As anticipated, there has been little to no reaction from investors regarding the retirement of the Mercury name plate by Ford Motor Company (F). Given the resounding lack of identity which has surrounded the Mercury brand, eliminating the line seems like a prudent and timely move. Market share for Mercury has dwindled to less than 1%, and estimates put Mercury's portion of Ford's share price at something less than 2%.

Analysts estimate Mercury's value to Ford is approximately $1 billion, while the company on the whole is estimated to be worth approximately $38 billion. When given the fact that Ford expects to transition it's Mercury dealers into the Lincoln brand line, the fundamental value impact on Ford shall be essentially nonexistent. The company has declared that this inter-company transition shall not result in any job loss.

The 2009 equity market recovery has led to an increase in Q ratios for the world's largest retailers. What does this mean? They're using their tangible assets effectively and have demonstrated the strength of intangible factors, such as brand and operational efficiency, to create shareholder value.

"Q" is the ratio of a public company's market capitalization to the market value of its tangible assets. So, a Q ratio of above one means that investors value the company's non-tangible assets -- e.g., brand, differentiation, innovation, customer experience and customer loyalty -- and see these factors as reasons to pay a higher price per share. A company with a Q ratio of below one can't generate a sufficient return on its physical assets. According to Deloitte, this could create an arbitrage opportunity, as it may be ripe for an acquisition.

Yesterday I visited a near by Gap store in 'up-scale' Santa Monica. When I walked in I was immediately disappointed by how down scale the store was. It was clean and bright and the sales people were helpful but there was little of interest to purchase and few customers too.

Actually, I was out for a lunch walk and the Gap store was on the way so I decided to see if they might have a nice simple shirt. As an architect and designer (dad was a tailor) I was wondering about their window displays before I entered. The Santa Monica store has seven large windows, each with mannequins wearing a reddish-mauve t-shirt with black jeans. The motif repeated in each window as if that was the only thing the Gap sold, or as if repeating the same thing over and over created something 'chic' or artistic -- I don't think so. It looked poor on product and ideas!

Since the crumpled, wrinkled, used, worn-out look is obviously in vogue you can be sure there was nothing for me. I can do that to my clothes by myself without anyone's help and without paying extra. Even notwithstanding my own personal taste, there were really very few products for sale, or variations on the theme even if one were looking for this type of wardrobe. I will not waste your time by enumerating the number of things that were not available that should have been, or could have been. I will simply point out that my impression was that this was a nice place with nice people and NO IDEAS and NO MERCHANDISE to choose from!

The women's section had more selection and the kids and baby offerings were only a little better.

With the purchase of consumer Internet router and switch manufacturer Linksys in 2003, Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) appeared to want to break into the consumer marketplace by offering a line of modern household Internet products. Not sure what overlying competitive strategy propelled the company, but so it was. Linksys routers, such as the popular WRT54G, are now emblazoned by the Cisco name and logo, although the design is still Linksys'.

Is Cisco wanting to become a household name like Motorola, Microsoft or Pepsi? Most likely -- but Cisco products aren't kept in the pocket (Motorola), in the pantry (Pepsi) or in front of you when working hours at the computer (Microsoft). That is, unless you have your Linksys router with the tiny Cisco label directly in front of you while typing up that Microsoft Word document.

What goal does Cisco have to be entrenched among the consumer populace? If it potentially spends hundreds of millions of dollars to brand itself for the consumer space -- like it is purported to be doing -- what will the payback be beyond having a brand that consumers know better? After all, most Cisco products are sold to IT departments and are tucked away in server closets, yes?

What does Cisco have to gain with becoming more well-known to the average joe? If you own Cisco stock, do you approve? Cisco sells more Internet-traffic equipment that anyone in the world, so perhaps Cisco is making this push just for overall branding purposes and to see if it can raise CSCO stock to where it may deserve to belong, price-wise.

America is all Online now, right? TimeWarner says that its division, American Online, has now accomplished its eponymous mission and managed to get America, from purple mountains to fruited plains, on the Internet. Thus the division is changing its name officially to "AOL LLC."

The "LLC" organization will reflect the 5% stake Google purchased last week.

According to an email sent to all employees (including yours truly), "consumers already know us by our initials and believe that AOL stands for a more contemporary Internet company." I can't imagine this news will have much of an impact on the consumer experience -- I mean, when was the last time you said "America Online"? -- but it's interesting to hear the rationale behind it.

(And, as an aside, this news comes at about the same time the company rolls out all new business cards for its AOL employees - they're pretty and vertical and so much better than the old ones. I wonder if there's any correlation between vertically-oriented business cards and stock price?)