Accidental Empires: The AfterZiffDavis Social Network

Posted by Joe Panettieri

FaceBook. MySpace. LinkedIn. You know about the big social networks. But Microcast has a slightly different view of the world. Our tagline — “Not Broadcast. Not Narrowcast. Microcast.” — describes our focus on building very targeted communities across blogs, conferences and integrated media (examples: MuniWireless and TechIQ). Now we’re experimenting with very targeted social networks.

But where to start? During a lunch conversation in mid-August, Al Perlman and I were talking about all the tech editors who have been moving around the industry lately — due to company sales, the transition from print to digital, layoffs, etc. Fact is, we had lost touch with dozens of friends from our days at Ziff Davis and CMP.

That’s when we stumbled upon an idea. A big idea.

Guess Who’s Courting Seagate

When was the last time you saw a story about disk drives on the cover of The New York Times? I didn’t check the archives, but I’d bet….never.

As a young reporter for Computer Systems News two decades ago I trolled the watering holes and industrial parks of Silicon Valley in search of stories about disk drive companies. I was fortunate enough to establish great, long-time relationships with the founders and senior executives of virtually each and every disk drive vendor — which back in the 1980s was about 50 companies. None of those companies was as much fun to cover as the market leader, Seagate Technologies. The combination of their market leadership, their high-visibility founders (Al Shugart, Finis Conner, Doug Mahon and Tom Mitchell) and the hyper-valuated public stock market for storage companies made it a treasure trove for a reporter.

Will SUNW=JAVA?

Seems like every high-tech company now has “branding police.” You know, the often self-appointed individuals who zealously and insanely guard what they consider to be their company’s brand identity. Well, I wonder what the branding police at Sun Microsystems think about the company’s latest move.

TechIQ reports that Sun is officially changing its stock symbol from the long-time SUNW to JAVA. Presumably, this should be obvious to all the Valley’s cognoscenti, since Java (not workstations) has been the center of Sun’s universe (wait, isn’t the sun the center of our universe? Never mind.) for nearly a decade.

City CIOs Galore at MuniWireless07:Silicon Valley

Posted by Mike Perkowski

It’s not easy being a big-city CIO. You’ve got to keep the network available 24/7, ensure absolute security for government records and employee files, and deal with the political whims of elected officials. Now, add onto that the task of rolling out citywide wireless networks; city CIOs today have to be one part technologist, one part politician and one part miracle worker. (All at a civil service salary, of course.)

But at our upcoming MuniWireless07:Silicon Valley industry conference on Oct. 21-23, literally dozens of city CIOs will join several hundred colleagues from all parts of the municipal wireless market ecosystem to discuss best practices in planning, deploying and operating wireless networks. Among our featured city CIO speakers will be Chris Vein of San Francisco, Hardik Bhatt of Chicago, Terry Phillis of Philadelphia and Bill Oates of Boston, to name just a few. (Important Update as of August 24: Add the name of Randi Levin, CIO for Los Angeles, to this impressive list.)

We’ll also give the audience a status report on what is arguably the highest-profile and most ambitious regional wireless initiative in the US: Wireless Silicon Valley. With a coalition of more than 50 Silicon Valley-area cities and counties, Wireless Silicon Valley could set a new standard for how municipalities collaborate on strategic technology initiatives. (“Municipalities” and “collaboration” usually aren’t found together in the same sentences, but you’ll hear plenty about it at our conference. Check out the program and register now for discounted pricing.

There is No Free Lunch (Really?)

Posted by Mike Perkowski

In the never-boring world of municipal wireless networks, arguably the single hottest topic today is who’s going to pay for the network’s build-out and operation — in short, the business model. We at MuniWireless have just published important new research that helps shed light on this issue in our 2007 Business Models Report. This study, based on interviews with more than 230 municipalities, service providers and systems integrators, highlights some key trends about wireless network business models for cities and counties.

For instance, the study sheds light on how future/planned networks will be funded and operated, compared to how municipalities have handled that so far. It also talks about why public officials decide to outsource the network — or keep it in-house. It’s great information for product vendors, service providers or municipalities — but it also is important for any of you who are residents of a city, county, incorporated village or some other kind of municipality.

Dog Days of August? Hardly

Posted by Al Perlman

It’s supposed to be the dog days of August, but not only is it quite chilly in New York, it’s also busy as can be for our team. This week Joe P. has been out at an Avnet reseller conference in Colorado and is heading to Los Angeles for a series of meetings with channel executives.

Gary will be in San Diego Thursday, moderating a channel-oriented roundtable for Tech Data. On the MuniWireless front, we are in the midst of releasing our first Business Models research report, which we think will be extremely beneficial for the industry. And we are starting our marketing for our largest conference of the year in Silicon Valley Oct. 21-23. Plus, we’re editing the next issue of TechIQ, compiling research for the MuniWireless Buyer’s Guide and creating some exciting new product extensions for TechIQ and MuniWireless.