VoIP Blog - Tehrani.com

« February 12, 2006 | Main | February 14, 2006 »

Not Making Money in Tech

It would seem that today is a bad day to make money. As funny as that sounds there are people that are upset with Apple for selling products that scratch. Now I am not sure who these people are but they obviously not noticed that are buying artwork and not something rugged. Sure you pay a lot for an iPod but if you want something that is scratchproof try a rugged MP3 player.

If you are Blackberry and trying to make a buck selling $400+ corporate devices and a server that can cost thousands and thousands of dollars, “Fugedaboutit.” Mob boss (not meant in a derogatory way – I am just staying on theme) Microsoft is about to take RIM out. And you thought the NTP problem was a tough fight. That street brawl will be nothing compared to what Tom Keating describes as a killer strategy from Redmond.

Keating further explains that Steve Ballmer is in Barcelona speaking at 3GSM. Speaking of Barcelona, it sounds like a wonderful code name for the next Redmond-based operating system. But Steve before you get any ideas let’s get the current one out the door ;-) .

Then there’s WiFi… According to this story we won’t pay for it in the future. Skype and others have invested in technology to make it easier to share free WiFi services. Apparently everyone wants free WiFi but no one wants to share. I guess we will be paying Boingo and others for a while longer.

Before you get sad and depressed about how hard it is to make a buck, just remember that Apple can just make sturdier devices, RIM can make Blackberries that have better web access and of course the WiFi providers have to hope that free WiFi won’t happen. In all, 2006 should be a good year for technology. I’d say we still have a few more years before there is an iPod in every pocket and Blackberry on every waist.

| This entry was posted at 6:33 PM. | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Link this | Email this | Leave comment
Trackback URL: Not Making Money in Tech
Technorati Del.icio.us BoingBoing Slashdot Digg Spurl Furl

3GSM, Skype, Oracle, Nokia and Other News

It’s been a busy morning already. There is just so much news and the morning is just starting. It should be a great week as TMC digs out from the two feet of snow we had this weekend. Personally my driveway is a solid sheet of ice and I am sure I will find kids playing hockey on it when I get back. Perhaps I’ll work late and since I may have some extra time at work how about I share some of the best news taking place so far today?

I wrote about the government and China earlier this morning in case you missed it. Oracle is getting into open-source. That shouldn’t be news as I wrote about this a while back after I saw a post on Om Malik’s blog.

There is some big Skype news at 3GSM in Spain and HP has a new mobile device the hw6900 that runs this ultra popular Internet telephony application. Alas the resolution is a measly 240x240 which I think is too little for today’s web-based apps.

From Barcelona we move to England where e-commerce is booming. Perhaps the allure of riding those double-decker buses fades after a while and you just feel like staying indoors, opening the windows and enjoying the clouds.

There is some interesting Nokia IMS news as well but this isn’t such a surprise as every company seems to be getting onto IMS. Personally this is exciting as IMS Magazine kicks off soon. We are going to send it to the printer any day now and the mock up of the publication looks impressive.

I am off to a meeting  or two or seven :) so you’ll have to get your news fix the old-fashioned way… Just visit TMCnet yourself throughout the day. You won’t be alone as about 900,000 people viewed just under 14 million pages on TMCnet last month. Enjoy!

| This entry was posted at 10:13 AM. | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Link this | Email this | Leave comment
Trackback URL: 3GSM, Skype, Oracle, Nokia and Other News
Technorati Del.icio.us BoingBoing Slashdot Digg Spurl Furl

China Censorship

The US government has concerns about critical servers being housed in China as the Chinese government could potentially gain access to information on their shores. In addition the US government is concerned about human rights in China and elsewhere.

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., is drafting a bill that would force Internet companies including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to keep vital computer servers out of China and other nations the State Department deems repressive to human rights.

But let’s wait a minute here. China has been taking over manufacturing from the US for decades. The country is now our number one supplier of just about everything. Wal-Mart would virtually cease to exist if it could not get its products from China. Why is now the time to stop companies from investing in China and why Google, Microsoft and others?

Smith's bill - still being written - has already drawn interest from another lawmaker, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., with long-held concerns about U.S. business cozying up to the Chinese government. "This is greed in high technology, and it's not a pretty sight," Rohrabacher says.

I don’t know Dana Rohrabacher at all but what I do know is that companies like Microsoft, Yahoo and Google are publicly traded and calling them greedy actually reaffirms how they should be acting. Perhaps the more appropriate thing to call such companies is responsible. These corporations have the right to make money in any way they can as long as it is within the confines of the law. In fact they could be sued in-effect for not being greedy. They must take advantage of every opportunity they can and China is a pretty large one.

Politicians live sound bite to sound bite so it is not unusual to hear comments like this. At the same time we need to realize how crazy such comments are as the US government has allowed so many American jobs to erode while being replaced by the Chinese. We cannot function without China at this point. If corporations are so greedy and this is so bad, why not stop it in the nineties? What is it about 2006 that makes the problem so much worse? After all, China has had a terrible human rights record for many years. This is not a new phenomenon.

Perhaps Google’s plans to enter China is what this is all about. Their new portal, www.google.cn is live and does not allow access to many results that would be banned in China. In effect Google is helping to suppress the free flow of information.

But if you run a business in any country you must abide by local laws. The same thing happens in every country. Companies are always obliged to respond to the laws governing their region.

So why should you care? The reason is simple. China is huge and there are a lot of smart people and billions of dollars which can be used to invest in technology that can take out our top technology companies. What does the US government do if Google is supplanted by a Chinese search engine that is much more effective?

Search algorithms are able to be emulated copied and even bettered. In fact if you take a look at Korea as an example you realize that Google has only 2% market share while competitor NHN virtually controls the market through the use of superior technology. “What?,” you gasp. “Google is not invincible?” Apparently not. Google’s global market share is the sort of information the government should study carefully before restraining the trade of today’s information technology companies.

As a capitalist society we have to remember that greed is good. What is bad is when the government gets involved and mucks things up. Apparently the problem is with Chinese repression so why not try to change China? Microsoft, Yahoo and Google are certainly not going to change China’s behavior but sanctions and myriad other government-based decisions could put pressure on the massive Asian county. In the end if we really want to effect change we need to cure the disease and not just mask the symptoms.

| This entry was posted at 9:32 AM. | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Link this | Email this | Leave comment
Trackback URL: China Censorship
Technorati Del.icio.us BoingBoing Slashdot Digg Spurl Furl