Today I had a great conversation with a director of an European think tank. He was concerned about demographic aging of the population and the importance of having a national 'people' strategy. How are you going to renew your country and keep it's most brilliant minds working within your borders?
Money is not enough to keep people. it's obviously important but even thought you pay more for them still they might leave. Similarily a great geographical location is not enough. So, what is it that keeps the package together? I would say that it's the thrill and challenge. The environment where your talents are appreciated and you can be challenged by your peers. An athmosphere where you have to strecth yourself and be competitive. Clever people crave for action and they like to be around other achievers as well. One has to have a pool of circumstances that together make things work. Silicon Valley is a good case in point. A great number of the new ventures are created by people outside of US origins. They have come to test their wings.
So, how is it with your country? Are they boosting and supporting innovation and R&D in concrete terms? I haven't seen such a support de facto in Europe. We're still too comfortable and lazy with our past success. No need to worry about the aging society and future tax payers. I just wonder who's going to pay for all those baby boomers. They haven't paid their pensions since most of the EU's pension schemes are pay-as-you-go. Enthusiams is not here. Work is not appreciated and it's just something that's financing one's leisure time. Something fundamentally wrong?
Study the history and you will find that in many cases the current great nations were build from the brainpower and resources abroad. This has just tended to faid when the wealth has started to accumulate. The time is not far away that we have to start to thing about something fundamental in order to boost the economy and widen the tax burden or should I say the collateral for nations to rise debt against...
With En Vogue's words: "Free your mind and rest will follow".
Ventureblog describes how the public market opening will boost private investments as well.
When making the best phone is not enough - how Nokia keeps its market share (NyTimes, reg.req).
"Google's a very nice system, but compared to my vision, it's pathetic.",Microsoft executive Jim Allchin. Microsoft has started to raise their interest on Google. The history of Microsoft in war does not predict any good future for Google...
Dan Gillmor visited Nokia's HQ last week with 200 other journalists around the world. Nokia's next big strecth is the bet ' Life Goes Mobile'. Check the piece.
Internet 2.0 and the new normal survival struggle.
Many seem to still wonder whether we're getting for better times or not. For sure this time it's not the IT industry that is going to the lead the way. Well read the article and check whether you're more confused or determined...
My random walk survey through the city centre has found out that there are a growing number of commercial properties for sale that have been empty for months with 'to let' notes. A sign that the peak of the property market has been passed? Or an indication that summer is a killer for many businesses still...
'Master of Design', IDEO's CEO tells about the challenges in high tech design scene.
What's the hype about Wi-Fi phones? Carlo Longino explains.
Wal-Mart is moving its suppliers for RFID era by 2005. This $246.5 billion gorilla will definetely make a big impact for the whole industry - globally.
The biggest Wi-Fi subnet is alive in Europe: 650 hotspots spread around 140 hectar-campus in the Netherlands.
Smells like Wi-Fi IPO...according to Sand Hill Road.
Why some companies are in better shape than their peers despite the economical downturn? Businessweek tries to shed some light to the matter.
FBI might start to fight against copyright violations such as unauthorised PSP file swapping. CNET tells about the introduced bill.
3G is catching up in Japan. In Jan 2002 50.000, Jan 2003 150.00 but in May 2003 350.000 subscribers. Finally the long waited hockey stick effect in demand?
Your boss might start to keep an executive blog as well. Watch out.
US authorities would approve the merge but PeopleSoft's board rejected the raised bid.
Forrester predicts that Wi-Fi investments for hot spots are going to be a waste of money. Only 53m Wi-Fi enabled devices will be around in Europe by 2008. However, just 7.7m users will be prepared to pay for the service...
Location-based services were hyped a lot during the heydays of mobile mania. Gradually the tracking services are becoming available for professional and personal usage. In some cases the pure amount of mobile devices in a singular cell can be handy. Road administrators can follow the traffic levels and congestions in-real time by just tapping into operator's aggregate feed without interfering to anyone's privacy. Wi-Fi seems to catch up the same features - in-house that is. Ekahau is one of the providers in this space. NyTimes covers the topic (req.required).
Google vs. Ebay - Are they rivals? For Ebay yes but Ebay for Google, I don't buy it. In Ecommerce things make sense but Google is not just about matching buyers and sellers.
Check what VCs should be considering while selling their portfolio company (heavy stuff, be warned!).
Acid test for hype-IPOs? RedEnvelope is planning of an IPO and guess what - it's unprofitable...
"There is no such a thing as a free Linux" - mainframe, maintenance and support costs as well as integration to hardware & software. Forbes tells about the other side of the coin: "The Limitations Of Linux".
IPO.com has shut down. The company raised $10m in 2000 and covered the IPO, secondary and VC transaction markets in the haydays of the late 90's.
EVCA released the final survey of 2002 VC activity in Europe (req required):
Fundraising was down 31 per cent from last year, with E27.5bn raised in 2002, compared to E40bn in 2001. Buyout- focused funds had less difficulty in fund raising than venture-stage funds. Buyout funds raised E18.3bn, or 66 per cent of total funds raised in 2002, compared to E8.5bn, or 31 per cent, for venture capital funds. In 2001, the corresponding figures were E23.3bn (58 per cent) for buyout and E15bn (37.6 per cent) for venture capital.
1st of July, EU will start to collect VAT on sales of digital goods and other electronic transactions made outside of the EU-zone (e.g. USA). This can increase the consumer prices up to 25%...
Number portability is a big issue for both - the consumer and operators. Europe is implementing this already and it is expected to bring the costs down for voice tariffs.
Microsoft is targeting for your all office communications by its RTC Server 2003:
In Microsoft's vision, a company's internal real-time voice and data exchanges will be managed under a network of RTC Server 2003 machines and accessed through devices such as PCs, Internet phones, PDAs (personal digital assistants) and cell phones that run on various flavors of its Windows operating system.
Techies are back and rolling smoothly! Businessweek probes the new stuff in the market leaders' back pockets.
European bloggers might have to start to give a "right of reply" for people who are critized in their blogs. EU seems to take a tighter grip for online publishing even for the non-professional side.
Venture Capital industry has been through a lot lately. I have mixed feelings whether they have hurt more than their portfolio companies (IT). When the times get tough, the tough get's going. It seems that there a plenty of negotiations going on about restructuring or raising new funds. PrivateEquityOnline provides some light for the latest talks about carry and how to share it between LPs and GPs in Europe.
Angel investors are feeling the greed and rush again: TrafficGauge got enough of Washington's traffic jams and decided to advice commuters in real-time.
Big guys are having fun all the way. Now, J.D. Edwards has sued Oracle for harassing their merge offer with Peoplesoft.
Some serious fun: Samsung has released a handset that has embedded a TV receiver! No additional costs and you can spend your time watching your favourite soap opera while on move.
Ready-to-travel business gear for 24 or 96 hours by Puma: www.96hours.com. Even the case included. Not bad!
Siebel's shareholders had their say for turning employee options as expenses and the answer was clear 'no, thank you'. Warren Buffet would have decided otherwise (and has).
Vinod Khosla (Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers) has raised into opposition in the VC arena by stating that he supports counting stock options as expenses in publicly listed companies. Khosla reasons that this would enable to attract the best talents and the smartets people from big companies to small and innovative start-ups. John Doerr ( Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers) thinks differently and has been against the initiative ever since the beginning.
Gateway is extending its brand for consumer electronics. Who's still saying that PC market ain't saturated?
'Due diligence' is a commonly used term in the VC environment. What does it mean depends on the context and also from the person / entity in question. Ventureblog offers some explanations how they see it.
Strategic thinking has developed over the centuries and not the least by war making. Sun Tsu and Microsoft are the topics in Newsfactor.com's article about Microsoft and their "Misguided battle plan". Are Ballmer and Gates starting to hesitate?
Or are we just behind their thinking? Microsoft is dealing with the cable guys and trying to embed their software for the local TV near you. A new standard for channel surfing - reboot your TV every few minutes...
You have sent mail to N.N@nokia.com. The mail has been deleted. E-Mails between nokia.com and microcell.fi are not delivered.This happened recently and according to Nokia it was thanks to intensive mailing between the organisations. They are not having any business relationships between each other and thus there should not be any mailing either, right? Microcell has recruited a plenty of Nokia's brilliant brains and are desiging, developing and producing handsets for Ericsson and others. So, how's it with your organisation - BBC tells about tightening of the rules in UK.
It you cannot life without the web then this is a must for you: BusinessWeek has reported about "the social web".
Since we started with the war theme - what the heck. SAP is taking advantage of the other ERP players' internal fights. Maybe SAP is picking the customers as an appetizer and continuing with a bargain priced bidder?
Telco industry will start to see a pacman phenomenon within the next few years according to David W. Dorman, CEO and Chariman of AT&T. Today there is too many competitors and less powder for the required improvements.
This is one of the first news I have found that a Telco operator has scrapped their plans for Wi-Fi. M1 of Singapore is betting for 3G instead. What makes this interesting is the fact that Singapore ain't that big at all. One could imagine that it would be relatively easily to cover the whole country with Wi-Fi.
The biggest case I have heard of is a town of 30.000 inhabitants covered by a single WLAN network of 50 base stations. The roaming should work seamless even while driving (at least according to city speed limits). The company is called Radionet and it has been founded by ex-Nokia people who are experts in radio technologies.
Hutchison has started a price war by slashing voice prices almost 70% with their newly launched 3G network in UK. They are selling some 600 handsets a day. However the familiar suppliers like Nokia will start to ship their 3G phones only in the end of the year.
More supporting signals for RFID technology: this time it's Wal-Mart. It is estimated that they could save $1-2bn by replacing the good old bar codes. There has been even considerations to include a RFID tag for each Euro note and this seems to be more than just talk.
Ventureblog reminds how a great success is made in small incremental improvements such as in Dell's case.
I saw yesteday IDC's barometer for European IT spending 2003 vs. 2002. This time the SME companies were the real winners: some +5-6% compared to large companies' (>1000 employees) -3%. Altogether the projection was positive, barely 0,4%. As one of the biggest challenges for software this year was seen security. Well, I bet that's an issue as long as we are using Microsoft :-)
Is Euro overvalued? Well, the rate has been varying from 0,8 till 1,2 to $ during the last years. But if you compare to the original conversation rate of 1,17 we should be getting back just to the normal. Why are European companies yelling about supereuro? I hope they have not forgotten to check their own productivity and fitness for competition...
Who your friends know? Needleman found himself invited to a 'invitiation only' social network in web. Check how Bill Clinton relates to the story...
Oracle's bid for Peoplesoft will most likely to fail (75%) according to SiliconValley.com. PeopleSoft has a poison pill which makes the hostile takeover pretty nasty.
Everybody knows x-rays but how about t-rays? This omitted frequency might replace x-rays and spin-off some nice new applications. Technology Review has covered the issue.
MIcrosoft seems to change it's tactics with IE. Previously the free-of-charge browser gained it's market dominance thanks to its underlying OS, Windows. In the future the issue might be vica verse. Will the Opera be a winner or the usual Goliath?
Some light for the tunner in the VC market. CalSTRS has decided to invest $100m for "new and next generation" general partners. Anyone?
How the times change and the sex appeal of technology company's CEO position. Stock options and a startup might be even a bad sign in your resume nowadays. Funnily enough a few years off the biz track may mean that you're out of the executive route once and for all. Actually it's a bit sad that people who have been building some 5 to 10 years their career in high tech mania are not appreciated anymore. Their experience and skillset is more a liability than an asset. That's what I call a turnaround. On the sidelines by Boston Globe Online.
Strategy-business has released their summer edition (registration required). I have become a great fan of their publication. Just pure solid gold.
Personally I have been wondering the lack of strategic marketing skills of many established companies. Somehow the marketing is still regarded as something tactical and non-critical function. The top ad agencies are complaining (behind the scenes) the lack of commitment and executive power from their clients. How are they supposed to provide clear and precise marketing and reach for the target audience as well as the financial targets without any sensible strategy or vision? Bring on the Super-CMO tells about this new trend of Chief Marketing Officers who are strategic in nature and operational in their skills.
Have you been facing a situation where you're totally competent of carrying out a certain task/project but your habitus and credibility are questioned along the process? Someone with more senior experience or better reputation among the management team should actually do your stuff just to be in the safe side... Build Your Organizational Equity explains how one should build a personal stock of equity (not the financial one) in order to protect and cumulate your well-being in the organisation.
A friend of mine just closed a nice round of financing worth $19,5m. MySQL tripled its turnover last year till 5m$ and now they are expecting to grow even faster. They are profitable and were just taking the money for leverage purposes. Good luck Mårten and Monty!
What does it tell when 20% of all restaurants in a capital city are for sale? Hmm, are we really gaining consumer confidence and getting bullish again. Just wondering. Maybe entrepreneurs are throwing the towel in when the better times are just about to gloom. That would not be any surprise either.
Web-services - I haven't bothered much of reading about them. It used to be lots of hype and not many concrete examples. Well, Esther Dyson of EDventure holdings has some fresh point of views.
Backward thinking with the wireless video?
Grub, a new grid computing based search engine company, was recently acquired by LookSmart. Are they any serious threat for Google?
Microsoft might start to pick up on Apple again. An excellent piece about new technology battles in the music industry.
I could not resist since everybody seems to comment the buzz (highly overrated if you ask from me). Some alternative Matrix stuff: Matrix-XP and a flash version by OddTodd.
Decentralization is coming back to fashion. From mainframe era to PC's and a supercomputer out of 100 Playstation 2's. History repeats itself and so does technology cycles.
Moblogging is the next wave to ride...
Turbo10 is the latest search engine in the block. TheRegister has crawled the engine and the company: "Turbo10 produces BETTER results for a given search. In fact, after using it for a while, you tend to notice that Google slightly over-rates geeky and sub- culture comments in place of solid, useful links and facts". While writing this they were offline due to high load. Promising. Still I dislike their layout...