The holiday season is always dominated by consumerism, but it should be pretty clear to everyone that networking itself is increasingly dominated by the consumer. I think that we’re headed very quickly for a time when the consumer essentially funds all public networking, creates the design paradigms and the economic trade-offs. Along the way, though,…
The economic situation worldwide continues to become more clear and more stable, though it’s sometimes hard to glean that out of the media processes. Yes, there are still issues aplenty, but under all the swoops and swings of financial news and even financial markets, there is a clear sense that we’re trying to manage a…
Google’s let the industry have its first look at Chrome OS, which it sees as being the framework for a “cloud client” device and a platform that combines a Google desktop position with one in the smartphone space (Android) and a service-side position (Google’s cloud services) to create a new and complete (yes, and completely…
Google, master marketer, may be showing some signs of excessive spread. The company has launched its long-awaited Google Editions and also the next generation of its Nexus phone, and while supporters are trying hard to find great things to say about both, it seems clear to me that neither is fully baked. Google Editions is…
There continues to be a series of contrasts in the global recovery, and in several dimensions. The fundamentals of consumption and production seem to be moving slowly positive worldwide, though the pace is slower in Europe. In Asia, there’s more worry about things like inflation (China) or deflation (Japan), and in the US the big…
Oracle has rolled out a new high-end Sparc-based cluster server, a 16-core T3 version that seems to close off any debate on whether the company is serious about the hardware business. In fact, our rumor mill and survey data show that Oracle may be ramping up for a major effort in 2011. Software is the…
The FCC’s upcoming neutrality order, presuming that it goes forward, isn’t the only thing that the Commission has commented on that could change industry direction. Chairman Genachowski has also indicated that: Our work has also demonstrated the importance of business innovation to promote network investment and efficient use of networks, including measures to match price…
The FCC has released some comments on the Order it will be presenting on net neutrality in its December 21st meeting (if it doesn’t postpone or change the agenda again!) and the position is disappointing. At a high level, what the FCC proposes is to state again its original principles of neutrality and apply only transparency…
The EU has opened an anti-trust inquiry into Google, not the first time the search giant has been in trouble with the EU but perhaps potentially the most serious inquiry yet. Google’s market share in search and its potential for abusing that position have always been a concern, and in the EU you have to…
With Cyber Monday turning in good numbers, it’s ironic that we’re also seeing more stress cracks in the business model of the Internet in its broadest sense. The popular hope that somehow things will just get better and cheaper forever is colliding with hard economic reality within the ecosystem of the Internet as players work…