Tom Steinert-Threlkeld

Not surprisingly, the Lucent Technologies-Alcatel deal got called off, allegedly at the last minute. That it took so long for the deal to unravel shows just how adrift Lucent has become in its shocking downward spiral. From the beginning, it was clear that Alcatel was the acquisitor and Lucent the acquired. Thats what 58 percent […]

Chairman John Chen last Tuesday opened what he called “chapter two” in the life of Sybase, one of the original pioneers of database systems that keep track of relationships between the statistics and content they store. He marked the occasion by moving his software company to the New York Stock Exchange, where its stock now […]

You know its going to be a long, tough dry spell for technological innovation when the search for coffee beans becomes touted as the next great “killer app.” Of course, were in that stage where wireless applications are still considered at least lukewarm, if not hot. Thankfully, the fate of the dot-coms — and the […]

And you thought the stock market turns CEOs into short-term thinkers now. Just wait five years. Reporting earnings per share every three months may be looking like a long-term, conservative practice. Gartner Research Fellow James Popkin last week predicted that the inexorable drive to “real-time” reporting of financial information within companies will lead before long […]

There may be no statistical support for this proposition. But methinks the longer a company spends talking to its customers face to face or on the line, the longer those customers will stick with the company. Ergo, the more loyal those customers will be. For instance, Ive stuck with the same Internet service provider for […]

“All politics is local.”—Former U.S. House Speaker Tip ONeill “All development is local.”— World Bank Vice President Mohamed Muhsin In the poverty-ridden province of Ningxia, the personal computing revolution — forget the Internet — has yet to arrive. While American children in rich metropolitan areas beam each other contact information on their Handspring Visors and […]

Not long ago, a portable device — the wristwatch — was given the heave-ho in this space. This month, a wired device got shown the door: the facsimile machine. The scene this time: unpacking, as the hyphenated family moved into its new abode in a Connecticut exurb of New York City. When it came time […]

Yes, accountants can be humorous. The best accounting joke of all time follows. After a disputed third strike is called, three umpires create an instant support group behind home plate and argue the best way to make such calls. UMPIRE NO. 1: Balls are balls, strikes are strikes and I calls em as I sees […]

Having just relocated from the Third Coast (Texas) to the First Coast (Connecticut), I want my handset to work in the bottom of Grand Central Station, on the train, waiting to pull away. I want it to work in elevators, passing over or under bridges, and I want it to perform all kinds of acts […]

Editors warning: This is not replicable. Do not try this at home. I finally got the phone company to allow me to cut directly into the fiber that passes my abode. Now, Ive got essentially unlimited bandwidth into my PowerMac G4 Cube. And Ive been trying out the Web as it really should be. I […]

When it comes to protecting privacy online, the biggest foes we have to fear are ourselves. Tracking the behavior of individuals while online can be considered insidious, because it happens behind the scenes, unbeknownst to the user. Yet most of this occurs with the use of those tiny files known as cookies. And there are […]

Pocket watches are back in fashion. You just might not think of them as watches. In the train conductor era, the pocket watch was round and smooth and was chained to ones clothing, so it could always be retrieved easily. Nowadays, we talk on them. Theyre called cell phones. The latest generation of cell phones […]