Loislaw vs. Alternatives

Loislaw vs. Alternatives. The recent ABA LawTech archives have an interesting discussion of Loislaw vs. Westlaw/Lexis. The analysis by Carol Levitt is particularly lucid. [net.law.blog]

Bashman's Problem? (AKA Blogging Domain Name Headaches)

Bashman's Problem? (AKA Blogging Domain Name Headaches). What is Howard Bashman's biggest problem? Success. Catastrophic success, to be precise. His dilemma contains lessons for many other lawyers who are considering getting into the blogging game. The popularity of Mr. Bashman's How Appealing blog has created headaches for him. As he notes, Blog*Spot, which hosts his blog under the URL … Continue reading Bashman's Problem? (AKA Blogging Domain Name Headaches)

If You Don't Know These Rules, Then You're Already Fired

If You Don't Know These Rules, Then You're Already Fired. Insurer writes about sane WLAN policy guidelines: However, his several suggestions are so basic to enterprise WLAN security, that any IT professional who has deployed any part of a WLAN without adhering to these guidelines shouldn't have a job much longer. Actually, the first of… Continue reading If You Don't Know These Rules, Then You're Already Fired

Why Centrino and VPNs Don't Mix

Why Centrino and VPNs Don't Mix. Intel's Centrino chipset is not compatible with most Virtual Private Networks, an Intel spokesman admits. Unless laptop users disable a key feature of the chip when it runs with a VPN, they get nothing but a blue screen. By Elisa Batista. [Wired News]

Haystack

Haystack. The MIT Haystack project released some preliminary code. If RDF is a grand unified theory of information, Haystack is the universal RDF browser. The Eclipse-like UI eschews dialog boxes for an array of panes; this cleverly eliminaties modality. It's also surprisingly polished for an academic research project. Potential hackers beware; I suspect much of… Continue reading Haystack

Usability For $200

Useit.Com: Usability For $200. most important point to remember, though, is that you can do it. No matter what your project, and no matter how big or small your budget, usability is there to help you succeed. [Tomalak's Realm]

Fitt's law

AskTog: “Fitt's law.” This is a must read for all OS designers. Longhorn team especially. I'll be looking at Longhorn betas with these guidelines in mind.  [The Scobleizer Weblog]

WASTE

WASTE. I looked at the WASTE design document and as I suspected the protocol is a piece of junk. The gnutellaism of broadcasting all requests just makes no sense. Since I've already gotten some pushback, let me give a specific example: when you use WASTE to send an IM to another person, under the hood… Continue reading WASTE

Industry brief: U.S. supermarkets

Over the past decade, there has been a steady consolidation of supermarket chains. This movement was slowed slightly in 2000 by some objections from the Federal Trade Commission, which was trying to keep some geographical areas competitive.

The big national players have wound down to five. These are:

Chain # of supermarkets Brand names
Kroger 2,400+ Kroger, Ralphs, Dillons, Smith's, King Soopers, Fry's, QFC, City Market, Hilander, Owen's, Jay C, Cala Foods/Bell Markets, Kessel Food Markets, Pay Less, Baker's, Gerbes, plus discount supermarkets Food 4 Less, Foods Co.
Albertson's 2,300 + Albertson's, Jewel, Smitty's, Super One, Lucky, Acme, Sav-On, Seessel's, and Buttrey
Safeway 1,500+ Safeway, Vons, Genuardi's, Randalls. Tom Thumb and Carrs
Winn Dixie 1,200+ Winn-Dixie, Buddies, Foodway, SaveRite (discount), Thriftway
Ahold 1,100+ Tops, Giant, Stop & Shop, Bruno's,and BI-LO (discount)

It's not easy to separate grocery sales from other interest of these companies, particularly in drug stores and in many non-grocery items sold. But it's not hard to imagine that these five stores between them account for nearly 50% of all grocery sales in the US.

1998 was a banner year for acquisitions as Kroger acquired Fred Meyer (800 stores) and Albertson's acquired American Stores (1,558). But the acquisitions keep on coming. As with other field, competitors have realized that they can compete more comfortably in an oligopoly rather than a free-for-for-all.

As the big five companies have worked to eliminate competition by restricting the ownership of supermarkets, they have been challenged by new, and to some extent unexpected, competition outside the industry. The biggest is Wal-Mart, which has aggressive expanded its grocery efforts in the last yea, followed by Target and Meijer's. Second are major drug chains (Walgreen's, CVS, etc.) that now sell many grocery items as well. A third area is convenience store chains, of which Southland (Seven Eleven) is by far the biggest. Some of these chains are migrating up with are termed “mega-mini” stores, with a wide variety of grocery products. A fourth set of competitors comes from super discount and club stores like BJs, Sam's Club (Wal-Mart), and Costco.

Wal-Mart is the big disruptor in the supermarket industry. The company has come from no-where in the grocery market to a position that really threatens supermarket chains, winning big on comparative pricing, in some cases 30-40% lower than the other big chains. It has opened 50 or more of so-called “Neighborhood markets,” smaller grocery-oriented markets that compete even more directly with regular supermarkets. It has plans to build thousand of these markets in the upcoming decade.

Wal-Mart now is the biggest grossing food retailer. According to Business Week

Industry brief: U.S. supermarkets Over the past decade, there has been a steady consolidation of supermarket chains. This movement was slowed slightly in 2000 by some objections from the Federal Trade Commission, which was trying to keep some geographical areas competitive. The big national players have wound down to five. These are: Chain # of… Continue reading

Industry brief: U.S. supermarkets

Over the past decade, there has been a steady consolidation of supermarket chains. This movement was slowed slightly in 2000 by some objections from the Federal Trade Commission, which was trying to keep some geographical areas competitive.

The big national players have wound down to five. These are:

Chain # of supermarkets Brand names
Kroger 2,400+ Kroger, Ralphs, Dillons, Smith's, King Soopers, Fry's, QFC, City Market, Hilander, Owen's, Jay C, Cala Foods/Bell Markets, Kessel Food Markets, Pay Less, Baker's, Gerbes, plus discount supermarkets Food 4 Less, Foods Co.
Albertson's 2,300 + Albertson's, Jewel, Smitty's, Super One, Lucky, Acme, Sav-On, Seessel's, and Buttrey
Safeway 1,500+ Safeway, Vons, Genuardi's, Randalls. Tom Thumb and Carrs
Winn Dixie 1,200+ Winn-Dixie, Buddies, Foodway, SaveRite (discount), Thriftway
Ahold 1,100+ Tops, Giant, Stop & Shop, Bruno's,and BI-LO (discount)

It's not easy to separate grocery sales from other interest of these companies, particularly in drug stores and in many non-grocery items sold. But it's not hard to imagine that these five stores between them account for nearly 50% of all grocery sales in the US.

1998 was a banner year for acquisitions as Kroger acquired Fred Meyer (800 stores) and Albertson's acquired American Stores (1,558). But the acquisitions keep on coming. As with other field, competitors have realized that they can compete more comfortably in an oligopoly rather than a free-for-for-all.

As the big five companies have worked to eliminate competition by restricting the ownership of supermarkets, they have been challenged by new, and to some extent unexpected, competition outside the industry. The biggest is Wal-Mart, which has aggressive expanded its grocery efforts in the last yea, followed by Target and Meijer's. Second are major drug chains (Walgreen's, CVS, etc.) that now sell many grocery items as well. A third area is convenience store chains, of which Southland (Seven Eleven) is by far the biggest. Some of these chains are migrating up with are termed “mega-mini” stores, with a wide variety of grocery products. A fourth set of competitors comes from super discount and club stores like BJs, Sam's Club (Wal-Mart), and Costco.

Wal-Mart is the big disruptor in the supermarket industry. The company has come from no-where in the grocery market to a position that really threatens supermarket chains, winning big on comparative pricing, in some cases 30-40% lower than the other big chains. It has opened 50 or more of so-called “Neighborhood markets,” smaller grocery-oriented markets that compete even more directly with regular supermarkets. It has plans to build thousand of these markets in the upcoming decade.

Wal-Mart now is the biggest grossing food retailer. According to Business Week

Browser Wars?

Browser Wars?. Internet Explorer 7.0 Interesting things are going on in the browser front. Slashdot has discovered an off-the-cuff remark in a chatroom by a Microsoft employee claiming that “IE6 SP1 is the final standalone installation.” Little surprise; there has been virtually no work on the IE web browser for a couple of years now and… Continue reading Browser Wars?