Wall Street is also shorthand (or a metonym) for the “influential financial interests” of the American financial industry, which is centered in the New York City area. Several major U.S. stock and other exchanges remain headquartered on Wall Street and in the Financial District, including the NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX, NYMEX, and NYBOT.

The name of the street derives from the fact that during the 17th century, Wall Street formed the northern boundary of the New Amsterdam settlement. In the 1640s basic picket and plank fences denoted plots and residences in the colony. Later, on behalf of the Dutch West India Company, Peter Stuyvesant, in part using African slaves, led the Dutch in the construction of a stronger stockade. A strengthened 12-foot (4 m) wall of timber and earth was created by 1653 fortified by palisades. The wall was created, and strengthened over time, as a defense against attack from various Native American tribes, New England colonists, and the British. In 1685 surveyors laid out Wall Street along the lines of the original stockade. The wall was dismantled by the British in 1699. It is likely the name comes from the Dutch word wal, meaning rampart or fortification.

In the late 18th century, there was a buttonwood tree at the foot of Wall Street Survivor under which traders and speculators would gather to trade informally. In 1792, the traders formalized their association with the Buttonwood Agreement. This was the origin of the New York Stock Exchange.

In 1789, Federal Hall and Wall Street was the scene of the United States’ first presidential inauguration. George Washington took the oath of office on the balcony of Federal Hall overlooking Wall Street on April 30, 1789. This was also the location of the passing of the Bill Of Rights.

In 1889, the original stock report, Customers’ Afternoon Letter, became the The Wall Street Journal, named in reference to the actual street, it is now an influential international daily business newspaper published in New York City. For many years, it had the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, although it is currently second to USA Today. It has been owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. since 2007.

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Microsoft notes in the application that the end user could end up paying more for the computer, compared with the one-off cost entailed in the existing PC business model, but argues the user would benefit by having a PC with an extended “useful life”.

“A computer with scalable performance level components and selectable software and service options has a user interface that allows individual performance levels to be selected,” reads the patent application’s abstract.

“The scalable performance level components may include a processor, memory, graphics controller, etc. Software and services may include word processing, email, browsing, database access, etc. To support a pay-per-use business model, each selectable item may have a cost associated with it, allowing a user to pay for the services actually selected and that presumably correspond to the task or tasks being performed,” the abstract continues.

Integral to Microsoft’s vision is a security module, embedded in the PC, that would effectively lock the PC to a certain supplier.

“The metering agents and specific elements of the security module… allow an underwriter in the supply chain to confidently supply a computer at little or no upfront cost to a user or business, aware that their investment is protected and that the scalable performance capabilities generate revenue commensurate with actual performance level settings and usage,” the application reads.

‘A more granular approach’
According to the application, the issue with the existing PC business model is that it “requires more or less a one chance at the consumer kind of mentality, where elasticity curves are based on the pressure to maximize profits on a one-time-sale, one-shot-at-the-consumer mentality”.

Microsoft’s proposed model, on the other hand, could “allow a more granular approach to hardware and software sales”, the application states, adding that the user “may be able to select a level of performance related to processor, memory, graphics power, etc that is driven not by a lifetime maximum requirement but rather by the need of the moment”.

“When the need is browsing, a low level of performance may be used and, when network-based interactive gaming is the need of the moment, the highest available performance may be made available to the user,” the document reads. “Because the user only pays for the performance level of the moment, the user may see no reason to not acquire a device with a high degree of functionality, in terms of both hardware and software, and experiment with a usage level that suits different performance requirements.”

By way of example, the application posits a situation involving three “bundles” of applications and performance: office, gaming and browsing.

“The office bundle may include word-processing and spreadsheet applications, medium graphics performance and two of three processor cores,” the document reads. “The gaming bundle may include no productivity applications but may include 3D graphics support and three of three processor cores. The browsing bundle may include no productivity applications, medium graphics performance and high-speed network interface.”

“Charging for the various bundles may be by bundle and by duration. For example, the office bundle may be $1.00 [68 pence] per hour, the gaming bundle may be $1.25 per hour and the browsing bundle may be $0.80 per hour. The usage charges may be abstracted to ‘units/hour’ to make currency conversions simpler. Alternatively, a bundle may incur a one-time charge that is operable until changed or for a fixed-usage period,” the document reads.

Microsoft’s patent application does acknowledge that a per-use model of computing would probably increase the cost of ownership over the PC’s lifetime. The company argues in its application, however, that “the payments can be deferred and the user can extend the useful life of the computer beyond that of the one-time purchase machine”.

The document suggests that “both users and suppliers benefit from this new business model” because “the user is able to migrate the performance level of the computer as needs change over time, while the supplier can develop a revenue stream business that may actually have higher value than the one-time purchase model currently practiced”.

“Rather than suffering through less-than-adequate performance for a significant portion of the life of a computer, a user can increase performance level over time, at a slight premium of payments,” the application reads. “When the performance level finally reaches its maximum and still better performance is required, then the user may upgrade to a new computer, running at a relatively low performance level, probably with little or no change in the cost of use.”

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Before anyone had the chance to soak in the early-year rally, a slew of big companies have come along with earnings warnings to temper the enthusiasm.

The warnings—from giants Alcoa, Intel and Time Warner—were a big factor in the selloff in stocks on Wednesday. Moreover, these early warnings are expected to be just the first few rumbles in an avalanche of dour outlooks to come. “It’s going to be ugly,” said Tom Higgins, chief economist at Payden & Rygel in Los Angeles. “We’re certainly not through the thick of it…I think you’re going to see a horrible earnings season.”

Analysts expect consumer-sensitive areas such as retail and parts of technology to be among the hardest hit as rising unemployment squelches consumer spending and hurts revenue and earnings. Even President-Elect Obama’s plan for a massive stimulus package isn’t expected to have much impact until later this year.

“While we do anticipate that monetary policy will gain traction over the course of 2009, I don’t think you’ll see any impact on consumer spending and business spending that would make optimistic about equity prices at this point,” says Higgins, who sees consumer spending rebounding perhaps in the third or fourth quarter this year.

While there’s hopes for a turnaround later this year, Higgins says the economy has more difficult times to weather before that happens.

“Analysts have been way too optimistic all the way up to this point,” he adds. “After this quarter you may start to see where they’ll be playing catch-up to the downside…and maybe we’ll see more rational expectations for earnings. Right now I think we have more downside than upside on earnings.”

Here’s a snapshot of the warnings so far:

Media conglomerate Time Warner said Wednesday it expects to record a charge of about $25 billion in goodwill writedowns, leading to a loss in the fourth quarter. Microchip maker Intel said its fourth-quarter revenue was likely worse than expected due to weaker global demand for personal computers. The company said its quarterly revenue was likely about $8.2 billion, down 23 percent from a year earlier.

Aluminum giant and Dow component Alcoa said it would slash more than 15,000 jobs, halve capital spending and sell four businesses as it reduces aluminum production in the face of the global economic downturn. The company said it imposed a global salary and hiring freeze as it seeks to cope with what Chief Executive Officer Klaus Kleinfeld called “extraordinary times.”

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