The New York Times has a story on how Wegmans, a regional supermarket chain has decided to drop self checkout. As I was just in London where self-checkout is all over the place in Tesco, M&S and even the really hip Amazon store on Wood Wharf, I found myself wondering how much money is being … Read more
Ya gotta love longtime pal Om Malik. He has a way of just being the "editor" who kicks one in the posterior at just the right time. Today he posted about Blogging, and it reminded me how much I've missed it. Sure I've been doing some Medium and LinkedIn writing now and then, but to … Read more
It’s head scratching time. Or, as the Ben Grimm character would say “it’s clobbering time.” Why both? Well Ericsson bought Vonage today for an immense about of money. More than they ever paid for any company and which clearly helps set a new high bar in value for cloud service companies which focus on … Read more
There's a lot being written today about RCS (rich communications suite) from Google/Android and how the three major U.S. mobile operators-AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, have all embraced it and are rolling it out. Well, they're clearly not doing it to replace the legacy SMS platform on Android devices because it's the greatest invention since the … Read more
This week is IT Expo, one of my favorite conferences of the year. And for the first time in a long time, with the last time being due to a cancelled red eye flight over ten years ago, I'm not going. And, unlike that aborted trip, this time it was my choice, and that choice … Read more
Today Bandwidth announced they are acquiring Voxbone, a company I'm very familiar with from years of working with them in their early stages before becoming PE-backed. I've always admired their foresight, and recall how they always had Bandwidth in their sights, first as a customer, then wearily as a competitor, and even as a possible … Read more
I've been giving a lot of thought and time to Rose lately. You know, the slightly pink or light salmon red colored wine that fills your glass during summer, and serves as a great accompaniment to charcuterie and cheese as well as salad and grilled dishes too. Rose has really become en vogue as the … Read more
I've been a fan of Tom Krazit since his days at the original GigaOm, and my pal Om Malik introduced me to him. Tom has been "in the cloud" as a journalist from it's earliest days, and his work at Protocol Cloud has continued to be some of the most insightful and spot-on writing in journalism … Read more
Over the past few weeks I've been thinking more and more about how much tech jewelry I've been carrying around. In round numbers it's like this: Mac Book Air 2020 $1600 or Samsung Galaxy Chromebook $1000 iPad Mini w/LTE $ 700 iPhone XS $1150 One … Read more
The existence of the three-tier system has been around since the repeal of prohibition. As a result, sales strategy, especially for fine wines that are imported, or more limited production domestic wines are significantly handicapped today due to the three-tier system and how it impacts distribution. But with COVID–19 we have seen a steady … Read more
