Mediaboss Marketing

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

The following commentary comes from an independent investor
or market observer as part of TheStreet's guest contributor
program, which is separate from the company's news
coverage.

BEIJING (TheStreet) --
One year ago, shares of Molycorp(MCP) and Rare Earth
Elements(REE) were each up by several
hundred percent in a few months due to an investor-buying frenzy
for all things related to rare earths. Many investors piled into
shares of tiny fluorite producer Shenzhou
Mining(SHZ), which was trading below $1.
Within weeks, SHZ ran to over $10 -- a quick return of more than
1,000%. More stunning was the fact that SHZ wasn't even in the
business of producing rare earths, it was just mistakenly lumped
in with the sector. For a while the "greater fool theory" held
and the stock continued to skyrocket, but once the party ended,
shares of SHZ plunged back to $1 to $2. For those who piled in at
the top, they are looking at potential losses of 80% to 90%. We
are seeing the exact same thing again with "social media" stocks.
The hot stock driving the space is now the impending IPO of
Facebook. Despite the fact that everyone knew the IPO of
Facebook was nearing its filing with the SEC, and even had an
idea of the proposed valuation (up to $100 billion), a Wall
Street Journal article on Friday discussing the impending IPO
led to frenzied buying of anything related to social media. This
included most of the Chinese internet space. Shares of
RenRen(RENN), mislabeled as the "Facebook
of China," surged as much as 30% (36% in after hours) and Sina
Corp(SINA), which runs China's most
popular mini-blog service, jumped as much as 15%. This buying of
internet stocks set off a quick chain reaction, spreading to most
of the Chinese internet space as a whole (even non-social
networking stocks). Shares of eCommerce China DangDang
were up by nearly 20%, Baidu(BIDU) was up 7% and
Youku(YOKU) was up 13% . In December,
investors had seemingly given up on RENN completely. The stock
traded as low as $3.21, roughly equal cash per share. The
conclusion, it seemed, was that RENN's business was worth
precisely zero and the company was only valued for its cash.
Since that time, very little has changed with RENN, except that
it has continued to lose money and burn more of its cash, yet the
shares are up 63% and the run up shows little sign of slowing
down.

Read more:
Will Facebook Frenzy Fizzle for China Internet Stocks?

Fujitsu Wins Key Domain Supplier Status with
AT&T          

Fujitsu Network
Communications has been selected as one of AT&T's
Domain Suppliers for optical and transport equipment. The
multi-year selection covers equipment used to expand and
maintain AT&T's metropolitan and long-haul network
infrastructure. Financial terms of the supplier agreement
are still being negotiated.

AT&T's Domain Supplier program,
launched in September 2009, facilitates a more
collaborative relationship with AT&T's equipment and
software suppliers, enabling AT&T to have the best
technologies in place to serve its customers. The program
is also designed to ensure that the company's network
technology investment accelerates AT&T's move toward
a network that is well-equipped for the future. Fujitsu
Network Communications, which is headquartered in
Richardson, Texas, offers packet optical networking
solutions, WDM and SONET platforms manufactured in North
America. It also provides multi-vendor network services
as well as end-to-end solutions for design,
implementation, migration, support and management of
optical networks.

"After an extensive evaluation of multiple optical and
transport equipment suppliers, we are pleased to extend
our relationship with Fujitsu," said Tim Harden,
President of AT&T's Supply Chain and Fleet Operations
organization.
http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/telecom/
30-Jan-12

In August 2011, Fujitsu introduced an Ethernet
over Anything (EoX) framework that enables its
FLASHWAVE 9500 Packet Optical Networking Platform
(Packet ONP) to serve as a gateway for delivering Metro
Ethernet Forum (MEF)-compliant services across various
transport networks. Fujitsu's EoX vision, which is
initially implemented as an EoX Gateway configuration
of the FLASHWAVE 9500, now extends into the company's
portfolio of access products.

No video on this topic yet.. contact us to
present your views.

Recent Service Provider News

See the article here:
Tailoring 100G for Metro Networks