VSAT Is Back
December 22, 2009
The Houston Chronicle reported a story that is mostly a news release pick up. I noticed this because it mentions the VSAT broadband technology. If this does not rev your engine, you can get some basic information of the very small aperture terminal technology by reading the Wikipedia entry for “Very Small Aperture Terminal”. You may find the Crystal Communications write up “About VSAT” helpful as well. VSAT is one of those technologies that made certain government agencies drool years ago. An outfit called Equatorial Communications was / is / shall be the cat’s pajamas.
“KVH’s Mini-VSAT Broadband Service Officially Approved by US Government” includes several comments I found interesting:
- “The system enables the highest data rate, widest global coverage, and lowest service cost of any maritime satellite communications service.”
- [The VSAT technology] “brings the economic and operational benefits of VSAT service to large new markets of commercial and leisure vessels.”
- “Our network spreads the signal over a wider bandwidth, thereby reducing interference issues, supporting multiple simultaneous users, allowing us to offer an antenna 75% lighter and 85% smaller by volume, and reducing costs as we use the same transponder for inbound and outbound signals.”
This may be important to certain organizations in the online information business. I won’t connect the dots, but there are some quite interesting Google inventions in the wireless sector.
Stephen E. Anrold, December 22, 2009
A freebie. No one paid me to write about the information in the Houston Chronicle’s recycled news section. The agency monitoring blog posts with regard to the recycling is the Environmental Protection Agency. I herewith report another free post.
Google Sends Signals to Telco Poobahs
December 21, 2009
I enjoyed “Verizon Snuffs Google for Microsoft Search.” The Register summarizes Google’s dalliance with Verizon. Then Verizon hugged Microsoft and slipped Bing.com into its mobile browser. Apparently some Verizon customers were annoyed. For me, the most important part of the write up was:
Verizon has unilaterally updated user Storm 2 BlackBerries and other smartphones so that their browser search boxes can only be used with Microsoft Bing. The move is part of the five-year search and advertising deal Verizon signed with Microsoft in January for a rumored $500m.
When I read this, I thought about Microsoft’s other attempts to buy traffic for the Bing.com search system. Like AT&T, Verizon is off balance. Google is no longer the clumsy Web search outfit. Google is a key player in the telephony market worldwide.
In my opinion, AT&T and Verizon have a bit of a problem on their hands. Google does not have to hurry. Furthermore, Google continues to nibble away at different chunks of the communications market. My research suggests that Verizon, like Microsoft, will have to find a better way to compete with Google. Depriving customers of choice and buying traffic are great tactics. Too bad Google is playing a different game with different rules.
Three blind spots for Verizon exist in my opinion:
- Verizon has to accept the reality that Google has better plumbing. That technology edge is going to put Verizon in some weird yoga positions.
- Verizon perceives itself as a giant company. It is giant. It is focused on the US market. Google, on the other hand, has a global vision. Thus, Verizon has a perception problem.
- Google has engineered solutions to some long standing telco bottlenecks. Right now, telcos do not understand Google’s many initiatives. This failure to see the different small communications actions like messaging in Google Calendar as part of a larger fabric. The Google engineers have outflanked and jumped over Verizon.
Telcos face start choices. Ignore Google. Cozy up to Google. Fight Google. None will work. Verizon will make decisions that I perceive as questionable because Google has nipped at Verizon. Like an angry bull in a bullfight in Madrid, the bull does not make good decisions. In the end, the bull becomes a quarter pounder with cheese. Through these cartwheels, Google is messing with the minds of telco executives. Most recent distraction: Nexus. I can hear it now, “Google can’t make handsets and sell them.” Maybe, maybe not. Distraction.
Stephen E. Arnold, December 19, 2009
Disclosure time: Freebie. I hasten to report this fact to the Bankruptcy Courts. Some telcos may end up in those fine institutions.
Nine Ways Misses One Big Google Phone Point
December 14, 2009
I love Fortune Magazine. Dapper journalists opine about the mysteries of business as their own business model crumbles beneath them. Anyway, I do look at the occasional Fortune write up just to see what the real wizards of modern US business are thinking. I want to make sure I don’t think that way so my instrumental use of the Fortune ideas is bit different.
The article “Nine Ways of Looking at a Google Phone” did not disappoint me. The core idea is that there are nine ways of looking at the Google phone. (Sorry, Ms. Sperling). I could not resist this self referential comment. You will have to read the article to get the nine reasons. I can mention a couple of them.
For example, Google has “been watching with dismay” as folks have fiddled with Android. Yep, that’s a surprise that people fiddle with stuff that is available as open source. And, Google could – gasp – subsidize or give away the phone. Yep, another earth shaker.
Read through the other seven.
Now here’s what’s missing. The Google phone makes clear exactly how Google handles partners and former partners. The big point is that the Google phone will make some Google partners wonder if Google will repeat its Google phone trick. The Google Apple “relationship” is a wonderful aporia.
Stephen E. Arnold, December 14, 2009
I wish to report to the Employment Standards Administration that I was not paid to write this article. I think that if Google gets frisky there will be quite a bit of unemployment resulting from its disruption of certain business sectors. Could telecommunications be one such sector?
Androids Everywhere in Google Telco Invasion
December 14, 2009
Yep, I recall my partner from a consulting firm in a tony part of Seattle making the rounds of telecommunications companies in 2006. The presentation was “Google Telephone & Telegraph”. The presentation included some whimsy; for example, an antenna and transceiver that could be put in a pizza deliver vehicle to the serious; for example, the use of a non-intuitive method of finding a low latency path through a cellular network. The presentation also took a look at a half dozen of the Google patent documents that disclosed everything from support of double byte queries for mobile search to Sergey Brin’s voice search invention to the use of semi autonomous agents to queue content * before * a user needed that content.
A view of the wizard’s lair at Tintagel.
I have to tell you that the response to these confidential, technically charged, and blue-chip consultant type briefings was—ah, how shall I say it—dismissive, maybe indifferent.
I thought of these six or seven big dollar escapades when I read PCWorld’s “More Than 50 Android Phones to Ship in 2010”. It is not just the handsets or the Android operating system. Nope, it is the fact that there is a Google telephony consortium guzzling Googzilla’s own Kool-Aid and chanting compression algorithms in Mountain View’s Tintagel.
Now three years later, guess which big, unassailable, monopolistic industry has a Google sized problem on its plate for the New Year? Yep, those same telco executives.
Do you know which industry sector is next? Folks are waking up, but it may be a little late. More on the future of Google appears in my Google trilogy. Spend $1,000 and find out if you should be applying for work as a Wal*Mart greeter. On the other hand, pretend Google is a search and ad company. Life is more comfortable in the cloud of unknowing. Just ask your telco connections via one of Google’s communication methods. Honk.
Stephen Arnold, December 13, 2009
I wish to disclose that I was not paid to write this “I told you so” article. Now to whom must I disclose this? I know. The Federal Communications outfit. Yes, that’s the one. This is a freebie shamelessly promoting my three Google monographs. Almost 1,000 pages of Google information from its patent documents and other open source information objects.
Microsoft and the Apple iPhone
December 2, 2009
Short honk: I am sitting yet again in the international terminal in Hotlanta’s airport. I hear a conversation between two 30 somethings about their recent Microsoft experience. One had on a Microsoft T shirt, so maybe one was a “real” Microsoft engineer. The snippet of their enthusiastic conversation was that 25 percent of Microsoft employees use an Apple iPhone. I know that the spiffy Microsoft store on the Redmond campus sells only mobile devices with Windows Mobile 6.5 living in the devices’ solidstate heart. Pretty startling market penetration if true. With an Android phone from Google heating up the blogosphere, can Microsoft make headway? I wonder if I can get paid to use a Windows 6.5 phone?
Stephen Arnold, December 1, 2009
I wish to disclose to the General Services Administration that I was not paid to write about the iPhone or the Google Android phone. I presume both of these devices will be on the GSA schedule.
Google and Mobile Index Tricks
November 24, 2009
I am steadfastly against the search engine optimization baloney. However, when a substantive article finds its way to me I want to call my two or three readers’ attention to that write up. If you have a Web site with both a “regular” Web presence and a “mobile” version, you will want to read and save “Ensuring Your Site is Indexed in Google’s Mobile Search”. The article reminded me that “regular” search and mobile search are different. Then Chris Crum goes through the specifics of getting both the “regular” and the mobile sites indexed by Googzilla. Highly recommended.
Stephen Arnold, November 24, 2009
I want to alert the Kentucky State Police that I did not write this article on my BlackBerry whilst driving. And, almost as important, I was not paid for performing this act of “safe text creation”. These disclosures are better than hitting a Catholic church for confession several times a day.
Beating Windows Mobile to Death. Stop Already
November 18, 2009
Windows Mobile 6.5 keeps popping up in my mobile search RSS newsreader. Enough. I looked at Windows Mobile with each release. The system gets better with each version, but the folks at Apple pulled a leap frog trick. Android then went with the open source angle. With Apple and Google busy working to out gun one another, the Nokias, the RIMs, the Palms, and the Windows Mobiles of the world have been falling behind.
If you want a run down of why Windows Mobile is faced with a sticky wicket, read “How Microsoft Blew It with Windows Mobile.” For me the analysis is more significant than the fact that Microsoft is behind in a key market sector. Mr. Brian X. Chen wrote:
Leaks indicate Microsoft plans to incorporate iPhone-like touch gestures. Windows Mobile 7 is scheduled for a 2010 release.
That’s the story in a nutshell. Me-too is not enough. Windows Mobile has failed to play the leap frog game. As a result the company watches from the sidelines. Marketing assurances are no longer magnetic. The game is not over, but Microsoft must play leap frog. And what about mobile search? Same story.
Stephen Arnold, November 18, 2009
Dear National Park Service, I know one can play leap frog in these natural wonders. However, I must report that I was not paid to write about leap frog in this article.
The Obvious in Mobile Land
November 16, 2009
I relish consulting firms’ reports about technology. I find that the blue chip firms and the azure chip outfits are becoming more alike. In the early days of consulting, there were a handful of firms, including ur-consultants like the Edwin Booz outfit and the Ivy Lee operation. Today, blues and azures are struggling to make business sense in areas that have left the economic landscape littered with mile markers, billboards, and neon signs blinking their messages in pink and yellow lights.
You may want to read “Windows Mobile Loses Serious Market Share”, an article that summarizes a Gartner Group report about mobile market share. Keep in mind that Gartner is a firm which does not want its information reproduced. I can’t quote from the Gartner report, but you can start your hunt for the information at “Windows Mobiles Loses Nearly a Third of Its Market Share”.
Microsoft is trying to make Windows mobile better. I think that Version 6.5 is in the phones on offer in the Microsoft store on the Redmond campus. You can buy a phone in that shop, and it darn well better run Windows mobile. Microsoft also has a Softie who is making the rounds of consultancies, handset makers, and developers. I believe this person is Jeff Paul, but I may have that mixed up.
The problem Microsoft faces with Windows mobile is, as I pointed out in Google Version 2.0, focus. The company is involved in a great many markets. So is Google, but there is a difference. Google has a relative homogeneous software platform. Although not perfect, the Google does not have to fool around with legacy software. Microsoft, on the other hand, has silos of technologies. When these have to interact, Microsoft “wraps” or “hooks” systems together. This works when the resources are available to handle the fuzz. And Microsoft is mindful of legacy customers, and some of the those folks are running older servers and want to connect those with hot, new mobile services. That’s more work.
The present situation is that Windows mobile is, like Nokia, in a world of hurt. Nokia sells lots of phones but it is not exactly a hot mobile company. Windows mobile is lagging.
The reason for this state of affairs is easy to identify. Just look at what devices people are using. The iPhone is prominent. The BlackBerry still appears in the talons of New York business mavens. The geeks, including one in the ArnoldIT.com lab, loves his Gphone. You can see him clutching his much loved device in this ArnoldIT.com developers’ video.
The consultant’s study referenced in the articles referenced in this write up purport to document the obvious. I am not sure that there’s much mystery about the success of Windows mobile. The obvious is good. I think it is a useful historical exercise, a bit like writing a research paper in sophomore Ancient Western History. Good practice. Known data.
Stephen Arnold, November 16, 2009
Oyez, oyez, Federal Communications Commission! I was not paid to write this obvious article about the obvious study of mobile operating systems market share. Oyez, oyez. Yikes, I am using a mobile device with a lousy operating system. I am paying for this communication.
Cell Phone Early Warning System
November 9, 2009
A happy quack to my colleague in the Near East for pointing me to “Cellphone Alert System Expected in 2 Yrs.” The point of the story is that Israel’s home front command “will be able to calculate the precise location of an impact zone, and alert residents in an affected neighborhood via their cellphones.” I also noted this passage:
Soffer [Israeli official] said that 90 percent of the civilian casualties sustained by Israel during the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead in Gaza involved people who were struck by projectiles while they were in open areas away from buildings. Civilians who seek cover in designated safe zones during rocket attacks are not likely to be wounded or killed…
Interesting use of “push, real-time mobile technology in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, November 9, 2009
I was at the Jewish Community Center last night but I had to pay to get in. I don’t think that counts as payment for this write up. To be safe, I will alert the Jefferson Country Animal Control Office.
Google Open Source or Open Divorce for Android
October 31, 2009
Laptop Magazine, a publication I once read in airport newsstands, ran a story that plopped into my RSS basket this afternoon (October 30, 2009). “Networks in Motion: Google Attacking Developer Community, Android Openness Total BS” nibbled on an important information Snickers bar. Mark Spoonauer’s story reported:
According to him [Steve Andler, vp marketing for Networks in Motion], the free Google Maps for Navigation Beta is the second time devs have been burned by Google. Latitude was the first shot across the bow when it got added to Google Maps, leaving the likes of Loopt scrambling to justify their relevance. It’s obviously in Andler’s best interest to defend Networks in Motion and the work that they do in the GPS space, but given his experience in the PC industry–including at Toshiba, Fujitsu, and Apple–he brings an interesting perspective to the debate over whether Google may be biting the hands that feed Android. Check out the interview and decide for yourself.
The balance of the article is the text of an interview with Mr. Andler. Please, read the full interview.
Let’s assume that the opinion of Mr. Andler is spot on. Will Google find itself in more hot water? Seems likely. The open source world may not be the happy campers at Google’s next developer picnic.
Stephen Arnold, October 31, 2009
The person who was to buy me lunch today forgot. I would have counted that free lunch as payment for this opinion piece.
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