Jump to content

Ford gives earnings warning for 2019...ugh.


Recommended Posts

11 hours ago, silvrsvt said:

I think its something different all together-other rumors had the Maverick and Bronco not getting RHD-which would precude the Maverick from being built there with the UK being a major market. Not to mention it seems primarly a NA product.

I think its going to be something to replace the B-Max and the Maverick appears to be based on a C platform-I'm gonna assume the Maverick is going to roughly the size of the current Escape and the new Escape will grow a bit.

 

11 hours ago, jpd80 said:

 

You mean this one...

 

 

11 hours ago, jpd80 said:

It's not Escape, it's supposed to be  a new product small C between Ecosport  and Escape..

Ford Europe said it would be imported. A vehicle built in Romania would not be consider imported.

Has to be something else. The only other option would be Explorer, but Ford said they were actually going to cut the markets the Explorer is exported to.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, jpd80 said:

Nothing surprises me about this result, 2018 has been pretty bad all over for Ford, even though F Series is chugging away printing money..

Ford keeps using F Series as its back stop to cover all the losses and funding of projects, take that away and everything falls over.

There are a few upsides coming in 2019 globally. Brazil is starting to back as a market.

 

And then there is China. 2018 is a year to forget there. The all-new Focus and Territory should raise sales. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, ausrutherford said:

 

 

Ford Europe said it would be imported. A vehicle built in Romania would not be consider imported.

Has to be something else. The only other option would be Explorer, but Ford said they were actually going to cut the markets the Explorer is exported to.

They are going to cut markets where it didn’t make sense to import - Think South America and Asia. Adding some Euro sales with the new version are a good path to make Europe more profitable. The hybrid and plug in hybrid actually fit more with the way the European market is headed more than the Edge with the diesel. Europeans are really starting to embrace hybrid and electric vehicles. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/17/2019 at 9:30 AM, akirby said:

Redundant data centers have been the norm since the 60s.   If you have cloud native apps it’s easy to use AWS or Azure for Disaster Recovery ...

I am all in favor of the move.  I am only surprised it took so long.  I have actually been inside the current computing centers probably 20 years ago.  They were tight then.  Probably the only reason they have survived as long as they have is the continuous shrinking of hardware.

The one thing I would like to see, is if Ford has priced out the cost of outsourcing their entire email system to someone like Google.  I know they are paying Microsoft a HUGE amount of money for Office on every single machine within the company.  There are many other potential improvements inside of Ford IT, but no one outside of IT is "tech savvy" enough to give them direction.  Again, continuous cost improvements on hardware make it look like IT and purchasing are doing a good job, when in reality if the purchased better desktop hardware to begin with, it would easily have a 5+ year life instead of replacing every desktop every 3 years.  There may be a small cost saving but the labor (outsourced) to do it and the inconvenience (internal) to do it are enormous !  Also, "their one or two sizes fits all" desktop strategy just does not work in ALL cases.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, fordmantpw said:

IMO, desktops should go away and be replaced with a small dumb terminal with access to a VM running on the server.

 

That isn't going to work too well with AutoCAD and serious engineering software that needs the Horsepower to run them-I know there is VM that can support it, but if you have a laptop for example, you could always work from home if needed or wanted. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, silvrsvt said:

 

That isn't going to work too well with AutoCAD and serious engineering software that needs the Horsepower to run them-I know there is VM that can support it, but if you have a laptop for example, you could always work from home if needed or wanted. 

There's plenty of other places around the company where a terminal would be just fine. Every team leader Station in every plant doesn't need a full blown desktop like they have now, Nor does every single inspection point. More often then team leader stations are monitoring the line anyway which is a little redundant because of the big production boards hanging up everywhere. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hosted virtual desktops (vms) work great for general office work but not for autocad and other engineering software.  For that you really need a high powered workstation.  This is where the engineering dept should be doing their own thing and different from the rest of the company.   I think we have 3 or 4 levels of hardware from lightweight to general purpose and 2 different engineering levels.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

There's plenty of other places around the company where a terminal would be just fine. Every team leader Station in every plant doesn't need a full blown desktop like they have now, Nor does every single inspection point. More often then team leader stations are monitoring the line anyway which is a little redundant because of the big production boards hanging up everywhere. 

You can do most general functions nowadays from a tablet or phone including corporate email and running apps

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

25 minutes ago, silvrsvt said:

 

That isn't going to work too well with AutoCAD and serious engineering software that needs the Horsepower to run them-I know there is VM that can support it, but if you have a laptop for example, you could always work from home if needed or wanted. 

 

16 minutes ago, akirby said:

Hosted virtual desktops (vms) work great for general office work but not for autocad and other engineering software.  For that you really need a high powered workstation.  This is where the engineering dept should be doing their own thing and different from the rest of the company.   I think we have 3 or 4 levels of hardware from lightweight to general purpose and 2 different engineering levels.

Agreed, those are outliers, I was speaking to the general population.  Much of that would do well hosted in a VM though, with much better cost utilization for the high powered machines.  The main differences are when you need higher-end graphics support.

And agreed, the engineering dept should be breaking from the standard IT image here anyway.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/18/2019 at 10:23 AM, theoldwizard said:

The one thing I would like to see, is if Ford has priced out the cost of outsourcing their entire email system to someone like Google.  I know they are paying Microsoft a HUGE amount of money for Office on every single machine within the company.  

It would probably be cheaper to outsource email to Microsoft. Not long before I retired, my former employer switched from on-prem Exchange to Office365, which rolled up the full Office Suite, e-mail, and OneDrive in one tidy package. We still use the same email addresses, but everything happens in Microsoft's datacenters  instead of ours. (All in, we had about 50,000 user accounts.)

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/19/2019 at 4:25 AM, akirby said:

I thought dumb terminal and windows pc were redundant......

(ducks for cover)

Precisely, most people can log on with a tablet and do their work from almost anywhere. (outside of engineering programs)

A company i worked for a few years ago tried to go to dumb terminals with all of its engineering support services, bad move when data couldn't be saved locally. Most organizations see the light when it begins to cost them time, money and resources...

Edited by jpd80
Link to comment
Share on other sites

No question that we'd all like to forget 2018 and look forward to the new product later this year. But the new product won't arrive until the 3rd and 4th Quarters and it'll take time for enough inventory to be in stock before the new model sales kick in. In addition, Ford needs to make sure that they do enough advertising to support the new model launches. Unfortunately, any time Ford's looking to cut costs they usually trim the marketing budget.

And with all the talk about how much more successful GM's being profit wise with a rate double Ford's, those of us here know that a lot of that is because of the GM taxpayer bailout. GM's debt was wiped out so, of course their financials are going to look better. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, ice-capades said:

...And with all the talk about how much more successful GM's being profit wise with a rate double Ford's, those of us here know that a lot of that is because of the GM taxpayer bailout. GM's debt was wiped out so, of course their financials are going to look better. 

This is why I won't buy any more GM products. Unlike many here I'm not a long-time Ford guy. I've had VWs, Audis, Infinitis, and even once owned a Saturn, but feel no need to give GM any more of my money as I already gave them a good chunk of my tax dollars in the bailout.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, Gurgeh said:

This is why I won't buy any more GM products. Unlike many here I'm not a long-time Ford guy. I've had VWs, Audis, Infinitis, and even once owned a Saturn, but feel no need to give GM any more of my money as the government already gave them a good chunk of my tax dollars in the bailout.

Fixed

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, SoonerLS said:

It would probably be cheaper to outsource email to Microsoft. Not long before I retired, my former employer switched from on-prem Exchange to Office365, which rolled up the full Office Suite, e-mail, and OneDrive in one tidy package. We still use the same email addresses, but everything happens in Microsoft's datacenters  instead of ours. (All in, we had about 50,000 user accounts.)

I work for an IT company (consulting, contact center software), and we recently switch to O365 for our suite as well.  Those types of things are much more efficiently handled in the 'cloud.'

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...