Here is a lobby shot. The mood is festive and high energy. Everyone
wants me to say hi to Heidi Klum but I haven't seen her yet. Still
looking.
:-(
Can't wait.
I have some good and bad news about the green movement. The bad news first... If you buy a car that is very small and hit a car that is bigger and/or heavier, the smaller vehicle will likely be worse off than the larger/heavier vehicle as a result of the impact. So if you are being exceptionally green by picking a car based on small size, you are more likely to get hurt or killed in an accident.
Granted, if you have a typical midsize car and hit an SUV the same principles apply.
Here is a great article and video on the matter. A must watch if you are considering a purchase of the smallest car you can find. Quick details: See a Smart Fortwo hit a Mercedes C class and in doing so fly into the air while the engine compartment disintegrates.
The good news? TMC, the company which I am president of had our Green Blog ranked 24 on a list of the "100 Best Blogs for Those Who Want to Change the World."
Let's just keep in mind the pitfalls of decisions we may make in life. One of the best lessons I learned at the University of Connecticut was from my chemistry teacher's assistants when they told me, "Everything in moderation... Including moderation."
As TMCnet has expanded I have to admit it is tough to keep track of all the sites we have which can help you in your job. To that end I decided to take a moment and list some of them which you may not be aware of. I thought this entry made sense as I have received some comments about how TMC should launch some of the sites listed below. This shows me there are just so many things we do that our 2-3 million unique visitors each month may not be aware of. I hope you find these sites of use:
Countless friends and business associates are interested in getting an iPhone but don't want to use the AT&T network. In fact when giving people advice on phones to purchase - if I do mention the iPhone I always have to warn them of the AT&T network. Regardless of AT&T's marketing regarding more bars in more places and the best coverage in the world, the AT&T Wireless network is simply not as good as Verizon Wireless.
Verizon knows this and keeps investing in its network to make sure it doesn't fall behind.
In fact if AT&T didn't have exclusivity on the iPhone I predict we would have seen massive churn to Verizon.
This would explain why AT&T is trying to extend its contract with Apple to 2011. But really, if AT&T is smart it will pay whatever Apple wants for exclusive (or at least preferred) rights to interconnect Apple TV and every other Apple device coming in the future. At this rate, Apple will soon own our living rooms and AT&T can leverage its Apple relationship to sell its broadband services which could integrate with Apple services more effectively.
Please count me in as a tea party member who is against higher taxes (for anyone) and bigger government. Since I have a job I can't physically be at any of these parties. While it is logical to have the government spend more this year and next to help the global economy rebound, we need to slow spending down dramatically when things improve. At that point we should not increase taxes for the people who create the jobs. Punishing job creators with higher taxes ensures higher levels of unemployment and keeps the economy from rebounding quickly.
The Upcoming Era of Deep Telephony Personalization and How Tellabs Wants to Help Carriers make it Happen
As the global population grows it seems the desire for each of us to do things differently from others will only grow. Just as this trend is responsible for billions of dollars on fashion spending, millions of tattoos and custom cars, expect it to take over the worlds of tech and telecom as well. Don't believe me? Then how do you explain consumers sporting music players of different colors which match their outfits?
![pullen[1].jpg](http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/uploads/pullen%5B1%5D.jpg)
This trend was a major theme of a recent meeting I had with Robert Pullen the CEO of Tellabs in the company's Illinois headquarters. According to Pullen, his company will help carriers succeed by assisting them as they provide customized services to their customers.
He further went on to describe the evolution of communications which started with humans sending information over water, roads, railroads and planes. He feels the internet and now personalization and customization are the most recent embodiments of communications.
Interviewing Pullen was made pretty enjoyable by his use of frequent and succinct statements which quickly show where his company adds value. For example, a one-liner which was particularly memorable was that Tellabs Enriches peoples' lives by innovating the way the world connects.
Pullen explained his company is transforming first from TDM to IP and now the next layer of applications and content. From there he touched on parental controls as a potential area of personalization.
Other important nuggets include the idea that you need to sell your way through the downturn and he pointed to emerging economies as one area where they are doing this. Latin America sales for example were up 60-70% at the time of this interview. Another interesting factoid is the company's R&D spend which is currently a significant 16-17% of sales.
Some of the focus areas of the company are mobile backhaul, optical, business and professional services. The future of the company is certainly going to be more closely tied to mobile devices and Pullen acknowledges they are positioning the company to take advantage of this trend.
This is likely one of the reasons for the recent hiring of Vikram Saksena, the ex-CTO of Sonus and ITEXPO keynoter. Saksena has impressed me greatly in the past as he understands how the next generation of services will transform telecom. Saksena and Pullen were busy strategizing when I spoke with them and I am very interested in seeing what new solutions this collaboration allows Tellabs to bring to market.
Greg Galitzine was in this meeting as well and we can expect a more detailed article from him in the May 2009 issue of NGN Magazine so be sure to subscribe today so you don't miss it.
It seems that Skype will go IPO in the first half of 2010 and although some think this news is a ploy to get Skype founders to pony up more than the $1 billion they originally proposed, I think the IPO route makes more sense for a number of reasons. You see the company is a perfect play for this economy - it lowers long distance costs and also allows video, rich IM and social networking.
In addition, the world's largest internet telephony software company recently launched a SIP trunking plus service which shows it is serious about the business market... And there is growth here.
The company expects to have over a billion dollars in revenue in 2011 and I think if it tweaks its business model it could make more.
In October 2007 I wrote about what eBay should do with Skype and although the company is beginning to implement a lot of my ideas I wonder if a standalone publically traded Skype might implement some of these ideas more quickly allowing them to generate even more revenue.
What excites me a great deal about a Skype IPO however is that it will wipe away the idea that Vonage represents the entire IP communications market. Vonage has been a master at marketing but sadly the only thing it does better than market is lose money.
Skype's greatest power is in its network and its ubiquity. There is just so much you can do when you own desktop real estate.
A standalone company could be just what the doctor ordered to allow Skype to make the most of its opportunities. This one will be good to watch.
See Also: eBay Unloads StumbleUpon, Skype Next?
eBay just sold StumbleUpon to its original founders and returns it with triple the registered users or about 7.5 million. The site was sold to eBay in May of 2007 for $75 million and eBay has recently said the site has little synergy with its core business. Why is this important? Simply because the same comments were made about Skype and rumors are flying that Skype too will be sold. Certainly the Stumbleupon sale makes it more likely that eBay will unload all non-core holdings which means Skype could be sold this year as well.
More:
In a world where it has become commonplace to digitally detail the events of our daily lives, it should come as no surprise that operations are being Twittered live. Most recently Aurora St. Luke's Medical Center announced it will will broadcast a bi-lateral knee replacement surgery April 16, 2009 at 9:00 EST. If you can't get enough of bloody surgery on TV, this Wisconsin-based hospital will let you take it with you LIVE! Here are the links... Enjoy:
What's next for Twitter? How about break-ups, divorces, firings, layoffs... Question is -- will we know when we have crossed the line or is that just not possible?
YouTube will lose just under a half a billion dollars in 2009 and the problem is the massive volumes of user-generated content which are difficult if not impossible to monetize. Going forward, YouTube may need to change business models where it either charges a subscription for usage or shows only high-quality content. A great article by Silicon Alley Insider (get your dictionary out first) goes over the situation in detail. What can we learn from this story? Even Google, one of the world's richest companies may not be able to subsidize money-losing social-networking sites forever. Sure YouTube is the leading video site on the web but guess what... We have done a 180 from the dotcom days where eyeballs were enough. You see, even though we thought the dotcom bubble bursting was the end of eyeball-only business models, it seems social networking mania spurred by Facebook, LinkedIn, etc prevented investors from focusing exclusively on profit. If YouTube has its business model modified in some way to ensure the site comes closer to profitability, it could be the final sign to the market that companies need to focus primarily on profit and not eyeballs.
Having said that, there are potential business models Google is toying with and eventually one of them could strike gold. One that comes to mind is a toolbar integrated with network programming allowing the site to become the conduit to all TV viewing via a queuing system allowing users to add programming which will run in order. Some sort of video Pandora emulation comes to mind as well.
The revenue would be shared by network broadcasters who would flash video ads just like they do on TV.
An interesting thought here is how YouTube is responsible for massive volumes of video traffic which in aggregate is causing internet operators to upgrade their networks and complain incessantly about Google. The irony is Google generates massive traffic for a service which loses it money. And there are service providers who want to cut them off or slow their traffic or charge them to carry their traffic with priority. Would global carriers have a better relationship with Google if they drastically reduced their "bandwidth footprint?" I vote yes. It seems YouTube is much more of a problem for Google than just lost revenue.
Thanks to Richard Shockey for bringing this article to my attention.
The talk of the weekend in the world of IP communications is whether Skype would be better off in the hands of original founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. You see, the New York Times is reporting the pair is interested in acquiring the VoIP software company from eBay who says there are few synergies between Skype and its current business model.
What Skype would gain from such a deal would be the addition of the legendary leader Niklas Zennstrom as spokesman. There is value in having him keynoting as the company's head. In the past, Zennstrom wowed crowds at ITEXPO more than once.
As I read the New York Times story I just couldn't help but wonder how one of the world's largest ecommerce companies does not see synergy with the world's largest internet telephony software company. For example, the fact that I don't see ads for eBay auctions as I wait for calls to connect is mindboggling.
In my last conversation with Zennstrom he mentioned to me there could be some powerful synergies between Skype and Joost, his internet television service. An acquisition could allow him to have a ubiquitous client which could be used to gain leverage on numerous content providers. You see Joost is not achieving the mainstream traffic it needs and its alexa rank is in the 4,100 range which I estimate to mean 2-3 million unique visitors on a monthly basis. Quantcast says Joost gets 491,000 monthly US visitors while a competitor Hulu gets 13,600,000 US visitors per month.
Although it is difficult to understand how eBay doesn't see synergies, Skype itself doesn't need to go anywhere. It is doing fine under eBay IMHO and it is rolling out new features and functions at a nice clip and gaining new users by the million. If anything, eBay needs Skype to ensure it has multiple sources of revenue and for this reason, it would be a mistake to sell Skype too cheaply.
During the dotcom boom, Bill Gates made a speech where he explained how if the auto industry had kept up with the computer industry we would be driving $25 cars which get 1,000 miles to each gallon. GM was said to have responded with a press release which among other things said if Microsoft designed cars they would crash twice a day and occasionally, for no reason, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed the radio antenna. The complete list is here and sadly the GM press release was never released - it is internet folklore.
But Gates it seems really does want to change the way the auto industry works as there was a recent patent filed by Intellectual Ventures which describes an electromagnetic engine with the potential for opposing pistons and the ability to have pistons move without the need for sparks - meaning electrically controlled pistons. A traditional piston compresses a mixture of gas and air and a spark causes an explosion which causes the piston to move and eventually move the wheels.
Oh and by the way, Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft's former chief technology officer runs Intellectual Ventures, which explains the Bill Gates connection.
This patent is interesting because the engine is configurable which means there is potential for software to continuously alter the way it operates. The patent further describes that sparks may not be used at all to get the engine to move and like diesel fuel, compression alone will be enough to generate a reaction which moves the piston(s).
TechFlash seems to have broken this story and mentions in a post that this engine one ups the Wankel, rotary engine and they could be right. The Wankel, currently powering the Mazda RX-8 consists of a triangular piece of metal called a rotor in what is effectively a large pot or keg. Instead of pistons which go up and down, the triangular rotor spins in the same direction. First fuel and air are pumped into a chamber and as the rotor spins the air and fuel are compressed in a smaller chamber. Next a spark ignites the mixtures which continues the process. Wankel engines by the way are not great on gas but they provide a good amount of power for their size and weight. It is this engine by the way which allowed the last generation Mazda RX-7 pictured to be one of the greatest sports cars of all time (extreme personal bias at play - beware
).
I haven't read the patent but for those car/tech people out there it will likely be very interesting.
Here is an excerpt:
[0082]In some embodiments, engines include permanent magnets or electromagnets. In either case, the engine may include thermal shielding, insulation, or other thermal control apparatus (e.g., a cooling system) that functions to maintain temperatures of selected engine components within a desired range. In particular, a thermal control system may act to maintain a magnetic material below its Curie temperature.
[0083]The Figures depict several different configurations of single or dual pistons in cylinders. In some embodiments, an engine may include a plurality of cylinders, which may be of the same or of different types. Pistons in different cylinders may operate independently, or may be operatively coupled (e.g., mechanically coupled as by connection to a common crankshaft). In particular, an engine may include control electronics that select whether to operate a piston, and which piston to operate, in response to a determined actual or predicted operating condition (e.g., incline of the engine or of a vehicle powered by the engine, temperature, current draw, speed, acceleration, braking, load such as gross vehicle weight, fuel composition, engine emissions, power, local rules such as emissions limits, or engine settings). For example, when power draw is relatively heavy, the control electronics may run pistons more frequently or run more cylinders. When power draw is relatively light, the control electronics may run fewer pistons, including not running a piston at all.
[0084]In embodiments in which the pistons are not coupled to one another in a configuration that maintains their relative phase (e.g., via connection to a common crankshaft), they may be operated synchronously or asynchronously. As used herein in connection with piston timing, the term "asynchronous" means that the cylinders are operated with at least one stroke having a different duration or velocity profile from cylinder to cylinder, so that a constant phase relationship is not maintained between substantially simultaneous piston cycles. Examples of asynchronous piston operation include operating two pistons at different cycle frequencies or operating one piston while leaving another substantially stationary.
[0085]In each of the illustrated embodiments, a converter (which may include coils or another variable reluctance or variable inductance circuit) is connected to an energy management system. The energy management system operates as an energy source and sink, drawing power from the piston during the power stroke and returning power to the piston during other strokes. Power conversion systems that can accept power inputs of variable length or amplitude and convert them to supply a substantially constant voltage are described, for example in U.S. Pat. No. 4,399,499, which is incorporated herein by reference. Such conversion systems may be used to condition power intake from the engine to make it more useful for other purposes, such as for driving a vehicle. The energy management system may also accept power inputs from other sources, for example from regenerative braking systems. The energy management system may store power in an energy storage device such as a battery or a capacitor (including a supercapacitor, ultracapacitor, or hypercapacitor). U.S. Pat. No. 6,590,360, which is incorporated herein by reference, describes a switching circuit designed to transfer energy in both directions between a battery and a motor/generator that may be used for this purpose. In some embodiments, the energy management system may also power auxiliary devices such as water pumps, oil pumps, fuel pumps, fans, or compressors.
