http://bahlmann.us Tue, 14 Jul 2009 22:38:48 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Today's cable chip sector is a mess. You have a collection of chip companies all competing for a sizable but otherwise relatively small market. The three main cable equipment suppliers (Cisco, Motorola, and Arris) drive a high percentage (probably something like 90%) of the cable capex spending. How this trickels ... http://bahlmann.us/?p=132 CSGS recent announcement of it winning the remaining portion of billing services from Charter Communications (CHTR) Currently CHTR splits its billing services for its 5.5mm subscribers 60/40 between Convergys (CVG) ICOMS (Integrated Communications Operations Management System) solution and CSGS. CHTR is consolidating solely under CSGS for all billing services starting ... http://bahlmann.us/?p=129 The flood of 2008 was a memorable event. If you pretty much follow the Cedar River down through Iowa (which starts in the central NE part of the state, down through SE part and on into the Mississippi river), you will see many cities seeing 500 year flood damage including ... http://bahlmann.us/?p=121 With all the pull backs in hiring, it is getting hard to find companies with any openings. So, out of curiosity, I made a list of 33 companies I've been asked recently about and ranked them by their perspective job openings versus their number of current employees. The chart below ... http://bahlmann.us/?p=115 After last week's snow storm came and went, I found my garage door frozen shut. So, rather than digging it out, I elected to place this week's empty garbage can (a newer Rubbermaid dark green can with wheels) outside the door and wait for either some warm weather or the ... http://bahlmann.us/?p=52 One of the biggest connondurums of subscription based television service business involves the question, "What is the value of the content with or without advertising?" Given the fact that consumers are increasingly given a choice of two or more subscription based television services, at what point will eyeballs be more important ... http://bahlmann.us/?p=45 As the risks of running a compromised personal computer (PC) becomes increasingly more expensive to individual computer users (from an identity management and administrative perspective), the day is fast approaching where every computer will come standard with not one, but two hard drives. One drive for the operating system (OS), and yet ... http://bahlmann.us/?p=44 It doesn't take a genius to figure out how that selling broadband services is big business. But the landscape of selling broadband services in the future will look vastly different than it does currently or even in the past. While the use of standards has ignited broadband services growth, it has ... http://bahlmann.us/?p=43 An unbelievable story about an attempt to obtain insurance and the resulting botched attempts by multiple premiere insurance companies to correct the matter. Our resulting advice to those seeking life insurance to help you avoid fraud and get the greatest value for your hard working dollar. My wife and I wanted to purchase ... http://bahlmann.us/?p=42 People in the big city are always "busy". The city is a big place and there is lots to do, so what does it mean when people speak so much of being busy? Do they have multiple careers (a day and night job), are they completely remodeling their living space, ... http://bahlmann.us/?p=33 Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) has been on a media blitz of late. It is the "current buzz" within the video as well as networking space and why not with projected 36 million subscribers by year 2009 (says MRG). Only with all these deployments of video services, can they all make money? The ... http://bahlmann.us/?p=41 It has been said that the Internet is becoming tomorrow's Personal Computer (PC) operating system and in so doing allow individuals to maintain a variety of different means of accessing their virtual PC. Taking a stab at a support argument for the virtual PC while posing some questions about user ... http://bahlmann.us/?p=36 One could easily say that the US Government is one of the most innovative nations in the world when it comes to fostering new technology and creating uses for it. The same organization that brought you a man landing on the moon, the Internet, and geo-satellites (there are many other ... http://bahlmann.us/?p=40 We vacationed to Iowa recently to visit family, friends, and relatives. Leaving the confines of the big city and trading it all in for a week long stay out in the country. Our friends questioned us before we left, "Why are you vacationing in Iowa?" as if to say, "What ... http://bahlmann.us/?p=32 As building super highways into neighborhoods mutates into extending them into individual homes, fiber, namely passive optical networking (PON), is becoming the technology of choice. However, the means of terminating PON as well as its proper transformation of signals carried over PON into the various forms of telecommunications wiring found within the ... http://bahlmann.us/?p=24 Google and even Yahoo are becoming increasingly blunt instruments in the search business to the point where finding a needle in a haystack is nearly impossible. The "pure" search engines of old which arguably did a much better job are becoming riddled and encumbered with business rules, processes, and the ... http://bahlmann.us/?p=38 Finding technical talent is big business. Monster World Wide (MNST), best known for its Monster.com service has a market cap of $5.9 billion and yearly revenues of $1.1 billion. CareerBuilder, who was 1/5 the size of Monster in 2002, recently overtook Monster in quarterly revenue. There are also thousands of ... http://bahlmann.us/?p=37 If there is one thing that telephone companies have done successfully over their history it has been their ability to lobby. Take the most recent squabble over these local video franchises which provide a kind of right of passage to offer video services to communities. Over the past year telecom ... http://bahlmann.us/?p=35 Having a maid can have a status symbol feel to it. In a job negotiation with a past employeer there was going to be a corporate apartment included in the agreement as well as a maid service because the apartment was going to be occasionally shared with out of town employees who were ... http://bahlmann.us/?p=34 My first introduction of Kevin came in preschool. We were the oldest kids in the class, nearly a year older than the youngest and for the most part 6 or more months older than the balance of the class. We prided ourselves on building large castles out of cardboard brick ... http://bahlmann.us/?p=29