Services for Advertising; A Growing Evil

July 20, 2009 Leave a comment

It is time for we the people, to rise up against the Internet revolution’s disregard for privacy and lust for advertising. The Internet is a wonderful creation of human ingenuity. It connects us together and makes the world a little smaller, bringing together the human race as one. Facebook’s success is a testament to the desire of human beings to be and/or stay connected. Twitter is a lesson in voyeurism, allowing us to confirm that we are normal.

However, the Internet has a growing force of Evil that must be stopped; advertising. While advertising has been around “forever”, it has never been this focused or intrusive. The secret, is the middlemen crave as much information about us as possible in order to demand the highest price for ad placements. Name, address, phone, number, likes, dislikes, moods, emails, searches, posts, IMs, texts, places you go, people you see, worries, whereabouts, past purchases, wish lists, etc. are being stored on massive data warehouses where it is analyzed by sophisticated algorithms all in the name of ads.

While Google is the biggest of these middlemen, Facebook is rapidly becoming even stronger. Why? Well, Google learned from Yahoo that services (Mail, IM, etc.) simply do not generate enough revenue; advertising does. They have parlayed this one idea into a $135 Billion company. However, there is a limit to what Google can collect with their current services. That’s why they need to expand beyond the web to OSs such as Android and Chrome OS.

Meanwhile, millions of Facebook users willingly give up their personal information everyday. This allows Facebook to understand the pulse of the nation and world long before the polls can be tabulated. Your “friends” create intricate relationships on many levels that can be analyzed to detect patterns and buying criteria. Every link, every quiz, every note, every piece of flair, says something about you. The more they know, the more valuable the ads. I venture to say that Facebook has a chance to become bigger than Google; now that’s saying something.

Why is this so bad? It’s actually scary on two fronts. One, there is no way to opt-out of the system. In fact, it has become systemic; click-through agreements anyone? Where is the line? When do things get deleted? Are we being profiled? What if I don’t want my emails read by a computer? I don’t want my phone conversations scanned?

Two, I worry that the model is giving us the rope to hang ourselves. We are trading services for information and information for advertising. However, are we giving up too much of ourselves for the sake of free? Are we creating goods? Is the end result a few billionaires and some millionaires or an engine for economic growth?

In-the-end, Internet advertising is not going anywhere. In fact, the traditional media advertising giants are aggressively moving into this arena. The great IP convergence of Phone (VOIP), Internet, IPTV, Mobile Phone and Data, Games, and more, combined with the death of newspapers, magazines, and traditional television have made this a necessity. It is time for us to demand limits, transparency, and accountability for this new order of services for advertising.

Never forget the power we, the People, have because while they control the services and advertising, we control the power to say no. Without us the services will shutter and the advertising revenue will dry up leaving a wasteland of electronic trash.

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Forget Google Chrome OS: Root for Microsoft, Apple, and Linux

July 9, 2009 Leave a comment

Yesterday, Google announced their intention to release a new operating system designed primarily for Netbooks.  The new operating system, Chrome OS, will now compete against established Linux vendors as well as Microsoft for market and mind share.  While the initial reactions to this announcement were positive, I have a different spin.

This announcement underscores a major challenge at Google; they are a “one trick pony”.  Google is simply a giant advertising machine that needs critical inputs regarding our personal information to better serve their advertising clients.  While many individuals cling to an unhealthy affection towards Google, the truth is Google provides its services, search, mail, calendar, gears, etc. not for the sake of good, but for the sake of money.

At first, Google was satisfied with the collection of information via third party web browsers such as Firefox and IE.  However, their hunger for personal information led them to release an even more intrusive technology; the Chrome browser.  Now they crave even more information that can only be obtained via having access to everything; the Operating System.  By collecting all this personal information, whether it is scrubbed or not, Google can better profile its users and charge more to its advertisers.  It’s not simply a numbers game any longer as the quality of the information about your user population is as, if not more, important then the quantity; a lesson Facebook plays perfectly.

I’m rooting for Microsoft, Apple, and Linux to put Google’s Chrome OS back in its preverbal box. Google can keep Android, Chrome, Desktop Search, and anything else they desire to load on my personal computers to themselves.  Does anyone seriously think Microsoft did not see this coming?  If Apple released OS XI generically, would anyone care about Chrome OS?  Will Chrome OS make a dent in the fiercely loyal and growing Ubuntu population?

Google’s corporate motto may say “Don’t be evil”, but that’s like the pot calling the kettle black.  One person’s road to Evil is another one’s road to riches.

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Google gets the Hype; Oracle and IBM get the Business

June 12, 2009 Leave a comment

Google announced a new on-line database called Fusion Tables using technology they acquired from Transformic.  Transformic pioneered the use of data-spaces; a technology that has been around since the early 1990s.  Unfortunately, this technology was “useless” until the great brains at Google got their hands on it and now it’s going to shake up the entire database market.

It obvious to some writers and analysts, that Google has better talent than Oracle and IBM combined.  After-all, they now have data-spaces and Fusion.  Does Oracle or IBM have this? Wait, Oracle has Fusion; are we looking at a lawsuit? What about Teradata or Aster Data or Greenplum, or Postgress, or MySQL, or Netezza, or EnterpriseDB, do they have it?  If Google has it you can bet it’s better than everyone else’s.

Why is it that Google can do no wrong?  Search, Adds, Maps, Email, IM, Calendar, Web Sites, Phones,  Free Lunches, Video, Blogs, Free Dinners, Databases, Home Power Management, and, let’s all keep our fingers crossed, Netbooks.  Google should just buy Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle outright and put them out of their misery.

Let’s get the facts straight.  Oracle and IBM are dynamic companies that rule the database market.  In fact, Oracle and IBM have diversified products and services that are helping them through this tough economy.  Additionally, they have advanced R&D, patents, deep pockets, and access to the world’s largest and most powerful enterprises.  Finally, they are keenly aware of cloud computing and what that means to their businesses; i.e. databases.

Google has Advertisements.  While Ads are a great thing, hopefully one day people will rise up and say enough.  Enough profiling, enough storing information, enough analysis, enough of collecting personal data, enough, enough, enough.   Perhaps Google should look to improve their core businesses because the competition is heating up for Search and Ads.

Google get’s the hype; Oracle and IBM get the business.

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Will Cisco Succeed Where Cassatt Failed?

June 11, 2009 Leave a comment

If you read most mainstream blogs or publications, then you would think we were in the midst of the most significant shift in computing since its invention.  Virtualization and Cloud Computing have become the buzz words of analysts, writers, and old/new/start-up companies looking to catch the wave.   While the technology is interesting, for as many issues that are solved, more are created.  “New” architectures are really a re-hash of old technology and management/security are still an after-thought.  To put it another way, the adoption, integration, and application of this technology will not come at the cost of revenue; hardware or software.

Those that attempt to challenge the status quo should look no further than the now defunct Cassatt (acquired by CA).  Cassatt attempted to break down the silos between hardware and software thereby redefining the datacenter.  Cassatt viewed the datacenter as hundreds of servers with thousands of applications all with their own criticality and SLAs.  They challenged the “sticky note” mentality of purchasing new hardware for every application and labeling its name/IP Address and ownership.  Cassatt may have been the first vendor to realize that virtualization was not the answer to everything, that the walls between networking, servers, and applications needed to be broken, and that virtual sprawl is a real problem.   In the end, Cassatt did not have the market power or presence to change the industry; Cisco is a different story.

On the surface, Cisco entering the datacenter server and virtualization markets is uninspiring.  I wrote that, “Perhaps the innovator’s dilemma has finally caught up with Cisco because I expected more from them then simply launching a blade system with the Cisco badge on the bezel.”  Over the past few weeks, I have been wondering if Cisco’s current strategy is really a Trojan horse designed to attack the status quo.  After all HP, IBM, Dell, Intel, EMC, and Microsoft have much to lose.  What if Cisco redefined the datacenter back to its components; CPU, memory, storage, networking, etc.  They could create new devices that resemble the CRS-1 Multi Chassis System ala the trusty old mainframe that offers superior value and computing power for the price.  Also, they’ll need to redefine security and management, but that is only a BMC acquisition away.

Cisco’s challenge is marketing makes everyone look the same.  HP, IBM, SUN, Cisco, and more have all rolled out new datacenter strategies that feel eerily similar.  All this marketing FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) makes a paradigm shift more difficult.  Cisco’s grown up from an obscure networking company to a DOW Jones Component Powerhouse.  Can Cisco redefine the datacenter and bring about the titanic change within computing the industry craves?  And, will Cisco succeed where Cassatt failed?

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What’s in your Closet?

June 2, 2009 1 Comment

What do countless power cords, hundreds of various sizes of Ethernet cables, 10 and 10/100M switches, vintage wireless access points and routers, bricks of all shapes and sizes, 1 and 2 mega pixel cameras, 3.5 and 5.25 floppy drives, a few CD players, a few keyboards, an external burner, printers from an era gone-by, Dongles, and an assortment of computers that belong in a museum have in common? They all are hiding in my closet!

What’s worse is my inability to throw any of it away; even things that are broken. Why throw out a perfectly good 3.5 inch drive? Someday I may need to recover a file on one of the hundreds of disks that are scattered throughout my home. Someday I’ll turn all my P3/P4 computers into a giant Hadoop cluster that will power various ideas I have in my head. I’m still searching for my old Commodore 64 and trusty tape drive.

Thankfully, the rate of growth of my stockpiles have slowed down With the rise of open source software and specifically virtualization, I can do more with less physical hardware. Of course, I’m always on the hunt for a deal; Craigslist, Ebay, friends, etc. After-all, it may be time to look at the new Intel i7 chips and perhaps an Intel based Apple.

What’s in your closet?

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Oracle buys VirtualIron: Is disruption coming?

May 14, 2009 Leave a comment

Oracle has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase VirtualIron for an undisclosed sum of money. While my initial reaction was to find out what the break-up fee was, I now see the value in this acquisition. Perhaps my angst is centered around VirtualIron’s reputation in the open source community as a consumer of and not a contributor to the Xen Open Source Project.

As I’ve stated before, the gem of Oracle’s acquisition of Sun lies within Sun’s xVM virtualization projects; xVM includes virtualzation products for servers, storage, and workstations. In the early days of x86 virtualization, the battle lines were draw around the hypervisor technology itself. Today, the hypervisor has become a commodity with a plethora of commercial and open source options and the real battle centers around managing virtualized environments.

To that end, Sun has xVM Ops Center but it lags behind VMware’s Virtual Infrastructure 3 and Citrix’s XenServer. This is where the VirtualIron acquisition makes perfect sense. VirtualIron’s strategy has revolved around creating software based on the Xen Open Source Project with comparative functionality to VMware at a lower price point. Since Sun’s xVM technology is based on both the Xen Open Source Project as well as Sun’s Logical Domains (LDOM) technology, VirtualIron plugs a huge hole in Sun’s portfolio.

Oracle has never been a “me too” company, so their challenge will be to elevate VirtualIron’s products to equal footing with VMware; functionality, price, and innovation. Additionally, Oracle needs to create a new strategy to attack VMware’s recently announced vSphere Cloud Computing OS product. Clearly, the pressure is on both Oracle’s engineering teams and marketing teams to make this transition. If Oracle’s marketing team can create the same type of buzz they achieved with Fusion, then Oracle will redefine the virtualization industry.

Finally, Oracle is not done shopping. To be a player within the virtualizatoin management space you need to be able to offer heterogeneous management. Oracle must be eying companies such as Veeam or Embotics. These type of companies would complete the picture and cause major disruption in the industry. The real question is where does Oracle draw the line? Do they want to challenge IBM, BMC, CA, or HP? For what it’s worth, I sure do hope so!

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Technology: A bright future!

May 7, 2009 Leave a comment

Today’s technical headlines are dominated with the likes of Cisco, Juniper, IBM, HP, Oracle, Microsoft, Intel, Google, Research In Motion, Apple, Dell, SAP, Nokia, and more. The common denominator with all these companies is size; size of their revenue streams, size of their sales forces, size of their channels, size of their bank accounts, size of their checks to Gartner, Forrester, EMA, etc. and more.

Some companies believe in organic growth while others prefer inorganic growth through large and small acquisitions. Some spend time winning and keeping customers happy while others would rather spend money on fancy marketing campaigns. Some have grown so large that they compete with themselves while others seem lost defending tired old positions and ideas. Some have executives that are the envy of the industry while others are saddled with executives born out of the dot com boom.

We have lived through HDLC, X.25, Banyon Vines, Frame Relay, ATM, Token Ring, Twin-X, give way to Ethernet, Wireless, MPLS, and more. We’ve lived through the wars between OS/2 and Windows, Active Directory vs. Novel Directory Services, Word Perfect vs. Word, Cisco vs. Motorola, Palm vs. RIM, Inktomi vs Google, and more. We saw RISC vs CISC, Unix vs Linux, Mainframe vs. Servers, Distributed Computing vs Datacenters, Mainframes vs. servers acting as mainframes, Virtualization vs. everything, and more.

While we have come so far, we have so much further to go. While the Internet has become a nice to have to a must have, it remains slow, unsecured, and unreliable. While TCP/IP binds us together, it has created a new wild west for criminals and electronic warfare. While we cannot live without our mobile phones, we can’t drive across town or enter our homes without the connection dropping. While everyone’s memories are electronic, data back-up remains cumbersome and an afterthought. While we crave open standards, we are saddled with proprietary operating systems and applications that stifle innovation and choice.

To the large companies, trash the Innovator’s Dilemma and innovate your respective industries. Don’t be afraid of change, embrace it (and I’m not talking about reorganization!) To the small companies, disrupt with technology and business models. Don’t be afraid of the large companies and carve out your niches. To the start-ups, go for it!
Don’t believe the naysayers whether they be analysts, VCs, or “friends” and believe in yourselves.

Here’s to innovation, disruption, and the bright future of technology!

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The Sun Shines on Oracle

April 20, 2009 1 Comment

What a way to start the day as the Sun is shining bright on Oracle! Ellison has guts, vision, a good management team, and the cash to swoop in and throw the DB, Virtualization, storage, and server market on its head.

Oracle and Solaris are like bread and butter. Oracle gets to defend their high-end database deployments by ensuring that Solaris has a future. They also pick up MySQL and overnight they go form open source wannabe to an open source powerhouse. They also get access to Sun’s investment in Greenplum (petabyte data warehousing). Additionally, Oracle has opened a front against HP, IBM, and Cisco by combining not only selling applications, but also hardware.

However the real gems are Sun’s virtualizaton and datacenter solutions. Oracle now has the ability to compete head-to-head with VMware, Citrix, Red Hat, and Microsoft for virtualizaton supremacy. They now own Sun’s xVM products and solutions that are cutting-edge. Finally, Oracle has the ability to compete with Cisco’s datacenter vision by not only packaging routing/switching/storage but also applications into a virtualized system.

Mark your calendars, April 20th 2009 may become the day IBM regrets for years to come. If Cisco can’t get their hands on VMware, they may be stuck in the what-could-have-been blues. HP must adjust to new competition and Dell has got to be thinking what-about-us? Netezza, HP, and Teradata have awoke to a significant change in the industry and stronger competitor. Finally, this industry may never be the same as a software giant has entered the hardware business.

Sun needs three things to be successful; the right management team (check), the right strategy (check), and market reach and power (check). Who would have ever thought Oracle would break the software only paradigm? More M&A to come, but hats-off to Oracle.

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Cisco UCS: Let the war begin

March 17, 2009 Leave a comment

Over the past few days, I’ve been reading about the revolutionary nature of Cisco’s datacenter 3.0 strategy. I’ve read everything from “a sharp turn” to “Cisco will shake up the market.” The reality, is Cisco has crossed the demilitarized zone between hardware and server vendors and the war has just begun.

It is clear that BMC is Cisco’s new management vendor of choice displacing HP (Opsware). While BMC has tier I products such as Remedy and BladeLogic, they aren’t particularly strong in network or storage management. Furthermore, it is not clear what are the capabilities of Cisco’s new UCS Manager nor to what degree BMC has integrated their offerings.

Additionally, Intel is walking a fine line by throwing their considerable weight behind Cisco’s UCS-B blade server. After all, who pays the bills at Intel; Cisco or HP, Dell, and IBM. While the Nehalem servers are set to anchor Intel’s push into the datacenter, they’ll need more than Cisco to reap the rewards of such an innovative design.

In the short-term, HP is clearly positioned to be a thorn in Cisco’s side. HP has awesome server products, a full line of storage products, decent networking capabilities, full management functionality, and EDS. In the long-term, IBM’s deep pockets combined with smart M&A activity could derail Cisco’s plans. Juniper may be a tantalizing pick-up, but IBM could yield positive results by purchasing smaller players such as Brocade, Woven Systems, or Arista Networks.

Finally, what will happen to Dell and Sun? Could Dell be shut-out of the next generation datacenter? How does an already weakened Sun survive Cisco’s attack? Will they seek shelter or come out swinging?

Cisco has fired the first shot that started the great datacenter war of 2009. It may take three years or more to declare the winners and losers, but one thing is for sure; IT will never be the same again.

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My Apologies

December 17, 2008 1 Comment

Many of you have written to me wondering why it has been so long between posts.  In this trying economic times, I have been focusing all of my energy on my current company.  However, that is no excuse to neglect my blogging passion.

Therefore, please accept my sincerest apology as I begin to rebuild this blog.  While I plan on continuing in-depth analysis of major trends, I will also incorporate other types of analysis on a more frequent basis.

Thank you for all your support!

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