Has IBM Become Irrelevant?

Years ago the technology industry was defined by IBM and the "BUNCH" (Burroughs, Univac, NCR, CDC, and Honeywell). One by one, the BUNCH slowly evaporated and have either been merged into other entities or taken a back seat to others, such as Digital, Wang, Data General, and others, all of which have also ridden off into the sunset. In the software industry, the big guns used to be Cincom, Cullinane, MSA, and Computer Associates, but it is now hard to find anyone in the business who even remembers their names.

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Today, Wall Street defines the technology industry by such names as Google, Apple, Cisco, Dell, Microsoft, Priceline, Facebook, Intuit, Yahoo!, and others. Remarkably, IBM's name rarely appears in this regards which leads me to believe they are starting to fade from view as the BUNCH did years earlier.

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There was a time when you mentioned the name "IBM" it conjured up images of mainframes, midrange computers, PC's, networks, operating systems, DBMS' and office equipment. Today, I'm not too sure exactly what it represents. I think they still sell "big iron" but they have abdicated just about everything else to others. They talk about such things as middleware, storage devices, and file servers, which is a far cry from the comprehensive product line that once dominated the industry.

For years it was well understood in the corporate world that you could never get fired for recommending the purchase of IBM products. It was the safe bet. Now they are lucky to be even considered in the running. From a hardware point of view, I still believe they know how to engineer products. I still have some of their PC's which, when you look under the cover, are solidly built and much better than just about anyone else's. But IBM now finds itself in the awkward position of having to prove itself as a viable solution provider.

IBM used to be well known for strong marketing tactics, some say heavy handed, but this started to change in the 1990's as IBM acquiesced the desktop to Microsoft. Instead of dominating the industry, they now appear to be content to lay back on the ropes absorbing one punch after another. What bothers me is that they give the appearance of a company who is no longer in charge of their own destiny and rely on others for direction. To me, this is the sign of a company on the verge of becoming irrelevant.

Has IBM Become Irrelevant?

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How Air Travel Has Changed in Recent Decades

Unless you're really young, chances are you remember that travel used to be completely different 30, 20, even a mere 10 years ago. Just like every other industry, tourism and travel has been changed by technology, gadgets, and global events. Ready to take a stroll down memory lane? Then read on!

Air Travel in the 1980s

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Perhaps the most significant event of the decade was airline deregulation, which opened up air travel to the average consumer in regards to price and availability. With all that increased flying, airlines instituted frequent flyer programs for the first time.

Many airports weren't ready with proper safety measures to accommodate the increasing number of flyers. Some airports, even those in major metropolitan areas, loaded passengers directly from the tarmac onto the plane.

Computerized booking systems used by travel agents were still a new form of technology, having only appeared on the scene in the late 70s. During this era, consumers were forced to rely on travel agents to make their air travel - there weren't any websites!

Southwest Airlines, once a small, Texas-only carrier, expanded to the national level and quickly became the favored airline of many consumers and businesspeople due to their low-cost fares.

Airline passengers and their baggage were screened, but the service was provided by private contractors and was, for the most part, a quick, easy, and painless procedure.

Movies on video cassettes were shown as in-flight entertainment by some airlines for the first time; in 1985 the first audio player system was installed.

The 1990s

Airline travel continued to take off. By the beginning of the decade, more Americans had flown on an airplane than owned a car!

During this decade, cell phones were banned from use on airplanes (of course back then, hardly anyone owned a cell phone, better known as a "big, heavy brick with extremely limited coverage").

Once the iconic company of airline travel, Pan American folded under the weight of bankruptcy in the early part of the decade.
The new Denver International Airport was finally completed in 1995 after many mishaps that had people wondering if the land was cursed. It was one-of-a-kind, featuring a remote location, unique architecture, automated baggage handling system, and the largest area in square miles as well as the largest off-site parking of any airport in the U.S.

Southwest Airlines became one of the first airlines to post a website, where internet users could check flight schedules and routes - but couldn't yet book their own flights. It's unknown exactly when the first online purchase of an airline ticket was made, but it had to be sometime in 1996 because Travelocity was offering online reservations that year; Priceline and Expedia became big travel fare contenders by 1999.

Singapore Airlines was the first company to provide in-flight telephone service, using a "KrisFone".

The 21st Century

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 prompted the government to take over the airport screening process, limit the types of substances that could be brought onboard, and require a government-issued I.D. for boarding - the now very familiar TSA.

The Concorde, once known as the bastion of luxury, trans-Atlantic air travel, took to the skies for the last time in 2003. In terms of size, it was replaced by the A380, which could hold 800 passengers - a first in airline history. Singapore Airlines made 1,000 flights using the A380 in the first year the aircraft was used commercially. In the United States, New York's JFK Airport was the first to receive an A380 inbound flight in 2007.

In 2004, Lufthansa was the first airline to offer in-flight internet access using a satellite connection.

The first cell phones were used during flights on an international airline in 2008. In the U.S., we're still waiting for the green light to use a cell phone onboard. Although we can't use our cell phones during a flight, we can certainly use them to check departure delays, make reservation changes, and find things to do near our destination.

Air travel has obviously changed tremendously in just the last three decades. With the rate that technology currently changes, who knows what the future will hold!

How Air Travel Has Changed in Recent Decades

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Hotel Reservation Tips

The internet is a very powerful tool when it comes to planning vacations. Whether it is booking flights, hotels, or rental cars there are several popular travel search engines that will give you instant price quotes when you so wish. It is almost too easy to book a travel package - and often times there are long disclaimers that we quickly breeze through. While it is certainly possible to breeze through the disclaimers there are a few things to look out for in order to reserve the best possible travel package for you and your family.

Read the fine print. Is your hotel room non refundable? Often times there are discount rates that are non-refundable. It's nice to get locked in at a reasonable rate, but what happens if your plans change? You do not want to be stuck with that hotel room, even if it is a cheap rate. Understand the cancellation policy. Does the hotel room have a 24 hour cancellation policy or a 48 hour cancellation policy? These slight details can make a huge difference when it comes to paying the vacation bills. Sometimes trips have to be cancelled last minute, sometimes they have to be cut short. Knowing the cancellation policy can save you a few dollars. Save your reservation email. There have been countless times when vacationers have showed up to their hotel and the front desk has to tell them that the hotel is sold out. They politely ask if they have their reservation number and they don't. Simply saving the email, or even printing out can help alleviate this problem, or the hotel will at least help you find comparable accommodations. Check in early. The earlier that you check in, the more choices you will have for rooms. Do you prefer two queens over one king? Would you like a smoking or non-smoking room? The earlier that you arrive allows you to decide which option you would like to take advantage of. Shop around. Several hotels of similar calibre can vary greatly in price. Depending on the time of year, and the exact location, you can save a few dollars by staying during a slightly off-peak time, or a few miles away from the major city. Call direct. Did you find a price online that you think is the best? Sometimes booking direct with the hotel can yield better rates. Join rewards programs. Do you travel often? By joining an airline, or hotel carrier reward program you can get rewarded with discounted and sometimes even free stays or flights.

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There are certainly other things to look out for, but if it is your first time booking travel arrangements, this is certainly a good place to start.

Hotel Reservation Tips

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Advertising Works!

Are you a business owner representing a product or service? What's your point of differentiation? What separates you from your competitors? Is it quality? Is it the price? Is it the packaging? Is it placement or promotion? The bottom line is are you selling? If not, why not? The answer may lie in advertising.

They say nothing happens unless you advertise. No advertising = no sales. But many business people are leery of paid advertising because it just doesn't seem to return the investment. There are many reasons for this--throwing out spotty advertisements, whether online or offline doesn't work well most often and who can afford to advertise en masse regularly? People are desensitized by hyper advertising on TV, radio, Internet, junk mail, magazines, etc. People are getting smarter and tuning advertising out--people are getting tired of the Wall Street advertising mentality that has spurred so many books and college courses. As a result, big business advertising focuses on higher and higher volumes of repetitive mass advertising to beat their message into the fewer and fewer minds still receptive to this kind of junk noise. Don't believe me? How do you REALLY feel about advertising you see or hear? Are you sick of it? So are 300 million other people. But what are the alternatives for communicating your offer?

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Advertisers are very creative little sneaks who try all kinds of angles to fool you into not realizing you are being advertised at--they cloak advertisements into "infomercials" and now they cloak infomercials into looking like some PBS interview. Buzz words like "info-ads" which are designed to highlight the problems you didn't know you had (like EzineArticles) and set forth-easy solutions to complicated problems if you only "buy now". And you can read article after article, book after book and the bottom line remains the same--the only people making money advertising are the ones selling advertising.

And do you realize the product or service you offer really doesn't matter when you advertise? You can take all products and services in the world and put them into two big piles: The GOOD products and the BAD products. Keep in mind that a good marketing team can sell bad products but a bad marketing team cannot sell good products. And what is the definition of a "bad product" anyway? The definition for a bad product is when people send it back because it sucks and they want their money back. If your product sells and you don't get a return or a compliant then, for all practical purposes you have a good product. Why isn't it selling then?

People have a tendency to blame the product if the advertising doesn't sell it. But if you have a good product and run an ad and nothing happens how can you blame the product? The product is inert. It's just sitting there waiting to be sold. It's not the product fault. It's the ADS fault. So you can simplify your life by eliminating the "product problem" mentality and wrap your mind around the fact you have an advertising problem instead. Which takes us back to the beginning of this article.

Point of differentiation--what's the point of differentiation of a paper clip? Keep in mind that paperclips are a competitive billion-dollar industry.

Okay, here's the bottom line to this article--if you are not having any luck advertising your product online and can't afford mass advertising then a really SIMPLE solution is to use Off-line classified ads in newspapers. These ads are cheap ranging from .00 to .00 depending on the location of the newspaper and readerships/subscriptions. But there is no better place to spend advertising dollars if you are on a small budget. You are going to make mistakes when you advertise as you hone up your headline and hook to get people to take action and you can do very specific tests in various markets to gauge classified advertising response. Do you have a website? Take a cue from Travelocity.com, PriceLine.com and other big players on the Internet--they all advertise conventionally--on TV! Why? Internet advertising sucks. We have a business kit called "Advertising Works" which is a very carefully constructed manual on writing effective classified ads to drive people to your website. It shows you how to write ads but more importantly it shows the entire U.S. market and how classifieds can be used to drive the market to your website cheaply by reducing the amount of type in the classified advertisement so they only cost a few dollars. For example a classified ad could read as follows: ADVERTISING WORKS! http://www.smart67.com and that's it! CHEAP AD! No phone, no hype, just a headline and a website address. The goal is to test headlines. Test, test, test! Check it out...

Copyright © 2006

James W. Hart, IV

All Rights reserved

Advertising Works!

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Budget Travel to Maui - Build Your Dream Vacation Package

If you want to come to Maui, and need to keep your trip affordable, here's how to create your own Maui vacation package. Use the Internet to do your research and save money by renting quality accommodations directly from the owner. Follow the steps below to plan your perfect Maui vacation.

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1. Dream! This is when you become creative. Where would you like to visit? What time of year do you enjoy traveling? Assuming you've chosen Maui, read all you can about our island. Choose a home base for your Maui trip, and then select your desired travel dates. It's best to be flexible on dates and length of stay, so you can get the best deals possible.

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2. Do Your Research. Armed with your intended destination and preferred travel dates, you're ready to start the next step researching two things: where to stay and how to get there.

Where to Stay: Privately-owned accommodations are plentiful on Maui. There are several ways to locate these, the most popular being websites with vacation property listings. You'll find the least expensive deals on sites that offer free vacation rental listings, since property owners don't have to build the cost of ads into the rental, but larger "pay" sites also offer good variety.

Choosing only property listings with availability calendars allows you to narrow down your search quickly. Once you've found several possibilities, call the owners to learn more about the properties. Take good notes for future reference.

How to Get There: As you begin deciding where and when you'd like to stay, it's time to check flight availability. Online travel sites make this simple and one of the best is Travelocity, with its user-friendly search function and quick response time. They offer lots of flight options for most travel dates. Make a list with all possible airlines, ticket prices, number of stops and travel dates and times.

If your flight dates and times aren't matching with property availability, or you're going to be over-budget, adjust the dates, time or amount of money you'll spend and do another search. Spend no more than twenty minutes the first time you search for accommodations and flights. I normally go two to three times through the process before finding what suits my needs.

3. Fine Tune Your Plan. Compare your list of potential rental properties and your list of available flights. Now narrow the property list down to four to six attractive properties that require more research.

4. Confirm Property Details. With your narrowed-down list of rentals, call the owners back and ask for specific details on every property. This is the time to confirm the property is definitely available during your stay. Request a detailed quote that includes rental rate, any additional fees and applicable taxes. At this stage, identify yourself as seriously interested in each property, so the owners will respond promptly with a quote. I normally wait no more than twenty four hours before requesting the information again.

As you receive rental quotes, it's time to narrow the list down to the two to three best properties. I contact the owners of each and let them know I'm considering one or two other properties but that I'd like to put theirs on hold for twenty four hours. This allows me time to book my flights. This is also the time to ask each owner to email you a copy of their rental agreement.

5. Book Your Flights. With the homework you've done in Step Two, all that's left to do is book your flights. This step will be quick if you're using a travel site like Travelocity.

6. Finalize Property Reservations. Your flights are booked and you're ready to seal the deal on a vacation property. You requested rental agreements in Step 4, so select the property you like most and send the owner the signed agreement and your deposit. Be courteous and let the other owners know you won't be renting their properties.

7. Book Your Rental Car. Seeing Maui by car is the optimum experience. For great rental car rates, I go back to Travelocity knowing the size of car I'd like to rent. They'll give you a list of options sorted by rate. Note their best price, then go to Priceline, where you can bid on available car rentals. I start by bidding 30% less than the price for the same car on Travelocity.

That usually gets me a great deal the first time around, but if not, I change the rental date or type of vehicle and try again. It may help to wait a few days before bidding again. This bidding method always results in great car rental deals for me, but be aware that Priceline requires immediate, non-refundable payment. You can also work directly with car rental companies where payment isn't made until the date of rental and cancellation is allowed up to twenty four hours in advance.

One more transportation detail: not everyone likes to drive while on vacation. If you're in that group and need a ride to and from the airport, I always recommend using SpeediShuttle. Their door-to-door service is great, and they offer fare quotes on their website.

8. Minimize Your Risk. One more step to go. Don't let airport closures, family emergencies or lost baggage steal your vacation investment. Protect yourself from financial loss caused by unforeseen events by arranging travel insurance through a company like Travel Guard. Because Travel Guard covers more than six million travelers every year, I've found them to be a great choice for my own vacation plans. Knowing you don't need to worry about trip cancellations, travel delays or emergency medical expenses will let you truly enjoy your vacation.

This foolproof vacation planning process has worked for everyone I've shared it with. Why pay money to a travel agency to book your vacation package? In eight simple steps, you can have the Maui vacation package of your dreams.

Budget Travel to Maui - Build Your Dream Vacation Package

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Cheaper Flight Tickets

Sometimes it can seem the fares have increased again every time you go online to book a plane flight. Still, with gas prices rising rapidly, there's no doubt that it's still often cheaper to fly than drive. This article looks at some of the things you can do when booking a flight to make sure you get the best value for your money.

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As soon as you know you need to travel, get online and make your bookings. The earlier the better. Many airlines offer cheaper rates if you book more than 21 days in advance. If you can travel on a weekday you'll probably find a cheaper fare, and the same applies if you stay away for a Saturday night. Check out a site that compares the airfares from a number of different airlines. If you can be flexible with your departure date or time, then look for good fares either side of the day you were planning to travel. Some websites will show these cheaper options automatically, on other sites you have to ask for them. Flying early in the morning or late at night is generally the cheapest time of day to travel.

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Sometimes it can be cheaper to stopover midway, so that you can buy two roundtrip tickets for the shorter parts of the journey. Make sure you compare this option carefully with flying directly, as it does involve extra hassle. You want to make sure you save enough on the fare to justify the extra time spent at the stopover airport.

Packages can often give you good deals on travel, so bundle together your flight, hotel and car rental. Some places you can check for package deals include cheaptickets.com, priceline.com and Travelocity.com

You might also be able to join a frequent traveler discount program. You can find these as loyalty clubs or frequent flyer programs. Check to see if your credit card has a special deal with an airline. Credit cards often form these alliances and then offer free flights as rewards. So every time you use your credit you can gain credits towards a free flight.

If you work for the government, military or a large corporation, then check to see if you can access cheaper flights. Some of these can be used for leisure travel, not just work related journeys.

Cheaper Flight Tickets

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Attention Vets - Take Advantage of Military Discount Airline Tickets

The men & women of the US military do an excellent job serving our country & do quite a bit of travel for business & when they go on leave. What most vets are not aware of are the military discount airline tickets airlines offer in appreciation of the valuable & often dangerous service they provide for our country.

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In order to book your military discount airline tickets you will want to book your flight well in advance & call a number of different airlines to find the best offer. Each airline will have its own criteria for providing proof of your active military status, & you will want to have that proof ready & handy.

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Once you have spoken with a number of different airlines & have an idea of what is required, be sure to check with online sites such as Expedia, Priceline, & Travelocity to see if you can get a better rate.

Take your time & do your homework. Given that active military folks are often on a tight budget, getting this discount can really make a difference. It is not uncommon to find military discount airline tickets that offer nearly 3/4 off regular price. That kind of discount can make the difference between getting home to visit family on leave when you would not otherwise be able to afford the trip.

For retired vets & those not on active duty, you can get military discount airline tickets by enrolling with a company called Veterans Advantage. In addition to the discounted plane tickets, membership with this company gives exclusive discounts on computers, sporting goods, movies, & much more. If you travel often & take advantage of the other benefits this company offers, a membership may be well worth the price.

Attention Vets - Take Advantage of Military Discount Airline Tickets

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