To those people that have followed my writing these last two months, I’ve been exposed to virtualisation more than I would like, due to an incompatibility between my Macbook, a Java Virtualbox I’m running on it, and the Windows 2003 server managing our company network. As a result, I’ve been booting a lot into Windows via Boot Camp, got hooked on Windows Live Writer, and have been using Parallels frequently just for that app (I need a Crossover fix for .NET apps badly).

The second consequence is that I’ve been thinking a lot about the implications of virtual OSs. With Google OS recently having been announced, which is supposed to integrate flawlessly with Macs and Windows, assumably Android, as well as being designed for Netbooks, I wonder if Intel, with it’s multi-core processors, has not created a situation where nothing else matters, hardware-wise, except to have a powerful enough processor? In other words, have hardware-manufacturers like Sony, Samsung, and to some extent, Apple simply become irrelevant?

Take Sony for instance, which has just announced its first “Netbook.” It’s one selling point?

“Like other netbooks the Vaio W has a 10-inch screen, but its display has a resolution of 1,366 by 768 pixels rather than the more common 1,024 by 600 pixels. That means more of a Web site can be fitted onto the screen, and the user will have to scroll less, the company said at a launch event in Tokyo on Tuesday.” (emphasis my own)

Not much to write home about, except if you absolutely need to use a Sony, and bear in mind that that company was at some point a premium manufacturer of technology. The PC market has long been commoditised of course, ever since IBM opened its hardware up to the world, but with the rise of ultra-cheap PCs & laptops, I think they are digging their own grave.

I think that, as I wrote in a comment to a recent post, Netbooks are a failed experiment and, to add to that, unless either drastic changes in the cost-structure can be made to increase profit-margins, or new business models can be found (e.g. a similar hardware-service bundling to what has been happening in the mobile phone space), I think that we won’t be hearing from netbooks after 2010 onwards.

What also seems clear is that software companies, with their much more favourable profit margins, are winning this war, and, pretty soon, they won’t have to think about hardware at all any more. Instead of writing for a “spec,” you just need to write for a virtual space, which can run anywhere or everywhere.

Arguably, hardware has always been enslaved to software (except for one company), but I see the Sony’s & Samsung’s of today becoming the Nokia’s & Motorola’s of the future.

Since I’m not a technologist (more of a technology philosopher), I may be drastically oversimplifying. What do you think?
P.S. going to stop signing my name for a while. I’ll see if that makes a difference. V.

Like

Unlike

Let me just start with that I don’t hate Windows, far from it! I like that I can run most applications on it and, let’s face it, it is still a Windows-centric world, so knowing your way around the operating system is a fairly important skill.

As the latest update to Mac OSX Leopard, 10.5.7, has caused some mayhem on my company’s server (something to do with DHCP constantly refreshing my IP, if you can help buzz me), I am now booting into Windows XP via Bootcamp. Additionally, my boss also ordered me a new Dell PC to persuade me to “be like the rest of ‘em” (my own words), but really more to do with security: we work in a Financial Trust, which means that we deal with highly sensitive data that shouldn’t be stored on any laptop, really!

OK, so how do you, as a Mac-user, survive that Windows experience (slash “Trauma”)? Here’s what I did:

• I love Quicksilver (a launch-utility that allows me to circumvent the mouse and explorer interface and launch apps with a few keys), and I am currently using Slickrun as a fairly effective replacement. OK, you won’t exactly be able to program triggers or append text to files, but it works.
• Expose is another “interface aid” I use instead of alt-tab. DExposE2 is a Windows replacement that works fairly similarly.
• Marsedit is my favourite blogging application on the Mac ever (you all know, how frequently I write..) and Windows Live Writer is a surprisingly good replacement for it.
• GDI++ is an interesting font-rendering app for Windows XP users. It took some getting used to, but I find it works well when Cleartype is turned on.
• Textexpander has made writing a slightly more efficient task on the Mac, certainly a less error-prone one. It basically allows you to create abbreviations or add frequently misspelled words and the program then replaces it with the word you intended. On Windows: check out Texter.

As you might have noticed, the “Mac Experience,” to me at least, is not about Application support, it’s about productivity, i.e. doing stuff quicker, which the Mac excels at. Everything else, from Microsoft Office to Mozilla Firefox essentially works the same and, in several cases better, on Windows, so no survival guide needed there.

While I will never enjoy the Windows experience as much as the Mac one, these few things have made my life a little more bearable. If you have some nifty tricks to share that have made your Windows experience better, please share them in the comments!

Vincent

P.S. One thing I would still love to have is a system-wide spell-checker like in OS X.

Like

Unlike

I recently read a ‘filler’-article in Fortune Magazine, entitled “The luxury of choice.” It’s about how more and more products today are being customised for picky end-consumers. The way society is evolving, I think that such ‘pickiness’ is something that is more and more on the rise.

I wonder if such a thing also applies to software, by which I mean anything that can be coded and presented to someone on a screen (so web-apps as well). Traditionally, the power of software has certainly been to mass-produce the same thing, save on storage, reproduction, and distribution, and collect the cash.

But for certain people, like me for instance (more right-brained than left) it’s often quite frustrating that I can’t shift software around the way I want. To me, Excel should be 3d, mapping not only the co-evolution of variables over time, but also how different forces, on a Z-bar affect these variables. I’m also a Visio guy and would love for that to integrate well with the numbers.

Beyond that there’s certainly the promise of multi-touch that I find exciting, not because I want to shake things around on the iPhone, but because it’s often much simpler to communicate with a drawing. Instead I’m forced to type this text into an editor and hope you can read between the lines.

I’m sure that companies can have all kinds of things customised these days. I was reading an interview with Micheal Dell (from 1998), who talked about how Dell pre-installed custom-software for companies at the factory already, to save the sys-admins the hassle. These days, I’m sure the magic of networks changed much of that, though the principle remains the same.

But the core of my thinking is that customers, individuals like you and me, are becoming more and more conscious of their rights. They are able to become activists at the click of a button. The internet and the media is making what is and what should be more and more transparent.

When I visualise “luxurious” software, I don’t necessarily see it as expensive either. It only takes a single company to realise that there is a market out there for doing things differently, without charging much for it. All it takes is a smart way to collect information about a customer and an equally smart way to translate that into a customised piece of software for you and me.

Vincent

Like

Unlike

I wanted to write a brief follow-up to my Eulogy from a few weeks ago. To recap: my Sennheiser PX 200 headphones died for a second time, not because anything was wrong with their original purpose—to produce great sound—but because a more marginal feature failed: the wires, that connect my mp3-player to the speakers.

I have decided that headphones, especially the more expensive kind, are a big rip-off, because, while the sound may be better per euro/dollar spent, the wires are pretty much identical with whatever model you buy. And it’s the wires that fail 95% of the time, not the USP with which headphones are usually advertised: better sound.

In my opinion, there are three solutions for this problem:

1. consumers buy cheaper headphones and forget about the sound;
2. manufacturers make unbreakable wires or go wireless;
3. manufactures make wires modular.

I thought of the latter, remembering an interview, I heard years ago, with Giles Slade, author of the book “Made to break,” and believer in a great conspiracy: that, ever since the industrial economy took off, manufacturers have create products that were designed to break, because the alternative—a perfectly replaceable modular system—would diminish their profit-potential. The consequence of this philosophy is that, instead of throwing away failing components, we are forced to throw away the whole thing—whatever it is—resulting in great, big thrash-heaps all over the world. The consequence is a higher cost for the environment and for consumers.

The manufacturers’ perspective kind of makes sense. If you look at two computer-companies, IBM and Apple, the one that opened up its technology to be replaceable, was the one who is no longer a computer-company today: IBM. And those technologies that have decided to go modular—razor-blades, printer-cartridges, the iPod-ecosystem—have done so in a way that it is become monetarily painful to replace any part of that technological system. On the other hand, smart companies like Dell have proven that modularity can also create opportunities, but for assemblers more than manufacturers.

Taking it back to headphones, I (egotistically) maintain that a non-modular stance does not apply for the case of wires—though there may be arguments regarding portability. Rather, wires have long been modular for pretty much any application, ranging from mere electrical plugs to the wires that you hook up to your stereo-system. While the quality of wiring plays a real role in the quality of sound, the ultimate value that is attributed to a speaker-brand, is in the quality of the speakers themselves. Sennheiser would lose little by making wires replaceable; rather it would avoid potential PR-scandals and expensive warranty-problems.

This is of course assuming that Sennheiser isn’t one of those companies, whose products are “made to break.”

Vincent

Like

Unlike

I consider myself a “power buyer” on Amazon – having ordered and read for the last decade or so between 20 and 30 books every year, for sums of money far from negligible, at least to me.

This being said, I’ve never been more unhappy about my experience as a customer. Here are 5 free pieces of advice from too faithful a customer:

1. The company pretends to invest millions in its customer relationship management systems, but why on Earth Amazon never implemented any Fidelity / membership program? Even the worse companies in the world, customer service-wise (yes you’ve recognized them, I’m talking of airlines), have membership /faithfulness programs. I would be delighted to gain some travel miles or free mp3 as a reward for being a long time customer.
2. Books purchased via the one-click purchase button should be automatically removed from one’s automatic recommendations, wish list & shopping cart. Why would you want to recommend a book already acquired and shipped to the actual same customer in the past? Today, you face a high risk of ordering a book twice because of that.
3. Amazon seems to consider that none can purchase a book anywhere else than on their store. I think users should be granted with the possibility to mark a book as already acquired (somewhere else), either on Amazon (they should make this automatic though, but I’m so desperate…) or elsewhere.
4. Even worse, when these books are already in the shopping cart (or mention “In your shopping cart” already), that is to say between my wallet and Amazon’s and their warehouse and my shelves, Amazon still finds ways to recommend them. Don’t they think I already know the book if it’s included in either my shopping cart or my wishlist?
5. This one is more a back office thing. But aren’t you guys all about dematerializing the bookshopping experience? So why can’t I find ‘.pdf’ed invoices in my “account info” space? I still need to keep these blue bills for ages: I know you legally have to send these, but why don’t you help us get rid of the tons of paper we receive.

And I’m not even mentioning transnational use of Amazon (if you acquire a book on Amazon.com rather than on Amazon.yourcountry login in with the same email address, it’s not removed from your country’s wishlist) or the interface here. Or… let’s mention it before we leave the floor: Amazon’s interface wasn’t so much more convenient back in 1997 or so than it is today. I’m surprised because every engineer from Amazon I’ve met was super bright, but if I were an e-Commerce entrepreneur today I would definitely embrace rich media and video category marketing as a paradigm to set a new user experience standard.

To everyone: as you will have understood, I’m not so happy with my experience as a customer on Amazon. Any alternative?

Like

Unlike

 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…

Like

Unlike

 I found this table on the web, pretty interesting:

Btw, Software is the industry with the highest gross margins amongst all industries.

Like

Unlike

I tried to come up with a list of all existing Digital Marketing KPI. If you have an eCommerce or content website, try to pick 5 or 6 of them to build yourself a dashboard that will help you manage your performance better.

• turnover
• Click-through rate
• CPM / CPT
• eCPM
• CPI
• CPA
• CPC
• eCPC
• referrers
• key words
• profiles
• average cart
• cost per single visit
• direct convert rate
• indirect convert rate (comes back within 30 days to process purchase)
• retention rate
• churn rate
• top entry pages
• average number of clicks until purchase completed
• average time spent on the side before purchase completed
• average visit time
• abandon rate
• abandon rate on the first page
• number of whitepaper / testimonies / product data sheets downloards
• newsletter subscriptions
• abandon rate on the contact page
• number of detected projects
• number of leads transformed
• number of visits lasting less than 90 seconds
• main search engine request entry points
• typical path
• browsing scenario
• click rate
• most typed in requests
• most used search engines
• directory abandon rate
• search engine abandon rate
• recommendation engine abandon rate (eg Xinek, Zlio, Criteo, U.[Lik], etc.)
• escrow click rate
• emailing validated rate (= number of Emails on listing – mailer daemons received)
• emailing curiosity or opened rate
• emailing interest or click rate
• emailing effectiveness click rate (= interest / curiosity)

Can you think of other digital marketing or eCommerce key performance indicators?

Like

Unlike

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.

Like

Unlike

From the left to the right:

• ‘Comment j’ai foiré ma start-up‘, by Nicolas Riou; the story of a discontinued web agency founded in Paris during the New Economy Gold Rush. Funny, takes 45′ to read. Available in French only.
• ‘Risk & Reward and the making of America’s great industries‘ by Jack Rivkin; insights on the world of venture capital & their impact on the American economic landscape. Brillant but slightly outdated.
• ‘High Stakes, No Prisoners‘ by Charles Ferguson – not read yet but I’ll keep you up to date.
• ‘Seize the American dream: 10 entrepreneurial success strategies‘ by Jim Houtz & Kathy Heasley: general stuff on entrepreneurship, very structured book; applies to software companies as well.
• ‘Hard Drive: Bill Gates & the making of the Microsoft Empire‘ by James Wallace and Jim Erickson – not read yet but, 2 stances from a Microsoftie: 1) not said to be gentle with Microsoft 2) still said to be the best documented book on MSFT. N°1 on my reading list.
• ‘Ils ont réussi leur start-up!‘ or the Kelbook, by Julien Codorniou & Cyril de Lasteyrie: you read it like you watch a movie; fast-paced writing style, book describing the backstage of Kelkoo, one of the few pan-European success stories in the Internet / software industry, from the birth of the project in a research lab in the Alps to the acquisition by Yahoo! Breathtaking stuff that gives you the drive to entreprendre as soon as you’ve finished the book. A pity it’s available in French only since the Kelkoo story happens in France, true, but also (and mainly?) in Spain, Scandinavia, the UK, Switzerland, etc.
• ‘Who said Elephants can’t dance?‘ by Lou Gerstner (my review here; by the way, let me know in the comments if you’re interested or not in reading more book reviews on Tech IT Easy in general).
• ‘The Road Ahead‘ by Bill Gates – I read it when it came out in France back in 1996 I think. Gates describes his vision of the world and how computers in general will integrate more and more with offices and homes. Btw, this is exactly what’s happening today with mobile devices and machines or robots on top of computers. Good historical reading, but getting a bit outdated.
• ‘Why Butterflies don’t Leave‘ by Erik Stam – interesting small academic book explaining why and how gazelles starting up in a precise location aren’t so likely to move to a better place (I’m fond of topics involving entrepreneurship with spatial development and I believe geographical strategies play a big role in successes and failures). About the book: although my intuition disagrees with some of the outcomes of the research, great work, extremely relevant conclusions in the light of the examples provided (very telling, all located in the Netherlands). Available for free on the Internet over here (.pdf).
• ‘The Perfect Store: inside eBay’ by Adam Cohen – everything about eBay; I read it 18 months ago and surprisingly can’t remember so much about it. Oh yes, now I remember I enjoyed it a lot: a great pick for those who feel like understanding how to build a successful e-Commerce website with 2 ingredients: a strong business acumen, and technology.
• ‘Regional Advantage: Culture & Competition in Silicon Valley & Route 128′ by AnnaLee Saxenian. Probably the book that made me make the decision that I would move to the US one day. Believe it or not, although located in the same country, the Valley and the Boston area actually compete to attract the best entrepreneurs and technology start-up companies. Amazing book that I should re-read some day.
• ‘Opportunity Entry Performance‘ by Marco van Gelderen. Academic research on entrepreneurial project generation. Extremely insightful although I don’t think you would get a chance to purchase it anywhere (I got it from the author who was my Professor at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus Universiteit).
• ‘Softwar: an intimate portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle’ by Matthew Symonds and Larry Ellison – not read yet. Same business as the Kelbook (whose generation was inspired of Softwar): the backstage of the building of Oracle and Ellison’s personality. Said to be an excellent book for those joining the B-to-B software business.
• ‘The New New Thing: a Silicon Valley Story‘ by Michael Lewis – not read yet although I read 2 other books from Lewis in the past (namely Moneyball and Liar’s Poker). Amazing writer. ‘The New New Thing’ is about Jim Clark (founder of Silicon Graphics & Netscape) and the Healtheon craze.
• ‘The E-Myth revisited: why most small businesses don’t work and what to do about it’ by Michael Gerber. Out-of-the-box thoughts and advice on entrepreneurial matters. Highly recommended.

Now it’s your turn to contribute:

1) which books dealing with the software industry, venture capital or entrepreneurship would you recommend me to read on top of this list?

2) I’m looking for the 2 best books on Apple and Google (and maybe another one on CISCO). I just can’t make a decision since there are loads of books about these 2 companies. Any idea?

Many thanks for your help.

Like

Unlike

People relationships have been evolving quite rapidly recently. If the e-mail has, despite its many flaws, changed the way people communicate, other disruptive new uses like online dating, social networking (professional: LinkedIn; friends on FaceBook; hobbies, etc.), instant messengers (allowing you to let people know whether you’re available or not and leave small notes to the attention of your contacts) have sort of opened new paths to getting to know new people, or helping you keep in touch with people you already know. In this perspective, here’s something new, both a device and a software.

Before we get going, many thanks to Steve D. (whom you’ll hear more about quite soon…) for telling me about this amazing innovation developed by the Smart Internet Technology research group – an Australian digital media think tank, and a researcher at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology named Christine Satchell.

The Swarm, that’s the name of a software (see picture on the right side of your screen), basically allows you to tell your contacts what you’re doing (eg. “In a meeting”; or “I’m driving, not so convenient to pick up the phone”), whether you’re available (“I’m sunbathing on the beach so call back tonight please”) and when you’ll be available (“Free on Saturday night”). You may also separate your professional and private contacts, interface easily the software with your regular digital address book, etc. The software is REALLY EASY to use, and will probably adapt perfectly to the new “finger-driven phones” trend set by Apple and its iPhone. If you don’t believe me and feel like judging by yourself, check out the interactive demo of Swarm over here.

Sources: Techno-Science.net, InternetActu, SmartMobs

Like

Unlike

I’m a big fan of (good) newsletters. Have a good look at the History of the Internet: newsletters are the only tool that have been there since the early beginnings of the wild World Wide Web. There must be a reason why

In the recent weeks, I’ve been restructuring my newsletters portfolio. I was receiving way too many newsletters and couldn’t read 10% of them. (I should do the same with my RSS readers, tabs have been piling up in a very unsustainable way.)

So, now that I’m pretty happy with the remaining ones, here’s the selection of newsletter I decided to remain a subscriber of.

Obviously, please feel free to submit / criticize / recommend additional newsletters – I’d be glad to have a look (unless dismissed already). Please, leave commercial newsletters away – not the purpose of this blog.

There you go:

In English (random sort of sorting, this is not a ranking):

• TrendWatching.com
• The Register Daily Headlines
• Networking Report – Infoworld
• CTO Source – Infoworld
• Infoworld Tech Watch
• Robert X. Cringely – Infoworld
• Eclipse and Open Source Update – Dr Dobb
• SourceForge.net
• Security Report – Infoworld
• Roger Grimes – Infoworld
• SMB Report – Infoworld
• Ask the VC
• Line56 e-Business
• HBS Working Knowledge
• LifeHack.org
• McKinsey Quarterly
• Ziff Davis CIO Minute Editors’ Pick
• Online Business / about.com, by Ana Rincon
• Guerilla Marketing Weekly Intelligence Tip by Jay Conrad Levinson & Amy Levinson
• The Latest From TechCrunch
• Emerging Technologies Daily Update – Technology Review, an MIT enterprise
• Biotech Weekly Update – Technology Review, an MIT enterprise
• Small Business info / about.com, by Darrell Zahorsky
• Inc.com Daily Small Business Briefing
• Mike Sisco’s Practical IT Manager Newsletter
• Technology Voices daily headlines
• CIO Minute
• SmartMoney.com Week on the Street
• ECT News Network
• eWeek.com Editors’ News & Views
• Contract Watch – Channel Insider
• Netcraft
• USA Today Tech Briefing
• Dr Dobb’s Java Update
• Fog Creek – Joel on Software
• Baseline briefing / Baseline tools – the Project Management Center
• Enterprise Strategies – Infoworld
• What’s New Now from Ziff Davis
• Economics / about.com, by Mike Moffatt
• Retail / about.com, by Shari Waters
• Knowledge @ Wharton
• Gantthead Newsletter
• Dr Dobb’s Windows & .Net Update
• Dr Dobb’s Linux / Unix Update
• Dr Dobb’s Database Update
• Dr Dobb’s C/C++ Update
• Sun Developer Network Program Newsletter
• Off The Record – Infoworld
• DealWire – TheDeal.com
• PrivateCapitalWire – TheDeal.com
• Bankruptcy Insider – TheDeal.com
• ISN Security Watch
• Strategic Developer / Martin Heller – Infoworld
• Tech Confidential Wire – TheDeal.com
• eWeek Enterprise Update
• Inc.com Connection
• WetFeet Insider
• Russian Analytical Digest
• Dr Dobb’s Global Developer Update
• Dr Dobb’s Mobility Update
• eWeek Strategic Partners Intelligence Report

In French, en vrac:

• VNUnet.fr – la lettre quotidienne
• Finance d’Entreprise, la lettre de Pierre Vernimmen
• Reseaux-Telecoms.net
• Journal du Net
• Journal du Management
• Droit-TIC
• La Lettre de l’Atelier
• ZDNet.fr News Hebdo Business & Technologies
• Ebusiness.info
• Lettre Distributique
• Le magazine des développeur, developpez.net
• En3Mots
• ZDNet Juridique
• ZDNet Informatique
• ZDNet Sécurité
• ZDNet Télécoms
• ITRManager.com
• IFRI Actualités
• Tous les Titres des Echos 4h00
• l’Orient le Jour
• La Lettre JDN Solutions – journalinformatique.com
• Supplément Science – journalinformatique.com
• Focus RH la lettre
• LSA Flash
• Newsletter du Groupe HEC
• Marketing Direct Online editialis cabestan
• Agorabiz.com transmission d’entreprise
• Microsoft la newsletter des entrepreneurs

Like

Unlike

Some facts first:

• Gartner vs. Microsoft, Episode I: the premices

On May 1st 2006, technology analysis firm Gartner Group published a report entitled “Windows Vista Unlikely to Ship Before 2Q07“. The report started with the following stance: “Microsoft’s track record is clear; it consistently misses target dates for major operating system releases. We don’t expect broad availability of Windows Vista until at least 2Q07, which is nine to 12 months after Beta 2.” Gartner fully participated into MSFT’s financial downgrading at that time (following the trend, MS Corp had just plummeted 11% in one day, down to US$23,8, after releasing disappointing Q3 figures). A long time Microsoft stockholder, I remember getting nervous against Gartner’s analysts: how the heck these guys could, sitting in front of their computers, declare things such as someone’s track record is clear?? Can’t people or organizations change?

Winner: Gartner

• Gartner vs. Microsoft, Episode II: The Empire Strikes Back

Gartner had forecasted the release of Vista as late as 2Q07, or April 1st 2007 min. That is 2 months late at least compared to the initial calendar, January 30th 2007; people at Gartner should catch up in maths: they say that’s one month in advance only: “For all the press on the topic, it appears that Microsoft will beat our prediction by a month (if they meet their 30 Jan. target). We will congratulate Microsoft as they hit their dates.” (see this post on Gartner’s blog about Vista).

Bottom line: it appears today that MS Vista is to be released on time.

Gartner was wrong: Microsoft’s track record wasn’t so clear. Or actually, I believe it’s clear MS is getting better: Windows 3.0 didn’t quite deserve the OS title; Windows 3.1 wasn’t ridiculous but a few years late compared to Mac OS; Windows 95 was intrinsically late & pretty dirty in terms of memory management and security; Windows 98 was much better in many respects; Windows Millenium was an unstable version of Windows 98; Windows NT eventually provided honest security features and some sort of stability; Windows XP is a very good product; and I still don’t know what to think of Vista, but my first impression (tested Beta) is extremely positive. It’s pretty clear the number of innovations (thanks Kari) improvements (3000!!) integrated is underrated (see Scobleizer) by most observers. So, to me, MS’s track record is crystal clear: the company has been getting better and better over time.

Winner: Microsoft

• Gartner vs. Microsoft, Episode III: The Phantom Menace

Gartner is definitely not a fair player. Taking advantage of its “CIO advisor” sort of situation, the firm now advocates that “companies shouldn’t rush to upgrade to Microsoft Windows Vista” (see here). Gartner’s call to CIOs is to wait until 2008, for the first service packs to be available. I don’t know what’s going on between Gartner and Microsoft, but the friendship thermometer looks rather low. After betting MS would be late, Gartner now pushes for companies to postpone updates.

Winner: Gartner

• Gartner vs. Microsoft, Episode IV: The Return of Gartner

Probably not satisfied yet, Gartner came up yesterday with one big new argument against Microsoft. Now that Microsoft is to release Vista on time, Gartner criticizes the calendar, saying launching in end of January will damage the entire PC market and Christmas traditionally booming sales. MS had anticipated such a move, and has negotiated preferential updating (through downloads) conditions with most OEM vendors. Still, potential reputation damage is high for MSFT. We’re talking here of the economic impact of being on time…Furthermore, Gartner anticipates a very low penetration rate for Vista (10% of computers equipped with Vista in the end of year 2007 only). So how come the launch of Vista may damage Christmas PC sales? It’s all illogical.

To state things clearly: had Microsoft been late, Gartner would’ve said “I told you”. Now that Microsoft is to launch on time, Gartner says “The timing’s wrong”. To repeat myself, there’s something opaque and unclear going on between Gartner and Microsoft. Has an employee from Microsoft had an affair with the girlfriend of a Gartner analyst? Has someone at Gartner had his/her grandmother taken a short position (equivalent to a put option) on MSFT? I don’t know. But I’ll figure it out.

Winner: Gartner (for the reputation damage to MS)

Questions/Conclusion: in your opinion, what’s wrong between Gartner and Microsoft? What next? What would’ve been the best calendar for the launch of Vista? (according to Gartner I guess, Never).

Like

Unlike

Computer salespeople

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDiCTnQrw78]

Two young American students took a very interesting initiative: they went to several hardware manufacturers and/or distributors and asked relatively simple technical questions. I liked Apple most, where nobody bothered to answer, and the Geek Squad who didn’t know the answer (“what’s the role of a hard drive cache?” I think) but still tried to bullshit…

This video raises once again the issue of training. While pure engineers ought to get training in finance, marketing, logistics and strategy, marketing and sales people need to understand what they’re talking about. We live in a complex world, and IT products are complex products. Still, the best way to make sure people know what they’re talking about is bringing people from the R&D department talk with the customer. But R&D people are in short supply, and sometimes do not want to see customers.

Complicated equation, isn’t it?

Still, the video’s pretty cool.

Like

Unlike

I’m fed up with wires. I can’t stand wires anymore. There are wires every-fucking-where. For about a decade, we’ve been told by Gartner analysts, blue chip companies CEOs & even our grandmothers that wires would disappear very, very soon. But the more we wait, the more wires there are. Wires are like cancer: there’s nothing you can do against it unless you spend your time looking for wires & eradicating them ASAP. It can’t be ‘very soon’ anymore.

Anyways, what does ‘very soon’ mean? The world’s been existing for million years. And even by Jewish standards (calendar year 5767), waiting for a century would be peanuts, in other words ‘very soon’.

So, when? Please, do something! Yes, you. No, don’t pick up your ringing phone, leave your MSN windows where they are and your weblog readers may certainly wait 2 minutes more for your new post to be released.

Take 2 minutes to think. Think of a world in which there wouldn’t be any single wire anymore. Beautiful, isn’t it.

Now, if your neural network is still fit enough to get back to work, think of new solutions to eradicating wires. Disruptive solutions. It seems that all the people down there, from the analysts to the experts, have mistaken. The wireless problems is simple to determine but extremely difficult to solve.

Disclaimer: as you may have noticed if you visit this blog often, this post was actually not an ‘Entrepreneurial business idea’ but rather an ‘Entrepreneurial busines kick in the butt’.

Like

Unlike