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Cisco Systems, the world’s largest network equipment company, has released its largest switch ever. The Nexus 7000 can move 15 terabytes of data per second, and is designed to connect distant data centers together. According to Forbes, that is fast enough to move the entire Wikipedia in about 40 seconds. The 1-meter tall box will require special cabling and cost US$200,000 a year to maintain and operate.

As companies move their servers and data storage into larger data centers, these types of switches are necessary. The continued growth of web-based applications is also supporting this trend. Networks are a lot like plumbing, but there’s only a finite amount of water on the planet. The amount of data produced and stored continues to grow.

According to a Reuters article, John Chambers, the long-time CEO of Cisco, believes network growth will continues at a fast pace for the next ten years as ISPs and data centers add capacity.

From the New York Times and Yahoo: Yahoo has announced a partnership to share news and advertising content with 176 US newspapers. Several newspaper publishers are included, including Belo, Cox, Hearst, MediaNews and Scripps. The largest newspapers in the deal are the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Dallas Morning News, Denver Post, San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Daily News. The deal covers 38 states and a combined daily circulation of 12 million readers.Google had announced an advertisement placement deal with 50 US newspapers earlier this month. Local advertising is a fragmented market, with national and regional advertisers exerting more pressure on small newspapers for simplified media purchasing and consolidated reporting.

The new Yahoo agreement started with an existing deal among HotJobs, Medianews and Belo. HotJobs is owned by Yahoo, and holds a 9% market share among online job sites. CareerBuilder and Monster.com are virtually tied for first place with 32 and 31 percent shares respectively.

The newspapers will use Yahoo’s technology and content to place ads, maps, calendars, local listings, and search features on their own web sites. News stories from the local newspapers will be posted on Yahoo, and local newspapers will have access to Yahoo’s news content.

“The bottom line is that these newspaper companies have decided to answer the ‘friend or foe’ question that all traditional media companies face regarding online players,” wrote UBS analyst Brian Schachter. “They have decided it is better to be friends with Yahoo.”

This is an interesting business model that has already failed in earlier attempts. Yahoo may be able to learn from other companies’ mistakes.

An earlier attempt by newspapers to form an Internet alliances failed after three years. The New Century Alliance was formed by the New York Times, Times Mirror, Gannet and Knight-Ridder in 1995 as an early entrant in online news content and advertising. The owners dissolved New Century in 1998, before Yahoo, Google and other sites found their online news audiences.

Microsoft also attempted to develop its own local content sites in the 1990s. Sidewalk bled cash as Microsoft struggled with establishing relationships and branding in major US cities.

This article appeared in my old blog at http://www.bloglines.com/blog/wsodeman?id=206

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2006/tc20060208_760555.htm?chan=rss_topStories_ssi_5

Peter Burrows of Business Week reports on Cisco’s recent performance. Cisco is the dominant vendor of networking equipment worldwide. I think of Cisco as the Internet’s plumber. Your packets moved through a Cisco switch or router at some point in their journey.

If you use a Linksys router or network appliance at home, you’re using a Cisco product. Cisco purchased Linksys in 2003, and has been integrating operations and marketing ever since. Linksys is positioned as an entry point for SOHO (small office and home office) users who need networking equipment, and who may need higher-powered Cisco equipment when their business expands. At the same time, Cisco engineers have been remaking the Linksys line, using best practices from Cisco’s enteprise networking equipment.

A virtuous cycle occurs when a company moves from one “favorable circumstance” to another over time. Amazon, eBay, Microsoft, Intel, Google and Apple have all benefited from the creation and maintenance of their own v-cycles.

One might argue that Nintendo and Sony are risking their v-cycles, at least in the video game market. Wii and PlayStation 3 each have their own issues.

Cisco has apparently built its own v-cycle around advanced networking technologies, including VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol). VoIP telephones are connected to an RJ-45 jack, not a telephone RJ-11 jack. Remember that RJ-11 also provides electrical power for telephones.

So how does a VoIP telephone get enough power to operate? Users could plug the telephone into an AC outlet, but there’s a neater way. Through a handy protocol called Power over Ethernet (PoE), special switches can connect these phones to the network and deliver 13 watts of power, which is enough to keep a telephone and a small display screen running.

PoE can’t deliver enough power to keep a laptop computer running, which is one reason why laptop computers need their own power source - either AC current or batteries.

PoE features aren’t built into most older network equipment, so any company that wants to deploy VoIP in its offices has to buy PoE switches from Cisco, Foundry or another hardware vendor.

PoE and VoIP adoption are powering Cisco’s virtuous cycle - at least for now.

Sports! SI.com - MLB - D-Rays’ win streak reaches league-high 11 games - Sunday June 20, 2004 9:21PM: LET’S GO TAMPA! “The Devil Rays had scored 65 runs in 10 games to tie San Francisco for the best winning streak in the majors. This time, they made do with limited offense.”

China: Yahoo! News - An Icon, and Then He’s Gone: “‘For me, he represents the unknown soldier of the Chinese democratic revolution,’ said John Kamm, executive director of the Dui Hua Foundation, a San Francisco-based human rights group. ‘What’s so strange is that his act of bravery was conducted in plain view of the world. But other than seeing his act, we know so very little about him.’ ”