Posts Tagged: Dont give me no jibba jabba

Internet and Society / Simply Interesting — No Comments
19
Jun 10

Trouble at Cisco? Cisco influencing corporate Social Media Policy, but why are they trying?

Is Cisco grasping for straws with publicly releasing this social media policy, or are they genuinely interested in shaping policy in this environment? Many questions exist about their motivations and the evidence questioning their integrity on the matter is substantive.

Wait WHAT? What the hell is Cisco doing dabbling in Social Media?

Cisco has been heavily criticized over the years, mostly for having “Dell” hardware with “Apple” pricing. Other criticisms involve a lack of genuine ingenuity – operating much like Microsoft, purchasing companies and their technology, rebranding it, and sometimes breaking it in the process… their wireless and security offerings being most notable.

They were late to the security sector and despite their size and talent, still dont quite stack up to the diversity and capability of their competitors. However this specifically is changing, and Im personally impressed with their Borderless Networks. The question is if its too late to introduce this technology, if its really needed by most corporations, and if its too early to introduce it given current economic conditions?

Cisco is moving in to the datacenter market with the release of the Nexus 7000 Datacenter switch, but they are moving in on the turf of heavyweights like IBM and HP. Not surprisingly HP has decided to move in on Ciscos turf as well… an eye for an eye I suppose?

Culturally speaking, the “old timer” employees of the company often speak about how the company has been “corporatized”, how it is not what it once was – its culture is no longer what made itself Cisco.

The value of the CCIE has drastically reduced from what used to be a 110k+ salary range, is now, in an although not scientific but eerily similar study to many other sources, only 10K higher than a CCNP, but costs thousands of dollars more to achieve. Less salary translates to less value. But what can a CCIE do that a seasoned CCNP cannot? Or any other CCNP/DP or combination thereof for that matter?

Reduction in World Wide CCIE’s has allegedly caused Cisco to stop publicly posting their World Wide CCIE stats on their website.

Whats going on Cisco? You seem to be floundering around like a fish out of water. You have to overcome 20+ years of marketing and branding as a routing/switching technology company to be successful outside of it. Thats going to be hard for you ya know? I mean, when you bought Linksys you tried to get in to the consumer market… but your still failing despite buying Flip Video for their camcorders, and youve just released your lackluster, underachieveing and overpriced Valet Router line for home and small business.

So just how is that move in to the consumer market going for you – you cant simply buy your way in to every market you want to be successful in. The only product youve really built yourself from the ground up was Telepresence and that actually turned out really well!

But what can we expect from a company where its very culture has been based on buying things other people make, only to sell that product under its own name?

Side note: And this despite 1/3 of its company are engineers, and another 1/3 are sales. The remaining 1/3 must be trying to figure out what to buy so the other 2/3 can figure out how to sell a product thats not quite, but soon to be broken… ok I *might* be going a little too far with that one. There is no denying the hardware engineering in Cisco’s product line is impressive, especially given the new CRS-3, but back to the point – why so dependent on acquisitions?

But what can we expect from a company whose success in the route/switch market dominance was founded from the first company it purchased in 1993, Crescendo Communications. You see, Crescendo made a product whose name still exists in Cisco’s product line to this day… Catalyst Switches. Half of Ciscos entire core route/switch market is the Catalyst switch line.

Perhaps Cisco should stop grasping for straws and actually do something original instead of trying to stick its hands in to every market it possibly can. It turned out pretty well with Telepresence, not so much with wireless (WLC’s or the WCS) or some of their security offerings (MARS).

Hey Cisco, you make hardware! Take to your own advice and stick to building your strengths. Youll never do terribly well in any other market and you know what? Thats okay!

Anyway, here is Cisco’s Social Media Policy:

Cisco social media guidelines June 2010

View more documents from Cisco Systems.
Network Neutrality / Simply Interesting — No Comments
17
May 10

Glenn Becks war on the FCC and Satan worshippers

This guy is already the circus clown of political commentary, evading any responsibility or accountability for what he says, all under the guise of “entertainment” (like calling Obama a racist - remember that one?) but I simply can’t let this slide.

Let’s be real, in my opinion he’s really just an inept idiot with no genuine integrity for anything he says, even in the act of his well known “fake crying”. He’s a recovered drug and alcohol addict with no college degree, million dollar contracts, and people who write his books for him, but yet tries to offer insight and influence on topics that he was either “self taught” or didnt even bother to consult wikipedia about (as elementary as that is).

His show really amounts to nothing more than passing along viewpoints from the Republican Party’s media corporation, Fox News. Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” has an entire page devoted just to the hypocritical things Beck says, and how moronic it not only makes himself look, but Fox News as well. I suppose his “success” says more about the quality of the American publics true interest in politics than it does about the clown that “delivers” it.

Fox constantly touts their ratings and tries to synonymize popularity as credibility, but anyone who has survived high school knows that popularity has nothing to do with relevance.

So what has he done to warrant my attention now? This gem from his latest episode in which he tries to talk about an issue he clearly doesn’t have the capacity to understand:

Right-wing talker Glenn Beck took to his Fox News TV program last Monday night to deliver a rant about how President Obama has compiled something “almost like an enemys list” and how Obama is into “silencing opponents.” The presidents tool of choice for this censorship? Network neutrality—the principle that ISPs cannot interfere with content.

via Glenn Becks war on the FCC and Satan worshippers.

Apparently his “Arguing with Idiots” book is an auto-biography.

CyberLaw / Internet and Society / Network Neutrality / The Public Domain — No Comments
3
Jan 10

Do you know who the EFF is?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a non-profit civil liberties organization that defends your rights in the digital world. The EFF is responsible for weighing in on some of the nations toughest issues such as network neutrality, online privacy, peer-to-peer file sharing, and intellectual property. Their contributions have also given momentum for or against certain technologies like RFID, DMCA, Real ID, DRM, and a host of others aimed at enhancing, restricting, or abusing civil liberties of the general public.

Earlier this month they helped a blogger subpoenaed by the TSA, which subsequently the TSA not only backed down but ended up buying him another computer. They also keep the public aware of what is going on behind the scenes at that place we all know and love on the Internet called “Facebook”. Who really knows who your Facebook friends are? Well read the article and find out. I am confident you’ll be shocked to find out that the place we find all warm and fuzzy is actually anything but.

Internet and Society — No Comments
3
Jan 10

The demographics of Facebook – Is this why the privacy policy keeps changing?

Facebook releases first-ever demographic look at users | Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project

In its earliest days, Facebook was primarily a white and Asian phenomenon. No more. In the first study of the race and ethnicity of its U.S. users, Facebook said Wednesday that blacks and Latinos have joined the social networking giant at a rapid clip in the past several years.

So essentially masses of other people have joined Social Networks in droves, regardless of age, gender, or ethnicity? I understand there is a sociological value in such a study, but seriously, how much research must one do to prove the obvious?

And lets look further than the obvious – what is the value of said information? That people use social networks? That social networks are becoming popular? That Facebook is the most popular social network? But among these and many other questions, how many of these questions did we not already know the answer to before Facebook, or even before these studies?