Hesh Wiener
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Mad Dog 21/21: The Harder They Fall
November 26, 2012 Hesh Wiener
… Read moreThe printer business is disappearing. But a successor market is forming around a new kind of device, an image and media server that will absorb printers, scanners, copiers, faxes, and more. The process is actually well along already. But, surprisingly, the big names in the printer business are caught up but haven’t caught on. They worry about the fiscal cliff when they should contemplate Jimmy Cliff. They are haunted by the ghost of Jacob Marley when they should be celebrating with the spirit of Bob Marley.
Give me a couple minutes and I will show you.
Like so
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Mad Dog 21/21: Estranged Here In A Strained Land
November 5, 2012 Hesh Wiener
… Read more“Kafka,” said my doctor, checking for existential and inguinal strains. I was in satisfactory shape, he observed, which is more than one can say about Dell or Hewlett-Packard. Dell’s eponymous chief Michael is straining in vain to lift sales and profits; the way things are going he could end up with a financial hernia. Meg Whitman, HP’s boss, has similar difficulties; she might suffer a fiscal hisnia. I’m probably late pointing this out, because this very topic became the cover of the October 20 Barron’s magazine, and usually cautious Barron’s is more often a coincident reporter or
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Mad Dog 21/21: Thinking About Thinkstuff
October 8, 2012 Hesh Wiener
… Read moreIf you are like most business computer users, it’s been a long time since your go-to gadget was a ThinkPad. But outside the declining post-industrial economics, Lenovo‘s client computers are market leaders. This year, with Hewlett-Packard and Dell slipping, Lenovo’s third world first strategy could bring it to first place on a global basis. The company’s next conquests might be in the server business. You don’t think so? Well, EMC does. Soon, your servers might say Lenovo instead of IBM, if not on their outside name tags, very possibly on the inside ones that count.
Unusually, the people
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Mad Dog 21/21: Shamoon And Six Trends
October 1, 2012 Hesh Wiener
… Read moreIn a lengthy study published in September, IBM says vendors and users have done a pretty good job tackling computer security problems lately, despite some persistently festering issues. The report deals with threats to user organizations that arrive via the Internet. This was unfortunate because sabotage had just become a very hot topic in security circles. In August, destructive malware called Shamoon trashed 30,000 workstations at Saudi Aramco and an unspecified number of client systems at Qatar’s Rasgas. The vector was most likely a flash drive carried by an insider, not a website or email.
IBM’s star-crossed (or perhaps Shamoon-crossed)
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Mad Dog 21/21: The Malady Of All Empires
September 17, 2012 Hesh Wiener
… Read moreHere we are, more than five years after the debut of the iPhone, welcoming the fifth generation of this iconic product. Actually it’s more than iconic. Late last winter, Forbes pointed out that Apple’s iPhone business had become bigger than all of Microsoft. People like their iPhones a lot, and their Androids, too. They enjoy iPads and Kindles, and soon, perhaps, other tablets. Love for PCs? Not so much. In fact, it’s a tragedy. If the vendors and their suppliers want to survive, they ought to reflect on mythical Greeks, such as Narcissus and Echo and Nemesis.
Just in case
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Mad Dog 21/21: Has The PC Lost Its Mojo?
September 4, 2012 Hesh Wiener
… Read moreWhen the top two suppliers of PCs to American business customers, Hewlett-Packard and Dell, posted financial results for the second calendar quarter, shareholders wept. Their results were bad, their outlook worse. Meanwhile, iPad sales soared.
The non-iPad tablet segment, led by Amazon along with Barnes & Noble, recently joined by Microsoft and Google, just kept getting hotter. Moreover, PC makers Lenovo, Asus, and Acer seem to be on the rise, suggesting that the PC business isn’t doomed after all. Maybe it’s only that America’s two biggest vendors are executing poorly in a tough environment.
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Mad Dog 21/21: For Whom The Tolls Bill
August 6, 2012 Hesh Wiener
… Read moreYou’ve probably heard of E-ZPass, the electronic traffic monitoring and taxation system. The E-ZPass client device is a vehicle borne radio that rats you out at roadway tollgates. This technology looks like a natural for metered-planet-loving IBM, but not in this case. E-ZPass transponders and cloudy services come from Kapsch, of Vienna, Austria, an outfit that mixes mobility, monitoring, and money the world over. Even venerable NCR is jumping into mobile payments now, hoping to edge out rivals from clever little Square, a mindshare leader, to Big Blue, which talks Smarter but doesn’t always act that
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Mad Dog 21/21: Up Close And Personal
July 16, 2012 Hesh Wiener
… Read moreWhen Google unveiled the Nexus 7 tablet computer in June, it couldn’t make calls over a cellular phone network but it could beam financial transactions about a half-inch. The Nexus 7 has a secure data radio based on Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. Nowadays NFC is in a growing number of mobile devices, but that’s not all. NFC makes transit passes like London’s Oysters smart. It is baked into some debit and credit cards. And you can make your very own NFC devices for a buck a pop. They can do some neat tricks.
There’s a lot more to NFC
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Mad Dog 21/21: Transit Of Venues
June 18, 2012 Hesh Wiener
… Read moreThe world of wankerware: Did you think Facebook was the number one social networking venue despite a slapstick $100 billion IPO? That Twitter was a big hitter? That Google+ was looking up? That LinkedIn was how business people passed the word? That Foursquare was hot hot hot hot? That Yammer went for a billion under the hammer? So how can IDC say that IBM is number one in social platforms, taking in a piddling $60 million in 2010?
Well, if you are rich, delusional IBM, then you can play at social media and still live in your own untethered
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Mad Dog 21/21: Outer Burroughs
June 4, 2012 Hesh Wiener
… Read moreSmack in the middle of his literary career William S. Burroughs, eponymous grandson of the founder of the company that eventually made Burroughs computers (now part of Unisys), wrote Naked Lunch. There’s a section in the younger Burroughs’s book about an entertainer whose act involves speaking through his rear end. Eventually the rear end develops its own personality and tells the entertainer it is in charge now.
IBM didn’t invent Indian computer services companies, but by offshoring its services workforce, it did foster their legitimacy in corporate America. Now multi-billion-dollar Indian services firms are growing three, four,