The “internet of things” (IOT) has become a hot topic in the tech. press. While the term is relatively new, connecting devices to networks is certainly nothing new. IOT has become the catch-all name to describe smart-home sensors, embedded devices, and other…
Category: future
Google adsense decline a blip or trend?
For the first three quarters of 2013 growth of revenue from partner sites through the Google AdSense program completely stagnated and revenues actually shrunk. Things looked a little better for the last quarter of 2013 and the first quarter of 2014, but industry pundits and…
Microsoft Office for iPad, will they or won’t they?
Microsoft was hoping the exclusive availability of “real Office” would be enough to give their Surface tablet an advantage. It turned out that wasn’t enough and, after a year of sluggish (non-existent) sales, Microsoft had to write off almost a…
An “eye on mobile” is not enough for the next Microsoft CEO
Tim Bajarin is a wonderful and vastly experienced PC analyst, but his story, A Look Back and A Look Ahead for Microsoft misses the point as badly as Microsoft and Ballmer themselves did, and ironically, for much the same reason: only looking…
Landlines revisited
Way back in 2007, telecom consultant Tom Evslin said: “There Won’t Be Any Landlines in 2013” and I said “I’ll take that bet.” As I said then, I like bold predictions like this. Tom said: “By 2012 no more reason to…
App.net branches into Cloud storage and social networking framework API
App.net wants to be “Twitter that you pay for” and, so far, that has been a bit of an uphill battle. Now they have introduced a File API and have started talking about the idea of an “unbundled” future where…
Google == AOL 2001?
Brian S. Hall and I share some views about Google’s situation. Earlier this year, I said: Google has to be worried even more about the decline in the desktop pie, given that according to their own SEC filings, 96% of…
Surface Analysis
You may have heard me already poking fun at Microsoft Surface as the “Zune 2.” I’m not the only one of course to make that comparison. ZDNet goes so far as to suggest “Microsoft’s greatest hardware fiasco ever?” I still feel…
Effects of Twitter’s API and policy changes will be gradual but profound
If Twitter continues on its stated path, it will be a completely different animal in 18 months, and prospectively. These plans include cutting off the current API 1.0 March 2013, new “Display Requirements,” sunsetting @Anywhere, and other API usage and policy…
Forbes: Android is shipping more phones but Apple is still the logical choice for mobile development
The title to this May 9 story, suggests another Apple bashing: “Is Apple’s dominance of Mobile Development on the Wane?” It appears to be an old editorial trick, the classic alarmist headline, because the article itself goes on to answer in…