HighEndBuzz

Firefox vs. IE

It looks like the battle is heating up now that Microsoft is starting to take serious notice of the Mozilla threat.  In an article on eWeek all one has to do is read between the lines.  If you've been in business for more than say, 6 months you'll appreciate the comments by Gytis Barzdukas, director of product management in Microsoft's security business technology unit.

"When you run a business and you worry only about what your competitors are doing, that's not a long-term business proposition"

and

"Yes, Firefox has come out with technologies that customers are evaluating, [but] we can't worry too much about that"

Can anyone say B-as in bull S-as in Shit?  Hey Gytis, you're paid to worry about what your competitors are doing, that's why you're in product management.  Now I'll give you some slack, Gytis, with over 900 open source developers (that aren't as politically motivated like those folks you encounter at Microsoft) contributing to the Firefox product you should worry about this.  Not only does Mozilla have some traction, but the "open source" Firefox product isn't really the target of malicious security attacks, that makes your job much harder Gytis. 

I've got no axe to grind with Microsoft, I switched because my IE browser became so infected by spy-ware it felt like I was on a 28.8k connection.  Fix your software (I dunno, spend some of that loot you guys haul away on a daily basis) and you can win my business back.

Now, for the Mozilla folks, 5.7% share is a good start.  How about a revenue model?

Bo Knows....

I recently read Bo Peabody’s book “Lucky or Smart” on a plane from Minneapolis to Milwaukee. (It’s just short enough for my limited attention span)  I’ve got to admit, it’s one of the most insightful reads I’ve experienced in quite some time.  Now I’m not a very good book reviewer, hell I don’t think I ever got better than a B- on a book report, but I would recommend his short tome more than any other book on entrepreneurship simply because there in not one pretentious tone in it.  Compare his work with let’s say Larry Ellison and you’ll know what I mean. 

People have always asked me would you rather be lucky or smart.  Since I don’t consider myself “smart”, my only answer to that question was always “lucky”.  Hell, I’ve had my share of luck many more times than bouts of brilliance.  People have always questioned why I openly seek to hire people much smarter than myself.  Today I have a new answer… 

“I’d hope that I’m smart enough to know I’m getting lucky.”  Thanks Bo.

What Shade of "Bling" is your Parachute?

Carly got $21M for running 2 companies in the ground on her way out the door.  I don't get it.  I'm all for paying top CEO's millions for successfully leading companies.  I'm really against giving away money to those who fail.  What did she actually do to earn $21M?  Now, I don't think she should give it back, I'm actually happy for her...god bless her if she can get it.  I'm questioning the decision of the board to give her that type of package, or even worse inking that deal when she came on board (which may have happend).  Time to shuffle the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Now I've seen it all...Government becomes a Pimp.

I've got to admit that we're now living in the end of times.  It just has to be.  The Article states that anyone in Germany who is under 55 may lose their unemployment benefits if they're recruited and refuse work as a prostitute.  I really don't understand what's happening to morality in Germany and other European nations.  It's one thing to be a prostitute, it's quite another for a modern nation to potentially force people into prostitution.  This could be simply a case of "shock" reporting, but if this is truly the case in Germany, I'm really confused and saddened.

Carly is Out

They say she left, I'm guessing she was ousted by the board.  Let's hope HP climbs their way out of the consulting hole they've dug for themselves.  I can't wait to see what color her parachute is...

You think they'll ever recover the market share they gave away to Dell on a silver platter in an effort to become the next IBM Global Services?

I just want to know what took them so long.

Wonder Woman

Ellen did it

Unless you follow sailing this is probably the first time you've heard the name Ellen Macarthur.  I'm an avid racer and I can't even believe it, and didn't think it was possible.  She sailed a sailboat (if you can still call those high tech rigs sailboats) around the world in 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes and 33 seconds, beating the "perfect sail" record held by Francis Joyon by 1day, 8hrs, 35minutes.  That's like beating the 100m world record by a full second in my opinion (Ben Johnson excluded).  She's the MAN!

 

Image © Jacques Vapillon / DPPI. 

Ask Acquires Bloglines?

I'm not surprised these guys were acquired, but I am very surprised by "who".  Ask Jeeves...Come on.  First, I can't believe these guys are still around, or that anyone even uses Ask anymore.  I'm not going to be critical of the service that Ask provides because they do have a nice clean interface and as far as a search engine goes, I'm going to assume they do a good job.  My question would be, "Where are they going with this?", not to mention "what the heck were the guys at Bloglines thinking?".  I'm a big fan and user of Bloglines.  I only hope this doesn't impact the quality of the service.   No details were given about the terms of the deal.  I just hope they didn't give it away for a few hundred chickens or 20 head of cattle.

Business Un-Intelligence

I attended a meeting on business intelligence yesterday only to be thoroughly disappointed in the state BI is currently in.  I guess I feel like I was a bit setup by the primary vendor, Cognos.  The initial meeting request was an invite to a round table discussion by Ziff Davis so I naturally thought that they were attempting to gain some insight into where we thought BI was heading...I thought wrong.

I arrived about 15 minutes late and the group of about 20 were in the middle of introductions...I'm Joe Blow, CIO...and my biggest challenge is standardization...  I immediately recognized Tony Winkler (a former Adaytum, now Cognos sales rep and a friend of mine) and the Head Marketing Geek from Cognos corporate.  It's then I knew I got setup, I didn't know this was a Cognos event.  Since I was already there I thought I would make the best of the situation and participate in the "discussion"...

Then it was my turn...my biggest concern about BI:  Reporting is useless.  How can you run a company on 10000 lagging indicators a month?  Every time a BI sales rep (software sales rep) comes by he's pimping the latest product.  There is never any talk about moving toward real BI.  BI vendors are experts at reporting and reports.  That's all.

Needless to say, I didn't get a very good response from the Cognos marketing guy.  He's a smart guy, I've met him, but he and his company still have no domain expertise in anything other than reporting and generating reports from data warehouses or data-marts.  Now the Ziff Davis "moderator" keys in and disagrees with me "I disagree, I think quite a few people at Cognos have domain expertise in areas other than reporting".  Great, so where are these guys?

I could tell they were confused, however, the rest of the people around the table were nodding their heads in approval.  They were either a bit timid about blasting a vendor while he was in the room, or they were so frustrated at the state of BI from the vendors perspective that they believed it was a futile point...I let the snake out of the bag.

My point wasn't that Cognos was a bad company, they're in my opinion the best company in this space.  However, they don't even get a passing grade when it comes to Business Intelligence.  You can church up reporting all you want, it will never become actual business intelligence that will allow you to measure and react to changes in conditions based on leading indicators.

Cognos purchased Adaytum because of the product and the domain expertise.  Adatyum, and now Cognos planning group, sold to the office of the CFO.  My final question was why does the rest of Cognos continue to pimp their product to IT guys?  If you want to provide real intelligence to Sales, wouldn't you talk to the sales organization?  I'm not getting it...I don't think they do either.