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)

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)

Latin America Lags in IT

Yesterday, I wrote about Greece and neighboring Bulgaria, contrasting two seemingly similar nations and their respective commitments to ICT. The verdict, based on research I've been conducting for the past 18 months, was that Bulgaria is doing much better than lagging Greece. Today, let's take a look at a lagging region: Latin America. When thinking of the region, people often think first of Brazil, the Portuguese-speaking giant in a sea of mostly Spanish-speaking nations. Brazil ranks fifith in the world in area, and is in fact larger than the continental United States. It also ... (more)

Privacy & Lock-In Top India's Cloud Concerns

Although 91% of organizations in India "consider cloud relevant to (their) business," according to the recent Cloud Maturity Index, two-thirds "strongly agreed" that data privacy and residency is a major concern, and 61% expressed fears of vendor lock-in. The Index is based on survey results conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of VMware. It noted that the interest in cloud in India was equal in Asia to Japan, China, Malaysia, and Thailand, and that "the country's understanding of cloud computing is higher than (in) Singapore and Malaysia." A total of 87% of respondents sa... (more)

Oracle Helps Drive APAC Cloud Alliance

Oracle, PwC and five telcos are leading the charge in the formation of the new Asia Pacific Cloud Alliance, announced in Hong Kong. Members plan to work to develop private-cloud interoperability standards for Hong Kong and China, Malaysia, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. Oracle and PwC are also members. The five telcos are Hong Kong's Hutchison Global Communications, VADS (from Malaysia), LG CNS (South Korea), and Telstra and AAPT (for Australia and New Zealand). PwC says its role will be to act as an indepdendent advisor, Oracle plans to integrate its Exadata and Exal... (more)