With Apple (supposedly, at least) ready to launch a new iPhone this week, it’s also facing what might be its real “second pole” of competition with Amazon’s Fire HD. The new Kindle is iPad-sized, but more significantly it expands the notion of free wireless for some content downloads to a cheap LTE plan that could…
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…
The DoJ cleared the Verizon deal with cable companies for spectrum in return for joint marketing, but with conditions. The primary fear of regulators at the DoJ was that Verizon might not roll FiOS as aggressively under a deal that let them co-market cable services. FiOS, like all FTTH, is very sensitive to demand density…
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…
Consumerism is raising its head again in networking, and yet at the same time we’re seeing some new initiatives aimed at businesses. The temptation here is to say that these seeming contradictions are unified by the search for profit, but there may also be some technical factors that are either driving changes or perhaps being…
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…
Cisco will be reporting its earnings this week, something that for sure everyone in networking and on the Street will be anticipating. By any measure, Cisco is a giant in the space and most certainly it’s the leader in IP technology, the layer where the Internet and most business networking is done. To paraphrase Sinatra,…
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,…
Facing up to change isn’t easy; human nature seems to have deeply entrenched the notion that the safest and best is what’s already been done. Maybe the reason is that new things often produce bad things, particularly for established markets and players. Today we have two examples of change-facing, one where a company is adapting…
If you’ve followed my blogging here, you know that I’m a special fan of the class of system tools called “DevOps”. These tools are designed to automate application deployment by transferring information from the development process to a form of template, container, or script, that can then be used to install the application when it’s…