September 2011

Moore's Law gets all the press. It's easy to present even to non-technical readers, and the way it's most often expressed is something like, "computers double in speed every year," though that's a bastardization of the axiom, which actually states that the transistor count of integrated circuits tends to double every eighteen months or so. This formulation does succinctly capture how fast computers have gotten in so short a time. But integrated circuit density hasn't been the only computing tech which has shown extremely rapid progress over the past thirty years.

Consider magnetic storage. Modern hard drives are precisely manufactured miracles, products of billions of dollars and decades of research into magnetism and quantum mechanics, squeezing ludicrously large amounts of data into ludicrously tiny spaces. A hard drive with about three terabytes of capacity can be had for less than $150 today; a PC equipped with two or three of these would have more on-board storage than most large enterprises had in aggregate even a decade ago. That kind of inexpensive capacity has revolutionized the way people keep and use data, both at home and at work. From complex storage- and compute-intensive tasks like oil and gas upstream processing all the way down to editing a home vacation video, the ability to store and manipulate increasingly voluminous data actually drives serious innovation.

The cable industry is pulling an about-face on the issue of a la carte programming, due to increasingly expensive content rights and a weakening economy making bundles of network programming less affordable for the average consumer.

That’s the word from Reuters, which reports that cable executives are negotiating with content providers and seeking regulatory relief in an effort to create smaller and more affordable bundles of programming. Cable companies have historically fought against the idea of a la carte, arguing that allowing customers to choose channels on an individual basis would tear apart the value of the bundle. Since typical cable viewers only watch a handful of networks each, such a choice would mean that many niche networks with lower ratings wouldn't survive if viewers didn't choose to pay for them. But cable companies have become stuck between a rock and a hard place: On one hand, media companies are demanding ever-higher carriage fees for their programming; on the other, consumers are being squeezed by a weak economy that threatens to make cable service unaffordable.

Just as recent U.S. advertising projections have been downgraded by many studies, so too is the entire U.S. communications industry. But overall, the later seems to be in better shape.

Veronis Suhler Stevenson says overall U.S. communications businesses will rise 4.1% by the end of this year to $1.12 trillion, as well as seeing compounded growth of 5.5% over the next four years to some $1.41 trillion. This is lower than Veronis' estimate last year of a 6.1% compounded growth rate through 2014, getting to $1.42 trillion. Veronis said recent downtrending economic indicators in the third quarter were the reason for its revised multi-year estimates. The better news: U.S. media business overall will rise at a faster rate than recent U.S. advertising -- as well as outperforming single-digit-percentage projected U.S. economic growth.

As retailers race to keep up with social media and mobile shopping trends, you could soon see sales staff in your local DIY or department store clutching iPads as they serve increasingly well-connected and informed customers.

"The consumers are coming in with better technology and better information than those working in the stores," Ian Cheshire, chief executive of B&Q owner Kingfisher, said at the World Retail Congress in Berlin. "Our staff have less access to the Web than they do." He said DIY store Lowe's in the United States was handing out iPhones to staff and that service applications using mass market mobile devices could play a big role in the future in stores.