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Phoenix Park Reservations
- Phoenix Park Reservation/Agreement Form
*This form must be completed for all events held at Phoenix Park.*
- Phoenix Park Alcohol Request Application
- Groups requesting to have alcohol (of any amount) at their event must complete a Phoenix Park Alcohol Application (above).
- All alcohol consumption or service (sale/distribution) must end at sunset.
- If you are planning to have beer kegs (up to 3) at your event (allowed in Pavilion only), a beer permit application must be completed and returned 10 days prior to your event. Cost $40.
- For more information on Beer Keg permits/policies click here.
Rules and Regulations
- Click here for more information on rental fees.
- Reservations are accepted Monday-Friday and may be scheduled for any time period during normal park hours (4AM-11PM).
- Phoenix Park Reservation/Agreement form must be completed for exclusive use of the pavilion/amphitheater/confluence plaza and must be completed for ALL events held at Phoenix Park.
- Reservations are for pavilion/amphitheater/confluence plaza only and do not include surrounding areas in the park. The Parks & Recreation Department reserves the right to schedule other activities or events in the park.
- Park staff will clean areas as needed between 4PM and 5PM.
- Lighting: Key is required for access to lighting.
- Decorating: No tape, nails or other adhesives (tying up decorations is allowed).
- Food/Catering services: User is responsible for making sure vendors protect the ground surfaces and hauls away all waste from food preparation (i.e. grease, oil, food remnants, etc.)
- Political groups, marches or demonstrations need to contact the Police Department (715) 839-4975.
- Amplified Sound, including Music: Must end at sunset. Noise ordinance violations are addressed on a complaint basis. Events in violation may be shut down.
- Inflatables: Groups bringing any type of inflatable to your event need to notify the Parks & Recreation Department prior to the event date.
- The Phoenix Park Reservation/Agreement form must be signed stating the event will follow stated policies.
- Event organizer will be responsible for any damage done to the grass, pavilion, pavers, or any marking on surfaces and disposal of all waste.
Cancellations and Refunds
- A $5 administrative fee will be deducted for all cancelled reservations.
- Refunds will only be given when notice for cancellation is received 5 business days prior to the event.
- Refunds will not be issued due to rain-outs or inclement weather.
- Refunds cannot be issued online, you will need to contact the Parks and Recreation Department. Call 715-839-5032 or email email@example.com.
- Tents with stakes are not permitted without approval from the Parks, Recreation & Forestry Department
- A $30 Utility Locate Fee is charged for any tent (or other structure) with stakes going in to the ground (paid to Parks & Recreation). A representative from your party must meet with a Park Supervisor on site to discuss location of tents no later than one week prior to your event. Additional fees will be assessed if any damage is done to water or electrical lines that are created by tent stakes.
- A $47 Tent Application Fee (paid to the Fire Department) is charged for any tent larger than 250 square feet (Tent Permit Guidelines & Application Form)
- A tent larger than 250 square feet makes your event a special event, however weddings are an exception to this rule (Special Event Application and Process)
- At Rod & Gun Park one tent is allowed. Tent size is limited to 20' x 30' square feet. This will accommodate approximately 40 guests seated


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In an interview with ET Now, Mitesh Thacker, Technical Analyst, miteshthacker.com, shares his views about the market outlook and various stocks. Excerpts:
ET Now: This week has been very volatile and choppy. Is it easy to give out or is it possible to give it a trend for next week from these 5850 kind of levels that we are at?

subset: commoncrawl


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Arabian Rice
Total Time
Prep 35 mins
Cook 20 mins
Very aromatic rice dish.. goes very well with any lamb or chicken stew. Edited to add: I'd missed out the oil the first time, have now added it in the directions alongwith the butter. The stock quantity is my fault. I'd overlooked it and had mistyped the quantity. I have now corrected it to 800 ml (from 600 ml)
Ingredients Nutrition
- 1 1⁄2 cups long grain rice
- 1⁄2 cup thin vermicelli, broken into small pieces
- 200 g lean ground lamb or 200 g beef
- 4 tablespoons oil
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon white pepper powder
- 2 teaspoons ground allspice
- salt, to taste
- 800 ml chicken stock
- 50 g pine nuts, lightly roasted
- Place rice in a bowl with cold water and leave to soak for 20 minutes.
- Meanwhile, heat the oil and butter in a large heavy saucepan, add the chopped onion and minced meat and fry until golden brown and breaking down any lumps in the mince.
- Add the broken vermicelli and fry for another 5-10 minutes till slightly brown.
- Drain and wash the rice till water runs clean.
- Add the rice into the pan and give it a good stir (but be careful as to not break the rice in the process).
- Add in all the spices and mix it in well.
- Add in the boiling-hot stock and give it all one good stir.
- Cover the pan and simmer over low heat for about 15-20 minutes (till all the water's been absorbed and rice cooked through).
- Take the pan off the heat, take the lid off and cover the pan with a clean towel and leave to rest for 10 minutes.
- Gently fluff up the rice with a fork and serve with pine seeds sprinkled on top.
Most Helpful
Loved it-loved it! Have cooked it several times now and think it is one of the best comfort-food-dishes for me! Okay,I did only use 1 Tbsp of oil and 4 Tbsp. butter,1/4 tsp of salt and beef broth instead if chicken broth,otherwise I did as the recipe reads.I served it with roasted red bell peppers and onion,and on each plate a 1/2 roasted pousin,and it was a fabulous meal. Thank you for sharing this wonderfull recipe!
What a fantastic tasting rice - this dish so different from rice dishes I've made - we loved it. I will have to seek out more Arabian recipes! Made this using ground beef - went light on the cinnamon and all spice - found I liked the combination so will increase the amount next time around. Made using the updated recipe - on step 8 put it all into my rice cooker to finish - perfect! Thank you for sharing. Into my family favorites cook book for this one.
I also needed more stock than it called for. The ingredient list calls for 4 tbsp oil but there is no mention of it in the directions. I left it out all together. My family & I didn't care for this rice. Sorry...


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jazzyrhino Started The Discussion:Hi Can Anyone send me Tally.erp9 exercise and assignment relating to VAT, Service Tax, Excise, TDS and advanced inventory management including practical accounting
18th October 2011 From India, New Delhi
If you have any insight on this, or if you are looking for information on the same topic, please engage with this member to help add value to this discussion.
Disclaimer: This network and the advice provided in good faith by our members only facilitates as a direction towards the actions necessary. The advice should be validated by proper consultation with a certified professional. The network or the members providing advice cannot be held liable for any consequences, under any circumstances.


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Just got done watching The Happening, a movie written, directed and produced by M. Night Shyamalan, and The Absolute Worst Major Motion Picture In the History of American Filmmaking, and felt the need to do a question column on it (Yes, the questions are mostly rhetorical).
1) In the movie The Happening, the plants and trees feel threatened by humanity and release a toxin which convinces people to kill themselves (don't worry, if you haven't seen the movie and are heavily into self-inflicted torture, I'm not spoiling anything that won't be readily apparent within the first five minutes).
Sounds a bit far-fetched, but I believe there may actually be a degenerative director toxin which convinces directors to create increasingly more atrocious films. People like to diss The Sixth Sense now, but that was a pretty good horror film, Unbreakable was decent, Signs was watchable, but since then, it's just been one bigger disaster after another. The Villiage, Lady in the Water, and now this claptrap.
Do you know of any other movie makers, whose careers once started so promising, who seem to have been felled by this particular toxin?
2) Do you think that M. Night really thought this piece of shit was quality, or do you think that once you begin production on a big-budget film, you literally cannot shut it down and say 'This was a mistake. I am going to try and save my dignity and quite possibly the careers of all the other people involved in this production.'?
3) Can anyone look at Mark Wahlberg now and not picture him talking to animals? I never realized how dead-on Andy Samberg's SNL impression of Marky Mark was. "Say hi to your mother for me."
4) Whom exactly do I ask for the hour and a half of my life back? M. Night (I feel bad asking him since he already wasted two years of his life on this film)? Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, the co-producer and distributor of the film? Time Warner Cable, for making it available on demand? My girlfriend, who OKed the movie? Me, for actually purchasing the film?
5) Can a movie be so bad it's actually awesome? If this wasn't so boring, it could qualify. What was the best worst movie you've ever seen?
6) Did someone employed by the New York Times really write that The Happening is a '…divertingly goofy thriller with an animistic bent, moments of shivery and twitchy suspense and a solid lead performance from Mark Wahlberg."?
7,8,9,10) I'm not about to waste ten questions on this thing. But just one more: I mean, really, what the fuck????


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Seaweeds are a fascinating and diverse group
of organisms living in the earth's oceans. You can find them attached
to rocks in the intertidal zone, washed up on the beach, in giant
underwater forests, and floating on the ocean's surface. They can
be very tiny, or quite large, growing up to 30 metres long!
Although they have many plant-like features seaweeds are not true vascular plants; they are algae. Algae are part of the Kingdom Protista, which means that they are neither plants nor animals. Seaweeds are not grouped with the true plants because they lack a specialized vascular system (an internal conducting system for fluids and nutrients), roots, stems, leaves, and enclosed reproductive structures like flowers and cones. Because all the parts of a seaweed are in contact with the water, they are able to take up fluids, nutrients, and gases directly from the water, and do not need an internal conducting system. Like true plants, seaweeds are photosynthetic; they convert energy from sunlight into the materials needed for growth. Within their cells seaweeds have the green pigment chlorophyll, which absorbs the sunlight they need for photosynthesis. Chlorophyll is also responsible for the green colouration of many seaweeds. In addition to chlorophyll some seaweeds contain other light absorbing pigments. These pigments can be red, blue, brown, or golden, and are responsible for the beautiful colouration of red and brown algae.
Instead of roots seaweeds have holdfasts, which attach them
to the sea floor. A holdfast is not necessary for water and nutrient
uptake, but is needed as an anchor. Holdfasts are made up of many
fingerlike projections called haptera.
The stalk or stem of a seaweed is called a stipe. The function
of the stipe is to support the rest of the plant. The structure
of the stipe varies among seaweeds; they can be flexible, stiff,
solid, gas-filled, very long (20 metres), short, or completely absent.
The leaves of seaweeds are called blades. The main function
of the blades is to provide a large surface for the absorption of
sunlight. In some species the blades also support the reproductive
structures of the seaweed. Some seaweeds have only one blade, which
may be divided, while other species have numerous blades.
Many seaweeds have hollow, gas-filled structures called floats or pneumatocysts. These help to keep the photosynthetic structures
of the seaweed buoyant so they are able to absorb energy from the
The term thallus refers to the entire plant body of a seaweed.
Seaweeds play very important ecological roles in many marine communities. They are a food source for marine animals
such as sea urchins and fishes, and are the nutritional base of
some food webs. They also provide shelter and a home for numerous
fishes, invertebrates, birds, and mammals.
Large seaweeds can form dense underwater forests, called kelp
forests. These forests provide a physical structure that
supports marine communities by providing animals with food and shelter.
Kelp forests act as underwater nurseries for many marine animals,
such as fish and snails. The lush blades form a dense forest canopy
where invertebrates, fishes, birds, otters, and whales can find
lots of tasty food and a good home. Beautiful sea slugs and kelp
crabs can be seen on the blades and stipes of the seaweeds, while
other small marine animals like worms find their homes in the the
holdfasts. Kelp forests are a huge food source for sea urchins and
other grazing invertebrates.
Seaweeds are affected by the physical characteristics of their environment. Because seaweeds absorb gases and nutrients
from the surrounding water, they rely on the continual movement
of water past them to avoid nutrient depletion. The constant motion
of ocean water also subjects seaweeds to mechanical stress. Ocean
waves and currents are sometimes strong enough to rip seaweeds right
off the rocks! Seaweeds cope with mechanical stress by having a
strong holdfast, a flexible stipe and blades, and bending towards
the substrate as waves move over them.
Many seaweeds live in rocky intertidal communities.
Because they cannot get up and follow the water when the tide goes
out, intertidal seaweeds are subjected to the stresses associated
with exposure to air and weather conditions. To survive in the intertidal,
seaweeds must be able to tolerate or minimize the effects of evaporative
water loss and temperature and salinity changes. When exposed to
air seaweeds lose water through evaporation. Some seaweeds can dry
out almost completely when the tide is out, then take up water and
fully recover when the tide brings water back to them. Seaweeds
living in tidepools are exposed to changes in water temperature
and salinity caused by weather conditions. On hot, sunny days the
water in tidepools warms up and evaporates, which increases the
salinity of the water. When it rains the opposite happens, the salinity
of tidepool water decreases. On cold days, seaweeds can be damaged
by freezing.
When the tide is out mobile intertidal animals must also try to minimize water loss. One way they do this is by seeking out a moist hiding place under some seaweed. As well as providing shelter for invertebrates, intertidal seaweeds are also a food source for grazing animals.
Seaweed life and reproductive cycles can be quite complicated.
Some seaweeds are perennial, living for many years,
while others are called annuals because they live
for only one year. Annual seaweeds generally begin to grow in the
spring, and continue throughout the summer. During powerful fall
and winter storms the stipes and blades of seaweeds are often ripped
off. If the holdfast manages to survive through the winter, new
blades will begin to grow from it in the spring. Perennial species
may also lose many of their blades during the winter and their growth
is reduced.
Seaweeds can reproduce sexually, by the joining
of specialized male and female reproductive cells, called gametes.
Like the cells that make up our bodies, the cells of adult seaweed
plants are diploid, which means that they contain two sets of chromosomes.
Diploid plants are called sporophytes because they produce and release
spores. Spores are produced by meiosis, a cell division process
that halves the number of chromosomes and forms new cells containing
only one set of chromosomes (haploid cells). After they are released
from the sporophyte, the haploid spores settle and grow into male
and female plants called gametophytes. The gametophytes are also
haploid, and they produce gametes (sperm or eggs). The sperm and
eggs are either retained within the gametophyte plant body, or released
into the water. Eggs are fertilized when the sperm and egg fuse
together, and a diploid zygote is formed. Zygotes develop and grow
into diploid sporophytes, and the life cycle continues.
Seaweeds display a variety of different reproductive and life cycles and the description above is only a general example of one type, called alternation of generations. If the gametophyte and sporophyte forms look the same, it is called isomorphic (same form) alternation of generations, and if they vary in appearance, it is called heteromorphic (different form).
Seaweeds can also reproduce asexually (a reproductive process that does not involve gametes) through fragmentation or division. This occurs when parts of a plant break off and develop directly into new individuals. All offspring resulting from asexual reproduction are clones; they are genetically identical to each other and the parent seaweed.
Brown Algae (Phaeophyta) see also Intertidal brown algae
Green Algae (Chlorophyta)
Red Algae (Rhodophyta)
Druehl, L. 2000. Pacific Seaweeds. Harbour Publishing, Madeira Park, B.C., Canada.
Harbo, R.M. 1999. Whelks to Whales. Harbour Publishing, Madeira Park, B.C., Canada.
Waaland, J.R. 1977. Commom Seaweeds of the Pacific Coast. J.J.
Douglas Ltd., Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
and answers about Seaweeds
to marine biodiversity index
OceanLink Home | OceanNews | Biodiversity
Students in Action | Ocean Matters | Career Info | Links


text:
Beattys design and manufacture entire drivelines for the Heavy Transport, Automotive, Off-Highway, Industrial and Marine markets complemented by a large range of componentry for distribution. Dynamic balancing for all industrial applications and rotating equipment is carried out by our specialist Turret Balancing division.
For a smart business we have a simple aim: to keep businesses productive by keeping drivelines driving. By choosing to work with us you'll be drawing on over 50 years of experience, a huge inventory of internationally sourced components and a skilled in-house engineering department.
You'll find us straightforward, focused and committed to providing solutions that will prove productive for years.


text:
What caused reported Lafourche, Terrebonne tremor?
Officials in Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes are looking into residents' reports of earth tremors in the area this week.
So far, they have no answers.
A Lockport resident described feeling a sudden vibration that hit his house at 2 p.m. Wednesday.
Chris Boudreaux, Lafourche's director of Emergency Operations, said efforts to find a possible source - such as sonic booms from airplanes or vibrations from oilfield activity - have turned up nothing. Boudreaux said the U.S. Geological Survey reported no seismic activity, although it has few monitors in the area.
Paul Caruso, a geophysicist with the Geological Survey's National Earthquake Center, told The Courier that there are not many seismic monitors in south Louisiana because there is rarely any such activity in the area.
Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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"Fisking" Climate Change Arguments: The Deniers Get Creative [1]
Richard Littlemore [2] | February 28, 2006
By Richard Littlemore [2] • Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 08:23
Amy Ridenour's newly redesigned National Centre for Public Policy Research [3] blog (very stylish Amy; I like the gravitas suggested by yellowed book pages), features a great non sequiturial attack on the Independent for adding to its already exhaustive coverage of the climate change issue.
The best part of Amy's outburst is her use of the newly coined word fisk [4], about which Wikipedia says this:
"The term Fisking, or to Fisk, is a rightwing [5] blogosphere [6] term describing criticism that highlights perceived errors or other problems in a statement, article, or essay. It should be noted that these "errors" do not necessarily refer to factual inaccuracies, but more often to perceived inaccuracies in the analysis of presented facts.
"Indeed, "Fisking" may appear, to those who do not share the viewpoint of the fisker, to be merely taking small parts of an article out of context and putting the worst possible interpretation on them, without regard to the connections between individual points."
If that's not enough, both Ridenour's post [3] and the whole Wikipedia article [4] are worth a look. Wiki, especially, explores the etymology of fisk, paying appropriate homage to the journalist Robert Fisk, whose award-winning reporting originally earned the wrath the Ridenour's fellow travellers.


text:
Hotel address103 William Street
How to reach the hotel
Contact the hotel
- Tel. (+61)2/65830830
- Fax. (+61)2/65830831
- email@example.com
Recently viewed hotels
Mercure Centro Port Macquarie - hotel description
Hotel code: 6699
Located 4 hours from Sydney and 6 hours from Brisbane, Mercure Centro Port Macquarie offers the perfect getaway for business and leisure guests alike. Conveniently located in the Port Macquarie town centre, this 4.5 star hotel is positioned close to the main beach, with whale and dolphin watching tours, watersports, shops and nightlife nearby. The Mercure Centro Port Macquarie features a restaurant, bar, pool and day spa, with all 71 rooms equipped with modern technology.
See the rooms
See the meeting rooms
Message from the hotel manager
Mr Chris ABEL, the manager of the Mercure Centro Port Macquarie hotel, would like to welcome you.
Work in this hotel
These prices may be based on different room types. Depending on the country, these prices may not include taxes, may include VAT only or may include all taxes (VAT and city tax). When prices do not include all taxes, the relevant taxes (VAT and/or city tax) will be stated in the following stages of the reservation process. The price is only guaranteed at the time of reservation.
2. Paying
Hotel classifications (1 to 5 stars for France) correspond to criteria laid down by local regulations.


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Norfolk Constabulary: Our Priority is You
Call us on: 101 In an emergency always dial 999
Site Map |
FAQs |
Help |
10 November 2012
A successful policing operation saw two protest marches in
Norwich pass off without major incident today.
Norwich Policing Commander Supt Paul Sanford said the English
Defence League (EDL) and counter protest march by We Are Norwich
had been 'challenging' but police had 'met their objective' of
facilitating two lawful protests.
Around 400 police officers from eleven forces, including
Norfolk, provided high profile policing for the event in the
An increased police presence will remain in Norwich during the
course of this evening.
The EDL and We Are Norwich protesters took part in demonstrations,
marching to City Hall where assemblies were held. Both groups
dispersed at around 3pm.
Supt Sanford said: "I am really pleased with the outcome of
today's policing operation. At times it was challenging for
officers but we successfully met our objectives of allowing the two
groups to protest, which was their legal right.
"The event was largely peaceful but we acted swiftly and
robustly to any signs of disorder.
"I would like to thank those who supported the peaceful event to
members of the public and local businesses for their time and
patience during the marches.
"We received some fantastic comments from the public during the
protest to thank the police for their support."
Four people were arrested during the course of the event, three
have since been charged:
Scott Maddox, 22, of Beecheno Road, Norwich, charged with
possession of an offensive weapon, namely a form of baton, and
bailed to appear at Norwich Magistrates' Court on November 30.
Darrell Copeland, 45, of Dorchester Ave, Bletchley, Milton
Keynes, charged with Section 4 Public Order, using threatening
words or behaviour, bailed to appear at Norwich Magistrates' Court
on November 26.
Matthew Berryman, 28, of Astell Road, Norwich, charged with Section
4 Public Order, using threatening words or behaviour, bailed to
appear at Norwich Magistrates' Court on November 27.
A 44 year old man from Telford, Shropshire, arrested on suspicion
of assault was later cautioned for a public order offence.
During a minor scuffle at Castle Meadow, one man suffered slight
injuries. No other injuries were reported.
Police used Twitter and a free text service to ensure people
were kept informed of key developments and to support business as
usual for those not participating.
Norfolk Constabulary is not responsible for the content of external websites.
Follow Norfolk Police on Twitter to receive news and updates directly.
Watch our video and DVD trailers online
Sign up to newsletters, SMS or voice messages
View the website via your mobile phone
Subscribe to our RSS feeds
View our blogs and social media content


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Climbing China's Corruption Ladder
Discovering corruption in China's housing sector is a bit like Captain Renault stumbling upon gambling in "Casablanca"—everyone knows it exists.
Hanming Fang, a University of Pennsylvania economist, and his co-authors detail who might unfairly gain and by how much. In a working paper, they pore over more than a million mortgages and find that government bureaucrats were more likely to buy larger, more expensive apartments than non-bureaucrats, despite earning 14% less in income. Bureaucrats also get price discounts on the apartments they buy, averaging 1.05%. Those working in agencies important for this sector get away with a 2.48% discount, perhaps because they are the ones stamping approvals. And those at provincial governments, in contrast to city-level governments, bought apartments for 3.9% less than non-bureaucrats.
It certainly helped to be on top of the government ladder, at least while Chinese property was booming.


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Perils and pitfalls of risk profiling
Last month, the FSA published the much-anticipated Retail Conduct Risk Outlook 2012. In it, the regulator sounded several alarms on mis-selling and identified risks related to separate services advisers provide for their clients and, very helpfully, their rationale on why they identified them.
One line of the 124-page document on the mis-selling risk posed by absolute return funds caught my eye: "Financial advisers may not fully understand these products, which increases the possibility that poor communication of investment risks contribute to mis-selling to consumers."
To me, this is a clear statement from the FSA that they are still concerned too many advisers do not fully understand what is behind the investment products they offer clients. It is certainly not just about absolute return funds - it is also about the fund-of-funds that incorporate them and the wider investment universe.
It is about the depth of research and knowledge required by an adviser where they are recommending any investment solution. Managing any business requires control of revenue, costs and business risk. This is an area of particular risk for those without the resources or skills to undertake research effectively.
It is jarring to note that one full year since the FSA launched its risk profiling tools report one-in-five advisers were still not aware the guidance exists
Advisers are increasingly required to be able to clearly separate – and continue to differentiate – the normal, acceptable risk of fund value fluctuations from the unacceptable risk that a client's investment journey is not right for that individual.
There is not a universally appropriate definition of customer risk. As highlighted in the FSA guidance for Assessing Suitability, published last year, one of the key undertakings of a financial adviser is: "Establishing the risk a customer is willing and able to take and making a suitable investment selection."
It is jarring to note that research one life office carried out in January this year (that is, one full year since the FSA launched the report) discovered one-in-five advisers were still not aware that the guidance exists. It is also important to note that clients are exposed to many different risks, the relative importance of which depends upon their own personal circumstances.
When assessing the risk of a fund proposition, which will be used as a starting point for alignment of a fund recommendation to a customer risk profile, the risk metric used must be appropriate to the risk to which the customer is exposed, rather than the risk to which the fund manager is exposed.
This means the fund manager has agreed the risk parameters with the adviser as a measure of client risk tolerance rather than having to complement an in-house discretionary or multi-manager proposition.


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Following a report this afternoon by data center co-location REIT Equinix (EQIX), CEO Steve Smith was kind enough to spend a few minutes talking with me by phone.
The shares have traded unchanged in the after-hours session since the report came out, at $334.83.
Smith has a long history in traditional enterprise technology, having run the services business at the old Hewlett-Packard up until 2007, and before that running managed services at Lucent.
What he has to say now about those companies should give chills to those still in the business of selling servers, storage and networking in the traditional fashion.
We talked a bit about the move to could computing, which is benefitting Equinix because of the fact that many enterprises need to use the company's co-location facilities as an "on ramp" to public cloud computing providers such as Amazon (AMZN) and Microsoft (MSFT):
I'm talking about an on ramp for an enterprise like Chevron (CVX). If they decide — let's say they have 8,000 to 9,000 apps to run, and they want to move 3,000 of them to the cloud they, will come into Equinix to get closer to their customers, and they will put servers all over the place, and from our platform they can see all the clouds, and they can burst into AWS, or Microsoft O365 [Office 365], and Azure. We present the multi-cloud view.
Enterprise software will be the brightest spot in overall corporate spending on information technology this year, perhaps a relief to Oracle (ORCL), Salesforce.com (CRM) and others, according to a release today from Gartner, which sees overall IT spending in decline by 5.5% this year, at $3.51 trillion.
The authors of the report, John-David Lovelock and staff, stress that the decline is a largely foreign-exchange impact, given the rising U.S. dollar:
Such are the illusions that large swings in the value of the U.S. dollar versus other currencies can create. However, there are secondary effects to the rising U.S. dollar. Vendors do have to raise prices to protect costs and margins of their products, and enterprises and consumers will have to make new purchase decisions in light of the new prices.
Sales had been expected to decline 1.3% as recently as April, the authors note. In dollar adjusted terms, the sales will actually rise 2.5%, below a prior 3.1% growth estimate previously.
The report says that spending on corporate software programs will decline less this year, only 1.2%, at $914 billion.
Gartner emphasizes enterprise spending is for cloud computing software, or, specifically "software as a service," or SaaS, and they explicitly note that "many software vendors will try not to raise prices because software as a service (SaaS) is about market share, not profitability."
"Raising prices could take software vendors out of a sales cycle, and these vendors don't believe they can afford to lose a client."
One of the biggest categories of decline is projected to be the "devices" category, where continued spending on mobile phones is being offset by a continual deterioration in the outlook for PCs. Apple's (AAPL) iPhone is mentioned in particular as "keeping overall phone spending consistent."
Fortunately for Intel (INTC), a major strength in the category of data center spending is server computers, and mainframes may also be a source of good news for International Business Machines (IBM):
The overall near-term data center weakness is slightly offset by a more positive outlook for the server market. The server market is benefiting from a stronger-than-expected mainframe refresh cycle, as well as increased expectations for hyperscale spending.
Unfortunately for Intel, and Microsoft (MSFT), the personal computer market continues to break down, the firm writes:
The PC and tablet market continues to weaken. The expected 10 percent increase in average PC pricing in currency-impacted countries is going ahead, delaying purchases even more than expected. Excessive PC inventory levels, especially in Western Europe, need to be cleared, which will delay Windows 10 inventory in the second half of the year.
Here's the data — click to see it larger:
Shares of International Business Machines (IBM) are down $1.53, or 1%, at $164.63, after the company yesterday afternoon missed Q1 revenue expectations but beat on the bottom line, and reiterated its forecast for the year's profit, briefly sending its shares higher before they gave up gains in late trading.
The quarter was marked by better performance in hardware, especially for IBM's "system z" mainframe computers, but sluggish results in software.
The bears today are inclined to concede the hardware results while arguing the company is still muddling through years of necessary transformation. Bulls note the low valuation, and the prospect for a turnaround at some point in software.
All seem to agree "sentiment" isn't going to be altered much by these results.
Brian White, Cantor Fitzgerald: Reiterates a Buy rating, and a $198 price target. "Last night, IBM delivered a healthy 1Q:15 performance and reiterated its outlook for 2015. We believe this performance is especially encouraging given a fierce foreign exchange headwind and a volatile macro environment [...] Given skepticism around this turnaround and continued negative sentiment around IBM, the stock is trading at just 10.0x our CY:16 EPS estimate with an attractive 2.7% dividend yield."
David Grossman, Stifel Nicolaus: Reiterates a Buy rating, and a $180 price target. "In sum, hardware performance (new product cycles including mainframe) was better than expected, software in-line, services below expectations and guidance in-line [...] Given the negative sentiment, flat y/y revenue is a reasonable star t to a "transitional" year; however, the 1Q results are unlikely to alter sentiment. Fundamentally, we continue to believe the key catalyst for this stock will be better software performance [...] Software declined 2% y/y, similar to the declines in 2H14; however, software comparisons ease in 2H15, which could drive better performance. We do not believe the software issues surfaced in 2H14; we believe the issues with their revenue model surfaced in early 2013 and that we are potentially several quarters into the reformulation of ELAs for their larger clients."
Katy Huberty, Morgan Stanley: Reiterates an Equal Weight rating, and a $160 price target. "While profit and FCF fundamentals remain challenged due to investments to position for long-term growth, constant currency revenue growth stabilized on the back of z13 mainframe cycle which remains a tailwind for most of 2015 [...] Earnings seasonality, combined with the timing of workforce rebalancing cash outflows and working capital impact from system x divestiture in 1H15 results in back-end loaded FCF, though management reiterated its view of flat FCF in 2015. Expected flat FCF implies 78% non-GAAP EPS conversion, up from 74% in 2014, but with limited visibility into 2016 due to wildcards like tax audits, restructuring, and divestitures."
Steve Milunovich, UBS: Reiterates a Neutral rating, but raises his price target to $170 from $160. "The stock may be bottoming along with free cash flow, but we consider it too soon to declare victory and remain at Neutral [...] More concerning points included (1) CFO Schroeter provided more cash flow detail, including a larger than expected $2bn positive swing from less cash tax hit this year but indications it would be a headwind in 2016; (2) software was down 2%, a slight improvement but reflecting market share loss; (3) GBS revenue was soft due to weakness in the US, and GTS pretax was off by 26% YoY; (4) loss rate and reserve coverage are rising in Global Financing."
Kulbinder Garcha, Credit Suisse: Reiterates an Underperform rating, and a $125 price target. "We believe the secular and structural challenges facing IBM remain. Consequently, on balance, guidance could again be challenging to achieve operationally. We slightly lower our EPS estimates for 2015 to $15.57 from $15.59 and slightly raise our 2016 est. to $14.66 from $14.64, and see a multi-year painful turnaround ahead [...] Our concern would be that as the mainframe cycle fades the secular issues remaining with Software and Services remain a headwind for the business."
James Kisner, Jefferies & Co.: Reiterates an Underperform rating, and a $130 price target. "Q1 FCF (ex-Global Financing receivables) was weak, as were Services Signings. While IBM's results were arguably decent given increasing currency headwinds, we believe that IBM continues to face a number of difficult business transitions [...] IBM generated FCF (ex-Global Financing receivables) of $1.1B, well below our $1.4B and Street of $1.7B (though we're not sure if Consensus backs out the impact of GF receivables – we think it likely does)."
Gary Bloom spent fourteen years at Oracle (ORCL) before leaving to run Veritas, the backup company that he sold to Symantec (SYMC).
Recently, he stopped by Barron's offices to tell me about his next challenge, taking business away from the man he worked for, Oracle founder and chairman Larry Ellison.
"I want to lead the entire next generation of the database market," says Bloom, who is now running database startup MarkLogic of San Carlos, California.
MarkLogic makes a database that is commonly lumped into the "NoSQL" camp. NoSQL stands for "Not-only-SQL," meaning, it can go beyond the SQL query programming language that is the main tool long used to manipulate Oracle's database and other so-called relational databases.
While MarkLogic can use SQL, its secret sauce is the ability to index data and search it in a fashion that can make it more adept than Oracle at integrating and manipulating lots and lots of databases with different kinds of data — such as unstructured text-based documents — and with database structures that are constantly changing.
Bloom tells me his company is at a similar stage in its evolution as Oracle was when he joined that company in the late '80s, when Oracle had just about $100 million in annual revenue, the same as MarkLogic booked last year.
Just as Oracle championed the relational database model in winning away customers from mainframe databases of the era, such as CICS and IMS, Bloom is winning away customers from Oracle for projects that involve integration of multiple different data stores.
His company is different from other NoSQL startups such as mongoDB and Couchbase in that it has various capabilities that are required by enterprises to run what's called an "operational" or "transactional" database — functions that maintain the integrity of data and transactions during system outages and the like.
The company just released "Version 8″ of its software, which you can read more about on its Web site.
MarkLogic's highest-profile deal so far is replacing Oracle in all but a few parts of Healthcare.gov, the U.S. federal health insurance marketplace. Despite that system's well-publicized struggles at its debut in late 2013, it has proved a success, says Bloom, and MarkLogic is what made that database part of that possible.
Click to go to the jump and read the full transcript of the interview.
Shares of International Business Machines (IBM) are up $2.43, or 1.6%, at $158.30, and have risen 4% during the last three trading sessions, following a report last Thursday in Forbes by long-time tech observer Robert Cringely stating that there will be a "bloodbath" at the company this week as it cuts 26% of its staff, or 100,000.
Cringely wrote on his own Web site that he's been hearing since Christmas about something called "Project Chrome," which would be "the biggest reorganization in IBM's history."
Cringely's prediction followed IBM's report last Tuesday of lower-than-expected Q4 revenue, and a disappointing 2015 earnings view. But there had been prior rumors of a massive re-org that preceded the report.
Briefing.com, However, notes a post on Tumblr today by Yahoo! Finance contributor Tae Kim who writes that he received a statement from IBM suggesting the speculation is "ridiculous." The statement points to IBM having already noted $600 million in charges for an announced workforce rebalancing.
Also skeptical today is Bernstein Research's Toni Sacconaghi, who has a Market Perform rating on the shares, and a $150, who writes that he's been receiving several calls about the matter this morning.
Sacconaghi writes Cringely has "at times been controversial":
We note that Cringely (which is a pen name for Mark Stephens) has historically been controversial. According to Wired Magazine, he "once called Bill Gates a megalomaniac and Steve Jobs a sociopath, comparing them – vis-à-vis each other's managerial auras – to Stalin versus Hitler." He also falsely claimed to have received a Ph.D. from Stanford and been a professor there.
The numbers Cringely writes about don't make sense to him, he writes:
IBM stated in its October earnings call that it would continue to look to migrate labor offshore, and hinted this month at continued incremental workforce rebalancing actions – per history. Cringely's article points to layoffs in hardware (notably mainframe and storage) and security. We struggle with the congruity of this on many fronts: first, we estimate that *total* collective headcount in those 3 areas very likely amounts to less than 50,000 people; second, mainframes are still critical to IBM, as the platform drives an estimated 35% of company profits through associated maintenance, software, and other revenues. Announced major cuts in mainframe would inevitable scare long-held IBM customers and risk defection to other platforms. Similarly, security is a critical, high margin, high growth area. Third, while divesting or shuttering parts of the storage business are possible, we suspect associated headcount reductions might be in the thousands.
In conclusion, Sacconaghi writes that a massive re-org would presage "a significant contraction in revenue," and "a meaningfully weaker envisioned competitive position."
Update: IBM has gotten in touch with me via a spokesperson, and offered the same statement as given to Tae Kim:
IBM does not comment on rumors, even ridiculous or baseless ones. If anyone had checked information readily available from our public earnings statements, or had simply asked us, they would know that IBM has already announced the company has just taken a $600 million charge for workforce rebalancing. This equates to several thousand people, a mere fraction of what's been reproted.
Last year, IBM hired 45,000 people, and the company currently has about 15,000 job openings around the world for new skills in growth areas such as cloud, analytics, security, and social and mobile technologies. This is evidence that IBM continues to remix its skills to match where we see the best opportunities in the marketplace.
Following a report of Q4 revenue below consensus and EPS that topped expectations, International Business Machines (IBM) this evening forecast EPS for 2015 in a range of $15.75 to $16.50, which is below consensus for $16.59 per share.
Shares are down $4.85, or 3%, at $152.25 in late trading, giving up initial gains after the report came out.
During the call, CFO Martin Schroeter said the company will see no revenue growth this year thanks to the divestiture of the server and other businesses. He also said the company's revenue will be affected by the rising U.S. dollar, and that profit will be crimped by investment in the company's strategic priorities, such as its cloud computing business:
For 2015 specifically we are dealing with some transitions in our business. For example, while we are fully participating in the shift to cloud, margins are impacted by the level of investment we're making and the fact that the business is not yet at scale. We will see some year-to-year benefit to margins in 2015 as the business ramps, but we will not yet be at scale. And I talked about the impact to our software transaction revenue growth as customers utilize the flexibility we provided as they commit to our platforms for the longer term. And then there are cyclical considerations. Given the geographic breadth of our business we have seen challenges and some markets most notably many of the growth markets. We firmly believe these are important markets over time and we've been investing to capture the opportunity, but we're not counting on a robust demand environment in many geographies in 2015. And then of course there is the impact from currency. The impact to our revenue growth is obvious as we translate results back to US dollars. But as with all companies with a similar business profile, with the dollar strengthened, the currency will have a significant translation impact on our profit growth. And we do have some cyclical benefits like a tailwind from the new mainframe cycle [...]
In other details, within its "Global Business Services" division, Schroeter made some brief remarks about the company's partnership with Apple (AAPL) to offer applications for the iPhone and iPad.
Said Schroeter,
Through our Apple partnership, we released of the first 10 MobileFirst for IOS solutions in the fourth quarter with more to come by the end of this quarter focused in healthcare, energy, and utilities. We've seen strong customer interest and this partnership is another example of how we are helping enterprise clients transform their business models and sources of value.
Shares are down $3.19, or 2%, at $153.76 following the conference call.
Shares of International Business Machines (IBM) are down $1.51, or 1%, at $155.63, heading toward this afternoon's Q4 report, after the closing bell.
The Street is, on average, modeling revenue to have declined 10%, year over year, to $24.83 billion, yielding EPS of $5.43.
Bernstein Research's Toni Sacconaghi reiterates a Market Perform rating on IBM stock, and a $150 price target, writing that his channel checks show a "relatively stable demand environment in the US, buoyed by strong Federal spending in October and November (on easy compares after last year's shutdown) and a relatively normal year-end budget flush."
But the stronger U.S. dollar makes Sacconaghi cut his estimate below consensus, to $24.4 billion from $24.5 billion previously:
The dollar has continued to strengthen materially against major currencies and will be a material headwind to YoY growth (and estimates) relative to expectations at the beginning of the quarter. For IBM, our analysis points to an incremental 120 bp headwind in Q3 and ~350 bp headwind in each of the next three quarters relative to when guidance was set in October.
J.P. Morgan's Tien-tsin Huang reiterates a Neutral rating, writing that while expectations are low and the stock is at "a multi year low multiple," nevertheless "continues to be challenged by high mix of legacy businesses, and the transition to next gen areas (cloud, analytics, mobility etc.) remains tricky and needs to accelerate."
Huang also sees a forex impact, modeling $24 billion and $5.42 per share:
Our estimates, updated last week with our sector outlook, assumes ~5% in adverse FX impact on the company's 4Q and CY15 revenue growth, representing 150bp and 300bps in incremental headwinds relative to our prior ests. We believe FX does not have meaningful impact on IBM's pre-tax margins, implying every 1% in FX headwinds equals ~$0.18 in earnings. We calculate $0.50+ in incremental FX impact on this year's earnings.
Huang thinks the shape of sales of replacement mainframe computers could be a meaningful positive this year:
IBM refreshed its mainframe last week, launching z13, which it believes is more mobile friendly and offers real time encryption of mobility transactions. We will watch mainframe performance closely as we believe a strong/weak refresh cycle will likely shape stock sentiment on growth and the secular debate over mainframe adoption. System-z contributes ~$2B in annual revenue in Systems and tech, but we believe it also drives a lot of revenue in IT services (integration and maintenance revenue) and Software (middleware, operating Systems etc.) segments. Much of services/software revenue is tied to the overall installed base, rather than incremental capacity sold in the quarter (i.e. move w/ longer term adoption trends).
Keith Bachman of BMO Capital yesterday reiterated a Market Perform rating, and cut his price target to $165 from $175, after cutting his Q4 estimate to $24.5 billion and $5.24 per share from a prior $24.93 billion and $5.35.
The issue is not the issue, it's what IBM will say about its revised annual outlook, writes Bachman:
Ultimately, we think results for the December Q will be less meaningful than the CY2015 guidance. IBM withdrew its prior 2015 EPS target of $20.00 and is expected to provide updated expectations on Tuesday. Given past difficulties achieving EPS targets (without tax adjustments and aggressive buy backs), we think a "less is more" approach would entice investors to take a deeper look at the stock. Conversely, we think a more aggressive estimate will be treated with investor apathy.
With Warren Buffett having a major holding in the shares, CNBC contributor Jon Najarian this afternoon posed on air the question that may be in many people's minds: What will Buffett do, if anything, if the report is not good? Would Buffett go activist, asked Najarian, even though that sort of thing is against his style.
A pioneer in enterprise technology, Sandra Kurtzig, was in town this week and was kind enough to swing by Barron's offices for a chat about her new venture, startup Kenandy, and in the process reflect on three decades in the computer industry.
Before there was Facebook's (FB) Sheryl Sandberg, before Carly Fiorina took over Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), before Meg Whitman ran eBay (EBAY), Kurtzig was one of the most successful women in the tech world.
Kurtzig was among the wave of big tech IPOs in the 1980s, taking the company she founded in 1972 on a shoestring budget, ASK Computer Systems, public in 1981, just after Apple (AAPL) went out and before Microsoft (MSFT) came public.
Kurtzig's friendships in the industry are broad and longstanding. She recalled with fondness conversations with Steve Jobs. She still spends a lot of time talking with famed tech PR titan Regis McKenna, Cisco Systems's (CSCO) John Chambers, the list goes on.
ASK's arrival on the scene was groundbreaking. Minicomputers from HP and Digital Equipment were in the process of taking over from IBM (IBM) mainframes, even as microcomputers were just gaining a foothold.
"We actually started with the HP 3000 series" minicomputers, she recalled. There really wasn't a market at the time for packaged enterprise applications.
"Everything was basically custom code," she recalls. COBOL and Fortran dominated the landscape.
Kurtzig appointed a successor when she left in the mid-80s, but came back in 1990 to try and turn around a flagging business. The second CEO replacement, Pier Carlo Falotti, formerly head of DEC, didn't have the magic touch, either, and the business was later sold to Computer Associates, today known as CA Technologies (CA).
"Selecting a CEO is a very difficult thing," she observes. "It really helps to cultivate from the inside." She observes. She expressed some confidence Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook has what it takes to go the distance after having been an understudy to Jobs for years.
Kurtzig bowed out of the computer world for many years, enjoying life in Hawaii, where she still spends a lot of time. (Her State-side office is in Redwood City). But she was lured back into the game about three years ago by Mark Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com (CRM), a good friend of hers.
The startup has received just shy of $46 million in venture capital money in two rounds, and Kurtzig is assisted in strategizing by Ray Lane, partner emeritus of Kleiner Perkins, formerly COO at Oracle (ORCL) and chairman at HP.
The new venture, like ASK before it, has sought to aid manufacturing operations, but is not limited to manufacturing, Kurtzig notes. Kenandy's software handles all the tasks that go into the "order to cash" workflow for any product company, and other steps, such as what's called procure-to-pay, including the pricing of products, the billing, the procurement steps, inventory management, and the rest.
This time around, rather than packaged enterprise applications, Kenandy is offering software services that run on top of Salesforce's application platform.
"Salesforce was the best for our purposes, for the kinds of things we need to do to support enterprise clients," she notes. That includes the ability to easily plug into various technologies such as the Oracle (ORCL) database infrastructure that Salesforce provides.
The network has good uptime, she notes: "They never go down, which is really important for customers of ours that need to do business around the world, on a 24/7 basis."
Kenandy is also offering general ledger and other financials functions. I note that Workday (WDAY) has been expanding into that area.
"It's an excellent company, Workday. They're more in the services area," meaning helping insurers and educational institutions. "They are expanding out from HR functions to financials, and we are expanding outward from manufacturing."
What's new is the complexity of customers for whom the old pricing models expressed by Oracle or SAP (SAP) software is not sophisticated enough. Kurtizg gives the example of one customer, Philips. The company's traditional business of selling MRI machines, for example, is now becoming a business of licensing, or leasing, the MRI capacity. "It now becomes a bigger sale, where it's tied to software," she observes. "They might be actually selling based on how many MRI images a customer uses, rather than selling a piece of equipment."
"The old software might have a line item for the equipment, but there have to be new models for the pricing because it may come attached to software, to services," she argues.
Kurtzig is ecstatic about the changes such new business models provider. She sees doctor groups able to, for example, more easily provide health care in Africa, if they can more easily lease MRI capabilities from Philips rather than setting up equipment around the globe.
Kurtzig is a firm believer that much of today's IT will go to public cloud computing over time. "The main worry has been security," she observes, as in the security of a company's sensitive data. "But companies are now seeing that with the resources of the public cloud providers, it can actually be a lot more secure than what the companies can build on their own."
While there is an obvious competitive battle between Kurtzig and SAP and Orcle, she is civil in admiring and appreciating the strengths of the entrenched vendors.
But Kurtizg, an aeronautical engineer by training, also smiles at what she sees as Oracle chairman Larry Ellison's inability to jump on the cloud bandwagon soon enough, and his need to scramble now.
She is quick to jump into the details of what's wrong with traditional enterprise software.
"Oracle apps, SAP apps, will be a cluster of 60,000 tables. They were designed for a time when memory and disk storage was really expensive, and not plentiful. Back in the day it might have cost half a million "to get a gigabyte of storage on disk, she recalls.
The architecture, if you will, of Kenandy's programs in the cloud is built on what are known as "wide-body objects" which can bring together multiple variables that would in past be spread across those thousands of tables — things such as actual pricing for a widget versus listed pricing.
Having retired once before, how long will she stay this time, I ask Kurtzig. She tells me at this point she's stayed at Kenandy longer than she promised when she took the job.
And she seems to be enjoying herself.
International Business Machines (IBM) this afternoon reported Q1 revenue that missed analysts' expectations, and profit per share that was in line with consensus.
Revenue in the three months ended in March fell 4%, year over year, to $22.48 billion, yielding EPS of $2.54.
Analysts had been modeling $22.93 billion and $2.54 per share.
For the full year, the company forecast adjusted, non-GAAP EPS of "at least $18." That is above the average estimate for the year's profit of $17.88.
CEO Ginni Rometty remarked that the company "continued to take actions to transform parts of the business and to shift aggressively to our strategic growth areas including cloud, big data analytics, social, mobile and security.
Added Rometty, "As we move through 2014, we will begin to see the benefits from these actions. Over the long term, they will position us to drive growth and higher value for our clients.'
Gross margin came in at 46.9%, up 1.3 percentage points, on a GAAP basis, and at 47.6%, up 0.9 points, on a non-GAAP basis.
IBM said its "systems and technology" business saw sales fall 23%, both on an "as-reported" and a currency-adjusted basis. Within that, systems revenue was down 24%, including a 40% drop in sales of "System Z" mainframe computers. The company's "Power" line of servers saw sales fall 22%. Storage revenue fell 23%.
Services sales were down 2%, including a 3% decline in Global Technology Services, and revenue flat year over year for Global Business Services.
Software sales were up 2%, including a 4% rise in "middleware" software such as Websphere, and Tivoli, and a 4% decline in "Workforce Solutions."
On the brighter side, IBM said its revenue from cloud computing rose 50%, without disclosing the actual dollar amount.
IBM management will host a conference call with analysts at 4:30 pm, Eastern time, this evening, and you can catch the webcast of it on the company's investor relations home page.
IBM shares are down $4.40, or 2.2%, at $192.
Correction: A prior version of this story erroneously stated that IBM's EPS number missed consensus. In fact, the $2.54 per share was exactly in line with Street expectations. My apologies for any confusion caused by the error.
Shares of International Business Machines (IBM) are down $6.60, or 3.5%, at $181.83, after the company yesterday afternoon reported weaker-than-expected Q4 revenue and an in-line profit view for this year.
CEO Gini Rometty said in prepared remarks that the results were "strong across much of our portfolio," but also said she'd recommended to the board of directors that she and her team "forgo our personal annual incentive payments for 2013″ in light of full-year results. She emphasized the company was "on track" for EPS of $20 in 2015, after perhaps $18 this year, and said IBM swould "continue to transform our business.
On a conference call following the report, CFO Martin Schroeter, who came on board a month ago, remarked that the company's software, services and financing operations were "all on solid ground," but that hardware continued to suffer from a general decline in mainframe computing replacement, and "some challenges in other areas."
Addressing the 26% plunge in hardware revenue more closely Schroeter said the company was making efforts to get more into Linux systems as lines of servers such as its "Power" systems, saw continued long-term declines:
In our Power business, revenue declined 31%. We continue to ship significant capacity into the Unix market; however, this has been more than offset by significant price performance resulting in lower revenue. As we've said in the past, we've been very successful in the Unix market, and we're taking two actions to improve our business model here. First, we're making the platform more relevant to clients. And the to achieve this, in the fourth quarter, we introduced a new integrated facility for Linux offering, which enables our clients to run Linux workloads in their existing servers. This mirrors the successful strategy we executed on our System z platform. We'll expand our Linux relevancy even further with POWER8 later this year, which will provide additional big data and cloud capabilities. Through our open power consortium, we're making power technology available to an open development alliance, building an ecosystem around our power technologies. Secondly, even with these additional capabilities, we recognize that the size of the power platform will not return to prior revenue levels. We will take action in this business to reflect the new business model. System x was down 15% at constant currency. Within that, Pure Systems continues to gain momentum. Across our hardware products, Pure revenue was up more than 30% sequentially. Globally, we shipped over 2,500 systems in the fourth quarter and over 10,000 systems to date. Storage hardware revenue was down 12% at constant currency. Our flash solutions continue to gain momentum, and contributed a few points of growth this quarter. Our Storwize product again delivered double-digit growth, which was offset by declines in our legacy OEM mid-range offerings. We also had declines in the high end, driven by significant pricing pressure.
There are no ratings changes today, that I can see, and most price targets are staying in place. Bulls on the name were predicting that IBM has gone through the worst in 2013, its growth bottoming out. Bears warned issues such as poor sales in China and the ongoing steep declines in the hardware business don't seem to have any relief in sight.
Brian White, Cantor Fitzgerald: Reiterates a Buy rating, and a $220 price target. "the company provided what we consider a palatable 2014 EPS outlook, while maintaining its 2015 EPS projection. Although IBM warned of weak EPS performance in 1Q:14, this softness versus our estimate is driven by a restructuring charge that most tech companies would exclude from operating performance. Based on current estimates, our model now suggests that IBM's sales cycle bottomed in 4Q:13, and we are projecting the operating profit cycle to trough in 1Q:14, providing us with a view that the worst is over for IBM in the intermediate term."
Rob Cihra, Evercore Partners: Reiterates an Overweight rating, and a $210 price target. "2013 looks to have already taken the big lumps, led by a $1.7B profit drop in Hardware (vs. earning $1.3-$1.6B each of the prior 5yrs), but our expectation restructuring can swing Hardware back at least toward breakeven in 2014 for a >20c Y/Y tailwind (more assuming unprofitable x86 servers divested), not to mention inhouse semis also perhaps up for serious rethink and potential for deep restructuring/head-cuts (e.g., Hardware opex >$5.4B/yr seems too high). While nobody seems to believe it, IBM optimistically guided 2014 EPS >$18.00 and sees getting there at full 23% tax rate. EPS even includes hurt from $1B in Q1 restructuring but then benefits from subsequent P&L savings, less Y/Y Hardware hit and currency headwind. EPS includes $150mil gain from BPO sale to Synnex but no assumed x86 gain. Healthy profit growth in Software and Consulting should continue."
David Grossman, Stifel Nicolaus: Reiterates a Buy rating, and a $220 price target. "Management reiterated the 2015 EPS target of $20, which implies 11% growth. There were repeated questions about IBM's ability to sustain growth given ongoing revenue headwinds and continued need for workforce rebalancing (hardware and services). In contrast, we believe IBM has significant flexibility again in 2014 to meet guidance, despite a 650bp y/y increase in tax rate (to base rate of 23%), the anticipation of another $1.7bn loss in its hardware unit (flat y/y) and a modestly worse f/x environment at current spot rates (depreciation of Japanese Yen). Our analysis suggests that the $18 target is achievable on a full 23% tax rate, after factoring in revenue growth from software and services (4% and modest growth, respectively), modest margin expansion in services (40bp), workforce rebalancing benefits ($1bn net in 2015), a modest uptick in gains from asset sales ($75-$100mn) and a 5% reduction in share count ($15bn left on authorization, or ~8% of outstanding shares at current price). Management also maintained 2014 FCF guidance of up $1bn y/y (+6.7%), despite a $2bn y/y impact from higher cash taxes, which should convert to a tailwind in 2015."
Maynard Um, Wells Fargo: Reiterates a Market Perform rating. "China. While non-GAAP EPS of $6.13 was better than our and consensus estimate of $6.00, the bulk of the upside was from lower taxes ($0.78 benefit) and lower operating expenses. 2014 EPS guidance of at least $18.00 is in line with our $18.02 estimate (Street: $18.03), but is likely to be driven mainly by cost cutting initiatives (expects to take an additional workforce rebalancing charge of about $1B in Q1) [...] China continues to be challenging with 23% yr/yr revenue decline; moreover, there is limited visibility as to when business will turnaround, 2) Hardware business continues to remain challenged and revenues were down 26% yr/yr with significant declines across all product categories, 3) Services signings of $17.5B were below our estimate of $19.3B and below Streetaccount consensus of $18.48B. 4) Q4 EPS upside was mainly due to discrete tax items, which may not repeat."
Mark Moskowitz, J.P. Morgan:Reiterates a Neutral rating, and cuts his price target to $175 from $179. "We expect shares of Neutral-rated IBM to be under pressure in the near term. The company's 4Q13 results were mixed, particularly when adjusting for the lower tax rate. Moreover, the 1Q14 EPS outlook of roughly $2.50 implies a big hill to climb to achieve IBM's full year EPS target of "at least" $18. Prior to the earnings call, 1Q14 consensus and J.P. Morgan estimates had been $3.29 and $3.39. We expect consensus estimates to decline in coming days. Plus, investors likely will mull over whether or not IBM will need to reset the 2015 Roadmap later this spring. In the interim, we recommend investors take profits in the stock as there are limited catalysts in the near term to increase investor sentiment."
Keith Bachman, BMO Capital Markets: Reiterates a Market Perform rating, and a $195 price target. "Based on our EPS estimates (which have not changed much), IBM stock appears inexpensive based on an 11x FY14 P/E and 10x our newly introduced FY15 EPS estimates. However, based on EV/FCF, IBM trades at a multiple that is expensive, in our opinion, of 15x our FY15 FCF estimate of $15.7 billion (GAAP FCF estimate). Therefore, we do not see the valuation as overly compelling. Further, IBM continues to miss our and Street revenue estimates, which we believe will continue. On a fairly consistent basis over the past two years, we have been below consensus revenue estimates. Until IBM can both meet consensus revenue estimates and deliver y/y revenue growth, we don't think the stock can work. We think IBM's aggressive stock buyback could help the shares if IBM were meeting Street revenue and EPS expectations."
Tech Trader Daily is a blog on technology investing written by Barron's veteran Tiernan Ray. The blog provides news, analysis and original reporting on events important to investors in software, hardware, the Internet, telecommunications and related fields. Comments and tips can be sent to: firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Product Description
Pope Urban II calls for an attack on Jerusalem. Each player is a knight and must conquer 2 Muslim cities, then lead his army to Jerusalem and be the first to conquer the city. In his move, the active player has a card phase with movement and events, an "army in town" phase with recruiting, looting and prayers, and a discarding of 2 cards maximum with replenishing of cards from the pile. When opposing units meet, the battle is fought via the Battle Tower--all troops involved in the battle are thrown into the tower, and what falls out determines the outcome. But remember former battles: Leftover units might come out as well.
Product Information
Philipp Hugelmann, Ronald Hofstatter
Asmodee North America, Queen
Elena Obermuller
Year: 2001
Players: 2 - 5
Time: 90 minutes
Ages: 10 and up
Weight: 1,688 grams
Language Requirements: Game components contain substantial foreign text. An English translation of the rules is provided.
Product Reviews
Average Rating: 4 in 3 reviews
I bought Im Zeichen des Kreuzes (In the Sign of the Cross) for one reason the dice tower. The theme the crusades, was definitely a draw, but I was really interested in playing a German style war game, of which there are few. After seeing pictures of the game and reading a bit more about it, I decided to purchase the game.
So, was my purchase worth it? I believe that Im Zeichen des Kreuzes (Queen Games, 2001 Ronald Hofstatter) is a very fun light war game. Oddly enough, the fun does not come from the goal, but rather from the actual combat. On the flipside, some have found an endgame problem, and the game feels a bit too easy. Let me explain
First, Ill tell you how the game plays
A board is placed on the table, showing a map of the Mediterranean area, split into different territories and zones. Each territory is one of three types: water, mountains, or plains. Some territories also contain a city, with a symbol next to it in order to denote whether it is a Muslum or Christian city. Twenty-four city discs are shuffled and placed face down on each city. Each player is given a player mat. These mats show the noble that the player is playing, along with starting troops, treasure chests, and location. The player places a large wooden coat of arms piece on the board in their starting space. This coat of arms stands for the armies that are on the player mat. Each mat also has a motivation track on it, which ranges from 0 motivation to 10 motivation. Starting troops (cubes of that players colors), starting treasures (small wooden chests), and two purple cubes are placed on the mat. Four round tokens are placed on the board two representing Muslim armies, and the other two representing pirate ships. The remainder of the pieces are sorted and placed in a tray that is accessible by all. The large cube tower is set up, and a deck of 140 cards is shuffled, and five dealt to each player. Fifteen green cubes (Muslim armies) are placed in Jerusalem, and the game is ready to begin. The player who is knight Gottfried goes first, and each player takes their turn in clockwise order.
The first thing a player does on their turn is play one to five cards from their hand. If a player plays a mountain, water, or plains card, they may move their piece into that specific type of terrain. If the player plays a joker, they may move their piece into any type of terrain. If the terrain cards show the pirate symbol or the Muslim army symbol, the player may also move one of those pieces one space. If a player moves into a space with the pirates or Muslim army, or those pieces move into a space containing a players piece, a battle occurs. A player can also play event cards, which do a variety of things to help the player or hurt his opponents.
After playing cards, the player looks to see if he is in an unplundered city. If so, he may perform one of the following actions.
- Troop enlistment. The player may spend his chests to buy troops. One chest = 2 troops. This may only be done in a Christian city.
- Prayer. The player may raise his motivation by two points (maximum of 10). This may only be done in a Christian city.
- Plundering. The player may plunder (attack) the city he is in. If the attack succeeds, the player flips over the city token, revealing a number from 3 to 7. This is how many treasure chests the player receives. The city token is then removed from the board.
Attacks are all handled the same. Players never attack each other, but always fight the Muslim armies. When plundering a Christian city, two green troops defend. When plundering a Muslim city, or fighting pirates or a Muslim army, three green troops defend. Occasionally an event card will send a certain amount of troops to fight a player, also. The player decides how many troops he will commit to the battle off of his playing mat. These troops are taken, along with the defending troops, and are thrown into the top of the dice tower. The tower has different shelves within it that may catch some of the cubes, trapping them in the tower. A random number of cubes falls out of the bottom of the tower into the tray. Occasionally cubes from previous battles will be jarred loose and also fall into the tray. If more green cubes fall into the tray than cubes of the players color, the enemy wins. All of the players cubes are lost, while the green cubes stay in the tray, adding to future battles. The player must retreat to an adjacent space, losing 2 points of morale (3 if attacking a Christian city). If more of a players cubes fall into the tray, the player wins. The amount of green cubes that fall into the tray are taken from the players cubes as casualties, however. (For example, if 6 yellow cubes and 3 green cubes fall into the tray, yellow wins. However, they only retain three of their troops, as three of their cubes are lost to match the three green troops that fell out). Thus, it is possible to win a battle, and also lose all your forces. After a successful fight, a players motivation increases by one point, unless they won a Muslim city, in which case it increases by two points. Attacking a Christian city causes the player to LOSE three points of motivation, whether they win or lose. If defeating an army or pirates, the enemys piece is placed back on the space where it started.
After this, a player may discard any cards they dont want, and draw up to three cards, filling their hand to a maximum of five cards. If a players motivation is four or less, they may only draw two cards, and if their motivation is two or less, they may only draw one card.
At any time in the game, a player may play one of their purple cubes to clear the cube tower of its contents.
The goal of the game is to conquer Jerusalem. The first player to do this is the winner. However, many event cards add troops to Jerusalem, so by the time a player gets to Jerusalem, there are quite a few troops there. A player may not attack Jerusalem if their motivation is lower than 6, or if they have not already plundered two other Muslim cities. The attack on Jerusalem takes place in many phases. When attacking Jerusalem, one player takes the part of the defenders, deciding how many defending troops will fight each round. If a player defeats all the forces in Jerusalem, they win the game! Otherwise, they must retreat and build up their forces and/or motivation. The first attacker of Jerusalem gets the popes bonus five wooden chests, while the next two attackers get three chests and one chest, consecutively. Each player who remains in the same space as Jerusalem, but does not attack, loses 2 points of motivation. Finally, one player defeats Jerusalem, and the game ends.
Some comments on the game:
1). Components: The components for this game, as with many Queen games, are top-notch. My only difficulty was the lack of English. Fortunately, there were English cards at www.boardgamegeek.com, which I was able to download, print, and glue on the cards. The cubes are nice, though one must be careful not to lose them, as there are few or no extra pieces. The coat of arm tokens are outstanding, as are the little wooden treasure chests. The player cards are nice, and although they are in German, they are quite easy to figure out. The cards are small, about half the size of a normal playing card, and are very easy to use and shuffle. If the paste-up cards become a problem when shuffling, there is a variant of using two decks of cards in the rules, one special, and one for the land terrain cards. The board is quite large, but is very nice looking, and the borders between territories (often a problem in war games such as this) are very easily defined. The box is very large and sturdy, and has a plastic insert that (barely) holds everything in. Everything, especially the cube tower, gets an A+ component-wise.
2). Rules: The rules are beautiful and are printed on 8 full-color pages with variants and examples. Not only that, but another small booklet is included that provides the background for each noble in the game. Unfortunately, neither of these are in English. The good news is that translations are available online (again at boardgamegeek). The bad news is that the translations are okay, but often have to be cross-referenced with the German rules to see pictures and such. I also had to read the rules a couple times to make sure I understood them, as the layout was a bit confusing. Also, some very important rules were mentioned at odd places in the rules (like how something should be setup was mentioned near the end) and could easily be overlooked or forgotten. The game isnt hard to teach or learn, but the rules werent the best.
3). Cube tower: The reason I bought the game. Of course, a system could have been devised that produced the same results with dice but the cube tower is so much more fun! There are several shelves in the tower, that the cubes can land on, causing them to stay in the tower where they might be dislodged in future battles. This always causes an uncertainty when attacking cities. [example] How many forces should I attack this city with? It only has three defending forces, but I know that there are around 4 green cubes in the tower. So I decide to attack with eight of my red cubes. The cubes are thrown in, and 4 green cubes come out in the tray, along with four red cubes and one blue cube. Since its a tie, I win! However, because four green cubes come out, I lose the four red cubes that came out, also. My only consolation is that the blue cube (another players) is like a freed prisoner, who joins my army (I switch it for a red cube). [example] So one never really knows how many forces to throw in the tower, and thats a lot of fun. The purple cubes must be used wisely, as you want to empty the tower of its cubes when its beneficial to you and not another player.
4). End game: There are many complaints about the end game of attacking Jerusalem namely, that the first person to attack Jerusalem invariably does not win the game. I have not found this to be true in our games. We found that the first person to attack Jerusalem could pull back after only a couple rounds, and gain the treasure chest bonus. This would allow them to attack even more strongly later on. Games often turn into a race for Jerusalem, and its great fun to try to impede your opponents progress with the pirates and Muslim armies.
5). Motivation: The motivation factor is a neat idea, and works okay in practice. I only found that it was too easy to raise ones motivation. Besides praying in a city, there are many, many cards that raise your armies motivation. Rarely was my motivation below six, and if it was, I would immediately raise it through praying and/or cards. I like the idea, but it should have felt harder to motivate armies closer to real life.
6). Variants: There are several variants suggested in the rules, mostly to make the game harder and/or more historically accurate. The variants seem to work well, and I will often use some, if not all of them. There are also several fixed rules or card sets available on the web. I havent personally used any of these yet, as I dont think the game is broken.
7). Fun Factor: The theme is really prevalent in this game in most of the details (except motivation). I especially liked the rule about sacking Christian cities, as that is a historical certainty. We all had a blast playing the game. I have to admit, most of our fun came from using the dice tower, but the game itself was a blast. Decisions were not too hard to make, and it was really fun to pray in a Christian city one turn, buy troops from it the next, then sack it the third turn! The event cards were also fun (especially when played on other players!). A bit of strategy, a bit of tactics, a lot of luck, and a lot of cube tower made for a very fun game!
8). Time: Our games lasted about 90 minutes, and there wasnt much downtime between turns, so time passed quickly for us.
I have to recommend this game to anyone who likes unique mechanisms in games, and to those who like light war games. Its not inexpensive, to be sure, but the components are worth the price in my opinion, and the game is a whole lot of fun. The game plays easily, and youll find yourself promising death to the infidels quite a bit. Its fun to loudly denounce other players when they sack a Christian city and laugh at them when they are defeated by pirates. The game is a jolly bit of fun, so give it a whirl!
Tom Vasel
This game is better than you've heard. That being said, it is also not without problems. But it has such potential!
With two players, it's little more than mental masturbation. With a couple of rules tweaks (defenders win ties (if I come to your house and kill you and you kill me at the same time, you still own the house, right?)(a free man defending his home is more powerful than any paid army of invaders), and having the escaped prisoners be too weak or dazed to fight against the infidels. I think just leaving them in the tray to muck up the next tower throw (like they do in Wallenstein) is a better solution.) improve it immensely.
I've always felt theme is window dressing....but I may be starting to understand the concept of 'tightly woven' theme. This one has it. It made sense with the game rules (sacking christian cities would demotivate your troops, but prayer and sacking infidel cities would raise motivation levels)(NOTE: you MUST sack christian cities to be competitive...even with only 2 players).
I think Mike Clifford really summed up this game best in his review opener: 'So just who will like this game? Include those who crave wooden bits, and a large colourful board. That is, everyone. Now exclude the anti-historical crowd (50%?), but open the door again for players who will try something less complex than, say, La Citt. The strong theme will entice some, but the emotive subject (the sacking of Muslim and Christian cities in the 11th Century) will find hordes looking for the exits. What else? A huge dollop of luck (cheerio!), but almost no downtime (hello again). Well, that leaves me and probably one other. No problem, it caters for two (pretty well).'
He's got a real point on the emotive subject. Since WTC, a lot of people I know are instantly anti-muslim (though they have no knowledge of islamic practices one way or another). Ignorance, yuck. They aren't realizing there are individuals in there, even if their belief system is different. As for me, one of my best friends is an extremely devout muslim. She's great fun, and the person who introduced me to gaming, actually (that darned Catan game!). However, she has a hypersensitivity to persecution. Just the thought of this game sends her over the edge, and to know someone actually played it....! Oh my. I love her, I do. But (a) it's history, and (b) it's a GAME.
Im Zeichen des Kreuzes is a game with many mechanisms which sum to limited impact. The rules have been explained on BoardGameGeek, so I will stick to strategy.
First, it is so easy to regain troop motivation, that you might as well sack a Christian city or two to bring income in to raise up troops. Sack twice (-6) and hope for 1 or 2 victories over the Saracens (+2 or +4 so you are above the level needed to attack Jerusalem, which you had to do anyway to go for Jerusalem.) Also, you are likely to get a +1 from a random event. In other words, motivation doesn't matter unless you drop to a point where you can't draw cards.
Make sure that you use all the money you have made to raise troops and avoid the 'steal money' random events. Money has little value other than converting to troops ASAP.
Finally, attack Jerusalem ASAP with only 5 troops and then pull out. You will lose these 5 troops, but gain 10 via conversion of money to troops. Of course, if you have a major advantage, go for the gusto, but most likely you will need to plan to attack twice to take out Jerusalem. More than one fight in your first strike just helps your opponents by weakening the Saracens. Race to Crete, return with your max army, and end the game. Easy if the cards go halfway decently.
Finally, my interpretation of the rules is that if the 'Green' team (Saracens) win, they take no casualties! Check it out. That means you really need to attack Jerusalem all out. So, clear out the tower if you think there are more green than other colors in there. (Keep track if you want to try to add some semblance of strategy to this game.) Otherwise, leave it and pick up the reinforcements from the released prisoners. Unlike the rule translation on GameGeek, it's my read that using the lavendar blocks to clear out the tower does NOT give you these troops, but rather dumps them back to the bank.
As for the Saracen army and navies, kill them if you get a chance (attack their home base) and be careful not to get stuck adjacent to their starting spot. If you do, they could attack you up to 4 times in a row if the other players are out to get you. That is about the only thing--other than an early failed sacking of a Christian town--that is really going to hurt you. In other words, most of the time these army and navies are not of much impact. Especially once you get away from Spain.
So... 3 major game components (motivation, money, Moors)... 3 minor game influences. I think this would have been a much better game if more 'German game' mechanisms of resource balancing had been added. For example:
Double movement card... consume 1 motivation on land.
Spend 1 money... double movement card at sea (shades of Crusaders renting boats in Crusade #4).
In other words, more resource management such as Age of Exploration: 1492-1543 by TimJim Games for exploring the new world.
I gave the game a 3 because of the topic, but even this is somewhat inflated because the flavor events might be mostly useless as you RACE out of Europe in the first turn or two. Unless you have one of the 'recruit bonus troops' cards (Lisbon and Calgeri) at the start, you won't ever return to use those cards, which means that many of the flavor events won't occur.
Last nit, the Pirate Nest card in the English rules translation says any coast, but both the Western Pirate Nest and the card are labelled with the same name--Baeleric (or something like that). I read that as one of the 'only play in named location' cards, not any coast.
So, if you love the Crusades, play this as an experience. Sometimes your troops won't move, sometimes they will. Eventually you head East and beat up on Green. I would have really enjoyed rules for interplayer competition to recreate the other Crusades.
Oops, another nit. It's wierd when you sack a Christian town and then get released prisoners. What were these prisoners up to? Drunk in a tavern? Silly, but a source of many jokes for our gaming session. In fact, it sets the tone for the game, which is to take it with a grain of salt (or a few green blocks in the tower). ;)
Queen's ingenious Combat Tower, featured in Wallenstein (see above), gets far more use here and adds a significant luck factor. Start with gold, troops (cubes) in your color oft board, a hand of cards, and a Piety rating of 10. Victories increase Piety, and defeats diminish it, affecting your attacking abilities and number of cards held. Randomly allocate a numbered token facedown to each city. Move by discarding terrain cards to traverse forests, mountains, and seas. Action Cards offer a range of unholy tactics. Attack Muslim cities on reaching them. At a Christian city, you can increase your Piety, or buy more troops. After defeating enough Muslim cities, you may attack the heavily defended Jerusalem. Even unsuccessful attackers get gold from a partisan Pope. The player who kills Jerusalem's last defender wins. Exhaust the deck twice, and everyone loses!
So just who will like this game? Include those who crave wooden bits, and a large colourful board. That is, everyone. Now exclude the anti-historical crowd (50%?), but open the door again for players who will try something less complex than, say, La Citt. The strong theme will entice some, but the emotive subject (the sacking of Muslim and Christian cities in the 11th Century) will find hordes looking for the exits. What else? A huge dollop of luck (cheerio!), but almost no downtime (hello again). Well, that leaves me and probably one other. No problem, it caters for two (pretty well).
As this game has been ignored by almost everyone, I think my rationale is justified. But hang on. This Hofstatter/Huggelman concoction is terrific fun, plays quickly and can only be marked down by the unavoidably frenzied ending as the Crusaders head toward Jerusalem
As with many of this ilk, the package looks eerily familiar: extensive board, copious amounts of army markers and a substantial play deck. This drives the whole game. Movement is via three geographical elements -- water, forest, mountain -- as depicted on a majority of the cards. Play one and move to the requisite adjacent land. Five cards are in hand, so vast tracts can be covered. The balance of the deck comprises event cards, which, though wordy, are easily assimilated. Those awaiting their turn can plot a course of action with reasonable confidence.
The game set-up requires tokens to be placed on the marked Muslim and Christian cities. Two each of Pirate and Muslim armies markers are also placed. Each player then grabs the number of army cubes and treasure chests indicated on their play mat. These are left "off-board" -- combat is via a "Cube (holding) Tower", used for all conflict, and a super piece of kit it is.
Im Zeichen des Kreuzes pitches gathering armies toward Jerusalem, and the game is won by conquering this historical landmark. But the city's defensive power is considerable and your own holding needs to expand before a challenge can be mounted. By razing the Muslim and Christian strongholds, additional troops can be accrued by bartering treasure obtained as remuneration for victory. And just how do we obtain this mastery? Read on:
Movement will quickly take you to a defended city (token still in situ), and here the options arise.
Christian cities can be attacked (they defend with two cubes), used to replenish troops (by exchanging treasure Chests) or provide Motivation, a rise of two points on the relevant scale. This bonus is also applied after a successful siege.
Muslim cities must be attacked, and they defend with three armies.
In either case, a reward (if victorious) is provided by the value of the reverse side of the Token. The number indicates the total of Treasure Chests earned.
The battle mechanic is a delight. The attacking player takes both his own and defending army markers, which may be modified by Events, and chucks them into the Cube Tower. This has a set of shelves which may retain some of the cubes -- no peeking though!. Whatever pops out at the bottom (screams of delight) is used to determine the result. A majority of oppressors' cubes signals victory, although a number of markers is lost equivalent to the Green cubes that have emerged. If the Muslims or Christians hold sway, then all of your own armies are returned to the stockpile. As the game progresses, the Tower will, of course, withhold old stock. The rules describe these as "released prisoners" and they can significantly alter the course of a battle.
Combat may also occur if your marker is in the same area as Pirates or the Muslim armies. In both cases, the combat resolution is identical. Chuck 'em in (three cubes each for your adversaries), and keep your fingers crossed.
As you roam though most of the known world (circa 1045) causing devastation and destruction, your army's strength should increase to the point where a challenge on Jerusalem would be prudent. This hallowed land is protected by fifteen cubes (plus stragglers from previous conflicts). The attacker and defender (the player to the aggressor's right) secretly choose the number of troops they wish to commit. Although the attacker could lose immediately, Jerusalem is not cowed until the last green cube is eliminated.
There is one prerequisite required before the final onslaught, in that one Muslim city must have been conquered (with 2-4 players), or two cities (5 players).
If the assault on Jerusalem is unsuccessful, the Pope is still generous, providing treasure for the first three predators. You will most certainly need this, as Jerusalem is a tough foe whose defensive capabilities can be increased by Event cards. And here is the one element of the game which might be considered clumsy. With one specific objective in mind, it is usual that all players are finally camped around Jerusalem hoping that one decides to weaken that city's armies. And if you do steam in, then your Motivation is reduced by two each turn you do not fight.
If Jerusalem survives after running through the deck (140 cards) twice, the Saracen rather than the Crusader faction is considered victorious, and you are collectively scuppered.
The gimmicky nature of the Cube Tower notwithstanding, a sensible campaign plan should be rewarded, so even the more cerebral among you will find some virtue in the game. Whether you blitz or peruse, look to be done in about 90 minutes -- oddly, no time limit is mentioned in the package. Personally, and as with Karl-Heinz Schmiel's Attila, I find any contest that provides such a grandiose sweep with minimal rule reference quite irresistible.
SWD: As Mike says, this game has been largely ignored. Indeed, I have ignored it myself. The reason was that the early opinions were almost all unfavourable and that deterred folk from even trying it. The problem seems to be the ending, which, as Mike makes clear, is one of those "it is better to let someone else do the softening up" affairs. Competitive types find this unsatisfactory, since, if you're all trying to win, why should anyone volunteer to take the fall? The question therefore comes down to whether the entertaining game play offsets the dodgy ending or whether the latter wrecks what has gone before. The answer will depend on whether you are a person who plays primarily for fun or whether you are one for whom the result matters.


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Kurt Schuessler
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