Saturday Morning News, Views, And Links -- Part II

WSJ Links

Part I was getting too long.

There were not less than three stories in today's Journal regarding Steve Ballmer.
 

This will be an interesting story to follow over the new few months: Steve Ballmer's (or someone else's) decision to retire from Microsoft. With all his billions maybe he will start a new business. Maybe something in the oil and gas industry. "Heard on the street" has this headline: Microsoft hits Ballmer out of the park: CEO's departure is overdue, but Microsoft still has considerable strengths. This was the front page article on the announcement: the key -- MSFT stock jumped 7% on the news of his imminent departure.

I think this will also be interesting to watch over the next couple of years: inside Comcast's $30 billion TV bet. I haven't had "network television" in months and when I last had it, it was only sporadically available, and I generally didn't watch it. I've posted some thoughts regarding Netflix and television. With so many viewing options out there, it will be interesting to see who the winners are, who the losers are, over the next few years. There has to be a reason that Apple has not yet marketed its own internet television beyond what it has already done. I think Apple, too, is struggling to "guess" where the puck will be in five years. 

In the two years since Comcast Corp. bought NBCUniversal, Mr. Burke has shown a zeal for shaking things up with little sentimentality, weeding out some of the company's most well-known personalities in the process.

A straight-talking Harvard Business School graduate, Mr. Burke belongs to a new generation of media chieftains—including Time Warner Inc.'s Jeff Bewkes and Viacom Inc.'s Philippe Dauman—who are more enamored with the bottom line than with Hollywood glamour. He refrains from hanging out in the news rooms and indulging stars—hallmarks of his predecessor Jeff Zucker. Warren Buffett, who made him a director on his board at Berkshire Hathaway, describes him as "a personable guy, but not flamboyant."

Mr. Burke is the man in charge of pulling off a colossal wager. With Comcast's two-stage, $30 billion deal completed in March, the cable giant is betting that its distribution business, combined with a content company, can create outsize benefits. That logic, of course, runs counter to the trend of big U.S. media companies breaking themselves into smaller pieces. Time Warner Inc. spun off its cable operations in 2009 after failed bids to happily marry its content and distribution arms; Viacom Inc. carved out its CBS broadcast television and radio business into a separate company in 2005.

This is interesting. I follow the Motiva refinery a bit more than other refineries (which means, "practically not at all") but I was unaware of all the problems at the largest US refinery, owned and operated by Shell and Saudi Arabia. 

The biggest oil refinery in the U.S. is largely out of service after several fires over the past two weeks damaged equipment at Motiva Enterprises LLC's plant in Port Arthur, Texas.

The fires are the latest in a series of mechanical failures at the refinery, which doubled in size last year after a $10 billion expansion paid for by Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Saudi Arabia Oil Co., also known as Saudi Aramco—the two companies that own Motiva.

The 600,000 barrel-a-day plant has turned into an economic headache that analysts have said has cost the two companies hundreds of millions of dollars in repairs and lost fuel sales.

The joint-venture refinery is ranked among the top 10 world-wide by its oil-processing capacity.

Pandora vs Apple. Pandora recently (this past week) announced that it would allow listeners unlimited time at the site; previously it was limited to 40 hours a month, I believe. I listened to Pandora some years ago but lost interest. I definitely lost interest in Pandora when they capped time at the free site at 40 hours even though I doubt I ever came close to exceeding the limit. Now with threat of Apple Radio, Pandora is competing once again. I wonder if the US Justice Department will investigate Apple Radio?