Great Firewall of China Powered by Cisco?
According to an internal memo posted by boingboing and wired, Cisco sees China’s repression as a business opportunity. “The document is the first evidence that the networking giant has marketed its routers to China specifically as a tool of repression.” (wired) Understandably Cisco is backpedalling as fast as they can.
“It is very regrettable that one of our engineers quoted directly from Mr. Runsen Li, the Chinese government’s head of IT for the Golden Shield project in this internal presentation,” said Terry Alberstein, a senior director of corporate communications at Cisco. “They do not represent Cisco’s views, principles or its sales and marketing strategy or approach. They were merely inserted in that presentation to capture the goals of the Chinese government in that specific project, which was one of many discussed in that 2002 presentation.”
I’d file this under “We’re sorry we got caught”. Cisco is well-known for their aggressive sales tactics but no golden shield will protect them from the moral fallout on this one. I think the Chinese media blog said it best:
At the end of the day, though, Cisco has done a lousy job at explaining itself. We are left with many question marks. Their behavior and statements to date have given us little reason to believe that they care in any meaningful way about human rights.
PGP/GPG for GMail
My buddy Zep found a cool tool that integrates FireGPG seamlessly with Gmail and posted a great description on his blog. As if there weren’t enough reasons to move your personal account to Gmail, for many of us this is something we’ve been clamoring for for awhile. In an age where identity theft is an everyday occurrence there’s no reason not to encrypt your email. Personally, I send most client correspondence encrypted for obvious privacy reasons.
I’m really impressed how easy it is to use. There’s a dashboard with a Gmail tab that’s pretty much idiot-proof. I say that with a smirk, but it’s important. If only us geeks use it then there’s not much to be gained. We probably would have found another method anyway. The beauty of this solution is in its simplicity and ease of use.
It’s a Firefox extension and pushes itself right into Gmail. I wish they’d make a solution for IE7 as well since for better or worse it’s still the de facto standard web browser. You’ll note I said it’s a firefox extension. It’s not a key manager. For that you’ll need to download GNUPG or my preference, GPG4Win which also has a file encryption plugin GPGee and an Outlook 2003 plugin, GPGol.
Although I haven’t tested it, I’d guess this will work Google Apps hosted mail as well. That makes it an ideal solution for small business users that don’t have, or want, in house encryption expertise or to bring in expensive consultants.
What are you waiting for? All the tools are free and available with 2-3 quick downloads. I’ve walked a few very non-technical clients through this process already so if you have any questions please leave a comment or contact me directly.
The saga of MicroHooBook goes on
It’s sounds like a bastard apple product, but MicroHooBook won’t be announced at the Apple developers conference. John Furrier was the first to put 2 and 2 together and get Microsoft’s new strategy; buy only what they need of Yahoo and acquire Facebook.
No one has mentioned what I thought would be the key buzz. Buying Facebook makes Microsoft “cool” again. Arguably not since NT4 has Microsoft really been seen as cool or hip. Vista was supposed to be the trendy infusion Microsoft needed but fell flat. Facebook has so much market momentum Microsoft is hoping the platform can carry the whole company into the hearts of the internets. Buying only a portion of Yahoo gives Microsoft infinitely more value per dollar without the liability on Yahoo’s other properties that wouldn’t really synergize with Microsoft any way. So, the Yahooligans are happy.
This seems like a win all around, even for our buddy Carl Icahn who is likely to see a pretty good short term return on his Yahoo investment. It may not be the whale he expected if Microsoft purchased all of Yahoo but if he chooses to hold his shares he can use that leverage to help drive Yahoo in Asia where it is doing very well.
In the same vein, Kara Swisher published the full communication regarding Yahoo’s view of Microsoft’s view of Yahoo. Doesn’t this seem a little bit like a mouse asking a cat it’s thoughts right before it gets eaten. Yahoo being the mouse, Microsoft is batting at it like a toy prolonging the fun before it moves in for the kill.
Update: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook won’t be sold. However doth he protest too much? “You can tell, from our history and what we’ve done, that we really wanted to keep the company independent, by focusing on building and focusing on the long-term.” He’s already talking about Facebook being independent in the past tense. Thankfully John Furrier has more time than me today and is following the story realtime like CNN in Iraq during the “anyone named Bush” era.
Update 2: Facebook has ceased its search for a new CTO to replace Adam D’Angelo. Hmm, under what situation would they not need a CTO?
California Wine Pioneer Robert Mondavi Passes at 94
Robert Modavi passed away today at the age of 94. He was a true pioneer in the California wine industry and the first to make a big splash with international partnerships in his Opus One venture with Baron Phillipe Rothschild. Robert Mondavi Winery is still, by far, the most visited winery in Napa valley in spite of now being owned for years by giant Constellation Brands.
In fact Robert Mondavi was the first place I visited on my 21st birthday. I still remember my first “legal” glass of wine being the Mondavi Moscato D’Oro. It’s still one of my favorites to this day, maybe for sentimental reasons alone. I won’t go into a laundry list of all my Mondavi stories, but one special story springs to mind. In the middle of a wine tasting trip in Napa I decided to stop in for a late lunch around 3 at Mustard’s Grill in Yountville. After my salad I saw an older man come in and sit down. I didn’t recognize him from the back, but it was Robert Mondavi. I couldn’t decide between two wines and as I was contemplatign both bottles showed up… courtesy of Mr. Mondavi. I went over to thank him and almost stumbled over myself realizing who had sent them. I tried to thank him, but he would have none of it, politely asking me to enjoy and thanking me for coming over. It wasn’t dismissive the way you might think from a man of his stature. He was genuine, even humble. It was a refreshing change from the usual pompous Napa air.
Cheers to you Robert Mondavi. You began my love affair with wine and changed me in a positive manner. I salute and thank you for your contribution to the wine industry and more personally, to me.
Jerry Yang / Yahoo smokescreens latest Carl Icahn / Microsoft move
…And that move is Checkmate. On top of of the official Yahoo response to Carl Icahn’s letter, Jerry Yang felt the need to add his 2 cents. His advice? Ignore it and it’ll go away! Taken from his email to all employees:
What can employees do?
We ask you to continue to put aside all rumors and speculation you may be hearing.
Kara Swisher has been on this since the beginning and has a great analysis of CARL ICAHN’s intial letter of intent to Yahoo with the best part being:
Nonetheless, I must ask: What are you smoking over there on the Left Coast?
When someone dangles more than $40 billion to anyone on Wall Street, we’d throw our mother under the wheels of the bus if we needed to to get it. Frankly, we would do it for $12.43.
In any case, your break with reality is my golden opportunity.
Regardless of Yahoo’s Roy Bostock’s posturing it seems Roy, Jerry and the rest of the board are soon to be in the unemployment line. Michael Arrington put it most bluntly in his post “Dear Yahoo: You’re Fired“. The key is, he’s dead on. Valleywag’s analysis of who own how much of Yahoo shows Bert and Ernie, I mean Roy and jerry, are virtually powerless to stop Carl from doing whatever he wants; including bending them over a table while Steve Ballmer comes in for the kill. (In the picture on the left, Steve and jerry do their best impression of playground “mercy“. photo credit to Kara Swisher and Boomtown)
Is Ballmer playing the role of Icahn’s puppeteer or is it just a convenient alliance in light of a win-win situation involving billions of dollars? I’d vote the latter, but they do make a formidable team!
Blackberry Bold Available Now!! sorta…
Earlier this week at the UCStrategies conference a peer (unnamed for his/her protection) was trying to show me something I think he knew I already knew about… It took me a day to figure out what was behind it, he was showing it to me on the new Blackberry Bold! Very cool form factor and usability seemed much improved over the pearl and similar models. I’m a tried and true Windows Mobile user, but this is a great release from RIM.
According to Engadget AT&T will get the Bold first for a retail price of $300. Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile will get it in September with the T-Mobile edition costing an extra $50.
Slanket, as if I’m not hot enough
In spite of the near-100 degree temperatures we’re experiencing in the bay area right now somehow I’m looking at the Slanket. I think I might have to crank the A/C at home and give this a shot. LifeHacker posted a review way back in 2006 under “Stuff we like”. Umm, me too! And don’t tell me people don’t look at this for a little slap & tickle with a homebrew bondage edge!
Day 3 of the UC Strategies Conference: Bill Gates on Unified Communications redux
Here’s me at the UC Strategies UC Summit, taken with the IPEvo PoV. Not bad for a sub-$40 camera.
Most of the Microsoft small group presentation was “friend-DA” private so I’ll stay mum on the details. The majority of Eric Swift’s presentation was taken from Bill Gates’ OCS Launch presentation, but he talked about much more concrete functionality and roadmap. Without giving too much detail, there are some very compelling features coming to the OCS platform.
Michael Finneran is on stage beating WiMax to a pulp! It’s entertaining, but very US-focused. It’s an easy target after the Sprint-Clearwire debacle, but I never expected it to be huge in the US. WiMax is a great solution for developing countries and it’s certainly head and shoulders above the trendy metro wifi networks of last year. I’ll give Michael one thing, he’s darned entertaining. I tried to get a good shot but he was running all over the stage. It’s rare to see a traditional telecomm guy “get it” the way Michael does from a high level concept perspective.
Motorola came up midday. Despite knowing much of the inside story over there, I came away vastly unimpressed with their TEAM iniative. Engadget posted in March a prototype of the TEAM “devices”. In March they lacked phone functionality. Apparently they’ve now added that through a proprietary magic dual-band chip. I tweet’d “Motorola wants to pitch a story they can’t coherently explain” and even through the second presentation I’m not sure they have a good handle beyond a 50,000 foot concept. The various diagrams also show just how unsuccessful Motorola’s been in integrating Good Technology. For better or worse I think the TEAM concept puts to rest any speculation they will spin it back out. My guess it will stay with the handset unit post-split. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve long been a supporter of dual-mode phones with seamless roaming and I think it’s a great idea, but I think TEAM may be too narrow a solution to drive widespread adoption on its own.
Fellow blogger and twitter’r John Furrier had some additional thoughts on MS Live Mesh and the UC news today.
Marty Parker and Don Van Doren jumped up to explain the black art of demystifying ROI around UC. It was a great presentation I’m not sure I can summarize here. They also have some great worksheets and tools around calculating ROI that can only be found through them at UniComm Consulting. If you’re confused about UC ROI beyond the simple productivity calculations and diving into business process optimization they’re the resident experts and worth talking to. I did an interview with Don Van Doren tonight after the UCStrategies UC Summit. Keep an eye out for it tomorrow over at Hyperconnectivity.com.
Comcast acquires Plaxo
Today Comcast announced they’ll acquire Plaxo for somewhere between $150 and $170 million. A bargain by facebook valuation standards but would you really want to own a company best known for spamming all your friends the second you join? On the other hand it almost makes sense. Two of the most hated companies in media join forces in the only market they’ll ever be able to compete with the big boys in evil world domination. Michael Arrington posted a surprisingly expository analysis on TechCrunch.
Day 2 of the UC Strategies Conference: Siemens being shopped?
I can tell today was better day just from looking at my twitter stream. In hindsight it was a lot better than yesterday. I’d like to start with a post by John Furrier talking about the possibility of Siemens being acquired. Mark Straton basically said as much in his keynote last night!
It begs the question why? Did Mark simply slip or was it an intentional message to those considering a Siemens solution? I have my thoughts but I’ll hold those to the end of the conference.
Despite being distracted by the wine tasting next door AVST put together a great presentation. If I were in the market for a VM solution I’d give them a hard look. I just wonder if they have a great answer to a question very few people are asking?
After the conference proper I had a great conversation with Jim Burton and John Furrier over a wonderful 2001 Phelps cab. A huge thank you to Jim for providing the wine. However, even more than the wine I was intrigued by the conversation and where UCStrategies is going.
I had all too short a time to chat with Blair Pleasant. She gave arguably the most valuable presentation tooday and one that I’ll likely refer to once the slides are published *hint*
I skipped Kerry Shih’s presentation for obvious reasons. I heard the flip flops with the suit, a la Mark Zuckerberg, was the best part.
The 8-person panel discussion was called by many to be UC speed dating. In reality it was less and IMO a waste of a session. It could have been better used, again IMO, to highlight 3-4 experts and create an interactive discussion. Maybe next time?
I’m going to track down Jim and John and see if they need a hand finishing that bottle of wine.
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My Twitter Stream- alexlewis: San francisco always reminds me how much I love walking places March 13, 2010
- alexlewis: @weshagen no details on the website, will give them a call tomorrow March 13, 2010
- alexlewis: Having a beer and a bite at magnolia pub in the haight in sf. March 13, 2010
- alexlewis: Sadly "wrapping up" means 2+ hours March 12, 2010
- alexlewis: Today has turned into a pretty busy day. Wrapping things up and hope to be out on time to go visit long time friends March 12, 2010
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