Triple Play again

First I really and definitely did not want to do this and I verily had a bad feeling about linking to the following story. On a second though I see that I have to because the facts and reflections therein should find as much proliferation as possible. On Dec 1 '05 Mr. Cringeley (Robert X.) was not only informed (which he very often is very much) but also put forth an analysis nearly completely without any of the confoundments la plupart of the digital gurus usually shake out of their poet's sleeves.

And though, as ever for the lazy, I will quote from his posting now, I highly recommend to not be satisfied with that but to devour the whole stuff twice and really integrate it into your knowledge base.

Quote: The Problem: These concepts like IPTV and triple play (voice, data, audio-video) are heroic and scary -- so scary that the smart money is staying out of that game completely. We're talking billions and billions of dollars in new infrastructure, at least half of which will be ultimately a waste of money. Yet if you are a cable television company or a phone company in America, this is what you do. You spend tens of billions of dollars on infrastructure to better deliver SpongeBob SquarePants.

Quote: The Conclusion: Who is going to win the triple play? It doesn't matter. Who is going to win the game? Any player with deep pockets and no particular technological dependency. At this point that could be Yahoo or Microsoft or AOL or some new player altogether, but it probably means Google.

Our 21 grams: Triple Play is important because it still appeals to many in the industry and it means the largest sums of capital (maybe not the smartest money but there is enough less smart money around) to be invested into communications systems over the next years will go there. And, if there was one, larges sums of IB (investment bank), VC (venture capital), SE (stock exchange) and EP (european public) money constitute a contingent large reality distortion field that will draw and manipulate many people.

Now what Cringeley did here was not really hard to deduce, but it was well structured, focused and quite correct in its probability weighing.

To have something to say myself I'll take a prediction risk now: Google's relative dominance will probably last until 2017. I'll be old then but I'll live to see the end of it. Amen!

As ever a standard link which the good BF is always good for, the famous Lobachevsky song on mathematical research. Has alway been one of my Lehrer favourite receipts for success: Plagiarize Let no one else's work evade your eyes Remember why the good Lord made your eyes So don't shade your eyes But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize Only be sure always to call it please "research"