In what will rock the PC industry, analysts are now projecting that low end computer sales will reach 13m units over the next 18 months. That is not insignificant market share. It portends that the ThirdPipe assessment is correct. –

As major PC vendors prepare to launch low-cost PCs in the second quarter, order volumes to Taiwan OEMs in the second half of the year as well as new product directions in 2009 are likely to be affected. The potential volume increase is expected to be around 13 million units in 2008, according to sources at Taiwan OEMs.

Wistron and Quanta Computer are the two OEMs who will benefit most from the rise of low-cost PCs. Acer has already placed additional orders of around one million units with Wistron, while Hewlett-Packard (HP) has placed orders for two million low-cost PC with the company. Quanta will also act as one of Acer’s OEMs for low-cost PCs, noted the sources, adding that vendors may even place more orders in the second quarter.

Linky

I will refrain from the “ITYS”. But the fact is with the format as laid out it pretty much went the way I expected it. But what was unexpected was Comcast response to the whole affair. They filled the room with their employees like FDR packing the Supreme Court. –

Comcast admitted to paying its employees to sit in at a F.C.C. hearing on net neutrality at the Harvard Law School today, depriving angry protesters from their right to sit in those folding chairs. Despite the venue being filled to over capacity, keeping some people from entering, not everyone inside seemed appreciative of their privilege. One Comcast employee admitted on tape, “I’m just getting paid to hold someone’s seat, I don’t even know what’s going on.” According to SaveTheInternet.com, the Comcast employees, “arrived en masse some 90 minutes before the hearing began and occupied almost every available seat, upon which many promptly fell asleep.” The stacked audience’s behavior was limited to wearing a yellow highlighter, sleeping during the proceedings, and loudly applauding when Comcast VP David Cohen got on the mic.

– from Consumerist.

And for your viewing pleasure –

Then to heap insult onto injury –

Recently, Comcast responded to an FCC proceeding regarding it’s alleged blocking of bittorent traffic. In its discussion of how peer to peer uses the network, Comcast didn’t refer to a standards document, a software developer or even a network engineer, instead it referred to a member of Congress. Specifically, Representative Mary Bono Mack from California.

– from PUblic Knowledge blog

To expect a series of talking heads to be droll stuff is the pain we endure for the open discussion in a Republic. To even have antagonistic viewpoints has its purposes. But for Comcast to pull a stunt of packing the room like a bunch of Code Pinkers But then to in the course defending their views invoke a Pol in lieu of an established network authority is credilious at best, contempt to us all at the worst.

It is clear that Comcast has become what is the worst example of stark capitalist attitude. All in favor of profit but do us a favor Comcast; spare us the intellectual insult.

Consumerist Link
Public Knowledge linky.

This is one of those — You have to be kidding me — kind of moments. The Congress Critters in their infinite wisdom want to make a law that is already on the books on the topic of Phising –

As the saying goes, when your only tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. The folks in Congress sure do an awful lot of whacking at various nails these days. The latest is a new bill in the Senate that seeks to outlaw phishing. One tiny point is important here: phishing is already illegal. So, really all this bill does is allow these politicians to claim that they took a stand to stop phishing. Except, it’s actually worse than that. Not only will this bill not do anything to stop phishing, it will actually make life worse for plenty of non-criminals. That’s because a part of the bill would outlaw hiding domain name registration information. Now, there are plenty of legitimate reasons for not wanting to reveal your info in the whois database — but according to this bill, it won’t be allowed any more. If you want to own a domain, you’ll need to cough up your name, address and phone number to whoever wants it — and they better be legit. If you provide false info, you’ll also be breaking the law. So, it won’t do anything new to stop phishing, but will make it much more difficult to own a domain anonymously. That’s quite a nail.

Like the Header says — Idiots!

Linky.

Google Inc stock has been on a long 5 year streak of ever increasing stock price. Well looks like that ended this week. Trading today has Google on a uptick, but they are down 300 a share from their highs of 700’s back in December.

Month of February

The U.S. economy is wheezing so badly that even Internet power Google Inc. and its once-robust stock is looking haggard.

The focus on Google’s recent deterioration sharpened Tuesday as investors reacted to the latest evidence indicating fewer people in the United States are clicking on the Internet ads that generate most of the online search leader’s profits.

The unsettling trend, captured in a closely followed report from Internet research firm comScore Inc., shoved Google shares to an 11-month low. The drop extended a slump that has lowered the Mountain View-based company’s market value by 33 percent, or about $70 billion, during the first seven weeks of the year. The tech-laden Nasdaq composite index has declined by 12 percent during the same stretch.

This could portend a slow growth for much of the ThridPipe industry providers.. With consumer confidence down expenditures on tech will have a wary eye to ROI, front and center. Which if you think about it can be a good thing. That which is a WiMax transport or application fits a need that in a less expensive manner than existing technologies.

Google Financials.
Linky

Billed as a way to talk without giving out your phone number, Jaxter also provides an easy way for a 2 wireless phones on either side of the planet to contact one another without the international charges.

A key element of the official launch is café jaxtr, a Web site where users of the phone service can find each other online and new people to talk to.

“When we launched Jaxtr last March, we said we’re a social communications company. We saw this as an emergent market,” Jaxtr CEO Konstantin Guericke told InternetNews.com at a briefing here at his company’s headquarters. Guericke has solid experience in social networks, as he is also a co-founder of LinkedIn.

But he also is quick to say café jaxtr is meant to complement, not replace social networks. He calls café jaxtr a “talk network” versus social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace which are relatively silent if not as interactive. (from Internet News)

Development of wireless apps has been trapped in 3 or 4 walled gardens making it pretty much static. New features and services have been focused on enabling nickel and dime value add. With the wireless market at the saturation point, the walls are beginning to crumble. We’re likely to see more of this over the coming months, especially with some new freedom in device choice being allowed by the wireless cartel.

It’s time to take off the gloves and deal with the meddling politicians who want to “help” us with “net neutrality”. What they really want is the power to micro manage the internet, preserve the status quo and ration bandwidth. They long for the sound of pleading taxpayers begging “may I have a little more please, sir”? Having more power over us gives them more influence to peddle to the highest bidder.

The recently introduced net neutrality bill is a new clown suit on the same old pile of stuff from the barnyard we’ve been getting from Congress for decades: Pass a law that looks like it’s doing something, while protecting the duopoly interests. In turn the duopoly makes life just a little nicer for our elected reps with generous contributions, perks, travel and more. Superbowl tickets anyone?

If the buffoons in DC had “managed” the internet from the beginning, we’d still be choosing between Compuserve and AOL over dial up. What we really need is a totally open market with a lot of very disorderly and impossible to manage competition. The only way we will lead the world in broadband again is to create a wild west style access market, much like the internet itself.

Here’s an exceprt from an Andy Kessler post that boldly illustrates the problem comparing broadband to gasoline:

…new layers of regulation just mean long gas lines/slow bandwidth. We have faux competition, cable monopolies versus phone monopolies. Cable modems work by taking away a TV channel or two and using them for data, at $59 per month for 4.5 megabits per second and $69 for 8 meg (while 100 meg in Japan is $30/month).

I have no problem with Comcast cutting back BitTorrent or anything else, as long as I know about it and I have a choice to go elsewhere with my business. But I don’t. I might like Comcast service without BitTorrent because my Web pages will come up faster. Others won’t. But there is no elsewhere. Antiquated franchise rules mean there’s only one cable provider in most towns, and AT&T’s DSL service over creaky phone lines is way too slow.

We need policy to help cut a path for more competition, rather than protecting incumbents — a Bandwidth Competition Act of 2008, not bogus net neutrality. All takers should be allowed access to poles or underground conduits. This is where neutrality should be enforced, instead of being a choke point. -andykessler.com

Those always interesting Japanese have pulled off a commercial first –orbital internet access Oh yeah there was Iridium. But it never make it off the launch pad.

Trust the Japanese to bring the Internet from space - the technologically-advanced nation has just launched an experimental satellite that will eventually provide high-speed Internet access throughout Asia, allowing one to check e-mail and surf Coolest Gadgets no matter the condition of terrestrial infrastructure. Developed domestically, the H-2A rocket which carried the Kizuna satellite was launched at 17:55 pm (0855 GMT) without facing any problems from the Space Centre on Tanegashima island off the southern tip of Kyushu Island in southern Japan.

This communications satellite has been tipped to be in use for five years, and it has the potential to allow extremely high speed data communications that will be able to touch a whopping 1.2Gbps - something I would like to enjoy whenever I hit the Internet. Imagine downloading videos and other files at that speed - you will feel as though today’s 10Mbps line was yesteryear’s 14.4k modem. The Kizuna satellite costs a cool $342 million, so I guess there will be some form of expensive monthly subscription fee if the cost of the satellite were to be ever recovered. One thing that bugs me though - can’t the coverage area be enlarged to cover the whole world? Just launch a few more of such satellites so that the world can be blanketed in that manner and I’ll be a happy man.

Anyways, at 1.2Gbps, that would mean a theoretical speed that is 150 times faster than your everyday high-speed ADSL connection of 8Mbps, and is 12 times superior to the speed of a fibre-optic communication delivery to a person’s premises (FTTP). One thing great about a space-based satellite providing access to the Internet would be the ability for mountainous and hard-to-reach areas benefit from the wonders of an Internet connection - something not really possible at this moment due to infrastructure issues at certain areas.

Linky.l

Looking for a telephony app that will control all your voice traffic? Want a GrandCentral accout but can’t because it is locked down? Well you’re in luck. If you have a Blogger account you can sign up for GranCentral here.

Its a pretty nice application and highly recommended by the ThirdPipe crew.

Looking at the news feeds today I ran across this little ditty compliments of Tom’s Hardware, from Gartner –

Market research firm advised its clients not to wait until a recession is officially announced to cut their spending. Instead, “action is required” now, the company said, as “economic factors in the United States have deteriorated” to justify the preparation of cost cutting.

“Last October we published research recommending that organizations should prepare two IT budgets for 2008, the first reflecting guidance already provided by senior decision makers and a second ‘backup’ budget assuming the need to cut costs in response to the arrival of a business slowdown,” said Ken McGee, vice-president and Gartner Fellow. “Since that time the factors we based the research on - such as GDP growth projections and expert predictions for the likelihood of a recession - have worsened to a degree that convinces us it is now time for clients to prepare for cutting IT costs.”

Don’t have the source link, sorry. But we had this advise from the same Gartner in 2005 –

Gartner urges caution before downloading Firefox The Web browser may not be an unstoppable juggernaut

Matthew Broersma
February 10, 2005 (TechWorld.com) — Companies should think twice before jumping on the Firefox bandwagon, according to research firm Gartner Inc. The open-source browser has been gaining market share steadily over the past few months, helped by industry support and user enthusiasm, but Firefox isn’t the unstoppable juggernaut it might seem.

Browser switching is taking place at the level of individual users, rather than organizations, and some of the factors that make Firefox more appealing than Internet Explorer are likely to go away as the browser gets to be more popular, according to Gartner analysts Ray Valdes, David Mitchell Smith and Whit Andrews.
“The growth in usage of Firefox is driven by factors that are not inherently sustainable,” they warned in a study released last week.
…

Being kind, I will say — “kind of like stating the obvious isn’t it?” Taking a peek at ThridPipe’s stats we have roughly the following breakdown - IE 45%, Firefox 35%, All Others - 20%. Ooooh, looks like Gartner missed that one. Fact is Gartner usually misses more than it catches a trend. The reason of course is that every industry is different and even in recessions some industries are in growth mode.

My number one recommendation is know your industry. It drives not only your IT needs but your projections on income. Save your money and pass on the Gartner subscription.

BICTIA, Buy It Cheap, Throw It Away. If you follow this advice that we champion here at ThirdPipe you avoid items like this below –

COLUMBUS, Ohio - It’s a simple process we do every day. But when you turn your computer on and something’s not right, you know right away.

There are plenty of options to get computers fixed for a price, Consumer 10’s Chuck Strickler reported.

Consumer 10 asked 10TV’s IT guy, Josh Waibel, to create a simple problem on a laptop computer. He changed one setting in what’s called the BIOS - a key program that ties together all hardware on the computer. It is an easy fix in about 30 seconds for someone who knows what he or she is doing, Strickler reported.

“This is definitely something you can find out while you’re doing your diagnostics or troubleshooting,” Waibel said.

So we thought. Consumer 10 sent a producer to take the disabled laptop to a Circuit City and its Firedog service.

When your compute device is as cheap as you can get it calling in these guys does not make sense. On a $250 desktop, throwing $70-100 on the problem is not not a great application of your funds. Watch video for a little humor. Fact is you would pay these guys for their time and some could not fix it.

Linky.