Roger Strukhoff

There was a time during the height of the dot-com boom when executives in Silicon Valley believed that Washington, DC was irrelevant. As two generations of entrepreneurs strived to build The New Economy, it was laughable to think that the ancient dunderheads back in our nation's capital had any notion about - or right to tamper with - what was going on in the tech world. This was the era of the Clinton Administration, a time when the President himself had declared that "the era of big government is over." Defend the shores, deliver the mail, and otherwise stay the hell out of the way - this was the thinking in the tech world during the bubble. Clinton's years were peaceful from the perspective of people living in the US. A few targeted attacks here and there, with even the major, US-backed military action by NATO in Serbia having little effect in day-to-day American... (more)

Drool, Britannia? Is the UK Failing the Cloud?

A new study found that 60 percent of UK businesses do not use any type of cloud computing. Furthermore, 20 percent of them "suspect they will sidestep cloud computing all together," according to the report, which was conducted by IDC on behalf of the British hosting provider Fasthosts. About one in four companies surveyed said a lack of cloud expertise was a primary concern for them. Contrast this with recent research known as the Cloud Maturity Index conducted by Forrester Research on behalf VMware: 64 percent of respondents in Malaysia said they have deployed or are actively p... (more)

Startup Mania Comes to Cebu City

Enthusiastic startup communities continue to emerge in the Philippines. Last fall, I reported on an event known as "Startup Weekend Manila." Now a vibrant event has concluded in Cebu City, the country's second-largest metro area. Startup Weekend Cebu produced some 20 software ideas over the course of 54 hours, at an event hosted by the University of the Philippines Cebu. The first-place team demonstrated a mobile app called "WaitKnowMore," which addresses the problem of insanely long waiting lines in the Philippines; no doubt the idea could be useful in many other places as well. ... (more)

ASE Cable Proceeds in Philippines

Lack of bandwidth is a problem in many developing countries, including the Philippines, as I've written before. Now comes word that about 100 gigabytes-per-second capacity has been added to the Philippines, with completion of the country's portion of a cable that will reach many countries in Southeast Asia. The country's dominant telco, Philippines Long Distance Telephone (PLDT), has invested US$50 million in the project, which is known as the Asia Submarine-cable Express (ASE). The ASE is expected to come into full service in Q3 of this year. Original cost estimates for the ent... (more)

CenterBeam Supports Mid-Size Companies in the Cloud

"To some degree, the term cloud computing has caught up with us," says CenterBeam CEO Dr. A. Kevin Francis. "We've been doing it for awhile." CenterBeam, with its roots in New Brunswick, Canada and its headquarters today in Silicon Valley, built a hosted Microsoft Exchange environment a dozen years ago, presaging today's era of cloud computing. Today it provides cloud services from a Tier-3, Class A datacenter built with triple redundancy, and partners with CenturyLink to provide Type-II certified services. The company's core systems are hosted in a VMware ESX environment. Center... (more)