Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Virtual late lunch, 14 January 2009

Much to catch up on, but first, a moment of silence for Nortel. The 2009 fun and games have officially begun. 

For the datacenter lover in you, Digital Realty Trust had another set of encouraging numbers yesterday, and the stock had a nice bounce, though the appalling US retail sales numbers and fallout from Nortel are taking their toll today.

Then again, look on the bright side, looks like PCs and game consoles are going to get even cheaper!

Disdain for fund-of-fund managers is the new black, and Telenor is draped in it from head to toe.

If you live in the EU and have been putting off that plasma TV purchase, time may be running out.

Very interesting report on the smart grid and its potential contribution to fiscal stimulus. This is discussed in an upcoming Telco 2.0 post, so I'll just point to it for now. 

On a purely personal point, I continue to be amazed at the power of this web thingie to connect and reconnect people. A couple of days ago, I received, totally out of the blue, a bunch of old photos from a group of schoolmates I haven't seen since or communicated with since 1974, when we moved to Memphis. We are now emailing and Facebooking one another and exchanging stories. In true Woody Allen fashion, it seems that no one has ended up doing what I expected them to do back when we were kids, including myself. And it turns out that a nice, unassuming kid I often played with has ended up as a pretty well-known writer it would seem. It's all delightful stuff, and highlights that without this awesome series of tubes, we would probably all be in the dark about how life turned out for us. Now there is a Facebook group and even some talk of an attempt at a reunion. 

Back to 2009, FTSE -4.4%, S&P -3%. Ho hum...

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