bruceb news

DSL was supposed to be the future of the Internet – the technology that would bring broadband to the masses and fuel the technologies that depend on high-speed access. It didn’t happen that way. This article describes what happened to Covad and the entire industry, which was crushed by unfair competition and horrible service from the huge Baby Bells. DSL isn’t dead, of course, but Pacific Bell and the rest have successfully taken all of the magic out of it. It’s just another Pacific Bell product now, fully deserving all the lowered expectations that go along with dealing with the phone company. […] continued

When the AOL TIme Warner merger was being evaluated, one important issue concerned “open access” to the new company’s cable systems. If AOL Time Warner refused to let anyone else use its cable systems to deliver Internet access, then it would be in a position to monopolize local markets and put competitors out of business. AOL Time Warner waffled, but eventually declared unambiguously that it supported open access to its cable systems. Based in part on that assurance, the merger was approved.

According to this article, AOL Time Warner was lying. Not only are local and regional ISPs being left out of the discussions about cable access, but also in several places AOL Time Warner is refusing to run advertising from the local ISPs on the television stations it owns. […] continued

Microsoft has revamped its bCentral web site, a collection of services and resources for small businesses. One interesting example is the offer to design and host a web site from scratch for $399. That’s the price for a custom design with a generic but relatively professional look, and five pages of content. Plus the service can scale up for small amounts of online commerce and the like, at equally reasonable prices. It’s one way to get a web presence without a huge financial commitment.

Did you see that Borders is handing its web site to Amazon? Borders will close its own site, and Amazon will open a new site that features both logos, with Amazon essentially taking all responsibility for inventory and order fulfillment. At one time it was thought that the bricks-and-mortar retailers could leverage their stores by tying them to their web sites. (Order a book online, pick it up at the store, for example – or, even better, handle returns at a nearby store.) This deal gives Amazon that capability for the first time. This has the potential to open a lot of opportunities for Amazon. […] continued

Tough year! Gateway is struggling with slumping sales and a fuzzy business plan. It’s closing a bunch of its own Gateway Country stores, and it just announced that it’s going to withdraw from 1000 OfficeMax stores.

Corel’s quarterly results showed a trivially small profit, but sales have completely collapsed for the WordPerfect suite. “Word processing and productivity sales plummeted from $22.1 million in Q1 2000 to $11.6 in Q1 2001.” I wasn’t able to track down the source info, but I recently read that less than 20% of the big law firms are still using WordPerfect – primarily due to the need to exchange documents with clients, all of whom use Word.

OnStream made tape backup systems. I loved them. Unparalleled reliability. A unique tape format, but I never had a problem with one of their cartridges. When I think of the hours I’ve lost wrestling with conventional Travan tape drives . . . well, OnStream was like a breath of fresh air. It’s depressing to find out that they filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings today and have apparently closed their doors for good. Here’s the details.

Napster is gone. Its death may be more or less protracted, but it’s all over. There will now be a period of confusion – most of you will be well served by waiting until the dust settles. I’m a big fan of Media Jukebox, so I like their offer of $3 billion to the record industry to begin a new subscription-based source for legal online music. Here’s the web site they created to demonstrate their seriousness – afternap.com. (And I still encourage you to give Media Jukebox a try if you’re at all frustrated with RealJukebox, MusicMatch Jukebox, or Windows Media Player!)

While Dell continues to be a strong company and a great choice when you’re in the market for a new system, Gateway has been floundering. Although I was an early Gateway booster, I became more and more unhappy with Gateway’s erratic customer service and odd choices of hardware and software. Here’s an article that describes Gateway’s deep financial problems.

If you’ve been using Findlaw for its wealth of law-related resources (including free California cases and codes), then you may be interested to learn that West Group has agreed to acquire Findlaw. Here’s an article with all the information known to date. Reading between the lines, it looks like Findlaw was running out of cash and West saw an easy and cheap way to upgrade its current web offerings. They’re cagey about any planned changes to the Findlaw services, of course, but West says it will continue to let Findlaw users access cases for free. Really. It promises. Uh huh. Yup. […] continued