TalkingPointz

Dell’s Rock and Hard Spot

Dave Michels — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:12:10 +0000

The Apple iPad is booming, but does that mean the PC is dying? The enterprise seems to to view the iPad not as an OR, but an AND. But the consumer PC is not so resilient. This week Dell reported Fourth Quarter Results: “Dell Inc.’s (DELL) fiscal fourth-quarter earnings fell 18% as the computer maker saw [...]

What is a Branch Office?

Dave Michels — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:17:58 +0000

One of my favorite things about the telecom industry is the clear terminology we use. Muggles can hardly determine the topic when overhearing our conversations at crowded restaurants. For example, VAR, drop, POTs, DTMF, call forking, SIP, and many more terms make telecom a second language. We use casual terms as if everyone agrees on [...]

Parlez-vous L33t?

Dave Michels — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:11:10 +0000

You are most likely familiar with numbers being used to implicate letters, phrases or even symbols. In SMS (txting) shortcuts, for instance, 2 can also be used for “to”, 4 can mean “for” and the 8 spells “eat” in gr8, meaning great. This is called SMSish or textese or simply SMS language. When numbers instead of letters are used to spell a [...]

Can You Hear Me Now?

Colin Berkshire — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 03:19:37 +0000

For two years I struggled with AT&T on my iPhone. So bad was the service that my voice mail message stated: “Thanks for calling. If this is the first time you reached this message, please hang up and call me back. Often, AT&T doesn’t even ring my phone the first time it is called. If [...]

Cisco Calls the Skype Kettle Black

Dave Michels — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:37:05 +0000

I didn’t see this one coming – but it makes perfect sense. Cisco communicates to the EU that Microsoft and Skype together may not be such a good thing for the industry, and thus appealed the approval of the merger to the EU. That isn’t in itself too surprising until you consider that the EU [...]

Nest and HoneyWell

Dave Michels — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:36:27 +0000

Nest hit a nerve. Thermostats are not the most popular topic for high-tech and Internet blogs – but Nest hit a nerve. Nest offers a thermostat for the home. Probably because it’s a San Francisco start-up, possibly because it has some leadership that once worked at Apple, or possibly because it has a nifty display [...]

Family Plans are Best – For Shareholders

Colin Berkshire — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:49:29 +0000

Remember when carriers charged for what you used? Both Verizon and AT&T are expected to announce shared data plans shortly. Heralded as a boon for consumers, careful thought reveals it is more of a boondoggle. Shared use plans allow you to buy a block of data and then use that block across all of your [...]

ITExpo Miami Best of Show

Dave Michels — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:29:59 +0000

Last week was ITExpo in Miami – generally a good conference. There was lots of news this year. I think the biggest story was Digium’s new phones (see here and here). I don’t think most people realize how impact-full these (well not these, but the next few versions) phones will be. The vast majority of the [...]

Google Voice Offline

Dave Michels — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:13:49 +0000

Evidently at least one of the engineers at Google Voice woke up and came up with a new feature…Offline Texting. It was announced with the following blog post: Sometimes the times that we’re offline can be our most productive times. However, whether on a plane or out of range of coverage, it’d still be nice [...]

Is the Stylus Retro?

Dave Michels — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:51:32 +0000

The Samsung Note is a smartphone tablet thing. It is either the largest smartphone or smallest tablet depending on your point of view. I saw it at CES, and it was advertised on national television during the Superbowl. The ad poked fun at the hipsters waiting in line at (presumably) the Apple Store to buy [...]