Home based MLM business has been around for decades. In fact, it's probably safe to say that virtually all MLM business is, or at least certainly can be, home based. That's often the beauty of the MLM industry and the primary intrigue for those who join an MLM as a distributor.
The first home based MLM business was Nutralite, which is now a subsidiary of Amway. Nutralite, founded in 1949 by Jay
VanAndel and Rich DeVos, was the start of network marketing and the start of the food supplement and vitamin sales industry.
In 1959, after long standing internal wrangling between the manufacturing subsidiary and the marketing folks, VanAndel and DeVos decided to create a whole new company as a resolution. This was how Amway, the first national home based MLM business, was formed.
Amway bought the Nutralite product and firm in 1969 and has long retained its title and largest MLM business in the world, home based or otherwise.
Viewing the Amway success, other home based MLM business ventures soon cropped up, including those not so reputable. A scam called the Ponzi scheme, actually developed back in the 1920's, was redesigned to look like an MLM but designed to deliver profit to only the designers and the con artists running the scam. This home based MLM business look alike came to be known as a pyramid scheme.
The basic difference between a legitimate home based MLM business - one that can and does actually reward every hardworking distributor with commissions on the products they sell - and a pyramid scheme is that there is a product that does pay profit to the seller. A pyramid scheme is solely about rewarding those at the top of the pyramid heap.
In a pyramid scheme, which, by the way, is illegal, the scammers lure others to join what they present as a legitimate home based MLM business by telling them of hefty profits quickly and ask that the victim and would-be distributor, send payment for the products to sell. In a true home based MLM business there is also typically an upfront cost for a sample box of
products to start selling but those products are legitimate for sale products. In a pyramid scheme, what the would be entrepreneur gets for her or his payment, is the information on how to present other would be distributors with the lure of quick dollars, take their money and send them the very same instructions on luring others. There is no product in a pyramid scheme.
Last year (sometime during August, 2006) on Jim Cramer's Mad Money show, Microsoft was recommended as a "buy" as he believed that the bad times had passed. However, I was sceptical of this and one can argue that my scepticism was correct as there has not been a huge rise in Microsoft stock after the release of Vista. At the time of writing (20:41 GMT, 24/03/2007) the share price is $28.02 compared to $24.40 last year August when I first wrote about this topic.
Microsoft's performance on the stock market has been disappointing to say the least especially after their first consumer OS release since 2001. Unfortunately for Microsoft, though, Vista has not delivered anything ground breaking. On the surface (i.e. what the end user sees and experiences) there is nothing new, except for the interface, regardless of how code may have improved and changed "under the hood".
It is not like Windows XP cannot be themed to appear like Vista, either, as there are many themes and mods available for this (including the start menu search) available for free or at a small price (compared to purchasing Vista).
Of course, there is the claim of improved security... however...
User Account Control is a very annoying "security improvement" which will most likely lead to security issues. UAC will ask users for permission before installing programs, web browser plugins and running programs (among other things). This sounds great, until you are actually having to put up with the constant requests for permission and find yourself automatically clicking yes.. and at some point this automatic yes could well be to a malicious program. Fortunately, this "enhancement" can be disabled, so instead you can feel safe and secure by installing good anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall software (or alternatively use what Microsoft provides with Vista... if you feel brave enough!) that will quietly and effectively manage security for you.
At the end of the day, though, an Operating System is only as secure as you make it and treat it - the user is always going to be the weakest link.
As for Internet Explorer 7, which has been released for a while, there is still a long way to go until it can compete with Firefox 2 and Opera. While there have been some improvements with regards to handling of CSS, the feature set is still far behind other browsers.
Until Microsoft releases a ground breaking product it looks set to under perform on the stock market. Perhaps there is a long term plan and some amazing business products are released which revive their stagnating stock.. but I would not hold my breath.
I am happy to see that Big Blue (IBM) is only improving. There's no doubt this is the kind of company Microsoft to aspire to be in order to survive in today's market.
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