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Friday, October 29, 2004 |
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IBM Happenings (October 2004)
Clinic adopts IBM genomics solution
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Thursday, October 28, 2004 |
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Four Percent: Feedback from readers
The elapsed time from starting the search online and receiving all the communications: 10 minutes. Bill said, "No gas involved, and a complete surprise to me how easy this was". He drove to the store, picked up the TV, and was "out of the store in less than five minutes". "It's restored my faith in the e-commerce model – one where I didn't have to pay a huge shipping premium". Bill says, "Keep up the encouragement for the medium!". Ok, Bill, you can count it. Alan Herrell is a web designer and "the head lemur". He questions the four percent assertion. Like Bill, Alan he has some personal experience, in case through his own business. Alan has a number of clients who use the Internet "to increase
sales" but he believes that their results are not counted in the officially reported e-commerce. He cites two examples. |
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Sunday, October 24, 2004 |
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The Semantic Web
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Brazil 2004 - IT Midia Conference
In the 1960's, IBM developed a special computer operating system called ACP (airline control program) specifically for handling airline reservations and related data. Back then, communications networks were slow and expensive and reservation agents had to be very facile with the keyboard. Many abbreviations were used so that not too many "bits" had to travel to the central mainframes. Today it seems like the agent is required to enter an endless number of keystrokes, even when there is no change to the reservation and the passenger simply wants to check-in. Self check-in is a very good idea and I have generally had good success with it -- but it is never available for international flights because of passport and visa handling. Enough about airline IT woes for the moment. On with the long journey. (read more) |
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Saturday, October 23, 2004 |
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Toronto - 2004: COMMON
After my talk, the attendees of the Executive Conference broke up into four tables and discussed various things that I had presented. I rotated among the tables and then after a half hour, each table had their elected representative summarize the discussion and questions for everyone. I did my best to provide useful answers. The most asked questions were about instant messaging, css, blogging, authentication, and mobile devices. A lot of this is discussed in various parts of patrickWeb. The category index is here. I have summarized some of the answers I offered here. |
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Saturday, October 16, 2004 |
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Four Percent
The good news with regard to people buying on the Internet is that the numbers continue strong double digit growth. The commerce department reported that retail e-commerce sales in the second quarter of 2004 were $15.7 billion, up 23.1% from the second quarter of 2003. Total retail sales for the second quarter of 2004 were estimated at $919 billion, an increase of 7.8 percent from the same period a year ago. Even though the e-commerce sales are still less than 2% of total sales, the faster growth rate will insure that on-line sales will become a bigger and bigger share of the pie. Why aren't e-commerce sales 20% of the pie by now instead of 2% ? There are many reasons -- most of them not technology related. The number of people with "always on" Internet connections is a factor. Ease of use and concerns about security, identity theft, and privacy also contribute. I am optimistic that these issues will be adequately addressed. As eBay and Amazon continue to grow and show real profits to the world, business leaders are paying more attention. The free markets will drive competition and then innovation will kick into high gear. We have barely scratched the surface of what is possible. Why do people drive to Walmart and other retailers to buy things instead of buying it online? There are various reasons including social factors, habit, and a desire to touch and smell things. There are some things that we buy that don't really need much touching or smelling though and I believe we will see the emergence of "fulfillment models" for them. Just as the online bridal registry has provided an alternative to the old way, so too will e-businesses that offer to fulfill your staple needs. If you were to analyze the grocery bags that you bring in from the car, how many items really needed discernment and how many were blindly grabbed from the shelves? Paper towels, toilet paper, salt, flour, ketchup, potato chips, coffee, etc. are staple items. Webster says staple means "a commodity for which the demand is constant". When you think about it, there are a lot of things in that category for many people. So if the staple items just "showed up" outside the door from UPS, we could save a lot of shopping time which we could then use to shop for things that require more time. At some point e-businesses will begin to offer fulfillment services and as we place things under that model, they will get to know the pattern and based on shipping costs, they will begin to suggest quantities of things that will save us money in addition to time. This kind of thing won't be for everything nor for everybody but it will be one of the new models that will emerge that will cause the 2% to grow. The other model that is already beginning to contribute to on-line sales is "order online and pick up locally". Every needed a nut, bolt, gasket, fastener, or doodad on a Saturday afternoon and then spend the afternoon driving around from store to store trying to find it? I have. Wouldn't it be nice to go to Radio Shack, True Value, or Pep Boys online and buy it and then print out the receipt along with a map to the nearest store that is open and has it in stock? Amazon and other retailers are offering TV and other consumer electronic products for order online and pickup at Circuit City. See "Local Fulfillment" for other examples. The glass is half full, not half empty. In the days ahead we will see many new capabilities on the Web and they will save us time -- our most valuable but scarce asset. Epilogue: Of the 4 percent of Americans who bought online, the vast majority went to pharmacies based in the United States. They reported that the sites they bought from required a prescription and they said they had one from their doctor. An AP story reported seventy-five percent of the online drug buyers say their most recent purchase was for a chronic medical condition, such as arthritis or high blood pressure, and most said they were satisfied and planned to order online again. According to the story, most cited convenience and cost savings as reasons for buying online. |
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Wednesday, October 13, 2004 |
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Spyware
Some argue that Microsoft Windows should solve all the problems, but I don't feel that is what we really want. We do want Microsoft to continue to improve the quality of Windows, but do we want to be dependent on one company, one operating system (Windows), for all known issues and problems with personal computers? I don't think so. The more they cram into Windows the bigger the target for the attackers. Fortunately, there are many innovative startup companies out there who have developed some very good tools that can help us. I hope that everyone already uses anti-virus, firewall, backup, and spam blocking tools -- there are many available. (See PC Magazine if you need help in deciding which to use). There are some other good tools to use as well. I use Spybot Search & Destroy by Patrick Kolla. I run it every week or so and it always finds nefarious things that have been placed on my computer by DoubleClick and other advertising/marketing "trackers" that seem to care little about our privacy. Spybot also has an immunize feature to automatically ditch a list of bad actors that can cause actual harm to your system. Another excellent utility I use is called Registry Mechanic. Registry Mechanic analyses the Windows "registry" which is a database of technical information about all the software you have on your system. Problems with the registry are a common cause of Windows crashes and error messages. The registry mechanic repairs invalid registry entries and increases your system speed and stability by removing irrelevant information. I can't resist adding that if you have not yet tried the Opera browser, you are missing a treat. The multiple tabbed windows and impressive speed are part of the attraction but there is also the advantage of no longer getting any pop-up windows. None. Opera is also very responsive in dealing with reported security issues. There is quite a community developing around Opera.
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Friday, October 8, 2004 |
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Long Distance - No. 9: Epilogue
AT&T said it will eliminate a total of about 12,000 jobs this year. Even more unfortunate is the fact that if management in these situations does not act, and cut the staff and assets, the result is the company completely fails and all of the employees lose their job. In the case of telecommunications, it is not an industry that is going to go away. Quite to the contrary, more "bits" of data (zeroes and ones) will be traveling through communications networks than ever -- continued growth as far into the future as anyone can see. It is the technology that is changing much more rapidly than "traditional" telecommunications companies planned for. Many of the bits will be digital representations of our voices (VoIP) as we talk using Skype and other choices from a whole new industry growing rapidly by integrating voice as data and with data. There will be more growth of bits through the air than through copper wires and more bits which are assembled into "packets" and using Internet technology as the way to move from point A to point B. Tumultuous times are ahead for the telecommunications industry. There will be winners and losers. Users of the Internet, both consumer and business, will be huge beneficiaries as Internet technology races ahead. |
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Thursday, October 7, 2004 |
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Long Distance - No. 9: feedback from readers
First, thanks to Mike Nelson, formerly Director of Technology Policy at the Secondly, thanks to Stu Feldman, formerly Technical Leader of the Telecommunications Information Networking Architecture Consortium (TINA-C) and a long-time veteran at both Bellcore and Bell Labs, for reminding me that some non-trivial fraction the Verizon phone bill goes toward subsidizing the costs of supplying telephone service to rural subscribers who live far out from population centers and can not afford traditional wire-based services, let alone the more profitable incremental services such as call waiting, caller ID, etc. As for the cost of legal overhead, Stu points out that these may become "stranded costs" as users move to different technologies and companies, such as voice over the Internet and Skype. Finally, thanks to Laurent Hayem in Paris. Laurent has worked in the area of the cost and operations in telecommunications, telephony, voice over IP, and call centers. He has been analyzing various telecom bills and new offerings in Europe and has observed that a split is emerging between FIXED and MOBILE. What he is referring to is that the wired infrastructure has a relatively fixed cost structure and the subscription model is moving in the same direction; i.e. an "all you can eat" price that includes local, long distance, and related services. The mobile model is considered more of a high value-add service and therefore has higher and use-oriented rates. It remains to be seen whether this will continue to be true as we get more and more handheld devices with WiFi in them. Laurent also suggested that Broadband VideoPhones may soon become as natural to use as Skype. The D-Link DVC-2000 is an early example of the technology. Just as Skype takes us all to a new level by allowing us to hear someone at the other end of the Net, the Broadband VideoPhone will allow us to see the person. The idea of the "Picture Phone" has been around for decades but now that high speed, standards-based, communications (the Internet) is becoming pervasive and lower in cost, the "vision" will finally happen. Email this story to a friend (send
a short email with a link to this story) |
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Wednesday, October 6, 2004 |
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Long Distance - No. 9
All things considered, telephone service in the United States is affordable for most people. Unfortunately, this is not true in many other parts of the world. During my visit to Egypt last month I learned that more than 75% of the population has no telephone service. On the one hand, we should not complain about all the fees and taxes, but, on the other hand it has reached the point where it is non-trivial. If I had made a lot of "long distance" calls, the service bill and accompanying taxes would have been a lot more. A lot more. I don't use "long distance" service at the lakehouse. Unfortunately, I don't use the Sony Ericsson P900 there either. AT&T Wireless coverage is great in Cairo, but is extremely poor in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Although I don't have good cell coverage, I do have a cable modem for high speed Internet access and so I can use Skype and SkypeOut for "long distance". Skype is like AOL Instant Messaging. To make a call to a fellow Skype member, you look at your Skype list (like an AIM buddy list), and see if your friend or relative is online. If so, their name appears and you double-click it. You hear a ring from the speakers of your ThinkPad. The person at the other end says "hello" and their voice is picked up by the microphone built into every ThinkPad. You say "hi" and you have a conversation. If you have a high-speed Internet connection, the quality of a Skype call is stunning -- better than cell phones. Skype works on the PC, the MAC, and with Linux. Although I use Skype with my ThinkPad, it works with any PC (and some handheld PDA's) which have a microphone. You can get really good quality microphones and headsets in various configurations at Radio Shack. The cost? Free. Time limits? None. How do they make money? SkypeOut. SkypeOut lets you call any phone anywhere in the world from your computer. Just like Skype, you can add phone numbers to your Skype list. Most phone calls are .017 Euros (about two cents) per minute. You use your credit card to buy ten or twenty Euros on your account and when you get low you can buy some more. The good news is that ten Euros (approximately $12) allows you to make roughly 600 minutes of calls. If you call a mobile phone in some countries the charges run higher. Calling a Kenyan mobile phone is on the order of thirty cents per minute (probably to cover cost of taxes, fees, and surcharges). Skype was created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, and has received investment capital from Tim Draper, Draper Fisher Jurvetson ePlanet, Index Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners and Mangrove Capital Partners. I have not seen their business model but I suspect they have a very low-overhead cost structure and no legacy of processes that burden most telecommunications companies. The Skype Group is headquartered in Luxembourg with offices also in London and Tallinn. We are seeing the beginning of a huge boom in voice over the Internet. The major potential is not just the lower cost, but rather the integration of voice as just another kind of data. The result will be call centers that are integrated with web pages and phone calls that are integrated with our calendars and contact lists. The potential to simplify our lives and save us time is very large. The only possible inhibitor I can see is the regulators and lobbyists who want to keep things the way they are and hold back the new technologies. As of this very moment, there are 887,438 users connected to Skype. The horse is out of the barn and it may be hard to reign her in. Email this story to a friend (send
a short email with a link to this story) |
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