Juniper made a second major announcement in two weeks, this time its PTX MPLS-optical supercore switch. The product’s roots probably lie in early interest (“early” meaning the middle of the last decade) by Verizon in a new core architecture for IP networks that would eliminate the transit routing that was common in hierarchical IP cores. … Continue reading We Try to Position Juniper’s PTX
The big news today is Apple’s new iPad announcement, an event whose usual Apple drama was upstaged by a surprise visit by Steve Jobs. The essence of the announcement was familiar; iPads are making us smarter, healthier, richer, better looking, and so forth, and that’s from the first version. Now look what’s going to happen! What is … Continue reading iPad 2 and Beyond
The weekend brought more disorder to the Middle East, particularly Libya, but while the initial turmoil there had knocked stock prices down a bit, the decline has not been alarming and it was reversed on Friday. Today futures and the European exchanges both suggest an up market again. Even cooler-than-expected growth in US consumer spending … Continue reading Monday, Monday
Apple, already facing an anti-trust review or two, is now getting growing push-back from app providers over the subscription-sharing rule. Apple wants a cut of every subscription, meaning that they want apps that sell something to sell only through Apple’s store and not directly to the consumer. If dissent spreads here, it could be a … Continue reading More Kinds of Shifting Sands
Comcast’s numbers, which included broadband subscriber gains that far outstripped the estimates of analysts. Basic cable subscription losses were less than expected, but still there was a loss. The data suggests that the media blitz on “cord-cutting” was largely hype, which is what my model had showed. TV viewing is definitely undergoing changes, and some … Continue reading Lessons in Video and Voice
One of the issues that now face the networking market is the fate of Nokia, the once-giant smartphone and networking company that has seemed to stumble in every market race for the last couple of years. There have been all manner of analyses of why this has happened, but they’ve all (in my opinion at … Continue reading The Field of Dreams Becomes a City of Patio Gardens
News Corp has finally launched it’s iPad-paper, The Daily, but it’s obviously way too soon to know whether the experiment in a newspaper that’s neither printed nor online, but instead is appliance-targeted, will work. The price is lower than that of print news to be sure, but at $40 a year it’s still more than … Continue reading Slices of Online Future
There’s a mixed bag of news for Google to confront their new CEO, and it’s mixed in multiple dimensions. Android and the basic business of search are showing a combination of positive and negative signs, and confusion is never a good thing. On the Android side, there’s excitement over the new Honeycomb version for tablets, … Continue reading Google, Ads, and Kill Switches
FCC has filed a response to two provider lawsuits on net neutrality (one by Verizon), saying that because the order has not yet been published in the Federal Registry it’s not technically in effect and cannot yet be challenged in court. That seems a rather lame move, but as I noted last week the current … Continue reading Bits Don’t Rule and We Don’t Rule Them
AT&T’s report on earnings reinforced some structural changes in the industry that Verizon’s report had already suggested. One basic truth is that mobile services are more profitable and more fertile areas for growth than wireline. Another is that mobile service gains and ARPU both depend substantially on broadband and smartphones rather than on voice services. … Continue reading Hulu’s New Business Model is Bad Industry Juju