Well, the report on PC sales has pretty well demonstrated that we do have a new dynamic in terms of “personal computing”, a dynamic in which the device that took its name from the concept is falling out of favor. This is coming about because a seemingly small force–mobility–is driving a systemic change in human…
Can it be done? That’s a question that I’m sure gets asked a lot in our industry. We see or hear a news item or claim and we ask “the question”. Part of the prevalence of this favorite question is the cynicism bred of years of hype, of course, but part is also a reflection…
We’ve had a couple of potentially significant developments in the networking space, developments that seem on the surface to be contradictory. On the one hand, big firms like IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, and Ericsson have created an open-source project for SDN development, called “Open Daylight”. This suggests wide industry support for an open SDN framework, and…
We’re coming into that wonderful quarterly ballet that the financial industry calls “earnings season”, a bit of a misnomer given that we actually have four of them any year. Nomenclature notwithstanding, this is a good time to look at the health and ecosystemic pressures of tech overall. We’ll be getting at least a snapshot of…
We continue to see major vendor announcements on SDN, but obviously some are more responsive/revolutionary than others. Juniper has announced its EX9200 product, which it’s billing as a programmable core switch and also a stepping-stone toward SDN. There may be some significant news here, but it’s not on the SDN front—at least not for now….
Alcatel-Lucent finally did their SDN announcement, and it was in most ways a major step forward for SDN, perhaps the biggest step taken by any of the vendors so far. However, as is often the case, the articulation may not do justice to the technology. In fact, in many ways the material was downright murky,…
Oracle’s decision to purchase Tekelec, having just done the Acme Packet deal, seems to be indicating that the software giant has something in mind. The question is what that something might be, and it’s a pressing question because of Oracle’s size and potential in the network market. The obvious possibility is that Oracle is looking…
Alcatel-Lucent is scheduled to announce it’s “data center SDN” vision next Tuesday (April 2nd) and the announcement may well be one of the most important in the company’s history from the perspective of addressing a compelling need. Whether it will be important in the sense of moving the SDN ball forward, even in the specific…
I’m all for having discussions on the impact of SDN. I’d prefer they have some substance, though, and we have a couple of examples this morning of SDN-impact stories that don’t (in my mind at least) hold much water. FRB downgraded both Cisco and Juniper yesterday, citing among other factors the view that SDN was…
Software giant Oracle surprised the Street with a pretty major miss on their top line, sending their stock tumbling in the after-market yesterday and pre-market today. The truth is that the Street may be underestimating the questions here, because all of the indicators for the tech space says that Oracle should be doing better. Software…