Thursday, March 31

Why would anyone imitate Microsoft Word?

When I write in Microsoft Word, it's like dictating to an imbecile. It constantly changes the capitalization, spelling and formatting of what I'm writing in ways I don't want. I can't believe that Word has become the dominant word processor and there are no viable competitors. There is an opportunity here, and OpenOffice, AbiWord and others are missing the opportunity by trying to act as much as possible like Word. The emperor has no clothes!

I hope Apple's iWork pages has some potential to shake things up. It looks promising. But something tells me it's not the answer.

Wednesday, March 30

Ma Bell, why have you forsaken your children?

Can it be that Ma Bell has become violent force in her senility? SBC buys AT&T?

Answer me this: Why should the price of a local phone connection keep going up? The costs of the connection should be plummeting. The costs of billing should be plummetting, yet my local phone bill went up monthly. How could that be?

Because SBC has a monopoly. They push their anticompetitive bills through congress every month.

And who is the only company who NEVER fixed a problem I was having with my phone line? I had to climb up on a pole and splice the wires myself after one month of no phone service. SBC (Ameritech at the time).

What to do? Ditch your landline! Believe it or not, I ran straight into the arms of my cable company? Can you believe anyone embracing their cable company? SBC, I dance on your grave. When my Comcast promotion runs out, I going to Vonage.

Tuesday, March 29

My Plan for Auto Brands

You're going to see a lot of ranting here about the auto industry? Why, because I care! The automobile industry made this country great. Detroit in the 1940s was one of the greatest cities in the world. Now look what happened!

So here goes...

There are many indistinct, and just plain negative brands out there. The first thing the auto companies need to do is kill them. Quick! Everything depends on it!

Who do you think the worst offender is? You'll be hearing about this company a lot: General Motors. Let me give them credit. They killed Oldsmobile. That was a good one to start with. And guess what: the world didn't end! Buick should have a big target on it. A friend of mine developed a great new slogan: "Take the ick out of Buick." And they rejected it! Chrysler, uh Daimler Chrysler bit the bullet too and killed Plymouth. Good job!

Here is the official list of Brands That Should Be Killed and what they mean to buyers:

General Motors
  • Buick (buyers are quickly getting too old to drive)
  • Saturn (so boring, drivers fall asleep at the wheel)
  • Pontiac (supposed to be sporty, but really junk)
Why would you release the G6 - which is a clear improvement and still sell the Grand Am and Grand Prix?

Ford
  • Mercury (same as Ford, but just a bit more expensive)

and to show I'm not just picking on US companies:

Hyundai
  • Kia (what, are they crazy? Why do they need two brands here).

Robert Lutz just said they won't kill Saturn because it has a great demographic. That makes me laugh!

Until next time.