Going after and punishing the property owners who permit such nefarious activity to occur shows how silly and desperate the entertainment bigwigs have become. (Are they planning to bust every dorm room in LA?). Sorry, guys, technology has outpaced you. File-sharing is here to stay. You've already lost the war.
]]>Dell contends there is nothing to worry about, but any time a vendor engages in action that could ignite channel conflict, there's plenty of reason for concern. The conflict beween direct (vendor) and indirect (channel) sales ebbs and flows, depending upon evolving business models and general economc conditions. Right now there is a lot of concern about the economy. Meanwhile, the rise of managed services and SaaS are pushing channel partners to explore new ways of doing business and pressuring them to readust their margins. Dell's move very well could inflame an already volatile situation with the channel, so the vendor should tread cautiously.
]]>It's an interesting premise to consider, especially for those of us enamored of our mobile phones, PDAs and other gizmos that provide rich margins to channel partners. Are these devices inevitably pushing us toward a world of nonstop surveillance and monitoring? Will the rise of closed systems (and the applications written for them) make the Net a less innovative place? And should developers and users do more to resist the trend?
]]>This situation really underscores the absurdity of the Cuban trade embargo, which has accomplished nothing in 50 years except add to Cuban misery and enrich foreign companies at U.S. expense. A great opportunity to use U.S. technology to rebuild Cuba's technology infrastructure is going to be squandered because the U.S. government can't accept the notion that its policy has failed and the rest of the world wants nothing to do with it (and what a familiar refrain this has become.) Cuba may not be a trillion-dollar computer market, but it is a developing one located right next door. Where are all those free-market types who embrace capitalism's call? Denying Cuba U.S. computers isn't going to topple the regime. but providing the technology might well add to U.S. influence and help spur social change. (Computers and the Web certainly have in the rest of the world.) It's time for the U.S. to get real.
]]>Berners-Lee notes that the Web has emerged as a tremendous global collaborative tool and may someday soon be used to manage the planet. It's certainly collapsed existing business models, enpowered individuals to take more control over their lives, and forever changed the technology industry. However it has also enabled lunatics around the world to gain an audience, destroyed a lot of business ventures, stolen personal privacy and made intrusiveness a societal norm. Some of us remember the pre-Internet era, and not necessarily dismissively. Happy Birthday, Internet, you're destined to rule the world. Good luck to you and the rest of us.
]]>What is interesting is that large system integrators and channel vendors don't appear to be experiencing the same problem, at least not yet. The distributors' experience, which shows slower server sales pulling down revenue and profits, could be an unwelcome harbinger. The key issue for IT spending and the channel in rocky economic times always surrounds the willingness of businesses to spend more on technology when the economy is softening. They usually do, at least for awhile, as long as the investments demonstrate a strong ROI. However, when the overall economic situation starts to tank, the enterprise and SMB customers pull back. We are not to that point yet, and the hope is that falling interest rates and the effects of the economic stimulus package (which will start to be felt by consumers this week) might be enough to forestall the really serious economic damage that copuld impact the channel.
]]>So there's a bit, but not much, of hope for XP's future. This is an issue the channel has a real interest in because VARs benefit both ways. First, from the upgrades that Vista is generating. Second, from the white-box demand from consumer and small busines users for XP-based machines. It's not very likely Ballmer's latest comments will do much to placate the 160,000 people who have signed an online petition to save XP. But he has propped the door open for Microsoft to change its mind later this year.
]]>All of this suggests businesses are willing, at least for now, to keep investing in technology, especially if it helps improve efficiency. Offshore consumer sales also look like a bright spot as economies in developing nations continue to expand. All of these trends could help other strong channel players such as Cisco, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco, which are set to report quarterly financials next month.
]]>Now the fair-minded Martin does concede that cable giant Comcast went went a bit overboard in imposing restrictions on P2P file.sharing. Just a little misundertanding among friends, you see. Best to handle it in-house. No reason to get the lawmakers involved. Congress, why must you pass new regulations when our federal agency directors already have enough to do trying to ignore the existing mandates for their agencies?
]]>You know where the battle lines are drawn here. The free-marketers, led by the large telcos, believe they should be completely unregulated. (Perhaps they can site the stupendous experience of airline industry deregulation to prove their point?) On the other hand, smaller ISPs and content providers fear they'll be driven out of business (and Internet creativity stifled) if the big corporations are allowed to dominate yet another sector of American life. The FCC is examining many of the same issues, but the Big Business-majority there is likely to side with the the large telcos, as they have on most other issues. That's why the Senate hearings should shine a light on many of the Internet concerns the FCC is sweeping under the rug.
]]>Even so, this is not great news for Arrow, which is having a problem finding and keeping an executive in that key position. The division just launched a new business group focused on midmarket solutions. Bryant may bring some stability to the ECS division, but he'd got a difficult path to navigate, given the past turnover in the grouo.
]]>However, at least two groups are strongly objecting to Comcast's plan because it's short on details and lacks a pledge that Comcast won't block file-sharers in the future. This controversy highlights the slippery slope ISPs are on when they start trying to control or censor Web traffic, and it points up the need for the FCC to step in and guarantee customer rights. Sadly, under current FCC boss Kevin Martin there's little chance consumer interests wll be favored over those of big corporatons.
]]>Who are Infosys' customers? It's Web site touts the "Global 2000" with a special emphasis on banking, financial and telecom firms. These are, of course, the elite Wall Street corporations, and they seem hell-bent on doing whatever they can to bolster their profits by tossing American workers over the side. This appalling situation -- which none of the U.S. presidential candidates except John Edwards ever addressed, by the way -- will worsen as the economy weakens and outsourcing deals for next year are finalized.
There is a lot of hand-wringing among financial and political pundits who constantly whine that we are mere victims who must accommodate to a new global economy (or "flat world" in Infosys-speak). This is utter nonsense, but a fine excuse to shroud the greed and stupidity of multi-national U.S.-based corporations that are reaping the financial benefits of so-called free trade and U.S. government ineptitude. One way to resist this is to simply boycott any company that utilizes off-shore service providers like Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services. (The next time your service call gets routed to India, just end your relationship with the company, as I did last year with J.P. Morgan Chase's credit card operation.)
Here's the good news: Forrester Research reported earlier this year that some big corporations are experiencing a drop in customer satisfaction and a slide in profits from offshore outsouring as the Indian rupee appreciates against the weak U.S. dollar. My sympathies. Let's help that trend along by punishing the U.S. companies who are punishing U.S. high-tech workers.
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The real problem with Vista is, no one is really sure they need it because XP works just fine. This is one of those cases where the market, not Microsoft, really should decide which operating system wins. If Vista really does offer great benefits, users will eventually realize it and it will win out. Meanwhile, with a little flexibility Microsoft will come off a lot less heavy-handed that it is now (and will benefit financially in any case since it sells both systems.) What's the big deal? Keep both systems available beyond June and let users make the choice.
]]>Don't worry -- it will never happen in the good old USofA. The music industry, movie and television studios, the big Internet providers and other Big Media that have enjoyed a tremendous rise in power and profits during the last eight years still have American politicians in their back pocket and the increasingly conservative courts in their scope. So the effort that began several years ago to crush, co-opt and dismember file-sharing sites (and, more amazingly, prosecute the file-sharers themselves) is likely to do nothing but accelerate in the near future.
I still can't fathom any difference between taping a CD (legal) and sharing a downloaded movie file (illegal). The music and movie industries have been squealing for years that sales and profits are dropping because they are losing business to Web pirates. No sympathy here. Your sales are dropping because your products are lousy and nobody wants to pay for them. It's probably much more convenient to whine about Web piracy than to adapt you business model to the new Web reality. Meanwhile, European citizenship is starting to look pretty appealing.
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