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Daily, November 07Installing Ubuntu 8.10 In 12 Easy Steps
 | InformationWeek Daily - Friday, Nov. 7, 2008 |
 The Cloud Computing Monopoly Debate
The back-and-forth began with Hugh Macleod's crystal ball blog post The Cloud's Best Kept Secret: "The way I'm seeing the future commonly talked about, is all this data and programs spread all over the networks of all these companies, relatively proportional to their current market caps. Some folk have their stuff with Sun, some with Amazon, etc. But nobody seems to be talking about Power Laws. Nobody's saying that one day a single company may possibly emerge to dominate The Cloud, the way Google came to dominate Search, the way Microsoft came to dominate Software." O'Reilly disagrees with Macleod's analysis, since he thinks network effects instead of power laws ultimately determines the winner in any and all Web marketplaces. (A network effect is the phenomenon where a service becomes more valuable as more people use it, thereby encouraging ever-increasing numbers of adopters.) O'Reilly discounts the possibility for network effects in the cloud infrastructure space: "Understanding the dynamics of increasing returns on the web is the essence of what I called Web 2.0. Ultimately, on the network, applications win if they get better the more people use them. As I pointed out back in 2005, Google, Amazon, ebay, Craigslist, Wikipedia, and all other other Web 2.0 superstar applications have this in common. "Cloud computing, at least in the sense that Hugh seems to be using the term, as a synonym for the infrastructure level of the cloud as best exemplified by Amazon S3 and EC2, doesn't have this kind of dynamic. ... The cloud computing business will be huge, but it may be more similar to the Web hosting and ISP markets, which are also huge, but not hugely profitable." Nick Carr counters O'Reilly's argument by quoting some of his own words back at him that seem to negate one of his original premises, that is, denying that Google's success is based on network effects: Find out who gets in the last word. Could be you! Feel free to post your thoughts in the comment section.
Roger Smith
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"When you appeal to force, there's one thing you must never do - lose." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Installing Ubuntu 8.10 In 12 Easy Steps
Google Co-Founder Larry Page Giddy For White Spaces
The technical executive of the search engine said utilizing white spaces is good for the country, and it could increase the company's revenue by as much as 30%.
AMD, Red Hat Demo 'Live' VM Migration Across Platforms
The vendors posted a YouTube video showing the migration of a running virtual machine from an Intel Xeon-based server to one running AMD's quad-core Shanghai processor.
First Responder Terminal Market To Exceed $3.6 Billion In 2013
Global public-safety and other governmental agencies have been standardizing on new digital technologies, including the APCO/TIA Project 25 and the ETSI Tetra project.
Craigslist To Crack Down On Prostitution Ads
The popular listings site, which has been under pressure to screen out sex ads, has agreed to crack down in a pact struck with 40 states.
Web 2.0 Summit: Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang Open To Microsoft Sale
The co-founder also acknowledged Google's announcement that it would not pursue its advertising partnership with Yahoo.
Nvidia Unveils Workstation-Class Integrated Motherboard GPU
The Quadro FX 470 is marketed as a less-expensive alternative for designers and engineers working in CAD and digital content-creation applications.
Intel To Launch Core i7 Nov. 17 With PC Demos
The processors, code-named Nehalem, already have received strong praise from "first-look" reviewers.
Obama Picks Tech Guru Genachowski For Transition Team
Recruitment of the attorney-technocrat is consistent with Obama's stated goal of having technology play a key role in his administration.
Web 2.0 Summit: Intel Shows Off Secret Mobile Device
Larger than an iPhone and smaller than an ultramobile PC, Intel's device could perform real-time image-to-text optical character recognition and translation from Chinese to English.
Avaya Pledges Continued Overhaul
Incoming CEO Kevin Kennedy is expected to hone Avaya's focus on usability of its IP telephony and unified communications systems to compete strongly against Cisco.
Windows 7 Features Include Touch Screens, Better Device Support
Microsoft says the successor to Windows Vista will offer improved performance in a number of key areas.
FairPoint Directors Support CEO, But Prepare His Exit
Eugene Johnson has indicated his desire to retire after the company successfully completes the systems transition of its newly acquired northern New England business.
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Virtualization At The Desktop?
The BI Explosion
Sexy Web Browsing On A Windows Mobile Device
In late 2007, I purchased a Windows Mobile-based smartphone. The top issue I heard from friends before I made the purchase is that the browsing experience was nothing like the Safari browser on the iPhone. I knew that I wanted the ability to blog from the mobile if needed and so I wanted a device with a keyboard. The first month was exactly what my friends said it would be...miserable Web browsing.
AT&T CEO: iPhone To Get Tethering App 'Soon'
Using a 3G-enabled smartphone to serve as the wireless modem between the network and a laptop should be offered by every carrier and every smartphone. Alas, only a handful of phones can do this. According to AT&T's CEO, the iPhone will soon be one of them.
FCC White Space Approval Raises Spectre Of Interference
I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing (well, actually I am), but the FCC's approval of the use of "white space" broadcast spectrum for Wi-Fi is the kind of move which could only happen in an age when computers have apparently wiped out the collective technical consciousness of the entire radio and television era. Yep, I'm talking the vast potential for interference amongst the coming unlicensed services.
Symphony's Now Playing For Linux And Mac
IBM's Lotus Symphony -- their clever and stylish rebranding of OpenOffice.org -- is now hitting Ubuntu Linux and Mac desktops. It's another sign that for the software of the future -- especially open source software -- the platform won't be the deciding factor.
Steve Ballmer On Android: 'Blah-De-Blah-De-Blah'
Speaking at an investor meeting in Australia, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer said he doesn't get the business model behind Google's Android platform. Some might say the same thing about Windows Mobile at the moment.
Michael Crichton Exposed Greens' Junk Science
Talk about the courage of your convictions. Author Michael Crichton stood up to the Chablis-sipping, let-the-Third-World-eat-cake ecobullies while living right in their midst in Hollywood. Crichton died Tuesday, but his words live on and should be closely read by the incoming president and anyone else who cares about the economy and jobs.
Video: Box.net Eases File Sharing For Normal Folks
Sometimes in our rush to embrace the latest and greatest, us early adopters forget that it's not about cutting-edginess, it's about utility. As in, can normal people accomplish tasks they couldn't otherwise do if they were working with, say, index cards? That's why Box.net is so valuable. It's a way to share massive files without having to fumble with ftp. To learn more, check out the short video I shot with Box.net's Jim Herbold.
Micrososoft's Cloud Ecosystem Czar: "When Mashups Fail, Whose Throat Do You Choke?"
Whereas most cloud computing czars at most cloud solution providers are usually very gung ho about the cloud and mashups, Brandon Watson, Microsoft's Director of Microsoft's Cloud Services Ecosystem offers a bit more of a sobering look at today's state of affairs when it comes to using a variety of disparate Internet-based services to composite or mash up some business application.
Verizon Tells Us What The BlackBerry Storm's Plans Will Cost
Verizon Wireless, you're such a tease! People are dying to know how much the BlackBerry Storm is going to cost. What does Verizon Wireless do? It trots out an announcement about the Storm's global data plans, but not the cost of the device itself.
What's Lance Armstrong Got To Do With It?
As part of the continuing theme of do-good at Web 2.0 Summit 2008, Lance Armstrong, unretired cyclist-cum-philanthropist extraordinaire, took the main stage as the dinner keynote. This was the only appearance he agreed to honor after announcing his cycling comeback and his visit was much anticipated. It didn't disappoint.
Yahoo's Yang: Train Wreck
On the heels of the Yahoo deal that fell apart V 2, comeback CEO Jerry Yang was skewered by the able hands of Web 2.0 Summit host John Battelle earlier today. Yang looked weary, to say the least; and who wouldn't, after seeing hundreds of millions of potential revenue flushed away thanks to Google's reluctance to battle the DOJ. Worse, Yang's strategy for Yahoo looked pretty close to a train wreck; or maybe warmed-over leftovers of a Web that's passed his company by.
SiCortex Offers Green HPC Efficiency Metric
SiCortex, which in September introduced what is arguably one the most energy-efficient high-performance computers, today is expected to introduce the Green Computing Performance Index (GPCI), a tool to rank the "greenest" computers.
Real-World SOA: Definition, Implementation and Use of SOA with CentraSite
Forrester Consulting: Unified Communications Delivers Global Benefits
Software as a Service Research Report
The Internet & The Developing World
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I've been following with interest a cloud computing debate that's been going on the past week or so between O'Reilly Media founder Tim O'Reilly and technology writer Nicholas Carr about the potential for a single company to achieve monopoly control of the world of cloud computing.
Everyone's doing it; eventually, you will, too. This 360-degree report takes a look at what gets virtualized and when.
