Tag Archives: computing

Capitalist Times: Take Your Head Out of the Cloud

The most recent issue of Capitalist Times Premium has my latest article, Take Your Head Out of the Cloud. The piece reviews the evolution of the cloud environment and identifies a corresponding stock investment opportunity due to a market overcorrection.

On the one hand, there’s the public cloud, where a company’s data is stored and computing run by a third-party company at another site. On the other hand, there’s the private cloud, which is the new name for a company buying, running, and using its own data centers with its own staff.

Don’t drink the Kool-Aid: Companies still do this, and they do it a lot. Analysts at JPMorgan & Chase (NYSE: JPM) estimate that only 5 percent of current data center spending is for the public cloud.

In the past, several cloud providers have tried to win the massive private cloud market by shoving their capabilities into other people’s data centers. This hasn’t worked too well, with Azure and Oracle’s Corp’s (NYSE: ORCL) now quietly hushed-away efforts being the most visible ones.

I also wrote an October update article for CTP‘s model portfolio that focused on recent tech M&A activity.

Things I Learned this Week

Among the things I learned this week:
* Sharps Rifle Co., in 1859, released a rifle with a coffee grinder in the butt. (Courtesy: The Kitchen Sisters/NPR)

* Democrats Abroad is state-level organization with delegate votes, as recognized by the Democratic National Committee. It doesn’t seem as if the Republican Party has an equivalent. (Courtesy: Democratic National Convention)

* One-third of Malawi is Lake Malawi. (Courtesy: Wikipedia)

* Congolese coffee. (Courtesy: Caffe Vita)

* Uninstall and reinstall Microsoft Solitaire Collection on Windows 10 if your Grandpa can’t load his daily challenges and receives an Internet connection issue. (Courtesy: Personal Experience)

* “At the six Sweetgreen locations where cash is not accepted, employees can perform 5 to 15 percent more transactions an hour, [Mr. Jonathan Neman, co-founder and co-CEO of Sweetgreen] said.” (Courtesy: Gloria Dawson/NYT)

Things I Learned this Week

Among the things I learned this week:
* The Wikipedia post for Chinese Crested Dog should have a dispute banner, perhaps (Courtesy: Personal Experience):
20160329-wikipedia-unbalancedbanner

* Habermas’ take on the Internet (Courtesy: Economist):

Digital communication, he wrote a few years ago, has unequivocal democratic merits only in authoritarian countries, where it undermines the government’s information monopoly. Yet in liberal regimes, online media, with their millions of forums for debate on a vast range of topics, could lead to a “fragmentation of the public” and a “liquefaction of politics”, which would be harmful to democracy.

* We’re so post-PC that reviews of next-gen computer equipment now include commentary on the aesthetics and space challenges of a computer (Courtesy: Brian X. Chen, NYT):

The Rift works with technology that some might find anachronistic: a Windows PC, monitor, keyboard and mouse. With many people shifting away from desktop computers toward laptops, tablets and smartphones, finding a place to install the Rift and those other components may be a challenge. In my modest San Francisco apartment, I set up the system in the living room next to my television set. What an eyesore.

There are other similar aspects to the article, in case you want to learn something this week.