TechAgility

This is just some ramblings from me over the xmas/new year break and some general thoughts about the global economy and some technical thoughts

Economy

Option ARM’s – could this be the harbinger of the Second Wave of Foreclosures in the US? 

• Subprime Loans Caused the Initial Illness, Option ARMs will Cause the Relapse
• OptionARM Homebuyers See Monthly Payments Go From $95 To $3,500
• 2010:Foreseeable and unforeseeable risks, the room for policy error is enormous
  Domestic Risks and Uncertainties:
  The Bulk of the Option Arm resets trigger in 2010-2011 – “The reality is that these loans were never meant to survive the reset. Unless an alternative is created, the human pain and loss will be massive.” Institutional Risk Analyst Chris Whalen
• I would certainly like to think that all the Bankers ( <– substitute rhyming slang here ) have actually done their job correctly and with due diligence and actually “priced” in the risk that some of the “Assets” they may be holding could be exposed to any potential risk associated with the Option ARM’s? But that’s probably hoping for a bit too much?

The US economy appears to have somewhat recovered it’s confidence – However most of the “Stimulus Package” has not actually filtered down to the point where it’s spent?

• Presumably it still sits somewhere between the Senate and the States where the money is to be spent?
• One Year After Near Financial Collapse, Americans Wonder: Where’s MY Bailout?

I would imagine that the UK economy will continue to lack confidence until the upcoming Election (mid-year?) is resolved?

• Until then you will still have the “Dead man walking” ex-Chancellor Gordon Brown in charge?
• Who knows, it may still end up being something of a contest, or it may be the Tories are back in charge?
• CBI Raises U.K. Growth Forecast for 2010, Predicts BOE ‘Pause’
• Engineering a Strong UK Economic Recovery into a May 2010 General Election?

Is the European Union starting to flex its economic muscles?

• I have heard that the EU is considering a Flat Tax rate for business?
• I have also been told that there the EU is now considering/implementing a Pan-European Legislature?
• What will the repercussions of this be?
• Will this allow the EU to implement laws quicker than the member states?
• Would we have a situation where the UK prefers to implement legislative motions through the EU process because of convenience or speed?
• Will traditional US based HQ’s start considering moving HQ’s to EU in order to potentially take advantage of these proposed changes?

Technical

MS should be releasing the latest edition of Windows Embedded (WES) 2011 in mid-year – this could be very interesting for a number of reasons

• This is essentially Windows 7 “super lite” and appears to be pretty much compatible with everything
• So easy to build a new runtime it no longer needs a developer to create bespoke instances
• Comes with the choice of enabling either Enhanced Write Filter (EWF) or File Based Write Filter (FBWF) to protect the base image
• A “Thin Client” install is only 1.5G in size – well down for the standard Windows 7 with Office reaching more like 20Gb
• Sure – the terms of the EULA specifically prohibit the *install* of Full MS Office Products
• But that doesn’t preclude any Application Streaming or Virtualization efforts?
• At only USD$90 a runtime version – will this be *THE* VDI base OS of choice? 
• It’s small, light, cheap AND it is non-persistent straight out of the box – it’s certainly worthy of some consideration?

The “Cloud” will continue to gain traction – Amazons Web Services (AWS) has had its 5^th anniversary and MS’s Azure (pricing here) makes its debut.

written by dcaddick