Is Sarbanes-Oxley Forcing Apple To Charge You To Upgrade Your WiFi?
from the say-what-now? dept
Well, here's a weird one. It's no secret that Sarbanes-Oxley is a law with lots of problems. It's become a huge pain for businesses, forcing all sorts of useless, but expensive, procedures to be put in place that have little (if anything) to do with protecting investors from being taken in by unscrupulous companies. It's been a huge net loss to the economy, and has scared away plenty of companies from the public markets. While that may have held some "bubble euphoria" in check by keeping investment opportunities away from the public, the net result is bad for the overall economy. Last week, there was lots of talk about Jim Clark's decision to quit Shutterfly while blaming Sarbanes-Oxley for limiting what he could do at the company. Now comes the latest odd SOX complaint. Apparently Apple is forcing Mac owners to pay an extra $5 to unlock next generation features of WiFi that were bundled with recent machines. In order to unlock the pre-standard 802.11n features, you have to pay $5, with Apple saying that they cannot be seen as "giving away an unadvertised new feature of an already sold product without enduring some onerous accounting measures." The thinking, basically is that they would be unfairly recognizing the revenue early, since they hadn't completely delivered the product. The alternative would be to not recognize all the revenue ahead of time, but that presents other problems, and could even be more costly. Thus, consumers get the fun of having to pay extra to upgrade. Yet another fun unexpected consequence from excessive meddling from politicians.
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What a week!
Hey, just because they didn't "advertise it" doesn't mean I didnt base my decision on it. The fact that 802.11n chips were in the latest MBP was one of my deciding factors when I bought it. It may not have been advertised, but it was a well known fact.
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SOX is a paperwork nightmare
It will make even good coorporations bloat their management structure to handle the reporting requirements.
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Sarbox?
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Bogus
In Apples's case, it sounds like an excuse to charge extra for a feature already delivered. SarBox has damn little to do with the money grab, but it ends the discussion when trying to justify the extra charge.
Just like 'national security' stops any discussion of actions by a governmental agency
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Re: Bogus
like "el nino", sarbanes oxley has become a sort of magic word to deflect blame. the word already conjures up feelings of frustration, so it's a usual suspect for annoying policy or procedural changes.
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The real important thing.
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Re: The real important thing.
Really, I think that's a nice maneuver, allow people to download the seldom-changing assets as soon as they're ready, but keep them under lock and key until the full game is out (And even if some artwork does get changed between initial preload and final release, a good delta-based patcher should be able to minimize the download to get the new artwork.
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Re: The real important thing.
The entire expansion pack.
Every user, whether they re-activate their account or not, must get all content installed. Everyone who still plays on a regular basis already has all the content installed. All they need to do now is ( wait for their box to come in the mail / run to the store ) so they can go to the website and enter their account upgrade code to "unlock" said already installed content.
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Re: The real important thing.
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More Work! Less Money!
Great, let's make business more like government...because government is so great at getting things done.
(Of course, the prudent thing is to make government more like business.)
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Re: More Work! Less Money!
no thanks, the government is greedy and corrupt enough as it is... without the need to turn a profit.
having a stock price or a profit margin to maintain would only make the government greedier and more incompetant.
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Macs are nice
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Great
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Apple
I'll file this in the category of "Another reason that if Apple had control of the PC Market they would be a bigger monopoly than Microsoft is."
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US GAAP for revenue recognition
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Re: US GAAP for revenue recognition
I don't care what the regulations say. If Microsoft can provide patches that enhance the functionality of the system on existing hardware for free, so can Apple.
Their reluctance to do so is an indication that they would rather have 5$ than not have 5$.
It's nothing more than a money grab. The price they will pay for their 5$/head is measured in backlash.
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If you bought a computer, the silicon is complete and already has draft-n capabilities. Period. No revenue was unfairly recognized.
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collective punishment
In turn the companies behave like hostage takers who mete out collective punishment against their customers. Their attitude and strategy is simple, if it hurts us we will hurt our customers. By hurting our customers, blaming it on legislation designed to stop us behaving corruptly, and then pretending we are just passing on costs, that will create a groundswell against SOX.
No it wont. We see right though you Apple. This is just a lame excuse for an extra squeeze on your customers, so sod you your already overpriced products. Without SOX you'd be cooking your books and burrying the evidence.
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No you paid them to provide a service not impliment new features (which is what the expansion is)
The only reason it is already installed on your pc is so bliz don't have to maintain multiple versions of the same client/OS. Which is you think about it is the sensible thing to do, remember a few years ago Ultima Online had about 4 different live clients for the windows system (one from each expansion) which basiclly meant every single change had to be done 4 times
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Re: Blizzard Past Practices
Actually, that would be a matter of opinion. There was never a promise of new features, however...
Historically, blizzard has delivered more new content in incremental FREE patches then they have delivered in the expansion. So yeah, alot of gamers feel betrayed by blizzards decision to charge 3x monthly fee for what was historically free.
Also, I know many former WoWers that quit when they heard the price was announced. (yes, I have been playing that long) So this opinion is shared by others. Some of whom voted with their wallets.
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cap count ?
but wait... that firmware will be free given a few days on share networks.... whoops.. you don't know this from me :)
anyway, u need not go to Harvard to do a firmware upgrade manually
rest just SOX for 5$
:D
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Sounds like Apple...
Apple likes your money to be their money always has always will.
Enjoy your new Mac ... ooops... that'll be 5 more dollars.
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clearly nothing to do with SOX
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Is Sarbanes-Oxley Forcing Apple To Charge You To U
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Duh?
Get over it and figure out how to make money off it like all the other smart people.
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Watch out...
In the near future, ALL patches/updates/etc. will cost money. Either as a one-time cost for the update, or as an ongoing subscription cost that gets you all the updates as they become available. This is the direction the software industry WANTS to go anyway. SOX will be one little extra annoyance to help push it there.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, you do not actually OWN any of the software you purchased anyway. You simply bought a LICENSE.
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The government isn't and shouldn't be a business -
no thanks, the government is greedy and corrupt enough as it is... without the need to turn a profit.
having a stock price or a profit margin to maintain would only make the government greedier and more incompetant.
You've got to be stupid - make them turn a profit, cut costs and all of the sudden they are *efficient* (i.e. lower taxes!)
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SOX: the bane of IT
And the benefit derived in comparison to the amount of mind-numbing paperwork involved has got to be negligible.
Every time I fill out yet another SOX form, I just want to kick the Enron and WorldCom guys in the face. Yes, I know there are others to blame besides them.
SOX is a key reason why I'm working on getting out of the IT field, or at least parts of it that require accounting.
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Re: SOX: the bane of IT
This is how government uses terms and stats to make themselves look good - when in reality they are destroying the future - both Democrats and Republicans.
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Re: Re: SOX: the bane of IT
Example: in the IT shop where I work with several hundred employees, guess how many jobs were created? A net gain of Zero. They took one person already working there, took her off the team she was on, and made her do SOX. One official SOX job, one job lost. Oh, and the unofficial SOX jobs: everyone in the shop has to waste their time filling in SOX forms every time they turn around.
Gee, I guess in one sense, it does create jobs. Each person is already overworked, so let's say each person has between one and two workloads. Now with SOX "tasks", each person has even more work, so there are actually more jobs, and each person gets several of them, all with no extra pay! Jobs created! Unsightly pounds lost!
I would bet that everybody who blithely says that SOX is just wonderful has never had to keep SOX records for every work product they create, and has never been through a SOX audit.
Potential merits of SOX aside, the SOX lovers would also be dumbfounded at the sucky implementation - it's laughable the list of things you currently need to do for SOX paperwork. I guess the government is at least trying to fix that now, so maybe SOX will suck less in the future.
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Re: SOX: the bane of IT
I admire Techdirt for blowing away the smoke and mirrors that companies use to justify questionable practices, but in this case, they seem to have bought into the horse manure without determining if there was a pony in there.
Yes, SOX is bad but using it as the causation for Apples upgrade charge seems tenuous
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charging for patches?
Where do we go if a patch fixes a vulnerability and at the same time makes the system work better or turns on other SW or HW?
This is a slippery slope.
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Sox...
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I'm with Misanthropic
Then, the big high paid executives bitch and moan that, "OMG," they have to sign the financial statements and are directly accountable now for what they sign, and they're being hindered in their job. God forbid we have some accountability in business. There are things that could be reworked and improved, but it's silly to blame the pains of new procedures that companies have put in place as an overreact to SOX on SOX because most companies are doing it to themselves.
Oh, and Apple is full of shit on this $5 thing.
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It's true
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If Apple give a thought lead to the faithfull it seems a lot of them then have great difficulty to think different.
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This is all just PR.
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Auditors are like the RIAA
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More, not less, is needed.
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Why Mac Anyway?
I don't know about you, but I've had Macs since 1984 when I got a student discount on one at the University of Michigan, and since I played that first "here's how it works" disk that came with my Macintosh, I've never needed directions.
Can you say the same about your P.C.?
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SOX, Lies and Deception
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SOX
Back then you took the best and brightest people and had them innovate and engineer.
Today you bury them in process and paperwork so that lawyers and politicians can indirectly make more money. The best and brightest get reduced to the level of your average idiot.
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Is Sarbanes-Oxley Forcing Apple To Charge You To U
The fact that regulation (like Sarbanes-Oxley ) causes unpredictable negative effects is indisputable, but one has to ask "How much collateral damage are we willing to accept?" Apple's™s puerile fudging with upgrade prices is probably more innocuous than Enron's™s fudging with grandpa's retirement. There are a lot more complaints about SOX from naive enthusiasts and from charlatans, than from people who really have a new product that can meet a market test. SOX has indeed scared away some offerings but many of them deserve to be scared. Apple, for example, spent time and money to design in locks (as is done by virtually every telco). Is that what progress is all about? The crucial point is illuminated in an old economic classic by Gordon Tulloch concerning tariffs, monopoly and thefts. We want more effort devoted to progress, not to locks and subsequently to lock-pickers. Further, SOX is preventing Apple, Shutterfly, and others from pre-booking the entrepreneur's dreamy-eyed projection of revenues. In the tech world we have been drowned by naive forecasts of revenue streams, never mind those spectacular projections from scam artists. If SOX has been a net loss to the economy, the proof will not come from complainants who want to pre-book unverified revenues, nor will it be from agents wasting time and resources designing locks to slow down innovation.
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remember...
Should be entered as such IF they are so worried that (offering) patches to their products will violate Sarbanes-Oxley.
Sarbanes-Oxley is for their mgmt to keep accurate records and so forth.. it should rarely effect any end-user process.
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