From Evernote:

StratVantage Consulting, LLC — Mike’s Take on the News 12/12/00 Clipped from: http://www.stratvantage.com/news/121200.htm

The News – 12/12/00

P2P For Pete’s Sake

A couple of recent developments illustrate how the P2P fervor is finding its way into mainstream applications.

Real Networks announced their new media streaming scheme, and it’s beginning to look a lot like Napster. RealSystem iQ does away with the idea of a central server serving media streams. Rather, a network operator can configure peer servers that can share the load. If one area of the network gets overloaded, less-busy servers can step in to service the load. This makes a self-healing media distribution network a reality.

Under tremendous pressure from Microsoft’s MediaPlayer, Real Networks still claims 160 million users and 72 percent of the media files on the Net.

In other P2P news, two of the Net’s killer apps are united in Aimster, a combination of instant messaging and file sharing (a la Napster). Now, not only can you chat about the latest music, you can share it with your buddy list. Unlike Napster, there is no central server, and thus very little way to stop this file sharing. Created by the improbably named Johnny Deep (who is an equally improbable 43 years old), Aimster was released this summer, has 73 million users already, and has not escaped the notice of the record industry. However, since the file sharing is limited to buddy lists, it could be argued that Aimster just facilitates the kind of music sharing that happens when you lend your CD to your friend who then tapes it.

Inside (Real Networks story)

Inside (Aimster story)

Wireless Growth MDA

You can’t let a day go by without reading another rosy prediction of wireless growth from a pundit or industry flack. To help you with your minimum daily requirement, here’s a chart and a couple of quotes:

Lucent claims that by 2005, 50% of wireless traffic will be from data. Motorola asserts that by 2004, more people will be accessing the Internet from a wireless device than a wired one. In the U.S., there’ll be 96 million wireless users by 2005.

You’re welcome.

eMarketer

How Fast is Fast Enough?

I love my cable modem. Despite my misgivings about cable company service, I’ve had very few problems with it. And it’s fast, up to 1Mbps. But if things go right, by late next year, I could be trading it in for access that’s 40 times faster.

Called Ultraband and developed by Advent Networks, this new technology runs over hybrid fiber coaxial networks. Unlike my cable modem, which shares bandwidth with other users in my area, Ultraband uses switched Ethernet over cable, creating virtual channels for each user that delivery 40Mbps. This means you get guaranteed performance that is more than 700 times as fast as a 56Kbps modem.

Now to put 40Mbps into perspective, your office network probably only runs at 10Mbps, and your office Internet access is probably only 1Mbps. Plus, you share these resources with everyone in your office. How’d you like to have 4 times that performance dedicated to your use along?

While you’re pondering that, consider this: The cable network is capable of speeds up to 1Gbps.

Advent Networks

From Evernote:

StratVantage Consulting, LLC — Mike’s Take on the News 11/21/00 Clipped from: http://www.stratvantage.com/news/112100.htm

The News – 11/21/00

XML Creator Maps the Web

Now here’s a new concept: Visually represent the Web against a map of Antarctica. It sounds strange, and it surely is ambitious, but check out Map.net and see what you think. Oh, and it only supports IE 5.x browsers. The goal is to become the largest human-edited directory on the Web.

It’s called Antarcti.ca™ (cute name alert), and it’s the brainchild of XML co-creator Tim Bray. It’s ironic that the project currently only supports Microsoft browsers, since the basic data comes from Netscape/AOL’s Open Directory Project (http://dmoz.org ). Each of the 300,000 categories includes chat capability as well. The site is free.

So what’s the business model? Seems that the company expects to make money doing custom maps of corporate networks. Kinda like the old Netscape model . . .

Map.net

One2One Targeted Audio Messages

Here’s a weird use of technology. MusicBooth’s AdAcoustics® ad insertion technology enables advertisers to deliver targeted, one-to-one audio messages to online radio listeners, without requiring a download or registration. AdAcoustics removes broadcast ads from its partners’ streaming content and seamlessly replaces the advertisement with personalized messages. To do this, it uses database of over 80 million anonymous profiles to select the right ad.

The MusicBooth holds three patents covering numerous aspects of

targeted audio and audio/video advertising. It’s target market is online radio stations which can now customize ads to individual listeners. “For example, a broadcaster using the AdAcoustics system could deliver a message about the release of Ricky Martin’s new album to one listener while it promotes Mariah Carey to another simultaneously . . .Even if the user goes to another website, the music goes with him,” says 56-year-old lawyer Bob Wolfe, who holds several patents on the technology. “This way, a site could charge 10 to 15 cents a message, as opposed to the 1 cent banner ads now cost. Another benefit is you can pull an ad quickly if it’s not working. Or you can run test campaigns before you move to more expensive media like TV.”

They plan on going wireless, using partner Interep, as well.

Listeners can immediately respond to an advertiser’s message using another MusicBooth tool, I-fetch (all these I- products make me I-retch).

Well, it sounds like a cool idea, but I worry a little about the “80 million anonymous profiles” database. It sounds a little like what Angara does. They have a database of more than 100 million anonymous profiles. Partners of this network include Engage, MatchLogic, Naviant, and Persona. As long as this information is truly anonymous, then I guess it’s OK. But what if it isn’t?

MusicBooth

From Evernote:

StratVantage Consulting, LLC — Mike’s Take on the News 11/14/00 Clipped from: http://www.stratvantage.com/news/111400.htm

The News – 11/14/00

HP and Nokia to Enable Cell Phones to Print from Web

The two companies recently announced an effort that would allow a person to identify a document on the Web via URL, send that URL to an HP printer, and the printer would retrieve the document and print it. The phone would use IR, vCard or Bluetooth protocols to send the URL to the printer. “Nokia 9110 and 9110i Communicators currently have the capability to beam a URL using today’s vCard and IR technology. HP printers supporting these evolving standards will be available beginning next year.”

This effort is stemming from HP’s “CoolTown” research project. Let’s see. Our image is stodgy; we don’t seem to get it. I know! Let’s start a project called “CoolTown!” Then all the kids will think we’re hep!

Kidding aside, HP envisions, in CoolTown, that devices will be broadcasting URLs wirelessly throughout our environment via “beacons.” This sounds like Bluetooth, but HP doesn’t name that technology specifically. HP is also a partner in MIT’s Oxygen project, which aims to bring a pervasive computing fabric to everyday life.

I do like one turn of phrase in HP’s CoolTown propaganda, though: “your pocket device becomes a remote control for the world-at-large.” Yes! Now I can mute the people who talk in movies!

Visit CoolTown

MIT’s Oxygen Project

HP Press Release

A B2B Business Standard?

UDDI is a non-profit organization originally established by Ariba, IBM, and Microsoft that is fostering a Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration standard. This standard will involve “the creation of a service registry architecture that presents a standard way for businesses to build a registry, query other businesses, and enable those registered businesses to interoperate and share information globally in a distributed manner.” This registry will contain information on how each business is able to do electronic commerce and provides a globally unique identifier. The goal is to help businesses find trading partners and enter into productive relationships without worrying about disparate technologies.

“Registering with UDDI will enable a company to publicly list a definition of itself, its services, and methods for engagement.” The list of community members includes most of the luminaries of the B2B marketplace. The real test will be in spreading the concept into the rest of the industrial marketplaces.

UDDI

Business 2.0

From Evernote:

StratVantage Consulting, LLC — Mike’s Take on the News 11/13/00 Clipped from: http://www.stratvantage.com/news/111300.htm

The News – 11/13/00

Most Popular ASP Applications

EMarketer has released a survey that ranks the most popular ASP applications. To no one’s surprise email was number one. E-commerce, however, was second followed by accounting/financial. I guess I’m not surprised about e-commerce, but accounting/financial? Very interesting.

eMarketer

Voice is Golden

I just love the lead from this article in Business 2.0: “Cell phone haters are out of luck, because voice is the word on every Internet company’s tongue this fall.” Although AOL is mentioned, we know that, if the story concerned AOL alone, the title would have been, “You’ve got voice!”

The big stat in this article is: “The Kelsey Group predicts that speech portals will be reaping more than $5 billion in revenue from advertising, ecommerce transactions, and subscriber fees by 2005.” The big bummer is, the business model for voice is not yet clear, and it’s not at all a sure thing that consumers will accept advertising.

Business 2.0

I Want This Phone

The Japanese have the coolest phones. Take a look at the latest from Sharp for the Japanese market.

"J-SH05" has a TFT liquid crystal panel, which can be folded into the size of a palm. The screen is 2-inch in size, displays 65,536 colors, and displays up to 10 words x 12 lines.

Nikkei Electronics

From Evernote:

StratVantage Consulting, LLC — StratVantage News Summary 11/10/00 Clipped from: http://www.stratvantage.com/news/111000.htm

StratVantage News Summary 11/10/00

Be on the wave or under it™

The News – 11/10/00

In this Issue:	Recommended Reading
I realize this is the only newsletter you’ll ever need, but if you want more in-depth detail, check out: Stan Hustad’s The Coaching Connection Management Signature’s The Express Read

Convergence to the Max

Sprint and Samsung have released a phone with a built-in MP3 player and access to music downloading sites. Sprint PCS My Music service is supplied and managed by HitHive and incorporates RealNetworks RealJukebox software. The phone is the new Samsung Uproar. Apparently, users must rip and upload MP3s from their own music collections for later download to the phone. What’s wrong with this picture? Wouldn’t a Rio be handier? But I guess the pocket bulk factor is important too.

The cool thing is you can stream the music directly to the phone. And the phone has 64MB of memory for more than an hour of playback time.

Watch the video

Sprint

Gateway-AOL: You’ve got Net appliance!

I usually try to write my own headlines for these bits, but I used this one from the ZDNet article to make a point. Using “You’ve got . . .” to introduce articles about AOL has gotten really, really old! Come on you media types! Get off this tired convention. Then maybe we can say, “You’ve got . . . a clue!”

Anyway, unlike Netpliance, which is getting out of the consumer market, Gateway and AOL obviously don’t think the Net Appliance market is dead. But tell me: Who wants a $600 appliance? Get an eMachine! However, this announcement is also notable because it involves Transmeta chips. Transmeta is the company that persuaded the creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds, to come work for them.

ZDNet

Swatch Redefines Time

Can you say, hubris? Swatch and Ericsson have unveiled the T20 phone, the first phone to use Internet time. “In Internet time, there is no day or night, there are no time zones or geographical borders. Internet time was invented by Swatch and is based on one global time zone for all Internet users.” The phone was unveiled at 480 beats in London. Somehow this is easier than saying 10:32 am GMT. As Sting said, “One world is enough, for all of us.”

So where have I been? Swatch invented Internet time two years ago!

Oh, darn. One small problem: the phrase Internet Time® is trademarked in the US by VirtualFund.

Ericsson

Swatch

Briefly Noted

• Shameless Self-Promotion Dept.: StratVantage has launched a new service, CTOMentor™, designed to allow Chief Technology Officers and other technical leaders to get rid of the Guilt Stack, that pile of magazines you’ll get around to reading someday.

  CTOMentor is a subscription advisory service tailored to customers’ industry and personal information needs. Four times a year CTOMentor provides a four-hour briefing for subscribers and their staffs on the most important emerging technology trends that could affect their businesses. As part of the service, subscribers also get a weekly email newsletter, Just the Right Stuff™, containing links to the Top 10 Must Read articles needed to stay current. These and other CTOMentor services will let you Burn Your Inbox™.

  As part of its launch, CTOMentor is offering a two-part white paper on peer-to-peer technology: Peer-to-Peer Computing and Business Networks: More Than Meets the Ear. Part 1, What is P2P?, is available for free on the CTOMentor Web site . Part 2, How Are Businesses Using P2P?, is available for $50.
  CTOMentor

Return to Mike’s Take

From Evernote:

StratVantage Consulting, LLC — Mike’s Take on the News 11/09/00 Clipped from: http://www.stratvantage.com/news/110900.htm

The News – 11/09/00

Is the Web a Good ASP Platform?

Here’s a good way to get some publicity: Do what the new ASP named 7 (stupid name alert) did. Challenge the assumption that the Web can provide decent quality of service and be reliable enough for application delivery. Instead, 7 will run leased lines to the businesses it serves. The UK ASP launched this week.

Naturally, other ASPs are up in arms, but Sun more or less agreed that some apps can be delivered reliably over the Web. A poll of European IT directors by Rhetorik found that 70 percent were concerned about security, and more than half worried about reliability of ASP applications.

It’s an interesting debate, and one we’ll hear more about as more and more companies move their businesses to the Web.

Silicon.com original story

Silicon.com followup story

News Websites Not Up to Election Pressure

Drudgereport.com, MSNBC.com, and Voter.com all had problems handling the volume as voters flocked to the Web for the latest news. There were similar problems four years ago, and the sites had vowed they’d handle it this time.

Silicon.com

Who does Microsoft turn to when they want to run their business application? AS/400.

This is such poetic justice. Dr. Frank Soltis, the IBM engineer who has been called "the AS/400’s Elvis," (you know, fat, puffy, drug-addicted – I guess that’s what they mean) related the story of a software company that turned in their 23 AS/400s and fired up 1,200 NT machines to replace them. Now that company is back on AS/400, having despaired of getting the NT solution to work. The company? Microsoft. It’s just too good to be true.

Midrange Computing

Secure Music Delivery On the Way?

The Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) issued a $60,000 challenge to hackers to try to break six proposed security schemes for secure digital music delivery. The group claims that three of the technologies survived the challenge, while two of the other three were hacked successfully.

SDMI did not reveal the identities of the successful schemes, but San Diego, Calif.-based Verance Corp. claimed its watermarking technology was one of the challenge survivors. And Princeton University and Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) claim to have defeated the four technologies using digital watermarking, contrary to SDMI’s claim. The Princeton/PARC group claims SDMI is using a technicality, the fact that the group reserved the right to publish their results and thus were ineligible for the prize, to avoid acknowledging their success.

Political much?

eMarketer

Get Ready for Wireless Ads, But Watch Out For Norm

This article by Dan Briody is alarming in a couple of ways. First, he details plans to bombard us with ads on our wireless phones (analysts predict a $750 million wireless advertising market by 2005), and he allows that he’d welcome them if they’d knock $20 off his phone bill.

But even more alarming is his tale of visiting the restroom at a tony New York restaurant only to be assaulted by an audio ad featuring Norm MacDonald. Truly terrifying: Are we not to be given a moment’s peace?

Even more depressing is the news of a European study that found that users are receptive to the idea of wireless ads. Of course, the study was done on behalf of cell phone vendor Ericsson, but 40 percent of 5,000 Swedish subjects found the advertising compelling, and 20 percent wanted more information after viewing the ads.

Where’s the mute button?

Red Herring

Ad Age

Listen to the Web

Hear the wave. InternetSpeech introduced its NetEcho service that will read you Web pages over your phone. Now we’re getting somewhere. This service promises to trump more limited offerings like TellMet.

But will the audio Web change the way Web pages are designed? Are your pages audio-friendly? Could this be the demise of overly Flash-y pages? Stay tuned. (Incidentally, competing voice portal Talk2’s site is fronted by a Flash animation. Ironic?)

PC World

Ad Age

From Evernote:

StratVantage Consulting, LLC — 11/03/00 Clipped from: http://www.stratvantage.com/news/110300.htm

The News – 11/03/00

Rosy Technology Predictions May Be Pessimistic

In a recent paper, George Washington University examines predictions for 85 emerging technologies over the years. Some of their findings indicate the hype isn’t intense enough for some technologies. This feeling is shared by Wired Magazine’s Kevin Kelly, who said in a keynote at the Delphi Corporate Portals Conference, “The Web is underhyped.”

The GWU study cites a few instances of underhyped technology:

Forecasts can often be overly pessimistic, and nowhere has this been more true than in information technology. Microprocessor development has proved so successful that chips are now three times faster than they were predicted to be in the early 1980s. It is as if we have in 1997 computers from the year 2000. By some measures, computer performance has improved a million times since their invention fifty years ago. The problem of pessimism is so notorious that the attitudes of prominent scientists often seem quaint in retrospect. In 1923, Robert Milikin, a Nobel Prize winner in physics, claimed “there is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom.” In 1895, Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, said “heavier than air flying machines are impossible.”

The flip side often reflects an optimism bordering on naiveté. Many people still recall predictions in the 1950s that the world would enjoy nuclear power “too cheap to meter.” Or that we would fly personal jets to work and return from 20-hour workweeks to smart homes and robot servants that would prepare dinner automatically.

So the computer on your desk is the equivalent of a million of the room-filling behemoths of the early ‘50s. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Here are some of the computing related predictions for this decade from the experts in the study:

Prediction	Year
Entertainment On-Demand
Videoconferencing
PC Convergence
Distance Learning
Advanced Data Storage
Standard Digital Protocol
PCS Gains Markets
Groupware Systems
Computer Sensory Recognition
Modular Software
Parallel Processing Computing
Information Superhighway
Personal Digital Assistants
Intelligent Agents
Ubiquitous Computing Environment
Broadband Networks
Electronic Banking/Cash
Expert Systems

George Washington University

Airflash Teams with Excite and Orange on Location-Based Services

Even more progress on the Personal Area Network front. This announcement doesn’t detail exactly how the network will determine proximity. I suspect the user will somehow input his or her location. Still, the future’s coming fast.

Airflash

Return to Mike’s Take

Vicinity and Phone.com Announce Location Based Services

Well, the future’s coming faster than I had imagined. This month, Vicinity, a vendor of location-based information, and Phone.com, maker of the most popular WAP browser as well as other wireless applications, announced Vicinity’s BrandFinder. BrandFinder is a Web and wireless application that gives users the ability to search nearly 300 of their favorite brands and locate the retailers and service providers nearest to them. While the major wireless providers fight the future and grumble about complying with the FCC’s E911 regulation (which requires them to locate a cell phone within 30 to 50 meters by next year), these two vendors are making it real now. Imagine all the brand owners who will hustle to get on Vicinity’s list. You gotta figure existing Vicinity customers such as FedEx, Ford, GM, Hilton Hotels Corporation, Marriott, McDonald’s, NEC, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Starwood Hotels, Taco Bell, Toyota, Levi Strauss & Co. and UPS will have the leg up.

Phone.com

Airflash Teams with Excite and Orange on Location-Based Services

Even more progress on the Personal Area Network front. This announcement doesn’t detail exactly how the network will determine proximity. I suspect the user will somehow input his or her location. Still, the future’s coming fast.

Airflash

From Evernote:

StratVantage Consulting, LLC — StratVantage News Summary 09/29/00 Clipped from: http://www.stratvantage.com/news/92900.htm

Faster, Better, Cheaper Bandwidth . . .

. . . is just around the corner. According to Upside, "By the end of this year, Nortel Networks Corp. (NT) plans to begin selling a system that will send a staggering 1.6 trillion bits per second through a single fiber. That’s equivalent to more than 20 million simultaneous phone calls." What will the world look like when bandwidth cost approaches zero? We may find out a good deal sooner than we thought.

At the Delphi Corporate Portals conference this week, Wired editor Kevin Kelly related a story of an early 20th century Sears product: the home motor. This portable but expensive device could power all manner of labor saving devices. Kelly asserted that people of that time couldn’t imagine what was to come: motors disappeared into the fabric of the home support systems. It’s certainly true. Rather than a single, expensive, valuable resource that needs to be conserved and maximized, domestic motors today are in everything and we never think about them. Try taking an inventory of all the motors in your house. Did you remember to count any mechanical clocks?

Kelly’s point is that computing will disappear into the background just as so many other technologies have. I believe communications bandwidth will go the same way. Remember when you hesitated to make a long distance call because it was so expensive? (If you don’t, you were probably born later than the 70s.) Now you can call for free on your wireless phone or over the Internet. Kelly described the cost curve that modern technology has created: one that approaches zero. A correlary to his thinking is my assertion that, "On the Internet, everything devolves to free." (See my presentation from the conference for more on that subject, here. Email me if you want the PowerPoint file.

So, what will you do with unlimited bandwidth?

Upside

Briefly Noted

• Shameless Self-Promotion Dept.: StratVantage has launched a new service, CTOMentor™, designed to allow Chief Technology Officers and other technical leaders to get rid of the Guilt Stack, that pile of magazines you’ll get around to reading someday.

  CTOMentor is a subscription advisory service tailored to customers’ industry and personal information needs. Four times a year CTOMentor provides a four-hour briefing for subscribers and their staffs on the most important emerging technology trends that could affect their businesses. As part of the service, subscribers also get a weekly email newsletter, Just the Right Stuff™, containing links to the Top 10 Must Read articles needed to stay current. These and other CTOMentor services will let you Burn Your Inbox™.

  As part of its launch, CTOMentor is offering a two-part white paper on peer-to-peer technology: Peer-to-Peer Computing and Business Networks: More Than Meets the Ear. Part 1, What is P2P?, is available for free on the CTOMentor Web site . Part 2, How Are Businesses Using P2P?, is available for $50.
  CTOMentor

• "Won’t You Sign In Stranger?": The US digital signature law goes into effect this weekend. Have you got your digital sig yet? The idea sounds great, but it could be costly to implement. Perhaps you’d like to combine it with the smart card in your mouse pad .
  C|Net
• Stupid Name Alert From time to time, I come upon really stupid names like WooDoggie or Google (c’mon, I know they’re popular, but Google?) I guess these folks want to out Yahoo Yahoo. And maybe they have. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!) As a public service, I’ll pass stupid names along in this space. Today’s candidate for Stupid Internet-Related Name of the Year is: B2B-Hive, an Internet incubator apparently for bees to bees. Perhaps an apiary lonely hearts club? OK, it’s maybe not as stupid as WooDoggie, but wait — try going to www.b2bhive.com . Guess what? That’s not them! It’s a cybersquatter. You need to go to www.B2B-hive.com. Now don’t you think it’s a lot stupider?
  B2B-Hive

From Evernote:

StratVantage Consulting, LLC — 10/25/00 Clipped from: http://www.stratvantage.com/news/102500.htm

The News — 10/25/00

eBusiness Growing Pains Spell Opportunity for Innovative Services Firms

from IDC
IDC predicts that the current $115 Billion eSolutions Business Will Skyrocket to $430 Billion by 2004. The company predicts that companies will turn from their current, essentially reactive mode, to a more strategically focused mode that identifies new opportunities for revenue. Thus, they will need more outsourcing services. However, IT services companies who do not evolve their offerings are in for trouble. “IT service organizations must recognize that the services they offer today will face increased margin pressures as a growing number of service organizations offer the same services. . . Today, more than ever, businesses buy from service providers that can provide answers to the fundamental question of ‘What IT investments do I need to make to maximize business value?’” IDC identified CRM and Logistics as two business services that will be much in demand.

IDC

Cisco Integrates Web-Based Product Ordering Tool With Ariba Buyer Application

Will somebody please tell me what’s up with Cisco? Here’s a hardcore network hardware provider who has a small business applications center, CRM, chat, and other software holdings, and who’s buying more like they’re going out of style. Now they’ve got a Web purchasing front end and an alliance with Ariba. I realize all this stuff drives demand for more networking, but what’s their strategy. I haven’t figured is out yet. If you have, email mellsworth@stratvantage.com .

BTW, just try to find the press release on Cisco’s site. I dare you.

Cisco

B2B Roofing Network Selects Clarus

OK, I admit it. I asked myself, “B2B roofing? What’s next? B2B Hammer and Nail Exchange?” But I really love their motto: “Consolidating the industry under one roof.” That’s certainly better than, “Who let the dogs out? Roof, roof, roof roof.”

Anyway, Clarus is a B2B enabler that doesn’t get the press of the Ariba’s and Commerce One’s of the world, but who has some nice solutions and some decent clients.

B2B Roofing Network

Return to Mike’s Take