Jason Stamper's Blog: June 2005 Archives

Sun Buys SeeBeyond: Now That’s More Like It!
June 29, 2005

As I said in my previous blog about Sun’s acquisition of tape maven StorageTek, it would have been a little disappointing if that was the only purchase for the company this year. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with the profitable storage company, but because it’s not exactly a high growth market or one that lends itself to integration with anything other than Sun’s storage division. So anyway, the news yesterday that Sun is to buy integration company SeeBeyond is definitely good news for Sun, its customers and shareholders.

SeeBeyond has been around donkeys years, has around 2,000 customers and is actually growing. SeeBeyond reported sales up 8% at $37.3m in its latest quarter, though it posted a net loss of $2.6m. However, since Sun's cash offer of $387m represents a multiple of just 1.9 times SeeBeyond's trailing 12 months sales, if you take SeeBeyond's cash and equivalents of $73.6m out of the equation, the deal might just prove a bargain.

SeeBeyond was the first company to make its integration server a fully J2EE-compliant application server, which seems an elegant way of supporting industry standards. The company’s Integrated Composite Application Network (ICAN) version 5 has had good reviews and appears to be seeing good take-up among the company’s existing customers. And over the past 18 months the company has made all the right noises around - and funnelled investment into - service oriented architecture (SOA), which is an important new trend in application middleware, development and deployment.

The buy is not without challenges, however. By Sun’s own admission around two years ago it ‘end-of-lifed’ some of the Netscape/iPlanet integration technology it had bought, so it has certainly had some false starts in the integration space in the past. It also needs to ensure that the SeeBeyond technology remains - and is still perceived - as supporting other platforms beyond Sun’s own, otherwise a chunk of revenue will evaporate from SeeBeyond’s top line.

Sun and SeeBeyond have been close for several years, and its developers will be pretty familiar with each company’s code. Putting SeeBeyond into the Sun software stack, with even closer links between SeeBeyond’s technology and the Java Business Integration (JBI) framework, could just help Sun to recapture some of the ground it has been losing in SOA to the IBMs, BEAs and others of this world.

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Posted by on 04:47 AM

Apple Switch to Intel: Evolutionary Improvement to Revolutionary Machines
June 24, 2005

There's been an awful lot of column inches devoted to Steve Jobs' announcement that he is going to port the Apple MacOS to Intel. Here are some more.

The big debate is around whether Jobs will license MacOS to other manufacturers, so they can build Intel machines around MacOS. Some pundits have been saying that if he did, Apple could quickly grow to rival Microsoft's Windows dominance. A little hasty, perhaps.

Jobs has so far said that he will not allow others to license MacOS on Intel, or any other hardware for that matter. That's because Apple's current business model is reliant on its hardware sales more that its software sales. It could of course change its business model, and if sales of MacOS on other people's hardware became great enough it could more than make up for the loss of Apple hardware sales. But so far that looks like a bridge too far for Jobs, who is no doubt mindful of what a change like that might do to the company's share price in the short and medium term.

Culturally, too, the company sees itself very much as a solutions company. It likes the idea of someone buying its hardware and software together, wrapped up in a fantastically slinky, well-engineered skin. That philosophy is in its blood now more than ever.

In which case, what difference does MacOS on Intel really mean? Instead of buying a sexy Apple Mac running a PowerPC chip, you will get a sexy Mac running Intel.

When Jobs announced the switch to Intel he demonstrated Microsoft's Office and Adobe's PhotoShop - written for the PowerPC - running on an Intel-based Mac thanks to Apple's Rosetta dynamic binary translator. For a longer-term solution to the third-party application issue, Jobs also introduced version 2.1 of Xcode, Apple's development environment, which will enable application developers to create universal binaries that will run on both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs.

So aside from applications support, the only real difference is that it could enable Apple to get somewhat faster, less power-hungry computers out of the door, which will be a boon for its mobile machines and also the Mac mini (and future iterations thereof), which it seems determined to make as small as possible.

Make the Mac mini much smaller and you will be able to take your computer from home to work in your shirt pocket, just like an iPod (or perhaps, instead of an iPod, if you add a battery). Who knows where Apple could ultimately take the Mac mini?

So what does this mean when punters make the comparison between Apple and the PC brigade? The Wintel brigade already have Intel in their desktops, severs and laptops, so little change there. You can't get Intel machines with MacOS, of course, nor does it look likely you will be able to when Apple makes the switch.

What the Wintel brigade have so far not managed to do is come up with anything that competes directly with the Mac mini. That's partly because Apple is able to iron out any hardware and software incompatibilities in the likes of its iLife suite of applications, because they are all from Apple. But it's also a great design, offering most of the power of a desktop computer in a much smaller form factor.

The Mac mini won't suit everyone. It's not for tinkerers and is not very extensible. Even extra memory must be fitted by an Apple authorized service provider unless you want to invalidate the warranty. It's only got a laptop disk spinning at 4,200 RPM, so intensive disk read/write applications like real-time music and video editing can struggle (most desktops and even some laptop disks spin at 7,200 RPM). It's only 1.42 GHz so far in the top model, and it's only got an 80GB hard drive. But for a low cost, sleek, and very quiet everyday computer, it's fantastic. It's MacOS and iLife that really bring it into its own.

It's rumoured that Apple has commissioned its manufacturer to increase production to 100,000 Mac minis per month, so the mini is selling like hot cakes. Then again, Dell sold around 2.6 million PCs per month in 2004, and the total market for PCs was something like 15 million per month according to analysts. It's not clear yet how many Mac Minis are being bought instead of a PC purchase, and how many are being purchased as a complementary piece of kit for the living room or bedroom, where their compact form factor and funky multimedia capabilities make them a good fit.

But all in all, unless Jobs licenses MacOS to other Intel manufacturers, I see Apple's switch to Intel as enabling Apple to make only evolutionary improvements, predominantly to its laptops and Mac mini. The thing is, each new generation of Macs has been pretty revolutionary even before this switch.

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Posted by on 03:17 AM

Microsoft and Sybari: Take Aim at Foot, Pull Trigger
June 22, 2005

News this week that Microsoft is to discontinue sales of Sybari anti-virus software for Linux and Unix platforms, now that it has closed its acquisition of the company, is daft on so many levels. Here are the four biggest.

Microsoft announced it was buying Sybari for an undisclosed fee in February this year. It was Microsoft's second anti-virus acquisition in 20 months, but it suggested a certain benevolence towards rival anti-virus companies.

That's because Sybari is somewhat unusual as an anti-virus vendor in that it does not create its own virus definitions or scanning engines, but enables customers to choose multiple anti-virus packages from partners including Sophos, Computer Associates, Kaspersky Labs, VirusBuster and Norman. Microsoft looked to be protecting its relationships with those companies.

The idea is that anti-virus firms are unpredictable in their response times to new malware outbreaks, so companies can manage their risk more effectively by having two or more scanners, with Sybari's Antigen tying them together.

So Sybari had had a pretty open stance towards other anti-virus companies. It was also open to offering its products on Windows, Unix and Linux platforms. Culturally, you get the picture of a pretty open company, a Switzerland, if you like, of the anti-virus world. Microsoft may just have trashed that culture by forcing the company to stop selling its software on Unix and Linux. Disregarding a company's culture is a sure-fire way to make an acquisition fail.

Secondly, part of Sybari's inherent value was its ability to support Windows, Unix and Linux. While Microsoft did not disclose the price it paid for Sybari, it's just abandoned a chunk of its value, so Microsoft may have a big in-process R&D charge to write off associated with the discontinued platform support when it files its next accounts. That's money down the drain.

Third, it's turning its back on potential revenue from the Unix and Linux markets. Apart from the obvious drawback (some companies would argue any revenue is good revenue), anti-virus could be one area where Microsoft shows it is prepared to co-exist with Linux and Unix. After all, its BizTalk Server integration platform already has a Host Integration Server module that enables BizTalk to talk to IBM mainframe, AS/400 and other hosts, seeing the need for customers to get access to those back-end data sources - so why not be ambivalent in anti-virus too?

Finally, it sends a strong message to customers that Microsoft can help with security, but can only help in Windows environments. In the heterogeneous world in which we all now live, that is not a message that customers like to hear. Faced with a choice between heterogeneous security, or Windows-only security, which are customers likely to choose?

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Posted by on 03:25 PM

Why PSP UMD Porn is a Red Herring
June 21, 2005

News that Hollywood is looking to launch pornographic titles on Sony's PlayStation Portable - a device aimed predominantly at kids - has been greeted with dismay by the electronics giant. But it can't pretend to be surprised.

The PlayStation Portable (PSP), which is available in the US and Japan and launches in Europe in September, uses a new removable storage format, Sony's proprietary Universal Media Disc (UMD). It's a 60mm DVD-like affair, only it can store up to 1.8 Gigabytes, which is a hell of a lot for something smaller than a CD.

If Sony had been desperate to keep porn off the PlayStation Portable, it could simply have refused to license its UMD technology to those types of companies. It would be pretty difficult for them to hack, because for UMD, Sony created a protection system that uses a unique ID for each disc (using AES 128-bit encryption) and the ID of the PlayStation Portable itself to restrict illegal copying.

But Sony also has high hopes that UMD will become a standard, so it is putting it through a standards group for ratification, namely the European Computer Manufacturer's Association (ECMA), which is hoping to publish the standard this month and then fast-track it to ISO/IEC standard status.

Sony wants UMD to be a standard so that there is a good stock of music and movies available for the format, making its PlayStation Portable and other UMD-capable devices more attractive. Sony has said that it will allow other manufacturers to make hardware that can play music and movie UMDs, but not UMD games - it wants that market to itself.

Another element of the motivation for having UMDs as widely available as possible is that it is selling its PlayStation Portable hardware at a loss - around $50 per device, analysts estimate. Sony is hoping it can recoup those losses by selling UMD games, music and videos down the line. It realises kids are savvy enough to realise it's risky buying content in a format that isn't widely supported, so making UMD a standard is critical to selling kids UMDs, and recouping that lost cash.

Once it becomes a standard, then anyone will be able to put films out on UMD, whether Sony likes it or not. But don't forget that every film sold in the UK will still need certification from the British Board of Film Classification (bbfc), so in theory pornographic material would be restricted for sale to those over 18, as it is today on DVD.

So it will be no easier for someone under age to get their hands on a pornographic UMD than it is to get their hands on a pornographic DVD. Which does beg the question, just what is the difference between pornography being available on UMD from it being available on DVD? Both can be played on portable devices, and both are subject to bbfc classification.

What we should be far more worried about is the fact that kids are playing violent video games in the first place.

Numerous studies have found them damaging, and if you take all of the studies together, as Craig A. Anderson, Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at Iowa State University puts it: "When one combines all relevant empirical studies using meta-analytic techniques, five separate effects emerge with considerable consistency. Violent video games are significantly associated with: increased aggressive behaviour, thoughts, and affect; increased physiological arousal; and decreased prosocial (helping) behaviour... High levels of violent video game exposure have been linked to delinquency, fighting at school and during free play periods, and violent criminal behaviour (e.g., self-reported assault, robbery)." Enough said.

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Posted by on 03:50 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (4078)

BT Fusion Could Cost More Than You Think
June 17, 2005

There might just be some rather big cost implications with BT Fusion that the company isn't overly keen to highlight.

The new BT Fusion service, formerly code-named BluePhone, consists of a Motorola mobile phone and a wireless router called the BT Home Hub. You install said router in your house, and when making calls on the Motorola phone within range of the Hub you pay only standard BT landline rates if you're calling another UK landline. If you go walkabout, the phone switches seamlessly and automatically to the Vodafone network, and you start paying fairly typical mobile call rates. BT Mobile rates, to be precise.

The service is only available if you use both BT broadband and have a BT phone line, but the advantage is that you get the flexibility of having one mobile phone and phone number, yet are able to make relatively cheap calls at home from the same handset. You also get the convenience of getting a home wireless network, broadband, fixed line and mobile call billing from a single, trustworthy source.

So far, so good. But when you look more closely, it's not quite so good. For example, what rate does someone pay if they call you on your Fusion handset while you are at home? Do they pay the standard rate you would pay when calling a fixed line, or do they end up paying mobile rates, because the call is being routed to your Fusion handset? We asked BT, and they haven't told us yet. They said fuller pricing details will be announced in September. We think calling someone on BT Fusion will mean paying mobile rates, whether they are at home or not.

It's a big question, because it means that your granny's calls to you at home could suddenly start costing her a bigger chunk of her pension. She may not know she's calling you on a mobile tariff, because as far as she is concerned she's calling you at home.

But there are other hidden cost implications. With BT Fusion, while calls to UK landlines originated in the home will be charged at BT landline rates, all other types of call made in the home are charged at mobile rates. Specifically, BT Mobile rates, which are 10p per minute for calls to other BT Mobile users, or 30p per minute for calls to other mobile networks.

It also makes international calls a little dear, to say the least. Call Hong Kong from your Fusion phone and you will pay 50 per minute at any time. If you had left your trusty phone plugged into the wall socket and were on a price plan like BT Together you'd pay just 12p per minute at peak hours in the week, and 8p per minute in the evenings or all day on the weekend.

Call Australia, and BT Fusion customers pay 30p per minute at any time. BT Together customers on a standard landline pay 22p at peak times during the week, but just 9p per minute in the evenings and all day on the weekends.

BT Together costs as little as £8 per month and includes BT line rental. BT Fusion requires BT broadband (£17.99 per month), a BT line rental (another £10.50 a month) and a BT Fusion rental package too. The BT Fusion rental options are either £9.99 which gets you 100 free, anytime cross-network minutes, or £14.99 a month for 200. But BT also said that these packages are merely "launch pricing", whatever that means. Even so, the minimum is £38.48 per month to start with.

The long and short? If you're a relatively light user of your phone at home, or only really call other landlines, and want the convenience of having one handset to make and receive calls at home or out and about, BT Fusion ain't that bad. Particularly if you are a BT broadband customer anyway, or if you tend to use the phone for not much more than the 100 or 200 'free' minutes.

But if you use your phone at home a lot, particularly to call mobiles or internationally, you'll probably find it works out far cheaper to stay on a standard fixed line package like BT Together. Of course, you'll have to pay for broadband separately if you want it, and you will also have to pay for a mobile service separately should you want one - who doesn't these days?

Our take? It will gradually seep out that call costs with BT Fusion are a little pricey after the first 'free' minutes. BT would have been better to make calls made from home on BT Fusion exactly the same price as for standard landline customers on a package like BT Together, instead of matching them only for calls to other UK landlines. The proposition is less attractive as a result. Ultimately, BT Fusion will help BT retain existing broadband customers, but will probably not drive huge numbers of new customers.

That's a shame, because the scheme could have been attractive to a much wider audience if BT had been just a little more generous. Besides, BT could have done with something really dramatic to try and stem the tide of people taking to Skype, which is free to call other Skype subscribers. 80,000 new subscribers are believed to be signing up every day. BT Fusion may be BT's attempt to stem that tide, but if it doesn't bring down the prices even further it doesn't go nearly far enough to do that.

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Posted by on 04:27 AM

Why Geldof Shouldn't Blame eBay
June 16, 2005

Sir Bob Geldof described eBay's actions as "despicable", for allowing people who received the tickets to the forthcoming Live 8 concert in Hyde Park to try and sell them to the highest bidder at the online auction site. EBay has now capitulated, and agreed to prevent any more tickets being put up for auction.

But the tickets will be bought and sold one way or another. It is inevitable that some of those who received them in the text lottery, mindful of their potential value, will look to sell them on. And it was Geldof who created the discrepancy between the cost of acquiring them in the text lottery and their actual market value, not eBay.

Thanks to Geldof's outrage at their appearance on eBay, people won't be able to auction them at that particular site any more. Perhaps that's a good thing: I agree entirely that it would be pretty murky to have been able to watch the bids steadily rise into the stratosphere when the event is supposed to be for charity.

But how will those tickets change hands now? After all, it's not illegal to sell them, though I agree it's morally reprehensible if it's purely with the intention of making a quick buck. Will we not now see tickets being frantically traded outside the stadium on the day, in the full glare of the world's media? Or might we see tickets changing hands in pubs, or at car boot fairs?

It seems to me the only way to stop people selling the tickets on would have been if they had been sold in an online auction in the first place. Had Live 8 put the tickets into an online auction, with the proceeds from the winning bids going to the charity, then there would not be the discrepancy between the acquisition cost of the ticket and its market value. Live 8 would probably have raised even more money, too.

Admittedly, the drawback is that the concert would then be attended by those with deep pockets. On the other hand, is there anything really wrong with taking huge amounts of money off the richer people in the land, if it more than pays for the concert that everyone else would simply have to watch on telly instead? Perhaps it is the richest who should be giving most money to this cause, instead of even the richest getting a ticket to the concert for the price of a text message, just like everyone else.

Anyway, eBay is an online auction site, not our social conscience, and I would rather know that some tickets were changing hands on eBay than see an even bigger scrum of ticket touts at or near to the park on the day.

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Posted by on 05:09 AM

How Skype Fused BT
June 15, 2005

News of the launch of BT Fusion is not altogether unsurprising. If you missed the announcement, BT said it will soon launch an offering whereby subscribers are given a wireless router and a mobile phone, and when they are within range of their router they only pay standard BT landline rates. When they're not, the phone switches automatically to the Vodafone network for a typical mobile network service (and pretty typical mobile call charges too).

You have to be a BT broadband subscriber, and initially there's only one phone option, a Motorola V560 handset albeit with plenty of bells and whistles. You can hook up up to six of the phones to a single BT Home Hub wireless router, and make up to three calls concurrently. You can also use the wireless router to hook up PCs to BT broadband. You can even keep your existing mobile phone number.

BT is hoping that the package will prove attractive because subscribers get the flexibility of a mobile but with the lower call costs of the BT fixed network when they're in range of their wireless Home Hub. "Put it this way: you're getting the cost of a fixed line, the convenience of a mobile and better coverage. Why wouldn't you be a customer?," asked Ian Livingston, head of BT Retail. BT hopes this argument will also drive additional BT broadband subscriptions.

But let's be honest, BT wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for Skype. Analyst firm Evalueserve reckons there are about 13 million Skype users worldwide, for example, and that numbers are growing at about 80,000 a day. It believes Skype could have up to 245m subscribers by 2008 - and that excludes business customers, which are yet to switch to Skype in any great volume.

But even those figures could be conservative. Adoption curves have a funny habit of reaching a tipping point, when adoption accelerates even further. The attractiveness of the Skype service increases each time another convert signs up, because you can only use Skype to call people for free if they are also Skype subscribers. If you have three people on your 'buddies list', Skype is good. If most people you know are on your Skype 'buddies list', it's even better. As more and more people say to someone they know, "are you on Skype?", there could be a multiplying effect.

BT doesn't want its landline customers to start using Skype for free, whether or not they happen to use Skype over BT Broadband. With BT Fusion, it believes it may just get its foot in the door before Skype adoption really goes mental in the UK. If it can sign enough people up to its service, show them good call quality and give them the flexibility of mobile roaming when away from their BT Home Hub, those people might just not become Skype converts in the first place.

You can see some advantages of BT Fusion for UK customers. BT is a brand they trust, and not everyone is tech-savvy enough to install Skype anyway. Also, Skype isn't 'always-on' like BT Fusion, because for Skype to work you need each caller's computer to be running. Aside from Skype, there's also the convenience factor of BT Fusion: your broadband, phone and mobile are suddenly all served by just one provider, which is a big plus when it comes to billing and customer service.

All in all, this is a logical next step for BT as it continues its battle to stop its customers using unaffiliated mobile networks when they're not in the home, and from using Skype, Callserve, Vonage, or a.n.other when they are.

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Posted by on 07:55 AM

Computer Associates Buying Nik-who?
June 10, 2005

CA is buying Niku, professional services automation (PSA) vendor turned IT governance player. Pretty much all the PSA companies turned into IT governance players and most were bought a while back as it became obvious it was not a large enough category to stand on its own.

Kintana was bought by Mercury Interactive, Evolve was bought by Primavera, and Changepoint was acquired by Compuware. Commenting on the acquisition of Changepoint by Compuware last April, Niku's CEO Josh Pickus told me: "We're the leading player in the space, and I'm delighted to compete with companies that are not best of breed governance players." Guess what? You've just been bought by one.

For a hefty price tag, too: CA is paying $350m in cash. Niku's market cap was at $250m before the deal was announced and it had $68m in cash, so it's easy to see how CA justified the price tag.

But with its latest financial year seeing revenue of  $66m and net income of just $4m, it seems the company's market cap was pretty optimistic to start with. The market clearly believes the company's recent annual sales growth of 45% - that's the 44th best in the industry according to the CBR list of Shooting Stars - is going to continue, and perhaps it will.

As for CA, it's good to see that the company is returning to what it knows best: hoovering.

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Posted by on 08:03 AM

Apple Intel Switch Leaves Plenty of Questions
June 09, 2005

In the true spirit of democracy, this is CBR deputy editor Matthew Aslett's take on the Apple switch to Intel: it needs no further introduction.

Well it's finally happened. Apple chief executive Steve Jobs announced at the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco that Apple would end its 11-year relationship with IBM to move to Intel's processors for its Macintosh computers.

It was an announcement that provided more questions than it did answers, however. In particular 'why?' and 'what does it all mean?'

Jobs at least had 'how?' covered, proving that Apple's attention to detail extends beyond the design of its hardware and software. Apple will begin introducing Intel-based Mac's before next year's WWDC, he said, and will have completed the transition by the end of 2007.

He also revealed that Mac OS X has secretly been compiled for both Intel chips and IBM's PowerPC for the past five years, ensuring that Apple's software should run smoothly on the Intel processors.

The fact that a demo machine Jobs had already used to demonstrate some of the new features of Apple's recent Tiger OS X 10.4 release already had Intel inside put pay to any naysayers on that one.

Meanwhile, a demonstration of Microsoft's Office and Adobe's PhotoShop running on the same Mac proved that Apple's Rosetta dynamic binary translator would enable applications written for the PowerPC-based Macs to run on Intel-based machines.

For a longer-term solution to the third-party application issue, Jobs also introduced version 2.1 of Xcode, Apple's development environment, which will enable application developers to create universal binaries that will run on both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs.

When it came to explaining 'why' Apple had chosen to move to Intel, and perhaps more succinctly, 'why now', Jobs was a little more sketchy with the details, however.

He pointed to delays with promised Apple products, such as the G5 3GHz PowerMac and a G5 laptop, which have caused the company both frustration and embarrassment in not being able to meet performance targets.

The performance of the PowerPC processor has always been one thing that Apple, and its loyal users, could boast about, but Jobs produced some immediately disputed statistics that suggested Intel is moving ahead in terms of performance per watt.

"As we look ahead, we envision some amazing products. But we don't know how to build them with the future PowerPC roadmap," is all he added, and perhaps there is more in this statement than meets the eye. Details may yet emerge that will vindicate Apple's decision.

In the meantime, the question remains as to what it will all mean. Cheaper Apple hardware, perhaps, as the company can take advantage of Intel's larger volume pricing, but what of Mac OS on Intel PCs from alternative hardware vendors?

Apple senior vice president Phil Schiller has been quoted as saying that "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac," but how long will that last?

Keeping the company's iPod MP3 player and iTunes music management software to the Mac might have enabled Apple to drive more Mac sales, but the company's decision to allow both to support Windows has enabled it to gain a 76% share of the MP3 player market, and an 82% share of the music management software market, according to figures presented by Jobs during his speech. Additionally, Apple's decision to allow HP to resell the iPod has shown the company's willingness to go for the volume market, where it sees an opportunity.

Allowing iPod and iTunes to run on Windows certainly hasn't harmed Apple's hardware sales, with the company increasing year-over-year Mac growth rates from under 10% to over 40% over the last five quarters, while the PC market as a whole dropped from just under 20% to around 10%, according to Jobs.

Having Mac OS available on alternative hardware might cost Apple some hardware sales, but it would also provide an easier way for Apple-shy customers to evaluate its potential and for the company to win over a few potential converts.

It would also add a new element to the battle for the desktop, expanding Apple's challenge to Microsoft and presenting another alternative alongside (or perhaps instead of) Linux. On the other hand, Apple may feel that it needs to keep its remaining differentiators close to its chest, now that it has given up on one of them.

There is also the issue of whether current and potential Mac users might delay future hardware purchases to wait for the Intel-based machines. How Apple will deal with that particular problem remains to be seen.

While Schiller's statement appears to rule-out any potential of Mac OS on alternative hardware, Jobs's announcement proved that nothing can be completely ruled out. "I suspect there's a whole bunch of you who never thought you'd see that logo on this stage," commented Intel's CEO, Paul Otellini.

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Posted by on 02:18 AM

And the Daftest Headline of the Month Award Goes To....
June 08, 2005

...the Office of National Statistics, which just issued a press release entitled "Confectionery still a children's favourite". Stone the crows! Children still like sweets! Who would have thought it?

Sorry ONS, but really. Perhaps the headline was deliberately silly to encourage us hacks to read it. It worked, and in fact the latest news from the national bean counters is quite interesting.

A typical child, aged 7-15, spends about £13 per week. I'm assuming that excludes how much parents spend on their children each week. The four categories that children spent most money on were "confectionery, snacks and drinks"; "other food purchases"; "clothing and footwear" and "games, toys, hobbies and pets".

You can use the statistics as a benchmark for setting your child's pocket money, if you like: children aged 13-15 spent the most per week (£20) while children aged 10-12 spent £11 per week and those aged 7-9 spent £7.

Of interest to the mobile operators and content providers - girls aged 13-15 spent £1.50 per week on their mobile phones, nearly twice as much as boys. I'm guessing that's largely spent on text messages, as you can't have a very long chat on a mobile for £1.50, even if you only make one call a week. Besides, it's difficult to talk when stuffing your face with sweets and snacks. Apparently, confectionery is still a children's favourite, don't you know.

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Posted by on 04:25 AM

StorageTek: A Little Old School for Sun?
June 07, 2005

There's nothing disastrously wrong with Sun buying StorageTek. It's a profitable company and a better home for $4.1bn of Sun's cash than the bank. But there's nothing sexy or cool about it either, which is why it's left analysts and shareholders scratching their heads.

While Sun may well have had its share of difficulties of late as it tries to balance the new market forces that dominate the computing landscape - forces like Linux, Intel-powered computing and mobile - with its heritage in Unix-powered systems, it's just about managed to hang on to its original spirit of innovation. That has manifested itself in the likes of Java, its willingness to contribute certain technologies to the open source movement, even its plucky StarOffice.

Like I say, there's nothing particularly wrong with StorageTek either. It's profitable, with its most recent quarter's net income coming in at $23.4m. But it's not the most dynamic of companies. Revenue was down to $499.3m, from $515.1m in the prior year.

But it's not just about sales. StorageTek has stuck to what it knows best over the years - high end tape systems and libraries. If there's been any real excitement in storage over the past 10 years it's been seeing how much storage can be packed into new, ever more compact form factors - the kind of storage that helped the iPod wow the world. Yet this is a segment StorageTek has been happy to leave to others. Perhaps that has been a good thing, as it has enabled it to concentrate on its bread and butter. But it hasn't done an awful lot for the company's image, either.

Put it all together and it is an acquisition that may well make sense for Sun financially, but will do little to reinvigorate its well-deserved reputation for 'sexy' innovation. Perhaps the deal that does that will not be too far off.

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Posted by on 05:20 AM

From Digital Radios to... iPods
June 01, 2005

Apparently the iPod, designed by Jonathan Ive, or the Internet, designed and invented by Tim Berners Lee, could shortly be voted the UK’s favourite design. The iPod was nominated for the New Designers iconic design poll by designer Sebastian Conran, and the Net was nominated by Wayne Hemmingway (who happened to design The Bug which I wrote about in my last blog entry).

The iPod and the Internet both appear in the current New Designers iconic design poll online - www.newdesigners.com.  The poll, which the public can vote in, is being conducted by the New Designers show to celebrate its 20th anniversary. The winner of the New Designers poll will be announced at the New Designers event in London on 30 June 2005 when the exhibition opens to showcase "inspiring work by this year’s crop of graduate designers".

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Posted by on 10:30 AM