It’s obvious that the big question this week, politically and economically, will be what happens in Libya. Politically, the situation poses a kind of double threat. First it’s a continuation of a kind of Middle-East-domino problem that might or might not result in democratic sweep of the region. Second, the turmoil puts western governments in…
The most interesting set of tech developments today relates to cloud computing positioning and services. At the Enterprise Connect conference, Salesforce and Global Crossing both made cloud announcements, and both had what I see as a common thread; create a SaaS cloud service and build a platform-as-a-service offering around it. Salesforce did this based on…
Juniper made a second major announcement in two weeks, this time its PTX MPLS-optical supercore switch. The product’s roots probably lie in early interest (“early” meaning the middle of the last decade) by Verizon in a new core architecture for IP networks that would eliminate the transit routing that was common in hierarchical IP cores. …
The big news today is Apple’s new iPad announcement, an event whose usual Apple drama was upstaged by a surprise visit by Steve Jobs. The essence of the announcement was familiar; iPads are making us smarter, healthier, richer, better looking, and so forth, and that’s from the first version. Now look what’s going to happen! What is…
The Internet has proved disruptive to a lot of traditional business models, and possibly none more than the retail model. Recent numbers from Forrester say that online retail sales will hit nearly $280 billion by 2015, and I think they could easily top $350 billion. While this is small potatoes in absolute terms, the online…
The weekend brought more disorder to the Middle East, particularly Libya, but while the initial turmoil there had knocked stock prices down a bit, the decline has not been alarming and it was reversed on Friday. Today futures and the European exchanges both suggest an up market again. Even cooler-than-expected growth in US consumer spending…
Image counts, in every way and at every level of purchase decision-making, and Huawei is one who knows that better than most. From the first, it’s been tarred with its association with China at multiple levels; first as a poster child for the “cheap Asian economics” story but also often behind the scenes as a…
It’s not uncommon to find a combination of good and bad news in the tech space, and we’ve got that today. For example, on the bad side, HP’s numbers. On the good, Juniper’s new QFabric. HP announced disappointing results, a contrast not only to Street expectations but to competitor Dell’s recent numbers. The problem, says…
Amazon has further complicated the already-complex world of streaming online video by announcing their own service, which is included in the free-shipping Prime membership. The service currently includes about 5,000 items (movies and TV). Obviously this isn’t good news for Netflix or even Apple, but it’s also a new step in the growing challenge faced…
Apple, already facing an anti-trust review or two, is now getting growing push-back from app providers over the subscription-sharing rule. Apple wants a cut of every subscription, meaning that they want apps that sell something to sell only through Apple’s store and not directly to the consumer. If dissent spreads here, it could be a…