Net neutrality is bad for competition argues Oracle's chief
Larry Ellison sided with operators on net neutrality, a position that was largely overlooked during his last appearance at the Churchill Club last month.
The Oracle chief argued that letting the U.S. government regulate pricing on carriers’ networks is wrong, favouring Google and the likes and ultimately stifling competition.
“I think it’s very dangerous for the government to engage in pricing for companies… In general I believe in free markets and this is the case where government regulation is not necessary,” said Ellison.
Here’s the video excerpt where the Oracle CEO discusses his views on net neutrality:
Tesla CEO recently said he would love to take over NUMMI
A few months ago, I remember Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk warming at the idea of taking over NUMMI, the sole auto assembly plant on the West Coast.
Musk comments did make a lot of people laugh. Back in April, when the prolific entrepreneur spoke at a Churchill Club event, GM and Toyota were still committed to keep the 20-year old joint-venture running and Tesla was still waiting for government loans to help it jumpstart its future sedan “model S” vehicle project.
But after a tumultuous 4-months that saw GM file for bankruptcy, sever its partnership at NUMMI, Tesla raising nearly a $1 billion from both the government and private investors and finally, Toyota announcing today it will not keep operating alone the Fremont, Calif., car plant, Musk’s “pipe dream” of taking over NUMMI could very well happen!
“Maybe at some point there’ll be an opportunity to acquire NUMMI. That’d be great. I’ll take that in a second. But that isn’t available right now,” added Musk.
A golden opportunity for Tesla indeed, that is required – by receiving the government loans – to find a 20+ year old plant to produce its upcoming all-electric “S” vehicle. And NUMMI just celebrated it’s 20 years anniversary… this year!
“But we can’t afford it right now, unless they give it to us. Which maybe they will,” said Musk 4 months ago!
And “they” (including the state, local and even perhaps the federal governments) might indeed make it so attractive that Tesla could actually find it hard not to move to NUMMI. Wait and see!
Follows the video excerpt where Tesla CEO Elon Musk eluded at the idea of taking over NUMMI:
The beta of Microsoft's antivirus and anti-spam software made its debut yesterday. And it's already unavailable!
Microsoft’s free antivirus dubbed Security Essentials (code name Morro) has been out for just a day – and suddendly unavailable – the security world is already coming at it as if there is no tomorrow!
Speaking at a Churchill Club event yesterday on Cybersecurity, McAfee CEO Dave DeWalt couldn’t help making fun out of Microsoft’s latest security product while pointing to some of its flaws.
“Microsoft had a security product in the consumer and the enterprise space for many years, and the haven’t had a lot of uptake on that product, just a couple percent of market share and they were giving the product for free before anyway. And it’s a little bit of an oxymoron to say that Microsoft has a vulnerability and they’ll protect you,” jokes DeWalt. “It’s encouraging to see Microsoft educate the world in the need of security but at the same time it’s not a lot of a threat for a company like us.”
Some of Microsoft Security Essentials flaw according to McAfee’s CEO:
Phishing is the most popular cyber-attack today, not viruses. So even if Security Essentials does a good job at protecting users from viruses, it won’t protect against all the other threats. “It’s a one dimensional product,” adds DeWalt;
Can Microsoft really protect you when at the same there are so many vulnerabilities in their products;
Security Essentials will only work on a “licensed” Windows machine. “It’s strange that they have built in this product version control. Sounds to me like an anti-piracy tool,” said DeWalt. McAfee’s CEO further notes that Security Essentials will first be available in emerging markets where piracy is rampant, as well as the U.S. and Israel.
It’s not multi-platform. It won’t work on a Mac and probably never will!
In any case, Microsoft’s latest security offering is anything but a threat to the well establish security vendors like McAfee or Symantec. But what is troubling, is this could actually be a trojan software which ultimate goal is to fight piracy in emerging countries like China or Brazil.
Here’s a video excerpt of McAfee CEO Dave DeWalt on Microsoft’s Security Essentials threat to his business:
Steven Levy, Senior Writer, Wired Magazine (left) in a conversation with Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect, Microsoft at the Churchill Club in Palo Alto
I thought I’ll put here the videos that we shot of Ray Ozzie’s conversation at the Churchill Club last night in Palo Alto, Calif.
Some parts of the interview are still missing as of this writing but ultimately all the conversation will be posted here.
Can anyone @IBM fix the WiFi network at #IOD11 ? It's been terrible for the past 2 days and everybody I talked just can't stand it anymore 3 months ago
Posted by TechPulse 360 
