After switching to ARM, expect Apple to buy TSMC, too

Readers have been asking me to comment on Apple’s decision, announced at last week’s World Wide Developers’ Conference, to start switching to Apple-designed ARM processors for its Macintosh computers. I usually don’t like to do second-day (or, in the case, second-week) stories unless I can add something new to the discussion. Oddly, I usually can and that’s the case here, where Apple’s move to ARM has a big-picture strategy component that is absolutely vital to the company’s continued success. It also doesn’t seem to be covered yet anywhere but here.

Forget all the talk about Apple moving to ARM because the chips are better than Intel’s or consume […]

By |June 29th, 2020|2020, Companies, Government, strategy|132 Comments
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Jeff Bezos Can’t Lose

Big technology companies have been recently coming under increased scrutiny from federal regulators. Several tech companies are reportedly under investigation, but this column is only about Amazon, which seems to be in regulatory crosshairs in part because President Trump doesn’t like Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who also owns one of Trump’s least-favorite newspapers, the Washington Post. Ironically, Trump’s goal of breaking-up Amazon would only make Jeff Bezos at least $35 billion richer.

It’s simple: Amazon is worth a lot more in pieces than it is as a single company.

Bezos is no fool, so he knows […]

By |May 11th, 2020|2020, Business, cloud computing, Companies, e-commerce, Economy, Government, Internet, investing, strategy|99 Comments
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Cringely’s Rules for Home Schooling in the Age of COVID-19

My first job out of college was teaching biology, chemistry, physics, and vocational agriculture at Triway High School in rural Wooster, Ohio. I lasted for six weeks. The school environment was such a downer, from the smoke-filled teachers’ lounge to my young co-workers who were teaching mainly, it seemed to me, to avoid service in Vietnam. So when a reporting job became available, I jumped on it, leaving Ohio forever. Years later I returned to teaching, this time at Stanford University, where I worked for six years. Now, 37 years after Stanford, I’m teaching my kids at home thanks to COVID-19. You may be teaching your kids, too. This […]

By |April 30th, 2020|2020, COVID-19, Cringely's Rules, Education, Family, How To's, strategy|72 Comments
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Not Just the End of IT, the End of IT Contractors

Earlier this week I predicted the demise of conventional IT caused by the wide adoption of SD-WAN and SASE, accelerated by the emergency demands of everyone working from home. Now that Congress has passed a $2.2 trillion COVID-19 bail-out, let’s throw-in the implications of that legislation to see what effect it is all likely to have on what used to be IT. The short version is to expect an even bigger bloodbath as IT employees at all levels are let go forever. Please understand that some version of this bloodbath was going to happen anyway. What matters right now is how we respond to it.

While my previous column was generally about […]

By |March 30th, 2020|2020, cloud computing, computer networks, Predictions, strategy|42 Comments
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2020 Brings the Death of IT

My new column is below, so don’t forget to read it, but now for something completely different…

I’m running two virtual panels this week as part of Anina.net’s Digital Online Fashion Summit. Anina’s the pretty girl next to me on the top of this page. She lives in Beijing and this will be a global event.

Digital Fashion Online Summit
March 28th – 29th, 2020

A two-day online event for fashion brands, marketing managers, product directors, and online strategists. Speeches are starting at 10 AM and running all day every hour. Join us online at http://digitalfashion.360fashion.net

Learn from top fashion and technology experts which technologies to invest in to bring your brand online and […]

By |March 25th, 2020|2020, cloud computing, Internet, mobile technology, Predictions, strategy, Technology|88 Comments
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