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Time likes the word “Googleville” too!
Apr 4th
Greenville loves Google!
Happy Easter! We’ve spent the day watching my uncle teach my nieces to golf. In one afternoon they are already better at it than I am at even one minute of put-put. Better even than I am at Wii golf. I understand that it’s all in the wrists, and I have wrists, but my wrists are permanently at odds with golf clubs.
While reinstalling Diablo II on my computer (don’t ask me why) Will discovered that WYFF has a video up alerting us to this Time Magazine article about Google Fiber. If you have an interest in either the Greenville community or the Google Fiber project, it’s worth viewing both. The Time article features Greenville’s effort almost exclusively. No matter what happens, I’m exceedingly proud of our town for pulling this together. From everything I’ve read, Aaron von Frank is to thank for leading this endeavor. Will and I both work in the tech industry downtown and have never met him, but I hope one day we can thank him personally for doing such an amazing job. The concept was simple, perfectly relevant to the challenge, and superbly executed.
Our hats are off to everyone who helped with the planning and all those who twirled a glow stick. Greenville is in your debt.
Googleville!
Mar 19th
Google On Main!
Why haven’t we posted about this before?!
It’s old news to many now (mostly because it was announced a month ago) that Google is going to provide ultra-highspeed Internet access in one or more trial communities. Their marketing documents claim the access will be available in 1 Gbps speeds and beyond which sounds too good to be true!
Greenville, G-Vegas, Beloved Home is vying to be Google’s fiber test-ground. If we’re chosen the benefits for the city are virtually limitless. To get Google’s attention, the city is organizing a demonstration tomorrow evening. Thousands of Greenvillians are assembling armed with LED glow sticks in different colors behind the Peace Center and marching down to Falls Park on the Reedy River to form the word “Google.” Helicopters will film all this from above, and I anticipate a virtual downtown block party when they finish. I don’t have many other details, but I’ve heard there will be much more to it. Will and I will try to be on-site with a camera to document the event. I’d love to take part but with my recent MS attack I don’t think I’m reliable enough to make the walk. As I joked last night, from a helicopter I would look like a lost packet hobbling around trying to find a bench. I really want one of these reusable glow sticks though.
Greenville Online has reported on this a little and the official site for the event is WeAreFeelingLucky.com, a reference to Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” search feature.
Greenville was also one of the highlighted cities in this article. According to this, our competition is :
- Columbia, Missouri who held up signs during a basketball game. We watched this game and I missed this completely.
- Grand Rapids, Michigan who is organizing a flash mob fiber ring of people holding hands.
- Peoria, Illinois who sang a song and taped themselves doing it.
- Topeka, Kansas who renamed their city to Google for the month of March.
- Sarasota, Florida who renamed City Island to Google Island.
- Duluth, Minnesota who organized a Googlefest and dunked their mayor into Lake Superior.
Sure, we’re biased because we live here, but we love Greenville, SC and I can’t think of a better place for a Google Fiber Trial. We have tons of cool businesses already in the area (Michelin, BMW, iCar, Windstream) not to mention some big businesses coming in that will bring a lot of new jobs. Greenville, SC was also rated the #1 Micro City in the United States in the 2009/2010 North American Cities of the Future. Check out the links and come support Greenville!
UPDATE : We missed the event entirely (my fault), but here’s a great photo gallery showing some of what went down. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
Greenville loves Google!
Great job on the logo!
Windstream Closes NuVox Acquisition
Feb 8th
Bye bye happy NuVox/NewSouth circle thing!
Today it is official: Windstream has acquired NuVox. Right now we’ve been told this means business as usual. As I said in my last post, Sara and I are both looking forward to the coming changes and being part of a larger company. One thing is for sure, the NuVox brand will be going away and the new company will officially be Windstream. NuVox came into life with a million other CLECS as a result of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and continued to grow through a flurry of mergers and acquisitions. I think the management team and the people we worked with to build this company are second to none and some of the best in the industry.
We’ve accomplished a lot here in the last eight and a half years, and I expect there will be a period of rapid growth and expansion in the not too distant future. The new company has a much larger footprint and is a financial powerhouse, both of which will position Windstream as a leader in the new markets. With the pending acquisition of Iowa Telecom in the pipe, the company seems poised to compete with the likes of AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and Qwest.
Looking back on our time at NuVox and toward the future at Windstream, it doesn’t feel like the last chapter in the NuVox story but the first chapter of a new book. Here are some things about the acquisition I find really exciting:
- Windstream’s annual revenue is now estimated to be approximately $3.7 billion dollars. That number is just mindblowing to me. When I started at NuVox we weren’t even EBIDA positive. 8 years later we are free cash flow positive and netting $565 million in revenue a year with $115 million in operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA). Now our total revenue is just 15% of what they expect the combined company to produce.
- Windstream is investing $20 million into building out their fiber network. This is great, I hope the trend continues as it could make the new company incredibly competitive in the wholesale access market with the huge increase in demand for bandwidth for all applications, mobile in particular.
- Windstream is very excited to be able to sell our products and services. I cannot wait to build out our network to provide them to the entire footprint.
- Working for a company that has traditionally been an ILEC as opposed to NuVox (we were a CLEC) should provide a unique perspective into the other side of the business
I probably won’t post too much specific information (NDAs, etc.) but I will try to keep posting the big news as it comes out over the next few months. Thanks to everyone who has sent us their well wishes over the last few months, Sara and I are very excited to find out what opportunities the next year will bring.
It’s that time of year again… Goodwill donations and eBay auctions galore!
Jan 11th
I think there are some missing cats in here somewhere...
Well it’s that time of year again, namely the new year. Each year Sara and I go through our stuff and find things that fit into either the Goodwill or eBay pile depending on what it is. If we think we can make some money on it then it goes in the eBay pile otherwise it ends up in a box bound for Goodwill. So far this year we’ve already made about $500 dollars in donations to Goodwill according to their pricing sheet and I’ve got about 30 auctions going on eBay with many more to come.
My favorite part of all of this is not a tax write off or the pay off from getting rid of stuff we didn’t even know we have (we made over $1,000 dollars on eBay auctions last year) but eliminating the clutter from our lives. It’s very cathartic to eliminate 15 – 20 boxes of clutter from our house and all of the sudden be no longer owned by our belongings. Last year Sara and I did some late spring / early summer cleaning and found 25 plastic bins like you see in the pictures there in our attic and closets and decided it was time to make some changes. Last April / May our office was full to the ceiling with these plastic bins and our spare bedroom was full of huge cardboard boxes of stuff of all manner that we had accumulated over the years. It was maddening because we couldn’t for the life of us figure out where all of this clutter had come from and it was driving us insane.
Windstream to acquire NuVox
Nov 7th
Bye bye happy NuVox/NewSouth circle thing!
Sara and I have been extremely busy this week so I’ll have to ask you to cut us some slack for being a few days late with this news.
Wednesday November 3rd NuVox, Inc. entered into an agreement to be acquired by the Windstream Corporation (NYSE: WIN).
The purchase has been valued at over $643 million dollars. Windstream expects to issue 18.7 million fixed shares of stock valued at $183 million dollars, pay $280 million dollars, and assume a net debt of $180 million dollars as part of the proposed transaction.
You can read the official statements on press releases at BusinessWire or on the Windstream or NuVox websites. For my unofficial, not in anyway representative of my employer statement, keep reading.
Juniper Networks rebranding and moving deeper into enterprise territory?
Oct 28th
Wow, what is their marketing department thinking?
I’ve read several articles on Forbes.com and Network World this week about Juniper rebranding as they try to make a move deeper into enterprise space. I guess part of this change is hiring the same elementary school class who made Cisco’s crayon logo a few years ago to make over their logo.
All joking aside, Juniper has been pushing hard all year to make a big move into the enterprise space that Cisco has ruled comfortably for years. There is a fair bit of competition in the lower end enterprise space but when you start looking at medium to large sized businesses, they are more or less dominated by Cisco. Jim Metzler and Steve Taylor in this Network World article about a possible Juniper acquisition of Riverbed seem to have missed all of the clear indications that Juniper is heavily invested in making a move into enterprise space. Check out this quote from the article:
We doubt it in part because we don’t see the two companies being a good fit. Although Riverbed certainly does sell into service providers, it is primarily a fast moving enterprise-focused company. Juniper’s DNA is clearly in the service-provider market. In addition, the cost to of acquiring Riverbed would be very high – probably around $2 billion.
