Speakeasy acquired by... Best Buy?

This is the press release. While it says the senior executive team is staying, it says nothing specific about Mike Apgar, the founder and Chairman of Speakeasy.

This blog post over at ZDNet elaborates a bit. Their theory is Best Buy wants to become a "one-stop IT shop" for small and medium businesses. Perhaps most eye-opening is the claim, "...32 percent of (Best Buy's) product revenue in fiscal 2006 was home office gear."

Strangely enough, I think this may all be due to the recent near-death experience of CompUSA. Their exit leaves a huge yawning gap in the retail space, and it looks like Best Buy is going a-hunting with a vengeance. After all, I can't recall ever being able to order a T-1 at CompUSA, but with Speakeasy's assets in their portfolio you might be able to do that at a retail counter at Best Buy. :)

The other interesting question is: Whither Covad, who is Speakeasy's principal CLEC? (That is, the upstream company Speakeasy connected to for broadband connectivity.) Just how integrated does Best Buy really want to get?

"People aren't *that* stupid..."

By way of Doc Searls comes this video:

Watch on YouTube

Brilliant. Turns out Yoram teaches at UW here in Seattle, and, according to his website, will be playing at the Comedy Underground on Tues, April 3rd.

I dispute his claim to be the, "...world's first and only stand-up economist." I would say every economist is a stand-up comedian (though not every one is a stand-up mensch). But hey, that's just me.