Posted by John Patrick on May 29, 2003 in
Conferences
It was a very interesting day at the FBR conference yesterday. At lunch just before my turn on stage, I had the privilege to sit with Manny Friedman (see his bio below). We share an optimism about the underlying strength of the market and of the technology industry. Manny gave a brief overview of how he sees things and netted out the basis of his optimism because of five fundamental sea changes. My talk was about the Future of the Internet. I tried to paint a picture of investment opportunity around the Next Generation of the Internet — Fast, Always On, Everywhere, Natural, Intelligent, Easy, and Trusted. That is my story and I am sticking to it. (read more)
Posted by John Patrick on May 29, 2003 in
e-Business Fortune Magazine just ran an interesting story about IBM called How Big Blue Is Turning Geeks Into Gold. It is a good read. I have been privileged to work with many people in IBM Research over the years and have learned much from them. It is heartening to read about how customers are learning from them.
Posted by John Patrick on May 29, 2003 in
e-Business As expected, there has been much feedback about the American Airlines information updates and coordination. The tone of all of it was “I can top that one!”. Chris Herot told me about his experience at Boston’s Logan Airport waiting for an AA flight to London which was delayed due to weather. While he was waiting in the Admirals Club, he noticed that the monitors continued to display the original departure time, as did the web site and the 800 number. Meanwhile, the staff at the desk said that the flight was not leaving for at least an hour. When the scheduled departure time passed, the monitors listed the flight as departed! Fifteen minutes later he called the 800 number and they insisted the flight was in the air. Apparently, if no one intervenes, the computer marks a flight as departed when its scheduled time passes. An hour or so later, the flight did depart, but there was still no indication of the updated or actual departure time on the airport monitors. I am sure American is aware of the integration problem and hopefully they are working on standards-based web services protocols to enable the disparate systems to communicate with each other.
Posted by John Patrick on May 27, 2003 in
Conferences Friedman, Billings, Ramsey (FBR) will be hosting their 7th annual Technology & Growth Investor Conference in midtown Manhattan May 28-29. Presenters include more than 120 leading companies in technology (display and semiconductor, enterprise platform and application software, enterprise services, media infrastructure, network software, specialty contracting, telecom equipment & services and wireless services) and healthcare (specialty pharmaceuticals and biotechnology). The conference will be held at the Millennium Hotel Broadway. More than 700 attendees are expected. I will be the luncheon speaker.
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Posted by John Patrick on May 26, 2003 in
e-Business All things considered, we are very fortunate to have a transportation system that is highly reliable and gets us to where we want to go in an amazingly short time. The travel industry is a complex one and there is a huge legacy of process, management systems, and technology that makes it difficult to be as flexible and nimble as we all would like. Having offered that perspective, it is still at times incredible what we put up with. (read more)
Posted by John Patrick on May 24, 2003 in
Gadgets Of the many subjects I have written about on patrickWeb, the one thing that continues to elicit the most feedback is The Pepper Ball. I first wrote about it in 1996 in the gadgets section of patrickWeb. For some unknown reason, it seems I have become the technical support department to the world’s pepper ball users! I have gotten emails asking where to buy a Pepper Ball, how to repair one with broken handles, but mostly asking if I could explain how to refill the pepper supply. Yesterday I got an email from a frustrated man in Virginia Beach, Virginia who wrote, “How do you (or can you) refill the damned thing?”
I am hoping that the following explanation will make a match for people doing web searches looking for the answer. If you look at the Pepper Ball picture carefully, you will see a rectangular shaped area on the left side. It is about 3/4″ wide and 1 1/2″ long. By pressing on this “door” toward the bottom of the Pepper Ball, it will slide open. I use a small funnel to fill it so I don’t have to chase peppercorns around the kitchen floor.
Posted by John Patrick on May 24, 2003 in
Blogging Thanks to Buzz Bruggerman at Activewords for telling me about Newsgator. More on this later. It is a very nice blog reader that places news feeds right into Outlook. What is interesting is that you can also use Newsgator to make postings to your weblog.
Posted by John Patrick on May 21, 2003 in
e-Business Everything was on schedule as the Boeing 757 taxied toward the runway at the John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana. All of a sudden there was a loud crashing sound and the airplane shuttered. Apparently the fire truck driver had gone for lunch and left the emergency brake off. The giant yellow truck rolled across the tarmac and smashed into the plane. No one was hurt, thankfully. A few inches to the left and the truck would have hit one of the engines or worse yet the wing fuel tank. The American Airlines crew and ground staff handled the emergency very professionally. After a safety team had walked through the plane to make sure everyone was ok, all passengers disembarked down a portable stairway and we then walked across the tarmac and up some outdoor stairs back into the terminal. Diaster was avoided but then I witnessed another problem. (read more)
Posted by John Patrick on May 20, 2003 in
Internet Technology I knew that eventually competition would begin to take hold in broadband. I first wrote about this in a reflection May 12, 1998 — and must admit I was a bit premature. But now, at last, it is happening. This morning at Vortex 2003 in Laguna Niguel, Larry Bibbio, vice chairman of Verizon, said that they have reduced their monthly DSL fee by $15 and that the reduction was “not promotional”. Surely, the cable companies will not stand by and lose market share. Direct TV is aggressively advertising broadband internet access via satellite. Prices will come down and speeds will go up. What we need is even more competition and the electric utilities are about to offer it. In Pennsylvania, PPL Telecom has begun to charge their subscribers for “Broadband over Power Line” service beginning May 1, 2003. (read more)
Posted by John Patrick on May 16, 2003 in
WiFi The VORTEX 2003 conference begins this coming Sunday (5/18). I am looking forward to seeing many friends and colleagues from the industry and the media. It will also be exciting to participate in a debate on Tuesday morning with Peter A. Bernstein, President, infonautics Consulting, Inc. entitled “Why-Fi: Will 802.11 be the most disruptive technology since the Internet?”
The conference organizers say that “In this head-to-head debate, two of the industry’s most saavy soothsayers will explore the impact of WiFi. Will WiFi be a profit machine and the death knell for other network technologies and business plans? Or will WiFi be a flash in the pan, generating lots of press and hype but little real ROI? Find out as our wireless experts square off on just how disruptive 802.11 will be”. (read more)
