I had a great time reconnecting with friends/former co-workers at the Lotus 25th anniversary event in Cambridge last night. I'd like to thank Mitch Kapor and Ray Ozzie, in particular, for making Lotus a uniquely meaningful experience for all it touched. For more insights on how Lotus came to be such a special place, read related chapters in Founders at Work.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
A Diet, Oddly Bland, of Continuous Images and Chat - New York Times
Timely snapshot of important ways in which Joost and other services are unlike traditional TV
Time passes — and I cannot sit still. I reach for my BlackBerry to check e-mail. But wait. Joost and Babelgum have solutions for the multitasker generation. Even as they mimic television, these sites incorporate the social networking and communication tools of cyberspace. Television programs on Joost are played in windows overlaid with screens that allow the communication addict in us to IM our friends within Joost.
Salvation. I send my friend Aaron an e-mail invitation to join Joost.
Source: A Diet, Oddly Bland, of Continuous Images and Chat - New York Times
Annals of Communications: Critical Mass: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker
Interesting snapshot of Walt Mossberg's background and current pulpit
Mossberg’s “Personal Technology” column, which anchors the front of the Journal’s Thursday Marketplace section, is particularly powerful when it comes to judging innovation intended for the consumer market. The opening sentence of his inaugural column, sixteen years ago, was “Personal computers are just too hard to use, and it’s not your fault,” a sentence that Mossberg has since described as his “mission statement.”
Source: Annals of Communications: Critical Mass: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker
I, Cringely . The Pulpit . The Final Daze | PBS
More Cringely analysis and speculation about IBM's game plan (continued from last week)
IBM's mysterious LEAN program, which the company says I mischaracterize but then won't explain specifically what I got wrong, is global. LEAN involves the restructuring of IBM's global workforce to achieve certain unstated goals, most likely centered on profitability, with the goal of regaining that 37 percent decrease in market cap IBM has suffered since 1999. This restructuring means firing employees in some places and hiring them in others. On a GLOBAL basis I can see this program easily hitting 150,000 employees, which is what makes the number not so impossible. IBM will try to focus the discussion on the total number of employees, which may not drop significantly from the current 355,000. But even a five percent reduction in force, which I see as an absolute no-brainer, could involve firing 100,000 employees and hiring 82,250 in some other place.
Microsoft And Cisco: Can They Still Be Pals?
Timely BusinessWeek reality check on perhaps the most strategic enterprise IT competitive context for the next 5 years
In recent years, Cisco CEO John Chambers and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer have met each quarter to discuss ways for the tech titans to work together--and work through areas where they compete. But this "co-opetition" relationship is increasingly tilting more toward competition.
[...]
Despite the jockeying, this battle isn't likely to get as nasty as, say, Apple vs. Microsoft. Cisco and Microsoft still need to cooperate in plenty of areas--in part because their customers demand it. Also, Cisco wants to be in the running for huge contracts to outfit new data centers being built by Microsoft. Says Cisco Chief Development Officer Charles H. Giancarlo: "Ninety percent of our businesses are very synergistic. We've been very clear with them [about areas where they'll compete], and they've been very clear with us."
Friday, May 11, 2007
Puffing Away That PG Rating - New York Times
Better late than never...
In a significant change to its movie ratings system, the Motion Picture Association of America on Thursday said portrayals of smoking would be considered alongside sex and violence in assessing the suitability of movies for young viewers. Films that appear to glamorize smoking will risk a more restrictive rating, and descriptions of tobacco use will be added to the increasingly detailed advisories that accompany each rated film.
Study says iPods can make pacemakers malfunction | CNET News.com
Hmm...
The study tested the effect of the portable music devices on 100 patients, whose mean age was 77, outfitted with pacemakers. Electrical interference was detected half of the time when the iPod was held just 2 inches from the patient's chest for 5 to 10 seconds.
Fortunately,
"Most pacemaker patients are not iPod users," Jongnarangsin said. For that reason, he said, it is unclear how often iPods cause misdiagnosis.
Source: Study says iPods can make pacemakers malfunction | CNET News.com
$45 Million Invested in Internet TV Venture - New York Times
Interesting the founders, after selling Skype to eBay, went for outside funding.
Joost, a start-up that delivers television programming over the Internet, said Thursday that it had received $45 million in financing from venture capitalists and content partners including CBS and Viacom.
The company, based in Luxembourg and started by the creators of the Internet telephone service Skype, plans to use the money to expand its advertising, programming and marketing operations, said David Clark, executive vice president for advertising at Joost.
Source: $45 Million Invested in Internet TV Venture - New York Times
Out of Chaos, Order. Or So Google Says. - New York Times
Attempting to make more of the world's information -- in this case Google's business strategy -- universally accessible and useful...
Speaking at the annual shareholder meeting on Thursday, Eric E. Schmidt, the chief executive, said Google’s long array of initiatives was organized around three ideas.
“Our next strategy evolution is to really think about three components,” Mr. Schmidt said. “Search, ads and apps,” he said, using a common shorthand for applications, or software programs.
Source: Out of Chaos, Order. Or So Google Says. - New York Times
How Lotus changed the business world - The Boston Globe
Timely snapshot/recap of Lotus history. I'm looking forward to reconnecting with many former co-workers tomorrow night.
On Saturday, Mitch Kapor and about 650 of his friends and former colleagues will get together in Cambridge to celebrate changing the business world.
In 1982, Kapor cofounded Lotus Development Corp., the Cambridge software company that developed Lotus 1-2-3, the program that persuaded corporate America to start using desktop computers.
Source: How Lotus changed the business world - The Boston Globe
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Deal Journal - WSJ.com : Revisiting Microsoft-Yahoo, Courtesy of Steve Ballmer
Story goes on to comment about how consensus seems to be emerging that a partnership is more likely than an acquisition. With Google's current leverage and momentum, I suspect no permutation is off the discussion table between MSFT and YHOO.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had the opportunity last night to squash once-and-for-all the rampant chatter lately about a possible purchase of Yahoo by Microsoft. He didn’t take it.
Instead, when asked at the Software 2007 conference in Silicon Valley about a deal “in the $40 billion to $50 billion range” (about what Yahoo would cost), Ballmer said that although the company’s MO is to do smaller deals, larger ones still are “conceivable,” according to this Reuters account of the exchange.
Source: Deal Journal - WSJ.com : Revisiting Microsoft-Yahoo, Courtesy of Steve Ballmer
Dell donates computer to Smithsonian - Yahoo! News
I get his point, but his goal seems consistent with my experience as a Dell customer over the last decade as well...
"If we do our jobs right, I suspect that much of the technology developed right now in 2007 will be ready for the museum in another two or three years or so," said Dell, who dropped out of the University of Texas at Austin 23 years ago when his business took off.
The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: I'm sorry but Sun is pathetic
Read the full post for more FSJ Sun perspectives...
So they have some Java conference and roll out some prototype phone that they're trying to say is like the iPhone. See here. Best part is McNealy, that brain-damaged goon, has his guy come up wearing a black T-shirt and then just in case the morons in the audience don't get the allusion he makes it explicit for them: "We have our own shirtsleeve version of Steve Jobs announcing a phone."
Source: The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: I'm sorry but Sun is pathetic
Google Watch - Google Search - Hitwise: Google at 65 Percent of All Searches
I wonder how eventually becoming a "convicted monopolist" might alter Google's business strategy...
The latest numbers from Hitwise show that Google is continuing a slow but seemingly inexorable climb in popularity. Google accounted for 65.26 percent of all U.S. searches in the month of April. Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com each received 20.73 percent, 8.46 percent and 3.69 percent, respectively.
Source: Google Watch - Google Search - Hitwise: Google at 65 Percent of All Searches
Q&A: Microsoft's Jeff Raikes on pervasive BI, ERP encroachments
Okay, maybe some technology acquisitions...
You announced today that Microsoft is acquiring SoftArtisan's OfficeWriter tool for reporting authoring in Microsoft Office. Can you provide more details about that acquisition and whether this tool is aimed at helping companies who find their IT shops struggling with report request backlogs?
That is the intention. People want access to BI from within the context of the Office tool that they use every day. It was a natural for us with SoftArtisans to want to use their technology as part of opening up the reporting to Word and Excel. [Users] can consume reports from within Word and Excel. Those become an end point for being able to have access to the information.
Source: Q&A: Microsoft's Jeff Raikes on pervasive BI, ERP encroachments
Microsoft opts to build, not buy, business software - Boston.com
Hmm...
"I've never been opposed to the idea of looking at players in the industry. We've looked, to be quite honest," Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft's business division, said in an interview. "We just thought organic development would get us to the real solution faster."
[...]
SAP said on Tuesday it would buy privately held OutlookSoft Corp., a company that helps chief financial officers budget and forecast. A source familiar with the acquisition said SAP paid about $500 million.
In March, Oracle said it would pay $3.3 billion to buy Hyperion Solutions Corp, which competes with Business Objects <BOBJ.O><BOBJ.PA> and Cognos <CSN.TO> in the market for software that helps companies sift through data to detect trends and other information.
[...]
"The cost of our solutions will be a quarter of the traditional solutions," said Raikes, who delivered a speech at the company's first business intelligence conference. "The economics are going to get transformed."
Link to Microsoft opts to build, not buy, business software - Boston.com
BBC NEWS | Technology | Sounds bring Google Earth to life
Interesting times...
A Californian company has created software that can layer relevant recorded sounds over locations in Google Earth, New Scientist reports.
Wild Sanctuary has over 3,500 hours of soundscapes from all over the world.
Source: BBC NEWS | Technology | Sounds bring Google Earth to life
Microsoft to Invest in CareerBuilder Web Site - New York Times
Yow...
Under the deal, CareerBuilder will continue to be the exclusive job search engine on Microsoft’s MSN site through 2013, and will pay Microsoft up to $443 million. The exact amount paid by CareerBuilder will depend on how much traffic MSN drives to the site, the companies said.
Source: Microsoft to Invest in CareerBuilder Web Site - New York Times
Microsoft to kick Vista's e-mail app to the curb | InfoWorld | News | 2007-05-08 | By Gregg Keizer, Computerworld
The end of the road for Outlook Express...
Windows Live Mail will replace Outlook Express on Windows XP and Windows Mail on Vista in "the coming weeks," said Microsoft. The program, which will handle POP, IMAP, and Windows Live Hotmail accounts, was characterized as a faster, more robust version of Windows Live Mail desktop beta, which has been in testing for Windows XP. The beta will be retired.
According to a Windows Live Mail blog, the new client will sport features from Outlook Express, Windows Mail, and the Windows Live Mail desktop beta.
Technology Review: Comcast CEO shows off 150 megabits per second download on next-gen modem
Sign me up, please...
Comcast Corp. Chief Executive Brian Roberts dazzled a cable industry audience Tuesday, showing off for the first time in public new technology that enabled a data download speed of 150 megabits per second, or roughly 25 times faster than today's standard cable modems.
Source: Technology Review: Comcast CEO shows off 150 megabits per second download on next-gen modem
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