This is a big day for Aircell, which spent tens of millions to acquire the exclusive spectrum license that allows them to shoot Mbps to and from planes. My big question will be whether coverage remains seamless across an entire flight--how often one has to reconnect their VPN would be a big issue. If Aircell has architected the network correctly, passengers should never be reassigned an IP address, and connections shouldn't be dropped even if there's a hiccup in air-to-ground communication.

I've covered in-flight broadband for several years, and I've been wondering lately whether we'd be waiting until 2009 to see real production service. American is calling this a 3-to-6 month pilot to see what their passengers think. Just yesterday, I wrote up veteran travel writer Joe Brancatelli's frustration with the lack of information and some misinformation about in-flight broadband.

You can read more background on American's plans and Aircell's technology in a post I wrote for BoingBoing on 24-June-2008.

He's not very positive about it, because his research shows a mismatch between claims and work. He writes that an unnamed American airline executive is frustrated by the delay in launching the 3-to-6 month pilot on their trans-continental fleet; that Aircell hasn't submitted paperwork for Virgin's Airbus models for certification; and that the FAA just received a request to certify Delta's MD-80 craft, which makes a launch with 75 planes this year on that airline less likely.

Competitor Row 44 doesn't fare better in his analysis, as they promised spring and summer 2008 tests that still haven't happened, with Southwest and Alaska Airlines.

I'm a little more positive about the future of in-flight broadband. There's no particular conspiracy. It's hard to make it work. Development and testing is tricky due to FAA limits, and getting in-flight handoffs to work for seamless service at 35,000 feet is far more difficult than, say, cellular handoffs in a moving car at 100 feet above sea level. My suspicion is that tuning the service to be entirely reliable at launch is what's taking so long.

Brancatelli blames the high price of Connexion on its failure, but I don't think the $27 fee for long-haul flights deterred users. Lufthansa, which deployed all its long-haul fleet, apparently had very good usage. Most other airlines had few craft equipped, which didn't allow business travelers, able to expense several hours of work for a $27 fee, the reliability of having on-board Internet when they needed it. Connexion also had many reports of spotty service in certain areas.

Connexion's failure came from deploying technology that was old when it was deployed, which weighed too much, and which was too expensive to install. Connexion's revenue and expenses were forecast based on having several hundred aircraft with Connexion service--recall that it was supposed to be a domestic U.S. service, too. In the end they had about 100, I believe.

Brancatelli is also modest when he says Boeing "lost" $300m. That's part of what they wrote down. My sources say they spent more than a billion in R&D, transponder leases, ground station operation, airline incentives, and payoffs at the end.

On the 29th episode of The Silver Bullet Security Podcast, Gary talks with Dennis Fisher, executive editor of The Security Media Group at TechTarget. Dennis helps run SearchSecurity.com and Information Security Magazine. Gary and Dennis discuss the current “BS factor” in security journalism, shopping at TJ Maxx right after the TJX privacy breach, the state of software security, and which is harder: being a fry cook at Hardees or working as a PR flack.

• Dennis’ blog
• TJX
• Joe Walsh plays dirty laundry
• Software Security Grows
• Dennis’ un-named podcast
• Series of Tubes
• Hardees
• Nike/iPod

Speaking of the Yankees, they have made a few moves for the pennant run.  In addition to their own trade with the Pirates to get Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte, they pulled off a great deal yesterday getting Pudge Rodriguez to fill in as catcher for Jorge Posada.  This could be a huge deal for the Yankees.  They gave up Kyle Farnsworth, who while threw well this year, gave up home runs like candy.  I am flying up to NY with my two sons tomorrow and will be at the Stadium tomorrow night to watch the Yanks play the Angels, who also made a big trade for the Braves Mark Teixeira.

Another future hall of famer, Ken Griffey, Jr was also traded to the White Sox today.  Wow! What a day in baseball. I can’t wait to sit in the temple that is Yankee Stadium with my two boys tomorrow. It is like a dream come true, similar to taking them to a Steeler game last year.  With all of the action going on around baseball it is also a great time to do it.

Portfolio critiques crazy hotel Wi-Fi pricing: The travel guru that is Joe Brancatelli turns a steely eye to $15 per night charges at fancy hotels for Internet access, noting that cheaper hotels include such service at no cost. The higher-end hotels won't talk for attribution, but they say that a "fraction" of guests use Internet, so why bundle it into the room rate? Pshaw. At $15 per night, four to six users pay the entire cost, while the hotel or its operator accepts a fraction of that rate as settlement from Boingo and iPass and other aggregators. So it's nonsense. They charge because business travelers will expense it and be reimbursed.

I am not sure what it is with Richard Stiennon.  Maybe his mom beat him with a NAC stick when he was young.  Hence his Jack Nicholson looks (more like the Joker in Batman, than Col Jessep in A Few Good Men) and his total disdain for NAC.  In any event Richard never seems to miss a chance to take a pot shot at NAC.  I have fired back and debated him many times on this.  In fact I am convinced that Richard's problem with NAC is that like Uncle Joe, he is just moving a little slow.  Richard still thinks of NAC as Cisco???s network admission control, circa Dec ???03.  He has not gotten up to speed on anything happening with NAC since.  Richard is going to debate NAC with Joel Snyder according to this article by Tim Greene today. My prediction is Snyder by a knockout in 3 rounds or less.

Richard???s latest NAC knock comes on a comment to an excellent article by the Hoff.  Chris takes a bold stand for someone working for a vendor and calls BS on the whole analyst thing (I will write more about that later in this article). Richard being an ex-analyst himself (lets face it, with Richard you can take the man out of the analyst job, but you can???t take the analyst out of the man), takes exception to Hoff???s ???whining??? (Richards words, not mine) and tries to tell Hoff that giving up is not the answer and the way to show up analysts, is to prove them wrong.  Great Richard you try to prove them wrong, when because of what they report you don???t have a market, can???t get any capital and have no visibility.  I guess that is when it is time to move on to the next gig, right? Then Richard has a bad NAC deja vu and feels it necessary to write this:

???Look how easy it is to one up the analyst firms, who as near as I can tell support Network Admission Control universally. Everyone except the folks at Updata Ventures know how seriously flawed NAC is with only one viable market, edu.???

I assume Richard is referring to Updata recently leading the Bradford Networks VC round. But more importantly Richard it is time to call a code red on you and give you the cold hard truth.  Richard the fact is that the edu market is not the only viable market for NAC.  In fact, one of the biggest customers of NAC is the DoD.  That is right Richard at least 3 of the 4 armed forces use NAC in helping to secure their networks. To paraphrase my friend Col Jessep - Richard, you want the truth, you can???t handle the truth!  You sleep securely under the blanket of protection that NAC provides.  If it is good enough to help ???clean the sand??? out of laptops coming home from SWA (that is SouthWest Asia, like in Iraq and Afghanistan, in case you don???t know Richard), it should be good enough for you. Think about that next time you are about to bad mouth NAC.

Let me give you some other truths you may not like Richard.  Why do you think every switch vendor (of which we partner with many of them) is lining up and bringing out NAC solutions?  Why has Microsoft put such a big push on NAP?  Why despite the Luddites like you does NAC still draw crowds at conferences like Interop (ask Joel about that).  Richard we are still signing new major OEM partners.  I am afraid you are the one sadly out of touch on this one Richard.  Just as you are out of touch in missing Hoff???s point in his article.

As to Hoff???s article, as I said I give Chris credit for speaking his mind. I spend an ungodly amount of my time speaking with analysts and trying to ???learn??? from them while at the same time trying to educate them.  I am constantly amazed that so many analysts (and press for that matter) just take a vendors word as gospel. I have seen research reports from analysts big and small, that I am sure did not have any more research done than calling a handful of vendors and listening to their spiel. Too many of these vendors if they do speak to customers, base their findings on such a small sample that it is impossible to have an accurate picture.

Personally, like Hoff says, who watches the watchers is the truth. I would like to see a code of conduct among analysts. I would start by dictating that vendors cannot pay analysts.  Take the payola out of the equation the way they did to the DJ/Radio business in the late 50s. Next analyst reports have to come with metrics to back up the findings. I want to know how many customers they spoke to, how big they were, how they were found, etc.  A vendor giving an analyst a real live???pet??? customer is not real research. I want to know if the customer pays the analyst. It is a dirty business.

Hey let me be clear, I play the game as well as the next guy.  But I agree with Hoff we need to clean up the rules to make the whole analyst thing more fair, viable and valuable.

I am not sure what it is with Richard Stiennon.  Maybe his mom beat him with a NAC stick when he was young.  Hence his Jack Nicholson looks (more like the Joker in Batman, than Col Jessep in A Few Good Men) and his total disdain for NAC.  In any event Richard never seems to miss a chance to take a pot shot at NAC.  I have fired back and debated him many times on this.  In fact I am convinced that Richard's problem with NAC is that like Uncle Joe, he is just moving a little slow.  Richard still thinks of NAC as Cisco’s network admission control, circa Dec ‘03.  He has not gotten up to speed on anything happening with NAC since.  Richard is going to debate NAC with Joel Snyder according to this article by Tim Greene today. My prediction is Snyder by a knockout in 3 rounds or less.

Richard’s latest NAC knock comes on a comment to an excellent article by the Hoff.  Chris takes a bold stand for someone working for a vendor and calls BS on the whole analyst thing (I will write more about that later in this article). Richard being an ex-analyst himself (lets face it, with Richard you can take the man out of the analyst job, but you can’t take the analyst out of the man), takes exception to Hoff’s “whining” (Richards words, not mine) and tries to tell Hoff that giving up is not the answer and the way to show up analysts, is to prove them wrong.  Great Richard you try to prove them wrong, when because of what they report you don’t have a market, can’t get any capital and have no visibility.  I guess that is when it is time to move on to the next gig, right? Then Richard has a bad NAC deja vu and feels it necessary to write this:

“Look how easy it is to one up the analyst firms, who as near as I can tell support Network Admission Control universally. Everyone except the folks at Updata Ventures know how seriously flawed NAC is with only one viable market, edu.”

I assume Richard is referring to Updata recently leading the Bradford Networks VC round. But more importantly Richard it is time to call a code red on you and give you the cold hard truth.  Richard the fact is that the edu market is not the only viable market for NAC.  In fact, one of the biggest customers of NAC is the DoD.  That is right Richard at least 3 of the 4 armed forces use NAC in helping to secure their networks. To paraphrase my friend Col Jessep - Richard, you want the truth, you can’t handle the truth!  You sleep securely under the blanket of protection that NAC provides.  If it is good enough to help “clean the sand” out of laptops coming home from SWA (that is SouthWest Asia, like in Iraq and Afghanistan, in case you don’t know Richard), it should be good enough for you. Think about that next time you are about to bad mouth NAC.

Let me give you some other truths you may not like Richard.  Why do you think every switch vendor (of which we partner with many of them) is lining up and bringing out NAC solutions?  Why has Microsoft put such a big push on NAP?  Why despite the Luddites like you does NAC still draw crowds at conferences like Interop (ask Joel about that).  Richard we are still signing new major OEM partners.  I am afraid you are the one sadly out of touch on this one Richard.  Just as you are out of touch in missing Hoff’s point in his article.

As to Hoff’s article, as I said I give Chris credit for speaking his mind. I spend an ungodly amount of my time speaking with analysts and trying to “learn” from them while at the same time trying to educate them.  I am constantly amazed that so many analysts (and press for that matter) just take a vendors word as gospel. I have seen research reports from analysts big and small, that I am sure did not have any more research done than calling a handful of vendors and listening to their spiel. Too many of these vendors if they do speak to customers, base their findings on such a small sample that it is impossible to have an accurate picture.

Personally, like Hoff says, who watches the watchers is the truth. I would like to see a code of conduct among analysts. I would start by dictating that vendors cannot pay analysts.  Take the payola out of the equation the way they did to the DJ/Radio business in the late 50s. Next analyst reports have to come with metrics to back up the findings. I want to know how many customers they spoke to, how big they were, how they were found, etc.  A vendor giving an analyst a real live“pet” customer is not real research. I want to know if the customer pays the analyst. It is a dirty business.

Hey let me be clear, I play the game as well as the next guy.  But I agree with Hoff we need to clean up the rules to make the whole analyst thing more fair, viable and valuable.

There’s speculation that falling VMware share prices, with no end in sight because of “poor revenue outlook” is the reason for the ouster.

Hmm. The stock went public at $29, went as high as $125 and is now at $40.26 (and falling as I write), almost a 40% premium over the first offering. Say what you will about the recently launched Microsoft Hyper-V and the Citrix offering that we never hear about, but VMware is the dominant virtualization player (and likely to remain so for at least some time given Microsoft’s track record with new product releases) in an exploding market. Gartner predictions are that the installed base of VMs will grow more than 10x between 2007 and 2011 and that by 2012 the majority of x86 server workloads will be running in a VM.

The future still looks pretty rosy for VMware – perhaps they’ll be taking a smaller chunk of the pie, but the pie’s getting much bigger. And all indications pointed to VMware moving up the stack and providing more management solutions (and more revenue streams) for the x86 virtualization market they helped to build.

So why the change? And why now? Is it a coincidence that it’s an ex-Microsoft exec taking over just as Hyper-V ships? Can only someone who knows the Microsoft Way combat the Microsoft Way? Remember this is the guy who wrote that Microsoft should “cut off Netscape’s air supply”.

So, good idea to say that Microsoft execs are better than VMware execs just as the Hyper-V juggernaut gets rolling? If I didn’t know better, I’d say this is the latest example of a MS FUD campaign…

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