Author: Tom Nolle

Nobody doubts that we’re seeing a revolution in video, but there are revolutions and revolutions, and it’s not yet clear just how sweeping the video change will be.  Some recent data from Nielson seems to show that while online video viewing is increasing, it’s increasing primarily within a largely static group.  Not only that, the four-hours-plus…

Economic news is largely lacking today but the markets appear to be headed for another downturn, driven perhaps again by speculative short selling ahead of earnings season.  Monetary and economic data worldwide isn’t suggesting any problem at this point, but it does seem to me that the stock market is trending a bit ahead of…

An industry consolidating is an industry commoditizing at the product/service level, and that’s obviously happening in telecom.  The AT&T bid for T-Mobile has now been followed by a Level 3 bid for Global Crossing; both are subject to regulatory approval, of course. The simple reason for all of this is disintermediation, the fact that operators…

Lots of interesting and potentially pivotal happenings in tech, and perhaps the most interesting thing is that the real meanings of all of these happenings are more important than the surface topics! AT&T wants to buy T-Mobile, which is no surprise given that DT has been looking for years at selling its US property and…

Yesterday wasn’t a happy day for global markets, but it’s already looking like sanity might prevail.  Most on the Street realize that Japan isn’t a large enough chunk of the global economic pie to cause a major disruption even if we presumed that their economy was wrecked—which it’s not.  There will be short-term dislocations as…

The nuclear situation in Japan is now starting to rattle markets that were previously prepared to shrug off the disaster in the context of global economic recovery.  At this point, I still believe that the issue is short-selling by hedge funds rather than any indication that the disaster will impact global economics in the longer…

We’ve got a number of interesting points to end our week, and monetization issues are at the heart of them.  Let’s get moving! Google is taking some steps that show how hard it is to be a portal player.  First, it’s letting users block sites in search results, and second it’s classifying gmail to facilitate…

It’s obvious that the big question this week, politically and economically, will be what happens in Libya.  Politically, the situation poses a kind of double threat.  First it’s a continuation of a kind of Middle-East-domino problem that might or might not result in democratic sweep of the region.  Second, the turmoil puts western governments in…

Juniper made a second major announcement in two weeks, this time its PTX MPLS-optical supercore switch.  The product’s roots probably lie in early interest (“early” meaning the middle of the last decade) by Verizon in a new core architecture for IP networks that would eliminate the transit routing that was common in hierarchical IP cores. …

The big news today is Apple’s new iPad announcement, an event whose usual Apple drama was upstaged by a surprise visit by Steve Jobs.  The essence of the announcement was familiar; iPads are making us smarter, healthier, richer, better looking, and so forth, and that’s from the first version.  Now look what’s going to happen! What is…