Books of 2024: Part 2

Gazettabyte asks industry figures to pick their reads of the year. In Part 2, Scott Wilkinson, Nigel Toon and Kailem Anderson select their best reads.

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Scott Wilkinson, Lead Analyst, Networking Components, Cignal AI

I spent the year enjoying a poem a day from Brian Bilston’s Days Like These: An Alternative Guide to the Year in 366 Poems.

You may have seen his poems on social media, as he’s sometimes called The Poet Laureate of Twitter. It’s been a joy to end the day with one of his hilarious, occasionally poignant, and always topical poems.

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Books in 2023

Gazettabyte asks industry figures to pick their reads of the year. William Koss, Dean Bubley and Scott Wilkinson kick off this year's recommended reads.

William R Koss, CEO at Drut Technologies

My 2023 reading list is less than normal as the year has been full of technical reading and presentation materials for work. I enjoy history books as well as business history that tell the rise and fall of some company, industry or person.

In Progress 

Target Tokyo: The Story of the Sorge Spy Ring by Gordon Prange: I picked this book out of Amazon's recommendation list. Gordon Prange being the author of At Dawn We Slept and Tora, Tora, Tora. Currently plowing through this book that was unfinished at the time of his death.

The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land by Thomas Asbridge. My knowledge of the Crusades was thin and I was looking for a book that provided a grand overview. So far it has not disappointed, but I have had to familiarize myself with many new names.

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The market opportunity for linear drive optics

A key theme at OFC earlier this year that surprised many was linear drive optics. Its attention at the optical communications and networking event was intriguing because linear drive - based on using remote silicon to drive photonics - is not new.

Scott Wilkinson

"I spoke to one company that had a [linear drive] demo on the show floor," says Scott Wilkinson, lead analyst for networking components at Cignal AI. "They had been working on the technology for four years and were taken aback; they weren't expecting people to come by and ask about it. "

The cause of the buzz? Andy Bechtolsheim, famed investor, co-founder and chief development officer of network switching firm Arista Networks and, before that, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems.

"Andy came out and said this is a big deal, and that got many people talking about it," says Wilkinson, author of a recent linear drive market research report.

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