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The Telecom Digest for June 20, 2011
Volume 30 : Issue 154 : "text" Format
====== 29 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== |
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Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2011 22:53:03 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: 100 million Android fans can't be wrong / The inside story of how Google conquered the smartphone world
Message-ID: <p06240838ca2071f97530@[10.0.1.3]>
100 million Android fans can't be wrong
The inside story of how Google conquered the smartphone world.
By Beth Kowitt, writer
June 16, 2011
FORTUNE -- When Google (GOOG) acquired a tiny wireless startup called
Android in 2005, fewat the search giant had particularly high hopes
for the deal -- if they even knew about it. At that point Google had
purchased just a handful of companies, mostly software makers it had
quietly folded into its operations. (Big, high-profile deals like
YouTube and DoubleClick came later.) Besides, not many people knew
exactly what Android did: The upstart was in stealth mode, and
co-founder Andy Rubin, best known for creating the Sidekick mobile
device, said little about its product or mission. Executive chairman
Eric Schmidt would later joke that he scarcely noticed when Google
founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin bought the company.
Today, of course, Android is impossible to ignore. It is the mobile
operating system -- the brains of a cellphone -- that powers more
than 100 million gadgets. (That number will be out of date by the
time you read this: Every day another 400,000 Android devices are
activated.) Apple's (AAPL) iPhone gets credit for showing consumers
just how cool and powerful a mobile device could be, but Google
democratized smartphones by making Android available free to any
handset maker that wanted to use the platform. At last count, Android
software was on more than 300 different phones and tablets around the
world. The only smartphones that use the iPhone operating system?
iPhones. "If you just plot the graph looking at how quickly we grew,"
says Rubin, now senior vice president of mobile at Google, "it's
almost vertical."
There's a lot of (justifiable) chest beating over Android at Google
these days -- a corporate development VP has called the Android
acquisition Google's "best deal ever" -- but in hindsight the
overwhelming success of Android is kind of a miracle. Big tech
companies screw up many if not most of their acquisitions, letting
them wither from corporate neglect or driving out founders and other
talent with their inflexible cultures and protocols. (Skype buyer
Microsoft (MSFT), are you listening?) Even Google can be guilty of
this too (dMarc, Dodgeball), but its management of Android is a
textbook example of a deal gone terribly right: Rubin and his team
thrived in Google's engineering-driven culture, which encouraged
innovation by letting Android release less-than-perfect versions that
it would continually upgrade. Google also embraced Rubin's vision of
giving the operating system away -- a gambit, enabled by Google's
broader ad-based business model, that stoked adoption of the platform.
But Android ultimately triumphed thanks in large part to its
corporate benefactors: Google co-founders Page and Brin saw the
broader potential of Android almost from the outset. For the young
entrepreneurs Android was more than just another software
acquisition. It was the centerpiece of their grand vision to
transform the telecommunications industry and make it more open and
accessible -- in short, more like the Internet.
...
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/06/16/100-million-android-fans-cant-be-wrong/
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 08:41:29 +1000
From: David Clayton <dcstarbox-usenet@yahoo.com.au>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Battery power support today
Message-ID: <pan.2011.06.16.22.41.18.278356@yahoo.com.au>
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011 14:17:04 -0400, Pete Cresswell wrote:
> Per Tom Horne:
>>fact that modern communications
>>has become more brittle with it's increasing sophistication.
>
> After reading about the aftermath of Katrina (and knowing nothing much
> technical...) I started thinking it would be a good thing if there could
> be some sort of standard for cell towers and internet connection hardware
> where, in a pinch, every box could be operated from 12v DC. Seems like
> automobile batteries would be in pretty good supply in almost any
> disaster...
In any disaster and the immediate aftermath, I would assume that people
would be trying to use the remaining comms infrastructure far more than
normal, so would any (probably) degraded infrastructure be able to handle
the demand?
There may not be much point in keeping one or two cell towers up if
thousands of people - including emergency workers - hammer them with
demand that cannot be fulfilled. Same goes with any Internet
infrastructure, if some survives it may be totally saturated (and
virtually useless) because we expect it to be there 24/7 these days.
--
Regards, David.
David Clayton
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a
measure of how many questions you have.
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2011 18:19:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: Lisa or Jeff <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Battery power support today
Message-ID: <1a12f6d3-7bc8-42e7-88b6-a7918ab6b654@e21g2000vbz.googlegroups.com>
On Jun 15, 5:06 am, David Clayton <dcstarbox-use...@yahoo.com.au>
wrote:
In very general terms, my impression from the news media and informal
conversation is that old landline POTS is more reliable than Wireless
or Cable phones. How 'much more' I can't say. In some plain old
regular snowstorms that snarl traffic my cellphone wouldn't work on
account of busy circuits, but I always got dial tone on landlines.
> Does anyone know if there have been studies done to show what actually
> happens in disaster areas, rather than what we all individually may
> think happens because one day our own lives may depend on the reality
> rather than the perception?
That is a good question. As we know from the literature, the old Bell
System went to great lengths to assess and minimize that risk against
economic realities.
But to answer such a question we must first define what a "disaster"
is. My town was flooded by the river three times in four years after
not having a problem in 50 years (and fortunately none in a few years
since). Each flood was deemed a "disaster". But our flooding wasn't
as bad as the midwest very recently, and of course no where near as
bad as Katrina and New Orleans. (Our C.O. is on a main street above
the flood plain.)
Likewise, last winter we had a nasty 20" snowstorm that brought down
power lines. Landline phones kept working. Restoration of electric
power took between six hours and 60 hours, depending on where the
crews got to first. That was a 'borderline disaster' and they were
ready to open schools as emergency shelters. But it is not at all
unusual in the US for a large area to get hit with a very severe snow
or thunderstorm causing power outages of 96 hours. Then we have the
really bad, but fortunately rare tornados.
(I suppose they have some official rating scale, but I don't know it.)
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:09:13 +0100
From: Richard Powderhill <telmecom@hotmail.co.uk>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Battery power support today
Message-ID: <DUB102-ds9107BF8BAEC5D7F856D6D866D0@phx.gbl>
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011 12:05:22 -0700, AES <siegman@stanford.edu> said:
> Since the thoughtful discussion by Tom Horne <hornetd@gmail.com> at
> <482ffaae-e702-4ef9-ab5d-4444bdd5c202@z37g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
> contains the following sentence
>
> > I also have a generator that I maintain and test quite
> > regularly, but not many homes are so well equipped.
>
> 1) I'll toss in the following idea which my wife actually suggested
> some years ago, and which I think is remarkably ingenious.
>
> Suppose your gasoline-powered lawn mower included access to its drive
> shaft in some way _from the top_, and the mower manufacturer also sold a
> small free-standing (unpowered) generator with a matching fitting _on
> the bottom_.
>
> When the power fails, pull off a small cap on the top of the mower
> housing, opening up access to the motor shaft a small distance down
> inside a 1" or so diameter hole.
[Moderator snip]
> I think I'll go talk to my patent attorney . . .
Try the Bedini generator website....
Richard Powderhill------------------------------
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