Bob Porras' Blog: Words without the accent... Also at: http://bobporras.wordpress.com/

Announcements have certainly accelerated lately with respect to integrated infrastructure technology.  Multiple vendors who provide infrastructure hardware for compute, storage and network are either partnering with each other or pursuing a "go alone" strategy.  Few will disagree that more tightly integrated solutions will benefit IT customers.

However an IT solution has always had the expectation and requirement to be integrated.  That is why the IT industry has developed over the years standards and protocols.  In other words, common industry accepted methods to move, process and protect business as well as consumer information.  Traditionally large complex IT solutions have been integrated by VARs, management consulting firms or consulting services for a given customer.  Is that beginning to change?  Also the IT solution is comprised of more than just tightly integrated hardware blocks. 

Let's not forget about the various applications that need to run on any given vendors hardware platform.  In addition to the applications, virtualization is becoming a standard requirement to maximize the utilization of any vendors integrated hardware platform.  Infrastructure providers will need to adjust to the fact that hypervisor technology may sell less hardware because utilization and efficiency will be largely improved.

Does this new focus on consolidation favor software stacks that are both heterogeneous and therefore ubiquitous?  The IT industry has become a mature business.  New ideas will always continue but IT will still be comprised of both hardware and software. 

A good analogy is the automobile industry...  Automobiles have had tremendous amounts of progress over the past 100 years.  For example there have been many optimizations and efficiencies with car manufacturing, car fuel efficiency, etc.  Over the past 20 years the automobile industry has highly leveraged the use of embedded electronics in cars.  But the basic components of a car (tires, engine, brakes, steering wheel, etc.) have (and for the foreseeable future) not changed.

Blog is available also at: http://bobporras.wordpress.com/

On Halloween I upgraded the desk side PC from Windows XP to Windows 7.  Between multiple reboots, application installs, recovery of email, print server configuration, etc. my wife asked "Why does it have to be so hard?"  As she said this I was looking at the Apple Time Capsule sitting on top of a small cabinet in our home basement. The only item coming out of the Time Capsule was the power cord connected to the power outlet.  I run the Time Capsule as a wireless client in our home network for data backup.  The data consists of many pictures, video clips, songs, the kids homework and basically many various files (some of which are important).

My home (LAN) network has grown over the years from a few PCs connected via an old 802.11b router to a dual band (802.11g/802.11n) router connecting a multitude of wireless clients. These include a XBox, iTouch, PrintServer, OpenSolaris, Ubuntu, Mac, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 devices.  Basically a heterogeneous environment.  Will the older Window versions be phased out at home eventually?  Yes.  The Unix/Linux clients will remain out of necessity as well as for hobby.  It's difficult to currently beat the Mac experience.  Adding a Time capsule into my existing home network was relatively easy.  The Airport setup updated the Time Capsule firmware and configured the device in straight forward steps.  It wasn't as "fun" for a "techie" as say CLI commands, but simple is defined as "fun" for most consumers. The Windows XP to Windows 7 full upgrade was painfull but I have to admit the network configuration experience was much improved.  I was pleasantly surprised freeware Bonjour discovery services just worked and the W7 system configured the Time Capsule as a usable share.

One could imply a similar situation in the enterprise space.  For an enterprise business "fun" is defined as high margin dollars on a growing revenue stream.  This usually means your costs are contained, you implement continuous improvements on efficiency and you simplify.  Vendors in the technology industry are all trying to provide a truly "Enterprise Time Capsule" or Appliance.  There has been a large amount of innovation over the past 20 years.  However today's innovation is tomorrow's PDP-11.  Minicomputers were appliances that Mainframes couldn't be.  The evolution has continued over the years in every technology segment.

Enterprise customers want it simple as do consumers.  While the stakes are much higher in the enterprise, the bar is significantly raised for "just working" each and every time.  It doesn't matter if you are playing catchup, you are the incumbent or you are the new thought leader-- the winners will be the set of vendors who provide the tool that "just works" each and every time in the harshest and most complex environments. 

Blog is available also at: http://bobporras.wordpress.com/

The turnout of customers and partners of the enterprise technology segment certainly did not disappoint at Oracle Open World this year.  While other large IT events have been canceled this year do to the economic downturn, Oracle Open World attendance of 42000 IT professionals was basically unaffected from the 2008 attendance.  Even more impressive was that virtually every enterprise vendor that partners, competes and analyzes Oracle attended this yearly gathering in downtown San Francisco. The multiple exhibit halls, sessions, events, activities and networking certainly created an environment for plenty of information exchange.

Every vendor at Oracle Open World is a cog (of varying sizes from small to large) that builds into the enterprise IT stack of:

• applications

• middleware

• database

Every item from storage management, computational speeds, networking feeds, disaster recovery, hosted IT, employee productivity tools and various communication mediums all factor back into connecting the above 3 areas of the enterprise stack.

In my opinion enterprise IT is becoming much less driven by vendor loyalty and a great price to the vendors that can provide competitive advantage to their customers.  During an economic downturn as well as post recovery, the competitive advantage will more than outshine a good price.

Blog is available also at: http://bobporras.wordpress.com/

Recent news of increased economic stability in the world is comforting.  However how much of it is based on sound fundamentals?  If you are an investor or run a business where in the world do you want to invest for growth and equity?  United Arab Emerates may be a place of interest.  The UAE growth rate in GDP is astounding.  While not all economic indicators are objectively sound, you have to speculate where can you find a better risk/reward ratio. 

Western based banks have recovered their share price as well as balance sheets, but new credit lending is still tight.  Loan losses are still surging in the West.  In my opinion there remains too many toxic, complex, leveraged, convoluted, imaginary assets out there that have not been exposed to date.  In order for the world economy to move forward the majority of bad credit instruments need to be exposed and liquidated.  Otherwise we will continue to regain the false sense of consumer comfort that eventually got us into trouble. 

Most world economies are driven by consumer spending, but consumer savings is the buffer from repeating what we are seeing today.  One issue is where (globally) to place your assets into safe saving instruments with a secure and viable return. 

I'm not sure anyone out there has all the answers...

Blog is available also at: http://bobporras.wordpress.com/

While the U.S. is still trying to stimulate spending of U.S. consumers with its economic stimulus programs, countries such as India and China appear to be making much better progress.  On a recent trip in September to China and India via Singapore one can visibly see that Asia Pacific is not standing still and putting idled factory workers toward new infrastructure projects.  Talking with customers and partners in China and India only confirms what could be described as a best practice for any nation looking for economic recovery.

Earlier this year Beijing announced a $585 billion (U.S. dollars) stimulus package (~13% of China's 2008 GDP). As part of this stimulus package China will spend this year $50 billion (U.S. dollars) alone on the ambitious worlds biggest high-speed (started in 2005 and expected to finish in 2020) railway which will connect Beijing, Dalian, Xuzhou, Lanzhou, Shanghai, Kunming and Guangzhou. Beijing's economic stimulus is directly targeted at the ~20 million idled workers in China due mostly to the 20% decline in foreign sales.  Notable statistics of the new high-speed railway include:

• The buttresses which carry the tracks will consume 117 million tons of concrete

• 16,000 miles (25,749 km) of new track will be built

• The Beijing to Shanghai line will consume enough steel to build 120 "Birds Nest" Olympic Stadiums

In addition to construction labor the railway will create jobs for engineers and lot's of them.  The railway will be computerized and require a lot of IT spending and resources.  You can be certain the large IT companies are looking to win this business and provide hardware, software, services and support.  A great opportunity.  Bill Powell wrote a great article in FORTUNE magazine with many more exciting facts which you can read here.

India's growth is equally impressive despite the global recession.  India still needs to build massive amounts of infrastructure while China is already upgrading infrastructure previous built.  I like to describe China as organized chaos while India is still dealing with unorganized chaos.  In Beijing you see cars, buses, trains, people, bikes, motorcycles all in congested traffic in harmony with the traffic signals.  In Bangalore you have the same as Beijing but with everyone only in harmony with themselves.  Traffic signals get ignored, motorcycles are riding on the sidewalk and intersections, at rush hour, give no clear indication as to who has the right of way.  It's simply something that every business professional should experience because you need to know the customer you are selling.  Both are beautiful cultures and part of the solution of economic recovery in the world.  India too will consume massive amount of engineers, software, hardware and services not only to fuel their IT outsourcing industry but to rapidly build their own nation, infrastructure and ultimately their own economy as a world leader.

Blog is available also at: http://bobporras.wordpress.com/

The worldwide economic downturn that accelerated in the year 2008 and 2009 certainly has caused problems for everyone.  The situation was caused by people and the remedy lies with people .  While the majority of people on Earth focus on the numerous everyday issues of our only known habitable planet, there are other people who think about problems beyond Earth.  Think beyond social, personal, government, economic, humanitarian, business and climate issues and try to solve the unknowns of the universe.

Astrophysicists think about problems that extend into the known universe.  I specifically say known universe because we do not fully know or understand what we don't know. Some questions may seem like nonsense, especially as applied to Earth. 

• Do parallel universes exist? 
• Are there unknown dimensions beyond length, height, depth and time? 
• Why do the gravity laws of large objects conflict with the laws of small particles?
• Do collapsed black holes reappear as new matter in another universe (worm holes)?

Imagine harnessing the energy of 1 single star over its lifetime.  How many stars are in the known universe? It's billions upon billions.  How many stars are within a single galaxy?  It's billions.  How many galaxys are in the known universe.  It's billions.  That's a huge amount of energy!  In fact the energy of 1 star is huge.  To comprehend what we know today about the universe can make the common persons head hurt.  To try to understand what we do not know or understand about the known universe makes all astrophysicists heads hurt every day.

Speaking of energy there is a distant binary star (WR104 - see video clip above) 8000 light years away that will eventually go supernova when the star cores collapse.  If events align right a gamma ray burst can result which is the known mother of all luminous electromagnetic events in the universe.  In addition it appears that one end of the gamma ray burst beam, which will exit from the polar ends of the rotating star could be pointing directly at Earth. 

Perfect alignment of two large objects 8000 light years away with a narrow beam of 12 degrees in an expanding universe is possible, but I feel that issues such as global warming are better near term problems to address.

Blog is available also at: http://bobporras.wordpress.com/

Ultimately it is the software application that most IT customers look toward solving their business problems.  However software applications have a lot of moving parts sitting logically under the stack that enables the given application.  Some of these parts include operating system components, hardware and usually a large amounts of data.

A car, like an IT solution, requires more than a few set of tools to complete the job. While companies share many common problems, as do car manufactures, company solutions ultimately need the entire tool box to be fully utilized.  This is necessary in order to get the right solution to a company's IT problem.

Healthy competition amongst vendors enables multiple degrees of freedom for application solutions, but more technologies in a given vendors tool box only enables the ability to build better IT solutions.  The same applies to those who are in the business of building cars.  From a business perspective it is absolutely critical that the technologies have to be articulated into a cohesive and complementary strategy for success.  For example Ford builds cars, trucks and hybrids.  Ford does not depend on putting a truck engine into a Ford Focus and vice versa for obvious reasons.  The same applies for technology.  No "one solution fits all" has ever been successful in any market. 

Venture Capitalists and public companies have been chasing "the" goal for many years that one given technology can satisfy all aspects of a given market.  However when you combine and use multiple technologies in your portfolio and present the right business and sales focus the results can be pretty awesome.

Here is a good example of software technologies:

• Solaris 10
  

• Solaris Cluster 3.2 U2

• SAM/QFS 5.0

• ZFS
  

from the tool box combined with partner technology to produce an ultimate software application solution.

Blog is available also at: http://bobporras.wordpress.com/

Another year and another milestone with my battle with cancer.  8 years cancer free.  I view it as having two birthdays: September 14th, when I came into this world and August 1st when I was given the chance to fight for 8 more years.  My life odometer is approaching 49 and it seems like yesterday that I noticed my blinking "check engine light."  I recently got my (now yearly) dose of needles, xrays and the seldom loved CT scan.  While I have had my urologist reset the engine light for another year, general health maintenance is always wise.  Not that I desire anymore needles since my second birthday, I was just treated to a cortisone injection into my left shoulder to help fight arthritis and shoulder stiffness.  The pain relief was instant but my eyes got wide with what looked like a pipe instead of a syringe.

Another year has passed and there are people who have lost the battle.  It remains difficult for me to hear of people in my local community who did not get that 2nd birthday as given to me.  Children who have lost the battle to cancer remains the most troubling for me.  While I have had the opportunity to grow into an adult, no child deserves to have their short life ended prematurely due to an illness.  Surviving over children who have lost the battle with cancer still causes me some guilt.  Knowing that I am a fighter brings some relief.  The majority of the relief comes from talking about the illness and promoting early detection via education.  Get yourself a yearly checkup no matter what is your current situation.  I'm living proof.  You are no different than an automobile when it comes to maintenance and early detection.  Continuing to drive with your check engine light on is basically denial which can prove costly for your automobile as well as yourself.

I admire Lance Armstrong for his cancer battle.  He inspired me and keeps me going with mine.  Farah Fawcett remains a remarkable woman for the documentary of her own battle with cancer that she ultimately lost.  Patrick Swayze is as courageous as anyone could be with his own battle with cancer.  With these type of people as inspirations (Randy Pausch included), I cannot stop fighting for those who have lost the battle with cancer. 

I'll keep fighting for you, one second birthday at a time...

Blog is available also at: http://bobporras.wordpress.com/

Do you remember your first job out of college?  More importantly do you remember your first manager?  Yes that  person who decided to give you a chance.  I was on vacation during the July 4th holiday weekend in Maine and had a chance encounter.  This young person named Pat R., who was working the concierge service, was off in the corner being quiet on a slow night.  My wife Ellen and I along with our gang of three Michael, Michelle and Mikayla (are all versions of the name Michael) were the only guests having an early evening snack.  So I struck up a conversation with Pat.  I asked him if he was from Maine and was this his summer job, to which he said yes to both questions.  I also found out that he was entering his senior year at Colorado College.  I asked Pat what was his major and he replied Computer Science.  Bingo... my wife and kids were probably thinking: "we are going to be here for a while..."  I told Pat I worked at Sun Microsystems and then he started talking about Java, Java and more Java.  Pat admitted to being a Xbox 360 heavy user, especially at college.  My son really liked this part as I pester him for his diligent practice of his  Xbox dexterous skill.  My son enjoyed that Pat was a Halo 3 and Call of Duty player as well.  As we left to go back to our room I wished Pat good luck and we agreed to keep in touch via Facebook or Linkedin since he is a member of both networks.  Even though I only interacted with Pat for a short period of time I sensed he was well rounded and envision him doing well in his future.

There are many stories throughout the world from people who speak of remembering that first chance that “someone” gave them.  Through all walks of life from business, entertainment, sports, cuisine, medicine, etc. there are instances of people not forgetting that initial opportunity that started their climb in life.  I was in New Zealand recently and was told a story by my driver of his friend. His friend is the sole provider of beef in New Zealand for a large U.S. based fast food franchise.  Many years ago this gentleman responded to a small local newspaper advertisement.  He eventually won the contract over much larger companies in New Zealand because the decision maker had a good instinctive feeling about him and was willing to give him a chance.

I've been fortunate to have given several college graduates their first chance in their career and it is one of the most satisfying parts of the job.  To be able to watch young college graduates transform into seasoned industry veterans is similar to watching your own children grow into adults.  Listening to graduates from all over the world tell their story of what education has enabled for their lives is humbling.  It reminds me of the stories of my grandparents when they immigrated to the U.S. They too got that first chance which eventually led to my own first chance in the working world here in the U.S.

As an engineering undergraduate I had to complete 2 years of full time work experience in order to graduate from Northeastern University.  In 1979 Tom Seiker gave me my first cooperative education job at AVCO Research Laboratory in Everett, MA.  I also completed cooperative education at the Mitre Corporation in Bedford, MA.  Bob Preuss, Dr. Greg Robertshaw, John Roberts and Dr. B.N. Suresh Babu all gave me a chance at Mitre.  In fact, Bob Preuss made me do an official daily written status report that was logged and filed as part of the company record.  As you can imagine few engineers enjoy writing words, myself included, but because of his insistence writing became much easier for me.

My cooperative education was  mostly working on classified projects that required a secret clearance, so I naturally interviewed with the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).  I decided that the commercial industry was right for me.   Ten companies wanted to give me a chance and I picked Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC).  Bob Raspallo, Jim Scott and Mike Pennington gave me my first chance at DEC.  Thank you, I have not forgotten and continue with what you started with me.

Blog is available also at: http://bobporras.wordpress.com/

Despite the global economic downturn some businesses are aggressively spending for the opportunities of the future.  However the spending of today has conflicting objectives that some would argue are necessary.  Let's take wireless mobile providers throughout the world.  In this market, competition is fierce and beneficial to consumers.  The services offered to subscribers are plentiful and rich but they do come at a high cost for the providers.  Subsidizing the phones from the likes of Nokia, Apple, Samsung and Blackberry is one big cost to get the customer's subscription.

It's great that technology has enabled GSM phones to work almost everywhere in the world except Japan "where you'll need a special phone that either supports CDMA or uses the 3G standard UMTS in the 2100 MHz frequency band. Sony Ericsson, Nokia, and a few other phone manufacturers now offer multi-band GSM phones that also include support for UMTS 2100. Coverage also extends to some cruise ships." There is a crowded group of companies looking for the opportunity to connect to individuals to provide any and all content. It's as if companies have discovered another Gold Rush.

I'm excited to see wireless and cable providers compete and innovate for delivering services to all of us around the world.  Watching cable providers offering land line service over IP and phone companies offering internet connectivity is a good example of the competitiveness out there.  The days of just delivery of service or being only the data pipe are long gone.  Providers want to delivery the data but more importantly they want to create the applications that produce the data.  The telco, cable provider and handset manufacturer all want to own as much of the subscriber stack as possible.  Now that's competition!  Here in the U.S. Comcast and Verizon are aggressively competing to win one subscriber at a time for internet, phone and HD television service.  As a result both companies are making massive investments in capital expenditures.

In fact, despite the global recession, capital spending continues throughout the world by some companies as a competitive advantage for the rebounding economy in the future.  Having spent the past few weeks talking to customers in New Zealand, Australia, Germany and reading newspapers such as the Financial Times, I've collected a group of random data.  This data can be basically summarized into Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection and applies to business as well as nature.

• world airlines have 866 Boeing 787 Dreamliners on order.  Each 787 averages ~$200M U.S. each!
• new cargo ships ordered or under construction is ~50% *more* than anticipated need
• telcos are making huge capital investments but they understand they cannot be sustained
• will energy become so expensive that transporting it becomes prohibitive?
• will multiple countries practice protectionism such that localization becomes attractive again?

I'm excited that new technology will be able to help address the above as well as new economic problems we will all face in the future.

Blog is available also at: http://bobporras.wordpress.com/

The random nature of life events can be summarized by the phrases "right place at the right time" or "wrong place at the wrong time."  There is a scene in the movie "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."  that portrays the randomness of an accident.  How appropriate given the events last month for my household.  The good news is that nobody was injured and that is the most important outcome.  It doesn't stop one from wondering that if one random event was different then the whole situation might have not occurred.

One Friday rainy morning my wife was driving my son to high school.  As she was coming back home at ~7:25 am there was an electrical short circuit on a power line that had shut down the road to one lane.  A junior at the same high school was running a little late and came around the corner of the road only to see traffic stopped in front of him.  He panicked and locked up his brakes and skidded across the road and hit my wife's vehicle.  Not the car in front or behind my wife... but my wife's car as you can see in this picture above.  When I arrived at the scene the high school student was looking glum.  It may have been the surcharge on his insurance he was thinking along with the warning he received for speeding under the road conditions.  I was glad that everyone was physically fine.  Both vehicles had to be towed and the tow trucks were on site quickly.

The next set of events came as a big surprise to my wife as well as me.  Prior to this accident she had never had an accident or even a parking ticket.  She called Liberty Mutual our insurance provider to file a claim.  The woman on the other end of the phone took information from my wife for about 15 minutes.  While still on the phone with the insurance agent my wife received a call from a car rental company notifying her that her substitute transportation (a 2009 minivan with 6000 miles/9656 km) was ready.  The towing company called as well asking if my wife decided on the repair facility and was requesting authorization to deliver the vehicle.  My wife then said to the Liberty Mutual claim representative:

"This is going too easy!..." and the Liberty Mutual claim representative responded: "It's supposed to go this way..."

Needless to say my wife was speechless only having to make 1 phone call.  She was also told that your deductible is being waived and since your vehicle has less than 12000 miles/19312 kilometers; only new original manufactured parts can be used for the repair.  In less than a week the repair shop had the replacement parts and she picked up her repaired vehicle 3 weeks to the day later.  The vehicle had over $5500 in damages!  Looking behind the scenes of the insurance company they have a sophisticated IT infrastructure that automates and consolidates B2B transactions in real time.  As a result all vendors in the value chain have the incentive to respond.  Repeat business and customer satisfaction are main drivers here for everyone.

When you are a customer you know how you would like to be treated.  A good thought to keep in mind with your own customers.

Blog is available also at: http://bobporras.wordpress.com/

Have you made contributions toward a more ECO friendly environment?  Any and all efforts do make a difference when all added together.  While we have made progress in some areas, it is evident that we need to go faster and stronger.  Stop and think of your own personal carbon footprint.  In other words what are you doing that is causing the emission of greenhouse gasses.  When I look at the picture above it resonates 'clean' (it also indirectly infers Lord of the Rings - "The Eye").

Renewable energy is no longer a passion for environmentalists.  I've taken an interest in wind power.  While driving into Boston on Route 93 South you can see a large wind turbine located on your left by Exit #31.  It is situated in the back of a school which is located right in a neighborhood (look at the center of this Yahoo Map for the small white circle, this is where the turbine now resides) .  The city where this wind turbine is located is called Medford, the city where I grew up.  Being curious and an engineer, I had to get up close and check out this piece of technology.  First of all this wind turbine is HUGE up close!  Even more amazing was that the turbine was right in a schoolyard and neighborhood.  I could not believe how quiet this turbine was operating.  Given that city life is usually noisy with highways, airports and the close proximity of homes; I didn't think that a wind turbine would be acceptable right in a city.  The blades of the wind turbine look high tech.  They reminded me of the Cold War when submarine propeller technology was top secret.  In fact I believe today's submarines are looking at non propeller propulsion.  Why you ask?  Because a submarine that cannot be heard cannot be detected.  The quieter a propeller provides propulsion the harder it is to detect.  It looks like similar engineering went into the wind turbine blade design.  The wind turbine I was standing right under was relatively very quiet.  I assume the turbine's brain adjusts the blades pitch to accommodate the wind speed and weather conditions.  I believe it must have a wind speed ceiling as well as floor as it is not safe to be operating a wind turbine in a hurricane!

In addition to wind there are other natural renewable energy sources such as solar, geothermal and hydro energy generation. There are also biofuel alternatives such as ethanol from corn and sugarcane.  With all the advancements in clean energy and the opportunity to keep our planet safe it makes you just want to be green too.

Blog is available also at: http://bobporras.wordpress.com/

The transistor counts of both the CPU and GPU are escalating almost as fast as toxic assets from the sub prime mortgage meltdown.  As in every good debate there are usually 2 opposed sides to a given topic.  Political parties such as Democrats and Republicans thrive on the point versus counterpoint arguments.  This analogy certainly is applicable to the technology of semiconductors.  Gone are the days of the CPU as the center of the computer.  With the advancement of visual applications in both the commercial and entertainment sectors, graphic processing has made a claim as the center of the computer.  Today 50 years after the first silicon transistor, semiconductor advancements have exceeded industry predictions 25 years ago.  It is truly amazing that computer and graphic processor transistor counts have gone from 100s of millions and exceeded the billion of transistor ceiling!  That is one large mass of circuits that have to be designed, verified, placed, routed and timed for chip signoff.

As the industry has pretty much hit the celing on clock speed, multiple instances of cores have appeared.  However having a quad-core CPU does not mean that your office productivity suite will run faster on your desktop as this application is single threaded.  Applications that are muti threaded will be able to take advantage of mutiple cores.  A good example is visualization hypervisor software that will run on multiple bare metal cores.  When you are managing multiple virtual machine instances many cpu threads come in handy.

It is obvious that word processing applications do not need extreme graphics processing either.  Then what does require high end graphics?  The graphics capability of the microprocessor is pretty impressive these days.  I can think of two areas: high end video games and visualization software for high end computer modeling and manipulation.  Both of these areas have a viable market as evidenced by the sales of popular gaming consoles out there such as PlayStation3 and the new consoles under development.  In the commercial sector 3D crash simulations are very cost effective for automobile manufactures when designing a safer automobile.

Ferraris and Fiat Cinquecentos both can go 50 mph (80 kph).  However not everyone has the need or monetary opportunity to purchase a Ferrari.  The same applies for CPU and/or GPUs depending on what you are trying to do.

Blog is available also at: http://bobporras.wordpress.com/

I recently started using a new gadget that has made mobile information access much easier.  However it took some tinkering to get it all working seamlessly. MP3 and iPod music players are almost as common as wrist watches today.  My kids and I have acquired a collection of them over the years.  The latest edition for me is the iTouch which is the newest iPod that enables you to not only listen to music, but watch movies, photos, connect to the internet via w-ifi and install applications.  Basically the iTouch is everything the iPhone offers except the phone service (which you get from a mobile carrier network such as AT&T, Vodafone, etc.).

The internet connection via wi-fi is what really sets this appliance apart from competitors.  At home I can connect to my fully encrypted network.   What astonished me was my ability to connect to unsecured networks in many different localities.  For example while sitting in a medical building waiting for an appointment with my physician, I connected to my opthamologist's office on the other side of the building.  No encryption key required.  I have been able to connect to wide open wireless networks at banks, schools, hospitals, shopping malls, restaurants, and other people's home networks!  While this is rather convenient for me, it is scary at the same time.  I've also been impressed with establishments such as a world renown teaching hospital in Boston that offers guest wi-fi services once you accept terms and conditions.  The same applies to airports around the world where airlines may offer password based complementary or pay per use w-ifi access.

Now let's get to the applications which is the best part of the iTouch.  As is the case with the iPhone you can use a rich set of both complimentary and purchasable applications.  The iTouch comes with a base set of applications such as Calendar, YouTube, Email, Safari, Clock and Stock tracker.  You can also add applications such as Google Earth, Yahoo, USA Today, The Weather Channel, Yahoo, Google Maps, Currency converters, etc.  I loaded a complementary app called Nambu which allows you to post to all of your social networks at once via services such as Twitter, FriendFeed, Linkedin, Facebook, Ping.fm and pic.im.  Posting photos, links, micro blogs, product info, etc. is all seamlessly integrated. With Ping.fm you can post via a browser, SMS or through a 3rd party client such as Nambu. 

Blog is available also at: http://bobporras.wordpress.com/

A picture is worth a 1000 words and it certainly resonates with the economic global meltdown this past year.  A red flag indicator on the economy is the TED spread.  This metric is an indicator of perrceived credit risk in the economy.  The TED spread tracks the difference between interest rates of interbank loans and short term T-Bills (government debt).  The difference is measured in basis points (bps). Unlike the economic recessions of the past, this spread skyrocketed universally across the globe rather than in specific countries.  Historical averages are usually below 50 bps so when the TED spread went over 450 bps in the Fall of 2008 there was no surprise what was happening in the world stock markets.  Click here to see a TED spread quote from Bloomberg.

While the TED spread has dropped in the first part of 2009, there certainly needs to be additional closure of the spread in order to get back to historical averages. This will only happen, in my opinion, when credit flows normally once again.  There has been too many mixed messages on banks lending again (but to whom???) and being able to assign value on toxic assets that the banks are holding.  Until these two items can be cleared out, the one common solution for both is attracting private investors.

Consumer and private investor confidence is at an all time low.  Government loans and stimulus packages globally all factor into where and what to invest.  Where have all the risk takers gone?  I certainly don't have the stomach to hedge in the current securites environment.  Even governments have retreated to purchasing safe, secure debt for investments so who can blame the private investors to be in a you lead and then I'll follow strategy.

Events got pretty scary last October when the TED spread peaked.  A money market fund defaulted, consumers were running on banks and many financial institution capitalizations were evaporating.  You could literally hear value being sucked out of the market and retreating to liquid assets.  Where did it all go?  It's like we had full balloons in a closed room and suddenly the balloons are all empty... but there is still the same amount of air in the room.  We just cannot find the air to blow the balloons back up again.  Reports have indicated that world banks have written off ~$900B (U.S. dollars) in toxic assets but there remains ~$3.1B still working its way through the system.  The TED spread will be watching...

This is where consumer confidence plays a huge factor. 

Blog is available also at: http://bobporras.wordpress.com/