I'm off stirring the pot again on GigaOm.... This time I wrote a blog about the startups that HP should buy to compete with Cisco. Cisco has moved into servers and I am sure that has angered HP - that is their core enterprise IT market focus. You can read my full post here.

I wrote this post for GigaOm this morning - I was inspired by a conversation I had the other night with a Canadian startup CEO that was outraged by his government funding a bail out of Nortel.

Microsoft revealed details of their vision for the future of datacenter architecture for cloud computing. I wrote a short piece for GigaOm here on the topic.

A few years back before I was a venture capitalist I used to hang around in data centers across the globe. One of my favorite locations to visit was Amsterdam because there were data centers close to both the free-spirited and bohemian city and Schipol Airport (which I was was told is literally pronounced "ship-hole" because the airport is on the site of a buried ship - please tell me if I've come to believe some urban myth here :). That is why this blog post by Peter Judge brought back some good memories - and highlighted another Vyatta success story.

I wrote a post today for GigaOm on a potential next generation metropolitan data center solution. It was a fun post to write and I even got to mention The Jerry Springer Show. You can read the full post here.

I've continued to be busy writing for GigaOm.... Here is a post on why I think now is the time for startups to take VC money. I've also done a post on the very real possibility that Cisco will buy EMC and on the enterprise migration to cloud computing with something I am calling the "Cloud Two-Step". Comments and thoughts always welcome!

I have been hearing a rumor about Cisco announcing support for VMware virtual machines next week at their VMworld conference. I wrote about this today for Om here - could be a very interesting development in the networking market.

As service providers look for ways to monetize their pipes and become more than just plumbers who charge by the hour (or byte) it looks like they are seriously considering providing virtualized PCs over broadband in the near future. I wrote about this trend for Om here. Comments always welcome!

My latest post for GigaOm just got picked up and syndicated by BusinessWeek. I guess the term "cloud computing" has made it to the mainstream business press....

Like many of my VC brethren, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about cloud computing. My latest post on this from GigaOm is here. Of course, I predict all clouds will be running Vyatta :)

Usage-based pricing for the Internet appears to be headed our way and I think this will dramatically change consumer behavior. This could have serious implications for cloud computing and other content-driven business models. I wrote about this for Om here. Comments always welcome!

Earlier this month Intel began messaging to software developers to prepare for compute processors with "thousands of cores." I think the implication of this much compute power on the horizon will have dramatic affects on the development of dedicated ASICs for a wealth of applications. For networking products, like those from Vyatta, the implications are huge - imagine a core (or ten) per process doing VPN termination, encryption, anti-virus analysis, intrusion detection and so on. I wrote a bit about this for Om awhile back - this post might be worth revisiting for a refresher.

I wrote a post today for Gigaom about an interesting technique to help identify data center cooling issues using FLIR thermography. You can read the post here - comments always welcome!

I spent some time talking to some Internet operations friends of mine today and thinking about reliability and uptime measurements. This post on GigaOm was the result. Comments always welcome!

Very cool - Vyatta is named Startup of the Week by Information Week!

Router-huggers unite, here's a post for you.... :)

Intel enters the 10GigE adapter market in an aggressive way. Look out below - 10 Gig Ethernet is now a commodity. You can read my post on this here.

A pervasive theme at Interop this year is using inexpensive and powerful hardware for networking. Hard for me to argue there! You can read the post over at GigaOm here.

Is it time for a virtualization engineer? Here are my thoughts on this topic, posted over at GigaOm.

Interesting news from Ostatic that Argentina may be the first country to regulate that all government offices use open source. For those that know me well, you know that my godson is from Buenos Aires and that I've spent my fair share of time crossing 9 de Julio. I have lots of good memories of BA and this news just reaffirms my desire to spend more time in this great country eating milanesas and alfajores de Havanna.

Nothing gets me revved up faster than a double shot of espresso than more the stupidity of the music business. You can read my latest rant on this topic over at GigaOm. You really don't want to see me after the espresso :)

As a venture capitalist looking at investments for the enterprise data center space, it is clear that there are multiple contestants in the fight to control this market over the next few years. The question facing CIOs today is - who do you trust to control your next enterprise data center?

read more

Kelly Herrell is famous for some great quotes around the workplace. I took one of these and turned it into a blog post on ostatic that you can read here.

I wrote a blog post this week on the possibility of Cisco moving into the enterprise data center by offering blade servers for their new Nexus 7000 switch. I think this move is inevitable given that Cisco, IBM, HP, Microsoft, VMware and others are fighting for account control in the enterprise data center. You can read my post here.

This topic has never failed to raise my blood pressure and get me worked up.... Why again should ISPs be responsible for people breaking the law using their infrastructure? Read my latest post on this topic here and get ready for some dripping sarcasm.

It looks like open source is going where few people have gone before - to space, the final frontier. Coverage of NASA's use of Fedora and RHEL starts here on the ostatic blog. I can already picture the Vyatta system routing packets between planets, something that has been on the minds of networking geeks for over 8 years.

According to Sun, FOSS will be helped by the US recession. I guess there is always a silver lining! Read about the good part of the US recession here.

The EU has announced that it will consider buying more open-source software. While this is clearly another gnarl at Microsoft, it also bodes well for EU business practices and economics. You can read some thoughts on this announcements over at Ostatic as well. Ah, how I look forward to Paris in the spring time - browsing the web with Firefox running on Fedora and connected to the Internet with Vyatta routers.

Om asked me to help christen his latest addition to the GigaOm network, the Ostatic blog with a post on open source telecom. That seemed right up my alley.... You can read my post here. In case you are wondering - I know I was - Ostatic is destined to be slang for "ecstatic with open source." That works for me!

Insanity around policing the Internet continues. The UK is considering legislation that will force ISPs to disconnect users if they are suspected of downloading pirated music or video. I thought theft was handled by police? Read my post on this topic here.

Here's a great post by Bruce Perens about the first decade of open source. As entrenched open source is throughout IT infrastructure, it's easy to forget this movement is only ten years old.

I read an article today that really bothered me about the US government performing searches on digital media when entering the country. I wrote a short blog about this for Om that you can read here. I guess when you bring a Vyatta system into the US you may have to boot it up and execute a "show config" command?!?

Here's a post that I wrote on how we're getting closer and closer to IPv6 being deployed globally. Another chink in the chain fell into place this week with the root-level domain name servers returning IPv4 and IPv6 addresses instead of only IPv4 addresses. Read more of my post here.

Open source in the enterprise is on the rise and up 26% - it's only a matter of time people, only a matter of time....

Here's a post I wrote for Om where I have publicly slammed my favorite rock band of all time (well, their manager). Bono please forgive me, but something had to be said on this issue.

Virgin Galactic revealed plans for SpaceShipTwo with an open architecture today. From the press that I read, it looks like Virgin Galactic will be more of a user of open source than an open source company. Still, the words "open source" next to the word "spaceship" is pretty cool Yes, I think the open source model has evolved. If it is good enough for rocket science, it is surely good enough for data networks!

So, it is 2008 and the Denver Broncos finished last season in miserable form. I honestly don't know their final win-loss record off the top of my head and it's been decades since that was true in January. I did manage to hold true to my oath not to watch the Broncos in 2007 and I'm really not worse for the wear. 2007 was a good year but I suspect I'll ruin 2008 following my favorite team to another disappointing season. Baseball anyone? :)

Here's a post I did for Om on my current quest for new collaboration tools for our advisors at Panorama Capital. As always, please let me know your comments and suggestions.

I'm been fascinated by the constant drum of media around privacy issues on the Internet and how people are surprised when their privacy has been compromised. I absolutely believe that everything you send on-line is being tracked and monitored (and I'm not too paranoid :) and wrote about some things you can do to help you try to keep some of your privacy and leave less of a digital footprint for Om.

I've been thinking a lot about video on the Internet these days given our recent investment in GridNetworks. That got me thinking about set-top boxes and I wrote this post for Om. Comments and suggestions always welcome!

Lots of folks carry a lot of data on USB disk drives these days.  And that can be a big security concern for CIOs - I wrote about about this for Om here.

Here's a post I wrote for Om on the movement on the Internet toward IPV6.

Please let me know your thoughts!

I came across a great article by Network World today on why it makes sense to break away from Cisco as your single networking vendor for your organization. To be fair, this article was a counterpoint to an argument on why having a single vendor and a single throat to choke is a good thing. The point of the article that I found very interesting was that while Cisco is a single company, their product line is complex and filled with many reliability impacting software features that most people never touch. This impacts MTTR and means that the claim that a single vendor provides better reliability is not relevant and fairly hollow. You can read the full article here.

As some of the comments on the article point out, quality support from your networking vendor is of paramount importance. We here at Vyatta agree and think our customers say it best.

I just found out that the Broncos are on Monday Night Football tonight. I'm really going to try to not torture myself like last time. Repeat after me three times: "I will not watch the Broncos lose again on Monday Night. I will not watch the Broncos lose again on Monday Night. I will not watch the Broncos lose again on Monday Night." Wish me luck on avoiding inevitable pain and sorrow....

UPDATE: I just read this morning that the Broncos actually won. Repeat after me: "A single win does not equal a winning streak. A single win does not equal a winning streak. A single win does not equal a winning streak."

Here's a post I wrote for Om on the upcoming transition that may finally be upon us - it's time to learn IPv6. Really, we mean it this time. :) You can read the post here.

I was having some challenges this past weekend on my home desktop PC running Windows XP. I was getting the dreaded hang at the Windows Splash screen (the where the flag logo shows up and the green bars scroll along the bottom of the screen) that I could not solve. Nothing had changed on my machine and I had tried all sorts of options to get my system back running based on some research I did on the Net: ran chkdsk multiple times, tried multiple different restore points, booted into safe mode, checked msconfig options and so forth. Let's just say that I spent a number of hours working on the issue to no avail and I was more than a bit frustrated.

In a last ditch effort, I was doing one last chkdsk and booting off my Windows Recovery Disk into safe mode. While the chkdsk was running (about a 3 hour process) I finally decided to take the advice of my friend Om to "get a mac." For those that know me, I used to be violently anti-Mac based on a horrific experience in the early 90s with a AppleBook that I was forced to use that continually gave me a bomb message with "Sorry a system error occurred." But, I've grown older and maybe wiser to look beyond the past. So, while my PC was running chkdsk for the third time I decided to boot my laptop and surf www.apple.com to check out the options on the iMac and MacBook Pro. I must admit they look very cool!

And just as I was checking prices, I swear, my PC completed the chkdsk and rebooted perfectly. It was up and running, no issues to be found. For fun, I rebooted it twice and it came back up perfectly (I still have no idea what the issue was or how I solved it).

So, I may be paranoid, but if AT&T was watching my web browsing and sent that information over to Microsoft, did an automated process kick in and fix my PC to avoid me becoming an Apple convert? Of course, if that was really the case, I would like to think that Microsoft would have solved the problem on my PC before I reached the frustration point of pricing a Mac. But, I wonder....

If you read this blog you know I have sworn off the Denver Broncos in 2007. I was doing good with my fasting - I had not watched a single minute of any of their games nor did I even know where they stood in the standings. But, when they played last night on Monday Night Football, it was hard to resist settling in to watch them play. I mean come on - a re-match of Elway's SuperBowl victory over Favre and the Packers?!? What football fan could resist?

But, I did resist. I did not listen to the game on the way home from work on ESPN. I did not come home early to watch the game and I declined a few invitations to go to a local bar and watch the game with friends. I was feeling good about my abstinence.

I came home, did some errands, ate some dinner and did some work. I was doing just fine.... And then, I decided to sit down and relax in front of the tube. The tube came on to ESPN and I saw the score: Denver 13, Green Bay 13, start of overtime. I actually said aloud, "Well, this may be worth watching!" I felt a little guilty for breaking my promise, but seriously, what could it hurt?

And then came the shock therapy. Denver kicks off and on the first play from scrimmage Favre throws an 82-yard touchdown pass (I think it was some sort of Monday Night Football record) to end the game. In literally 16 seconds of my time spent watching the game it was over. At least I did not waste 4 hours watching the Denver Donkeys - I got the same treatment in an efficient 16 seconds.

Here's another cross-post on a piece I wrote for Om on using network traffic statistics to produce more relevant search results. This post was inspired by an excellent paper by Joe Weinman of AT&T that you can find here. I really thought this post would spark some major concerns over privacy, but since it did not I guess everyone knows that whatever you do on the Internet (email, IM, VoIP, web browsing, etc.) is public knowledge.

If you have not seen this video from the RIPE 55 Meeting last week in Amsterdam at the Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky (great place - been there a few times) then you're missing out. Classic networking geek video - try to see how many of the technical references you can catch.

My favorite verse: "And now we've all lost our purpose.. my cisco shares completely worthless..." Enjoy!

Today NewTeeVee (part of the GigaOm network) posted a blog I wrote about how the Internet would change if bandwidth was infinite. It's good that I have a fairly thick skin as some of the comments on the post were less than constructive - and it got even worse on digg.

If you're up for joining the fray, I'd welcome your comments and thoughts on the topic!

I authored a post on the possibility of infinite bandwidth for the Internet that went live today on NewTeeVee here. I think that the potential for infinite bandwidth is very real and the resulting applications would be absolutely fascinating.  Please let me know your thoughts!

The startup pitch showdown known as Launch Pad  is one of my favorite parts of the Web 2.0  conference. Hundreds of companies pitching to be the next new thing!   Just two years after Launch Pad 2005, alumnus Zimbra   be purchased by Yahoo  last month for $350M  ! This year, front man John Battelle approached a couple of us to take a more active role with the event. Here’s an insider’s view of the process, and the market trends that are emerging through it:

Behind the scenes

This year, Battelle asked investors if we would do two things: First, reach into our pockets to sponsor the Launch Pad so that cash-strapped startups would not have to. Second, instead of just selecting companies as in past years come on to the main stage and have a conversation with the six finalists, as part of an American Idol style judging format. (I am not sure who is going to be Paula, Simon, or Randy, but I am sure the companies will be outstanding!) The audience will vote in real-time to determine the winner.

We have an exceptional group of companies to look at again this year. We are giving the review process our best shot, but it is by definition a difficult and less than perfect exercise. Entrepreneurs pour their heart and soul into these companies, and we only have a few minutes to spend on sizing each one up. (OK, maybe I am Paula.) As of Friday, the six judges have managed to narrow the pool of almost 200 companies down to 18 semi-finalists.

Trends

Although the judges are curiously split down the middle on “what is interesting,” several trends are apparent from our selection of the 18 semi-finalists.

1. Extending commerce into community: referrals networks, advertising to vertically focused communities, and behavioral targeting.
2. Monetizing video: publishing, distribution, advertising, and life cycle management
3. Focused semantic web: enhancing search around specific verticals
4. Replacing Microsoft with web apps: along the Zimbra theme, but the next step
5. Communities and collective intelligence: using the social graph to get smarter faster on just about everything
6. Bridging on & off-line worlds: how to bring more of the off-line world into an integrated experience online; resources, transactions, voice, etc.

What did the less interesting submissions have in common?

1. We’ve already seen companies attack the problem with that type of solution (and even worse, we saw it at the 2005 or 2006 Launch Pad.)
2. Narrow markets and/or difficult channels to the end customer
3. Too complex, or too poorly articulated for the panel to grok in the limited time available to review submissions.

Next step: selecting the top six companies

The main criterion in narrowing the pool of 18 semi-finalists down to six finalists is simple: is the company fundable, or is it just a cool idea? Semi-finalists have been asked for additional information so we can make the final selection on Tuesday night. Lobbying has been creative – a life-sized raccoon cutout was delivered to my office last week – and persistent.

Although the names of the 18 companies are under wraps, we’ll be able to share more takeaways once the final 6 are selected. Names of the final 6 will be publicly announced at Web 2.0 on October 18th at 5 PM .   

Is there a Zimbra in the bunch?  Not sure, but the next round of conversations should be interesting.    It’s time for your close up Launch Pad semi-finalists!

I found a great article in the Guardian today by Victor Keegan about how ignoring open source software (mainly Linux and Firefox) is costing the UK significant amount of revenues. What I found most interesting is that the author found a prevailing attitude toward open source as "anything that is free can't be any good." If the UK is getting ready to save some money with Linux and Firefox, wait until they realize that they can reduce their networking costs too using Vyatta! You can read the full article here.

I wrote a post on the need for network devices in the data center to go green.  It's live on the Earth2Tech site (part of the GigaOm network) here.

Another post on the GigaOm site, this time focused on the interesting revolution in data centers.....  Read on here.

I've been thinking a lot about the future of data centers and the relevant systems and network architectures. Not following the Broncos has given me some free time on Sundays :)

Om posted my piece on the current revolution for data center architectures last week - it sure does look like we're headed back to the future. It's clear to me that virtualization is going to play a key role in the data center of the future and that looks vaguely familiar to network architectures of the past. You can read the post here.

I have also been very interested in making data centers more eco-friendly and wrote about this over at Earth2Tech (a GigaOm site) here. If you're a fan of Vyatta, then you know our software runs on servers that are Energy Star certified already!

P.S. Yes, I do know the Broncos are 2-0. I have not watched a minute of them in 2007 yet :)

Being heavily involved in telecommunications and networking has me thinking about this market from multiple angles.  Here is a post I wrote for GigaOm on Cisco and Microsoft.

I posted over at GigaOm on why Google should buy Adobe - and it's all about video.  You can read this post here.

I've just posted a new piece I've written on GigaOm on CSCO vs MSFT that is found here. As you can tell, those of us involved with Vyatta are watching Cisco from multiple angles! :)

Please let me know your thoughts!

I've been thinking a lot about how service providers can become SaaS and Web2.0 companies using their sheer size and scale.  A post on this topic went live today on the GigaOm site here.