Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Monday 10 April 2006, 11:35 AM
Rupert Goodwins' Diary
Friday 07/04/2006
Hear that sound? There! The one that sounds like an enormous meteor of cash spinning through the stratosphere? That's one side effect of this week's phenomenal amount of activity in mergers and acquisitions; an awful lot of bankers become an awfully lot richer.
Other effects will be more difficult to call. Amazingly, nobody in the US has had a hissy fit over Alcatel buying Lucent Technologies — even Senator Charles Schumer, who led the national spots before the eyes over Dubai wanting to buy the American ports, says he's happy because "The United Arab Emirates had a nexus of terrorism that France does not have". Well, if you don't count blowing up the Rainbow Warrior or engaging in huge amounts of state-sponsored commercial espionage as being in some way naughty, then you won't worry about handing over a company which has been at the heart of the security services' technology work since forever — especially not to a country which is a solid trading partner with Iran.
One thing it does block is the idea that AT&T — which is rapidly building itself back to the old Bell Telephone system by acquiring companies such as BellSouth — could have bought Lucent, thus rebuilding the old Bell Labs relationship. Instead, it and the other telcos will have to deal with a supplier that's now big enough to take back some control over the market — at least until the next mega-merger among the telcos themselves.
And then there's NTL/Telewest, which is buying Virgin Mobile and promptly assuming the V for all services. One of the reasons Branson held out is over concerns that NTL's grotty customer service record would contaminate the überbrand, leading to a promise that the Virgin Mobile shock troops would move in and shake things up. NTL says that it intends to take on Sky – which might sound a brave if not foolhardy stance were Sky not provably capable of such ineptness as sky.com/hd (danger – contains content-free Flash).
I'm not sure about the grand idea that punters will be happy to buy all their TV, mobile, data and landline services from one place. I pay for Telewest broadband and telly, but not the landline – it's not cheap enough. And even the telly is just there through inertia; the amount and type of TV I watch off air is small and perfectly supportable through Freeview. Options are always good, and giving up all flexibility for a bit of convenience just seems to negate so many of the good things that the new technology offers.
PreviousComments on this post
Microsoft could have worded it a bit better, but I beleive the intention was to stress to Microsoft Partners that they are missing sales of new versions of Windows.
Aside from that, Microsoft must realise themselves that the main "Business Reason" customers request "naked" PC's is because they probably already have a volume license agreement which would allow them to deploy the PC in their enterprise with Windows and other applications by using the likes of RIS or SMS server etc.
Why should a customer be forced to pay for their windows license twice in this scenario. Try getting a pc from DELL or HP Compaq with no OS....ain't happening.
And this is a VALID reason to request a naked PC.
Microsoft's "feet on the street" personnel approach does appear to send out the wrong signals...concerning...we already have F.A.S.T. for software piracy enforcement, I don't think MS need their own "Police" in this matter.
Overall a very contrversial issue.
