There’s no time like anytime

This Christmas I added a Windows server to our home network because my kids were finding some favorite programs were unplayable over their RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) thin clients. So I bought a very inexpensive Windows 7 desktop and for $89 at Walmart added Microsoft’s Anytime Upgrade to Windows 7 Professional, which is needed to support remote RDP desktops.  No luck with the RDP deployment so far, though, because MICROSOFT’S ANYTIME UPGRADE WEB SITE HAS BEEN DOWN FOR THE LAST TWO DAYS.

This is no way to run a business, Microsoft.  My kids want their FusionFall.

I would have understood had the site really been down for maintenance as it says, but two days isn’t maintenance.

It would […]

By |December 29th, 2011|2011|86 Comments
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Like shooting ducks in a barrel

Fourteen years ago I gave a speech to the National Association of State and Provincial Lotteries at their annual meeting, held that year in Minneapolis. They gave me a hand-carved wooden duck decoy that’s on my bookshelf today. My topic was this thing called the Internet and what it would mean to state lotteries and organized gambling in general. I told them it would rock their world. And it has. But thanks to a ruling last week from the U.S. Department of Justice, the lotteries may finally be in a position to fight back.

What amazed me back in 1998 was that the lottery folks weren’t Las Vegas-type gambling executives but more like the people down […]

By |December 27th, 2011|2011|56 Comments
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Why big companies can’t change

There’s a very good TED Talk by Simon Sinek about how great leaders inspire companies by asking why?  I think it also goes a long way toward explaining why big companies don’t handle change well.  It’s not that they can’t ask why?, it’s that the answer doesn’t make sense at their scale, though it should.

The Dow 30 Industrials that make up that all-important stock average began in 1896 as the Dow 12 and of those original 12 only General Electric survives on the list today. None of the other 11 are on today’s list even under different names, though some of the companies do survive. Many of those former industry titans, though — […]

By |December 20th, 2011|2011|94 Comments
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For Mobile OS’s, Three’s a Crowd

I was speaking recently at a software company very interested in mobile apps. One of their concerns had to do with which operating systems to support.  Should they do them all?  Just a couple? My advice was that three’s a crowd.

Technical markets tend to divide like bettors at the racetrack where five percent win, 10 percent break even while 85 percent lose. Turning these numbers on their head and applying them to mobile OS revenue, IOS (iPhone, iPad, iGizmo to be named later) will generate 85 percent, Android 10 percent (because it is Open Source and free) leaving only five percent max for mobile OS number three, which could be Blackberry or Windows Phone 7 […]

By |December 20th, 2011|2011|93 Comments
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The once and future WebOS

WebOS, first from Palm and then from Hewlett Packard, came and went so fast most mobile software developers never even got a chance to play with it. Now HP has declared WebOS to be Open Source, placing the project (it’s really not a product anymore) under CEO Meg Whitman to show they haven’t totally given up on the mobile OS. But what is WebOS, really, in this new incarnation? Its potential is enormous — far greater than most people realize — but I simply don’t see HP and Whitman as being able to execute on the plan, if there really is one.

WebOS and its Enyo application framework are clever and elegant and have one important […]

By |December 14th, 2011|2011|55 Comments
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Cloudy judgement at BAE Systems

Microsoft last week lost a potential European customer for its cloud-based Microsoft Office 365 product over concerns about the Patriot Act allowing U.S. government access to to private data. UK defense contractor BAE Systems said they’d changed plans on advice of their lawyers. Smart lawyers.

If we have to rely on lawyers for data security advice, we’re in real trouble.

Frankly I think the US Government and the Patriot Act would be the least of their problems.  If a defense contractor put their data on a public cloud service it would be an open invitation to Iran, North Korea, China, and others to try to steal it.

It boggles my mind that BAE even thought about putting […]

By |December 9th, 2011|2011|63 Comments
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Apple looks for its checkbook

Just a short thought. Apple has lost control of the iPad trademark in China but retains it in the rest of the world. Readers warn that China will be soon awash in iPad clones.

ProView Technologies, the Taiwanese company that presently controls the iPad trademark, was near bankruptcy until yesterday. Apple has $80 billion in cash.

Do we really think Cupertino will let go of an important trademark in what will eventually be the largest IT market in the world?

I don’t think so.

By |December 8th, 2011|2011|38 Comments
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Still wired after all these years

Verizon Wireless announced Friday that it was paying $3.6 billion to three cable TV companies — Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks — in exchange for wireless licenses the companies bought in an FCC auction in 2005. Pundits are describing the deal, and especially its cross-marketing provisions, as revolutionary with the potential to change the way we communicate and are entertained. I doubt this. Rather, I think it reflects a failure of the cable companies to compete in other markets.

I remember this license auction and wrote about it at the time. New spectrum was being released and the MSOs were afraid Verizon and AT&T would snap it up to compete with […]

By |December 4th, 2011|2011|75 Comments
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Damage Control

Note — Reader consensus below seems to be that I’m the one drinking the Flav-r-ade in this post, so proceed at your own risk. That’s not how I see it, of course.  CNN asked me about this issue yesterday and I think it is pretty clear, but that may be in part a reflection of my background, who knows? Just as readers expect me to take responsibility for my words, I expect Apple to take responsibility for the performance of its products. The issue isn’t so much abortion clinics as what other big gaps exist in this service? When you call your doctor the recording says “If this is an emergency hang up and call […]

By |December 1st, 2011|2011|113 Comments
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