27 October 2002

Sighting: Think Solutions IBM -- The Think Solutions campaign aims to make owning PCs less onerous. One application allows users to carry laptops between wired and wireless networks without having to fiddle with internal settings. Another program continually duplicates everything a user does on his PC to a special area on his hard drive. If a machine dies, the user can more easily get running again.

Alsop's Outrageous Cellular Call FORTUNE -- Stewart Alsop believes CDMA will unseat GSM as a worldwide standard by 2010. What he argues is heresy in the world of cellular phones. Nonetheless, the facts show that CDMA makes for better phone calls and for better data services. It is easier and cheaper for wireless carriers to install and upgrade. And it will enable those carriers to find new revenue streams by hawking high-speed data services. That's the kind of performance advantage that leads to a real competitive advantage. And competitive advantages have a way of overwhelming even well-established technical standards. Alsop has eight years for the market to prove him right.

Why Women Should Rule the World FORTUNE -- Kim Campbell, former Prime Minister of Canada, has a solution for today's scandal-riddled world: women leaders. "The qualities that are defined as masculine are also the same qualities that are defined as the qualities of leadership. There is virtually no overlap between the qualities ascribed to femininity and those to leadership." Yet in several studies, Campbell said, "results show that when you have a critical mass of women in an organisation, you have less corruption." Lest you think that all we aspire to for the world can be accomplished by male-dominated organisations, I have only to say to you: Enron, Taliban, Roman Catholic Church.

What'a Happening to the Shannon Knowledge Network? THURLES, County Tipperary -- I pinged a few servers that should be in the Tipperary Technology Park and they're not there. They were supposed to be part of the Shannon Knowledge Network. Technology parks in Tralee, Thurles, Birr and Ennis were to link together as part of a world class business environment for knowledge-based companies. It meant having the Thurles servers positioned so as to take advantage of the upturn in the world economy when it comes about. Those servers are not running anymore. Maybe there's another reason, but it looks like the Thurles link of the Shannon Knowledge Network is offline.

Siemens Takes Risk with GSM in America SIEMENS -- Virtually unknown in the United States, Siemens is walking into the American market with its GSM technology. Siemens makes only GSM equipment, not the CDMA equipment that dominates the US. The trend is not with GSM. The two big networks that use CDMA, Verizon and Sprint, are winning market share from AT&T Wireless and Cingular, the carriers that switched to GSM. I think American wireless carriers will quickly enter 3G space and standardise early on UMTS. This standardisation could marginalise Siemens, a company with little expertise in the faster space. I think American carriers have discovered that CDMA works better. CDMA systems transmit clearer sound, plus the system is better suited for data. Carriers also know CDMA is easier and cheaper to install. It's CDMA-based companies like Sprint that are making real offers of new data services to customers earlier than networks running GSM. All these facts spell trouble for Siemens' entry as a GSM network provider.

More e-Government Services Needed for Ireland DUBLIN -- If Ireland aspires for world leadership in the realm of e-business, the government must seriously consider putting the following things online: Registration of new companies Search of trademark and patent databases Application for work permits Tendering for state contracts Filing of company annual returns