NEW BUFFALO, Mich. - The slowing economy is not keeping people away from the Four Winds Casino Resort in New Buffalo Township, which collected about $146.6 million in slot machine revenue over the six-month period that ended March 30.

Figures released by the Michigan Gaming Control Board show that the casino, owned by the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, is taking in $24.4 million a month in slot machine revenue.

The monthly total has not changed from the amount estimated using figures covering August and September 2007, the casino's first two months of operation.

Because it is privately held, the casino does not release figures on its total revenue from its hotel, restaurants, bars, poker and other games.

Local governments and the state have not received any revenue from electronic gaming, although a 1998 compact between the state and Pokagon Band requires payments two times a year. They are embroiled in a dispute over the compact.

The compact regulates gambling on tribal lands and requires payments of 2 percent of the take from electronic gaming to a three-member Local Revenue Sharing Board. The board is to distribute money to local governments, schools and the county to offset costs related to the casino. The 8 percent payments to the state are to go to the Michigan Economic Development Corp.

Eric Bush, administrative manager for the gaming control board, said the tribe owes $2.93 million to local governments and $11.72 million to the state for the period of Oct. 1 through March 30.

The latest payments were due June 1. The tribe owes an additional $3.9 million to the state and $977,000 to the Local Revenue Sharing Board for August and September, the casino's first two months of operations. Altogether, the tribe owes about $15.6 million to the state and about $3.9 million to the LRSB.

Berrien County Administrator Bill Wolf said the amount owed by the Pokagon Band to the LRSB is considerably higher than figures projected in a study eight years ago. County officials originally projected annual payments of $3.4 million to the LRSB, but based on amounts reported to the state, the amount is now projected to be $5.8 million a year.

"It's doing well," Wolf said.

Without casino money going to the LRSB, Wolf said, local governments are being forced to spend money for services that the funding would cover.

New Buffalo Township is getting money from the Pokagon Fund, a separate tribal program to help communities. The fund, controlled by the tribe, has provided funding since Jan. 1 for sheriff's deputies working in the township.

"They have the deepest IOU as a result of the tribe holding up (LRSB) money," Wolf said.

In early December, the Pokagon Band said it would not make payments to the LRSB or state because the compact was not being followed. Tribal officials have said the bylaws enacted by the LRSB do not comply with the compact, a claim the board denies.

Early this year, the tribe said it was withholding payments to the state because of legal questions arising over the Michigan Lottery Club Keno game.

A dispute between the state and two other tribes ended in March with a settlement.

The Little River Band of Ottawa Indians and the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Ottawa Indians claimed that the Club Keno game violated an exclusivity clause in their 1998 compacts with the state. Both tribes withheld revenue sharing payments to the state, starting in 2003 and 2004, and the dispute wound up in court. The tribes paid 8 percent of their electronic gaming profits to the state before the dispute, and under terms of the settlement, they pay 6 percent.

But Pokagon Band officials said the tribe must reach its own settlement with the state because the tribe was not involved in the court case or settlement.

Indian tribes are sovereign nations not subject to state laws. Federal law allows Indian gaming through compacts, which are contracts, with states.

Bush said state officials are continuing to talk with the Pokagon Band to try to resolve issues.

In April, the gaming control board asked the state attorney general's office to get involved. At that time John Wernet, deputy legal counsel for the governor's office, said the state was ready to sue the tribe in federal court unless payments began soon.

As Microsoft develops web-based enterprise applications for its data centers and the 'cloud', the company cannibalizes market share from its partners who also provide hosting services with the same applications.  In light of Microsoft's new offerings, Microsoft reps used the partner convention to assure its partners that Microsoft doesn't intend to drive their partners out of business. 

According to Stephen Elop, Microsoft's new president of the business division at Microsoft, "Our vision is that everything you can do with our onsite servers, you will be able to do with our on line services … For partners, it’s about the differentiated value they can deliver on top of our services, as well as providing them with an ongoing revenue stream." 

Although Microsoft originally contended those services would only be available to large businesses with 5,000 or more users, Microsoft changed its mind last winter and now plans to market their portfolio of web-based services to all businesses.  Just like my former spousal unit, Microsoft can ALSO change its mind, at any time, for any reason - especially if the change benefits Microsoft.

Microsoft's new relationship with its 'partners' transforms partners and MCSEs into Microsoft sales and service personnel.  Microsoft alleges its goal is to create a market where Microsoft and its partners can co-exist and earn revenue.  Called 'revenue sharing', Microsoft believes their new partner relationship leaves room for partners to provide profitable consulting and administration services in support of Microsoft hosted services.  Partners disagree on the potential profitability from this change in the partner program.

Microsoft's commission to its partners for selling their hosted services is 18% the first year, with a 6% renewal as long as the partner and his client maintain a positive business relationship.  Microsoft prices its services starting at $3 / user / month.  At $36/year, a partner's first-year commission is $6.48 / user.  Some partners believe their profitability is taking a hit.   

Microsoft partners target small businesses and some partners fail to recognize the profit potential from Microsoft 'revenue sharing'.  Many partners contend the new hosted services from Microsoft will cannibalize existing partner product/service offerings.  It will be interesting to note if this new business model from Microsoft, which replaces onsite client-server business networks with a client-cloud model,  will prove win-win with its partner network. Stay tuned as this issue is certain to remain contentious with Microsoft partners.  Who do you believe will benefit from the new hosted services model and revenue sharing proposed by Microsoft?

If you're searching for New Orleans computer service or repair of your Microsoft based system or network, then call the Microsoft specialists at 504-469-6991. Onsite Computer Services, Inc. in New Orleans

You may also be interested in Onsite Computer's Blog.

This New Orleans On-Site Computer Service post was provided by Eli Lucas. Eli can be reached at eli@onsitenola.com. Onsite Computer serves the Microsoft computing needs of small businesses throughout the Greater New Orleans area including Uptown, Lakeview, Broadmoor, Mid-City, Metairie, Jefferson, Kenner, Westbank, French Quarter, and the Warehouse District. Please visit our website for New Orleans Computer Service.

How are social networking websites making money?

If you are one who is trying to up a social networking website, I would like to share some gathered thoughts here about how one can monetize a social networking website and how one cannot, or if you know more, please use the comments section below, I am around and eager.

Userbase is money: NO. Yahoo has 500mn users, and if this were true, you would know more about Jerry Yang than some Brinn or Page or Zuckerberg. Having a hugely popular website is not going to get you rich unless you have a revenue model already planned into it. So get out of this mindset, as this is the first no-brainer that a sales guy will throw at you if you asked him this question.

I will put in Ads: I really don't know which wise guy had this inundating brainwave of allocating real estate on web pages and charging businesses for the ads shown on them. This is not TV. I myself know, I haven't clicked on a single ad till date, they are just not useful and they are not convincing enough. I am sorry AdSense, you are good, but I am sorry, in fact, ask tickle.com[the online IQ testing website] for some data about the users which came in from your ad clicks and how much was their IQ range, should be an eye-opener. Anyways, so people don't read entire web pages from top to bottom, left to right, sequentially as if watching a TV, spending time with every commercial on it just because they can't skip the commercial breaks. On web pages, people just navigate to the exact section and click. And with usability getting to ever higher levels and the content getting more relevant, users are almost hypnotized. You may find umpteen success stories about how per-click ad programs made people rich, but you have to find one yourself in this real world to be convinced, and you won't find one[1].

I will have users subscribe by paying: I suggest take a stroll if this idea is doing the rounds in your head. Do only what you will be comfortable with if you were the user. This could only work if what you are selling is a product or some indispensable service or support. And yeah, don't lame it up like this[2].

Those were the myths. On to the facts.

Micropayments: Good things come in small packages. Very small. Imagine putting in goodies that cost a dollar by the hundred, and now if you have the userbase, this is bound to work. This may not get you to the top of the Forbes list, but will surely be a steady source of revenue.

Merchandising: You just have to do a count of the number of websites cropping up that claim to get a customised t-shirt to you. I bump into such websites each day, twice. If you have anything else other than pictures to put up on t-shirts or mugs or teddy bears, this could be just the way to leap out of the screen. Although this might be costly, but margins will be high if done in volumes and shipping be within a manageable geographical area.

Revenue-Sharing: Google shared commission with people if they put up AdSense code within their pages. Microsoft is showering its resellers. The Facebooks/Bebos have to do this. The fancy of social networking websites has long gone and people are still using it because its as much a part of them as their email addresses. They are spending ever increasing amounts of time each day on these websites and are still not that much loyal to not consider switching to another site, a better and rewarding one. Its only a matter of time before most of these users come to know and believe that they are buying your lunch. And after that its another few moments before someone comes up who is willing to share his lunch and pay his users their share. I can't tell you how to share your revenue with your users, totally depends on the niche and technology you are working on, but if you don't respect the time and effort your users are putting in you might just find some rough times ahead. This is specially true for websites that are solely thriving on user generated content[3].

And as another observation, selling anonymized trends on your website to your ad partners is not a very creative way to go about earning money. I guess the next step would be to get businesses to users who just want it. Permission Marketing[4].

Whatever you do, don't start without a revenue model as that speaks of zero business insight on your part, and secondly it is very tough to incorporate a revenue model later in a very much alive site[5]. The stories that you might be entertained with is how google and youtube and so on started without a revenue model and so on, and are making big money today, well, they started when internet was only a place to check emails[6], not some place where you shop, play, meet people, learn and almost live your life there. They started out of pure geekness and a need to solve the problems the creators were facing. In comparison RockYou did an exhaustive study of the market and came out with widgets which hit right on target and made RockYou worth around 400mn $[7] in under 2 years. Keep looking and you will be convinced more and more of having a revenue model.

Quoted from What does the "Media Business Model" mean?[also contains an exhaustive list of all possible monetization methods]:

Both media and most online businesses are based on "software economics", where the cost of creating something of value is relatively high but the marginal cost of distributing it to each consumer is very low.

Recently I worked on a tutorial that showed squidoo users, and others, how to create an Ebay RSS Feed. Many responded saying thanks for the tips, though a few lensmasters who wished to share their revenue with squidoo and some who donate to charity via squidoo, who did not want to use this tool. I have just updated with a tutorial on how to include your squidoo campaign and custom id so that your lens gets the credit for earning commission.

Thinking more about why people wanted to share did make me realise that some were doing this just for fun, as an interesting hobby, and to raise money for charity. Others also seemed to feel that it is only fair to share with squidoo as they share with you through the monthly  royalty payouts. It may well be thin line between squidoo paying staff to continue doing a great job and the site deteriorating because they can't afford to pay the staff, but until I see Gil turning up for work in a ferrari or Megan dripping in diamonds, I think squidoo is worthy of at least one or two modules on a lens that will earn them some money too!

We have heard these terms used over and over again by political leaders, inter-governmental organizations, state elected officials, non-profit think tanks, and, above all, the media.  Some of the terms are used interspersed with grandiose ideas, while other times they are applied directly to an initiative, such as sharing of water, fire or police protection, and economic development initiatives.

Then there are bold ideas and initiatives which truly address the core ideas, goals and objectives of "regionalism".  Not simply an academic exercise or theoretical study, but an aggressive and revolutionary approach to joining forces as a region and establishing a viable, sustainable, cooperative arrangement where all communities benefit from the success of the region.  A prime example of such a revolutionary approach is the Regional Economic Revenue Study, or RERS.  This initiative is the result of work by key leaders of the Northeast Ohio Mayors & City Managers Association, chaired by Hudson Mayor William A. (Bill) Currin.

Over the past 18 months, The Impact Group has worked side-by-side with leaders across Northeast Ohio in developing the concept and approach to a region-wide planning and revenue-sharing program.  In establishing this effort, the goal is to bring the 16 county Northeast Ohio region together in order to compete in a truly global economy for new jobs and growth in our business community.  For too long, cities, villages, counties and other jurisdictions have competed against one another for economic development in a "winner-take-all" environment.  We need a new environment, whereby the region cooperates and shares in our growth, an environment critically important to the successful growth of our region overall.

I will continue to update this blog with information and developments of the RERS and the leaders across our region involved in the process.  I would also recommend reviewing the RERS web site to learn more: www.revenuestudy.com

I am excited to be part of this initiative.  In fact, the very process we are undertaking through a collaborative of The Impact Group, the Mayors Association, Lorain County Community College, Cleveland State, Team NEO, The Fund for Our Economic Future and others is a direct example of regionalism; We are all joined for a united purpose to achieve success together! Check back for updates.  Let me know your thoughts as well.

Regionalism:  What a concept!!

-Kerry

ksmith@igpr.com

"It's starting to turn … and the people who are getting in on the ground floor are not American," said Paul Brinkley, the Pentagon official who is leading U.S. efforts to help Iraq rebuild its economy. "It's ironic."

Foreign companies, including U.S. investors, have committed to deals worth about $500 million so far this year and Brinkley expects at least $1 billion in foreign investment by the end of the year.

So far, Romanian consortium and a Lebanese company have signed revenue-sharing deals with Iraqi state-owned cement factories. Each group will invest about $150 million.

China has also aggressively pursued the Iraqi market, selling machinery to the government and electronic products to consumers.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari, in Washington on an official visit, said Monday that larger U.S. firms were waiting for more security before entering the market.

Zebari noted that Turkish and Russian companies were already active in Iraq. "They take risks," he told USA TODAY in an interview. "No pain, no gain."

Many of the companies active in Iraq now are from countries, including France, Russia and Turkey, that did not send combat troops to back the U.S.-led invasion.

Some U.S. and Iraqi officials say American companies risk losing an early opportunity to establish long-term strategic ties with Iraq.

Read the rest:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2008-06-16-iraqinvestment_N.htm

When handing out the latest community proceeds from local Indian gaming, the Emmet County Local Revenue Sharing Board had about $250,000 more to work with than in the previous round.

This spring, the board used a new, more specific framework to allocate money, one which put the largest funding awards in categories such as infrastructure and education.

Local governments appoint the three-member board to allocate gaming dollars twice a year. Under its gaming compact with Michigan, the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians must make 2 percent of electronic gaming receipts from its casino available to the community.

The latest payout -- about $840,000 -- included gaming receipts from July-December 2007, up from $590,000 in the previous round. In June 2007, the tribe opened the Odawa Casino Resort to replace its smaller Victories Casino.

a) Consortium is a form of cooperation between two or more carriers to operate in a particular trade.
b) A fictional organization in the video game franchise Syphon Filter.
c) A two or more membered bacterial culture (or natural assemblage) in which each organism benefits from others.d) A style of show from Adidas.Trick Question- it’s actually all four!So you’re probably wondering, why the heck did they just ask me what a consortium is? We just wanted to get you prepped for this neat little thing on the Yahoo consortium joining QuadrantONE, an alliance of hundreds of TV and newspaper affiliated websites from all around the country.

QuadrantONE grants these guys the nice little luxury of having access to national advertising in prime spaces without having to sell those ads independently, or make contact with affiliated websites to sell ad space either! It’s all pretty much taken care of. Neat, huh?

Well, kind of. In this partnership, newspapers put away a certain percentage of ads for the ones sold by quadrantONE. Kinda cool… except for the sales people who were responsible for selling national ads.Does anyone smell the shrinking of sales departments up ahead? Anyone? Anyone? [internetnews.com

Recently the NBA announced it would increase the amount of money in the revenue sharing pool next season. The league uses a complicated formula produced by McKinsey consulting to distribute money to teams that qualify. In other words, a team cannot simply cut costs, not try, then pocket the money. As revenue sharing becomes a more prominent part of almost every sport, these checks and balances are crucial.

Applying the NBA model to TV revenue is interesting. League's could start by setting aside a percent of the annual broadcast revenue to be equally divided among teams. The remaining money would then be allocated based on an incentive program, in one of two ways.

The league could use an outside consultant, such as McKinsey, to create a complex formula that rates teams on a number of various metrics that take into account financial need, business model implementation, marketing success, and competitiveness, to name a few. The premise is to determine how much a team is doing with what it has to work with, and how well it's executed. Based on this formula, teams are ranked, and receive a percentage of the remaining money.

A second way is to take the remaining league TV revenue, and split it into different categories. Put a certain percentage towards the financial need teams, another portion to marketing efforts, and so on. Then rank the teams based on each metric, and award a percent of the revenue for that metric to each team accordingly.

The goal is to reward teams that do well and punish teams that don't. Obviously, it needs to go beyond a simple win-loss analysis. If both the Twins and Yankees earn playoff berths with 90 wins, the Twins should rank higher in earning the shared revenue because they will likely have done more with what they have to earn those wins than the Yankees. Likewise, if a team rolls out a new marketing campaign and sees a 10% increase at the gate as a result, they should be rewarded for the grassroots efforts. While a team in the NBA like Memphis that gave away its only superstar should not simply receive extra revenue because it divulged its greatest asset in a cost saving move.

Clearly, more analysis and research is required to develop the right system, but performance based incentives for shared revenue is one way to reward teams that need additional revenue and work hard for it, while avoiding hand outs.

Here is the petition -- hcn-cert-petition

Here is the docket site -- No. 07-1402.

Here are the rest of the materials -- CA7 opinion and some briefs -- rest of the materials.

Today was the final day of the English Premier League season. As was expected there was a lot of excitement at the top of the table. Chelsea needed a victory to possibly finish in first, but could only manage to draw after giving up a late goal to Bolton two minutes into injury time. That meant that with its 2-0 victory over Wigan, Manchester United claimed its 17th Premier League title.

But that’s not what this post is about. See, the great thing about European soccer is that as exciting and consequential as the fight at the top standings is, the competition at the bottom of the league is every bit as exciting with the results meaning just as much if not more. And unlike in American professional leagues, the drama at the lower end of the league has nothing to do with teams tanking games to get higher draft picks. No no no. In Europe, if your record is bad, you have every incentive to win. If you don't you won't be around to play next year.

Relegation. I think it's a wonderful concept. The worst three teams in the every division at the end of the season are demoted to the lower division, and the first three teams are promoted to the higher division. This year Reading, Birmingham, and Derby were the bottom three in the Premier League so next year they will be playing in the Championship instead. Fulham needed a 1-0 victory on the last day of play to avoid relegation and they did so only because of goal difference.

Relegation is no small matter for a club. Aside from the tens of millions of pounds a club will lose in Premier League television contract money and other revenue streams, they will also have a much harder time holding on to its key players and attracting good new players. Relegation is not good for anyone and a club works hard to avoid it.

As a matter of practicality and logistics it is impossible, or at least very very very unlikely, but relegation is a concept that could do wonders for a number of American professional leagues. For a couple reasons, competition at the lower end of American Leagues is de-incentivized. For one, usually the worse your record the better chance you have getting a high draft pick for the next year. So if you are not going to make the playoffs, you might as well finish last. Secondly, because of revenue sharing and other deals, owners of even really bad teams make a lot of money. Don't get me wrong, I am in favor of revenue sharing, but nonetheless it must be acknowledged that it, to some degree, disassociates the profitability of the team from its success on the field of play; not completely, but to some degree.

If there was some AAA team ready to replace them, I think the Tampa Rays (or whatever the team is now called) might have a less cavalier outlook on finishing at the bottom of the AL east every year. The Texas Rangers and Pittsburgh Pirates might be a little uncomfortable also. Would the Miami Heat really have won only fifteen games this year if there was a chance the Dwayne Wade would have to suit up for a D-League team next year? I doubt it. Pat Riley certainly would not have been taking games off to go scout Derrick Rose and Michael Beasley. Can you imagine if there was a lower division of the NFL? Maybe somehow Roger Goodell works out a deal to acquire the CFL. I would not want to be the one to inform Bill Parcells that he must switch places with the Saskatchewan Roughriders and that he cannot return the dolphins to NFL unless he wins a Grey Cup.

Ah well, if only…

By Life-is-sweet

Things You’ll Need:

• Time
• A google adsense account
• Sign up for a flixya.com account

È finita l’attesa per gli apple-maniaci: l’iphone arriverà presto anche in Italia.

Da pochi giorni, infatti, è stato finalmente raggiunto l’accordo con gli operatori Vodafone e Telecom.

Quindi, per la prima volta in Italia e per la prima volta a disposizione di due operatori diversi che, ancora non è chiaro se decideranno di imporre per un certo periodo di tempo una scheda SIM, o se preferiranno mettere in commercio una versione “unlocked” dello smartphone, permettendo, quindi, agli utenti, di variare operatore.

La Apple, infatti, ha annunciato pochi giorni fa l’arrivo di un nuovo modello entro giugno, che avrà la possibilità di connettersi a reti 3G e che, molto probabilmente, sarà la versione venduta nel nostro paese.

Ma oltre all’Italia, potranno usufruire di questo strumento anche gli utenti di Australia, Egitto, Grecia, India, Portogallo, Nuova Zelanda, Sudafrica, Turchia e Repubblica Ceca.

Per quanto riguarda la Vodafone, gli iphone che verranno messi in vendita saranno due, con due diverse capacità di memoria (uno da 8 gigabites e un altro più capiente). I colori disponibili, invece, saranno, oltre al classico nero, forse anche il bianco.

La Telecom, ha preferito non lasciare sfuggire notizie anticipate.

Non è ancora chiaro quale sarà il metodo di pagamento per usufruire dei servizi degli operatori. Si parla, infatti, sia di un possibile abbonamento, che della classica scheda pre-pagata.

Fino ad oggi, la Apple è riuscita a vendere più di cinque milioni di esemplari. Entro la fine dell’anno, questi verranno commercializzati anche nel nostro paese e vedremo se l’azienda californiana si riconfermerà ai vertici delle nuove tecnologie.

From Indianz:

The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians agreed to share 2 percent of gaming revenues with local governments in Michigan but officials in one county still can't agree how to distribute the money.

Berrien County's Local Revenue Sharing Board has been trying for the past six months to decide how to spend $977,266 from the Four Winds Casino. One official became so unhappy with the process that he resigned from the board. The other board members, however, say they have reached an agreement on distributing the money. They hope to receive the first payment in time for the tribe's second on May 31.

Get the Story:
Disagreements continue over distribution of casino revenue (WSBT 4/28 )
Casino proceeds remain elusive (WNDU 4/28 )

Ngoài các bài viết trước đây về Google-Adsense , với nhiều động thái cho thấy Google đang có hướng "mở" đối với nguồn AdSense cho tiếng Việt.( tìm xem với Search trên trang WP Magic2flashvn này.)

Hiện tại, bạn có một nơi để nhờ trợ giúp khi gặp trở ngại với AdSense account của mình,hoặc thuận lợi nhất là cập nhật theo những gì mà Google Adsense vừa thông tin qua trang blog chính thức "Inside AdSense" của Google dịch qua tiếng Việt. Trang weblog Thông tin Adsense trên Blogger..

Cần phải nhấn mạnh vài điểm từ trang Thông Tin Adsense là tất cả các bài viết đều do Thông Tin Adsense post lên,không lấy lại từ bất cứ trang web tiếng Việt nào .Muốn dùng AdSense với tất cả tính năng cùng với sự an tâm về việc không vi phạm qui định của Google bạn nên thường xuyên đến xem các thông tin ,các chỉ dẫn mới nhất trên weblog THONGTINADSENSE trên nguồn Blogger.com. ( .blogspot.com của Google).

Finalmente dopo tanti tira e molla la Apple e la TIm sono riusciti ad accordarsi per lo sbarco in Italia,non sensa colpi di scena!

La apple infatti,secondo la repubblica, ha rinunciato all'accordo in esclusiva e al revenue sharing.

L'iphone dovrebbe essere disponibile solo dalla 3G dotata di connessione UMTS e quindi non dovrebbe arrivare prima di fine giugno(data ipotizzata per il rilascio di questa versione in America).

La rinuncia al revenue sharing ,comunque, non sarà completamente indolore infatti si ipotizza che il melafonino sarà venduto ad un prezzo d'acquisto più alto.
Telecom Italia inoltre non avrà l'esclusiva, ma solo un vantaggio di alcuni mesi rispetto a Vodafone o H3G, che avrebbero bisogno di diversi mesi per essere pronti a integrare nelle loro reti l'iPhone.

Quando avverrà la conferma ufficiale?E quando potremo acquistare finalmente l Iphone?

The Gun Lake Tribe's compact may be a model for agreements to be renegotiated in the next four to five years, according to James Hill, professor at Central Michigan University.

The compact is different from earlier agreements in three major ways. The tribe agreed to share revenue on an increasing scale, beginning with eight percent and rising to 12 percent of slot machine revenues, calculated on gross revenues. As the tribe makes more, it pays the state a higher percentage.

That might be the wave of the future, Hill said.

Another difference is the size of the exclusivity zone. instead of the whole state, the Gun Lake Tribe agreed to nine counties surrounding its Wayland casino.

A third difference is the makeup of the local revenue-sharing board. For the first time, three tribal representatives will join three local government representatives on the board.

"The compact sets forth responsible terms for the operation of the Gun Lake Casino. it protects the interests of all respective governments: tribal, state and local," tribal chairman D.K. Sprague said.

But Michael Jandernoa, chairman of 23 is Enough, a Grand Rapids anti-casino group, said a Good Friday agreement between the state and two other tribes resulted in the state settling for less, not more of a cut of casino profits. He questioned why Michigan was willing to accept only six percent of net receipts from the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians and the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians when some other states get at least 24 percent.

But according to John Wernet, deputy legal counsel to the governor and native-American-gaming attorney for Michigan, while some states may receive more than Michigan, others receive no cut.

The settlement made payments much more stable, Wernet added.

"in general, state law does not apply to Indian tribes or their members inside tribal reservations or trust lands. It's been well established the state cannot tax within Indian Country, which is not to say tribes don't pay any taxes."

So states have to negotiate, they can't demand, Wernet explained.

The Department of interior has interpreted the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act narrowly, saying territorial exclusivity is the only item of value states can offer tribes in exchange for a cut of casino profits. When the Detroit casinos were approved in 1996, the first seven tribes to sign compacts claimed the state had reneged on exclusivity and ceased to pay, Wernet said.

The Little Traverse and Little River bands put the money in escrow. The settlement agreement filed March 21 divided that $52 million escrow between the Michigan Strategic Fund and the tribes.

san-pasqual-opening-brief

california-appellee-brief

california-tribal-business-assn-amicus

san-pasqual-reply-brief

And here is news coverage from Indianz:

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in a gaming compact case involving the Rincon Band of Mission Indians and the Colusa Band of Wintun Indians.

The tribes signed compacts in 1999 that theoretically guaranteed them up to 2,000 slot machines. But limits set by the state prevent some tribes from reaching that limit. The Rincon Band and the Colusa Band each went to court to try to enforce the 2,000 limit but two federal judges dismissed their cases, citing the failure to join other compact tribes as indispensable parties. The other tribes can't be forced to join the case due to their sovereign immunity. According to The San Diego Union-Tribune, judges on the 9th Circuit questioned whether the other tribes were really indispensable parties. They wondered what interest the other tribes have in the Rincon and Colusa suits, which were consolidated on appeal.

Get the Story:
Rincon band heads to court to battle for more slot machines (The San Diego Union-Tribune 4/9)

Apple’s China iPhone Carrier?  Look for Motive and Opportunity

When solving a “who done it” puzzle, detectives weigh heavily two prime factors – motive and opportunity.  Let’s look at theses two keys when investigating the iPhone in China “carrier partner” puzzle.

China Mobile –

Motive: A newly constituted China Unicom/Netcom wants to prove that they can be a serious wireless competitor to the gargantuan China Mobile.  One way to kick start their new wireless business would be to sign an iPhone deal with Apple.  China Mobile might just find new motivation to negotiate seriously with Apple if they know China Unicom/Netcom is going to target their customer base ... 

Opportunity: Yep … China Mobile will have EDGE, and TD-SCDMA 3G (will next gen iPhone chipset support TD-SCDMA? ... not likely). NOTE: China Mobile will aggressively lobby ministries and cabinet officials for the rights to run a secondary 3G license.  iPhonAsia believes they will be successful and win rights to W-CDMA and TD-SCDMA

China Telecom (about to acquire China Unicom’s CDMA 3G division)

Motive: Major! See article below

Opportunity: Unfortunately it appears that post Olympics, China Telecom will be in the mobile business with a CDMA2000 3G license …On the other hand, If they win rights to W-CDMA 3G (less likely) then China Telecom will be in the running.

China Telecom (about to acquire China Unicom’s CDMA 3G division)

Motive: Major! See article below

Opportunity: Unfortunately it appears that post Olympics, China Telecom will be in the mobile business with a CDMA2000 3G license …On the other hand, If they win rights to W-CDMA 3G (less likely) then China Telecom will be in the running.

There are many, many “what ifs” and nuances to this carrier/partner analysis … but the two major mobile players above do have motivation to cut a deal with Apple notwithstanding all of the media/analyst/punditry that claims China will never share any revenue with Apple. 

I will concede that, in Asia, Apple will not likely see anything close to the rumored $15 per month per subscriber from current carrier partnerships … yet any number north of US$4 (per subscriber per mo. in Asia) will IMHO be viewed as a win for Apple … Piper Jaffary Analyst, Gene Munster suggested that rev. sharing might take the form of a one-time up front payment versus monthly.  He might just be right. Apple adds significant value via assistance with initial iPhone activations and regular iPhone software upgrades. The new App Store will also be a major value add.  Whether carrier payments to Apple will be ongoing or one-time (up front) payment, there is plenty of justification for some carrier rev. share to Apple.

Last point … It is possible that Apple will choose to offer both a locked-to-carrier and a premium priced unlocked iPhone in China (ala Apple's deal with Orange in France).  An official “premium priced” un-locked iPhone can be distributed via Apple online (.cn), Apple Stores and partners such as D-Phone and Shenzhen Aisidi.

More details in articles below ….

> Rumor: China’s TD-SCDMA 3G may not be an eternal flame

> China Mobile supports 4G & related iPhone launch in China speculation

 Mobile phones cut China Telecom profits

China Telecom Says 2007 Net Profit Fell 13 Percent on Drop in Connection Fee Income

China Telecom Corp. said Monday that annual profits fell 13 percent last year as more customers switched to mobile phones.

Net profit in 2007 fell to 23.7 billion yuan ($3.4 billion), from 27.2 billion yuan in 2006, the nation’s largest fixed-line operator said.

 China Telecom said income from its voice business fell 7.9 percent from the year before as the number of its access lines in service fell 1.2 percent to 220 million, from 222.7 million in 2006.

However, overall revenues climbed 1.7 percent to 178.7 billion yuan ($25.5 billion) from 175.6 billion yuan.

China Telecom is gearing up for a “full services offering” to expand its non-fixed line broadband and wireless businesses as it struggles to compete with cell-phone rival China Mobile.

“Although the intensifying market competition is a serious challenge to us, the upcoming full services offering will bring enormous business opportunities,” Wang Xiaochu, China Telecom’s chairman, said in a statement.

The company saw declines in virtually every area of its traditional phone business. Revenue from local phone services, which comprised nearly 40 percent of total operating revenues, fell 9.8 percent. Upfront connection fees dropped 33.7 percent; installation fees fell 6 percent; income from monthly fees declined 12.5 percent; and revenue from long-distance phone services sank 6 percent, China Telecom said.

China Telecom also said it incurred 572 million yuan ($81.7 million) in losses due to damage caused by severe snow and ice storms in January and February, a figure not reflected in the 2007 financial figures.

image courtesy BDA  

Sub-$300 iPhone, 3G model seen driving 45M unit sales in 2009

Full article > HERE

By Katie Marsal

Published: 10:00 AM EST

Investment bank Piper Jaffray is out with a bullish research note on Apple today predicting a diversification of the iPhone line into a multi-tiered family of handsets that will combine for sales of 45 million units next year.


Gene Munster, Piper Jaffary 

The 4-page report, authored by analyst Gene Munster, attempts to outline the future direction of the iPhone family for Apple shareholders, offering guidance on how to best think about unit growth, changes in revenue share, and strategic shifts that may play out as the company enters new international markets like China where local dynamics may complicate its model of working with only one exclusive carrier.

"While most investors view our estimate of 45 million iPhones in 2009 as outrageously aggressive, we are maintaining our estimate based on several factors," Munster wrote. "First, we expect Apple to introduce a 3G iPhone model with additional features in the next 3-6 months. We also expect Apple to offer an entire family of iPhones by January 2009 at the latest including lower priced models that decrease the average selling price (ASP)."

More specifically, the analyst expects a 3G model to arrive in June followed by a "perhaps more significant" introduction of a model by next year that will be priced between $200 and $300, addressing a more price sensitive market. As such, he expects iPhone ASPs to drop from $489 in 2007 to $365 in 2008 to $314 in 2009.

iStick concept nano iPhone. 

This pattern would mirror the path taken by Apple as it matured the iPod family, he said, where a slow by steady diversification saw the company enter lower price points with every new revision of the player. However, he noted that the iPhone's unit growth curve stands to be significantly steeper than the iPods, given that Apple sold more iPhones in the first two days of sales than it did in the first three quarters of iPod sales.

"And the company did not sell over 2 million iPods in a quarter until the iPod's third year of sales, whereas the company sold over 2m iPhones in the second full quarter of sales," Munster added. "In sum, we believe the iPhone is a full 2-3 years ahead of the iPod in terms of its historical growth pattern."

Compared to iPod units, which grew a radical 409 percent between Apple's fiscal 2004 and 2005, the analyst is modeling iPhone units to grow slightly slower at 304 percent between fiscal 2008 and 2009, given some uncertainty as to how quickly the company roll out cheaper models.

Munster's estimates also take into account the continued international rollout of the handset, which he believes will double the addressable market for the device every year for the next two years. With 3.7 million units having been sold through December via 6 carriers (who combined for a subscriber base of 153 million), he estimates the iPhone's penetration into this addressable market to be just 3 percent.

One key component of the international iPhone rollout is of course China, where market dynamics complicate Apple's business model of exclusivity, leading the analyst to believe the company will likely need to alter its terms in order to launch the device in conjunction with a carrier like China Mobile that sports over 370 million subscribers.

"We have spoken with people close to China Mobile and our conversations lead us to believe that Chinese carriers are unlikely to sign a revenue sharing agreement with Apple," he wrote. "This is due in part because of the 70 percent market share enjoyed by China Mobile. The bottom line is that the mobile phone market is less competitive in China than it is in the US and Europe."

As a result, China Mobile appears unwilling to pay the monthly revenue sharing of approximately $15 per month which Munster estimates other exclusive iPhone carriers are currently paying Apple. In time, that may force the company to alter its strategy of signing exclusive revenue sharing agreements with its partners in Asia, which he believes will enable it to sell the iPhone in China by the middle of next year.

In support of this theory, the analyst pointed to recent comments from chief operating officer Tim Cook, who revealed at an investor conference last month that Apple is "not married to any business model" and is instead "married to ... shipping the best phones in the world."

See iPhone in Asia analysis > HERE 

See also > Forthcoming iPhone launch in Asia

In the event that Apple does forgo its present revenue share model and exclusive carrier relationships, it would likely seek a one-time subsidy from each carrier per iPhone sold.

"We believe the early hype surrounding the launch of the iPhone enabled Apple to garner steep revenue sharing agreements for the 'must have' device from the initial carriers like AT&T, O2, and T-Mobile," Munster said. "However, as the iPhone becomes an established player in the mobile phone market and competitive offerings become available, Apple may not be able to command the exclusive agreements with high revenue sharing plans as it did initially."

The Piper Jaffray analyst maintains a Buy rating and $250 price target on shares of the Cupertino-based Apple.

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