The Network Carrier Dilemma

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This article in Forbes magazine about network equipment providers enabling network carriers to expose service APIs (Application Programing Interfaces) started an interesting debate with Alcatel-Lucent’s Laura Merling (@magicmerl), Mike Maney (@the_spinmd) and others on Twitter.

The  crux of the debate is whether exposing developer APIs at the network layer is a good or a bad thing. This is the latest round in the ‘dumb pipes vs. smart network’ debate which lies at the heart of an economic dilemma facing the network carrier business model.Continue reading →

The Jobs Are Not Coming Back

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The NY Times published an interesting article today the impact of robotics on manufacturing jobs using Amazon’s purchase of robot maker Kiva Systems as an exemplar. The core question raised in the article is whether the adoption of automation technologies will create more unemployment or whether – as has been seen in the past – displaced workers will re-train and become employed in other productive areas of the economy. Continue reading →

Mahler’s Ninth

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Waiting for the start of Mahler’s Ninth. Performed by the New York Philharmonic, Avery Fisher Hall at the Lincoln Center, New York.

Intel’s ARMageddon II

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Back in January of this year I published an article about the threat the ARM processor architecture would pose to Intel in the high margin – highly profitable – market for server processors. Bloomberg published a story yesterday indicating that HP is preparing to enter the ARM based server business. I don’t own Intel stock but if I did I’d be selling. ARMageddon is just over the horizon.

Policy Challenges for A Globally Integrated Innovation, Production and Market Platform

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“Cloud computing” is much more than simply a new set of technologies and business models.  It is rapidly emerging as the platform that will underpin the next generation of digital products and services. Cloud Computing is transforming how consumers, companies, and governments store information, how they process and exchange that information, and how they utilize computing power.  Consequently, it opens a new set of policy discussions while at the same time underlining the importance of old debates.

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The World Needs Eyes And Ears on Syria

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The growing slaughter of innocent civilians by the Syrian regime under Bashar al-Assad – and his brother Maher Assad – is posing quite a challenge for the international community which risks a re-run of the impotence demonstrated during the Balkan crisis. The situation in Syria is different however and opens doors to more creative approaches at intervention. Its time to deploy the high-tech tools of information warfare.

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Chemical Reaction Dynamics as a Model for Technology Platform Competition

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In various corporate meeting rooms at Samsung, Microsoft, HP, RIM and Google eager teams of engineers, marketing folks and freshly minted MBAs are trying to figure out the magic formula which will deliver a product to compete with Apple’s iPad. Hopefully they were all paying attention in high-school because the first steps to understanding the dynamics of this type of platform competition were almost certainly covered in chemistry class.Continue reading →

When Apple Became “The Man”

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This weekends pranking of the future Apple store in Hamburg shows just how far perceptions of Apple and Microsoft have changed. This puts Microsoft in the position of being the scrappy competitor fighting against all the encompassing dominance of ‘The Man”. If we’re not careful the act of putting a little Windows logo in the rear window of your car may become the very definition of geek counter-culturalism 🙂