This might qualify as a ‘what are they thinking’ moment. But Red Hat has hired Jim Whitehurst, formerly Delta Airlines COO. Now can you think of any industry of late that would be the last place you would want to hire an exec? Neither could I.

Matthew Szulik was one of the primary reasons that I believed in Red Hat, even when it made mistakes. With him gone, Red Hat won’t be the same. No airline COO can replace him. Whitehurst may have helped Delta negotiate the murky waters of bankruptcy, but Red Hat’s issue is not how to avoid going out of business. It’s how to navigate an incredible, growing business.

Red Hat now needs to be acquired by Oracle. Larry Ellison has his problems, but aggression and competitiveness aren’t among them. He has those in spades. As did Matthew.

We will have to wait and see but I don’t think this is a great move by Red Hat. Think about it, they could have gotten 1-3 VP level Telco guys I know are available. At least they know technology. We shall see how this works out.

Linky.

[Update] A contrarian opinion that says I might be wrong. Link.

A state university is a great place to land your golden parachute far away from the reach of Wall Street’s critics. Congrats to Mr Forsee. We wish him much success in his new assignment. (story on AP)

Quoting Frank Zappa:

America is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced.

While the concept of Net Neutrality is noble, it is flawed. It assumes the only path to connectivity is a duopoly that is to be micro managed by a nanny care government. The problem with regulation is it choses winners, losers, and stifles real competition. A regulated soft drink industry would offer only Pepsi and Coke to the mass market, much like the state of access providers in America today. Never the less, some politicians refuse to let go of any opportunity to leverage public concern to extend their reach deeper into the fabric of our daily lives.

Rep. Edward Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who leads a key House of Representatives Internet and telecommunications law panel, had previously said he planned to revive his anti-discrimination bill from last year this December.

But a spokeswoman told CNET News.com on Wednesday that life for her boss has been hectic in recent weeks with pressing other issues, such as the Federal Communications Commission’s recent move to relax media ownership rules.

The plan now is to introduce a new bill in January. The language is likely to be similar, although not identical, to an effort that was twice defeated by a Republican-dominated Congress in the last session. (from Cnet)

Our law makers, including Mr. Markey have consistently demonstrated their clueless-ness in all things tech. Their legislation is directly derived from the corporate lobby that is often engaged in a bidding war for their attention. It has then been filled out in to a behemoth of countless pages filled with goodies for special the special interests favored by individual members.
There is a pox on the house of both Republicans and Democrats in their misinformed and bungled handling of the open access issue. The internet has grown exponentially almost entirely due to a complete lack of regulation. It is been very effective in self regulating with one very large exception: Competition in access. The reason it has been stagnant in the area of access is that current government regulations guarantee a dominant duopoly.

If Mr. Markey is really sincere in his wish to provide open access to all, he will burn the net neutrality legislation and replace it with a re-instated local loop unbundling law, and strictly enforce it. With real competition, the bad behavior that the duopoly is prone to will fade into the sunset along with the granting of power to misguided politicians to decide how will use our internet.

EndGaget has an interesting interview with Chou of HTC a major cellular handset equipment vendor. Without further pontification here’s the link.

Consumer Tip

I have to say the Boss comes up with some items that just shake the rafters. The AT&T interview is one of these. Go back and read the whole interview. Particularly the end graph.

Here’s the recommendation. If you currently have a contract that won’t expire till early 2009 then let it do so. Go month to month. That means Verizon, Helio, several other carriers. No use signing up for a contract on a device that won’t carry over into the LTE world pretty soon. That is doubly assertive with the prospect of open handsets coming to the industry.

Heh, and folks said Android might not amount to anything. Personally I think that Android/Google has been a catalyst for the Duopoly to open up their networks.

Well looks like another CEO bites the dust as the data transport industry and its satellite players adjust. Motorola jumped early onto the cellular game and won big by doing so. Even now Motorola has a huge lead in market share. But profits? Ahhh they have taken a slide. The Board must assuredly be getting heat from the institutional investors.

Rather than me speculate, here’s a roundup of the news on Mr. Zanders demise.

Motorola CEO Ed Zander to be replaced by COO Greg Brown
Motorola CEO Ed Zander heads for the exit
Ed ‘Screw the Nano’ Zander Leaves Motorola
Handsets Moto’s Only Disappointment: Why Zander Is Leaving
Zander’s payout $5.3 million

Enjoy!

Oz. Australia has created a new Cabinet level post whose purpose is to promote the internet there. Really don’t know how to take it since I don’t live under a parliamentary system of government. Were something like this proposed in the US it would probably be looked on as feather bedding and double effort since we have an FCC created by Congress to over see issues like this. Hopefully this is a positive development at least from the perspective of awareness. Possibly the ‘Net will be treated as a critical infrastructure component that it is.

Any Australians want to chime in with an opinion? We’ll post them here as we get them.

Linky.

An interesting series of interviews with Tom Mitoraj Director of WiMax development at Motorola. The rest of the world seems to be going gangbusters for WiMax. Here in the US its stillborn.

Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.

Content compliments of MidWestBusiness.com.

The Eagles release a new album “Long Road Out of Eden”. Yes I know, anyone born after 1982 is saying “Eagles who?”. But stay with me here. Guess who the band released thru? Atlantic Records? Sony? MCA? WalMart? Yo, hold the fort — WalMart?

Yep WalMart. The Eagles are self publishing and releasing primarily thru WalMart. No major label for this CD. No middleman taking 80% of the revenue. This deal has an interesting angle as far as distribution. WalMart is the world’s largest retailer as a consequence they are the single largest source of shelf sales. I always considered that the Suits in the music biz would just slowly wither as internet sales choke off their income streams. Now I see the possibility of the Suits losing their income streams like a log rolling over a waterfall. Major name bands might consider after their contracts expire going the Eagles route. Either way, internet or WalMart, it is UGC moment. Which means this is another ThirdPipe moment as WalMart will also distribute thru its music download site.

If you are a music Suit, you better pay off the mansion quickly. Your time is running out faster than I thought.

Its a good piece on an Australian Internet developer. Like they say, read the whole thing.