June 3, 2009 9:54 PM

In the latest news, Cisco Systems will be replacing General Motors on the DOW 30! Wow, times have changed. 30 years ago, International Business Machines (IBM) became the first tech company to join the ranks of the DOW 30. Today, almost 1/3 of the DOW 30 is composed of tech companies.

To me, this is a positive that our industrial index is composed of our markets most innovative and leading companies, and that the DOW isn’t completely influenced by old business and maintaining the status quo. General Motors is a sore point for me. I’m not completely up to speed on the bailouts, but I thought the whole purpose of the bailouts was to keep GM out of bankruptcy in the first place. If I remember correctly, GM (as well as Ford and Chrysler) said that “consumers won’t buy cars from a bankrupt company”, so we should bail them out in order to maintain consumer confidence in their products… Umm, 10’s of billion later (There is another proposal to give GM $50 Billion at the time of this post), GM is declaring Chapter 11… So what we were trying to avoid 8 months ago happened anyway!!!

It feels to me that bailing out GM was more about not letting an American Icon like GM fail. GM failing may be perceived as America also beginning to lose its edge. This is an example of trying to hold onto the past instead of looking forward. It’s no secret that the automobile industry has used legislation, intimidation, and other tactics to maintain the status quo in order to maintain their profits. Instead of innovating new technologies into their make/models, they have done things the same way, and relied on legislation (import taxes, safety standards, and other tactics) to keep competition away. An example is Preston Tucker’s 1948 Sedan, where Tucker’s vehicle, that had innovations a decade more advanced than GM and Ford, ran into “problems” (Google “Preston Tucker” there are several movies and books about him). I visited India in 2001, where their vehicles could run both gasoline AND natural gas! There are several other examples of how Detroit avoided innovation, as well as conspiracy theories around Detroit and the Oil Industry, that I won’t get into. The idea of the American Icon failing should be looked at as a new industry replacing the old. We should be looking to new icons, not trying to preserve old ones that failed to keep up.

Anyway, there is a positive note here. And this is the DOW recognizing that America’s shining innovating jewel is now technology. With GM dropping and Cisco joining the DOW 30, I feel that we are no longer holding onto the past and the “this is how it was always done” mentality is being replaced by a look forward approach
Now to Tech!!!

The Palm Pre will be going on sale on Saturday, June 6!!! I can’t wait to get mine. That will be an exciting day for me, as it will be my newest toy in a while. Apple’s World Wide Developer’s conference will also be occurring next week. Finally, Archos will supposedly be announcing their Android based media device.

In other Android/Netbook news, Nvidia has announced that they will be entering the business of providing CPUs with their Tegra line (http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/fhYDxty1j8o/nvidias-tegra-takes-on-intel-in-the-midpmp-market.ars). Competition will be good for Intel on this front, but Intel isn’t holding back either. The will be releasing their ultra-slim chip, which was exclusively used in the Macbook Air to other companies as well. They are also fighting back on the Netbook front by using their headstart with Atom to add better features (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9133904). Having a battery run all-day would be a big win for Intel. This type of feature would be a big differentiator, especially when these lower end chips have the same performance.

Well, this was a long post, and it’s time to go to bed.

~rb