Brian White
Oklahoma City, OK - http://

Brian White is a strong advocate of value investing and index funds, but has known to hold an equity or two from time to time. Financially speaking, he's covered the Fortune 500 for six years in various reporting and writing positions and currently owns a business consulting company. Additionally, Mr. White holds BA and MBA degrees.

Best Buy (BBY) has done great things in recent years, even amid the economic downturn and a crunch in consumer spending. It has basically pushed Circuit City out of the market forever, held its own against the likes of Walmart (WMT) in flat-panel televisions and consumer electronics, and has launched various initiatives for the future.

Why keep itself to the consumer electronics space, then? At some point, could the largest consumer electronics retailer in the U.S. carry electric vehicles alongside those LCD televisions? Best Buy's recent push into individual "green" transportation indicates that the passenger vehicle of the future may not be something you visit a traditional automobile dealer for.

Facebook wants to take over the display advertising on its larger-than-life social network. In the process, it will stop using Microsoft (MSFT) to display the majority of advertising at what is becoming one of the most heavily-trafficked pieces of Internet real estate globally.

Is Microsoft angry? It should be -- every time the world's largest software company crafts some small way to try and compete with Internet advertising leader Google (GOOG), the rugs gets pulled from under it.

Now that Toyota Motor Company (TM) is embroiled in a sea of bad publicity and severe trust problems around the world, Ford Motor Company (F) has now announced that a "software upgrade" to owners of recent Ford Fusion Hybrid vehicle owners is needed to fix "strange feelings" in the brakes of those cars.

So, what is it with all these higher-tech vehicles having so many odd braking problems? Good question -- and now that the similar issues from Toyota and Ford are now public, how many other cars will need a reboot to fix problems? Although Toyota's CEO has now publicly apologized for that automaker's numerous issues, will Ford do the same? Is this the new order of the day: transparency and apology from automakers in lieu of recalls?

Taiwan's Acer has been on a tear recently. It markets the eMachines, Acer and Gateway computer brands and overtook Dell Inc. (DELL) recently to become the second-largest computer seller in the world. It may not be the most innovative, but it is selling a large amount of PCs every quarter. Its presence is large in the U.S. retail sector, where Dell's efforts over the last 18 months are still not where they need to be.

Now that Acer Chairman J.T. Wang wants to see Apple's (AAPL) new iPad tablet computer, one has to wonder why Acer cares at all. Although Amazon, Inc. (AMZN) already has the Kindle e-reader device (and ready to unveil a third-generation product to compete with Apple), Acer's Chairman may not realize that Apple is not wanting to compete as a tablet PC manufacturer.

You have to love Mark Cuban. The guy basically hasn't stopped chattering about tech and business since selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) for billions at the height of the dotcom boom almost a decade ago. Although opinionated, much of what comes out of Cuban's mouth is prescient or garbage. The NBA aside, Cuban's latest foe is none other than Google Inc. (GOOG). The company that promises to "do no evil" is being called a "vampire" by the billionaire blabbermouth. How touching.

Best Buy (BBY) will be bringing a whopping 1,000 jobs to its UK operations in the next five years as it unleashes and builds the Geek Squad services brand outside the U.S. Citing an increased demand for consumer support after technology purchases, this is a great move for the leading U.S. consumer electronics retailer in its effort to grow internationally.

Although a handful of brands design to simplistic consumer tastes, most do not -- seeding a demand for help connecting and using everything from MP3 players to digital cameras to laptops and netbook PCs.

Walmart (WMT) will be getting rid of more than 11,000 employees inside its Sam's Club wholesale stores and replacing them with outside marketers. Frankly, it's surprising the world's largest retailer didn't do this years ago.

Sam's Club offers so many products in bulk that goading some aisle surfers into buying 36-packs of portable sausages comes at a price: sampling and in-aisle live displays. The manufacturers of those products or their hired outsourcers will now get the joy of working those demo displays.

While the entire world was wrapped up in the hype of the Apple (AAPL) iPad launch Wednesday, many tech enthusiasts, bloggers and uber-geeks -- the kind who hang on anything Steve Jobs belches out -- came away mostly underwhelmed and disappointed.

Apple, after knocking the middle ground between laptop and smartphone, unveiled a product that, well doesn't really have any of the best qualities of both. So, the iPad may go down as one of the biggest launch letdowns in Apple's recent history. It's already being called a larger iPod touch with an e-book reader attached. Not flattering, Apple.

In light of Toyota Motor Corp. (TM) string of recalls recently, one can wonder what the large automaker is going to do in the U.S. to salvage its reputation. Toyota, as far as this writer can recall, has never seen a model-variety recall like this in its history. So much is wrong that the world's largest automaker has halted production of eight separate vehicle models until it finds out just what is causing some of them to accelerate uncontrollably.

Five assembly lines that help build these models are being suspended as of Monday, and Toyota has sent messages to 1,200 U.S. dealers asking them to stop selling the models in question immediately. The models include some of Toyota's most popular: RAV4, Corolla, Matrix, Avalon, Camry, Highlander and the Tundra pickup.

Taiwan's Acer became the world's second-largest PC maker in 2009 by getting very aggressive in retail with pricing and positioning its three brands across all pricing segments. The eMachines brand is entry-level, the Acer brand seems to be mid-level and Acer has positioned the Gateway brand as a premium product.

All told, Acer's might unseated Dell (DELL) and the company shows no signs of slowing down sales. It even was an early participant in the netbook category last year, helping it capture sales in that red-hot category as well.