Is it ever a nice time to talk about bad people hacking our democracy? I don’t really know. That said, it was a real pleasure to take an interview one again with one of CTV’s most insightful reporters, Penny Daflos. This is a critical issue for democracies here and abroad. Here’s some of what I had to say in this report, ‘It’ll be something new’: Canadian election interference likely in unexpected places: We always are ready to fight the last…
Twitter, the decade plus old company is still trying to define what it is and how to make money. It is trapped in a business model of providing free service in exchange for our souls and friends. Based on the past performance there is little hope that Twitter’s future will be brighter. The number of free users is not growing fast enough (if at all) and the revenue from ads is not rising fast enough to stop the bleeding. What…
Is it just me, or are we making some big mistakes in how we talk about big data? This crossed my mind (yet again) as I read Straight Talk About Big Data. The article starts with a suggestion for the CEO to get 5 questions answered from the executive team: Do we have a value-driven analytics strategy? Do we have the right ‘domain data’ to support our strategy? Where are we in our journey? Are we modelling the change personally?…
The weather isn’t just a topic for chatting around the water cooler. Thanks to Big Data, it is becoming big business. That’s why IBM recently bought the Weather Channel for reported $2 billion. And it is also another manifestation of big data creating opportunities for companies to capitalize on. IBM has made Big Data and analytics the next mountain it wishes to climb They understand that a company of any size will need vital sets of information in order to…
There’s been much talk about the cloud as the best solution for meeting today’s changing needs of technology in school districts. Though most IT Directors are advocates of moving to the cloud not everyone’s heads are in the clouds. For many, moving away from on-premise storage and access is a bit unsettling. Data security and privacy is high on the list of concerns for schools especially for Canadian schools who feel uncomfortable with their data hosted across the border. Their…
Facebook is now ready to dominate the online world of business with the latest announcement from its F8 conference. The company made it very clear that having 1.35 billion active users and allowing them to share bad selfies and cat videos is not their end game. I’m shocked. Really. True, Facebook is making some good money from advertising but hey – that’s just for the cash flow. Their strategy is to dominate businesses within the social networking site as well…
How do you combat software theft? Give it away for free. Microsoft recently announced that anyone in China who has a copy of the Windows 7 Operating System (and up), legitimate or illegitimate, will be able to upgrade for free to the new Windows 10 version. The estimated number of users, who would be able to take the advantage of this offer, would be in the hundreds of millions! Why would Microsoft do such a crazy thing as giving their…
What just happened? Did we suddenly move to a new universe where spending minimum $300 on a gimmicky technology gadget is normal? Actually that isn’t new at all – the gadgets seem to change with the season. It seems as though the latest “it” gadget with a $300 price tag can easily go to $15,000 for the fancy version – and this device likely won’t last for more than 3 years!! Even if it does, it will have become obsolete.…
Amazon, the global warehouse for universe of goods, is promised us next-day delivery – hey wait, that’s yesteryear’s news. Although many current online retailers still struggle with this, with Amazon that chestnut of a promise is from so many years ago now. Not to be discouraged, Amazon has upped the ante several times. First, the internet giant started with same day delivery – and just how did they do that? Amazon created distribution centres where the highest volumes of purchases…
This is a lesson about greed, bad communications and stupidity. Somewhere deep inside the executive offices of computer giant Lenovo, somebody had an ingenious plan: Let’s extract more money from our customers. To refresh your memory, Lenovo has long been a manufacturer of desktop computers, laptops and other electronics. The company first came to the spotlight when it purchased the laptop (remember ThinkPads? Yes they are still around) division from IBM, phones from Motorola/Google and the latest, the Intel-based server…
