This post is aimed at helping friends bootstrap projects (although they certainly don’t need me to turn everything into gold, especially these ones). I apologize for the inconvenience caused to readers coming for content, not announcements, but these are 2 AMAZING projects that definitely deserve exposure. Unfortunately, a number of readers won’t be able to be part of the game since #1 is for French companies only, and #2 is for French speakers only. There we go:

1. Sheirin Iravantchi, Aymeril Hoang & Paul Degueuse, three people who have been instrumental in the success of the study trip to Silicon Valley (full quality debriefing in French by Olivier Ezratty here)I organized back in November 2007, are organizing what they call a (French)TechTour between May 19th & May 23rd 2008. The concept is pretty clear and very appealing: a sample of 10 startups will be selected to go to Silicon Valley & meet with corporate development departments of major large corps. Here’s a list of planned meetings (note the diversity of industries considered):
   1. Google David Lawee, VP corporate development
   2. Ebay Erik Stuart, Director, Corporate Strategy
   3. Cisco Didier Moretti, VP Business Incubation, Emerging Technologies Group
   4. Microsoft Beti Cung, Director, Emerging Business Team - I met Beti before, and an hour with her is worth the return trip: super smart girl, if all meetings are planned to be of such quality then becoming a TechTour participant is what you should be desperate working on
   5. HP Damien Henault, Director, Strategy & Corporate Development
   6. AT&T Rupert C. Young, Director, Strategic Business Development
   7. Intel Capital Eghosa Omoigui, Director, Strategic Investments
   8. Symantec Hans van Rietschote, Senior Director, Office of the Chief Technology Officer

Assuming that the agenda speaks for itself, impressive uh?, my bet is that you should take a look at the following links and apply:

(French)TechTour, the blog here; details on the tour here; application file here; the launch post here. Enjoy!

2. Thomas Faivre-Duboz, a former classmate of mine & Raphaël Fétique are 2 very active entrepreneurs in Paris. They run a consultancy aimed at helping website owners with a conversion rate enhancement methodology. The name of their company? Converteo. The good news is that Converto recently launched an Error404 competition: design the most appealing Error 404 page and you’ll win a one week conversion rate optimization audit worth 4000 euros HT (1 million US dollars – just kiddin’, around 6000 USD). I believe this is a great initiative: some Error 404 pages can be such a shame that they might never make you feel like coming back on a site; on the other hand, some display a message like ‘our teams are now aware of the malfunction, thank you for helping us improve our service and sorry for the inconvenience’, a sort of message that may improve user stickiness at the end of the day. Here’s the link to the Error 404 Converteo competition.

Wanna jump on one or the other, or both competitions? Please be their guest. Feel free to keep me posted on the outcome of your applications.

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I usually don’t ‘steal’ posts from others -especially without adding any value-adding comment, but I couldn’t help sharing this one – found on Richard’s blog thanks to Twitter (follow him). Here’s a very inspiring slideshow by Index Ventures VC & founder of Open Coffee Saul Klein:

[slideshare id=58242&doc=nextweb2007-saul-1518&w=425]

The slideshow speaks for itself, doesn’t it? And even if you don’t chose to become an entrepreneur yourself at this very moment, in Europe or elsewhere, my take is that you should join an early-stage startup. Let me tell you a quick story about this.

The first time I thought of leaving MS to start a startup (a thought that never occurred again, believe it or not, before I actually walked out to either join another company or take the big plunge), I hadn’t even joined Microsoft. I was at Capital IT, a major VC forum in Paris, as a Microsoftee although I was due to join the company a few days later. There I met, for the first and last time so far, Pascal Mercier, a French fundraiser whose firm Aelios Finance is pretty successful at matching the best entrepreneurs and smart money (to my knowledge both angels & VCs). I was introduced as a recent graduate and the second we met, Pascal Mercier asked: “Why didn’t you choose to join a startup rather?”. The best answer I found was: “but I do work for startups!” Which I thought was true since 1) MS is just a damn successful startup (you would be surprised to see the easy-going startup atmosphere within the company); 2) I was part of the team that took care of emerging ISVs in France. Acknowledging reason #2 only I guess, Pascal nodded and we parted ways. I later realized though that working for startups, and working in a startup, are clearly two different things. When you represent Microsoft, you may call whoever you want and the door will be opened the next day. Your brand power is so strong that at the end of the day, you never know whether you achieved great things because you’re damn so good, or because your company is so powerful in its industry. As an entrepreneur, and I’ve been facing this issue already, you need to fight like a pitbull to get passed through the right person on the phone, and fight again to get an appointment. I should also mention that you’ll need to deliver the best pitch of your life, after waiting for an hour in the lobby without even being served a cup of coffee, to actually get to the point where you may pretend to try and sell your solution. This struggle for survival is real life and that makes entrepreneurs fully accountable for their success or failure.

The same rationale goes for early-stage startups, without a brand name yet: life will be tougher for sure than if you worked for a big name, but the impact you can have on such companies is huge (eg double revenues in 6 months, etc. something unachievable in an 85K-strong corporation like Microsoft – or even at Google, a 20K-strong company & definitely not a startup anymore). Whether you want to be an entrepreneur or join a larger group later in your career (or both), an unknown and yet ambitious startup is where you should start your career to acquire the right survival toolkit. By the way, did I mention the stock option plan?

My two cents…

Addendum 11am: check out comment #3 to discover how to spot startups that will pay you better than large corporations and resign from consulting, banking and Fortune 500 companies to join them!

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That is the question…

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=pr7lDlUfw9w]

Video not available anymore, find it here.

What do you guys think?

via LittleGirl

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I’m exhausted and it’s only half of the study trip, but I enjoy SO MUCH going with a great bunch of cool guys to amazing companies like OQO, Netvibes, City Council of SF, l’Atelier US, eBay, Box.net, SRI, Stanford, Meetro and tomorrow Twitter, Neocase, Microsoft, Google, Plug & Play, the Churchill Club, XOBNI – & the day after Orb Networks, Orange, SAP, PodTech, Bizanga + great VCs like Jean-Louis Gassée, Vincent Worms from Partech, Matt Lecar from Partech, Sven Strohband from MDV & Jeff Clavier from SoftTech VC + Marylène Delbourg-Delphis, who actually recruited Guy Kawasaki out of Apple & François Laugier, a prominent lawyer in Silicon Valley….that I haven’t had the energy to blog recently. At night, after 7 visits during the day, all I think about is collapsing.

We’re only half way and here’s our program (below). I’ll make sure I blog extensively as soon as I find some time – although I’ll have to blog on TechEd in Barcelona first. I’m late, I know.

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 In chess, a gambetto – say it with an Italian accent, consists in sacrificing a piece at the beginning of a game to gain a competitive position on the exchequer – for example through the control of the center of the chessboard or one of the long diagonals.

Getting back to business (we’ll get back to the gambetto later), it is very common to say that the state of an economy is reflected by the strength of its currency when the Euro currency is weak – and hence that the economy of the EU are in poor shape. However, when the Euro gets stronger, companies and officials claim that corporations are constrained in their efforts to export goods and services and that the situation should be reversed or the EU will soon enter an economic turmoil.

I think this is all too easy and bullshit.

God Dollar used to be the only viable currency in international trade, until the Euro came out of nowhere in January 2000 (2001 for actual pocket coins and bills). The European Union is the world’s largest consumer market, and a gateway to the Middle East and Africa for American companies. Although the Dollar still dominates international transactions of goods (slightly) and financial transactions (easily), the Euro has emerged as a tangible alternative considering the political stability of the region.

Consequently, the Euro vs. US Dollar exchange rate has kept growing insanely from 1 EUR = USD 0.85 in mid 2000 (1 EUR = 1.19 USD on January 1st 2000) to 1 EURO = USD 1.47 USD today. Althoug I acknowledge the trickiness of the situation for export businesses, high tech or not, I see very few corporations have implemented hedging strategies or make proper use of forward contracts – which is a shame. Still, instead of lamenting, I believe economic decision makers of both the US and the EU should roll up their sleeves and act in such a way (hell yeah I’m even givin’ lessons now, love blogging…):

For US High Tech companies: go for internationalization. Acquiring hardware, software, telco devices, consumer electronics and services labeled in USD has never been cheaper. So why wait? I’m pretty sure any potential buyer would understand this reasoning. A weak USD is a fantastic opportunity for American exporters to thrive abroad, and win strategic, long-term projects. It doesn’t matter whether the profitability of these projects is low: what matters is to build reputation on new markets, or to highlight your competitive advantage against local players. Remember, the gambetto? Be ready to sacrifice a few cents today (anyways, the dollar rates so low that it’s no big loss whatsoever) to be in the real race when that moment comes.

For European high tech ventures: shop for intellectual property and talents in the US since the Euro has never been so strong against the US Dollar – which will make acquiring quality companies cheap, and build production capability in China and India (or go and get cheap but excellent developers in Eastern Europe, before the Euro comes there, or Israel) to reduce the cost of goods sold, enhance their competitiveness and therefore be ready for a shift during harsher economic times or win back market share on their competitors’ behalf. EU corporations, especially the big ones, find it hard to tear the P&L from the balance sheet and should learn to make better investments. Remember when the VCs said that few large European high tech corporations had a real, sound external growth strategy? Even though making the quarter may seem tough because of a strong Euro, acquiring today technologies that will generate tomorrow’s revenues boils down to ‘sacrificing’ a small slice of the pie to weaken the competition, and build a better product offer for tomorrow. Gambetto again.

Now waiting for the Chinese Yuan to offer a third way…

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Over the last 6 years, the Oracle has consistently outperformed its arch rival SAP (see chart below: SAP’s in red)

Could M&A be more virtuous than organic growth after all? This is a real, tricky question: Oracle mostly grows through a well-thought acquisition strategy whilst SAP has always preached organic growth. Most people, including my humble self, would tend to answer “no” intuitively: organic growth has to be better than external growth. But isn’t the Oracle example proving us wrong?

Large high tech corporations are famous for acquiring technologies, engineers, and intellectual property rather than market share. In other words, disruptive startup acquisitions (CISCO is probably the best example of a company with a real acquisition integration know-how) rather than larger company mergers. With its bullish-at-utmost approach, Oracle has truly turned the tables: Oracle has kept acquiring large enterprise software publishers like JD Edwards, Temposoft, PeopleSoft, Siebel, Hyperion, Agile. Since 2004, Oracle has acquired 35 companies for a total amount of 25 billion US dollars (average price: US$ 700m). Integrating these companies has been and remains a challenge for Oracle: internal wars between people from different acquisitions are still going on here and there. These could be qualified as counter-productive for Oracle. However, why does its stock do so well? How come Oracle provides such a track record of supposedly ‘worse practices’ while at the same time, it has never performed so well in its history 2007 (revenues: close to US$ 20bn; net profit: close to US$ 5bn; current revenue growth: +20%, largely due to acquisitions; earning per share increase: 25% +)

ex-Oracle entrepreneurs: born or made?

The culture of Oracle is said to be extremely tough, result-oriented – which produces highly aggressive and effective executives, but is no pick for people looking for a mild atmosphere at the workplace. As a result, Oracle as a workplace is one of the most controversial places in the high tech world. I believe it shouldn’t: Oracle has produced some of the best entrepreneurs in the software industry. For instance, Bernard Liautaud and Denis Payre, founders of Business Objects, were Sales executives at Oracle before starting up BO; Charles Ferguson, founder of Vermeer Technologies (which produced Frontpage and was later acquired by Microsoft) had worked 6 months at Oracle before returning to his Ph. D. research; Marc Benioff had spent 13 years at Oracle Corporation between 1986 and 1999 upon founding Salesforce; mBED and NetLedger, later renamed NetSuite, were founded by Evan Goldberg who had priorly worked with Larry Ellison for 8 years at Oracle; and I’m not even mentioning the hundreds of Oracle spin offs or startups ran by former Oracle execs…By the way, I may have forgotten some of these. Which other large high tech corporations are famous for producing (or not producing) executives keen on founding great startups?

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There has been a good deal of literature on the recent subprime mortgage financial so-called crisis. I haven’t seen anything related to the impact of this downturn on the high tech industry. Let’s hence cross the chasm and write a brief note about it.

In short and broadly speaking, what the subprime lending crunch is all about:

Not-so-professional professional lenders like NovaStar & New Century Financial grant mortgages to low-revenue borrowers; interest rates pick up and so does the debt burden, from a low-revenue borrower view point; so, low-revenue borrowers can’t actually refinance the interests of their debt, which means they have to sell their property. But since a large number of low-revenue borrowers act the same way and the real estate market shows uncertainties, estate prices go down, which urges potential buyers to wait longer, and refrains borrowers to refinance their debt, and so on and so forth. At the end of the day, this year’s subprime credit crunch looks a lot alike what happened in Japan in 1993, although and fortunately at a much lower scale: mortage lenders limited partners (mainly financial institutions: banks or insurance companies) as for a due subprime lenders can’t refinance because their low-revenue borrowers are having a hard time making both ends meet. Henceforth, subprime lenders are stated insolvent and go bust, their assets being redistributed to their lenders, and the remaining to their accounts payable & shareholders. It goes without saying that the last ones to get their money back, namely the shareholders, usually don’t get it all back (this is A)… Meanwhile, financial institutions from all over the world have invested, on behalf of their in subprime securities, supposed to be zero-risk investments. However, it appears these zero-risk investments happen to be very risky (this is B). A + B = generalized lost of confidence in financial markets that central banks try to diminish by printing dollar bills aimed at making sure local financial institutions, which have invested their clients’ money at zero-risk rates, don’t fall; scapegoats nominated: debt / risk rating agencies like S&P, Fitch, Moodies (the usual suspects); increased volatility due to higher sensitiveness to macroeconomic perspectives.

Nothing so bad after all. Everybody knew there would be a downturn at some point. The point is that nobody knew how bad it would turn out to be, and when it would occur.

Impact of subprime crunch on the Software industry:

R&D budget cuts: this is typical everytime there’s a downturn: large corporations cut R&D budgets (which I find dumb since downturns are excellent times for innovation and fostering one’s competitive advantage through information systems; but well, I’m not in charge here). End result: software sales aimed at R&D departments (eg. Dassault Systèmes’ CATIA) are likely to suffer temporarily.

Online Advertising. Well, let’s not beat around the bush: what about Google? My call: any crisis can only be positive for Google; offline commercials are harder to track. Through online advertising, you get to gather scientific ROI metrics, and benefit from increased accountability, flexibility, reactivity. A crisis can only accelerate the shift from offline advertising to online ads. It would be a good time for Microsoft to launch its AdCenter platform. Advertisers are dying to be able to choose between Google (which has become pretty expensive being alone over years) and something else than Yahoo! Overture. By the way, Criteo is soon to release Criteo Ads worldwide (only available in Beta and in French as of today) as an alternative to Google.

US subprime crunch will necessarily benefit independent software vendor SideTrade, a net working capital killer SaaS company (reduced net working capital increases free cash flows and accelerates debt refinancing – which is always a smart move when interest rates go up).

• US subprime crunch will also benefit procurement management software (for cost control reasons obviously).

• The subprime crisis will have no impact on retail (people will still need to eat and buy consumable &/or perishable goods), storage investments, and security solutions.

• Telco-related software technologies potentially driving cost killing (like VoIP systems: remember Skype is software, not telco) will regain interest from corporate buyers and CIO since negotiations are likely to get tougher with mobile and land line fleet vendors.

• CRM and BI / Datamining shouldn’t suffer from the downturn since it is generally agreed that it costs more to acquire a new client than to keep existing customers.

Impact on subprime crunch on IT consulting:

Severe shortcuts are expected in IT consulting, especially in banking / insurance where uncertainties are likely to remain higher for a short period of time (a few months). Such redundancies will have a positive impact on the software industry where finding skilled developers has become nothing less than a nightmare. Last and not least, the subprime crunch is very likely to accelerate the ongoing IT & BPO offshoring trend.

Impact on Venture Capital:

On the one hand, venture capitalists may suffer from limited partners (financial institutions in general + wealthy individuals and families) appearing less eager to increase VC-managed funds. On the other hand, venture capitalists invest in private equity that isn’t correlated with either the fixed income market (high tech startups never raise debt).

So what, is that a draw? Not quite. My call is that the VC market will suffer if stockmarket indexes remain low. The reason I believe so is that IPO opportunities will result dampered for a mid-term time frame.

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The difference between these startups and any Web 2.0 parody of brands is that a vast majority of these software startup actually generate cash. On the WWW, eCommerce companies put aside, the bulk of services generate zero revenues. In the so-called Web 2.0 world, only market leaders like Meetic, LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace are profitable – which is not the case with software publishers in general, software being the one industry amongst its peers with the highest row margins.

A few stats about these startups:

- all segments of the software industry represented (digital entertainment, enterprise software, mobility, robotics, SaaS and…Web 2.0)

- an average growth rate of 300%, some of these startups even topping 1000% figures (Miyowa, Excentive, etc.)

- 2 failures out of 50+ companies (4% mortality ratio: extremely low for early stage companies)

- about half of these software ventures have raised series A for an average financing of 3m euros (4m USD) with top-tier venture capital shops

I’m keeping internationalization figures for myself – but I’m telling you, it’s very impressive. More info about the Microsoft IDEAS program aimed at enhancing the expansion of high potential software startups right here.

Before I wrap this post up, which French software startups are to join IDEAS next? We’re opened to all recommendations and I’ll be glad to answer any question regarding this program.

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Heard today at a venture ecosystem gathering:

“A VC sowing cash in a start up to see it grow is like a man & woman, married, making a baby. Statistics say 60% of men cheat on their wives and 30% of women cheat on their husbands. I believe the same goes for venture capitalists (men) and start uppers (women).”

I can’t think of so many examples though. Hope it’s not true

• I remember a few (bad?) VCs withdrew their money when they could (diluted management) in the aftermath of the bubble burst in 2001. I can think of other. But to avoid such situations, be good and you’ll get good VCs on board.

• VCs who managed to ‘package’ well crappy start ups just to get rid of them and sell it to the big guys around (ORCL, CSCO, GOOG, MSFT, YHOO, IBM, AAPL, etc.) but then it’s not cheating with one’s wife: if the big player bought it, it means it sucks in due diligencing and assessing opportunities; or maybe the VC had the right arguments, at the right time. It’s his/her job after all. Too bad for the big ones.

• When it comes to entrepreneurs, I don’t see any reason why they would cheat on their investors. Maybe overselling your business plan a bit? Isn’t selling yourself the very rule of the game? And if the VC buys it, isn’t (s)he appropriating it at the same time?

Any interesting concrete story, anyone?

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• Did you know it costs between US$3922 (Infor) and US$5995 (SAP) per user (services included) to deploy an ERP? (source: Aberdeen 2006) I think 1) I find the people complaining about the price of MS Office 2007 (between US$149 & US$679) insane; 2) Deploying an ERP or any other solution is not so expensive after all when you consider good software adds value to the shareholders of client companies through improving business processes (or improve end-user comfort). Sadly enough, only the best Chief Information Officers understand software is more an investment (balance sheet) than an expense (P&L) line.

• Did you know it seems there is a difference between SaaS and ASP, and I don’t know what it is? SOS

• Did you know Microsoft launched Popfly? Popfly is an amazing tool devised in Silverlight, that allows for creating mash ups without writing a single line of code. I love Microsoft’s strategy of driving the ‘web philosophy’ within the organization through ‘small, useful & beautiful’ apps like Popfly [More on blogs: Don Dodge; Robert Scoble; TechCrunch; Somasegar; for those who read French and feel like reading a nice brainstorming on potential mash ups, here's a nice post by e-tail entrepreneur Michel de Guilhermier; and here's a mash up matrix, if you lack ideas to start building in 2 clicks your own mash ups on Popfly] Congrats to Pierlag & Clauer, from MS France, who contributed to building Popfly last month in Redmond.

• Did you know I had breakfast this morning with one of my most reliable industry sources, in Paris for a couple days? Well, of course you didn’t know…According to many people around, Google is getting ready to enter the mobile OS market to compete with Symbian, Blackberry & Windows Mobile. Remember: Google had acquired Android back in August 2005. If the rumour turns out to be true, it means Google has chosen to go it alone in telco device software and not partner with Apple in the end. I would see it as good news for consumers as competition is always good. On top of this, I think Google has in its DNA what it takes to build simple, light software that fit hand device use characteristics.

• Did you know I’ve been wondering whether Microsoft’s fiercest competitor isn’t Cisco after all? I believe Cisco is a amazing company, ran by very smart people, that’s threatening Google as well by slowly entering the consumer market via a computer networks angle.

• Did you know I found blogger Cédric Giorgi’s case study about the way French & Toulouse-based eCommerce start up Vente du Diable organized its viral marketing & community building thrilling? Download the .pdf here. In English. Congrats Cedric, it’s a really nice case study and your down-to-earth strategy shows how well you understand the web.

• Did you know that one year ago I didn’t know what Ajax, Ruby (both heard about from Hubert) and C# (heard about from Damien, I knew the C# sign but had never pronounced it actually) were?

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Yesterday, Microsoft announced the acquisition of Paris-based mobile advertising start up ScreenTonic for an undisclosed amount.

First things first, there’s no way I can explain better than David Rowe (in English) or that guy Julien (in French) who had suggested the deal to Microsoft Corp several months ago, why it makes a lot of business sense for Microsoft to have acquired Screentonic (you may also check the New York Times for facts related by an independent third party). I’m trying to analyze this deal from a slightly different view point: what kind of strategy has Microsoft undertaken vs. an everyday fiercer competition?

To make a long story short, when CISCO (US$ 3.2bn for WebEx) & Google (US$ 3.1bn for DoubleClick) spend zillions in external growth purchasing US-based companies, Microsoft chooses to acquire ScreenTonic, a Paris-born company with operations in London as well, which roughly speaking made US$ 7m (EUR 5m) in sales last year in the mobile advertising business. I’m not saying CISCO and Google are mistaking (actually, I can’t help admiring CISCO & Google for the excellence of their people & the quality of everything they do – and I share the same feelings for Microsoft and Apple): Microsoft’s strategy just differs. And it differs in a way that I find disruptive, for 3 reasons. 2 good reasons and 1 evil reason.

1) First (good reason): Microsoft acknowledges smart people drive innovation, no matter their geographical location

Microsoft, in acquiring ScreenTonic, isn’t acquiring a leading market share or preventing a competitor from buying ScreenTonic before they did (as Google might have done for DoubleClick vs. AOL, Microsoft & Yahoo!). In acquiring ScreenTonic, Microsoft as a matter of fact just recruited smart people.

So far, so good.

But isn’t Microsoft the epitome of the centralized organization? A world corporation that locates all product developments at its headquarters? Won’t all their top software developers be asked to relocate to Redmond? Not at all, or – let’s put it that way, not anymore.

Microsoft is adapting globalization and goes for agility. The world is full of smart people, and Microsoft probably believes France has a few of them as it decided to maintain ScreenTonic’s product development, in other words mobile advertising R&D, in Paris.

Good for France, which seems to have become Microsoft’s mobile technologies lab (15 months ago, Microsoft had also acquired Paris-based mobile search start up MotionBridge – see Walter Adamson’s post here).

2) Second good reason: Microsoft cares for its shareholders

Speaking of shareholder value creation, 90% of mergers are a disaster, 2/3 of acquisitions are failures – and I guess this is even more sort of true in the world of technology. When it comes to acquisitions, small is beautiful. It minimizes the integration, clash-of-cultures, risk and allows for the target (the small company) to make use of the predator (the big one) as a leverage to enhance its growth (CISCO does this perfectly for instance).

I wouldn’t be surprised if ScreenTonic’s sales and profit suddenly accelerated (reassured clients, cash to hire sales staff, marketing budgets on the rise, media hype, etc.).

3) Third reason (The Evil one): Unlike Yahoo! (Flickr, Del.icio.us, etc.) for instance, Microsoft shows Blindness 2.0

Why the heck is Microsoft waiting for to enter the Web 2.0 era? Here’s a quote from one of Robert Scoble’s recent posts, following Nick Carr’s statement that Microsoft would die: “Yesterday I was talking to some people and noted that in Web 1.0 Microsoft acquired Hotmail. What’s Microsoft’s big Web 2.0 acquisition? I can’t think of one. Why is that?” (source: Scobleizer)

My call: Microsoft should go for Facebook. Just to show them.

Okay, maybe not…

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I can’t wait to have a look at mid-2007 financial statements of all major hardware companies like EMC, HP & IBM. It seems software revenues account for the bulk of hardware manufacturers sales and profits – and I suspect the same goes for all major computer network companies (Cisco which has always and quite wisely heavily invested in software, Lucent-Alcatel, Nortel, etc.). Let’s quickly examine example of the above-mentioned companies:

1. IBM Software Group for instance, a world leader in middleware solutions & second-to-Microsoft in total software sales, represents one fifth of total IBM Corp. revenues, and published a gross margin (83,6%) roughly twice as high as IBM’s average gross margin (40,2%). See the 1Q results slides of their CFO Mark Loughridge here.

2. EMC, a world-leading data storage company, owes the increase of its 1Q profit almost exclusively to the tremendous growth of its software revenues. Such a performance from EMC software is due to strong competitive positions on a number of key and growing markets:

• dematerialization software with EMC Documentum;
• collaborative data exchange solutions with EMC eRoom;
• virtualization software with VMWare, which yearly turnover had even doubled in 4Q06 only;
• encryption solutions with RSA Security, a company EMC had acquired in end-2005 for US$ 2.1bn;
• I’m stopping here, the list would be endless.

3. HP invests so heavily in software that it had seen the size of its software group double in 2006, with the rather clever acquisition of Mercury Interactive only. Not to mention the 2005 acquisitions of OpenView (still not so well embedded within the HP offer I think) & Peregrine Systems (that filled a critical gap in the area of IT administration in my opinion). Again, HP software grew 81% over a year in 1Q07, vs.11% for the company.

Software has turned and is becoming everyday more a key cash inflow stream for global companies, which are looking for the right preys to hunt. Consequently, I believe opportunities to start software start ups have never been so wide opened: there exists a significant number of growth avenues for talented software teams. The quest is no longer for market-traction (it’s there, clients & consumers understand the value software as a strong enabler), money (there has been plenty of financing available @ venture capitalists for quite a while, and it seems to be a long term thing as new funds are being raised here and there everyday) or a good idea (I have plenty of these in case you need one).

The real bottleneck are: 1) guts to start up something on your own: too many people (including me), and software developers (not including me) join big, established companies while value creation lies in promising start ups; 2) the number of talents available to build up your team; I know it’s somewhat related to my first point, but although it’s nice to see an entrepreneur going out of the wood, (s)he isn’t going anywhere without a few lieutenants who share her/his vision and yet are complementary in term of skills & personality.

And don’t worry about the exit: a software pure player may acquire you, as well as any hardware or computer network company. In other words, digital convergence is something real, hence making of all technology companies potential buyers of promising software start ups, as software is getting hotter and hotter – revenue & profit margin-wise.

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Software companies founded by hackers quite naturally have a culture deeply rooted in technology and software development genius. So far, so good.

The founder in most times is an excellent software developer with a sound business acumen – or (s)he wouldn’t have found a start up. But since the culture of the company values technical abilities, the employees most likely to be called in managerial functions will tend to be the very best software developers.

However, these excellent hackers don’t necessarily have what it takes to manage a team. I can’t avoid to bring a cliché on the table here: it happens that geeks spending days in front of a monitor are quite introverted.

As a result, some of these top programmers will reach their level of incompetency: second to none when it comes to writing smart code, top software developers aren’t necessarily good managers (although there are countless counter examples). Consequently, frustrated with not having time to hack code (what they’re best at) anymore while reviewing code and getting their people organized, or constraining their teams with their tendency to intervene directly on their code at night, many software start ups loose some of their best assets during their growth phase. It goes without saying that every top developer leaving to the competition jeopardizes their innovation capabilities.

To avoid this epitome of Peter’s Principle, I guess software start ups should 2 different people development paths: the managerial scheme, and the technological expertise scheme. IBM had initiated the move with their distinguished engineers program, soon followed by Microsoft and many other top technology companies – but my call is that it was too late already. IBM & Microsoft had lost many talents growing into big companies. In my humble opinion, start up founders should start thinking on how to empower their people to become crème-de-la-crème in their field of interest from Day 1.

Recruiting, developing and retaining top technical talents is crucial to the success of fast growing start ups. Software development talent should be empowered with the appropriate ladders to advance in their career without having to move into management.

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REGISTRATIONS ARE CLOSED. NO MORE EMAIL PLS.

Fellas,

I should have 2 months available in Nov.-Dec. 07 – mainly to clear all academic obligations I’ll still have to abide by (reports, thesis, etc.). But I thought I could be efficient for once and find some time to enjoy my last bits of student life.

That’s why I decided a couple weeks ago to organize a study trip to Silicon Valley. It will be a week-long study trip focusing on the business of innovation & technology (entrepreneurship, venture capital, software, computer networks & hardware, consumer electronics & Internet, telecommunications) and actually take place between Sunday, 25th November 2007 and Sunday, 2nd December 2007. No kidding, it’s serious business so save the dates!

The study trip will be put up on behalf of the Master of Information Technology at Ecole Centrale Paris (ECP). But it’s opened to everyone although I have intentionally decided to restrict the number of attendants to 20, or so, for the group 1) to remain manageable; 2) to be big enough to open us the doors of Silicon Valley’s bulge bracket companies (yes, the big ones); 3) to be small enough to enable us to visit start up companies on US Road 101 or Network Circle and venture capitalists directly at their office on Sand Hill Rd.

- Why Silicon Valley? Because it’s Mecca for all geeks, entrepreneurs and technologists. The quality of the organizations we’ll visit and the people we’ll meet there is just unmatchable, and I’m convinced we’ll come back with plenty of new ideas and drive to pour in our respective organizations. Makes sense, doesn’t it? About our stay: I’d rather pick up a hotel in the city center of San Francisco so that we can hang around in the city at night (should cost less than paying cabs to go out and come back). So it’s a trip to San Francisco & Silicon Valley!

- What should we be doing there? Visit universities, start ups, incubators, ventures capitalists, corporations, research centers + probably get a snapshot of how the the wine tastes in Napa Valley + hopefully watch the 49ers play. I’ll keep you updated about all scheduled visits until the agenda is frozen. Oops, I was almost forgetting: we should also have some fun! I know it may sound a bit weird to register for a study trip you have no idea what and who you’ll be visiting. But trust me, every second of the trip will be worth it.

- How much? Should all pile up to 1500 euros maxi. (most probably less) including plane fare, accommodation, 2 meals a day (or maybe around 1200 euros & each one pays for its own meals, we’ll see), and local transportation (bus rental for 1 week for the group). I’ll ask you to pay around 2/3 (two thirds) of it by check or bank wire pretty soon to book for plane tickets and hotels (I’ll book everything before April 22nd 2007 as I want to get rid of this before starting to work full-time). All participants will be informed of all details of the cost breakdown of the study trip. Important notice: as many students are taking part of the trip, one should not be surprised by the low luxury standards we will go for in terms of accomodation and food (we’re heading for a low cost hotel & low cost restaurants). Or there’s no way we would fit in a 1500 euros budget.

- How do I join? Registrations are closed. No more email pls.

- How do I help? Help most welcome, but only if not meant to be polite but to actually help; in this case, just let me know that you can give me a hand organizing the study trip (and preferably what you’d like to do). Even if you’re not coming, I’d be glad to gather valuable contacts in Silicon Valley or useful practical advice.

- FAQ? Use the comment section of this very post. I noticed everybody asks the same questions so let’s pool the answers on this post. In case of a private question, I’ll be glad to answer by e-mail. For instance, I’ve answered this question thrice: in case you’re not departing from Paris and coming back to Paris, you’ll have to arrange your plane tickets yourself (and obviously, you won’t pay for the Paris – San Francisco return ticket).

All this being said, I’m looking forward to seeing you in San Francisco & Silicon Valley!

- Who’s coming already? (nationality, University if still student (if applicable), job & company, nota bene (if applicable))

Jeremy Fain (French, HEC Paris & ECP student, Emerging business team junior business developer @ Microsoft France)

Olivier Ezratty (French, independent innovation strategy consultant in Paris & visiting professor @ ECP)

David Merchin (French, technology innovation consultant in Grenoble)

Youssef el Alaoui (Moroccan, ECP student, information system architecture consultant @ IT service company Weave in Paris)

Julien Genestoux (French, founder and manager @ JobEtudiant & LBO Analyst @ BNP Paribas San Francisco, just joining – no plane & no accommodation to book)

Alexandre Otparlic (French, Director of operations @ IT service corporation Alligra in Paris & visiting professor @ ECP)

Philippe Vaillergues (French, CEO @ IT service company Henix in Paris)

Frédéric Boyadjian (French, entrepreneur, departing from Lyon so no need to arrange for plane tickets)

Fabrice Papst (French, independent innovation consultant, founder of Idou)

Olivier Marx (French, founder of web agency Altics)

Mikaël Benfredj (French, web entrepreneur)

Raphaël Labbé (French, founder and business manager of Internet start up company U.[Lik])

Emmanuel Douaud (French, cofounder of social networking start up SeeMy.fr)

Guillaume Limare (French, ESSEC student, founder of inoveum.com)

Bertrand Scache (French, founder of IT budget consultancy Episystem)

Sylvain Zimmer (French, student @ ENSIMAG, founder of Internet start up company Jamendo)

Yonathan Arfi (French, founder of Arcoprod & Doneo.org)

Nabil Bouchlouh (French, ERP consultant @ Scandent Group, on a mission @ IBM)

Henry Nidecker (Swiss, student @ ??, product manager @ Nidecker Snowboard)

Yann Le Gouic (French, student @ Euromed Marseille, marketer @ stuviVZ)

Jacques Froissant (French, founder @ Altaide and cofounder @ Moovement)

Alain Le Corvec (French, former President @ Philips France)

Jacques Cinqualbre (French, cofounder @ HOPI)

Saïd Sebti (Moroccan, venture capital analyst @ Ventech)

Special thanks for their help planning visits, even though they can’t make it:

Benoît Peyronnet (French, France Telecom Group VoIP Abroad program director)

Dana Parries (American, ECP student, IT specialist @ JP Morgan)

Ghislain Morard (French ECP student, entrepreneur)

Michael Salomon (French, Ph.D. student @ Stanford University)

Special thanks to all bloggers who help marketing the event:

Lucien Huang, Ilan Abehassera, Olivier Ezratty, Marc Duchesne, Julien Codorniou, Ouriel Ohayon & Loïc Le Meur, Thomas Faivre-Duboz, Michel de Guilhermier, Cédric Giorgi, Olivier Marx

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Who would believe the area of Santa Clara, the self-proclaimed capital city of Silicon Valley, used to be famous for its prunes before the 1940s? In 1939: 2 young engineers, Bill Hewlett & David Packard, started to develop an oscillator in a garage. Silicon Valley was born.

While wondering about the reasons for this phenomenon in the Paris metro a couple days ago, I wrote on my metro ticket the 10 most relevant-in-my-opinion variables explaining the success of Silicon Valley. I could hardly read what I had put down, but it should more or less boil down to this list:

1. Creative entrepreneurs with a can-do mentality (from dream to execution)
2. Top-notch Universities (Stanford, Berkeley, etc.) & R&D labs (Bell labs & Xerox Park)
3. Venture capitalists back seed and early-stage projects
4. Geeky mindset: appetite for innovation and technology
5. Attracts top technical talents from all over the world
6. « Nothing is impossible » state of mind
7. Failure isn’t perceived as evil: you learn from your mistakes
8. Skills and drive matter more than age, status, degrees, name, bank account well..we’re in the US so maybe, etc.)
9. Official support from relevant authorities (State, tax administration, regulators, politicians, etc.)
10. Climate! (I truly believe software developers are very climate-sensitive)

On a number of points (3., 4., 5., 6., 7., 8., 9., 10.), France still has a long way to go, although a lot has been going on in the Paris Innovation Valley recently – especially in the software (VideoLan, Neolane, Excentive, Total Immersion, Voluntis, SoftFluent, Seemage, L4 Logistics, etc.) and Internet (Netvibes, Wikio, U-[Lik], DailyMotion, Viadeo, etc.) industries.

On top of this, I also found a short and yet pretty interesting video featuring venture capitalists and entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley (namely: Jonathan Medved (Israel Seed Partners, Vringo), Joe Schoendorf (Accel Partners), Mary Alexander (Quova), Daniel Gatti (Big Bangwidth), Kim Odhner (Orient Networks) )(more. Here’s what I took away from it:

• the comparison with Japan (great Universities, top research capabilities, money available; so why aren’t start ups booming there?);
• the difference between the ‘would do’ European mentality and the ‘can do’ American attitude raised by the Dutch woman raised in Atlanta;
• the tax burden dampering Germany’s start up potential;
• the point made about people who keep repeating ‘it’s not possible’. Are you one of these?

While you think about it, watch the video:

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=2WRugBmnvYQ]

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