In brief, what price that terribly British
institution, the Jag, turning Chinese? Or Korean perhaps? At the moment it’s
American, owned by Ford – but perhaps not for much longer. There’s plenty of
speculation that Ford is swimming in so much red ink of its own that it can no longer
afford to throw money down the Jag drain. Ford has hired an alleged M&A guru to explore “strategic
alternatives”.

And talking of things that aren’t quite
right, how come Dell gets away with dodgy pricing in its ads when the local
airlines are no longer allowed to? Qantas and Virgin Blue are forced to include
the extras in the headline price for the special deals they flog, but Dell
continues to stick $899 in big type, while the fine print reads that the box is
only available by delivery with a standard fee of $99. In other words, the
thing really costs $998. Where’s the ACCC?

Good to see the Oz this morning catching up
with Crikey by reporting United Airlines is pushing for open skies between the
US and Australia. Let’s see, we followed up the New Zealand Herald scoop on that, what,
months ago?

Nice work, though, by Michael Sainsbury with
his dig
at the follies of Solly doing Telstra business with his mates and
without a tender process. Sainsbury reports Telstra’s shops and
dealers have been stranded without mobile phone stock because
Brightstar’s
computer systems have failed. That’s the Brightstar mob that won an
exclusive
supply contract from Sol without going to tender. Embarrassing.

And finally, talking of system failures,
just what is really going on with Australian Pharmaceutical Industries? This is
a mob who can’t release their results because their abacus has broken … and it’s taking an extraordinarily long time to fix. Anyone hear anything
different?