Cormac O'Reilly

When I asked my friend Quentin recently how he liked his new iPhone, he said it was great, except as a telephone. He was right, and as a devoted iPhoner since its introduction, this made me think. My carrier’s coverage (AT&T) is lousy, the 3G connection is slow/patchy and AT&T is expensive, on average $82 a month. I love the …

As Sodor wakes to a new year, Thomas and his friends notice some very disturbing things... The end of the IT world train is arriving at platform one Cheaper hardware and software prices in 2009 means that IT becomes an increasingly throwaway business. We're there with printers, and other plug-ins: expect much the same with …

CommentIf ever there was proof that the financial community does not understand the basics of a legacy IT company, the euphoria over yesterday's IBM results preview said it all. News of IBM's profit sent the technology sector up,which in turn drove up the broader markets, confusing many IT observers. IBM a stellar performer - I don't …

It's budgeting season, and this year is no exception for big corporate IT departments, and the big IT industry players who feed on them. Pressure is yet again on reducing IT costs, and especially costly IT people. And as in most recent years, cost reduction ripples will spread across the IT pond, with the major IT industry …

CommentIBM is in full swing promoting its highly integrated and extensive It management tools and technologies which it's ready to roll-out into an enthusiastic, waiting business community. Or so it thinks. Why does this seem like another chapter in Kafka's The Trial to me? Perhaps because I remember the first "trial", a visit to …

CommentYesterday evening, as America finished its working day, and Europe settled in for the evening, I started to download my first iTunes movie. I'm in Gresham, Norfolk and I have a BT/Virgin broad band connection, which actually works very well. My wife Maggie selected the iTunes movie (Flight Plan) and I bought it from the iTunes …

CommentGoogle recently shocked the IT world by reminding everyone that it actually builds its own servers, a strategy delivering economic advantage over its competitors, and leaving corporate IT departments in the dust. The technology press was full of the industry's reaction, chiding Google and reminding us that conventional wisdom is …

OpinionLast week, analysts on Wall Street castigated the Vonage IPO, effectively driving the price down from $17 a share, to under $14 in three days. The price is now recovering a little despite their broadside. The analysts' highly televised arguments were around Wall Street's judgement that Vonage had the wrong technology (VoIP), …

CommentAs everyone knows, I'm a great fan of Apple Computer. In fact, while running the Texas internal consulting office at Schlumberger in 1984, I bought and evaluated one of the first Apple Macs and was blown away by its power and simplicity. Instead of buying my own Mac at that time, I bought Apple stock, the value of which quickly …

OpinionAs the IT world digests the fact that IBM has, according to the New York Times, put its PC division up for sale, another set of speculation revs up. No, not the fact that the rumored potential buyer is Chinese company Lenovo, nor the cruel related joke that many old IBMers caught in the sold PC division would quickly will …

Google, which doesn't quite seem to be able to get its GMail service into service, has nevertheless changed the email world forever. The threat of its new 1GB service caused other public players like MSN and Yahoo! to up the stakes. Yahoo!, I now contend, should be regarded as a potential corporate IT email solution, having …

OpinionThis week Verizon, the local New England telephone company, reported lower revenues and of lower associated profits. The cause was the flight of their customers from conventional telephone lines and long distance calls. Verizon’s stock fell, as did other regional US telephone companies on the news and I think this wrong number …

OpinionIt's taken me ages to get it. The IT industry, at least as I knew it, is fast disappearing before my very eyes. It took the speculation that Sun and Apple would team up to jog me out of my IT industry's trance. When I thought about the real business logic of such a relationship, the idea was just silly. Forget all that …

OpinionAs the "C" word creeps into everyday IT conversation, the confused get scared, and the squeamish, squirm. Of course we are talking commoditization, which not only heralds the end of big margins for the IT establishment, but ultimately the demise of the in-business IT community. Let's look at the IT establishment, and the rush …