If you’re a cloud fan, which I am in at least the sense that I believe there’s a cloud in everyone’s future, it’s been a mixed week for news. VMware has announced its Nicira-based NaaS platform aimed I think at cloud data centers, and the move has gained a lot of traction among the “anybody-but-Cisco”…
Microsoft’s Problems: More than One Man Deep
Probably a lot of people, both now and in the future, are going to say that Steve Ballmer’s departure from Microsoft was “the end of an era”. Certainly in a management continuity sense that was true; Ballmer was Gates’ heir apparent after all, so he was a continuation of the original Microsoft. What’s not certain…
NFV Savings and Impacts: From Both Sides
I’ve been reading a lot of commentary on network functions virtualization (NFV) and I’m sure that you all have been too. Most of it comes from sources who are not actively involved with NFV in any way, and since the NFV ISG’s work isn’t yet public it’s a bit hard for me to see how…
HP Results Show a Clear Path, but Not a Will
HP reported their numbers, and they were somewhat par for the tech earnings course this season, meaning they missed in revenue, met guidance on profits, and were tepid in their expectations for the coming year. The Street has been all over the place on HP stock since the call, but I guess the trend is…
HP’s Only Path to Survival
HP is scheduled to report earnings tonight after the US markets close, and in keeping with my practice with Cisco, I’m going to focus today on what HP should be doing, uncluttered by the way the numbers fall. Again as with Cisco, I may blog a bit about what actually happened. HP is an IT…
Channelized versus OTT Video: More Data
Some of the latest data on TV providers seems to reinforce the notion that the video world is changing, and of course that’s true. The problem for TV delivery strategists is that it’s hard to tell just what factors are driving the changes, and without that key insight you can’t easily address the problems that…
How “Open” is My Interface?
Carol Wilson raised an interesting point in an article in Light Reading on SDN and NFV—that of collaboration. I’m happy that she found the approach CloudNFV has taken to collaboration and openness credible, but I think some more general comments on the topic would be helpful to those who want to assess how “open” a…
Tech: Does it Crouch or Does it Stand Tall?
It should be clear to everyone in networking this week that the industry is moving to a very different place. There was a time when the limiting factor in entertainment, communications, and empowerment was delivery. We spent like sailors (as they say) to get better delivery because we had a business case for what we…
Cisco Proves Our Point
Well, if you thought that a telecom spending spree or an enterprise market flush with unexpected cash were going to drive Cisco and the industry to unprecedented growth, Cisco’s call likely disabused you of that notion. While Cisco beat most estimates very slightly, its guidance was considered tepid and certainly the continued references to “challenging…
Where Will Cisco Find TAM?
Cisco reports its earnings tonight, so you might wonder why I’d blog about Cisco before the Big Event. The answer is that I’m not blogging about what Cisco did in the last quarter, but what it’s facing in 2014 (I may get to that last quarter on my blog on Thursday!) Chambers has been very…