Autodesk’s John Walker explained HP and IBM in 1991

autodeskcoverOne reader of this column in particular has been urging me to abandon for a moment my obsession with IBM and look, instead, at his employer — Hewlett Packard. HP, he tells me, suffers from all the same problems as IBM while lacking IBM’s depth and resources. And he’s correct: HP is a shadow of its former self and probably doomed if it continues to follow its current course. I’ve explained some of this before in an earlier column, and another, and another you might want to re-read. More of HP’s problems are covered in a very fine presentation you can read here. Were […]

By |June 3rd, 2015|2015, Business, Companies, Finance, history, Industry, strategy|60 Comments
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Apple TV’s 4K Future

5KiMacOn June 8th at the Apple World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC), CEO Tim Cook will reportedly introduce a new and improved Apple TV. For those who live under rocks this doesn’t mean a television made by Apple but rather a new version of the Apple TV set top box that 25 million people have bought to download and stream video from the Internet. But this new Apple TV — the first Apple TV hardware update in three years — will not, we’re told, support 3840-by-2160 UHD (popularly called 4K) video and will be limited to plain old 1920-by-1080 HD. Can this be true? Well, yes and no. The new Apple TV will be […]

By |May 27th, 2015|2015, entertainment, Media, Television|88 Comments
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Sadie’s Apple Watch Arrived Two Weeks Early

IMG_0120This is Sadie the Dog wearing her new Apple Watch. The watch actually belongs to my young and lovely wife, Mary Alyce, but she was unwilling to be photographed this morning while Sadie will pose anytime, anywhere. This is the Sport model of the Apple Watch in space gray with a black band. What makes this picture interesting is the watch was delivered last Friday two weeks early.

I ordered the watch on the first day Apple was taking orders but didn’t do so in the middle of the night so I missed the first batch of watches that were delivered in April. It was promised for delivery June first. Since then there have been stories about […]

By |May 19th, 2015|2015, Companies, Gadgets, mobile technology, wearable technology|24 Comments
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The KickStarter Paradox

Among the great business innovations of the Internet era are KickStarter and the many similar crowdfunding sites like IndieGoGo. You know how these work: someone wants to introduce a new gizmo or make a film but can only do so if you and I pay in advance with our only rewards being a possible discount on the gizmo or DVD. Oh, and a t-shirt. Never before was there a way to get people — sometimes thousands of people — to pay for stuff not only before it was built but often before the inventors even knew how to build it. From the Pebble smart watch to Veronica Mars, crowdfunding […]

By |May 13th, 2015|2015, Entrepreneurship, Family, Industry, Internet, Media, Startups, Television|61 Comments
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Your PBX has been hacked!

phreakThis past week a very large corporation on the east coast was hacked in what seems to naive old me to be a new way — through their corporate phone system. Then one night during the same week I got a call from my bank saying my account had been compromised and to press #4 to talk to their security department. My account was fine: it was a telephone-based phishing expedition. Our phone network has been compromised, folks, and nobody with a phone is safe.

Edward Snowden was right we’re not secure, though this time I don’t think the National Security Agency is involved.

Here’s how this PBX hack came down. Step one begins with looking for […]

By |May 2nd, 2015|2015, Government, law, Outsourcing, Phones, Privacy and Security|65 Comments
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