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Today's Topics:
1. Lead singer of the band Boston dies (Greg Williams)
2. FCC Commissioners Attend Media-Ownership Meeting in Ohio
(George Antunes)
3. AMD Finds Itself in Financial Peril (George Antunes)
4. Ariane 5 / Skynet 5A & INSAT 4B Launch Coverage TODAY (3-10)
@ 5:05pm ET. WEBCAST ONLY (Dishnut)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 00:30:28 -0500
From: Greg Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Lead singer of the band Boston dies
To: [email protected]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Lead singer of the band Boston dies
http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2007/03/09/boston_lead_singer_brad_delp_dies_at_55/?p1=MEWell_Pos3
March 9, 2007
ATKINSON, N.H. --Brad Delp, the lead singer for the band Boston, was
found dead Friday in his home in southern New Hampshire. He was 55.
Atkinson police responded to a call for help at 1:20 p.m. and found Delp
dead. Lt. William Baldwin said in a news release that there was no
indication of foul play.
"There was nothing disrupted in the house. He was a fairly healthy
person from what we're able to ascertain," Police Chief Philip
Consentino told WMUR-TV.
Delp apparently was alone at the time, Baldwin said.
The cause of death remained under investigation. Police said an incident
report would not be available until Monday.
Delp sang on Boston's 1976 hits "More than a Feeling" and "Long Time."
He also sang on Boston's most recent album, "Corporate America,"
released in 2002.
He joined the band in the early 1970s after meeting Tom Scholz, an MIT
student interested in experimental methods of recording music, according
to the group's official Web site. The band enjoyed its greatest success
and influence during its first decade.
The band's last appearance was in November 2006 at Boston's Symphony Hall.
On Friday night, the Web site was taken down and replaced with the
statement: "We just lost the nicest guy in rock and roll."
A call to the Swampscott, Mass., home of Boston guitarist Barry Goudreau
was not immediately returned Friday night.
--
Greg Williams
K4HSM
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.twiar.org
http://www.etskywarn.net
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 12:15:48 -0600
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] FCC Commissioners Attend Media-Ownership Meeting
in Ohio
To: [email protected]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
FCC Commissioners Attend Media-Ownership Meeting in Ohio
By John Eggerton
Broadcasting & Cable
3/8/2007 9:50:00 AM
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6422700.html?display=Breaking+News
Free Press estimates that about 400 people filled the Broad Street
Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Ohio for a town meeting on media ownership
that featured the first FCC majority--three out of the five commissioners--
to attend one of the unofficial gatherings.
The FCC is reviewing its media ownership rules with an eye toward loosening
some of them. Three of five commissioners were in attendance, Democrats
Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps and Republican Robert McDowell.
Adelstein and Copps are regular attendants of the meetings, but it was
McDowell's first appearance. McDowell was the first Republican to attend
any the Free Press hearings--of which there has been over a dozen.
McDowell has shown himself to be an independent voice who has not promised
his vote to the Republican majority. He earned plaudits from the
anti-consolidation crowd for his decision not to vote on the Bell
South/AT&T merger.
According to a Free Press account, McDowell said the media ownership debate
concerns "the vitality of American Democracy." He added that he was "eager
to hear from the public on the impact of media policy decisions."
The commissioners heard testimony from more than 100 people.
The informal forum followed an official FCC public meeting in Harrisburg,
Pa., where well over a hundred people voiced their opinions causing the
meeting y to exceed the official scheduled time
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 12:18:14 -0600
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] AMD Finds Itself in Financial Peril
To: [email protected]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
AMD Finds Itself in Financial Peril
Mar 9, 2007 3:09 PM (ET)
By JORDAN ROBERTSON
Associated Press
http://apnews.myway.com//article/20070309/D8NORU800.html
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - The high-flying Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD)
of 2006 has given way to a company in financial peril, saddled with debt
and bleeding from a brutal price battle with its larger and suddenly
resurgent Silicon Valley archrival, Intel Corp. (INTC)
AMD finds itself the subject of rumors of a possible takeover or
private-equity cash infusion. While it wasn't long ago that AMD was
stealing a big slice of the microprocessor market and emerging as a
long-term threat to Intel, those very gains may have left AMD's well
running dry.
Though the price competition has cut into both chip makers' profits, Wall
Street has punished AMD's stock particularly hard. Its shares have plunged
more than 60 percent over the past year on fears about the company's
ability to continue gaining share without hurting profit margins.
Meanwhile, Intel's stock is down just 4 percent.
Investors are concerned AMD is spending too heavily to keep up with Intel's
aggressive transition to next-generation manufacturing technology.
AMD's fall has wiped out about $10 billion in shareholder wealth. Analysts
say the exodus will likely continue until the company rolls out its new
chips this year and resolves fears about its dwindling cash reserves and
high capital expenditures.
The shifting fortunes highlight the challenges facing AMD as it squares off
against a company with seven times its annual revenue and a history of
spending heavily on breakthrough technologies.
"AMD, as a company, has enough strong parts that it will survive, but I
think it's going to be a rough couple of years for this organization," said
Stephen Kleynhans, a research vice president at Gartner Inc. (IT) "They've
got some very solid technology, but technology can be very fleeting. A
technology lead today can just disappear in just a matter of quarters."
Both Intel and AMD are adept at weathering the boom-and-bust cycles of the
volatile semiconductor industry. But they are still adjusting to AMD's
newfound competitiveness across a range of products, from desktops to
laptops to servers.
AMD stole about 4 percent of the overall processor market from Intel in
2006, according to Mercury Research. AMD scored a particularly big victory
by partnering with Dell Inc. (DELL), once an exclusive Intel client.
But Intel, which still controls about three-quarters of the total market,
has roared back with a lineup of powerful and energy-efficient processors
that appears to be slowing AMD's offensive.
While AMD continues to gain market share in desktops and laptops, its
growth in the lucrative server market has stalled. In 2006, AMD siphoned
about 5 percent of the server market from Intel, but leveled out at 22
percent share during the second half, according to Mercury Research.
Last month, Intel scored a high-profile victory of its own, announcing an
alliance with server and software maker Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUNW) The
partnership will put Intel chips back in Sun servers and workstations after
several years of AMD exclusivity.
AMD is banking on regaining momentum with the mid-2007 launch of its new
server chip, code-named Barcelona, which has four computing engines and an
updated design. The company acknowledges that Intel beat it to market with
four-core chips that launched in November. But AMD insists its design for
getting the cores to communicate with each other will serve as a key advantage.
"Five years ago no one knew who we were in the server space, now we're a
player," said Mario Rivas, AMD's executive vice president for the computing
products group. "This will allow us to be a serious contender in the server
space and regain the performance crown. There is a halo effect that goes
with that."
But analysts are not optimistic about a quick turnaround for AMD.
The company swung to a $166 million loss for fiscal 2006 and disappointed
investors by offering little clarity on how it intended to differentiate
its products from Intel's and improve profitability.
This week, AMD warned it was unlikely to meet its first-quarter revenue
guidance of $1.6 billion to $1.7 billion.
"Our view is that this will get worse before it gets better," said
Christopher Caso, a senior analyst with Friedman Billings Ramsey. "This
quarter's performance is evidence that it did get worse."
Wall Street is worried that AMD is in dire need of cash after its $5.6
billion acquisition of graphics chip maker ATI Technologies Inc. and heavy
spending on factory upgrades. AMD bought ATI last year under the philosophy
that combining traditional processing chores with graphics capabilities in
one chip would give AMD a long-term advantage over Intel.
But the deal reverberated through AMD's finances. At the end of 2006, AMD
was sitting on $1.5 billion in cash but had $3.8 billion in debt, including
$2.2 billion associated with the ATI acquisition. In 2005, AMD had $1.8
billion in cash and a total debt load of $1.4 billion.
AMD said in its annual report that the big debt may crimp its ability to
borrow more money and pay for $2.5 billion in capital expenditures planned
in 2007.
"It's a dilemma - we believe AMD needs to spend the money to build the fabs
(chip factories), but they may have to find some additional financing to
achieve those goals," said analyst John Lau of investment bank Jefferies &
Co. "We believe investors need to see some resolution of these issues
before they start to get back into the stock again."
Intel ended 2006 in a healthier financial position: $10 billion in cash and
$2 billion in total debt. Intel's net income dropped 42 percent last year -
hurt by price-cutting and extensive factory upgrades - but analysts are
bullish the company is quickly recouping its investments and improving
profitability.
Intel is known for its heavy research-and-development spending even during
lean times. In 2006, the company said it was eliminating 10,500 positions
in a massive restructuring. But it still spent $5.9 billion on R&D - about
17 percent of overall revenue - up from $5.1 billion in fiscal 2005.
By comparison, AMD plowed $1.2 billion - more than 21 percent of its
revenue - into R&D last year.
The expenditures have helped Intel pull ahead of AMD by at least a year in
producing chips based on 65-nanometer and 45-nanometer technology, which
shrinks chip circuitry to 65- and 45-billionths of a meter. The smaller
scale allows more transistors to be crammed onto the same piece of silicon.
AMD said it is closing the gap with Intel and believes its partnership with
IBM Corp. makes rolling out the technology more cost-efficient.
"We believe we're putting the right capacity in at the right time, and
we're immediately getting the benefits," said Tom Sonderman, AMD's director
of manufacturing technology.
Industry analysts said both companies are suffering from the need to
balance the near-term goals of shareholders and the huge expenditures
required to stay competitive.
"What this comes down to is the companies are playing a long-term game,"
said Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research. "The financial
people would be delighted to hear AMD would not be investing in any
factories. They would be delighted if Intel would not compete on price to
gain market share and would focus on margins. That's great for the next
three quarters, but a train wreck for both companies."
Perhaps one lifeline for AMD will come from none other than Intel itself.
AMD is suing Intel for antitrust violations, claiming that Intel undercut
AMD by forcing customers into exclusive deals and offering secret rebates.
Trial isn't due to begin for two more years, but there's precedent for a
settlement. In the mid-1990s, AMD and Intel agreed to resolve several legal
claims against each other, and one result was that AMD won the right to
keep producing chips on the x86 design architecture - which both companies
still use today.
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 13:31:10 -0800
From: Dishnut <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Ariane 5 / Skynet 5A & INSAT 4B Launch Coverage
TODAY (3-10) @ 5:05pm ET. WEBCAST ONLY
To: Medianews <[email protected]>, [email protected], Satellite
TV Wild Feeds List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, TVRO Newsgroup
<[email protected]>, TVRO Talk Newsgroup
<[email protected]>, WildFeeds List <[email protected]>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Arianespace is set to launch, a Ariane 5 ECA (v.174)with Skynet 5A
military communications satellite for the British Ministry of Defense
and INSAT 4B direct-to-home broadcasting satellite for India, from
ELA-3, Kourou, French Guiana, South America.
Launch is set for 5:25 p.m. EST. with a window extending to 5:58 p.m. EST.
Spacecraft separation for Skynet 5A is expected 26 minutes after lift
off and 31 minutes after liftoff for INSAT 4B.
Unfortunately there will be no satellite broadcast to North America, but
there will be a webcast of the launch available at:
http://www.videocorner.tv/index.php?langue=en
Broadcast starts around 5:05 p.m. EST.
Additional coverage at:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/ariane/v175/status.html
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/launches/next_launch.html
http://www.arianespace.com/site/news/news_sub_missionupdate_index.html
http://www.arianespace.com/site/news/news_sub_launchkit_index.html
--
Dishnut-P
====================================================================
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**In Loving Memory of Mom (Dishnut Gerry)**
------------------------------
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End of Medianews Digest, Vol 200, Issue 1
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