Author: Tom Nolle

There’s been a lot of discussion about Cisco’s ceasing development of its Application Control Engine elements for some of its most popular switches and routers.  More, given that the company has also cut investment in WAAS.  Some are taking this as Cisco’s abandonment of the spaces to more agile competitors, but I don’t think so….

The iPhone 5 may not be revolutionary (well, let’s be fair—it’s not) but there’s never been much doubt it would be successful, and in fact the early allotment sold out in no time and much faster than earlier models.  The question for the industry now is how to deal with this phenomenon.  It’s not the…

It’s obvious that software defined networking is the “next big thing”, at least from the perspective of the media and those few VCs prepared to invest in infrastructure.  In the last couple weeks we’ve seen some new details on SDN plans from Plexxi, a long-standing stealth startup in the space, and news that “MPLS fiend”…

In this blog I’ve noted many times that service providers have been searching for years for a true “service layer” architecture, one that could help them enter the new age of OTT or hosted services.  Network equipment vendors have been curiously backward in supporting this transformation, even though many of them have most of the…

Cisco reported its numbers, and they were pretty much on target with expectations.  The company announced a large increase in its dividend, and the Street is saying that Cisco is continuing to progress toward becoming a “mature company”.  I think that’s a bit overstated, but there’s no question that Cisco is facing that sort of…

S&P added its voice to Moody’s and downgraded Alcatel-Lucent to a negative outlook.  The rating agency cited the combination of slower capex growth among telcos and increased competition.  They’re right about the problem, but I remain convinced that Alcatel-Lucent and the others in the industry have created this mess for themselves by sticking their heads…

Yahoo surprised investors by backpedaling on returning cash to investors from their exit of their China Alibaba Group position.  Though Mayer hasn’t said what she’d do with the money instead, one obvious possibility is M&A.  There has been talk about having Yahoo develop or acquire platform service capabilities that would exploit social and mobile trends,…

AT&T’s decision to buy NextWave is clearly a gamble, though insiders tell me that it’s not as much a wing and a prayer as it might seem.  NextWave has a bunch of 2.3GHz spectrum (WCS or Wireless Communications Services) that was never certified for mobile use, and the payoff for the deal seems linked to…

Ben Verwaayen, in an interview with the Financial Times, took responsibility for Alcatel-Lucent’s problems, which is fair given that he’s the CEO.  My only issue is that I think he’s looking at the WRONG issues.  Ben seems to think the problem was too much optimism two months ago.  I think it was too much inertia…

According to the running commentary after the announcement, Oracle’s purchase of Xsigo is a step toward SDNs, or maybe it’s to go after VMware in network virtualization, or to boost its cloud credentials.  And I thought coverage of the Nicira deal was vacuous!  Of course, the Xsigo probably doesn’t do any of these things, and…