Posts by Douglas Terborg

Well, now I know what not to buy...

McAfee will likely kill Secure Computing in the same way they continue to commit slow suicide themselves. They'll water down the product, and milk it by scare-tactic advertising, and setting deep, hard-to-remove hooks in the customers they do gain.

Smart IT departments can find better alternatives to any product McAfee offers, and probably for a lesser price.

Ebay's bottom line

I saw a discussion about what Ebay could do to help buyers and sellers the other week regarding a recent policy change that made a number of people upset, and my response there makes sense here too.

Ebay doesn't care about buyers. Ebay doesn't care about sellers. Ebay cares about one thing: Ebay.

If they have to pay out a couple million in Paris, they won't care, if it doesn't hurt the overall bottom line. They enforce the rules only if Ebay users tattle on other users, or if forced to comply with the law. If shareholder value doesn't drop enough to cause complaints to the board, or affect the CEO's bonus for the year, Ebay simply doesn't care. The experience is secondary; as with many cutthroat businesses, the bottom line (profit) always comes first.

-Paris, `cos even she knows better than to buy Gucci on Ebay