Will Kelly

Census Bureau Dropping Handhelds for 2010 Census

It's all over the news that the Census Bureau is killing their plan to automate the 2010 census using wireless  handhelds due to technical glitches and obviously poor project management and requirements gathering.

Census Back to Pen and Paper (from Washingtonpost.com)

The government is dropping plans to use handheld computers to count millions of people, citing problems with a contract that was intended to make the 2010 Census the nation's first high-tech head count.

The Death of Netscape (Dude, Netscape died years ago...)

I read a lot of articles and blog posts about AOL killing the Netscape browser saying it was the death of Netscape. Actually, Netscape died when AOL acquired Netscape. They ceased to be a viable technology development organization and innovator when the ink dried on the legal agreements

The news about Netscape's demise took me back to my early days using the Internet. When the Netscape Browser ceased to be a viable option I began to use Internet Explorer, Netscape Communicator until finally I split my time between Mozilla and Internet Explorer.

SunRocket's Demise Further Shakes the VoIP Market

While I am sure displaced SunRocket customers began scrambling for new phone provider but news broke across the Web and blogoshphere that SunRocket's creditors announced two preferred providers:
 

SunRocket creditors announce two preferred providers: Vonage takes big hit by ZDNet's Russell Shaw -- As has been rumored ever since SunRocket went belly up Monday, their creditors have signed deals with former SR competitors 8×8 and Unified Communications Corp. to be “preferred service providers” for SR’s 200,000 orphaned customers. The deal has to be good for 8×8, and its Packet 8 service. Normal start up costs of slightly more [...]

SunRocket Splashes Down

SunRocket, a local VoIP startup closed down today according to GigaOM and other technology news outlets. With this VoIP provider going out of business it won't be too long until cable providers and other MSOs own the consumer and SOHO VoIP market.

Vonage, the cable companies, and even traditional phone companies like Verizon with their FIOS service are going to be scrambling for the displaced Sunrocket customers. Here is one view:

Here’s where many of those orphaned SunRocket users will go by ZDNet's Russell Shaw -- Now I know why SunRocket instituted their $199 a year plan. Perhaps not so much as a clever competitive marketing strategy but as a desperate move to raise cash. Not enough cash was raised to sustain operations, or even to capture the interest of a lender or buyer. With the shutdown of 200,000-subscriber SunRocket confirmed, I [...]

More Wacky Dell Hijinks with Customers

Dell is flexing their customer service chops again as evidenced by these two postings:

• Dell Purchasing Advice from a Former Employee (from downloadsquad.com) where they detail Dell's aborted legal attempt to pull a posting from their sister blog Consumerist about how to navigate effectively through the morass that is now Dell sales and customer service.
• No Ubuntu for you, Mr. Business type guy (from downloadsquad.com) which documents that while Dell is reaching to Ubuntu to become relevant and with it again -- their support infrastructure is twisting in the wind yet again...

Dell has become a hollow husk of its former self...the Dell that became an industry leader before executive greed  and their comp plans trumped innovation and serving customers.

Dell Laying Off 10%

Dell to lay off 10% of employees (from ComputerWorld)

Dell Inc. will lay off 10% of its 78,800 workers in a continuing effort to improve profits, while it completes an investigation of accounting fraud, it said Thursday.
 
Dell will make the layoffs over the next 12 months, including workers throughout its geographic regions, customer segments and job functions, the company said in a statement. The move is part of a corporate cost review spanning product development and procurement, service and support delivery.

I was once  a long time Dell customer until their quality and customer service dropped to untolerable levels. Considering Dell's love of offshoring, it's an easy guess that their American workforce will feel the brunt of this layoff.

Microsoft Windows Vista Cometh

ZDNet's Marc Orchant hits the user case for upgrading to Vista perfectly. While Vista isn't going to revolutionize computing consumers and companies alike need to consider the purchase.

The Vista question is about want, not need by ZDNet's Marc Orchant -- ZDNet has a lot of coverage on the forthcoming release of Microsoft Windows Vista next Tuesday, as does every major news outlet – I'm looking at the Wall St. Journal, USA Today, and LA Times this morning in my suite at the Beverly Hilton and Vista is everywhere. A majority of the coverage I'm reading and listening to is trying to help people decide whether they need Vista.

Google Earth and Sensitive Imagery

Today, I downloaded the new version of Google Earth to my MacBook Pro and tried checking out some cities in Iraq and found them to be blurred out rather than what this recent posting on ZDNet said:

Google cooperates by removing sensitive imagery by ZDNet's Garett Rogers -- After discussions with the Royal Green Jackets about the abuse of Google Earth by terrorist groups, they have modified the imagery of British bases in Basra.  It appears that Google Earth was being used to plan and pinpoint attacks against British bases — something I'm sure Google isn't thrilled about. Ogle Earth reports that the imagery [...]

Gee, What a "Surprise"

You playing coy didn't fool me.  Please just go away  because our country needs leadership with last names other than Clinton or Bush.

Dunn is Booked!

Former HP chairman booked (from news.com)

Patricia Dunn, the former Hewlett-Packard chairman at the center of a corporate espionage scandal, surrendered to authorities on Thursday, a day after being charged with four felonies.

Dunn appeared in Santa Clara County Superior Court and was ordered to appear for her arraignment on Nov. 17. She was released on her own recognizance after agreeing to go directly to the local sheriff's department to be booked. During the five-minute hearing, she said one word, "yes," after Judge Alfonso Fernandez asked her whether she agreed to the terms of her release.

This was an interesting development today. I had high hopes for the company when they finally ousted Carly who nearly gutted both them and Compaq. Hopefully, justice will be served on Dunn and the others who conspired to spy on HP board members and journalists.

The H-P Spying Debacle

I had high hopes for Hewlett Packard when they came to their senses and ousted Carly and installed Mark Hurd. However, this recent H-P board debacle with the chairman of the board using a contracted private detective agency who used questionable if not illegal methods to get information on the private phone records of board members is both shameful and disgusting.

Right now, H-P is in  such a good spot to regain lost market ground with a weakened suffering blows from poor customer care and accounting issues and Lenovo who purchased IBM's successful ThinkPad product line but has yet to reap its potential in the United States marketplace.

Federal Government Telework Programs

Wolf wants agencies to report on telework  (from gcn.com )

 

Still frustrated by the government’s slow adoption of telework policies, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) is taking stronger steps to push a handful of agencies to bolster their telecommuting efforts.

 For the third straight year, Wolf—chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Science, State, Justice and Commerce—inserted language into the fiscal 2007 Science, the Departments of State, Justice, and Commerce, and related agencies appropriations bill that will withhold $5 million from the agencies covered under the bill if they do not increase telework opportunities.

 

Since the news broke about the VA's loss of Veteran and active duty Service persons' personal information, I've been waiting to see more point/counterpoint about the nature of telework in the today's Federal workforce. There is definitely an old line in many Federal agencies who are against telework when in fact there are many workers in the Government workforce who don't need to be onsite in an office each day of the week. Unfortunately, outdated cultural norms and ill-suited and insecure management feel they can only exert their management and influence over workers they can see every day.

The Walled Garden is Burning Down

AOL May Speed Shift Away From Subscribers   (from Washingtonpost.com)

AOL is considering a rapid acceleration to a new business strategy, one in which it gives away premium services that its broadband customers pay for -- such as e-mail addresses and parental controls -- and moves away from its dependence on member subscriptions, according to people familiar with the internal discussions.

It seems the walled garden is finally burning down...

This proposed shift can be a winner if Time Warner leverages the right mix of their media content. While AOL does have some creative minds in their ranks now, this move also spells a contractor future for the rank and file who create the content so they can be cut back to meet the ebbs and flows of this drastic move.

Debunking the Myth of India as a Technology and Economic Powerhouse

Barry Campbell's excellent Knowledge Work blog points to an excellent NYT article entitled The Myth of the New India which debunks a lot of the myths being spewed about India as a technology and economic powerhouse.

Here are some interesting facts from the article:

• Lakshmi Mittal, the fifth richest man in the world, actually lives in London and just made an investment in his home country last year.
• But the increasingly common, business-centric view of India suppresses more facts than it reveals. Recent accounts of the alleged rise of India barely mention the fact that the country's $728 per capita gross domestic product is just slightly higher than that of sub-Saharan Africa and that, as the 2005 United Nations Human Development Report puts it, even if it sustains its current high growth rates, India will not catch up with high-income countries until 2106.
  
  
• Nor is India rising very fast on the report's Human Development index, where it ranks 127, just two rungs above Myanmar and more than 70 below Cuba and Mexico. Despite a recent reduction in poverty levels, nearly 380 million Indians still live on less than a dollar a day.
  
  
• Only 1.3 million out of a working population of 400 million are employed in the information technology and business processing industries that make up the so-called new economy.

spam@ftc.gov

Furthering the Extinction of English Speaking Customer Service Reps

AOL to Cut 1,300 Workers In U.S. (from Washingtonpost.com)

I feel sorry for these workers. Here AOL goes to further the extinction of English speaking customer service reps. The customer-centric thing would have been to scuttle their offshore call center operations to keep as many of the laid off 1300 workers employed. But the allure of the USD/Rupee exchange rate is often times too intoxicating for executives trying to maintain their overblown comp plans.

Dell Whacks...

Dell whacks prices on select notebooks, desktops (from news.com)

"Stung by market share losses in the first quarter, Dell is cutting prices in an effort to woo customers."

I am in the ranks of disaffected former Dell customers. It's good to see the market finally having an impact on Dell's bottom line. Dell used to have such a great reputation for engineering and customer service now it looks like they are having a harder time riding on a reputation so baked in corporate and industry history.

"Additionally, Dell is facing a backlash from business customers and consumers. Since 2004, consumers have increasingly complained about Dell's service and support while the company's satisfaction rating with businesses has bobbed up and down."

I see the backlash in the logs for this site. More and more searches based on Dell's current blooming bad reputation for service and engineering is finding more than one foothold on the Web.

Latest DC Protest Marching on 14th Street

Camera Phone pics from my Treo 650 while getting lunch:

Outside the Executive Suite

Being a middle class home owning IT Worker has its challenges as forces like greedy executives and other Rich Old White Guys seek to ship skilled work offshore. By far one of my worries is the tax assessment on my house. My house value grew $60,000.00 this year. That's  2668800 rupees! My total house price is over 13000000 rupees!

H1B Visas in the Real World

H-1B Visa Debate (online transcript from Washingtonpost.com)

Most See Visa Program as Severely Flawed (from Washingtonpost.com)

H-1B visas hit roadblock in Congress (from news.com)

I’ve been reading the stories about H1B Visas with great interest. During my time working as a technical writer in the DC marketplace, I’ve worked with quite a few H1B Visa workers. My experience shows it largely to be exploitation of foreign workers. While I do know a few H1B success stories (maybe 5 or so), qualified as a worker who stayed to get their green card, bought a home, and raised a family.