Archive for June 2010

30 Jun, 2010 | Posted by: st



Forgotten Milestone

Just a little anniversary I forgot to mention last month, so I'll mention it this month. Last month was the 200th anniversary of this column.* So, a belated Happy Anniversary to On-Line!


So You Think You Can Have Unlimited Downloads?
As wireless devices engulf the nation, and particularly in metropolitan areas like Los Angeles and New York City, many wireless carriers are scrambling to figure out how to manage the tremendous volumes of data traversing their data networks.
AT&T recently moved to tiered levels of service, where heavy data users pay more. T-Mobile likewise has limited excessive use on its network. And now Sprint-Nextel has changed its policies for laptop data users with mobile broadband cards or USB modems.
Excessive data roaming by laptop users could result in suspension of service until the next billing cycle, unless the subscriber opts in to a different plan. Sprint says it will notify affected customers via text message or email when they hit 75% and 90% of the roaming data limit.

What's That?
A revealing comment by Kodak's CEO, Antonio Perez: "Film will never come back. Those very, very, very high gross margins that film had will never come back. I don't know of any digital businesses that will even have half the margin that film had."
Kodak's focus continues to be on printers. Their consumer-level printers typically cost more than the competition, but their price for ink cartridges are about 50% less. And they continue to push into commercial printing with their fast digital Prosper Press equipment, although there are some manufacturing issues. These presses sell for over $1 million to $4 million. Kodak will continue to rake in the bucks with their patents, although Mr. Perez has plans to be less aggressive with their patent lawsuits.

* The quixotic Bill Hopkins loves being on-line and is the brain-storm of our www.photosourcefolio.com . Give him a look over on the right hand column. -RE


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