Hesh Wiener
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Mad Dog 21/21: Food Chain
July 14, 2014 Hesh Wiener
… Read moreThe strategy in big retailing, epitomized by the practices of Amazon and home delivery grocers, seems to be about as different from IBM‘s strategy as anything could be. These merchants are unafraid to accept razor-thin margins. IBM pursues high margin endeavors; it sheds operations that fail to yield large profits. Web sellers aggressively promote their prices. IBM is phenomenally secretive about pricing. So, when IBM said it was hooking up with Deliv, which provides rapid delivery services, industry observers were gobsmacked.
Sure, Deliv could be the next Amazon. It could also be a rerun of Pets.com
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Mad Dog 21/21: The Show-Me State
June 9, 2014 Hesh Wiener
… Read moreBetween 1981 and 1993, IBM liquidated an extraordinary asset. Its value had been building since Thomas J. Watson became head of Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, IBM’s birth name, in 1914. That asset was a vast base of rental equipment. Rentals had fueled and stabilized IBM and fostered its binding relationship with customers. Once gone, that rental base could never be rebuilt.
At the helm when this sea change began was John Opel, who hailed from Missouri, the Show-Me State. He probably didn’t understand what IBM showed him. His successor, John Akers, caught on, but by then it was too
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Mad Dog 21/21: Zigbee And The Waggle Dance
May 27, 2014 Hesh Wiener
… Read moreIn 1973, Karl von Frisch received a Nobel Prize for his work on honeybee communications. Among other accomplishments, he decoded the waggle dance, the method by which a honeybee tells others where it found pollen. Twenty-five years later, the Zigbee Alliance began promoting a data communications scheme inspired by the waggle dance. In 2003, Zigbee became an IEEE standard, and in 2006 it was revised and improved. Today it is a core technology for local Internet-of-Things networks, controllers, devices, and sensors installed by builders ranging from giant data service providers down to do-it-yourselfers.
Zigbee networks can share spectrum and
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Mad Dog 21/21: IBM, The Dacoit, And Ganesha’s Mother
May 12, 2014 Hesh Wiener
… Read moreIn India, embarrassing incidents have raised the specter of impropriety on the part of a few IBMers, now ex-IBMers, and another former IBMer who had for a decade been a big client. In the USA, IBM launched a website to market cloud computing. Right out of the chute, the site failed for mobile clients; instead of displaying valid web pages, it served the Big Blue Screen of Death. Worldwide, revenue has fallen for eight consecutive quarters. Chip fabs are for sale as IBM chops up its furniture to feed the fire.
This stuff gives customers shpilkes; some will flee.
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Mad Dog 21/21: When Oxford Was Obnoxford
April 21, 2014 Hesh Wiener
… Read moreIt was December 1208 or 1209. New Year’s Day in England was March 25; the month after December 1208 was January 1208. Somebody bumped off a young woman who lived in Oxford. The villagers blamed university students, and, led by their mayor, hanged two. The remaining academics blew town right away, many moving east from their ford on the River Thames to a bridge over the River Cam. That is how Oxford University gave birth to Cambridge. They were the sole universities in England for 600 years, providing an organizational model for many academic institutions and some commercial companies.
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Mad Dog 21/21: Who Says Elephants Can’t Die?
April 14, 2014 Hesh Wiener
… Read moreFifty years ago, the American computer industry had eight major participants. IBM had about two-thirds of the market; seven dwarfs shared the rest, and none of them is particularly important anymore. That is the nature of enterprise. Many companies prominent in the Dow Jones Industrial Average back in 1966 have faded. Looking back a century, only General Electric can be found in both the 1914 list and today’s roster. IBM didn’t make the DJIA until 1979 and it might not get a 100-year run. The way things are going, it might not even get half that far.
Charles H.
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Mad Dog 21/21: All’s Well That Ends Well
March 17, 2014 Hesh Wiener
… Read moreIn February, Oracle became just about the last enterprise computing heavyweight to get into mobile device management (MDM). Oracle’s entry came by way of its acquisition last year of Bitzer Mobile, a company with technologies to sequester data and applications on mobile clients. Oracle’s strategic effort to support sensor-laden smart clients amounts to a major reversal.
Historically, Oracle touted, to little avail, thin, insensate clients, as did its sinking Sun. Oracle will undoubtedly find that the MDM business is incredibly demanding and viciously competitive. It’s not just Oracle. MDM is tough for every player, including IBM.
Folio: Shakespeare’s
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Mad Dog 21/21: Will You Still Need Me When ARM’s 64?
March 3, 2014 Hesh Wiener
… Read moreAt the end of February there was a big technology trade show, Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona. MWC attracted more than 70,000 visitors. It spanned mobile gadgets, electronic components, apps, and services–stuff for consumers, and stuff for the industry itself. This year’s unofficial theme was the transition from 32-bit to 64-bit processing, chosen last September 10. That is when Apple unveiled its 5S phone with a 64-bit A7 processor. Apple’s circuit, manufactured by Samsung, is based on ARMv8A architecture. It runs 64-bit iOS 7. And, for now, it defies competition.
In the iPhone, as in other computers, whether
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Mad Dog 21/21: Coining Money
February 17, 2014 Hesh Wiener
… Read moreThe number of bitcoins in circulation is more than 12 million and growing. They have an aggregate value with an order or magnitude of $10 billion. Are bitcoins money? That depends in on how one defines money and where in the world one happens to be. In China, it is illegal for banks to trade bitcoins but in the USA bitcoins are kosher. Overstock.com sells IBM x servers for bitcoins. But there is no simple way to buy Power or mainframe servers from IBM with the bitcoins they resemble.
Bitcoins: While in practice a bitcoin is a data
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Mad Dog 21/21: Noshing Like Cronus
February 3, 2014 Hesh Wiener
… Read moreIBM is a modern day Titan. In Greek mythology, the Titans were children of Uranus who preceded the Olympian Gods. If an observer were to pick one Titan to compare to IBM, it would be Cronus, whom the Romans called Saturn. Cronus ate five of his children in an effort to preserve his power, the way IBM has eaten the compatible mainframes and Power and mainframe emulators its technology spawned. A sixth child of Cronus, Zeus, eluded that fate, as the PC did in IBM’s case. In the end, Zeus deposed Cronus.
Cronus: Peter Paul Reubens painted Cronus eating