RE: Technically beautiful, marketing-challenged (Aug. 3, 2001)
I lived there (Ottawa) for 6 years, 3 months and 14 days and with apology to Alan Fotheringham: IT is still the town of Civil Servants that have no interests, Politicians that have no morals and Journalist that have no manners.
Michael Neill
RE: Stuck between a rock and a hard drive (Aug. 2, 2001)
You should read Clayton Christiansen’s book “The Innovator’s Dilemma”. It talks about disk drive evolution (among other things) and how and why the industry evolved the way it did. Basically, since the late 1960s, hundreds of disk drive manufacturers have come and gone, and of the 12 or so that existed in 1969, only 3 of those are still in the drive business (IBM, Fujitsu and one other whose name I can’t remember). The book is actually about the challenges and dangers associated with business in the face of evolution, and corporate responses to those changes, and its really quite good.
Surprisingly, the determining factor in who succeed and who failed in each successive generation was physical size of the disk, and nothing else. Not capacity, not materials, not head or coating technology, but whether it was an 8″, 5.25″, etc. drive.
Geoff Kratz
Chief Technical Architect
EFA Software Services Ltd.
RE: Mediums for the messages (Aug. 8,2001)
Your analysis of why the technology has not caught on is interesting. However, I do believe that many business and public sector enterprises will use videoconference capabilities once the price comes down. You suggest that prices have declined somewhat and that is quite true if you live in a large urban area and happen to have access to an affordable broadband connection. For those of us who live in the suburbs or in small town and rural Canada the cost to connect to a 2M pipe is out of reach for all but the largest of enterprise. Lower the cost substantially and videoconferencing will boom!
Vic Allen
Upper Canada Networks
We welcome your feedback. Letters to the editor must include the writer’s name and company name along with an e-mail address or other contact information. All letters become the property of ITBusiness.ca. Editors reserve the right to edit submissions for length and content.
