Anti-U.S. sentiment is in the air, much to Microsoft and Apple's chagrin; plus, what Siemens and Taiwanese are up to
Special reports from Network World Lab Alliance member Tom Henderson, who is at Germany’s huge CeBIT 2007 conference this week. Look for updates as the week goes along.
See related story about missing exhibitors.
In some ways, it’s become U.S. vs. Them. If you thought that the U.S.-Iraqi war was controversial in the U.S., it’s even more so here in Germany. There are additional rivalries, and they’re deepening, rather then being bridged. Imagine: Russia is the new CeBIT business partner. They have fresh oil and gas revenues, and there’s a scent of burning rubles in the air here.
This exacerbates rivalries. As an example, the European Union has been particularly harsh on Microsoft. Whether you believe Microsoft’s attorneys (personally, I want to see their side of the argument, but it’s difficult for me to do) or the sense in the European Union (EU) that Microsoft’s practices have stifled competition isn’t relevant. Instead, there’s a sense that Windows is a bit like your mother-in-law here — you married into it for better or worse when you bought your notebook. Still, Windows has become a love-hate relationship here.
The same can now be said of Apple Computer. There’s a sense that Apple’s inability to open iTunes formats amounts to a constraint of trade. The EU hasn’t really seen the business end of Apple’s controversial relationship with the RIAA, and there’s a fairly common feeling that Steve Jobs’ claim that he’d prefer DRM-free downloads is hollow here, in Germany. Nonetheless, as a major and highly successful target the size of a barn, it’s easy to hit. Something more onerous is happening, however.
There’s an increasingly louder anti-American sentiment wrapping up distain for Microsoft products and Apple DRM controls with suspicion of other U.S. companies, even eBay and Amazon.com. Oddly, Google appears immune from criticism, receiving only praise — for now — a seeming champion of ideals. We in the United States were once good-guys and acknowledged leaders. Now there’s a common, even popular growl towards U.S. product groupings.
Bandwagons
One of the causes celebres at CeBIT Hannover this week is RFID policy. An EU minister spoke at the conference Thursday morning detailing the advances being made in RFID products, and in an unusual move, seemed quite disapproving of a need for immediate regulation. U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce and head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration Robert Cresanti echoed the needs for privacy, and asserted the desirability of assessment before regulation occurs.
In an interview this morning, Cresanti also echoed Bill Gates’ cry for an expansion of H1B visas, citing the fact that EU competing countries don’t have the same barrier that the U.S. faces in getting ‘best and brightest’ recruitment efforts underway. The intellectual capital differences, he says, are beginning to have an effect on the competitive stance of the United States.
Separately, Bavarian-based Siemens has taken a page from Cisco and Nortel, refocusing its “solutions” approached to network infrastructure and protocol-based services, such as VoIP trunking and QoS-enabled infrastructure. This “solutions-based” approach seems to be the rule at CeBIT, as larger makers try to anchor expansive technology base product lines together, in entangling arrangements reminiscent of IBM and Digital Equipment of the 1980s. Fear, uncertainty and doubt-marketing methods were unusually prominent.
And it turns out that there are no more Taiwanese notebook computers being built, I found. Certainly there are Taiwanese designs, but manufacturing has been relegated to China for the largest part. What has occurred is the evolution of Taiwan to an engineering and design island whose principal rival is no longer Silicon Valley, rather South Korea.
The intensity of the Korean/Taiwanese rivalry has also driven (or kept) prices down, as each economy tries to outdo the other in terms of cost and distribution. Although major makers of machines are promontory, Taiwan has become the second-largest exhibiting country at CeBIT, despite its tiny geographic size. Dozens upon dozens of Taiwanese companies offer sexy if fragile notebook designs, home networking products, and networking gear ranging from small-business to near enterprise-class routers at prices that boggle the mind. Along the way, you can find MP3 players embedded into every conceivable imaginable design from watches and furry animals down to a coffee cup with an integral 2GB MP3 player, world clock and FM radio. I suppose there might be truth to the aphorism that he with the most toys when he dies, wins.
Yet as I walk the seemingly never ending floors of CeBIT, I doubt if I can get to all 280 million square meters in three weeks, let alone the day and a half that I have left. Never mind that the show directory is the size of the Manhattan phone book. Never mind that there are eight full-time buses for press alone. Never mind that the Euro is at $1.33 today and on its way up. If you needed any health indicators coming from CeBIT, I’ll paraphrase the old Johnny Winter song — still alive and well.
Henderson is principal researcher at ExtremeLabs and a member of the Network World Lab Alliance.
