Oracle and Larry Ellison pushes for a national ID card again (and again and again).

Last Tuesday, Oracle owner Larry Ellison's keynote address at his OpenWorld Oracle customer conference in San Francisco slid another sales pitch for his national ID card scheme. Ellison, whose press photos look more like wrestler Dewayne "The Rock" Johnson than the second richest CEO in the world , told the Oracle-centric crowd that his 9i database management software has been delivered to an anonymous US government agency. Ellison declined to specify what the software would be used for or what government agency it was going to, but I would think it has something to do with national identification cards. Given Ellison's preoccupation with forcing a national ID card on US citizens since the evil attacks of September 11 and the fact that Oracle's first big customer 25 years ago was the Central Intelligence Agency, it would be logical to think Ellison's national ID card scheme (run conveniently with Oracle 9i databases) has something to do with this. Amazing that nobody has complained about Ellison's attempt to undermine civil liberties and create a market monopoly with his product...

Few leftist civil libertarian organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union or Electronic Frontier Foundation have spoken out against Ellison's national ID card. There has been a smattering of mild and cautious statements from the left, mostly along the lines of "we are committed to personal freedoms and will watch the debate on a national ID card", but nothing so pointed as "Larry is a nut if he thinks Americans will sign up for a national ID card!" That kind of vitriol has been reserved for the right-wing organizations that accuse any such scheme as an affront to the Constitution and the same as Nazi Germany's insistence that all their people carry their "papers." Ellison hasn't helped his cause much by pushing his plan for an Oracle-run national ID database to every media outlet since late-September. Ellison's national ID scheme had high-profile political support from Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) in the past but lost a lot of that support when Ellison told a newsman on KPIX-TV in San Francisco "This privacy you're concerned about is largely an illusion. All you have to give up is your illusions, not any of your privacy." It's pretty bad when even Daschle and Feinstein think your views are too extreme.

I personally don't mind a national ID if done properly. I see a national ID as a good thing if it would be a highly-integrated piece of biometric technology that takes the place of social security cards and passports, but Ellison's ID card would be a separate piece of ID. I would note that the majority of Americans already carry Social Security cards and driver's licenses, so there's no need for one more bureaucratic entanglement for US citizens to deal with. Especially not one designed with the sole purpose of making Larry Ellison richer. Yes, Ellison might be "donating" the software, but only an idiot would think that Ellison would not charge the government outrageous sums for database maintenance services and upgrades that only work if they come directly from Oracle.

Consolidation of the wireless broadband market is coming.

EarthLink, one of the larger Internet Service Providers in America, announced Friday plans to acquire wireless ISP OmniSky soon. Not surprisingly, OmniSky plans on filing for bankruptcy soon. I'm not a lawyer, but I would like to hear from one if filing for bankruptcy after someone tells the world they're going to buy you out is some kind of trick for getting some extra cash.

I say it's not surprising to hear that OmniSky is going under because few wireless ISPs have survived in the current state of the tech economy. Metricom, the wireless ISP leader with over 51,000 subscribers to their Ricochet service, shut down this year with $1 billion in debt. Texas-based MobileStar temporarily shut down their new network (designed to bring wireless connectivity to 3,000 Starbucks coffee houses) until they scrounged up millions in cash. There have been plenty of hot new companies with young world-changing entrepreneurs gearing up for world domination in the wireless Internet space in the past two years. Almost all of them have gone bust because of money problems (not brought on by an economic downturn, but possibly one of the many causes of the economic downturn). Wireless access is a great idea, but few companies have figured out exactly how to make money off of it.

With OmniSky being bought by EarthLink, and Aerie Networks buying Metricom's Ricochet assets; you're going to see a lot more consolidation in the wireless ISP industry. Profits are a difficult concept for most of these wireless companies (many of whom had little problem with overcharging for their service or were lax about those stealing their service), so the only solution is to have these companies come under the umbrella of a large company that makes money elsewhere. Eventually, the wireless arm of these companies will generate revenue, but until then it's going to be relegated to a niche market. Expect to see Cingular, VoiceStream, AT&T and many other big companies start a wireless industry consolidation in 2002.

WTO means IT for PRC/ROC.

Taiwan and China are now in the World Trade Organization, congrats. Hopefully, this means more Mainland Chinese will find the joys of capitalism, and Taiwan will finally get some of the respect they deserve. With WTO membership, both Taiwan and China are going to have to get serious about enforcing universally accepted anti-piracy laws. Taiwan has been a haven for many software pirates in the past. Some of whom were recently busted in California with millions in pirated Microsoft software. I have no illusions that this will cease, but maybe their newfound respect will help them to combat piracy.

China is another story. After 50 years of oppressive communist rule, most Chinese politicians and citizens have an aversion to basic human concepts like private property. If you lived with the Red Guard breaking down your door any time they feel like it to take your possessions in the name of the Party and for the good of the collective, you'd be a little frightened of private property too. Now that the mainland is in the WTO and feeling the pressure to play nice with the world, maybe we will finally see the Chinese government respecting the intellectual property of their citizens (and ours).

One excellent sign is that IT spending has gone up sharply in China. What's more encouraging is that the four top Chinese PC manufacturers are pledging to use only licensed software products on their new computers. In a nation where software piracy is so rampant and illegal copies of Microsoft Windows sell for a dollar, this is a big step.

Hopefully, this step will lead to a more liberated China in the near future, or the Chinese could continue to keep their centralized government model and oppress their citizens with ridiculous bureaucracies. Even ridiculous bureaucracies have to pay for new computers too. Hey, maybe Ellison could donate his Oracle national ID database software to China...

Your comments and criticisms are welcomed at mailto:scott@worldtechtribune.com
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