Jon Peddie Blogs

First thoughts on CES and tablets

Posted by Kathleen Maher on January 10th 2010 | Permalink
Categories: Blogs, The Market
Tags: nvidia apple marvell tablets ebooks entourage asus ces publishing

CES has dawned bright and clear. The crowds have come and there is interest in buying – or at least that’s how it’s looking now. Plenty of news is coming out of CES, but in the PC world, tablets are consuming the attention of the buyers in the aisles as well as reporters, and we’re pretty fascinated as well. For the past couple of years, Amazon and Sony have helped make a convincing case for the eBook as people are not only buying the devices, they’re downloading and reading more as well. In fact, according to a December report from the…

So long 2009, don’t let the door hit you in the behind

Posted by Kathleen Maher on December 15th 2009 | Permalink
Categories: Blogs, General Interest
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To put together this list of notable events for 2009, I went back over old issues to see what we were talking about. What struck me besides the fact that a lot of really great stuff actually happened was that you can almost hear a continuous whine through the copy (mostly mine)—I’m tired, I don’t want to do this any more, when is it going to get better?  In the future, would you please tell me to just shut up and get on with it? I’d appreciate it. The thing is, it really wasn’t such a bad year in terms of…

Mobile computing keeps the giants up at night

Posted by Kathleen Maher on February 18th 2009 | Permalink
Categories: Mobile
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The Mobile World Congress looks like a huge success in this year of crisis and uncertainty. It’s been just as difficult to maneuver around people weaving around as they walk because they’re texting or talking on the phone and not paying one lick of attention to where they’re going. Other folks were stopping dead and gawking at glitzy booths. This being Europe, there are crowds of men in dark suits. Apparently, the number of attendees are down a bit, but there is very definitely business being done and lots of it. Mobile phone users are not the same and they don’t…

The death of social networking

Posted by Kathleen Maher on January 23rd 2009 | Permalink
Categories: Blogs, The Market
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Social networking has been climbing its elbow curve of popularity as Facebook reaches a much broader constituency, Twitter coalesces the attention-span challenged, and LinkedIn and Plaxo connect job hunters. There’s a world party going on for the initiated. Old friends are finding each other, new friends are strengthening their links, loves lost are found again, and all that wonderful stuff, but dark clouds are forming. For instance, New York Times Assistant Managing Editor Craig Whitney sent a memo to Times writers admonishing them to social network responsibly as representatives of the Great Grey Lady. His point, certainly valid enough, is that…

Carol Bartz rides in to save a bunch of Yahoos.

Posted by Kathleen Maher on January 14th 2009 | Permalink
Categories: Blogs, The Market
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Wow, well this is news (or at least it was yesterday). I didn’t know what I thought about it all until I talked to a reporter this morning who forced me to take a walk down memory lane before I even had my coffee. God knows what I said to the guy that was useful. It felt like he was looking for the one sentence summation, like “she’ll fire everyone,” and somewhere in all my rambling he probably got it, but what Carol Bartz has done and what she can do at Yahoo! is very worthy of some thought and more…

Seeing double at IBC

Posted by Kathleen Maher on September 16th 2008 | Permalink
Categories: Content Creation
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Welcome to Amsterdam, welcome to the International Broadcast Conference. For whatever reason the IBC seems more susceptible to the waves of fashion and new technology than its more stable US counterpart, the National Association of Broadcasters who throws their big show every spring in Las Vegas. Every year it seems there are several consistent themes underlying the show and the conference no doubt because the conference is dominated by a fairly homogeneous crew of industry insiders—so what every gets these old boys in a tizzy is going to be “the issue.” But, I can’t say that this is really such a…

Nvidia paints the town green

Posted by Kathleen Maher on August 26th 2008 | Permalink
Categories: Blogs, The Market
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The fountains flowed a toxic green that puts all those terrible green beer St. Patrick’s hangovers in perspective. You were never that sick. But the point was made. San Jose, at least for these three days in August belongs to Nvidia.  What we find interesting is what Nvidia has chosen to concentrate on. There has been plenty of candy for the game boys, but the emphasis is on business, high end computing, entertainment and the future. One thing is for sure, stereographics is here to stay—at least for a couple of years. Jen Hsung Huang showcased 3D video in his keynote…

PMA in Las Vegas: new cameras cover old ground

Posted by Kathleen Maher on February 2nd 2008 | Permalink
Categories: Engineering and Development
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The groundhog poked his nose out of his house and apparently he did not like what he saw — or maybe he did. I get confused. Whatever happened with the U.S. weather rodent, whether he went back in his hole or came out and danced, his priests declared six more weeks of winter. This came as little surprise to people in the U.S. who have been enduring generally awful weather across the country. In Las Vegas the weather was bright and sunny if a tad on the cold side causing the Las Vegans to wear mittens and the rest of us…

MacWorld — love it or love it

Posted by Kathleen Maher on January 18th 2008 | Permalink
Categories: The Market
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Every danged time I got to MacWorld I kill myself trying to get to the keynote. Okay, so I maybe I don’t give myself enough time. But it seems to be that getting on the 7:50 a.m. ferry for a 9:30 keynote, should be enough time. It’s only a 20 minute walk to the convention center. Unfortunately, the MacWorld organizers have a whimsical sense of humor. They move the press registration every year and then they plant doofusses at key points to send you to the wrong place. Go to the West Hall, all press go to the West Hall said…

Oh god, please don’t let us screw it up

Posted by Kathleen Maher on October 26th 2007 | Permalink
Categories: The Market
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That’s the prayer of the Internet dependent as we all enjoy another growth period. And then comes the news that Microsoft has outbid all comers for the “privilege” of investing $240 million bucks in Facebook, the latest thing in social networking ... probably. Microsoft’s investment legitimizes a valuation of $15 billion for Facebook. I know I’m not the first to make this observation but that’s more than the valuation of many companies that actually design and build products, popular products! There are news stories all over the place about this—the AP story gets right to the heart of it. Much is…

Web 2.0 or deja vu all over again?

Posted by Kathleen Maher on October 15th 2007 | Permalink
Categories: Content Creation
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I was at dinner with some very interesting and urbane executive types in Boston recently. The subject of what’s next/what’s the latest trend/where’s the money came up as it inevitably does. We were talking about Web 2.0 and how interesting it all was that MySpace had become so last 20 minutes ago in the space of uh, 30 minutes. Now it’s all about Facebook said one of my dinner partners. Really? Why in the world should Facebook prevail where Friendster and MySpace have failed? Doesn’t all this Web 2.0 stuff have the stench of doom wafting all around it? It’s nice…

The future of CAD

Posted by Kathleen Maher on October 10th 2007 | Permalink
Categories: Content Creation
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The computer industry may seem to change at the speed of light but that’s not true of the CAD industry. After back to back meetings with Autodesk and Dassault I am struck once again by the slow pace of change. I’ve decided to see this in a positive light. After all, it’s really just hard on those of us who are making predictions and getting it wrong. In many cases, say designing bridges or artificial hearts, it’s better to take predictable paths and get it right. Here’s another positive view. The democratization of CAD might be slow in coming and the…