Mika Sarhimaa on HP's challenges in the Baltics

Mika Sarhimaa, the new managing director of Hewlett-Packard Oy, which also covers the three Baltic States, talks about the challenges and opportunities of working in these markets. The interview was conducted during an HP event in Riga at the Radisson SAS Daugava hotel on November 13. Here is the video:

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Alex Sozonoff of HP discusses Web 2.0

Alex Sozonoff, a retired Hewlett-Packard executive and chairman of HP Finland & Baltics, sat down with this blogger to talk about Web. 2.0 and its impact on business and business IT. Here is the video:

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No chance of a Lattelecom deal in 2007

Latvia's acting minister of Economics and Justice Minister Gaidis Berzins (Fatherland &Freedom) has said there is no chance the present (disintegrating--JK) government will approve the Lattelecom management and employee buyout (MEBO).
The government is expected to resign on December 5, the same day that beleaguered Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis has said he will step down. Kalvitis was under pressure to resign because of a number of political scandals and controversies unrelated to telecommunications privatization.
Lattelecom management led by CEO Nils Melngailis had hoped to seal the LVL 300 million deal involving The Blackstone Group as a equity partner by year's end. It now looks like Latvia could be under a caretaker government or facing political turmoil, perhaps including dismissal of the national legislature, the 100-member Saeima, well into 2008.
The political situation along with increasing uncertainly on financial markets around the world increases the liklihood that the Lattelecom MEBO will simply be muddled to death. See my earlier posts.

Tele2 open to Lattelecom on its network

Tele2 in Latvia is open to the idea of Lattelecom starting a virtual mobile operator on its network, Tele2 Latvia CEO Petras Kirdeika told this blogger.

Kirdeika said Tele2 would consider a commercially viable proposal from Lattelecom or any other operator wishing to lease part of Tele2's mobile network.

He said that the company would also be ready to negotiate a co-financing agreement if Lattelecom's (or another operator's) needs required the building of additional network capacity.

In reporting its third-quarter results, Tele2 said it had built a record 50 base stations across the country during the period.

Lattelecom CEO Nils Melngailis has said that if the company succeeds with its MBO, it will have to move quickly to offer mobile services in addition to fixed line telephony and internet. Bite Latvija, which has hitherto been open to virtual operators, effectively declared a moratorium on new actors on its network after being purchased by  Mid Europa Partners, a private equity company. Kenneth Campbell, CEO of the Bite Group, told this blogger (as reported in the magazine Kapitāls), that Bite's priority was to strengthen its own brand. 

He let it be understood that Lattelecom was such potentially strong brand that it could not be allowed to cannibalize Bite's potential and existing customers.

Tele2 Latvia's CEO on 3rd quarter results

Petras Kirdeika, CEO of Tele2 in Latvia, talks about third quarter results. Last year (2006), Tele2 was ranked as the most profitable company in Latvia. Here is the video:

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Lattelecom MBO not on the agenda

The proposed management and staff buyout of Lattelecom is not on the agenda of the November 6 meeting of the Latvian Cabinet of Ministers and it looks like this matter will be delayed indefinitely. Despite two valuations made by Ernst & Young and the Swedish-based investment bank Carnegie, the acting Minister of Economics Gaidis Berzins says that no official valuation of Lattelecom and Latvian Mobile Telephone (LMT) has been made (according to lengthy official tender proceedings to find the valuator, etc. etc.).

Berzins' Fatherland & Freedom Party has expressed serious reservations bordering on outright opposition to the MBO, as has the party's Member of the European Parliament Inese Vaidere, writing several opinion pieces in the Latvian media.

The postponement of the decision on the MBO is,  I think, the beginning of the end for this attempt to privatize Lattelecom. The matter will be dragged long into 2008, debated in a fog of bizarre conspiracy theories and wacko economics, and finally muddled to death. 

Lattelecom MBO prospects darken

With the Latvian government falling apart for reasons unrelated to the Lattelecom MBO proposal, and with the remains of the government apparently split on whether to approve the deal on November 6, I see the prospects for the deal going through darkening.
It now looks like the government may disintegrate without deciding, or put off a decision beyond its own rapidly diminishing shelf-life. I was on a very popular TV talk show here with a number of people speaking out on what would be Latvia's largest privatization deal hitherto, including Lattelecom CEO Nils Melngailis and two persons who were actually three government ministers (Ina Gudele as herself, the Special Assignments Minister for E-government and Gaidis Berzins, Minister of Justice and acting Minister of Economics). Ina clearly signaled that she was leaning toward approving the deal, while the two-in one Berzins tilted toward reservations and hesitation. Ina said she had not read the latest government documentation on the MBO and Berzins said it was confidential, but basically dealt with "principles" rather than a yes or no to the current proposal.
Aivars Tabuns, a mildly suborbital sociologist then mocked the confidentiality as if we were addressing a terrorism case, not a business deal and I could largely agree. But then Tabuns insisted that the price of Lattelecom had to be calculated on all the money spent on network investments (more that LVL 500 million) and the market value of all the real estate owned by Lattelecom (as if we were preparing for an asset strip, not a privatization). Peteris Smidre of arch-rival Baltkom, a cable TV and telecommunications group that has clashed with Lattelecom in the past on interconnect and other issues, also said that the only business case he could see at the time is an MBO. Smidre had also indicated his interest in a Lattelecom privatization. In terms of getting a substantial part of the company, were that option open, Baltkom would also have to go to the banks and to private equity, perhaps for a "management buy-in"(if Peteris wanted to exercise some board/managerial control in the deal).
Latvian speakers might be able to watch the show through this link.
A couple of additional considerations have come to my attention:

--The Blackstone Group probably won't wait more than three months, six maximum, for the deal to be approved. Then it will walk away.
--Should the deal fall through, Nils Melngailis will resign as Lattelecom CEO. If it is delayed beyond November 6, Nils will hang on to the bitter end or close to it, but the word is that some of his key staff may be handing in resignations and seeking other work as early as next week if the MBO isn't approved. However, one doesn't know how much job churn there would be anyway.

--according to a valuation of Lattelecom made for the magazine Kapitāls (I write for them as part of my job at LETA) , the company is worth around LVL 300 million as it is now (with a 23 % stake in Latvian Mobile Telephone/LMT), but only around LVL 175 million when the stake is taken out. Although Lattelecom is not traded and all valuations are educated guesses, Nils said on TV that he believed the value of the company had declined somewhat since the MBO proposal was made in the spring.

It looks to me like the muddle scenario is the most likely one. If Nils goes, then I see TeliaSonera getting Lattelecom at the end of a long and rocky road ahead (perhaps a desperately organized public auction in mid-2009) and getting it, probably, on the cheap. This is not the worst case scenario, but neither is it the best. As I think I said on TV, the whole process has been dictated by the government's clear decision not to sell Lattelecom to the Swedes and subsequent refusal (by delay) to do a deal that would have given them 100 % of Lattelecom plus cash for 100 % of LMT ending up in Swedish hands.

Lattelecom future in a muddle

First, sorry for the silence on this blog, I was in the US (Boston and Las Vegas, the IBM Information on Demand conference in the latter) and had little time to attend to this. With the uproar surrounding the Latvian government, it now looks like all options for the future ownership of Lattelecom will simply be put off and muddled away (how do you translate the wonderful Latvian expression nomuļļāts?).
As I wrote in my Latvian language blog, the current proposal for the MBO is threatened by ignorance, muddle(by the government, been at it since 2003 or so on these issues) and hounding (as close a translation of noriešana -- literally, to bark to death). At the moment, it looks like muddle will trump all other cards. However, the hounding has already started (several articles expressing suspicion, questioning the motives of the Blackstone Group, etc.).
One of the strongest critics has been Latvian MEP (member of the European Parliament)Inese Vaidere, allegedly representing right of center nationalist party, but proposing, instead of the MBO, a dirigist arrangement where Lattelecom remains majority owned by the state and is governed by a special law. Vaidere points out that the value of future dividends to the state is, in her opinion, higher than the LVL 300 million that will be paid for the company through the MBO. By this argument, some enterprises should be nationalized to provide revenues for the state instead of paying taxes. Classic socialism.
In a worst case scenario (though not "worst"for those who think a government that finds excuses for firing the head of the anti-corruption agency for minor violations should be dismissed along with the parliament backing it), the Saeima (Latvia's parliament) could be dissolved and new elections called following a referendum on the dissolution. This could drag well into 2008. At present, the government is in disarray, there is no Minister of Economics and even without the president dissolving parliament, the government may yet fall. Deciding the future of Lattelecom is the least of the government's worries.

So what will happen? The muddle will drag on to where the terms of the deal may have to be changed because of unstable financial markets globally and in Latvia (the inevitable crash of the real estate market must come soon). Then the possibly weakened or reshuffled (or caretaker) government will have to decide again. The clamor for a public auction of Lattelecom will increase, but such an event, I believe, will simply lead to it being purchased by TeliaSonera on the open market.

The MBO is not a bad idea, it has been tested with mixed, generally positive results in Europe and the USA, but don't hold your breath that it will go through in Latvia for Lattelecom.

A Swedish touch phone - iPhone challenger?

Sweden's NeoNode will be launching (in Sweden) its very small touch interface phone. I met them last week in Stockholm, but have only gotten around to editing and posting the videoblog today. Judge for yourselves whether we will have an iPhone challenger here:

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One more thing: If you are interested in any of the ads appearing here, please CLICK. I might make some money :)

XBox 360 Live -- A nightmare for parents and children

We bought an XBox360 for my 12-year old son' s birthday (in Sweden, Latvian prices were outrageous by comparison). We also picked up some games. The latest Halo 3 game (also bought in Sweden) came with a free 48 hour Xbox Live trial. The procedure for setting up an account in this service is one of the most time consuming, onerous, fucked-up experiences I have had with any online service -- and I go back to things like The Source in the 1980s. There are layer upon layer of data entry screens, all of which can only be operated by the Xbox360 controller, click and push  A, click and push A for endless repetitions. The code for a free trial of Xbox Live for 48 hours makes nuclear launch procedures child's play by comparison. Every possible piece of information, name, address, date of birth, credit card, gamer id, passwords, etc. has to be entered in this onerous way. Then the fucking service does not work for certain functions which should be available under the free test.

I think this is a classic example of downright customer, child and user-hostile design and policies by Microsoft. 

Sweden's Mondozer to launch widg... err...mondo platform

Mondozer, a 2007 Swedish startup, is going to launch its platform for creating easily accessible informational widgets (which it calls mondos) on  mobile phones (independent of the operator). Co-founder Karl Bohman talks about the company and its plans to offer the platform in the rest of the Nordic countries and, possibly, the Baltic countries.

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Tele2 Latvia negotiating a club music service

Tele2 in Latvia and Dub Tools, a Swedish mobile services developer, are negotiating to offer the club music platform R.FM in Latvia in the next few months. Dub Tools CEO Peo Strömberg talks about the new service below (note: the video was edited for my Latvian blog, so there are Latvian opening and closing titles and the "Latvian spelling" of Strömberg's name, plus some small errors).

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An informal iPhone demo in Stockholm

I finally got to film an informal iPhone demo in Sweden, thanks to the manager of a Macoteket Apple dealership in Stockholm. Here it is...

A few days in Sweden

I am heading to Stockholm for a mixture of business and personal reasons and will use the visit to see some mobile services companies at the Kista Mobile Showcase. There are times when this blog simply follows me around (New York, San Francisco) but I believe Sweden really falls under the outer corona (no nothing has been smoked :) ) of the coverage of this blog, because TeliaSonera and Tele2 are big players here, Nokia got named Latvia's favorite brand, and soon to be willingly orphaned (of its half mothers) Lattelecom sees Sweden as one of its markets.
An interesting observation -- only women can do a mash-up (literally) of Latvia's three favorite brands -- Nokia, Laima confectionaries, and Hansabanka (Swedish-owned). How? Toss a Nokia phone, a Hansabank credit card and a half-eaten Laima chocolate bar into a ladies handbag and they will all mix and stick together :).

More on the Lattelecom shopping list

I have already written about Pionit, the German-Latvian specialized IT company that I strongly suspect is at the top of Lattelecom's post-MBO shopping list. I just want to add some other educated guesses, mostly taken from a post on my Latvian-language blog.

Triatel, I think I have mentioned earlier. Their wireless EV DO based broadband service is what could be of interest to Lattelecom if the price is set right. Lattelecom needs some weapons in a coming war against both Latvian Mobile Telephone (LMT) and Bite, who will surely move aggressively with higher speed HSDPA as a direct competitor to DSL and the only alternative where the optical/copper infrastructure doesn't reach. Bite has already announced it will boost its HSDPA to 7.2 Mbps and by next year, it will be pushing the envelope of the technology at 14.4 Mbps. LMT is a large boat that turns slowly, but expect them to announce a speed boost as well. Triatel is looking to be bought and Lattelecom has been working with them on "digitizing"the rural network using fixed wireless CDMA phones.

IZZI, the cable TV, internet and mobile services (an MVNO running on the Bite network) company, might be of interest for expanding Lattelecom's cable TV base, although they do not directly use IPTV technology to the home (they use it for backbone transmission of their signals, I think). It would be a way of getting over 100 000 TV customers and slowly switching them to Lattelecom's IPTV. IZZI resells Triatel's wireless internet and provides fixed line cable internet where its network is present. IZZI was owned by TeliaSonera (and known as Telia MultiCom) before being sold to private Latvian investors some years ago. Its name is derived from how East Europeans pronounce the word easy :), suggesting that IZZI is easy to use :).

More along the lines of a cooperation partnership, Lattelecom could also look at the wireless broadband network builder Unistars. It has a strictly business customer base and builds some application-specific networks, for retailers and construction projects. That is, these wireless networks are used primarily for running retailing applications (point of sale networks, retail accounting and inventory control applications, etc.) This is the sort of thing Lattelecom is moving into -- setting up IT solutions that run on mission-critical telecom networks. For some customers, the right solution for Lattelecom might just be to call in Unistars as a partner, in others (farmstead internet, small-town business internet access), Triatel may have the solution. Unistars also has some WiMax know-how and is closely watching the mobile WiMax market. Lattelecom CEO Nils Melngailis and Unistars honcho Aleksander Rutman should talk, if they already haven't.

Lattelecom eyeing Pionit, a stealth IT company?

Lattelecom, in the midst of an MBO, is already looking beyond that for forging closer ties with selected IT companies. The most interesting of these may be Pionit AG  in Germany, where one of the chief "assets" is Mikus Grasmanis, a Latvian software engineer and one of the key inventors of GRADE, a business process analysis toolkit developed initially by the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics at the University of Latvia in the early 1990s. Also behind Pionit is Janis Gobins, the "godfather"  of the modern Latvian IT industry (Software House Riga, which later morphed and merger into Dati and Exigen/merged with Dati/).

Pionit was founded in 2006 and is still kind of a stealth company, but apparently looking to do sophisticated projects in business process management and the "industrialization" of software development projects. Pionit is the foothold in Germany that Lattelecom's new business directions in outsourcing and IT solutions need and have been looking for.  Valdis Lokenbahs,  formerly a major honcho at Dati, also recently joined Lattelecom. One reason he was recruited may have been his experience setting up a Dati operation in Germany and his ideas about building what he called a global software factory (assembling resources in a number of countries to optimally produce a software solution).

I predict that, by the end of 2008, Pionit (which already advertises its cooperation with Lattelecom) may become one of the first acquisitions of  the newly privatized Lattelecom.  Indeed, Nils Melngailis, Lattelecom CEO, strongly hinted that Lattelecom will grow in the future by major acquisitions, even of companies of similar size as Lattelecom at present. He was speaking at an annual conference for Lattelecom business customers and partners on September 19.

Bite doubles HSDPA speed in Latvia

Bite Latvija, the Latvian unit of the mobile services operator Bite Group, will soon boost the speed of its HSDPA mobile broadband service to 7.2 Mbps from the current 3.6 Mbps (both maximum speeds under optimal conditions). Next year, Bite will most likely jump the speed of its HSDPA service to 14.4 Mbps. At these speeds, the service will be a competitor to Lattelecom's DSL services, which have a maximum speed of 10 Mbps (in the HomeDSL plus IPTV package, with TV eating up some of the bandwidth when in use). Lattelecom has installed ADSL2+ DSLAMs that can deliver 24 Mbps under ideal conditions, but my sources say this is being saved for when Lattelecom launches some kind of HD TV service (probably video on demand).
My talk with Fred Hrenchuk, the recently appointed CEO of Bite Latvija is here:

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TeliaSonera on fixed-mobile convergence

There was supposed to be an article in Kapitāls, the Latvian language monthly business magazine that I write for about fixed-mobile convergence. I was off in the US for the Hewlett-Packard event, but I did research ahead of that and was reluctantly ready to write the piece when I got back (there was a lot else to do). OOPS! Seems the editors forgot about it, so the best I did was to have a small sidebar with one one my regular columns.
One of the things I did do in researching the unwritten longer piece was to send questions to TeliaSonera, since one of the points was that now that Lattelecom was doing an MBO, its most likely full-spectrum competitor would be Latvian Mobile Telephone (LMT), which, when all the privatization deals are finished, will be 100 % owned by the Swedish telecommunications group. Helped by Niklas Henricson, the secretly :) half-Latvian member of the TeliaSonera press team, I did a kind of e-mail interview, which was answered by Anna Augustson, the head of communications for TeliaSonera's Business Area Mobility Services. Here is the e-mail "interview" in full, edited just to remove some explanatory links that Anna added:

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TeliaSonera seems to have internally adopted extensive fixed wireless convergence with many /all of your employees carrying mobile phones that ring when their fixed line is called (via an inhouse wireless?) and apparently switch to the GSM/UMTS network outside the offices. Is this now the emerging/preferred solution for business in Sweden? ) If I were to arrive with a staff of 100 and take two floors in building in Stockholm, could I run a business with, say, one very fast internet connection (maybe gigabit speed), picocells, WiFi (for the PC network) and slightly modified mobiles for all staff (flat rate, untariffed calls among colleagues, GSM/UMTS at corporate rates outside the office, or maybe VOIP over HSDPA)?? Field staff would have HSPA laptops, etc.

The migration from traditional fixed telephony to mobile and Internet-based services in business and for residential customers is one of the clearest trends in telecommunications right now. Basic services like voice telephony will no doubt increasingly be replace by wireless access, regardless if it is an office environment or out in the streets, in the home etc. And to a large extent, we will see data go the same way as voice and be provided with wireless access.

On 28 September, and as the first mobile operator in Sweden, TeliaSonera is introducing a new solution for telephony combining features of fixed and mobile telephony, based on UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access). With Telia Home Free, the mobile phone is being integrated in residential telephony, making mobile communications easier and cheaper. The telephone functions as an ordinary wired phone in the home (through WLAN) and subscribers can keep their current fixed line number. When a person leaves home, an ongoing call is switched automatically to the mobile network. Customers can call at a lower rate at home and also use their phone as an ordinary mobile handset when they leave home. Calls to all fixed line numbers and Telia mobiles in Sweden cost SEK 0/minute when made from home. Calls to all Telia mobiles in Sweden, including the household’s IP mobiles, cost SEK 0/minute with the Telia Mobile to Friends subscription. Calls answered on the fixed line number, outside the home, cost SEK 0/minute. The very same service was launched by Telia in Denmark last year, and will be launched by the fully TeliaSonera owned Netcom in Norway in the autumn.

It should be noted that the solution TeliaSonera has adopted internally (as referred to in the question) is using the same network inside and outside the office (GSM/UMT), combined with a local radio solution to handle large number of simultaneous calls and to ensure sufficient coverage.

However, for data, we offer the Connect Pro service which switches between networks depending on availability and location. Connect Pro customers can access the Internet and their organisation’s intranet either through GSM, UMTS or WLAN (TeliaSonera’s WLAN service is called Home Run).

In Norway and Denmark we have launched a service for our business customers called the Wireless Office. It’s a solution based on mobile telephony replacing the fixed phone; subscribers have one mobile phone and one number with untariffed calls to colleagues and reduced tariffs for other calls. The Wireless Office will be introduced in Sweden shortly.

So to conclude: Yes – you could run a business the way as it is described in the question, with a fast internet connection, WiFi for the PC-network and a telephony solution based on the Wireless office. However, as of today, we do not offer VoIP over HSDPA.

Having such an offer in Sweden, how likely is it to be implemented in your Baltic subsidiaries, especially Latvia, where you will no longer have a fixed network operator when Lattelecom is sold off to management and employees?

First of all, it should be noted that negotiations regarding our ownership in Lattelecom and LMT are on-going and any comments in this respect would - before an agreement is reached - therefore be purely speculative.

However, on a more general note, it can be said that having full ownership means that we can fully draw on the advantages of the TeliaSonera Group thereby strengthen our position as well as our offerings in a market in terms of synergies, purchasing power, faster access to new services, faster development of mobile data, and overall better prices on a lot of services needed for mobile operators. It also means that new services, like the service you describe and services like Telia Home Free and Telia Wireless Office, can be rolled-out in the market.

It should be noted, though, that we do roll-out HomeFree also in our markets where we have a large market share in fixed communications (e.g. Sweden), since we truly believe in the fixed-mobile migration and we want to take lead in this migration. To roll out a product like HomeFree will always be a specific decision for every market to make, based on local circumstances.

How will wireless vs fixed "footprint overlap"develop over the next few years -- by which I mean, the basic DSL offering in Latvia is 2Mbps, while HSDPA can get you 3.6 Mbps all things being optimal. This covers most ordinary surfing needs and even videostreaming. You can also get 10 Mbps DSL (in Latvia) with a IPTV package, but apparently that can be matched by an HSDPA upgrade (the technology goes up to 14.4 Mbps). In Sweden, some places (Kista) have 100 Mbps internet, but it is said wireless could also hit those speeds (WIMAX on steroids??) So this is how the "footprints" overlap, except you can take mobile or nomadic solutions anywhere within coverage, but even fiber to the home stops at the door if you go out.

Speed is a constantly moving target: Today we can enjoy access speeds which we could not foresee a couple of years ago. But both wireless and wireline/fixed access speeds are developing simultaneously and we do have a decent gap between the two access technologies.

Wireline will increasingly be focussed on providing the backbone infrastructure, access to radio points and also the really heavy connections to e.g. offices. As there’s a limit to what we can do in the wireless world there will always be a need for wireline/fixed access.

In general, the basic communications needs will be based on wireless access complement with wireline/fixed access when needed.

What is the degree of adoption of totally wireless solutions in Sweden (among small/medium businesses) as described in the first question? Any future trend predictions?

In the business segment (SMEs), and according to our own research, we estimate that 2% of the companies have a netbased mobile switch (i.e. a general mobile switch, and not a solution that switch between networks depending on the users location (in the office, outside the office etc).

Since you still own and run a fixed network, what will be its function in an increasingly wireless environment? Will it merely be a "backbone to the home/office" and carry. say, HD TV on demand, telepresence, other services beyond the bandwidth of wireless?

As stated above, wireline will increasingly be focussed on providing the backbone infrastructure, access to radio points and also the really heavy connections to e.g. offices.

In general, we see that the basic communications needs will be based on wireless access complemented with wireline when needed. Basic services like voice telephony will no doubt be replace by wireless access regardless if it is an office environment or out in the streets etc. And to a large extent, we will see data go the same way as voice and be provided with wireless access. We already have clear examples of this development today with wireless hot spots in cafés, restaurants, hotels etc. and the development of HSDPA in the public environment. But of course, behind all those customer accesses there is cable.

Nils Melngailis (Lattelecom) on financing the MBO

Lattelecom CEO Nils Melngailis describes the financing that has been arranged hitherto for the management/staff buyout. The US based Blackstone Group (private equity) will provide LVL 90 million in equity financing (taking 51 % of Lattelecom) with a four bank consortium (Unicredit, Nordea, DnB and Parex) providing LVL 200 million as a loan (maturity -- around 7 years). Disbursement of a first packet of shares will start in Q1 2008 if all goes smoothly. More in this video:

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FinnFUCKINGair (baggage losers)

I flew back to Riga with Finnair (ok, I was rerouted when my flight to New York JFK was delayed, I went Boston-London-Helsinki-Riga with Boston-London on American Airlines). The fuckers lost my baggage. Maybe this is par for the course with airlines these days -- the more IT systems, the more clueless about WTF anything is -- at the airport, they did not see my bag on their system). Fortunately, I packed all my personal electronics in my backpack, but packed all but one of my books (from Amazon, free delivery to a US address), plus DVDs , etc, clothing, in my roller bag, which I checked. This is what has now vanished. It used to be bags were delayed, but traceable.
I strongly recommend against flying with either of these bozos, except I guess everyone is bozos these days, US air travel being a default clusterfuck, so I suppose one simply has to travel light and carry on anything of value. Fortunately, I also wore my brand new Clark's shoes to break them in.

HP video, upcoming Lattelecom news

Here is some video on Hewlett-Packard's new line of workstations presented at the Your Life is the Show event in New York last week (September 5):

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On Lattelecom
Later today we will have some preliminary news on the financial consortium financing the management buy-out. Am a little tired after a long trip back to Latvia from the US, (lost baggage, etc) but will try to get some video up on this (in English).

More on HP and digital entertainment, Post no. 500!

Well, post number 500 is a videoblog where Brian Burch of Hewlett-Packard talks about the digital entertainment products the company will be offering. This reflects the evolution of the blog from text to multimedia and its oocasional global reach. This was filmed covering the HP event Your Life is the Show in New York for my Latvian employer. Here is the video via YouTube. The blogger video function doesn't seem to work and apparently sucks...

Todd Bradley of HP speaks about "consumer electronics"

I was at the Hewlett Packard Your Life is The Show event in New York (which is why I am not in Latvia) and recorded this video of Todd Bradley of the HP Personal Systems Group saying the company was not getting into consumer electronics, despite selling TVs and the upcoming Media Smart Server.

Here is the video. Blogger's video upload did not work on several attempts. It sucks.

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Disappointing Apple :(

I tried to get permission to shoot a videoblog of an iPhone demo at the Apple Store in Chestnut Hill, Newton, MA, but it seems there is a nationwide policy against cameras in the stores. So there is no way we semi-pro videobloggers can show off the styuff we like. I was hoping to show this on my Latvian-language blog and to give something to TV24, the cable/internet TV operation that I work for. I even e-mailed Apple in Cupertino, their PR folks, but nothing. Thanks anyway to the nice guys at Chestnut Hill for pestering their manager until they got an answer.

Like college registration in the 1960s :)

Well, I have arrived in the Big Apple for Hewlett Packard's Your Life is The Show event and the funniest thing is that registering as a journalist in 2007 was like registering for college in the 1960s. You gave your name and some ladies went through some paper checklists and rummaged through piles of pre-printed name cards. Didn't find mind. Went for a couple of drinks and snacks and then got it :). One would think that the world's leading IT company would simply look all guests up on a laptop linked to a database and then print the name card on demand on one of its snazzy laser printers. I am sure the event will be better than this rather amusing start.
Wasted after 8 hours on the plane from Helsinki, but will try to stay up and sleep normally

Lattelecom & wireless broadband, HP in NYC

Once the management/staff buyout (MBO) is complete, one of Lattelecom's priorities will be to expand its broadband coverage. CEO Nils Melngailis has said as much. More than 100,000 of Lattelecom's more than 600 000 wireline customers already have DSL, and the aim is clearly to get almost everyone aboard. That includes customers beyond the reach of the present network in rural towns and outlying areas.
Another priority is to move into mobile services. In this regard, I have mentioned a number of options, with the most likely one being a virtual operator (MVNO) on the Bite network, where all paying customers are welcome. Another option would be to experiment with mobile WIMAX (something not likely to be viable until the middle of 2008). I have also mentioned that Lattelecom could forge closer ties, perhaps even buy Triatel, which runs a non-standard (for Europe) CDMA mobile phone and data network, plus an EV DO wireless broadband network (satisfactory at my country cottage 35 km outside Riga). Triatel is already cooperating with Lattelecom for installing fixed wireless telephony and landed an EU and government-financed rural broadband project.
After a bit of chatting with sources, it looks like the best fit between Lattelecom and Triatel could be in the wireless broadband space, or so some think. Triatel appears ready to be persuaded into some kind of broader, more permanent deal. The question is, how much infrastructure overlap there may be and is this not at odds with the rather strange rural wireless broadband project backed by the government? The basic idea of that project, rather than helping spread "last mile" solutions (which Triatel is) was to establish parallel wholesale infrastructure and hope that resellers would appear in the poor rural areas and have a choice of wholesalers whose internet connection they could then distribute to the rural farmsteads, huts and hovels in the forest.
Meanwhile, earlier this summer, Lattelecom announced it was buying a bunch of Alcatel point to point high capacity microwave links in order to extend its broadband reach beyond the optical and wire network. That sounds like extending infrastructure to me. Still, the last mile could be set up and sold by Triatel, especially if it was part of the Lattelecom fold. Watch these developments...:)

HP in New York

I'm off to New York on September 4 for some kind of Hewlett-Packard (HP) all day event on September 5. Piecing together some sparse e-mails from the local organizers, it will be a series of break out events on various gadgets and issues. There has not exactly been a flood of information as to what, when (and just some bios of who), but it will held at some posh hotel (the Ritz) on the Battery, far from the delights of the rest of Manhattan. Or so the month old e-mails claim. But hey, I already have my electronic ticket (in French) from HP, so thanks!
Many of the discernable events are of interest, and, hopefully, I will be able to blog and videoblog from there, both here and for my Latvian employer. I notice blogger has added a "add video"function, which means I may be able to bypass the sometime slow(to post uploads) and (therefore) dubious YouTube and the quicker alternative, blip.tv. Anyway, I will give it a test. After that, I will be off to Boston to see family and back in Latvia on September 11

Soft launch for Baltkom's mobile service

Baltkom, the cable TV and telephony company that launched, developed and sold the Latvian mobile operator now known as Tele2, will re-enter the mobile market with a soft launch of its virtual services on the Bite network during the fall.
Tariffs on the new service will closely match those offered by Bite and will include mobile internet (HSDPA), which the Bite network offers in Riga and several other Latvian cities.
The new service, which will be part of a Quattro package (cable TV, cable internet, fixed and mobile telephone) or sold seperately, will start without any fanfare, probably as an offer to existing Baltkom customers (there are more the 170 000 cable TV subscribers). Once the services are accepted and proven to work for existing customers, a wider marketing campaign and announcement will be made.
This, according to my source.

Lattelecom, LMT privatization memo finally signed

I now see that the Latvian government, TeliaSonera and Lattelecom have finally signed a memo of understanding on the privatization of Lattelecom and Latvian Mobile Telephone (LMT). The memo assumes that a final agreement will be signed on September 24, not September 12 as assumed earlier (the delay is due to scheduling considerations and vacations). This is yet another step toward the management buy-out (for around LVL 290 million) of Lattelecom and the sale of the remaining government stake in LMT to TeliaSonera.

This blog prematurely reported the signing of a memo last week :), but I was on the right track.

Latvian government offers TeliaSonera a privatization memo

CORRECTS AND REPLACES PREVIOUS VERSION

The Latvian government has presented a memorandum of undertstanding on the privatization of Latvian Mobile Telephone (LMT) and Lattelecom that it is ready to sign. A spokesman for TeliaSonera said, however, that negotiations were still continuing.
TeliaSonera, which now directly and indirectly controls just over 60 % of LMT would get 100 % control, while Lattelecom will be sold by both shareholders (TeliaSonera 49 %, the government - 51 %) to the management and staff of Lattelecom in a management buy-out. The latter is valued at around LVL 290 million.

More later, time allowing....

Previews of coming attractions--the Lattelecom MBO

Here is a likely timeline for the Lattelecom employee and management buy-out (MBO).

September 1 -- the consortium to finance the LVL 290 million deal should be in place and consist of one private equity partner and a small consortium of banks. There will be covenants with the private equity partner limiting the sale of shares and retaining critical strategic and budget decisions in the hands of Lattelecom management,

September 12 -- there might be a formal signing or initialing of the deal to transfer 100 % of Lattelecom to the MBO consortiium while the remaining state shares in Latvian Mobile Telephone (LMT) go to TeliaSonera.

End 2007 -- the deal is closed.
Early 2008 - Lattelecom grants, free of charge, a certain number of shares to every employee, regardless of seniority or position. It also offers a limited number of shares to employees and managers for cash.

2009 -? Lattelecom, based on financial performance, grants options/profit sharing shares to employees and managers. Most staffers have the option to take cash or shares (buy out their options) but many middle and all higher level managers will have a substantial part of their remuneration in share options.

Lattelecom will also start actively looking for corporate acquisitions in the region -- neighboring Estonia and Lithuania, possibly Scandinavia. During 2008, it will have entered the mobile market, most probably as a virtual operator with Bite as its partner.

2010-2012: Look for a share issue and stock exchange listing of Lattelecom once it has shown substantial revenue growth (while sustaining or increasing profitability). The listing will allow some employee-management shareholders to cash in (out?) upon retirement or leaving the company and give all a market-based indicator of the value of their holdings.

Tele2 Latvia honcho on Q2 results

Tele2 Latvia board chairman Petras Kirdeika talks about Q2 and first half results, with revenue up 17 % to LVL 60.51 million (in the first half of 2007) and EBITDA up 13 % to LVL 28.1 million (Petras doesn't mention the figures in the video). Tele2 is the largest operator in Latvia by number of users -- over 1.1 million, but still trails rival Latvian Mobile Telephone (LMT) in terms of revenues. Petras also said at a press breakfast that he was getting good growth of business customers and postpaids (around 70 % of Tele2 customers are prepaid).

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TeliaSonera honcho: it looks like a deal!

Despite a loony-tunes document by the Ministry of Economics that seemed to say all deals surrounding the privatization of Lattelecom and Latvian Mobile Telephone were off, it looks like the deals are going ahead and will be sealed as early as September 12, with closing before the end of the year. Those were the signals coming out after a meeting between TeliaSonera honcho Kenneth Karlberg (who has been at this for around four years or more) and representatives of the Latvian government. I got to sit down and talk to Kenneth after the meeting. Here is my videoblog:

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Government waffles again on telecom privatization

LJust when it seemed that agreement had been reached in principle to sell the remaining state holdings in Latvian Mobile Telephone (LMT) to TeliaSonera and to let Lattelecom be privatized by a management/staff buyout, the Latvian government decided July 24 to extend the deadline for preparation of privatization rules for LMT to October 1.

The real shocker is in an explanatory document appended to the decision:

"As, for the time being, no agreement has been reached by the parties involved concerning the future disposition of the state holdings in ...Lattelecom and ...Latvian Mobile Telephone, the draft protocol decision foresees extending the deadline for completing the task to October 1 of this year." (Emphasis mine).

What this seems to say is that all deals are off, or at least it could be understood that way. In fact, both the government and the half-mother TeliaSonera had indicated agreement in principle to a scheme that has been discussed for more than a year, namely, that the Swedes get LMT, and someone else gets Lattelecom (in the latest alternative, the management and staff). The half mother has also given a nod to the management buyout, though it may have hinted at a last minute higher offer for the whole package (TeliaSonera has always wanted to buy 100 % of both Lattelecom and LMT, but given an unavoidable choice, it would take LMT alone).

The whole bizarrely ambiguous statement comes two days before TeliaSonera honcho Kenneth Karlberg is due in Riga for talks with the government. Presumably these would have been about choreographing the deal -- waiving first refusals, detaching the state and half-mother's indirect shares of LMT held by Lattelecom, finalizing the price of everything. In this sense, there was no formal, written agreement -- work should be starting toward this, but certainly there was agreement in the common-sense understanding of the concept.

Certainly, the half-mother has reason to worry -- the half-mother's , as it turned out, half-blood press honcho called me and asked for a copy of the Latvian language documents so he could show them to his mother. This seemed very strange for a man called Niklas Henricson, until it turned out that Niklas' mother is Latvian. That is just a curious aside and a warning -- we are everywhere :). Niklas, alas, has not grown up in Sweden learning Latvian.

Anyway, one way or another, the latest and strangest from the Latvian government should be on Kenneth Karlberg's laptop at his vacation residence pretty soon.

And--one more thing... The Latvian government has ordered a tender for another appraisal of Lattelecom and LMT, even though Minister of Economics Jurijs Strods says he is sure the value of Lattelecom has not diminished. Since both companies are not traded, appraisals, such as were made last year by two different firms, Ernst & Young and Carnegie, are expensive educated guesses at best. Well, it has been a good year for the appraisal business in Latvia, that's for sure.

Whatever is really going on, the whole privatization process has, yet again, been destabilized and dragged on, probably well into 2008, even as Nils Melngailis, Lattelecom's CEO, looks to put together a consortium to finance the MBO (assisted by Lazard). That leaves Lattelecom adrift with, as Bob Dylan said, "no direction home" for at least a year, nor even any idea who home" is or will be.

airBaltic offers pre-paid mobile phone services

air Baltic, the Latvian carrier partly owned by SAS, has quietly started offering prepaid mobile phone cards, including a SIM card and number, to travelers abroad. The service offers free incoming calls from Latvia in 19 countries (including Ireland) and discounted calls from abroad to Latvia.
The service is run for the airline by SIA Telecom Discount, a small alternative Latvian telco. Just how they do it -- whose network is used-- I have still to find out (I want to get this news out ahead of anyone else, as air Baltic hasn't announced this to the press, only put it in a customer newsletter).
Since I don't think I want to get a new mobile number to use just for a weekend in, say Stockholm, mainly because I don't want to SMS like 150+ contacts and get everyone confused, I think this card is mainly aimed at the Latvians in Ireland and UK market. Think about it -- when you let everyone know you are off to O'Leary's mushroom farm, you also announce your airBaltic number and get incoming calls for free.
My sources say that the next step could be the sale of cheap (subsidized) phones by Telecom Discount bundled with the air Baltic card, so that emigrants could have a "call and be called from Latvia" phone when they hit the ground in Ireland or wherever. Sounds like a reasonable business model.

Endgame for the half-mother

A delegation from TeliaSonera, the half-mother of Lattelecom, will meet with the Latvian government on July 26 to, in all likelihood, start working out the details of the management/staff buyout of the Latvian fixed-network operator.
The delegation will be headed by Kenneth Karlberg, currently head of TeliaSonera's Mobility business area, but formerly (before the switch from regional to services-based organization) in charge of business in the Baltics. For Kenneth, it will be the beginning of the end of a seemingly neverending story that started in 2003, when TeliaSonera first declared its interest in buying all of Lattelecom and Latvian Mobile Telephone (LMT). Now, as a corollary to the Lattelecom MBO, Kenneth will be getting 100 % of LMT. LMT will be integrated into TeliaSonera's regional mobile strategy, but there are some things to learn from the Latvian subsidiary, which was first to launch HSDPA mobile broadband, something even Telia Mobil still doesn't offer (?).
The July 26 meeting, presumably, will be to discuss the choreography of how each partner will waive first refusal rights on the other's holdings in Lattelecom and LMT, as well as on how to divest the 23 % of LMT formally owned by Lattelecom.
At the same time, people from Lazard Freres are busily doing due diligence at Lattelecom so as to present the company to potential financiers of the MBO. CEO Nils Melngailis is in London talking to banks and private equity companies.
Look for Lattelecom to strengthen its senior staff in the next few weeks as the company prepares to become a small independent player, without the backing of its ex-half mother. I will mourn having to discard that favorite bizarre term:).

Bite Group honcho speaks

Kenneth Campbell, the new CEO of the Bite Group talked to journalists in Riga on July 4 after a couple of months easing into his new job. I did the usual videoblog (see below), but some stuff was said off camera that is noteworthy.
1) Bite Group expects Latvia to be its fast growth, high opportunity market (Lithuania is mature and steady).
2) Bite will try to push the pace of network build-out in Latvia beyond the present 10 base stations/towers per month.
3) In the medium term, there will be more bundled services (XYZ minutes included in the basic fees) and a drift toward flat rate for everything as HSDPA mobile internet and its next generations become ubiquitous.
4) Mid Europa, the private equity company that bought Bite has an investment horizon of five years plus (remember, they are not a telco seeking to permanently have a network presence in Latvia).

My own guess -- no one told me this -- is that Bite is being fattened for a friendly sale to Vodafone in 6 to 8 years. It makes sense and Bite has had a favorable roaming and data roaming deal with Vodafone.

Here is the video, this time from YouTube. BlipTV was OK for a while, it took some longer videos but now screwed up, refusing to open a page where I can copy paste the code for putting a video window on the page, as I have done in some earlier posts.

Tele2 to expand 3G/HSDPA coverage in Latvia

Tele2 is going to expand 3G and HSDPA mobile broadband coverage to the towns of Liepaja and Daugavpils by fall, according to the company's chief honcho Petras Kirdeika. He talks about this and other matters, including the new "slant" on the corporate logo, in this video:

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A Swedish student networking presentation in Riga

I recently went to an event sponsored by the local affiliate of the Connect network, a non-profit organization that brings together internet and high-related startups (or just innovators with ideas) to face a panel of potential early stage investors and industry experts.  Here is a short video of a Connect event in Riga, where some Swedish entrepreneurs came over to present a student interaction and job-seeking platform, AcademiaLive (Swedish only).

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A happy, safe Midsummer (Jāņi) to all

I just want to wish all my readers (very many of whom are in Latvia) a happy, safe Jāņi holiday with beer, cheese, merriment, līgo songs, bonfires and the whole business :).  At the same time, I want to share a thought that came to mind at an informal lunch with some people from a Latvian state agency (telecoms-related). We talked about the upcoming Jāņi and I said my best Jāņi were in the US, at the Piesaule camp in New Hampshire owned by the Latvian Lutheran Church. Some 60 (?) summer houses have been built over the years (since 1954?) in Piesaule and a number were owned by people named Jānis. So what happened was that there was a procession (two, actually) to all the cottages of Jānis(es) with singing, cheese and beer served by the respective hosts and finally a big gathering at a bonfire, dancing in the barn etc.

At many other places in North America, the centerpiece of the Jāņi celebration has been some kind of show by the local folk dance/singing organization showing a more or less traditional Jāņi celebration so that all present would see "this is Jāņi in (olden days, traditional) Latvia." It was more or less the Skroderdienas Silmačos scene.

I said it is time to update this to show Jāņi in 21. century Latvia. The scene opens on a stage with a flatscreen TV, a couple of couches and a grill. In the background, an SUV pulls up and the first Jāņubērni emerge carrying Rimi or Maxima bags filled with special Jāņi packages--six packs of Aldaris or Cēsu beer, buckets of shašlik meat and shrink-wrapped, heart-shaped Jāņu cheese. They fire up the grill, have a few beers and turn on the TV. It is too early for the Maestro (Raimonds Pauls) to take the the stage at the Līgo Lejasvaimanas 2008 mass event, so the camera crane zooms over the crowd of thousands gathering by the outdoor stage and listening to a Latvian country band in cowboy hats. 

The Jāņu bērni in the couches (except for the grillmaster) start channelsurfing. They stop for a few seconds at a 1980s recording of an outdoor performance of Skroderdienas (a Latvian classic about tailors,  a mismatched wedding in a country farmstead and a Jāņi celebration where all gets set right). Then they channel surf to a blond babe in a bikini being carried uphill by an older man (or maybe she is asking to be driven to the Estonian hill, Munamegi) -- this is from the film A Limousine the Color of Jāņu Night. Finally they hit a channel with the alternative to the Maestro's Līgo Lejasvaimanas for a younger audience with the comedians Ufo and Fredis and some people rapping in the Latgallian dialect, followed by some folk/punk rock band, or at the very best, Ilģi. And so the show goes on, more or less like a happening or installation rather than a performance. The Jāņu celebrants drop off one by one as the beer and šašliks run out. One staggers to the SUV to get some more at the all-night Statoil down the road. There is a loud simulated crash after the SUV drives away. But our hero is unhurt, we see him staring pathetically out the window of a Latvian police prisoner transport bus that drives by, ending the performance.

OK, this was to entertain my Latvian readers. Back on topic after the holiday. 

Vista goes Latvian (in Latvian)

Here is a videoblog of a rather strange (for non-Latvians) presentation of the Windows Hen (that's Vista in Latvian) in Latvian featuring the Suitu district female burdoon singers (Suitu sievas). Daiga Jace, the marketing manager for Microsoft in Latvia talks about the new Latvian Vista and Office.

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Nick Henny on UMG's royalty system, made in Latvia

Universal Music Group (UMG) vice chairman and CFO Nick Henny talks about UMG's new royalty transaction system, being built by Exigen in Latvia and St. Petersburg, Russia. This is a project aimed at saving tens of millions of USD for UMG as royalty-generating transactions grow rapidly in number but fall greatly in value (99 cent iTunes purchases instead of USD 19.99 CDs). Ultimately, UMG wants to offer the system (when completed in late 2008) to the entire entertainment industry. Warner Music, originally a partner in the project along with UMG and Exigen (it has headquarters and legal personality in the US, but all software development is done in Latvia and, of late, in Russia)

Here is the video interview:

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Microsoft honcho speaks on Dynamics

I filled in for a colleague whose kid was graduating from high school and attended a Microsoft Dynamics press/analyst seminar in Copenhagen June 14-15.

My impression was that Microsoft's Dynamics assortment of ERP and related software is heading for some kind of de-facto convergence and will be a single, highly scalable SOA-based solution ready to compete with Oracle and SAP in the enterprise market. Many hints, but no official confirmations were dropped about this. The road map looks like this will happen after 2010.

I spoke to Henrik Brorsen, an MBS and Dynamics honcho for EMEA about this in this somewhat glitchy video (the sound screwed up on the transitions, time to learn iMovie HD.

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Government supports Lattelecom MBO

The Latvian government has approved a management buy-out of the fixed network operator Lattelecom, in which it holds a 51 % stake. 49 % of Lattelecom is owned by Sweden's TeliaSonera.
The MBO will net the government around LVL 290 million.
Lattelecom's management proposed the MBO to break a deadlock in privatization talks between the Latvian state and the Swedish telecommunications group. TeliaSonera initially wanted to buy 100 % in both Lattelecom and Latvian Mobile Telephone(LMT), but the government said last year it would not sell Lattelecom to the Swedes. Valuations were then made of both Lattelecom and LMT in the hopes of a deal where TeliaSonera would swap its 49 % share of Lattelecom plus cash for 100 % of LMT. It currently controls just over 60 % of the mobile operator. That would have left the government holding 100 % of Lattelecom, but the proposed deal stalled.
Unbelievable, but the government --so says my Lattelecom source, this ain't on the wires yet -- has finally made a decision.

TeliaSonera ousts Anders Igel

TeliaSonera announced on June 12 that it was searching for a new group CEO. The present CEO, Anders Igel, will leave the company on July 31. This was a pleasant way of saying, Anders, you're fired! There had been mutterings about this in the Swedish press for some time.

How does this affect Latvia? First, it gives the government an opportunity to, yet again, procrastinate on any decision to privatise Lattelecom and to finally sell all of Latvian Mobile Telephone (LMT) to TeliaSonera.
The other aspect is not so obviously obvious. TeliaSonera needs a new group CEO, probably an international manager, not necessarily a Swede (for who knows who will own TeliaSonera in a few years), as well as someone familiar with its growing Baltic and former USSR markets.
Perhaps TeliaSonera need look no further than Nils Melngailis, the 40-ish, Latvian-American, internationally-experienced (IBM Business Intelligence, Coopers & Lybrand) CEO of Lattelecom. After all, with the company mired by the government in indecision about who will own it, the role of Melngailis and other talent at Lattelecom is being reduced to uncertain short-term stewardship rather than nimble, strategic management. The management buy-out idea did not come out of nowhere, it was, in one aspect, a pressure tactic to get the government to act.
We may see a miracle and actually get a decision, but more likely, we will get procrastination. So don't ask them to take your name off the short list in Stockholm, Nils (and Stockholm, do look at your own 49 % owned talent).

Lattelecom privatization may be decided June 12

The issue of Lattelecom's privatization may be decided at the regular meeting of the Latvian government on June 12. Nothing has appeared on the agenda, as yet (evening, June 11), but there appear to be three choices before the Cabinet of Ministers.

1) To approve the management/staff buy-out proposed by Lattelecom's management and, apparently, having the tacit approval of the half-mother, TeliaSonera.

2) to hold a closed auction (by invitation) to sell Lattelecom to a major international telco (assuming any show up) in the hopes of getting the maximum price.

3) to sell both Lattelecom and Latvian Mobile Telephone (LMT) to TeliaSonera after all, reversing the government's previous position that Lattelecom would never be sold to the Swedes.

Right now, the government is said to favor 2), the closed auction, claiming that the management buy-out (MBO) would contravene Latvian law. Strange, where was that law when the a government commission tentatively approved the MBO idea some weeks ago. One wonders...

Offtopic--March for Equality in Riga

Although it is of little relevance to the discussion here, I am politically a libertarian and, therefore, support unfettered freedom of speech, assembly and lifestyle. Last year I posted an angry videoblog when the 2006 Riga Gay Pride March was banned. This year, after a court decision overturning last year's ban, the same event, called a March for Equality, took place. I shot some video, not put together as best I had hoped, on my other blog in English, the rarely updated Thoughts From Latvia. Please have a look if this interests you.

The half-mother Agonistes in Riga

Anders Igel, top honcho of TeliaSonera, the half-mother of Lattelecom, and Kenneth Karlsson, head of Mobilty services, were in Riga to make a donation to the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga. They took some time to sit down with both of my identities (Latvian language blogger for nozare.lv and Englis-language videoblogger for this blog). As I a pressed for time -- I have to go to my summer house and attempt to rig some wireless internet there as well as resupply a friend of my mother-in-laws who is watching the place while my wife, kid and mother-in-law are in Malaga-- I have linked to the Latvian audience version of the videoblog. So the intro titles and subscripts are in Latvian, but the interview is in English;