That ring of confidence

Originally written for eVent! [ep] magazine on 11/15/06.

Last week I complained about how early it seemed that Christmas was starting, and this week it's in full swing as a number of new products are hitting the shelves aiming to be your Christmas gift purchases. Sony's Playstation 3, Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's Zune are all out this week, and all trying to get you to open your wallets. I've written about the video games console war that's about to erupt before, with the Playstation 3 and the Wii competing against the already released X-Box 360 from Microsoft. Today though it's a chance to look at the Zune, the newest MP3 player from Microsoft and their third attempt at an iPod killer.

As I said the Zune is Microsoft's third attempt at toppling Apple's iPod, the portable music player that's changed the way the world listens to music and made Apple a resurgent force in both the personal electronics field and also once more in the computer field. Their first two failed miserably and that's why you won't find a mention of them in any of the media coverage of the new device, because in the style of George Orwell's book Animal Farm if Microsoft just pretends it didn't happen it didn't happen and for the most part the press doesn't pick up on it.

Here Microsoft is playing an interesting game. In its desire to knock Apple off the MP3 block it's being a little bit sneaky with how it's selling the Zune and historical revisionism isn't it's only trick. For example the Zune is considerably bigger, clunkier and heavier, than the comparable iPod. So instead of comparing it to an iPod with the same amount of memory Microsoft's size comparisons are against an iPod with over twice the storage capacity. The goes for the battery life comparisons, and in some reviews in the media the newly released Zune gets compared to iPods that are up to two years old instead of newer and sleeker versions.

Playing with numbers like that is not anything new sadly. When was the last time you bought something with a battery where the battery actually lasted as long as it said it would on the box? MP3 players, cellular phones, laptops and all electronics get a bit of fudging in the numbers. Battery estimates tend to mean that under the best conditions a battery possibly could last that length of time. These estimates are talking about what possibly could maybe happen in a perfect world, which means it's never actually going to last that long.

The more pressing issue though is the previous attempts at dealing with the iPod, because it offers a warning for all those who might be thinking of buying a Zune. Like the iPod the Zune has a store where you buy music for it, or you can rip your already owned music from CDs. The music from the Zune store only works on the Zune, just as purchases from the iTunes music store only works on the iPod and not other devices. Fair enough, but the fact is since the iTunes music store has been released the songs have worked on all iPods, and a song you buy this year will work on an iPod you might buy two years from now.

In 2004 Microsoft had Portable Media Centers meant to unseat the iPod. In 2005 they joined with a wide range of different music services and device makers to create a standard music format called "Plays For Sure". The promise of "Plays For Sure" was that any MP3 player that used Microsoft software would be able to play any of the songs purchased at these stores such as Napster. Though never as successful as the iTunes music store a lot of these devices were sold, and a lot of songs were sold, now they won't work on the newest device from the company that made the format. The Zune does not work with the Microsoft "Plays For Sure" songs, and Microsoft is now competing against the device makers and music stores that they were supposed to partner with.

So if the Zune isn't a success in knocking the iPod off its block how long before Microsoft decides to pretend it didn't happen and bring out a new device with a new format? Any songs you might buy for your Zune could be outdated in less than a year. But hey, at least it's not so big that it won't fit under the Christmas tree. Or at least that's what Microsoft is hoping.

Originally written for eVent! [ep] magazine on 11/02/06.

The purchase of Chelsea Football Club, one of the most historic teams in the English Premier League, by Russian oil billionaire Roman Abramovich in the summer of 2003 sent shockwaves through England's top soccer league. The purchase saw the club, which had been a mainstay of English soccer since 1905, go from being a mid-level English side to one of the most successful teams in the world. With Abramovich's money they won the Premier League Championship in 2005 ending 50 years of drought. Since buying the club for 60 million pounds (about 130 million dollars Canadian) Abramovich has spent over 100 million pounds (about 217 million dollars Canadian) on buying up the best players in the world, and altering the landscape of English football.

Football for Abramovich is a hobby, and he has clearly stated that he has no real interest in Chelsea as an investment. The soonest the club might begin to be profitable is 2010, and that probably won't include the vast amounts that Abramovich pours into the club to buy up players. It has made it impossible for teams who are either owned by owners not as interested in loosing millions of dollars, or owned by shareholders and traded on the stock market, to compete. Even Manchester United, one of the most successful teams in the history of professional sports, has failed to compete.

Manchester United in fact have gone from a team in excellent financial health to a team wracked with debt when foreign investors also bought them out. United's purchaser however wasn't an oil rich sugar daddy looking for a reason to hang around England on the weekends but a wheeling and dealing American looking to make money. Malcom Glazer already owned the National Football League's Tampa Bay Buccaneers when he bought Man U, and because he did not have the cash just lying around his house the way Abramovich did he had to borrow heavily. The debt from his borrowing was put on the club and Manchester United, which previously had no debts, now owes the bank more than 660 million pounds (about 1.4 billion dollars Canadian). Rather than being hailed as a savior, like Abramovich had in Chelsea, Glazer was burned in effigy by fans and is still one of the most hated owners in English football.

While Abramovich's takeover of Chelsea is undoubtedly good for Chelsea, at least as long as he's content to pump millions of pounds into the club, but is it good for football or sports? The question of course is whether sports is a business or a pastime. Remember Peter Pocklington in the 1980s? The Edmonton Oilers were his play thing every bit as much as Chelsea is Abramovich's. They were his way of showing the world how rich he was, the most visible part of his business empire. The trouble for Oilers fans came when Pocklington's other businesses, the ones that were expected to fund the Oilers, stopped being quite so profitable and the rich Albertan started to try to squeeze money from the club.

Gretzky left the Oilers in exchange for cash, and later Pocklington would sell the team. The Oilers were no longer the most exciting and talented club in hockey, no longer a dynasty, and fans were lucky that the club did not close or get moved like Winnipeg and Quebec City. They're now running on a much tighter budget, and because of this and their teams tend to be younger and established stars are traded for up and coming talent. This managed to work last season when the Oilers got to the Stanley Cup Final, but it's a long way down from the Dynasty that dominated the 1980s.

People have a very powerful connection to their favorite sports teams. It's a connection that can survive nearly anything, and is often passed down through generations. This is why it's always hard to look at spots teams as businesses, because they're so much more to so many people. While we'd probably all love a Roman Abramovich type owner to buy the Vancouver Canucks and turn the team into the most powerful force in the NHL, in the long run it probably would not be a good thing because when the money faucet dried up the fans would still be there, but the high priced players would be moving on, they would leave as quickly as the money did.

Originally written for eVent! [ep] magazine on 10/26/06.

The Klingons have a saying, you know this is going to be a great article when it starts by referencing Star Trek, "Today is a good day to die." You know that's supposed to sum up their warrior culture and their willingness to die in battle. Great, great I understand glorious death in battle, check. Those crazy Klingons, I bet they're a ton of fun at parties.

For me the other day seemed like a good day to die, though not for honour in battle but only because everything I touched that day seemed to just screw up on me. There was a point during the escalating comedy of errors that I refused to look up least an airplane fall out of the sky and land on me.

You want some examples? My alarm did not wake me up in the morning, so when I woke up to see that I was supposed to be at work in one minute I assumed I wouldn't be able to make it. There is no mode of transportation yet invented to allow me to get across town in one-minute, much less shower and shave during the trip. Like in Star Trek transporters would be handy, but they've not been invented yet.

Thankfully I had forgotten about the world falling back onto daylight savings time, and so I had an hour extra and I made it to work on time. I'm not sure if we all set our clocks back an hour just to ensure that I won't be late for work one day a year, but it seems awful convenient that it worked out that day.

The trouble of course is that I now no longer trust the alarm in my phone to wake me up, despite the fact that it's worked fine for months. It went off, it just was not loud enough to wake me from the coma I had fallen into. I'm going to have to start setting two alarms, maybe even three, just to ensure that I rise on time.

Getting to work on time was nice. What wasn't nice was when I discovered that the store had no paper, at all. I went to print something and heard the familiar "out of paper" sound that our printer makes, so I went to get some more from the drawer. None there, so onto the supply closet, none there, so into the product room and again there was none. Now we use a lot of paper, and without it I basically can't do anything. People talk about the paperless office one day becoming a reality, yet every week there seems to be at least one more form I need to fill out on a regular basis.

It was a Sunday, and I work alone on a Sunday. So with nobody else to get paper I had to put a closed sign on the front door and leave to search for some. I managed to find a package at Future Shop, and quickly headed back to the store.

Really no paper? You'd think that would have gotten checked before the weekend, but then I suppose I'd be the one whose supposed to have checked that.

So two of the things I rely on failed me that day, and then I'm could only wait for the other shoe to drop. Thankfully I don't drive to work, otherwise my brakes would have probably failed. I was fearing the best course of action was either to kill myself now in fear of what is coming or get home as soon as I can after work and hide behind my couch in the fetal position. I chose the later, it seemed the easiest and I knew eventually something had to work. So my new saying is, "Today is either a good day to die, or a good day to hide behind a couch weeping like a little girl."

I bet it sounds cooler in Klingon.