Richard Waters Google and Andreessen Horowitz join the commercial drone race

May 15, 2013 4:01 pm by Richard Waters

The US may be moving only slowly towards opening up its airspace to commercial drones, but a market for unmanned aerial vehicles is already emerging rapidly elsewhere. Andreessen Horowitz and Google Ventures are the latest to jump in, with a $10.7m investment in drone technology company Airware. Read more

Posted in Tech |
From Inside Business column May 8, 2013

How profoundly will the new computing platform loosely known as “the cloud” disrupt the business software empires of companies like SAP and Oracle?

SAP went on the offensive this week, with the news that it would start running software for its customers in its own data centres. Hasso Plattner, SAP’s chairman and the man with the best claim to the title of Europe’s software visionary, called it the biggest thing from the German company since its flagship business applications software put it on the map 20 years ago.

 Read more

Tags:
Posted in Software |

Richard Waters Why the ‘start’ button is not yet ready for history’s recycle bin

May 7, 2013 5:01 am by Richard Waters

Why you would click a button labelled “start” to turn something off has never been entirely clear.

But for hundreds of millions of PC users, the start button in the bottom left corner of the Windows screen has been an invaluable navigation tool – which is why Microsoft looks to be on the verge of reversing course over Windows 8 and bringing it back. Read more

Tags: ,
Posted in Tech |

Richard Waters Martin Sorrell to Big Media: Stop being complacent about digital

April 25, 2013 10:58 am by Richard Waters

There was a major disconnect on display at the FT’s Digital Media conference in London on Thursday morning.

Jeff Bewkes of Time Warner and Thomas Rabe of Bertelsmann made it sound as though any-time, any-place access to media was ushering in a golden age comparable to the birth of broadcasting. But Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP had a wake-up call: Big Media is being complacent, and the real impact of companies like Google and Facebook has yet to be felt. Read more

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Internet, Mobile, Tech |

Richard Waters Venture capital lines up behind Google Glass

April 11, 2013 12:49 am by Richard Waters

A new technology platform needs new apps. And new apps need funding.

So it is that two of Silicon Valley’s best-known venture capital firms – Kleiner Perkins and Andreessen Horowitz – have got together with Google Ventures to offer money to developers working on ideas for Google Glass. According to Kleiner partner John Doerr, this “goes well beyond the the world of websites, documents and mobile apps”. Read more

Tags:
Posted in Consumer Electronics, Mobile |

Richard Waters Why time is money with a Tesla S

April 2, 2013 10:52 pm by Richard Waters

The Tesla Model S was Motor Trend car of the year last year and starts at a base price of $62,400. So how could you get one for an all-in cost of $500 a month?

Simple: start by valuing your own time at $100 an hour. That, at least, is according to the creative accounting that Tesla has just come up with for a new lease deal for the vehicle. Read more

Tags:
Posted in Cleantech, Tech, Tech Finance |
From Inside Business column March 13, 2013

It sounded like hubris last week when Nick Hayek, chief executive of Swatch, dismissed out of hand the threat from a potential Apple “smartwatch”. Hadn’t he heard what happens to companies involved in areas of personal technology that come under attack from the creative geniuses of Cupertino, California?

Summoning up images of unwieldy internet watches dating back to Microsoft’s Spot watch of nearly a decade ago, Mr Hayek questioned whether “an interactive terminal on your wrist” would ever catch on. “Personally, I don’t believe this is the next revolution,” he was quoted as saying.

 Read more

Tags: ,
Posted in Hardware, Personal technology |
From Inside Business March 6, 2013

A $500bn game of chicken. That’s what it feels like as a handful of the biggest US technology companies posture over what they plan to do with their “trapped” overseas cash holdings. But like all games of chicken, the end must come eventually – and it’s hard to see that this is one the tech companies will win.

John Chambers, chief executive of Cisco Systems, struck the most provocative pose in an interview with the FT last week. After four fruitless years of arguing in Washington for a tax holiday for repatriating his foreign cash to be invested in the US, he says he’s had enough and is going to spend it somewhere else instead.

 Read more

Tags: ,
Posted in Tech Finance |

Richard Waters IBM digs deeper on expense accounts in pursuit of the five year plan

February 28, 2013 6:01 pm by Richard Waters

IBM’s board of directors got nervous recently when they were told that the company had uncovered higher levels of employee expense fraud.

Mark Loughridge, chief financial officer, says he had a response: “There’s nothing going on here: we’re just catching everyone.” Read more

Tags:
Posted in Tech |
From Inside Business column February 27, 2013

There aren’t many markets where, when the old products have failed, customers flock back for more.

That could explain why the leading lights of computer security – who have converged on San Francisco this week for their industry’s biggest gathering – have been struggling to strike the right tone.

 Read more

Posted in Security |
BackOlder entries