of Apple Computer's new laptop may capture investors attention but two other items will determine the company's long-term prospects. There are encouraging signs in both those areas -- with some important caveats. The...
Killing Uncle Sam The taxman meets his match online Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, July 20, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/07/20/taxes.dtl Many say the Internet is the biggest thing to hit humanity since the splitting of the atom. Unfortunately, that analogy may be painfully on target. Like the early days of atomic power when...
Wanna Make a Bet? How the 'Net can improve your odds Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, July 6, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/07/06/gambling.dtl Did you hear the news that the National Gambling Impact Study Commission recently recommended a moratorium on new gambling establishments? The commission cited all the familiar, valid concerns: the toll gambling takes...
We're Flying Blind Time for New Economic Metrics Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, June 22, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/06/22/metrics.dtl Garbage in, garbage out. The familiar dictum from the computer industry, known as GIGO, says that if your initial data is faulty, your final conclusions will also come up short, no matter how mighty your...
Tech Stocks Has the boom gone bust? Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, June 9, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/06/09/techstocks.dtl So, which way do you think tech stocks are heading? It's one of the questions I'm asked most frequently. The topic is particularly hot right now, as many formerly high-flying Internet stocks are taking a group...
Must See TV Get paid to watch Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, May 25, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/05/25/alladvantage.dtl You may not have heard about AllAdvantage.com yet. But if the Palo Alto-based start-up succeeds, it could mean big changes for the media. And for you. By advancing an unprecedented form of advertising, AllAdvantage's business model...
The War Against Cold Fusion What's really behind it? Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, May 17, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/1999/05/17/coldfusion2.DTL Two months ago, I reported that Dr. Michael McKubre, an electrochemist at Menlo Park-based SRI, was, like other researchers, generating unaccounted-for heat in a carefully-controlled cold fusion experiment. McKubre presented his findings at the...
Oh Holy Net Does the Hand of God Know HTML? Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, April 28, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/04/28/holynet.dtl Recently, while driving through downtown Cairo, our tour guide, Mohammed, turned to me in surprise. "You're Jewish?" he asked, "I've always wondered something: do Jewish people think Jesus was a God, or...
Love Bytes Will the Net flatten Maslow's pyramid? Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, April 12, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/04/12/love.dtl You remember Maslow. He was the noted psychologist who suggested in 1954 that people develop in a predictable way: serving our physiological requirements first, like food and shelter, before concentrating on higher order needs like...
Killing the Rainmakers The dying art of high-tech public relations Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, March 29, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/03/29/pr.dtl Faced with shrinking profit margins and more competition despite strong sales, high-tech executives are cutting costs. And often, that means decimating corporate PR budgets. The problem is these cost-cutting high-tech executives are eating...
Power To The People The return of cold fusion Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, March 15, 1999 Read the original article here. Cold fusion is back. On Friday, March 26, 1999, the director of Menlo Park-based SRI International's Energy Research Center, Dr. Michael McKubre, will present the results of SRI's 10-year, $6 million-dollar...