Cisco and Alcatel-Lucent both delivered their quarterly numbers late last week, and in both cases the numbers were decent, but the fortunes of the two companies’ stock was different. Cisco’s declined after its report, and Alcatel-Lucent climbed significantly. The question is whether there was a difference in the numbers that justified the different investor reaction,…
Juniper’s partner conference this week has managed to catch the eye of Wall Street, which makes it more important than these sort of events typically are. It’s not an accident; Juniper has been promoting its event more than usual too. The new J-Partner program will spend more, promote partnerships more, and be dedicated to “driving…
Video and streaming are obviously going to be hot topics for a long time, and there’s interesting stuff happening all through the food chain. The question is whether the ecosystem that’s being pushed in so many directions at so many levels is going to converge on anything that all the players can survive in. CES…
Apple may be moving into the educational market in a different way, going after the enormous, highly politicized, and highly profitable textbook business. The details of this move aren’t known at this point but there are some interesting questions about the whole textbook-ebook thing that bear review. It might be something actually useful in education….
The story that PC sales slipped in 4Q, first raised as a Microsoft comment yesterday, is now being quasi-confirmed by more detailed shipment data released by various Wall Street researchers. One, citing Gartner, says that y/y growth in PC sales was well below seasonality in the quarter, and the expectation overall is that PC sales…
What’s the lesson of CES so far? That a tablet is a window on the cloud. Eric Schmidt danced around that point with his notion of Android making your house cooperate with you by essentially sensing your behavior. Walk into a room and it’s like the old song; “The room was singing love songs…” because…
Surprise, surprise! The latest data from the European Telecommunications Operators Association shows that costs are up and revenues are down, and the author wonders how long this sort of imbalance can go on without compromising spending. Maybe it already has; we noted that Acme Packet showed weakness that could be a symptom of a capex…
We’re on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show, and it’s already clear to most of us that the event is in jeopardy. Not only are some big names (like Microsoft) expected to withdraw after this year, the whole notion of shows in general and this one in particular is under threat. Ironically, what’s threatening…
I’ve got a kind of “tale of two TVs” today, if that’s not too euphonic for you! The big story at CES may not be tablets after all, but Google TV. And the biggest IPTV success story may be doubling down on their approach, but shifting to Microsoft’s Mediaroom. Google has tried TV already, and…
Cisco is discontinuing its personal/consumer telepresence product, Umi (or however you like to spell it; I’m not going to imitate their accent-U!), a move that’s no big surprise to most industry-watchers, including me. The big question isn’t why (because it didn’t sell) but whether the move might represent a gradual shift by Cisco toward a…