-
Europe's debt crisis
欧洲债务危机
Spot the pattern
看变化模式
Jul 5th 2011, 18:55 by R.A. |
WASHINGTON
2011
年
7
月
5
日
18
：
55
R.A./
华盛顿
HERE'S a chart showing the
yields on 10-year Greek debt over the past three
months. See the pattern?
本图
显示的是在过去
3
个月
10
年期希腊债券的收益率。变化模式看清楚了吧？
There's a spike, followed by a decline,
followed by a higher spike, followed by a decline
to a higher trough, and so on. European leaders
keep taking steps to
avert disaster,
and each time markets are less assuaged.
有个尖峰，接着是下跌，然后又是稍高一些的尖峰，接着跌入
一个较高的波谷，如此反复。欧洲国家的领导人一直在采取措施避免灾难，而每一次
市场
都没有大的起色。
The
latest spike corresponds to the stalemate
over the
IMF's willingness
to continue
making bail-out payments
without a new, long-term rescue package in
place (and the corresponding
disagreement over how to rollover Greek debt, plus
the drama surrounding the passage of Greece's new
austerity plan). The IMF
agreed to keep
paying, French and German banks seemed willing to
sign on to a rollover plan, and Greece got its new
austerity programme through parliament.
But it wasn't long before trouble
kicked up again.
最近的尖峰反映了这样
一个困境：国际货币基金组织愿意继续救助，但又没有制定出一个长期的一揽子救助计划（同时也反映出如何缓解
希腊债务
各方存在分歧，以及希腊的新紧缩计划能否通过依然有变数）
< br>。国际货币基金组织同意继续提供支付，法国和德国的银行似乎愿意签署资金周转计
划书，希腊国会通过了新的紧缩计划。但是，没过多久，麻烦又来了。
Moody's and Standard and
Poor's have both suggested that the agreed-upon
rollover plan might well constitute a default.
Since that's precisely the outcome
European leaders were hoping to avoid,
this news has sent everyone scurrying to come up
with a new and better deal. Meanwhile, Moody's has
cut Portugal's
debt rating to junk.
Portugal may well need a new rescue package, which
will surely include debate over the fate of
creditors, which will mean more questions
about bank finances and more
brinksmanship. And the European economy continues
to slow, even as the European Central Bank
continues to tighten policy.
穆迪和标准普尔都暗示，商定好的周转计划很可能得不到执行。因为这种结果正是欧洲国家的领导人们想避免 的，所以这条消息让每个人都急不可
待地要制定出一个新的、
更
好的解决办法。
与此同时，
穆迪公司已经将葡萄牙的债务评级降
至垃圾级。
葡萄牙很可能需要一个新的一揽子救援计划，
这必将
包括对债权人命运的辩论，而辩论的内容将更多的是关于银行财政方面的问题和边缘政策。欧洲经济增长速度持续
放缓，尽管欧洲央行继续
收紧货币政策。
I don't know that there's
any broad lesson here, other than: for all the
steps already taken by European leaders, the euro
zone hasn't really gotten any closer to
solving the underlying issues of
insolvency and institutional weakness.
除了以下教训，我不知道还有什么更大的了：虽然欧洲国家的领导人们已经采取了各种措
施，但是，欧元区要解决当前国家破产危机和体制上不健
全的根本问题，确确实实还有很
长的路要走。
Global house prices
全球房价
Rooms with a
view
一览全球楼市
Asia’s frothiest housing markets are
calming down. Is America’s bottoming?
亚洲泡沫最多的楼市不再蒸蒸日上。美国的楼市触底了吗？
Jul 7th 2011 | WASHINGTON, DC | from
the print edition
THE
bubble that caused
a global recession
has been a long time deflating. The American
housing market began to decline half a decade ago
and hasn’t
stopped
yet.
Prices dropped by 5.1% from the year before,
according to the latest S&P/Case-Shiller national
index. Among markets tracked by The Economist,
only
Irish homes have fallen further
since 2006. Robert Shiller, one of the fathers of
the Case-Shiller index, says more hard times lie
ahead. Prices may slide another
10-25%,
he reckons, as the economy wrings out the excess
supply of the bubble years.
引发全球经济衰退的泡沫
一直在破灭，
已经历时已久
。
5
年前，
美国的楼市就开始衰退了，
目前还未停
止衰退。
根据最新的标普凯斯
?
席勒全
国指数，
与一年前相比，房价下跌了
5.1%
< br>。在《经济学人》追踪的市场中，自
2006
年以来只有
爱尔兰的房价跌得还要厉害。凯斯
?
席勒指数创始人之一的罗<
/p>
伯特
?
席勒表示，艰难时期还在后头。他
估计，随着经济逐渐耗尽泡沫时期过剩的供应量，房价可能还要再下跌
10%-25%<
/p>
。
By
our calculations, however, America’s
h
ousing market has overshot the fair-
value mark, as measured by the long-run average
ratio of house prices to rents.
Rents
are rising: an increase in the cost of rental
housing contributed to May’s robust American
inflation data. With home ow
nership
looking a better deal,
prices should
stabilise. The Case-Shiller index posted a month-
on-month increase in April for the first time
since July 2010. It was not alone in showing
gains.
The Federal Housing Finance
Agency (FHFA) price series ticked up in April for
the first time since May 2010, and the CoreLogic
index of home prices, a
favourite of
the Federal Reserve, notched price rises in both
April and May. The pace of sales has been sluggish
but an index of pending home sales posted a
surprisingly large gain in May.
然而，据我们的统计，通过长期的房价和租金的平均比率来衡量，美国的楼市已经超过合理价值的标准。
租金正在上涨：租房成本上升带来了
5
月
份美国强劲的通胀数据。随着拥有住房看起来是更好的选择，房价应该会稳定下来。自
2010
年
7
月以来，
4
月凯斯
?
席勒指数首次出现
了环比上扬。
并非只有凯斯
?
席勒指数
呈现了上行趋势。自
2010
年
5
月以来，
联邦住房金融局的价格系列指数在
4
月份也出现了首次上升。
此外，
Co
reLogic
房价
指数（美联储最喜欢参照的指数）在
4
、
5
月份都有所上
升。尽管销售速度一直相当缓慢，但是住房销售的预期指数在
5
月份大幅上升，令人吃惊。
The
best news of all may be the ongoing improvement in
credit conditions. Delinquencies have trended
downward since late 2009. Consumer-debt payments
relative to incomes are at a 17-year
low and household credit scores are rising. Banks
are still being stingy with credit but households
are better positioned than
they were to
take advantage of cheaper homes.
或许最好的消
息是信贷环境正在改善。自
2009
年底以来，拖欠债务的情况
一直在减少。
相对于收入而言的
消费者债务支付创
17
年的低点，家庭的
信用分数
正在上升。各银行对信贷仍然非常严格，但是与以往相比，现在各家庭做好了更好利用较廉价住房的准备。< /p>
Cheapness is not
a word to associate with Hong Kong, the most
overpriced market in our analysis. House prices in
the territory rose by 23.9% year on year in
April. The boom may well be coming to
an end, however. Like its counterpart on the
mainland, Hong Kong’s government is
trying to restrain property markets.
A June increase in down-payment
requirements is just the latest in a series of
measures to cool the housing sector. Sales volumes
have declined steadily for six
months,
and prices are likely to follow.
但是廉价与香
港无缘，香港是我们分析中房价过高最严重的市场。
4
月，香港
房价同比上涨了
23.9%
。然而，繁荣时期很可能已经告一段
落。与中
国大陆政府一样，香港的政府也在努力遏制房地产市场。
6
月出台的提高首付要求正是一系列为房地产行业降温的最新举措之一。
6
个月来，销售
量稳步下降，房价也可能随之下降。
China’s roaring
property markets aren’t the only ones in Asia to
face a slowdown. In Singapore annual price growth
dropped fr
om nearly 18% in the fourth
quarter of 2010 to 10% in the second
quarter of this year. In Australia boom has turned
to outright decline. With commodity markets
softening, prices have
sagged in
resource-dependent cities like Brisbane and Perth.
South Africa
’s once
-buoyant
market has likewise flipped from rapid growth to
retreat.
中国蓬勃发展的房地产市场并不是亚洲唯一面临放缓的市场。新加坡
的房价年增长率从
2010
年第四季度的近
18%
下降到了今年第二季度的
10%
。
澳大利亚直接从繁荣期进入了衰退期。随着商品市场平静下来，布里斯班和佩思等
依靠资源的城市的房价就下跌了。曾经一度蒸蒸日上的南非市场
也同样从快速增长变成了
衰退。
Moribund
markets are the norm in most of Europe but France
is bucking the trend. French home prices fell
faster than the euro-zone average during the
crisis
but have rebounded sharply
enough to cause some consternation. The ratio of
prices to rents is almost 50% above the long-run
average. French officials blame
tight
supply but the government has acknowledged the
possibility of “overvaluation”. With housing,
there’s always somewhere t
o worry
about.
对大多数欧洲国家而言，市场停滞不前是常态
，但是法国并非如此。在经济危机期间，法国的房价的下跌速度比欧元区国家的平均速度快，但是后
来大幅反弹足以让人大吃一惊。
房价与租金的比率在
50%
左右，
超过长期的平均值。
法国
官员指责供应太紧，
但是政府也承认有
“
估值过高
”
的可能。
对于楼市，总有
可忧虑之处。
Hope over
hype
希望高过炒作
A science writer analyses the history
of stem-cell research
一位科普作家分析了干细胞的研究史
THE unrelenting pace of scientific
accomplishment often outstrips the progress of
moral thought, leaving people struggling to make
sense, initially at least, of
whether
heart transplants are ethical or test-tube babies
desirable. Over the past three decades scientists
have begun to investigate a branch of medicine
that
offers astonishing
promise
—
the ability to
repair the human body and even grow new
organs
—
but which destroys
early-
stage embryos to do so. In “The
Stem
Cell Hope” Alice Park, a science
writer at Time magazine, chronicles the
scientific, political, ethical and personal
struggle
s of those involved in the
work.
科学成就不屈不挠的步伐经常越过道德思想的进
步，
至少最初让人挣扎在取义之上：
心脏移植手术是否符合伦理
道德，
或者试管婴儿是否值得向往。
过去三十年来，科学家们已
经开始研究一个医学分支，该分支提供了惊人的希望（能够修复人体，甚至长出新器官）
，但是这个分支做到这点要破
坏早期胚胎。在《时代》杂志的科普作家爱丽丝
?
帕克所写的《干细胞的希望》中，记载了那些参与这项工作的人在科学、
政治、伦理和个人方面的
斗争。
Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent:
they have the ability to change into any one of
the 200-odd types of cell that compose the human
body; but they can do
so only at a very
early stage. Once the bundle has reached more than
about 150 cells, they start to specialise.
Research into repairing severed spinal cords or
growing new hearts has thus needed a
supply of stem cells that come from entities that,
given a more favourable environment, could instead
grow into a baby.
胚胎干细胞是多能的
干细胞：它们有能力转变为构成人体的
200
多种类型细胞中的
任何一种；但它们只能在非常早期的阶段做到这点。一旦分裂的
细胞束已达到大约
150
个细胞以上，它们就开始专门分化成一种类型的细胞了。因此，
修复断开的脊髓或长出新的心脏的研究需要提供来自实体的
干细胞，假如赋予这个实体更
加有利的环境，那么它可以成长为一名婴儿。
Immediately after the announcement of
the birth of Dolly the
sheep
—
the clone of an adult
ewe whose mammary cells Ian Wilmut had tricked
into behaving
like
a
developing
embryo
—American
scientists
were
hauled
before
the
nation’s
politicians
who
were
uneasy
at
the
implication
that
people
might
also
be
cloned.
Concern
at
the
speed
of
scientific
progress
had
previously
stalled
publicly
funded
research
into
contentious
topics,
for
example,
into
in
vitro
fertilisation. But it
did not stop the work from taking place: instead
the IVF industry blossomed in the private sector,
funded by couples desperate for a baby
and investors who had spotted a
lucrative new market.
伊恩
?
威尔莫特将一个成年母羊的乳腺细胞诱发成就象一个发育中的胚胎克
隆了多莉羊。在宣布多莉羊诞生后不久，美国科学家纷纷转向这项研究，
之后美国政要才
对其中人也能克隆的含义感到不安。此前，对科学进步速度的关注让政府资助的研究不涉入有争议的课题，例如，
体外授精。但这
并没有停止这项工作的开展：取而代之的是试管婴儿行业在私营部门蓬勃
发展，而私营部门由求子若渴的夫妇和发现了利润丰厚的新市场的投资者
资助。
That
is
also what happened
with human
stem cells. After
a
protracted
struggle
over
whether
to
ban research
outright
—
which
pitted Nancy
Reagan, whose
husband
suffered
from
Alzheimer’s
disease,
against
a
father
who
asked
George
Bush’s
advisers,
“Which
one
of
my
children
would
you
kill?”—
Mr
Bush
blocked
the
use
of
government
money
to
fund
research
on
any
new
human
embryonic
stem-cell
cultures.
But
research
did
not
halt
completely:
Geron,
a
biopharmaceuticals company based in
Menlo Park, California, had s
tarted “to
mop up this orphaned innovation”, as Ms Park puts
it, by recruiting researchers
whose
work brought them into conflict with the funding
restrictions.
这也是人类干细胞的经历。在
是否完全禁止研究的问题上进行了长期争论，南希
?
里根的丈夫
患上了阿尔茨海默氏症，一位父亲问乔治
?
布什的顾问：
“
你要杀死我哪个孩子？
”
< br>，南希杠上了这位父亲，之后布什禁止使用政府的金钱来资助任何新的人类胚胎干细胞培养的研究。但这项 研究并没有完
全终止：杰龙是一家总部设在美国加利福尼亚州门洛帕克的生物制药公司，
正如帕克所说，杰龙的外聘研究人员已经开始
“
为这项孤儿般的
创新做
扫尾工作了
”
，这些研究人员的
工作与资金限制有冲突。
Meanwhile, in South Korea a maverick
scientist claimed not only to have cloned human
embryos but also to have created patient-specific
cultures that could,
in theory, be used
to patch up brain damage or grow a kidney. Alas,
he was wrong. But a Japanese scientist did manage
to persuade adult skin cells to act like
stem cells. If it proves possible to
scale up his techniques, that would remove the
source of the controversy over stem-cell research.
同时，在韩国一个特立独行的科学家声称，不仅克隆了人类胚
胎，而且也制成了特定病人的培养体，从理论上讲，该培养体可以用来修补脑损伤或
长出
肾脏。可叹的是，他错了。但日本科学家的确设法让成人的皮肤细胞起到干细胞一样的作用。如果证明他的技术可
能上规模，将消除对干细胞
研究的争论来源。
Three months after he took
office, Barack Obama lifted restrictions on
federal funding for research on new stem-cell
cultures, saying that he thought sound
science
and
moral
values
were
consistent
with
one
another.
But
progress
has
been
slow:
the
first
human
trials
in
America,
involving
two
people
with
spinal-cord injuries who have been
injected
with stem cells developed by
Geron, are only just under way. The sick children
who first inspired scientists to
conduct research into stem cells in
order to develop treatments that might help them
are now young adults. As Ms Park notes, the fight
over stem-cell research
is not over,
and those who might benefit from stem-cell
medicine remain in need.
奥巴
马上台三个月后，解除了对联邦资助新干细胞培养研究的限制。奥巴马说，他认为健全的科学和道德观彼此一致。
但这方面的研究进展一直缓
慢：在美国首次人体试验只是还在进行，有两个脊髓损伤的病
人注射了杰龙开发的干细胞。最初促使科学家进行干细胞研究，以开发出可能对他们
有所
帮助的治疗方法的患病儿童现在已是青壮年。
正如帕克指出的，
对干细胞研究的战争没有结束，
那些可能受益于干细胞药物的人仍然病魔缠身。
Wide-spread
confusion
价差扩大的困惑
What, exactly, is the price
of oil?
石油价格真相调查
Jun 16th 2011 | from the
print edition
FINDING out the price of
oil used to be simple. A quick check of either of
the two main gauges of international
markets
—
West Texas
Intermediate (WTI) or
Brent
Blend
—
would suffice. But
this year, as oil prices have soared, a gap has
opened up between the two benchmark crudes. On
June 15th the spread hit a
record:
close to $$23 dollars a barrel.
过去，要得到石油的价格通常非常简单。你只需要快速的查询
一下美国西德克萨斯轻质原油（
WTI
）或者英国北海布伦特原
油（
Brent
Blend
）这两<
/p>
个国际市场的石油价格基准即可。但是今年，随着石油价格的飙升，这两个原油基准价格出
现了价差增大的情况。
在
6
月
15
日，两者的价格差创
出纪录，达到每桶接近
23
美元。
For years prices of WTI and
Brent were locked together, though the higher-
quality American WTI oil generally traded at a
premium of a dollar or two to reflect
its slightly lower viscosity and
sulphur content, which ease refining into petrol,
heating oil and other products. Patterns of supply
and demand in America, the
world’s
biggest consumer and importer of oil, rarely
diverged much from the rest of the world, where
Brent is the main indica
tor.
多年来西德克萨斯轻质原油和北海布伦特原油之间的价格差比
较稳定，虽然西德克萨斯轻质原油由于其所产的油粘度以及硫含量更低，更易于提炼
为汽
油，
燃料油，
和其他产品，
从而因其更
高的石油品质交易价格会比北海布伦特原油高
1
到
2
美元。
同时美国是全球最大的石油消费国和进口国
，
其石油的供求状况一般大致反映了世界上其它地区的供求状况，而后者一般主要通过北
海布伦特原油价格反映出来。
That has changed. The contracts for WTI
stipulate “for delivery” to windswept Cushing,
Oklahoma (population
8,371), which is
strategically situated to serve
the
refineries
of the Gulf
of Mexico, and thence
the
petrol-thirsty
northern
seaboard. This gave oil firms lots of
incentive to build pipelines
to
Cushing: in
recent months oil has
poured into Cushing’s grow
ing and
labyrinthine storage facilities.
但如今情况出现了变化，由于俄克拉荷马州库欣，这一拥有
8
，
371
人口的多风的城市是西德克萨斯轻质原油的
指定的合约交割地，并且为墨西哥
湾的炼油厂，以及其身后石油需求量巨大的北方沿海地
区提供石油，其地理位置具有重要的战略意义。从而使得石油公司积极主动地建造了很多的
石油管道通往库欣：最近几个月以来，石油已经开始输入库欣纵横交错的储油设备中，而且同时还在不断建造新
的储油设备。
There it
has stayed. A new p
ipeline from
Canada’s oil sands, which opened in February, and
unexpectedly large flows of shale oil from North
Dakota’s Bakk
en
field have
coincided with lacklustre oil demand in America.
Planning difficulties mean that a proposed new
pipeline from Cushing to the gulf refineries (from
where the oil can be shipped abroad)
will not open until 2013 at the earliest. Attempts
to shift the oil by road and rail have made only a
small dent in rising
inventories.
与此同时其它地区情况也出现了变化，在
2
月，从加拿大拥有含油砂的地区连通了一条新的石油管道，而北达科他的巴肯地区
的页岩油的大量供应
也超过了人们预期，而且都正巧赶上美国的石油需求不旺。同时由于
在规划方面出现了困难，使得原本提议在库欣与墨西哥湾的炼油厂（从那可以
将石油运往
海外）之间建一条新的石油管道最早也要到
2013
年才能完工
。至于尝试通过公路和铁路来进行石油运输，对于正不断增加的石油库存
来说也只是杯水
车薪。
Meanwhile
recent maintenance shutdowns in the North Sea have
worsened already declining supplies from
a
geing fields of Brent crude. Brent’s
ready access
to seaborne markets means
that its price is far more sensitive to booming
demand in China and elsewhere. Hence the spread
with WTI in recent months (see
chart).
同时最近北海油田的停工维护也使得布伦特原油这片开采已久
，原本已经供应量下降的油田更加雪上加霜。而且由于布伦特原油可以直接通过海上
运输
运往其它市场，使得它的价格能够更加灵敏地反映出中国以及其它市场对于石油旺盛的需求。所以布伦特原油与德
克萨斯轻质原油在最近几个
月出现了价差（见图）
Over the past few days another,
m
ore mysterious spread has opened up.
The price of Louisiana light and sweet (LLS), an
oil grade that feeds America’s gulf
refineries, has detached from Brent
too, selling at around $$4 a barrel less rather
than its usual premium of a dollar or so.
但没过几天，路易斯安娜轻油（
LL
S
）的价格也开始与布伦特原油价格出现了偏离，其价格比布伦特原油价格低大致
4
美元每桶，而不是通常贵
1
美元左右。路易安那轻油是输往美国墨西哥湾炼油厂原油的一种，其与布伦特原油的价差的扩大显得更加
令人难以解释。
Even
as
WTI and
Brent
took different
tacks, LLS
and
Brent
had remained
in lockstep. The
reasons
for
the
new
divergence
are
hotly
debated. Analysts at
Goldman Sachs
offer
several theories, including a
shortage of this
grade of oil in Europe
(it is of similar quality to absent
Libyan
supplies)
and
a
general
redirection of crude to booming Asia,
without any corresponding rise in demand for LLS.
因为在西德克萨斯轻质原油与布伦
特原油出现价格不同时，路易斯安娜轻油的价格与的布伦特原油价格还是保持同步的。关于出现这种价差的原因<
/p>
也众说纷纭。高盛的分析师对此提出了几种出现价差的原因，包括虽然路易斯安娜轻油在欧
洲的供应短缺（路易斯安那轻油品质与暂停供应的利比
亚产的石油相近）但是需求旺盛的
亚洲市场普遍改用了其它地区的原油，使得对于路易斯安娜轻油方面的需求并没有相应的增加。
< br>
These price differences
matter to businesses such as airlines, which hedge
exposure to shifting oil prices. Long-dated
futures markets for jet fuel are highly
illiquid. Much of the hedging is
carried out with WTI contracts but the actual fuel
is mainly refined from pricier oils. Commodities
funds that hold WTI are
also scratching
their heads over what to do about buying and
selling an oil that no longer reflects the wider
global market.
一些行业如航空业由于受石油的价格差影响较大，都会采取套期保值的方法对冲石油价格变动带来的金融风险。由
于针对喷气燃料的远期期货市场
流动性不佳，绝大多数的套期保值交易都是以西德克萨斯
轻质原油期货合约为交易标的的。而对于已经不能全面反映全球石油市场情况的西德克萨
斯轻质原油期货价格，那些持有此期货合约的商品指数基金也不得不对其进行的有关买卖交易深思熟虑一番。
Middle-aged blues
中年的沮丧
The software giant is grappling with a
mid-life crisis
软件巨头努力应对中年危机
COMPARED
with
IBM,
Microsoft
is
a
mere
stripling.
Founded
in
1975,
it
rose
swiftly
to
dominate
the
world
of
personal
computing
with
its
Windows
operating
system
and
Office
suite
of
word-processing
and
other
productivity
tools.
But
the
company
is
now
showing
some
worrying
signs
of
middle-
age
fatigue. In particular, it is
struggling to find a growth strategy that will
enthuse disgruntled shareholders.
与
IBM
相比，微软纯属一后生。
1975
年成立后，微软发展迅速，以其
Windo
ws
操作系统、文字处理软件
Office
组件以及其它开发工具占领了个人
计算机世界
。然而，现在
微软却显示出一些中年疲倦的迹象。特别是，微软正致力于寻找增长策略，好让不悦的股东们高兴起来。
Grumbles
are
understandable.
Since
Steve
Ballmer
took
over
from
Bill
Gates
as
chief
executive
in
2000,
Microsoft’s
share
price
has
languished
and
the
company has lost its
reputation as a tech trend-setter. It has been
left behind in hot areas such as search and social
networking by younger companies, some of
which love to thumb their noses at
their older rival. Eric Schmidt, the executive
chairman of Google, recently proclaimed that
leadership in the tech world had
passed
from Microsoft and others to a “Gang of Four”
fast
-growing, consumer-oriented
businesses: Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook.
各种抱怨可以理解。自
2000
年史蒂夫
·
鲍尔默接替比尔
·
盖茨以来，微软的股票就萎靡不已，微软也失去了技术潮流领跑者的名声。在
如搜索、社交
网络等一些热门领域，微软被年轻公司甩在身后，不时还被这些公司嗤之以
鼻。谷歌首席执行官埃里克
·
施密特（
Eric
Schmidt
）最近声称，技术领
域的领导权已经从微软和其他公司手中交接到快速增长的、基于用户的
”
四人帮
“
企业：谷歌、苹果、亚马逊和脸谱。
Few would
quibble with that. The question is: what, if
anything, can Microsoft do to change it? In at
least some respects, the company appears to be
suffering
from similar ailments to
those that laid IBM low before Lou Gerstner was
hired in 1993 to get it back on its feet. These
include arrogance bred of dominance of
a particular
area
—
mainframe computers at
IBM, personal computers at
Microsoft
—
and internal fiefs
that hamper swift change. For instance, the
division that
champions cloud computing
must deal with one that is the cheerleader for
Windows, which is likely to want computing to stay
on desktops for as long as
possible to
maximise its own revenues.
没有人对施密特的观点吹毛求疵。问题在于，微软能为改变现状做些什么（如果它愿意的话）？至少在某些方面，
如因对特殊领域（
IBM
的大型计
算机
，微软的个人电脑）的优势而滋生的傲慢，以及阻碍迅速发生转变的内部山头主义，微软正重蹈
< br>IBM
的覆辙
——
IBM
直到
1993
年雇佣路易
·
郭
士纳（
LouGerstne
r
）后才重整旗鼓。举例来说，支持云计算的部门必须应对视窗的拥趸
< br>——
他们很可能希望
“
计算
”
驻留在
台式机
上
越久越好，以获
取自身最大收益。
As IBM’s experience shows, rejuvenation
in the tech world is possible. And some observers
see encouraging glimmers of progres
s at
Microsoft. Sarah Rotman
Epps of
Forrester, a research firm, reckons that Windows
8, a for
thcoming version of Microsoft’s
operating system, could be a serious competitor to
Google’s
Android on tablet computers if
the company can get it to market next year.
Microsoft is also in far better shape financially
than IBM was at its nadir, so it can
afford to splash out on acquisitions
such as its recent $$8.5 billion purchase of Skype,
an internet-phone and video-calling service.
正如
IBM
的经历显示的那样，在技术领域焕发第二春完全可能。一些观察家看到微软鼓舞人心的进步曙光。研究公司福里
斯特（
Forrester
）的萨<
/p>
拉
·
罗特曼
·<
/p>
伊普斯估计，如果微软下一代操作系统
Windows
8
明年能够进入市场，将对谷歌用在平板电脑上的安卓系统构成严重挑战
。微软的财政
状况也远比谷底时期的
IBM
要好，所以，近期还能拿出
85
亿美元天价收购
skype
（网络电话和视频呼叫服务公司）
That
bet
and
an
alliance
with
Nokia
in
mobile
phones
(putting
the
phone
version
of
Windows
into
the
big
but
troubled
Finnish
firm’s devices)
show
that
Microsoft is trying to bulk up in
promising areas. Yet sceptics worry that such
initiatives are not the product of an overarching
strategic vision, but are instead
tactical moves designed to placate
critics who fear Microsoft is drifting downwards.
David Einhorn, a prominent hedge-fund manager
whose fund holds shares
in Microsoft,
has publicly called for a change at the top of the
firm, arguing that Mr Ballmer is “stuck in the
past”. So far, the company’s board, chaired by Mr
Gates, has backed its chief executive.
But if IBM’s history is a
guide,
Microsoft may yet end up jettisoning its leader.
收购
skype
、与诺基亚移动手机的联姻
——
将手机版视窗系统投入大而
陷入困境的芬兰公司产品，都显示出微软正试着向有前途的领域进军。然而
怀疑派们还是
担心，微软的这一策略只是权宜之计，实际上只是为了抚慰那些担心微软正在走下坡路的人们。在微软持有股份的
著名对冲基金经理
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