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10 Lessons from Volleyball, Part 2
Part 1 of the 10 Business Lessons from Volleyball can be found here. In volleyball, the only play you control yourself is...
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CloudTC and N-Able Acquired
"Australian-owned IP PBX systems company, Vixtel, has completed the acquisition of Silicon Valley based glass phone developer, CloudTC, for an undisclosed figure,"...
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ProfitBricks: Where InfiniBand Meets Cloud 2.0
In a recent meeting with William Toll and Pete Johnson of ProfitBricks, the pair were ecstatic to explain how their company has...
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Proactive Care Puts Operators One Step Ahead
By Thomas Fuerst, Senior Director, Multimedia Solutions MarketingAlcatel-Lucent
Monitoring and analyzing network data proactively saves operators time, money, and customers.
When a network service fails, it makes headlines, ticks off customers, and costs that network operator money. When a failure is headed off in advance, on the other hand, there might not be praise-laden headlines, but it's newsworthy nonetheless.
The traditional approach to customer care has typically been: a disgruntled customer calls customer service and complains of a service interruption or problem; the rep, learning of it for the first time, sends out a technician the next day, and eventually finds a resolution. Often, customers are left feeling put out, and the operator has spent significant time and money resolving the problem. Even worse is the customer who doesn’t call and just feels this is ‘typical’ of their network experience. That is a customer at risk of leaving.
Proactive care flips this dynamic on its head by using predictive analytics to identify potential outages or errors in the network and stop them before they occur. It consists of three main parts: one, constantly monitoring and measuring data on the network; two, real-time analysis of the data; and three, the most important, acting on that analysis to fix the problem.
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10 Lessons from Volleyball
I've played volleyball for over 25 years. I have traveled around the US to watch the pros live - both indoor...
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Emerging Threats Combats a Million Plus Pieces of New Malware a Week
There are 250,000 plus new pieces of malware being produced each day equating to one piece per person in the US in...
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NFV-Based Software Telcos Need OSS/BSS Interoperability
One of the goals of ETSI NFV is to allow new entrants to provide solutions to carriers based on software instead of...
Full Story »BMW Goes Green
July 30, 2007
Well perhaps they aren’t quite green yet but BMW, the car which provides us the self proclaimed “ultimate driving machines,” hopes to also bring us the “ultimate green driving machines.” This article details the company’s hydrogen plans. This is in addition to a plan the company has to recapture steam utilizing traditional internal combustion engines in order to yield a 15% or so increase in energy efficiency.
UK Based ISP Easynet goes Carbon Neutral
July 28, 2007
It seems to me the trend towards companies going carbon neutral is accelerating as companies like the UK’s Easynet are even pushing their partners to do their part to reduce their carbon footprint. Certainly, Easynet will make a great case study if they are able to truly achieve their carbon neutral goals.
Here is more from VNUnet in the UK.
The Real Carbon Footprint of a Web Page
July 26, 2007
If a banner ad falls in the woods, does anybody see it? Seriously, does a banner ad have a carbon footprint? Over at Internetnews.com, David Needle has a fascinating discussion about the whole banner ad Vs. print ad debate regarding carbon footprint. There is a discussion of the Green Grid and other socially and environmentally responsible ways to ensure your data center is as green as can be.
My take is the carbon footprint of a web ad requires an indirect calculation.
Plant a Tree for Six Dollars
July 25, 2007
For a paltry six dollars you can have a tree planted for you in order to soak up a ton of carbon dioxide. A federal agency the U.S. Forest Service and a non-profit group the National Forest Foundation came together to launch a website enabling e-commerce to help the financing of trees which should in theory reduce global warming by absorbing CO2.
Whether this is a good or bad move for the environment is debated in the following article but it is logical that deforestation can be combated by tree planting. There is no doubt we are wiping out forests at an alarming rate and this can’t be good for anyone.
Green Technology World Conference Program
July 25, 2007
Here is the conference program for Green Technology World Conference which takes place September 11-12th 2007 in Los Angeles, CA. Here are some of the sessions to give you an idea of what to expect:
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 11, 2007
Top Ten Ways to be GREEN through Better Networking
Mark Leary, Senior Strategist, Cisco
In this connected world, our networks are front and center in our GREEN technology efforts. In this session, Cisco will outline the ten most significant networking technologies and techniques that are serving to ease our demands on the Earth’s resources. As the world’s premier provider of networking systems to enterprises, small and medium businesses, and service providers, Cisco is uniquely positioned to research, analyze, and forecast the impact of networking technology on GREEN initiatives.
Top Ten Ways to be GREEN through Better Networking
Mark Leary, Senior Strategist, Cisco
In this connected world, our networks are front and center in our GREEN technology efforts. In this session, Cisco will outline the ten most significant networking technologies and techniques that are serving to ease our demands on the Earth’s resources. As the world’s premier provider of networking systems to enterprises, small and medium businesses, and service providers, Cisco is uniquely positioned to research, analyze, and forecast the impact of networking technology on GREEN initiatives.
Green Credit Card
July 25, 2007
Here is a credit card that gives back. To the environment that is. The new GE Money Earth Rewards Platinum MasterCard, allows you to forgo your 1% cash back and have this money go towards green causes.
G.E. will keep a running tally of the amounts, and each Earth Day it will use the total to buy offsets of greenhouse gas emissions. The offsets will be purchased by GE AES Greenhouse Gas Services, a joint venture between GE Energy Financial Services and the AES Corporation, a power company.
Here are the details from the NY Times (registration required).
Green Investment Up 45% - Report
July 24, 2007
According to Australian IT global investment in green technologies has increased tremendously in the past three years.
The Cleantech Venture Network reports that North American and European venture capital investment in “cleantech” hit $US3.6 billion last year, up 45 per cent from 2005 and more than double the $US1.7 billion pumped into the sector in 2004.
The article points to several examples, such as Bob Christiansen’s new $170 million Southern Cross Fund and Melbourne’s Starfish Ventures, both of whom are earmarking large amounts s of their funds under management for so-called “cleantech” deals.
For more, check out the following article.
Sacramento Greens Up Light Rail
July 23, 2007
Opportunities to “go green” are all around us. Public transportation has long been considered a useful tool in the march to save the environment. It’s become commonplace see alternative fuel buses in many municipalities across the United States.
Now the Sacramento Bee is reporting that the California capital has identified that city’s light rail system for an energy efficiency upgrade.
Call it the Prius effect.
Much like the systems Toyota uses in their hybrid vehicles, Sacramento hopes to take advantage of regenerative braking technology to capture energy to be used in helping the trains to accelerate out of the stations.
Energy created while braking will be captured and sent back into the lines that provide power to the light rail system.
According to the Sacramento Bee, forty percent of the energy from braking can be recovered and sent back to accelerating trains.
Mobile Phone Carbon Footprint
July 20, 2007American Airlines Plans Green Marketing Push
July 20, 2007
As I was flying back from a trip to the West coast, trying to calculate how much it would take to offset my carbon usage, I came across a Wall Street Journal report that said that American Airlines, the world’s biggest airline by passenger traffic, is preparing a marketing campaign to kick off in August to show off its green side.
Supposedly AA is receiving an increasing number of inquiries on the subject from both consumers and business travelers. Stay tuned for more as the airline rolls out its plans.
Maybe they can set up a program where frequent flyers can exchange their miles for carbon offsets.
