GoDaddy Exits SMB Cloud Computing Business

Web-hosting firm GoDaddy has been marketing cloud computing services to small and mid-sized businesses for a year or so, but has concluded that not enough SMBs are interested in the offer, at least the way GoDaddy had been offering the services.

As with other apparent market failures, it isn't always easy to conclude that "something cannot be done" because one particular supplier cannot do it. GoDaddy appears to have been offering simple data storage services. 

Some would say that will not work with SMB customers, who really need software as a service offers, not simple cloud storage. 

Service Provider Access Networks Will be Distributed Denial of Service Victims

Metaswitch Networks CEO John Lazar warns that service provider IP networks increasingly will be the target of distributed denial of service attacks. It looks like they already are such victims.

Millions of Internet users in Brazil have fallen victim to a sustained attack that exploited vulnerabilities in DSL modems, forcing people visiting sites such as Google or Facebook to reach imposter sites that installed malicious software and stole online banking credentials, a security researcher said.

U.K. to Hold 4G Spectrum Auction Sooner than Expected

Ofcom, the U.K., communications regulator, seems to have persuaded TV broadcasters, Digital UK and the transmission company Arqiva to release 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz spectrum for auction sooner than had originally been expected.

This agreements mean that the 4G auction process is on track to begin at the end of 2012, potentially enabling the licensing process for 4G services across the United Kingdom to begin during the first half of 2013, Ofcom says.

In August 2012 Ofcom gave approval to an application by Everything Everywhere (now EE) to use some of its existing spectrum to offer a 4G service. This is expected to launch this year.

Ofcom plans to start the auction process to release spectrum at the end of the year, with bidding starting early in 2013.

1983 Steve Jobs Predictions about Computing

It's pretty amazing.


He predicted that people will be spending more time interacting with personal computers than with cars. Remember he said this at a time when few people owned a computer. 

He talked about the personal computer being a new medium of communication, before extensive networking and and at a time when 300 baud modems were state of the art.

Jobs talks about early e-mail systems, and how, at some point, portable computers with radio links would allow people to walk around anywhere and pick up their e-mail. 

He says Apple’s strategy is to “put an incredibly great computer in a book that you can carry around with you that you can learn how to use in 20 minutes."

He thought that the software industry needed something like a radio station so that people could sample software before they buy it. 

He believed that software distribution through traditional brick-and-mortar was archaic since software is digital and can be transferred electronically through phone lines. He foresees paying for software in an automated fashion over the phone lines with credit cards.

Free Skype WiFi Has Retail Promotion Angle

Free Skype WiFi has been launched by Wicoms and Skype in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Businesses can purchase the service at skypewifi.wicoms.com.

Skype users can access any available Free Skype WiFi location using their Skype ID and the Skype WiFi app. If a user doesn’t have such an ID, there is a simple single step procedure that involves gaining access using an email address.

The upside for retail sponsors, aside from offering the amenity, might include the ability to supply instant offers,  coupons or other information to shoppers in the stores.

T-Mobile Looking at MetroPCS Buy?

Deutsche Telekom AG is nearing a deal to buyu MetroPCS Communications and create a public equity for the new company, Bloomberg reports. That would be a switch. T-Mobile USA earlier in 2012 had said it had “no need” of such an acquisition.

Deutsche Telekom is said to be considering a stock-swap deal with MetroPCS to would give Deutsche Telekom control over the combined U.S. entity. As a byproduct, such a public vehicle would allow Deutsche Telekom to gradually monetize its investment in T-Mobile USA, an original impetus for the decision to be acquired by AT&T.

Separately, Sprint had contemplated its own deal to buy MetroPCS. Either way, many observers expect a new round of mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. mobile industry.

Raymond James analyst  Ric Prentiss predicts that both Sprint and T-Mobile USA will engage in a rather furious wave of acquisitions in 2013 and 2014 to bulk up.

“We do think M&A in the U.S. wireless space will occur over the next 12 to 18 months," says Pentiss.

“We think the September 19 announcement of the new T- Mobile USA CEO hired externally and the $2.4 billion tower sale to Crown Castle on September 28 are strong indicators that T-Mobile USA, and its owner Deutsche Telekom, are not interested anytime soon in network sharing or merging with Sprint," Prentiss says.

"We believe T-Mobile is more likely a competing bidder against Sprint for smaller M&A deals that bring spectrum, cash flow, synergies, and the potential for public currency,” he says.

In EU, 4G Frustrates Apple Device Users

The European Union’s Commissioner For The Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes argues that the EU needs to invest about $64 billion in 4G networks, in the form of loans, to overcome current spectrum incompatibilities that affect use of Apple iPhone and iPad devices.

At the moment, both devices have only limited connectivity in the EU, where spectrum differences and, in some cases, no 4G networks, force the LTE-capable devices to use 3G connections.

There are larger issues. If Europe remains a region where LTE and 4G are "problems" for suppliers such as Apple, they won't drive their decisions by European concerns.