It’s a kind of day of change in technology, particularly if you believe some of the speculation that’s floating around. Certainly 2011 has been a challenging year for vendors, and it may be that the challenges will be only more formidable in 2012. Given that, it wouldn’t be surprising if we saw some dramatic market … Continue reading Facing Up to Transformative Times
Microsoft’s Xbox will now feature the ability to stream 26 FiOS channels and access (presumably the same network) content on VoD. The step isn’t a technological revolution because AT&T’s U-verse has been a streaming IP video service from the first (and it’s also available on Xbox, but in the same form; FiOS for Xbox is … Continue reading Does FioS-for-Xbox Green-Light IPTV?
The retail holiday season got off to a good start in the US according to all reports, with significant gains over last year and a particular focus on consumer electronics. One hot space is the tablet market, where Apple cut iPad prices and where Android devices continue to gain overall market share. A new group … Continue reading Operators Rethink Service Priorities?
Some’s up, some’s down, I guess. That seems to be true with regard to tech signals this morning, anyway. Oracle is buying a CRM cloud player, RightNow, and the Street is reporting issues with hardware sales, both in the service provider and enterprise spaces. The RightNow buy is interesting in a couple of dimensions. First, … Continue reading What’s Up, What’s Down
UBS reports that there are some unusual shifts in telecom spending, and I agree if one defines “unusual” as being “atypical to past performance” rather than “without clear cause”. What they’re seeing is a lower-than-usual ramp in capex in the fourth quarter, and a larger shift toward wireless investment. Duh! We have a lower ramp … Continue reading Capex Signals from the Market
This week is where economics and tech meet, a week where there are a host of earnings reports for tech companies who are either bellwethers for the market or who are of special interest at the moment because of recent earnings trends. Our fall survey data is far from complete at this point so we … Continue reading Earnings This Week: What to Look For
Google’s numbers for the quarter were very good, beating estimates and highlighting its mobile ad performance, but the company was short on details of how the earnings were derived. My personal view is that Google is doing well with search and still working things out elsewhere. Sure mobile is doing well, but it’s likely that … Continue reading Reading the Google Tea Leaves
Comcast’s ambitions attempt to create a network-view model at the earliest possible point in movie distribution, the same time a film is in theaters, has apparently been pulled back under a protest from studios. The thought was to set the price high enough that people would have easily been able to get a better deal … Continue reading Industry Potpourri
Europe continues to move toward a more radical telecom regulatory posture, with EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes proposing that the unbundled copper rates for operators who fail to develop credible FTTH plans be reduced. The goal is to provide an incentive to move beyond the basic copper infrastructure, and making copper less profitable would seem a … Continue reading Regulations, There and Here
Apple is always a wonderful target for rumors, and the current one is that the company is getting into the TV business for real, launching not only a service but a line of TV sets that would link to it. The idea has the media agog of course, but no matter who is supposed to … Continue reading Some Video Developments and Musings