The XSi Data Center Blog:

Cisco is salivating over the news from Huawei's VP Eric Xu that "Huawei is no longer interested in in the U.S. market anymore." As you may recall Huawei has had difficulty with the U.S. government's hardline stance towards Huawei due to its Chinese military ties. Xu said that Huawei is downward revising its 2017 enterprise sales to $10B which is below its prior goal of $15B. Huawei finished 2012 with enterprise sales of $1.9B. This is sure to boost Cisco's stock price.

March 19, Washington, D.C. - The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 today in favor of Supap Kirtsaeng vs. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. after hearing oral arguments on October 29th, 2012 on a widely followed case of whether the First-Sale Doctrine covers products manufactured overseas. The First-Sale Doctrine allows the “owner” of a lawfully made product the right to sell or otherwise dispose of a product they own without the authority of the copyright holder.

In an ever-changing world of technology you either jump on the bandwagon, or you get left, scratching your head, in the dust.  Major networking vendors like Cisco and Juniper are scrambling to jump into the SDN (Software Defined Networking) race, but smaller startups like Embrane are currently beating them out without much of a struggle.  Canadian Internet hosting and cloud service provider, Peer1, recently picked Embrane to meet their SDN needs over Cisco and Juniper. 

At the 29^th Chaos Communications Congress (29C3) on Dec 27^th – 30^th, 2012 one topic caught our eye and seemed to standout a little more than the rest.  Ang Cui and Michael Costello presented “Hacking Cisco Phones: Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean your phone isn't listening to everything you say,” making a convincing argument to worry if you’re a Cisco Viop user.  During the presentation they warned DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) funded researchers in the audience as Cui and Costello demonstrated how they could remotely turn on a phone’s microphone and eavesdrop on  your private in office, off-phone conversation from anywhere in the world.  And to make matters worse, if the phone is enabled with a webcam, they could even turn that on without anyone being the wiser.

Organizations seeking to better control their Information Technology support costs often seek to take advantage of competitive bidding on support services. This includes not just traditional break-fix, but also broader functions of equipment supply, lifecycle management, and disposal.

The October 2012 report on Oversight in IT spending from the GAO was recently discussed in an article by Jack Moore. The GAO slammed many agencies for failing to provide reporting on how they spent billions on IT functions.  Clearly many agencies simply ignored Congressional reporting mandates, which make IT management at the top level nearly impossible.

While 2012 was nothing short of a technology miracle, 2013 promises to be even better.  A few months back we posted an article on the extraordinary job Cisco did at the Olympics this summer as the official network provider.  In fact, more than 4.8 billion people watched the event, with digital viewers outnumbering traditional television viewers for the first time in history, clearly showing how technology dependent we have all become.  Undoubtedly, the impressive technology trend will continue in 2013.

Legal savant and comedian Stephen Colbert on 11.26.12 did a segment on a literal “Text Book Case” argued in October in front of the Supreme Court pitting textbook manufacturer Wiley & Sons against an entrepreneurial foreign student Kirtsaeng.  Colbert uses his genius to deftly explain the issues and consequences of how a ruling in favor of Wiley would make many used transactions, including garage sales, illegal.   Take 5 minutes to watch the segment.

Private industry has had decades of experience surviving downturns and bankruptcies while still maintaining a healthy IT environment. Government agencies, particularly DOD, and DHS are unaccustomed to real cost cutting, and may need some help learning how to get by with less, perhaps a LOT less.

DNA tagging technology, recently described by Fox News has clear potential to help electronic supply chains police their own goods. The sooner this technology is deployed by manufacturers supplying to major markets, and not just to the DOD, the better.  End users should be aware that this technology exists and demand that their vendors utilize this process. (Or alternatives with similar advantages)