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)

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)

Thinking Global as Cloud Expo Approaches

A randon news thread: If Apple were part of the Dow, the DJIA would be at 15,000. Michelle Bachmann is no longer a Swiss citizen. President Obama approves of gay marriage and federal intrusion into our workplaces, if not our bedrooms. Sony is down, JP Morgan is down, oil is down, and hiring is down. Cloud computing is up. Austerity is not popular. Facebook/Instagram may be off. In the few weeks left before the next Cloud Expo, I sit and contemplate the odd mosaic of the state of the world. I won't comment on the endless violence everywhere; it must be part of the human condition... (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)