Mediaboss Marketing

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Research and Markets
(http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/8dd621/croatia_telecoms)
has announced the addition of the "Croatia
- Telecoms, IP Networks, Digital Media and Forecasts"
report to their offering.

Publication
Overview:

Croatia's Needs Regulated Fibre
Wholesale Pricing Model to Kick-start the Internet Economy

This report (11h edition) provides a comprehensive overview
of trends and developments in Croatia's telecommunications
market. It analyses the mobile, broadband, digital TV and
converging media sectors.

Subjects Include:

Market and industry analyses, trends and developments;

Facts, figures and statistics;

Industry and regulatory issues;

Infrastructure;

Major Players, Revenues, Subscribers, ARPU, MoU;

Internet, VoIP, IPTV;

Mobile Voice and Data Markets;

Broadband (FttH, DSL, cable TV, wireless);

Convergence and Digital Media;

3G subscriber and mobile ARPU forecasts to 2015;

Broadband market forecasts for selective years to 2020.

Key Developments:

VIPNet extend 42Mb/s HSPA+ services to four cities;

LTE trials in the 800MHz band underway - commercial
launch in 2012; parliament abolishes 6% tax on mobile
services revenue;

T-HT authorized to manage e-money services;

MAXtv extends to satellite platform;

Novi-Net granted national WiMAX licence;

IPTV among the more successful in Central and Eastern
Europe;

B.Net was bought by Telekom Austria; DVB-T2 to be
employed in two MUXES in 2012;

T-HT negotiates for amended wholesale fibre pricing; H1
Telekom launches IPTV service;

GDP shows moderate rise in 2011;

state transfers remaining shares in T-HT to Pensioners'
Fund;

regulator's market data to Q3 2011;

operator data to September 2011.

Companies Mentioned:

VIPNet

Tele2 Croatia

T-HT

B.net

Digi TV

SBB

H1 Telekom

Optima Telekom

Metronet

Who Should Buy This Report:

This report is essential reading for those needing high level
strategic information and objective analysis on the telecom
sector in Croatia.

For more information, including full table of contents,
please visit
http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/8dd621/croatia_telecoms

Read more:
Research and Markets: Croatia - Telecoms, IP Networks, Digital Media and Forecasts

What you do on your computer stays on your computer.

That may seem obvious, but a document in a new FBI terrorism case
provides fascinating reminders of just how much information
government agents can mine from your computer and other
electronics, revealing cyber secrets you thought you'd long ago
deleted.

Jamshid Muhtorov is a refugee from Uzbekistan who was living in
Aurora, Colo., until his arrest on Jan. 21. The FBI began
investigating Muhtorov last year for his
support of the Islamic Jihad Union. The group is designated a
foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government and has
claimed responsibility for multiple attacks on coalition forces
in Afghanistan.

Muhtorov allegedly pledged money and his allegiance to the IJU,
emailing a representative of the group that he was "ready for
any task, even with the risk of dying," according to the
criminal complaint. He was taken into custody at Chicago's
O'Hare airport just before catching a flight out of the
country.

Read the criminal complaint against Jamshid
Muhtorov

In an affidavit, FBI Special Agent Donald Hale noted that
Muhtorov communicated with associates using two email
addresses, an Android Blackberry smart phone and a Sony Vaio
laptop computer that Hale suggested could yield a bounty of
information.

When "Delete" Does Not Mean Delete

"Computer files or remnants of such files can be recovered
months or even years after they have been downloaded onto a
storage medium, deleted, or viewed via the Internet," Hale
wrote in the affidavit. "Even when files have been deleted,
they can be recovered months or years later using forensic
tools."

Hale explained that when a person deletes a file on a computer,
the data doesn't actually disappear, but remains on the hard
drive until it gets overwritten by new data. The computer's
operating system may also keep records of deleted files in
something called a "swap" or "recovery" file.

A computer's internal hard drive can keep records of how it was
used, who used it, and when, Hale wrote. This digital evidence
can point to information that once lived on a hard drive or
memory stick, but was later altered or deleted. For example,
agents might even be able to see where an incriminating
paragraph was erased from a word processing document.

"Computer users typically do not erase or delete this evidence,
because special software is typically required for that task,"
agent Hale wrote.

The trail doesn't end there. Web browsers, email and chat
programs can reveal online nicknames and passwords. The
computer can also tell investigators when a memory stick or
external hard drive was connected, and how and in what sequence
files were created.

Analyzing all that electronic evidence, Hale wrote, takes
"considerable time."

That work gets done at one of 16 computer forensics
laboratories around the country run by the FBI, in partnership
with 130 state and local law enforcement agencies. The first
Regional
Computer Forensics Laboratory, as they are officially
called, was established in San Diego in 1999.

Agents who first obtain court approved search warrants can
scour cell phones, cameras, GPS units, tablet computers and
more for information that can make or break an investigation.

Read this article:
Covered Your Digital Tracks? Think Again

WEIRTON - The latest craze to hit the job market over the last
few years is entrepreneurship via multimedia outlets which has
created a digital economy, and the Weirton Area Port Authority
will be utilizing the latest in technology to be a part of
those initiatives.

Marc Canter, a founder of the company Macromedia which later
became Adobe, held a presentation on the digital economy and
how the future of jobs no longer lies within the norm.

"Jobs today are not 40 hours a week; they're freelance, online
and virtual," he said.

In the coming weeks, Canter will be working in the Weirton
area, along with several other cities, to help break the cycle
of the "same old thing" by inter-connecting with each other to
share knowledge, use money more efficiently and share space to
help each other create websites and viral campaigns in support
of one another's efforts.

Canter said through his latest project, Digital City Mechanics,
he will be working with community organizations to show them
the value and benefits of online technology. He said companies
like Frontier Communications are setting up the broadband
highways, but companies like his and others will be utilizing
it.

"We want to train people on how to use the technology they have
better and encourage them to show others the same," he said.

Canter said one the movements of the future is having work
through multimedia outlets that are project-based rather than
the normal work-week base. He said there are many people out
there with the training and skills to do the kind of work he is
suggesting, but because the gap between the "have" and the
"have nots" is growing, those people are left either unemployed
or working at fast food restaurants.

"If we can start to train people how to better the use the
technology at hand, that knowledge will trickle down and soon
we have our digital economy," he said.

B.J. DeFelice said the WAPA Inc. NextGen Logistics Village 2011
Features Plan fits right into what Canter is talking about. He
said targeting basic communications and technology
infrastructure is required to support a true, successful port
operation to create opportunities for building an operations
center, intermodal or multimodal facilities.

"As a matter of economic development and sustainable job
growth, this project would further an existing economic trend
toward global markets in the Northern West Virginia area, thus
promoting trade," he said. "The location of the NextGen
Logistics Village in the center of the Northern Panhandle would
attract business interests that may otherwise choose to locate
elsewhere."

Read the original post:
Digital economy to play role with port

Although business headlines still tout earnings numbers, many
investors have moved past net earnings as a measure of a
company's economic output. That's because earnings are very
often less trustworthy than cash flow, since earnings are more
open to manipulation based on dubious judgment calls.

Earnings' unreliability is one of the reasons Foolish investors
often flip straight past the income statement to check the cash
flow statement. In general, by taking a close look at the cash
moving in and out of the business, you can better understand
whether the last batch of earnings brought money into the
company, or merely disguised a cash gusher with a pretty
headline.

Calling all cash flows
When you are trying to buy
the market's best stocks, it's worth checking up on your
companies' free cash flow once a quarter or so, to see whether
it bears any relationship to the net income in the headlines.
That's what we do with this series. Today, we're checking in on
Western Digital (NYSE:
WDC  ) ,
whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below.

Source: S&P Capital IQ. Data is current as of last fully
reported fiscal quarter. Dollar values in millions. FCF = free
cash flow. FY = fiscal year. TTM = trailing 12 months.

Over the past 12 months, Western Digital generated $909.0
million cash while it booked net income of $688.0 million. That
means it turned 9.7% of its revenue into FCF. That sounds OK.

All cash is not equal
Unfortunately, the cash flow statement isn't immune from
nonsense, either. That's why it pays to take a close look at
the components of cash flow from operations, to make sure that
the cash flows are of high quality. What does that mean? To me,
it means they need to be real and replicable in the upcoming
quarters, rather than being offset by continual cash outflows
that don't appear on the income statement (such as major
capital expenditures).

For instance, cash flow based on cash net income and
adjustments for non-cash income-statement expenses (like
depreciation) is generally favorable. An increase in cash flow
based on stiffing your suppliers (by increasing accounts
payable for the short term) or shortchanging Uncle Sam on taxes
will come back to bite investors later. The same goes for
decreasing accounts receivable; this is good to see, but it's
ordinary in recessionary times, and you can only increase
collections so much. Finally, adding stock-based compensation
expense back to cash flows is questionable when a company hands
out a lot of equity to employees and uses cash in later periods
to buy back those shares.

So how does the cash flow at Western Digital look? Take a peek
at the chart below, which flags questionable cash flow sources
with a red bar.

Source: S&P Capital IQ. Data is current as of last fully
reported fiscal quarter. Dollar values in millions. TTM =
trailing 12 months.

When I say "questionable cash flow sources," I mean items such
as changes in taxes payable, tax benefits from stock options,
and asset sales, among others. That's not to say that companies
booking these as sources of cash flow are weak, or are engaging
in any sort of wrongdoing, or that everything that comes up
questionable in my graph is automatically bad news. But
whenever a company is getting more than, say, 10% of its cash
from operations from these dubious sources, investors ought to
make sure to refer to the filings and dig in.

With 14.7% of operating cash flow coming from questionable
sources, Western Digital investors should take a closer look at
the underlying numbers.

A Foolish final thought
Most investors don't keep tabs on their companies' cash flow. I
think that's a mistake. If you take the time to read past the
headlines and crack a filing now and then, you're in a much
better position to spot potential trouble early. Better yet,
you'll improve your odds of finding the underappreciated
home-run stocks that provide
the market's best returns.

We can help you keep tabs on your companies with My Watchlist,
our free, personalized stock tracking service.

Link:
Is Western Digital's Cash Flow Just For Show?

Margins matter. The more Western Digital
(NYSE: WDC  ) keeps
of each buck it earns in revenue, the more money it has to
invest in growth, fund new strategic plans, or (gasp!)
distribute to shareholders. Healthy margins often separate
pretenders from
the best stocks in the market. That's why we check up on
margins at least once a quarter in this series. I'm looking for
the absolute numbers, so I can compare them to current and
potential competitors, and any trend that may tell me how
strong Western Digital's competitive position could be.

Here's the current margin snapshot for Western Digital over the
trailing 12 months: Gross margin is 22.1%, while operating
margin is 10.3% and net margin is 7.4%.

Unfortunately, a look at the most recent numbers doesn't tell
us much about where Western Digital has been, or where it's
going. A company with rising gross and operating margins often
fuels its growth by increasing demand for its products. If it
sells more units while keeping costs in check, its
profitability increases. Conversely, a company with gross
margins that inch downward over time is often losing out to
competition, and possibly engaging in a race to the bottom on
prices. If it can't make up for this problem by cutting costs
-- and most companies can't -- then both the business and its
shares face a decidedly bleak outlook.

Of course, over the short term, the kind of economic shocks we
recently experienced can drastically affect a company's
profitability. That's why I like to look at five fiscal years'
worth of margins, along with the results for the trailing 12
months, the last fiscal year, and last fiscal quarter (LFQ).
You can't always reach a hard conclusion about your company's
health, but you can better understand what to expect, and what
to watch.

Here's the margin picture for Western Digital over the past few
years.

Source: S&P Capital IQ. Dollar amounts in millions. FY =
fiscal year. TTM = trailing 12 months.

Because of seasonality in some businesses, the numbers for the
last period on the right -- the TTM figures -- aren't always
comparable to the FY results preceding them. To compare
quarterly margins to their prior-year levels, consult this
chart.

Source: S&P Capital IQ. Dollar amounts in millions. FQ =
fiscal quarter.

Here's how the stats break down:

Over the past five years, gross margin peaked at 24.4% and
averaged 19.8%. Operating margin peaked at 15.8% and averaged
10.6%. Net margin peaked at 14.0% and averaged 9.8%.

TTM gross margin is 22.1%, 230 basis points better than the
five-year average. TTM operating margin is 10.3%, 30 basis
points worse than the five-year average. TTM net margin is
7.4%, 240 basis points worse than the five-year average.

With recent TTM operating margins below historical averages,
Western Digital has some work to do.

If you take the time to read past the headlines and crack a
filing now and then, you're probably ahead of 95% of the
market's individual investors. To stay ahead, learn more about
how I use analysis like this to help me uncover
the best returns in the stock market. Got an opinion on the
margins at Western Digital? Let us know in the comments below.

Continued here:
Here's How Western Digital May Be Failing You