Posts by DaLo
69 posts • joined Thursday 30th August 2012 10:30 GMT
Re: @jonathanb Is it so easy?
That is not corporation tax, that is VAT. It doesn't work for corporation tax.
@jonathanb Re: Is it so easy?
SO you are saying that every company that trades in France has to have a "French division" with all the associated paperwork, auditing, local laws, staffing etc. Even if they are just a small UK company with 50 employees in the UK, or say 10 employees in the UK.
Then people in France have to purchase from the 'French Division' and not the UK division. If German customers wish to purchase , who must they purchase from?
1) Their nearest, the French company
2) The HQ in the UK
or looking at your post this is the one it seems that you would require
3) Not be allowed to purchase until a division is set up in Germany with limited company status to handle tax and auditing requirements.
Be a shame if the German interest in your product was for a short time due to a specific project and now you have no more sales there..
This is all against EU legislation and free trade agreements. If you wish to scrap free trade across Europe that is a different discussion.
and @naughtyhorse.
I never said that the UK should be responsible for collecting taxes. The point is, is a company only morally corrupt, inept, evil, borderline illegal etc when it is a foreign company who is paying their tax in a different country or do those terms also apply to UK companies who are doing the same to other countries? If, therefore, a company is such a bad egg then shouldn't they be condemned as a bad company, or are they no longer a bad company?
My point being, remarks such as "just create a law for it", "just shut them down", "send in the HMRC", etc are all a little blinkered and unrealistic hence why the problem exists in the first place.
Re: Simple fix: VAT+=CorpTax; CorpTax=0
That's only if you are reselling the goods.
Re: Simple fix: VAT+=CorpTax; CorpTax=0
Corporation tax is based on profits, VAT isn't.
Therefore companies that are struggling to make a profit in their early years would be hit even harder.
So prices for consumers would be affected and more companies in their first few years would fail.
Companies who sell to businesses who then get the VAT reclaimed would then lose the government money (most adwords/doubleclicks go to businesses not to consumers). So it would act as a tax punishment for the company selling the goods but the government wouldn't get any tax at all (reclaimed).
Re: Is it so easy?
Well that is the issue. It is not so easy to create a law - which has to be black and white once case law is created. Any grey areas just create loopholes and tax avoidance.
So, if you say that a lot more 'product' and 'sales' work goes on in the other countries - then is this the definition in law? Every country that has more customers than the parent company has to be set up for local taxes on all customers in that country?
Not exactly fair though is it. If, the UK for instance, has 1million customers of company x and they are based in Ireland which has 900,000 customers then they pay corporation tax to the UK? However they have a push and get 1.01 million customers in Ireland and now they can stop paying tax altogether in the UK? What about smaller countries with a lower user base, will they never get tax from any business that isn't based in their boundaries?
Maybe it goes on company size? Well Google employ 3000 people in Ireland but only 1,300 in the UK. Therefore they would be right to HQ in Ireland, surely?
Maybe everywhere you have a customer you have to pay tax on that customer? Well this isn't corporation tax, it's duty and VAT.
So do you split their profits among all the countries based on a factor - but what? Customer size, Customer revenue, staff numbers? This would be a loophole any decent accountant could drive a truck through. You are likely to kill off the super-widget maker's dreams of European sales mentioned above. What if the customer buys goods from the internet in a country that doesn't actively market there?
In reality in a free market in Europe a company should be allowed to choose when to set up their headquarters. The same way that Wales or Scotland might reduce taxes for the Amazon warehouse in Swansea or Edinburgh. The same way you can choose to buy something from France if it is cheaper and you live in the UK.
It's not straight forward, if it was then there'd be legislation already.
Is it so easy?
Imagine you, as a UK company makes Super Widgets from your manufacturing based in Wisledon. You have a factory of 50 people making them along with admin employees, sales and marketing.
They sell well and you branch out, selling them in Europe. Do to the need for demonstrations and language barriers you employ some people in France and Italy to cover those regions. They demo the product and take a purchase request which gets sent back to Wisledon. The invoice is raised and sent out along with the goods.
Now should your company have to set up limited companies in France and Italy, along with auditing and local legislation (and then also in Germany, Poland, Denmark etc as you expand)?
Therefore it isn't balck an white, how many staff do you have to have before you need to start paying taxes in that country, how many sales do you need, what constitutes a sale, does the product need to be manufactured there, does a virtual product need to reside there... not easy just to create a law to cover it. Combines with EU open trade agreements and legislation and it gets harder still.
Now if you are a US company coming to Europe to trade and you need to set up a sales office in one location to simplifiy accountancy, auditing and other requirements are you going to choose the highest Taxed country or the Lowest assuming all else is equal?
Does the UK government call in UK companies who are trading abroad and criticise them for not paying their fair amount of taxes to other countries where their goods are purchased?
Re: Sigh...it's so easy.
Really, a UK government openly taking part in extortion, blackmail and encouraging bribery?
Wow, I'm sure there be no implications with that...
Re: “ARM sold 9 billion units in 2012"
It says units not devices, a unit can be anything like a license for a device etc. An electricity company that doesn't have a power station can still sell a unit of electricity.
In this case I would suggest that ARM has collected royalties for 9 billion devices and therefore the unit in question is a license.
Re: @Shagbag beyond a joke
Fastest Growing?
http://xkcd.com/1102/
Re: Having...
I bet those 10 year old powerpoint presentations are just super-dooper interesting and will keep the audience enthralled for hours. With all those great clip-art, funky transitions and sound effects.
I would just love to attend one of those presentations....
Strange reporting from Bill Ray..
He's normally a bit more down to earth. I mean "DON'T USE GOOGLE+? TOUGH, GOOGLE GLASS WILL INJECT IT INTO YOUR EYES", "It phones home" etc..
It's hard to tell if it was sarcasm moaning about the blogs and news reports talking about Glass in an article about Glass?
However, in my opinion, it is a pretty cool product, well packaged and the first of it's kind that has enough backing, marketing and hype and a decent UX to have the chance of mass market appeal.
Remember when everyone (me included) was saying that the Apple Tablet was ridiculous, no-one would want one. It had been done before and it was less use to have an iPhone as a tablet than PC which had failed? Then it took the market by storm.
Go back even further to mobile phones. Ridiculously expensive, not practical, not needed by anyone and anyone with one was just a tw@t who deserved a "punch in the face". And now?
So I think the major hurdle will be the price and social acceptance. If it becomes normal and okay to walk around wearing them and they are cheap enough then they could well be a massive hit.
One thing, I bet if Apple had 'invented' it then there would be a ton more hype, reporting and queuing around the block to get them. It would be hailed as the most innovative thing on earth ever and a sure fire hit.
It's good that Google are in a position to try out projects that may just fail as it generally enhances technology and you aren't sat on a history of "What Ifs" and "if only someone had the guts to make it".
Re: Plastic back maybe?
The later models had slight raised bumps so that it wouldn't slide on flat surfaces.
I've got an early one and use the official bumper - it looks okay and I've dropped it a few times so I'm glad I've got it but the main reason I keep it on is to stop the slide.
Re: And if you thought the Outlook.com WEBSITE was bad........
"Deliberate attempt to "persuade" people onto WinPhones, perhaps?"
So... you are already an Android user and you decide to use Microsoft's product rather than the inbuilt Gmail one.
You load on Microsoft's product and it is terrible. The app is poor and doesn't work properly for your needs and you think Microsoft aren't very good at writing and designing apps for mobile.
However you think that, despite your enjoyment of the Android platform and your only experience of Microsoft in the Mobile arena is a terrible app, you would be persuaded to abandon your whole ecosystem to use a full software suite provider by the purveyor of crap software.
Or they could write a truly awesome app that is great to use and really showcases Microsoft abilities in the Mobile space and lead you to believe that Microsoft really gets the mobile user experience - if their Outlook app is this good (so much better than Gmail) that you might actually try out their platform next time to see how amazing all their apps are?
Which would be more persuasive in getting you to try out Windows Phone 8 and therefore be a better marketing tactic?
(If you have a Ford car that you really like but the only part that breaks or really annoys you is the gear lever which is made by Hyundai, would that persuade you to ditch your Ford and buy a Hyundai, or just make sure the next Ford you buy had no parts made by Hyundai?)
Re: whyPhone
Yeah, also wondering this. I thought when the author said " few chats with people who would know," I thought the Register had found someone with links to people at Apple.
However the article doesn't mention that Apple are going to use this technology or looking at it.
The author seems to have good knowledge of the industry and is providing a very factual and informative article but the whole premise of the article that the next iPhone could be using this undermines it. No evidence (even the "market analyst" quote is mentioned).
30 days notice
If you're cancelling for breach of contract then the 30 days notice won't apply surely?
Re: Playing with new toys...
But then you'd need a QR code on every article, photo and advert which would just link through to a webpage. This system provides an overlay on each section of the paper that can be interactive.
Can't see this having long term appeal and being that practical without really big investment into secondary content. With digital papers and online news though it can't be worth the investment, surely.
Re: WTF
You've heard of Barings Bank, right?
Re: But, but, but...all payment involves the payee in costs
Your question was "If they want these regulations to work, won't it mean companies will have to actually handle differentiated pricing based on whether you are paying by corporate or personal cards, for example?"
The answer is - No, you can average it out. Credit Cards IS a single payment type. This isn't my opinion it is the regulations.
Re: But, but, but...all payment involves the payee in costs
No, You can average it out across a single payment type such as Credit Cards and then just have the difference of that average above the cost of another payment type such as debit cards.
Re: so...
Booking and administration fees are not included in this legislation as long as they are not dependant on a particular means of payment (i.e. A set booking fee is allowed but a booking fee only payable if you use a credit card is not).
Re: -chrome-
Both Firefox and Google are retiring or have retired vendor flags. Webkit to follow?
The feature will be off by default but you can still implement it and turn the feature on to see how it will work. When it eventually becomes stable the feature will be turned on by default and the effect will start working.
How is that the same?
There is only a finite number of v4 IPs and they are pretty much all allocated. Therefore how do you get static IPs from your ISP other than by buying them off them or using a different ISP?
At least with monthly subs people will consider whether they really need them and hand them back at the end of their use.
Posted in Time to put 'Big Data' on a forced diet
IOPS Requirement
"What's interesting is that even today it's rare to see a software product's data sheet cite the IOPS (per-second storage operation capacity) requirement of the product"
How would this really be possible for most products? There's so many variables that the figure would be largely meaningless.
Posted in Time to put 'Big Data' on a forced diet
Big Data
I would hope that an article on the Register talking about 'Big Data' would be jumping all over the industry for their recent hype machine and latest fad. 'Cloud' is so last year, 2013 has obviously been designated 'Big Data' year.
It's amazing that that amazing breakthrough happened in Big Data late last year...oh it didn't.
Well maybe no-one has had massive amounts of data before...oh they have.
Well maybe there wasn't a way to store and manipulate it before...oh there was.
Data warehousing has been around since I can remember, if a company has only just realised they have large quantities of data just because of a flashing Intel advert then they must have been hiding out somewhere dark.
'Big Data' the worst of the buzzwords so far...
Re: $0.5 million?
True, good spot.
I meant billion, of course (0.5 and 1 billion respectively)
Microsoft keeping quiet?
You're having a laugh aren't you?
Ads for Windows Phone 7 and then 8 have been plastered everywhere, websites, billboards etc. There was a reported $0.5million marketing budget for Windows Phone 7 and $1million+ for windows phone 8.
There were also reports of a great deal of money pushed towards partners such as Nokia for their Lumia launches. Which through empirical evidence would appear to be true. Microsoft are pushing money into commission for sales staff to sell the phones and app developers to promote their apps. At one point almost every phone store was running big Windows Phone 8 or Lumia displays.
I would readily believe that the marketing budget for Microsoft Phones outstrips Android phones and iPhone put together.
Quite a few tech companies are spending less on trade shows and opting to spend the money on their own events instead. Your product doesn't then get lost the mass of news that floods out and you can time your announcements strategically when you want to rather than when the show's date is.
The problem is despite all this money being put into it, it just isn't selling. You can't force consumers with a free choice to choose a phone they don't want to buy. Advocates for the platform claim it is amazing but this doesn't translate to sales, so maybe consumers are a little more savvy than the "journalists" and "respected tech reviewers"?
Android and iPhone sold due to their platform, their word-of-mouth marketing, their features and their position in the market. As a general rule most sections of the market have rejected Windows Phone 8, this doesn't mean it is dead.
As the apps grow, as the system gets better as more people buy it it might gain a bit of traction. But to say it's because Microsoft or its partners haven't tried or aren't trying is disingenuous.
Making excuses
Not sure why the article seems to be making excuses tinged with embarrassment at using these switches. In many scenarios a high end Cisco switch is complete overkill. If you look at the use case, data switching needs and the end nodes then you can fulfil a lot of these with cheaper switches (even the Cisco SME line). Sometimes these are more reliable and you can buy n+1, n+2 etc for redundancy.
The specs state the total throughput of a switch and often, with a well designed LAN and if you aren't heavily invested in SSDs, the lower end ones are a far better fit with a massively reduced TCO.
I have more trouble from our £multi-thousand switches than I do from the cheap end node switches at the end of a fibre run. However each has a purpose in the right situation. I would make no excuses for using Non-Cisco switches.
3D printers, running costs?
"Decent 3D printers cost between £1,000 and £2,000 to run"
A year, a month, a day, an hour, per object, per kilogram? Strange stat.
Re: Easily confused...
I can't even tell what sport they were talking about. I first though motor racing, but then maybe boat racing. I thought maybe I recognised the name Carl Harris from motorbike racing or it could be horse racing?
Who knows...
**Edit** I see the same question has come up below.
Re: First%20impressions
I think I've spotted a bug?
Re: Perhaps 'slightly' OT but Chrome Browser
Wow - it's so easy.
Heck, the only reason you're not entering is, I assume, that the $110, 000 just isn't enough to warrant the effort of getting out of bed?
However, you can get the prize several times so you could make multi-variants of the 'crack' and romp home. Let us know how it goes...
Re: Give it time
You just said you were spending an extra 3 months on your app to get it right but now you are saying you only took two days?
If your app is so great and better than anything on iOS or Android, care to name it so we can all see how good it is?
Posted in Review: Google Nexus 4
Re: Missed chance
Well as the phone is made for Google by LG then the advertising is all down to Google anyway and it would be Google giving itself a free licence to it's own apps.
There is a big difference between Google selling at cost (or with a small profit which I would suspect) and paying LG a subsidy to make it. That has all sorts of implications including the whole gist of your post that Google would actually prefer you not to buy the Nexus at all.
When comments are presented as fact and then repeated it doesn't take long before it becomes 'true'.
Posted in Review: Google Nexus 4
Re: Missed chance
"which they've had to pay LG a subsidy to make"
Do you have a source for that or is it just a rumour that you are now presenting as fact?
Re: Its more wide spread that you may think.. but it works
You can whitelist your address with third-party e-mail providers but you can do it yourself for free. I'm guessing this is how these 'certification companies' work they just fill out the forms for you.
I don't know why someone would pay a company thousands to do this. As long as you use best-practice guidelines for the relevant e-mail provider including SPF, domain keys, fixed IPs and fill out the forms (a couple of hours work at most) and then don't spam or be tagged as spam by a user and bingo your mail will have a high chance of being delivered.
Re: Its more wide spread that you may think.. but it works
Wouldn't SPF be a better way to do this and for free?
iPhone 5 iOS6 Jailbreak
Really? the iPhone 5 running the latest iOS6 hasn't been reliably jailbroken yet and some think it might take 6 months.
EPIC!
A story about Facebook sponsored stories which turns has half the story talking about the failings of Google...oh, yes it's another Orlowski story.
However to use EPIC as a source, when they have made it their mission to complain and get investigations into Google one of their primary tasks in recent years is maybe not so impartial. Another company seems to be doing that a lot as well, enter Microsoft. How many times has EPIC complained about Microsoft...zero.
A surprising number of organisations seem to be pursuing complaints about Google which have a link or backing from Microsoft in recent years. Could EPIC be one of them?
Well maybe, the members of their advisory board include Cynthia Dwork who works for Microsoft Research, along with Dannah Boyd (Microsoft), Stefan Brands (Microsoft) and Ray Ozzie (Chief Software Architect, Microsoft). They also host events at Microsoft's policy center.
Truly EPIC.
Posted in Which qualifications are worthwhile?
Tricky...
One thing to consider - however good you are at building a home PC working in a corporate environment is very different. Helpdesk requires remote troubleshooting without being sat at the PC and dealing with users who are scared to even tell you what the full error message is. It isn't fun and it isn't glamorous, however it is the first step on a rung of a ladder (usually to second line support).
With the amount of graduates who are looking for IT jobs who have got a computer degree and are willing to work for minimum wage the market is tough out there. I would agree that for an experienced candidate a degree is little more than icing on the cake and doesn't stand for much in real terms.
So your first step is to decide whether you want to be a specialist or a generalist. Then look at the job boards for jobs you might be interested in. Keep a spread sheet of every qualification they state is either essential or desirable. Mark them down as such.
After looking through 50 jobs in your area you should be able to see which qualifications are deemed the most sought after (or even the minimum) you need for your role.
Then check out the length of time it takes to do the course (and availability in your area and your timetable), the costs and any extras you need (like time in industry or software or reading materials).
Your spreadsheet should now show you the best qualifications V cost V time to complete. This should give you a good idea of which course is the best to invest in.
Entry level jobs could be either helpdesk or a support technician. A technician is a bit more hands on and usually works for smaller companies. It is (IMHO) more interesting and allows you to quickly build up a skillset. A helpdesk can be a bit monotonous and could be specialised to a certain sector or package and so it isn't so valuable.
If you are lucky enough to get a job then keep pushing for promotions every 12~18 moths or look elsewhere. You will gain the most experience if you move around a bit and don't get stuck in your ways picking up bad habits from one company. Also try to extol the benefits of your employer paying you to train on the job.
In reality getting your first job will be your hardest at this stage and so you really do need a spot on CV (don't waste much time on your home build PC work it's not very relevant, work more on your logic problem solving, people skills text), a great interview technique and an instant likeable personality.
Good luck.
Posted in CES?
Re: CES?
Oh yeah I see some more now, not sure how they missed my perusing earlier. I think maybe the Microsoft/iPad story I thought was old news so didn't scroll down past there...
Still a little thin on the ground but looking forward to the news about the new range of LG fridge freezers ... you are going to cover those aren't you?
Posted in CES?
CES?
Does El Reg realise that CES started (unofficially) yesterday?
Seems to be very little in the way of stories from it? Surely you have some journos there?
Isn't that a great thing about Google?
Anybody can make a search, lots of people already have. Anybody can switch search with absolutely no hardship or outlay or even need to transfer any legacy data.
I could switch search from Bing to Yahoo, to Ask, to Google, to etc for every other search in a day with no impact whatsoever (assuming all the searches provided the results I need)
However Google has remained dominant in search for so many years. As an investor that would be a big positive.
As for mining your data to sell ads - every company 'mines' your data to sell you anything. Any company with something to sell and has a significant marketing budget tries to get as much information about their customers as possible to sell them something. You can bet your socks that Apple and Microsoft are taking as much of your data as possible to do the same thing.
Re: The loss of their FRAND patent 'weapons' isn't going to save money or give them ...
"The difference is that Google refused to licence them on FRAND terms to Apple, got slaped about by the FTC and has now agreed to license them on FRAND terms globally to anyone who wants them, which includes Apple."
Er... they always allowed them to be licensed on FRAND terms by Apple. However Apple didn't want to negotiate the terms so asked a court to do it. No one got slapped about (or slaped). Whether the terms that Samsung was asking was too high is up to negotiation and possibly, now, the American courts. However if the rates for some of the other patents that are being asserted for (often invalid) patents are anything to go by there might not be a strong case.
Re: Nobody?
It makes sense for Samsung to explore alternatives - It's no use them becoming dependent on a single supplier to make sure they stay in business. Therefore it's best to have plenty of backup options available.
However they are unlikely to 'jump ship'. Android is a major reason why Samsung are the largest phone manufacturer in the world and their profits are heavily filled by their Android offering. As well as brand credibility where they are in the top echelons of phone manufacturers (if not the top) .
So they will carry on with their Android offerings for as long as people keep buying them, Google keeps developing it and they are making money out of them. However if any of these things stop then they need to be able to have a credible (and mature) OS to move towards. It might take another 10 attempts after this to get there and it might be 2050 befor eit is needed but it's no use being another Kodak or Polaroid or Microsoft who rest on their foundations and watch the world pass them by.
Re: The loss of their FRAND patent 'weapons' isn't going to save money or give them ...
I think the point is the patents are already FRAND so agreeing to let them be FRAND makes no difference.
They were already available for anyone to licence, the cost of licensing them can still be negotiated, but this agreement doesn't make any difference.
Re: Every one already?
Well sometimes a traffic light fails, intersections sometimes are only give way or stop and not lit. If you can't see any light at all any reasonable motorist would assume a traffic light fault and proceed with extreme caution treating it as a give-way, surely?
Speaking of e-mail blunders
How did the ICO deal with the register when it did exactly the same thing?
We never did get an update.
Re: Gun around corner
Tyres also burn quite well on their own
Gun around corner
Or is this also fake?
