Cisco is consolidating its video activities into a single unit and its Videoscape head is leaving. The decision seems an odd one to me if you look at things from a market perspective. Videoscape was arguably the most complete suite of content delivery elements available from anyone, but the sheer scope of the product seemed…
The FCC Does it Again!
The FCC released its first fairly detailed study of Internet performance in promised-versus-delivered form, and while it has some interesting stuff in it, there’s also a rather substantial internal contradiction in the whole study that is troubling for our ability to set broadband policy. It seems the government has ignored the whole basis for IP…
Reading the iCloud
Apple’s iCloud is advancing quickly to production status, and with the progress comes more clarity into what the service will offer. Three things about iCloud caught my eye; Windows integration, the pricing for data storage, and the potential competition with Microsoft’s Live strategy. I’ve noted in the past that one of the biggest issues in…
Huawei Goes in For the Kill
Huawei, who has been gaining influence by leaps and bounds simply because it’s the network industry price leader, showed real gains in strategic insight in our most recent survey. Now, Huawei is demonstrating that it intends to keep up its “build-a-strategy” trend by naming a kind of “Chief Security Officer”. The mainstream thought is that…
Street Signals, Wrong Signals?
Financial analysts and investors seem to have decided that networking as a sector is in trouble, but most seem to have missed the point on why that’s the case. Yesterday, the markets sent Alcatel-Lucent down about the same 20% that Juniper fell on the day before, suggesting that they believed both companies faced identical headwinds. …
Is Half a Loaf Enough for Alcatel-Lucent?
Alcatel-Lucent announced its numbers this morning, and while their results met expectations on the revenue side they fell short of Street estimates on the profit line. That sent their shares skidding pre-market, making them another telecom equipment casualty. The financial analysts are calling this a second-half market weakness, but of course it’s more than that. …
Juniper’s Service-Driven Miss
Well, Juniper reported its numbers yesterday after the markets closed, and they booted their quarter and their guidance in a performance reminiscent of Cisco’s last quarterly call. Nothing matched Street expectations, and the stock was down by 17% in the after-market. Part of the issue may have been that the stock was actually up during…
Netflix and the Amazon Threat
Netflix has become the face of OTT video in terms of the opportunities and problems it presents, but the company now obviously has some challenges of its own to face. The latest quarterly numbers for Netflix were actually very good; they beat analyst estimates handily. The problem is the price hike they initiated recently, a…
Carrier Capex Likely Slipping
Financial analysts have noted that US carrier capex was soft in the first half, a trend that’s somewhat consistent globally, and also that there appears to be a shift of focus toward projects that are perceived as being direct revenue generators. This information backs up our survey results, which have shown that monetization projects are…
What Would Apple/Hulu Wrought?
And we thought Wednesday’s business-level announcements created tumult in the market! Thursday was even more complicated, exciting, and potentially disruptive, and in addition may present even more widespread impact. The story that Apple may buy Hulu is certainly the most disruptive of all. Apple has been the major disruptor of the broadband market, by being…