Google WiFi network celebrates third anniversary

The Google wireless broadband network built with Tropos routers, in Mountain View, California marks its third anniversary in August of this year and continues to experience unprecedented usage. The steady growth trend was outpaced in a recent 30-day period as the number of users jumped from 16,000 to 19,000, according to Google’s statistics. On a daily basis, the network now transports close to 600 gigabytes of user data -- double the volume from just two years ago. “We continue to experience extremely high demand – both in terms of users and bandwidth,” said Karl Garcia at Google, who leads the Google WiFi project. "We’ve seen the iPhone and other Wi-Fi enabled handheld devices as significant drivers of the high demand we see. Currently nearly a quarter of all devices that connect to our network are handhelds, compared to almost none when we launched the network,” said Garcia.

“The launch of the iPhone significantly drove up network use; we’ve identified 4,000 unique iPhones on the network in just the last 30 days. We’ve seen the iPhone and other Wi-Fi enabled handheld devices as significant drivers of the high demand we see. Currently nearly a quarter of all devices that connect to our network are handhelds, compared to almost none when we launched the network,” said Garcia. The growing trend for smartphone access of Wi-Fi networks is similarly being experienced by AT&T who recently reported to AppleInsider that 49 percent of users who connect to their Wi-Fi network are using a smartphone.

The coverage area of Google WiFi is approximately 12 square miles and incorporates business and residential areas. The high performance broadband network is accessible to the community and visitors free of charge; all they need is a Wi-Fi enabled device and a Google account. “The Google WiFi network is a valuable community resource and helps increase economic development by making it easy for residents and visitors to stay connected anywhere around town,” said Margaret Abe-Koba, mayor of Mountain View. “We are very pleased that Google continues to support our community with this robust service.”

The Google WiFi network has managed to keep pace with the doubling in bandwidth demand without major hardware upgrades. Instead, most of the increases in capacity have been due to innovations in the Tropos software and new, patented algorithms to coordinate and manage radio spectrum resources. These include PowerCurve, which adjusts the power and bit rate of each packet; Airtime Congestion Control, which senses congestion and allocates resources fairly; and Smart Channel, which maximizes spectral reuse and avoids interference. These three patent-pending technologies enable far more efficient use of radio resources than before, typically quadrupling the data capacity for the same swath of spectrum. Tropos continues to be a wireless broadband market leader with its proven technology and ongoing innovations which make customers’ networks faster, smarter, and more reliable.

“The volume of data and number of users on the Google WiFi network in Mountain View is unmatched compared to other similar networks anywhere in the world,” said Tom Ayers, president and CEO of Tropos Networks. “We continue to work closely with Google to extend Tropos' technology leadership and continue to solve the unique and challenging issues that outdoor wireless broadband presents.”

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Oracle Looks to Planning Apps for Next Billions

Oracle is devoting two full days and 70 sessions at the upcoming OpenWorld conference to its Primavera PPM (project portfolio management) software, which is used to track and manage the torrent of people, assets, timelines and expenses associated with projects and services engagements.

It's no accident that Oracle has decided to give such a high-profile showcase to Primavera, which it acquired last year. While PPM software may not be sexy, demand for it is growing explosively. Forrester Research expects what it defines as the "project based solutions" market to reach US$6.5 billion by 2010, up from $4.25 billion in 2007.

That growth is being fueled by a number of factors, such as the general march toward service-based economies around the world, according to a report by Forrester analyst Ray Wang.

Second, many companies invested in PPM applications around the year 2000, and are now looking to replace the systems as they become outdated, Wang wrote. In addition, vendors' products have created highly specialized products for various industries, presenting a choice for customers who instead were forced to customize other software tools to fit their requirements.

Oracle, which declined a request for comment on its plans, competes with many other established PPM products from CA, Compuware, Planview and other companies. But Primavera was a long-standing and major independent player in the space. It has 76,000 customers and its software is used to manage projects with a estimated value of $6 trillion, according to Oracle.

Oracle's purchase of Primavera made sense for a number of reasons, such as the fact that Oracle's own Projects software is often used for cost management on large construction projects that employ Primavera's software for scheduling, according to a research note by Gartner analyst Matt Light. The acquisition therefore means less need for Oracle to support rival products like Microsoft Project for project scheduling capabilities, Light said.

Oracle also gained fresh inroads into the installed base of its bitter rival SAP, where Primavera has many customers.

While it's not publicly known what Oracle paid for the privately held company, various estimates pegged Primavera's annual revenue at about $200 million, and Oracle is no doubt hoping to increase that number substantially.

At OpenWorld, the company will likely give customers a long-term Primavera product road map and also offer a sense of how it plans to weave the technology into its wide range of financial, human resources, BI (business intelligence) and PLM (product lifecycle management) applications, said 451 Group analyst China Martens via e-mail.

"The ultimate goal is to make PPM use more widespread, not limited to a group or department, but fully deployed as a enterprise app to track projects from start to finish with input from and visibility into useful information held in other apps," she said.

Oracle could also stand to sell more PPM licenses as infrastructure projects funded by government stimulus money begin to ramp up later this year and next.

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