CCTV: a nice little earner for the IT crowd

Friday, September 10th, 2010

If you take look at the product portfolio of a networking company such as Cisco, there are some things that you would never have imagined seeing a decade ago. The diversity is pretty immense and includes storage, applications servers, teleconferencing services such as WebEx, and even home wireless audio gizmos from its Linksys brand.  Yet one of the most interesting is video – and specifically, CCTV.

The UK has between two and four million CCTV cameras in operation. It’s hard to pin the exact number down as there is no requirement to register them, so figures are based on somewhat flaky sales data. What is certain is that the bulk of these cameras use analogue technology which causes a lot of problems in terms of quality, accessibility and reliability.

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Cisco and Compellent in bullish mood… so is the downturn over?

Friday, May 14th, 2010

I’ve just returned from a trip to the US to find a coalition Government in power for the first time in my lifetime, with Nick Clegg and David Cameron exchanging jokes, patting one another on the back and generally expressing bullish optimism for the future.

There must be something in the air, because there was much the same feeling of bullish optimism in two of the conferences I attended stateside, both of which were organised by US vendors for their international partners.

And in both, the vendors were attempting to convey an upbeat, “go-get-‘em” approach to their respective sales channels.

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What’s in a name?

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

Abbreviations are great, aren’t they? BBC, DVD, HSBC, DVLA, GCSE. Why use normal words when you can take almost as long to recite them as letters instead?

Of course, some conveniently shorten into a series of letters that can actually be said as a single, new word. Think acronyms like NASA, SCUBA, laser. Think VAIO.

Today I read of Sony’s redefinition of the famous VAIO brand, and it occurred to me that I had absolutely no idea what it had stood for since its creation.

Very Attractive If Overpriced, perhaps? (more…)

Grass is Greener at VMWare

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

Looks like VMWare has lost it’s den mother: CEO Diane Greene has been replaced by Paul Maritz. Having seen Ms. Greene in action on two occasions, I will be fascinated to see how Maritz copes with that role – VMWare’s somewhat scattered product portfolio and happy go lucky acquisition model always seemed to represent a collection of cats resolutely refusing to make up a herd. Seems like the shareholders – companies not famous for their touchy-feely, den-motherish management style, like Cisco and EMC – reacted with that classic American short-term peevishness when revenues dropped, and Someone Had To Go.

The question in my mind is; was VMWare surfing a wave during the pre-recession years, or actually driving it? Will the uber-boffins who delivered the goods, keep doing so without their Den Mother?