E-Piphanies

Innovation, Not Cost, New Cloud Battle Cry

Maybe folks are simply trying to talk themselves out of the recession (which would be a good thing in itself), but it seems like the conversation around cloud computing is shifting from cost-cutting to unleashing innovation.

It seemed pretty natural over the past couple of difficult years to hear both vendors and their customers in enterprise IT talk about cloud computing as a way of essentially outsourcing IT management and shifting the burden of capex from the enterprise to the application and hardware vendors.

To read more, please see Innovation, Not Cost, New Cloud Battle Cry on my Digital Life blog at InformationWeek.

FCC Considering Spectrum Swap Between Broadcasters, Carriers

A Washington, D.C.-based market research firm says Federal Communications Commission (FCC) staff is talking with TV broadcasters about buying back some spectrum that it would then lease or auction to wireless carriers, with the broadcasters getting in on the action.

This makes a lot of sense, particularly given the concerns the Obama Administration has expressed over the paucity of wireless spectrum, and how that scarcity hovers over the burgeoning wireless industry as mobile Internet usage explodes. According to Blair Levin, the person in charge of crafting the FCC’s national broadband plan, “The record is very clear that we’re facing a looming spectrum gap.”

To read more, please see FCC Considering Spectrum Swap Between Broadcasters, Carriers on my Technology Insights blog at BNET.

Windows 7 Upgrade Causing 'Endless Boot Loop'

You know that “Broken Promises” ad that Apple is running on TV these days, which essentially calls Microsoft a liar for saying that Windows 7 is “different” because it won’t cause the problems that previous operating systems did for customers?

At first blush, the ad seemed mean-spirited to me, but those screams you’re hearing are from Microsoft users trying, and mostly failing, to upgrade to Windows 7. Worse, there are currently hundreds of posts on the Microsoft Windows 7 forum from frustrated users stuck in an “endless boot loop.”

To read more, please see Windows 7 Upgrade Causing 'Endless Boot Loop' on my Technology Insights blog at BNET.

NetSuite Introduces ERP For Services Companies

NetSuite introduced a version of its enterprise resource planning [ERP] software suite for services companies today, including support for multi-country and subsidiary management.

NetSuite follows in the footsteps of Salesforce.com and CODA, which have also recently introduced cloud-based ERP suites for the burgeoning services sector.

To read more, please see NetSuite Introduces ERP For Services Companies on my Tech Business blog at The Faster Times.

Cisco Acquires Web Security Vendor ScanSafe

Cisco is augmenting its enterprise security offering by acquiring San Francisco and London-based ScanSafe to support its network security business for both on-premise and cloud-based applications.

Tom Gillis, vice president and general manager of Cisco's Security Technology Business Unit, said the acquisition will help Cisco realize its visions of a "borderless network security architecture that spans network and cloud-based services."

To read more, please see Cisco Acquires Web Security Vendor ScanSafe on CTO Edge.

Verizon Droid Gets New Google Innovation

Verizon Wireless is already cashing in on the benefits of Google’s Android mobile operating system, and the first Droid phone hasn’t even hit the market yet.

Google posted a blog today demonstrating its new mobile Google Maps navigation feature, which not only gives its mobile operating system a significant leg up on the likes of Apple’s iPhone, but trumps stand-alone GPS units from Garmin, TomTom, Magellan and other vendors of global positioning system technology. According to Google, fewer than 10 percent of GPS systems are connected to the Internet in real time, which means they don’t have the most up-to-date information.

To read more, please see Verizon Droid Gets New Google Innovation on my Technology Insights blog at BNET.

Gartner Muddies Cloud Message

Cloud software vendor NetSuite held a small event for potential customers today at the New York Stock Exchange, where CEO Zach Nelson rang the closing bell. But I bet he would have liked to take the hammer to Gartner analyst Jeff Woods, who gave a rambling presentation earlier in the afternoon that would have been utterly incoherent were it not for the fact that he was following the script of a well-worn PowerPoint presentation.

The gist, I think, of Woods’ presentation is that cloud computing — services which allow customers to lease information technology infrastructure and applications over the Internet  — is the future of enterprise IT.  And while cloud computing already seems to be all the rage, he said that future generations (PhD candidates in Woods’ imagination) will mark 2010 as the year we will have become modern. The era we’re living in now, said Woods, is still “pre-history.”

To read more, please see Gartner Muddies Cloud Message on my Technology Insights blog at BNET.

Dealing With Digital Depression 2.0

I knew things had really changed when I came across a homeless man sitting on the ground at Columbus Circle last weekend, panhandling for $15 million to fund an "electronic Democracy project." One thousand dollars would go towards an iBook and $5 for lunch. He wouldn't tell me about his project in detail unless I put up some "serious money," but his request drove home how much has changed in our society since even the recession of 2002-2003, never mind 1991.

Then my colleague, Cora Nucci, pointed out a Boston Globe story about a homeless man named Kevin Boudreau, who posted an ad on Craigslist asking for

blankets, batteries, a radio, and "some assistance with equipment for building shelter"

Naturally, his ad was met with a lot of skepticism, at least initially, and as it turns out, he's currently not in a position to pick up anything people may want to donate.

To read more, please see Dealing With Digital Depression 2.0 on my Digital Life blog at InformationWeek.

Google Sucking Premium Life Away From Telcos

The idea that Google might introduce a Gphone was never real, and if it was, posed little threat to the established carriers. With no experience building hardware (the enterprise search appliance hardly counts), Google would have disappeared down the rabbit hole of supply chain management horrors and unforeseeable product glitches (like exploding batteries), to the delight of Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and all the others.

But that was never in Google’s plans. Google looked at the wireless market from an objective distance and saw what is obvious to everyone: the carriers make money — and generate their highest margins — with services, not devices. And they charge ridiculous amounts for simple stuff like call forwarding, while being unable to provide truly useful services like speech-to-text. And no matter how much money consumers spend, they still can’t control the length of the messages they record or what the whole experience is as callers.

To read more, please see Google Sucking Premium Life Away From Telcos on my Business Tech blog at The Faster Times.

Does Nokia Know What Time It Is?

Nokia sent me a confirmation to an event promoting its new N900 series smartphone. Can you spot what’s missing here?

Welcome to the N900 meet-up !
The New York meet-up is held in the Nokia Flagship store at 5 East 57th Street, New York.

The doors open at 7.30pm and the ‘official’ part starts at 8pm. For the following couple of hours you will be able to meet likeminded people, as well as Maemo folks from Nokia and the community. We will provide some nibble food and N900 demos, so you can get a feel for the device in case you have not had the chance yet or just have fun with it. The event then ends at 10pm after which we can continue the chats elsewhere. We will also have a surprise lottery at the end of the event.

As the space is limited, we have a name list at the door so we ask you to bring a piece of identification with you. We are very exited about the N900, and we hope you are as well.  :)

Best Regards,
The Nseries team
The Nokia N900 - Extreme speed, outstanding performance

I’ll tell you what’s missing from this email: the date of the event. So does this really qualify as “outstanding performance?”

To read more, please see Does Nokia Know What Time It Is? on my Technology Insights blog at BNET.