According to this 9News.Com article, the FCC is looking at combating skyrocketing cable costs with "A-La-Carte" pricing, where the consumer would only pay for channels they actually watch. Here is one place where I actually think the Government is right.
I predict that in the next 5 years ALL TV will be delivered in a "on demand" format. You will simply subscribe to (and pay for) only those shows that you actually want to see. The only "live" content will be news, sports and a few other shows. Everything else (sitcoms, movies, etc) can and should be delivered on demand.
Anybody that disagrees just needs to think back to what happened with MP3's and the music industry. It's going to happen again, and advertisers and the TV industry might as well prepare for it (and prosper from it) rather than run from it (and suffer the same fate as the music industry). The technology is already here- IPTV, Tivo, DVR and the Apple TV are all leading examples of a trend that will only continue to grow.
The writings on the wall- and it's good for consumers IMHO.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Use The Right Tool For The Job
For my first post I would just like to rant about using the right tool for the job. I came across a client recently that is using Microsoft Access to query against tables that contain several hundred thousand rows. Guess what? It wasn't working too well. The client was wasting their valuble time waiting for these queries to run when they could have been doing something more productive.
A tool such as SQL Server or Oracle would be better able to handle this task- but guess what- IT at this location does not want to spend the money to install either system. I then mentioned MySQL, which is free- but the pushback I got was that it is "Open Source". So I guess it's better for my client to waste hours of time every month rather than IT taking the time to install the "Open Source" free software on her machine.... Right.... It's obvious that these IT personnel are not versed in basic financial concepts such as Cost/Benefit and ROI.
My point is that in any situation or process it is absolutely vital to use the right tool for the job. It's like using a sledgehammer to break down a wall vs. a jackhammer. One will SEEM to cost less in the short term while costing you much more in lost productivity long term.
A tool such as SQL Server or Oracle would be better able to handle this task- but guess what- IT at this location does not want to spend the money to install either system. I then mentioned MySQL, which is free- but the pushback I got was that it is "Open Source". So I guess it's better for my client to waste hours of time every month rather than IT taking the time to install the "Open Source" free software on her machine.... Right.... It's obvious that these IT personnel are not versed in basic financial concepts such as Cost/Benefit and ROI.
My point is that in any situation or process it is absolutely vital to use the right tool for the job. It's like using a sledgehammer to break down a wall vs. a jackhammer. One will SEEM to cost less in the short term while costing you much more in lost productivity long term.
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