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One of the potentially clear areas of change in the face of a presidential election is foreign policy. As BusinessWeek pointed out, these are unpredictable times for military deployments and for the defense contractors that provide equipment. But any impact on defense spending won't stop there; many high tech companies could find sudden shifts in demand -- and possibly drops that they didn't expect.
Google must win the handset operating system wars because Android's true mission is to deliver ads, just as a magazine and its articles generally exist to deliver ads. But today's Wall Street Journal story that Verizon and Google and nearing a mobile ad deal shows the other side of the business equation: the temptation of revenue that will turn Google's efforts into a self-reinforcing upward spiral.
For about two years, Seattle-based Jott Networks Inc. has provided a service called Jott. People call a toll-free number, record a message, and see the words translated into text and emailed, either to themselves or someone on their contact list. (I tried it with a stanza of Gilbert and Sullivan patter song, which the system got mostly right.) There is also some ability to let the service interact with others, effectively providing voice control for a number of web-based offerings. Earlier this week, the company left beta and implemented a fee structure. We caught up with CEO John Pollard for a conversation.
Maybe I'm just old and cranky, but Intel's plans for wireless recharging seem to beg for lawsuits and bad press.
For all of the availability of such online productivity suites as Google Apps and HyperOffice, applications that live on a computer's hard drive have remained king of the hill. But that's about to change, I think. Intel's acknowledgement of the netbook and nettop markets -- low cost computers designed primarily for Internet access -- with a new chipset for sub-$200 computers not only potentially opens that market wide, but helps set the foundation for hardware to drive software off into a cloud.
There's an irony in this week's news for Apple. Abundant consumer good will is evident on one hand. On the other are signs that the company dangerously close to burning bridges with newer customers who never grew up in the Apple brand cult and might have little patience when things go wrong.
With the New York Times article yesterday, the debate reemerges as to whether Verizon was wise in its FiOS strategy, upgrading the final customer link from copper to fiber optics. Frankly, I think you need to toss the usual stock market analysis aside and look at competitive fundamentals. Over the next five to ten years, FiOS may prove to be a giant club in Verizon's hands because it will have the the bandwidth for the Internet's future, not past.
Muniauction v. Thomson Corp. and i-Deal is a case, decided last month by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), that could open the door for companies to use a patented method, including but not limited to business methods, without technically infringing the patent.
GigaOM had a good post over the weekend about the top five ways business executives fail to work effectively with product and engineering execs, and that respect, ethics, determination, discipline and humility can solve the problem. I'd agree with that â€" you don't necessarily need a technical person at the top (though an affinity for technology is a smart thing to seek in a high tech CEO). But I think they missed the boat a bit. In describing the problems, Kevin Fortuna and Marty Abbott were specific, which makes it easier to see a situation for what it is. I think the following six positive habits for executives would be a good counterweight.
It's official: the media declares that cloud computing is changing the world. For anyone who's made more than one circuit around the high tech block, this sounds like many other bits of jargon -- SaaS, MSP, ASP, web services, thin client, client server, even mainframe timesharing -- and for good reason. The concept of running, from a single location, major computing services for thousands of users is actually an old one. But in their rush to jump aboard the latest fad gravy train, many companies are stumbling and taking their customers with them. As a result, they have tossed the mud that will sully the cloud name and require yet another new term in the future to entice customers now jaded and distrustful.
It sounds as though the reports that handsets powered by Google's Android software would be delayed until 2009 are wrong. Well, that is if the New York Times story is right and HTC handsets for T-Mobile are out before Christmas Whether it will be a true rival for the iPhone or Blackberry is impossible to tell yet, but this isn't about one handset versus another. What is happening is a battle, at least on Google's side, for the ability to serve mobile advertising at all. And the company will use every trick to make economics work in its favor. If it does this right, Apple may remain a premium device, but the market will move toward Google and more affordable devices with similar features. And that means Google stays in the ad business.
A court ruling on the Jacobsen v. Katzer case this Wednesday had many declaring it a "win" for open source software. I spoke to a few lawyers about the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) decision for a better understanding of what happened and how it affects software vendors of all stripes, whether in the free or fee camps. Participating were Neil MacBride, vice president of anti-piracy and general council of the Business Software Alliance; James Vasile, legal counsel for the Software Freedom Law Center; and Jeffrey Neuburger, partner and co-chair of the technology, media and communications practice at law firm Proskauer Rose. I've pulled quotes together in a "round table" form for convenience.
Semiconductor design tool vendor Cadence Design Systems has given up on buying rival Mentor Graphics when the price became more than it could afford, or borrow. This isn't an isolated failed deal, but an indicator of the problems that the electronic design assistance (EDA) market has been seeing â€" a flat market, entrenched competition, and nothing new on the horizon making chip designers reach for their wallets.
There is a mania in this country for mobile advertising. Not on the part of consumers at the moment, and not necessarily on the part of advertisers, either. The supporters are the people who want to facilitate the conversation of commerce, and the latest bellying up to the bar was done yesterday by Google's Eric Schmidt in an interview with Jim Cramer. The question is whether that bar is serving Kool-Aid or not, and how much of the company's activities, like the handset operating system Android, may be there to support the mobile message.
Ever since the FCC blessed the union of Sirius and XM to form one satellite radio company, opinions have run the gamut. At least one analyst firm expects total unit sales to continue rising, but as a long term subscriber to one of the services, I wonder whether some of the inherent limitations I've found, and others that might come up, are going to cap the potential popularity.
