Archive for August, 2004
VOIP Hype Alive & Well
Tuesday, August 31st, 2004For those who were concerned the buzz about VOIP was beginning to wane, fear not. The fine folks at the Yankee Group issued a bubbly report earlier this week that forecasts there will be 17.5 million U.S. households with Internet telephony service by year-end 2008. The Yankee Group also expects 56% of the homes with [...]
Microsoft Has Lost its Mojo
Tuesday, August 31st, 2004You really have to wonder whether Microsoft has any sense of strategic momentum given its decision to delay the release of its new operating system, Longhorn, until early-2006. Even when it does come out, Longhorn will be a minor upgrade over XP. Then, you have Microsoft's controversial XP Service Pack 2, which is supposed to [...]
Frank Dunn's John Roth Obsession
Sunday, August 29th, 2004For the past few months, I've been a little sympathetic about ex-Nortel CEO Frank Dunn and his senior management team - believing they did yeoman's work bringing the company back to health before they were fired in April for reasons that have not been disclosed yet. In the background, however, was this troubling belief Dunn [...]
Vonage Raises More VC
Thursday, August 26th, 2004Can someone explain to me how Vonage manages to raise an addition US$105 million in venture capital? Each time this company convinces investors to pony up more cash, you have to be impressed by the selling powers of Vonage CEO Jeff Citron. With apologies, however, to VOIP advocate Jeff Pulver, Internet telephony is still an [...]
Bill Owens' First 100 Days
Saturday, August 21st, 2004When Bill Owens took the helm of Nortel in late-April, you knew he had a number of huge challenges ahead. A little more than 100 days later, you have to give him credit for taking dramatic moves to re-invent the telecom equipment maker. Rather than moving slowly, the decision to eliminate 3,500 employees and fire [...]
Ultra-fast DSL
Thursday, August 19th, 2004If the folks at the University of Toronto and Carleton University are onto something, DSL at 400 to 500 megabytes/second could be on the horizon. According to an article in the latest issue of Nano Letters, a scientific journal, DSL routers could be souped up using a new polymer material that could be integrated into [...]
Wireless Spam Gets Spiked
Thursday, August 5th, 2004In what can only be regarded as a much-needed and logical move, the Federal Communications Commission approved rules earlier this week banning companies from sending spam to wireless devices without consent from the person receiving it. The decision should hopefully keep the wireless world from being inflicted the curse of spam and, more important, save [...]
Google's IPO
Monday, August 2nd, 2004There has been plenty written about the proposed of Google's impending IPO but what about the company's ability to continue its stature as the Web's ultimate search engine? There have been many proponents - including myself - that there are a growing number of search rivals already on the scene or poised to enter the [...]