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December 2006 Archives

December 31, 2006

12.31.06: Free Culture Foundation

Received this press release this morning:

The Free Culture Foundation was launched today to promote and protect cultural freedoms. The Foundation provides an accessible, independent introduction to the free culture movement, now a global phenomenon thanks to the Creative Commons licenses, organisations like Open Business and artists like the Beastie Boys.

The Foundation defines 'free culture' in terms of four simple principles: the freedom to use, create, share and learn. In recognition of the controversy surrounding the Creative Commons licenses (apparently they have been criticized by the media industry for tricking artists into giving away their rights and the free software community has criticized them for allowing limitations on re-use), the Foundation's new web site presents a set of essays that discuss precisely what these might mean. Future plans include packaging free art for free software users and commissioning a set of essays to explain the issues.

Rob Myers, digital artist, said "we fill a gap left by the likes of Creative Commons, popularising a coherent set of principles. We don't pretend to have all the answers, but want people to think more about how technology and the law help or hinder our ability to watch films, write novels, share music with friends and learn to paint."

December 22, 2006

12.22.06: Screen shots from P2P TV Venice Project

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Om has screen shots from the still pre-beta Venice Project, a P2P TV start-up created by Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis.

In an interview with Om in October, Friis explained:

Television is the most powerful mass medium, and we are trying to do is marry the best of television with the best of internet. What people love about the television is the story telling. What people don’t like is television that is locked in linear time. We want to try and preserve the best bits of television, and discard bits people don’t care for.

People like the freedom of choice and like freedom from choice. For example, channels are good, because they define the content. Today, the channels are locked in legacy infrastructure, but on broadband the channels are not locked in time.

That’s what the Venice Project is doing. What we have done is created a streaming P2P platform for television. This is a platform, which is good for content owners, for advertisers and of course the viewers. Since there are no borders on the Internet, this is a global platform. Sometimes we think content owners have legal reasons to restrict content locally and the technology allows them to do that.

It's hard to tell about the quality based on the screen shots. We'll take Om's word for it:

The visuals on a Lenovo T60 with a 15.2-inch screen were stunning and crisp. The streams came through without a problem and there was very little jitter. Still, no point hooking it up to a big screen TV… just yet! There isn’t LIVE TV content on the service right now and most of what is there consists of meager offerings streaming off the Venice Project servers. So you can’t truly judge how good this service will be when it comes to “live” broadcasts just yet.

But, Om points out there is a content problem.

Unlike Skype which had “forced viral distribution” built into its business model, this one needs content… a lot of quality content. Large media companies, globally, would like to get their pound of flesh from the Venice Project (now that the Skype boys are all rich, they can pay right!). The technology certainly works, and for content providers - say the Disney and Viacoms of the world - this is a pretty good thing. It frees them up from the carriage providers and gives them a global audience.

So is this a YouTube-killer, as Gizmodo's Jason Chen has it?

Do people care how the data is getting from the host to them? No. That's exactly why peer to peer will definitely win over a centralized, YouTube approach. By cutting down on bandwidth costs (they're mostly from the users), the Venice Project can have much higher quality video. Just like with Skype, what do people care that their call or video is going through Zimbabwe before getting to them? The only thing that's important is that the quality is there, and the content is there. All that the Venice Project needs now is content.

British Queen plans Xmas Podcast

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

I'm enjoying being in London and it is interesting that blogging and the whole "citizen media" movement is largely absent from daily discussions. But that's not surprising since culture moves slowly.

Podcasting, however, is much more popular, and has been enthusiastically adopted by large institutions such as the BBC, and now, the Royal Family.

The Queen, 80 years old, is planning to release a podcast of her Xmas speech. The Queen's speech is very much a core traditional element of the British Xmas experience, delivered mid-afternoon on Christmas day.

The podcast was the Queen's idea, as is the content of her speech. This year the theme will be nurturing the young, and respect for the elderly.

Can dotMobi break the stranglehold of the wireless Telcos?

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

Accessing the Internet from cell phones is possible but the experience is poor. Mobile web browser performance is clunky, few web sites are designed for cell phone access, and the customer bill can be astronomical.

I recently spoke with Alexa Raad, who heads up marketing and business development at dotMobi, a startup whose mission is to make the mobile Internet an everyday reality instead of an expensive curiosity. A key part of its strategy is establishing the domain name extension .mobi to designate web sites that support mobile browsers.

But why should businesses buy a .mobi extension when their web servers already detect the type of browser and can be set up to automatically serve up a mobile version of a web page?

"The extension tells users that the web site supports mobile browsers and conforms to standards that guarantee a fast download and probably has low access costs," says Ms Raad. "Some web pages can cost users as much as $10 to download because they aren't designed for mobile devices or the developers aren't aware of the costs."

The operators of .mobi web sites agree to abide by three mandatory rules: no use of frames on the web sites because these are difficult to render by mobile web browsers; no use of the www prefix in the name of the web site; use of XML in creating web sites. If these rules aren't met, dotMobi has the right to revoke the use of the .mobi extension.

These are very easy conditions to meet, and most regular web sites would already be compliant anyway, because these are best practices for any kind of site. This doesn't mean they would be mobile-friendly.

To produce web sites that load fast on mobile devices, and won't cost users a fortune in data costs, takes much more effort. That's why dotMobi has created free development packages and support forums for developers to cut the cost of creating .mobi sites. Tools include ways to calculate the cost of downloading a web page depending upon the data package of the wireless carrier.

The company is funded by Nokia, Microsoft, Vodafone and other strategic investors. The money is used to create the development tools, plus there is revenue from registering .mobi and common extensions.

"We want to make sure that the user experience with .mobi sites is good. We don't want a few bad apples spoiling the neighborhood, that's why we will cancel registrations if web site owners don't abide by mandatory rules," says Ms Raad.

But the biggest obstacle to the realization of dotMobi's mission are the wireless carriers. They have stuck customers with hundreds of dollars in charges because of complex Internet data packages. Combined with the poor performance of mobile browsers, many early users of the mobile Internet have already been turned off from the experience.

Ms Raad is very much aware of this issue, but hopes that the wireless carriers will come up with inexpensive Internet access packages. "Europe is much further ahead in this area than we are in the US, so I'm hoping that things will change," she says. She adds that wireless carriers are among investors in dotMobi.

Foremski's Take: The wireless carriers aren't going to give up their lucrative gateway position. They make a fortune standing between the mobile Internet and the consumer.

Even if tens of thousands of high quality .mobi web sites spring up, that won't mean much because the wireless carriers can easily substitute their online services, or those of partners.

They won't need to block .mobi sites but they can make them a click or three further away. And on the cramped user interface of mobile devices, that's like sending .mobi sites to Siberia.

There are also other obstacles created by the wireless carriers. A senior executive from a startup mobile search firm told me that video services from major wireless carriers hog much of available wireless data bandwidth, cutting off even the partners of wireless carriers.

The promises of the mobile Internet, at least in the US, won't arrive until there are ways of getting around the wireless carriers. Technologies such as WiMAX, which offers high speed wireless data across large distances, could get around the gateway stranglehold.

Intel (an SVW sponsor) is working on making WiMAX capabilities standard in notebook computers, and others are working on the WiMAX infrastructure. But it will be several years before WiMAX based services are widely available.

In short, the mobile Internet will be a long time coming, blocked by the greed of wireless carriers. These companies are rapidly becoming the largest obstacle to technological progress and the development of Internet economies, IMHO.

- - -

Please also see:

Intel Breakthrough Demonstrates Its First Mobile WiMAX Baseband Chip

An excerpt from the dotMobi Blog: dotMobi

...some of the more recent smart phones (e.g. the Nokia N90 and N70 series) are being shipped with the Web Kit browser that can render normal desktop sites such as Amazon without any problems. However, there are 4 major problems with this approach:

These advanced phones represent a tiny percentage of the phones in use around the world. We should concern ourselves more with the ~2.5 billion other “normal” phones. Yes, these advanced abilities will likely trickle down to other phones, but this will take a long time.
Phones will always be less capable than PCs due to the physical size limitations. You simply can’t fit a big screen and keyboard in a small phone. There will always be a capabilities gap, regardless of how good the phones get.
Just because you can visit a PC site on a phone, it doesn’t mean you necessarily want to. Mobile is different. Mobile browsing is much less about random surfing than it is about targeted, time & location-specific tasks. Experience has shown that you can’t simply miniaturize a site for mobile—to be truly mobile-friendly and useful, a site needs to be designed for mobile, not just squeezed into a smaller space. Some people argue that mobile should be considered another channel entirely, and that it is a mistake to think about it in the same way.
Viewing a PC site on a phone can be very expensive because of all the graphics that need to be downloaded. The cost issue alone is enough to make this unfeasible for many users. Example: the cnn.com homepage would cost as much as €7 to view on a phone based on some data plans in Europe.

Link to: dotMobi Mobile browser advances do not remove the the need for mobile-friendly sites

December 21, 2006

12.21.06: Juniper takes $900m hit, IBM nixes options for directors

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

The stock options tornado keeps on blowing through the Valley and the rest of corporate America, as Reuters reports here

IBM will stop providing stock option grants to its board of directors. Directors will get a raise in cash compensation from $100K to $200K.
Juniper Networks will take a $900 million hit for stock options granted from 1999 to 2003. The charge stems from two grants made to CEO Scott Kriens. Juniper will file its Q2 and Q3 statements in Q1 of 2007. Red Herring offers Kriens' apology:

“As the leader of this company, I would like to express our regret, to everyone who relies on Juniper, for the difficulties this situation has caused for us all,” said Mr. Kriens in a statement.

“In prior years, we should have had better stock option granting processes, controls, and oversight in place, and we did not,” he added. “While we cannot undo the past, we will focus going forward on the filing of our financial statements, further improving the robustness of the company’s stock option-granting procedures, the ongoing cooperation with government agencies, and the continued execution of our business strategy.”

December 21, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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12.21.06: Google updates Blogger

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

"Hey now that Time says that bloggers are the person of the year maybe we at Google should have some whizzy blog software. Hey! What's this with mold and hair all over it?! It says "Blogger." Maybe we can gussy this old thing up."
Yes, after about, what, six or seven years, Google is rolling out a new version of the original blog software, which they've left starving in a forgotten closet for most of these many Web 2.0 years.
InfoWorld reports that the new version will feature user-definable templates, tagging of posts, multiple authors, and faster publication of new posts.
On the Blogger homepage, Google gushes over the new version:

The new version of Blogger is metaphorically bursting with features, from the big guns like drag-and-drop template editing and post labels (which are perfect, by the way, for indexing the 131 historical figures you may have written about), to little polishes like a better-designed Dashboard or that you no longer need to solve a word verification CAPTCHA to post a comment on your own blog.

We’re excited about the new version of Blogger, both for what it can do now (which also includes access control for blogs and better input fields for post dates) and what we’ll add to it in the future, now that we have a new, stable, powerful infrastructure to work with. We’re done with “beta,” but we’re far from done with the new Blogger.

December 21, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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12.21.06: Labels sue AllofMP3.com in US court

US record companies filed suit in New York against Allofmp3.com, the Russian website that sells copyrighted recordings for a fraction of the price charged by legitimate vendors. The Russian company says it's legit because it pays royalties to the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society, reports Out-Law.com for the Register.
"Defendant's entire business amounts to nothing more than a massive infringement of plaintiffs' exclusive rights under the Copyright Act and New York law," says the law suit.

Unlike US and British royalty collecting agencies, the Russian version pays no royalties to artists or record labels. Yet the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society ROMS itself says the site is legal because it licenses it.
"Allofmp3.com's activity is quite legitimate," ROMS general director Oleg Nezus told BBC Russia earlier this year. "The opinion of foreign copyright owners is just that - their opinion."

December 21, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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December 20, 2006

12.20.06: Ericsson buys Redback for $2.1bn

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Ericsson is buying "edge" router maker Redback for $2.1 billion. Not exactly a household name, Redback's technology is seen as key to supporting the growth of Internet video, AP says.
"It's a huge market for the routing technology necessary to build out these networks, and it's really video driving the need for the infrastructure changes," he said in an interview. "I don't view this as an ending, I view it as a perfect match of the key technologies that will be necessary in the future."

Om offers a litte history on the company:
Those of you too young to buy your own drinks may not know Redback, but is was once as highflying as say, Facebook. It was a company which made uber-VCs like Norwest Capital Partners, Telesoft and Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers a lot of money… and I mean a lot of money. But that was back in the day2, the late 1990s. But then the bubble popped, and everyone assumed Redback would deflate along with it.
But they didn’t! The broadband boom happened, and suddenly everyone wanted to get a piece of Redback’s multi-service edge routing technology. That’s a fancy way of saying it makes boxes that allow phone companies sell DSL, broadband, telephone, TV and other services over the local loop. In 2005, sales were up 33 percent, and in first nine months of 2006, sales went up another 87 percent to about $197 million.

Ericsson is paying $25 for a share of Redback, an 18% premium on their recent closing price (and Om notes, a 60% premium on their 90-day moving average). That's seen as definitely on the high end but not in the stratosphere.
"The price reflects the future," Ericsson Chief Executive Carl-Henric Svanberg told Reuters. "Redback does not have anything unique which we would not be able to develop on our own over two to three years, but now we get to the market faster and our offering becomes more complete."

But Reuters offers some other benchmarks that show just how steep the price is.
The deal values Redback at 39 times projected 2007 earnings per share before items, according to Reuters Estimates. Rival Juniper trades at 22 times projected 2007 per share profits per share before items.

The deal is one more in a series of consolidations in the network industry. News.com relates:
French equipment maker Alcatel and United States-based Lucent Technologies closed their deal last month. German telecommunications equipment maker Siemens and Nokia are planning to merge parts of their businesses early next year to compete. Last year, Ericsson also bought Marconi, a maker of IP-networking gear for about $2 billion.

December 20, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Link in to SVW on LinkedIn

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

LinkedIn, the business networking site, has been coming up on my radar screen quite a bit recently, and I like what I'm seeing.

It has taken a while for this site to become useful and interesting because it needed to have a large enough user base. It's a chicken and egg type situation that many other social networking sites face.

I like the way LinkedIn has added features that update members on things such as changes in jobs among contacts, etc.

I'd like to offer my readers, an opportunity to link to me on LinkedIn. Send me an invitation (tom at SiliconValleyWatcher.com) and I promise to accept--especially if you are subscriber to SVW's Rooster newsletter (free!) and/or are an SVW news toolbar user.

BTW, we're adding more features to the toolbar which will include a special alert feature notifying users of new posts and breaking news. The alert feature will be made two-way so that SVW readers will be able to let us know about breaking news in their sectors.

Please note if you are in the PR community and pitch SVW: I get tons of pitches from PR companies and it is very difficult for me to keep up with them all, so I'm going to prioritize my attention.

If you are an SVW newsletter subscriber I promise to look at your pitches first.

SVW Rooster newsletter signups - find out which way the wind blows in Silicon Valley!

And/or:

SVW's Silicon Valley News toolbar is preloaded with RSS feeds from major newspapers and magazines covering Silicon Valley.
December 20, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: About SVW
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London notes: ... diversity & integration . . . London's Poles . . . media gathering at the Cheshire Cheese . . . SVW goes offline

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

. . . It's good to be back in London after nearly three years away. When I arrive with my son Matthew, the weather is pretty much as I remembered it, mild and gray, and night falls early--by 4.30pm it's nearly dark.

The streets are full of people and their diversity is striking. Women in full burkhas are a common site, along with people of many colors. Lots of mixed couples abound, and many different languages can be heard on the Underground, the main way for getting around town. London is much more multi-cultural and integrated than I'm used to seeing in US cities.

. . . There are also lots of twenty-something Poles, seemingly everywhere. The UK and Ireland have welcomed their new European Union member neighbor by allowing Polish citizens to come over and work. By some estimates there are about 1m Poles working in the UK and Ireland--a smart move that harnesses the energies of the most motivated Polish workers--much to the benefit of the local economy. Other European countries have strict barriers on their entry.

In many London neighborhoods there are Polish delicatessens, and most grocery and supermarkets have Polish food sections catering to the homesick home grown tastes of the new residents. Newspapers and magazines are printed in Polish and Polish language classes are readily found (for English people, for managers and new English spouses of Poles.)

The Poles are not work shy, which has prompted the UK government to institute new policies that seek to encourage long-term unemployed UK workers to compete for some 600,000 job vacancies.

. . . On Tuesday lunchtime I popped into the Cheshire Cheese (rebuilt in 1667), a pub on London's Fleet Street, a street that once well known as the center for nearly all of the UK's national newspaper editorial and printing offices.

Rupert Murdoch broke the power of the print and journalist unions in the early 1980s, moving out of Fleet Street. Other newspaper barons soon followed with moves to less expensive facilities in London's Wapping and Isle of Dogs districts, and further afield. I remember being on the picket lines and taking part in the tumultuous demonstrations.

The Cheshire Cheese has been the venue for an annual Christmas-time gathering of journalists. It was started many years ago by Bill Moores a prominent public relations chief (now retired in Rio de Janeiro) and the tradition has continued under Sourcewire.com, a PR firm.

I walk down a narrow alley and turn into the side door of the Cheshire Cheese. Inside it is dark but warm, a welcome feeling because the weather has become a chilly in the few days since I arrived. I can smell the smoke of a fireplace as I walk down a steep flight of stairs, ducking my head under the low beams.

I turn the corner and there is a large cavernous room where people are sitting at long tables, eating steak and kidney pie and ordering drinks at the bar. I notice some familiar faces who seem pleasantly shocked and surprised by my appearance--it's been about five years since I attended this traditional holiday event.

More people arrive and the next seven hours are spent in excellent company and conversation, catching up and hearing about changes in the UK media sector from former colleagues at many publications.

The journey back to my parent's place, on the outskirts of London, Wanstead is eventful. My tube train stops at St. Paul's, and remains firmly stopped because of "a serious incident at Bethnal Green" a few stops ahead of my eastbound Central line train. I wait 15 minutes before deciding to try my luck with the buses.

I take the long escalators back to the surface of the city. The temperature has fallen further and it is quite chilly as I walk to the bus stop. The sound of sirens from emergency vehicles seems to be everywhere, bouncing off the old buildings.

I wonder what the "serious incident is" naturally thinking it could be terrorist related. St Paul's cathedral looks stunning, lit up from below.

I'm lucky to get on board a very crowded bus heading east, to Ilford. Others, waiting at bus stops along the route are not as lucky, as the driver refuses to let more people in (some sneak in through the exit doors.)

After about ten minutes, I'm lucky to find a seat, and soon start to doze, the effects of a boozy afternoon. But I'm an experienced Londoner, my inner alarm clock always wakes me as we near my exit stop.

. . . I have to use Internet cafes the first few days because my parent's house isn't wired for broadband. I'm shocked that I can't access SVW, I find out my web site host, TotalChoice Hosting, has canceled my account.

I'm angry and frustrated as I try to use their support procedures to try and sort out the problem. It turns out they have moved to a new billing system and canceled my account. I'm hoping that they haven't erased my files--the last thing I want to do is reconstruct my Movable Type installation with some 1300 posts, and comments.

Fortunately, I sort out the problem and my site is back up. But two days later it is canceled again! I'm back at step one trying to get reconnected and back online. Hours later it is done . . . my apologies for the downtime.

- - -

Please also see SVW: London's Hipster markets attract US companies

http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/20...

December 20, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Tom Watch
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December 15, 2006

12.15.06: Gizmodo: iPhone on Monday

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

At Gizmodo, Brian Lam says he "knows" the iPhone will be announced on Monday. In its entirety, the post says:

I guarantee it. It isn't what I expected at all. And I've already said too much

Just the kind of tease to guarantee traffic galore. Om says it's BS:
Just pointing out that the teaser doesn’t mention Apple. And no, Steve Jobs & Co. are not crazy to release what could be a hot device mere nine days before Christmas. In other words don’t expect an iPhone from Apple. In fact, I am confident enough to bet another 10-pounds on it.

Actually, here are some detailed rumors from Doug Berger at Gadgetell:
Morgan Stanley analyst Rebecca Runkle has added to the mess of rumors by revealing more pricing possibilities. She says the 4GB and 8GB models of the new Apple Phone will cost $599 and $649 respectively and will be wider than the iPod nano, but narrower than the 5G iPod. She also added it will have a 3.5 inch screen and come in multiple colors like the new nano. Her prediction is it will launch in the first half of 2007.

Personally if I were to shell out hundreds for a phone (and I've never had a phone that didn't come free from the cellphone company), I'd go for this one (found on iliketotallyloveit:

December 15, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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12.15.06: Photoshop CS3 beta download

You can download a free beta of the upcoming version of Photoshop at Adobe Labs
The next generation of the professional standard in digital imaging, Adobe Photoshop CS3 delivers new tools and enhancements that enable you to work more productively, edit with unrivaled power, and composite with breakthrough ease and control.

Please note that a beta is, by definition, an unfinished product that may or may not include all the features and functionality that will appear in the final release. And while some may find the quality appropriate for use in a production environment, the beta is not final-release quality and should not be used for critical work.

- Richard Koman
December 15, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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12.15.06: Indictments, guilty pleas on Chinese trade secret thefts

The Chinese government wants to get their hands on military technology being developed in Silicon Valley and apparently the Valley is full of spies to help with those aims.

Tom Abate and John Cote write in today's Chronicle that federal prosecutors indicted one Xiangdong Sheldon Meng for stealing night vision training software from defense contractor Quantum3D for sale to Malaysia, Thailand and China.
"The alleged economic espionage and theft and export of trade secrets such as these -- visual simulation training software that has military application, no less -- has real consequences that could jeopardize our country's military advantages in the world," he said in the statement.
He added in an interview: "We own the night. And there are people who want to take it from us."

Meanwhile US citizen Fei Ye and permanent resident Ming Zhong pled guilty in federal court to stealing civilian chip technology from Transmeta and Sun. They intended to use the designs to start a chipmaking firm with financial backing from the Chinese city of Hang- zhou and the provincial government of Zhejiang. These are the first convictions under the Economic Espionage Act.
The 36-count criminal indictment against Meng alleges that he stole night-vision training software and other simulation tools from Quantum3D, a San Jose defense contractor for whom he worked between 2000 and 2003. The indictment alleges violations of several federal statutes, including the Economic Espionage Act and the Arms Export Control Act -- charges that could lead to hefty fines and lengthy jail terms.

Prosecutions under the Economic Espionage Act are rare, said author and consultant Steven Fink because federal prosecutors are afraid to antagonize foreign governments. The result, he says, has been open season on Valley trade secrets:
"It's about time," Fink said. "It's been 10 years. And what happened to all the other cases that slipped through their fingers? There is virtually no deterrent against people and foreign governments that want to steal our trade secrets."

December 15, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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December 14, 2006

thisNthat before I head to London...

I'm heading out to London later today for my parent's 50th anniversary, with my son Matt. I have to figure out my internet access once I get there so I might be offline for a day or two.

In the meantime, here are a few items:

. . . Jon Swartz, reporter at USA Today just published:

"Young Wealth: Trade Secrets From Teens Who Are Changing American Business" (Rooftop Publishing: $14.95).
Dan Fost over at the SF Chronicle reviews it. My advice to teen entrepeneurs is not to publicize their business models, no good can come from it except copycat competitors. It is best to fly under the radar as any new rules enterprise knows... ;-)

. . . Silicon Valley startups get Sarbanes Oxley relief:
Technet applauds SEC action to ease burden of compliance.
www.technet.org.
But startups want to get acquired so they want to be SOX compliant like the big boys so that they can be integrated faster.

. . . AMD says it's still ahead in electric power consumption
Marty Seyer, Senior VP, Commercial Segment gave a presentation at today's AMD analyst day. http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/InvestorRelations/0,,51_306_14668,00.html - click Marty's picture for the server-specific presentation. AMD says is it is "3% faster in 2P than Intel and ahead by 7% in 4P." (Intel is an SVW sponsor.)

I wonder what level of percentage improvement in server power is significant enough to sway buying decisions? It seems that the biggest savings come from the first decision to replace older power hungry servers with the new generation of power-lite servers from AMD or Intel. After that, the incremental savings between the two energy-saving brands are not that significant...?

. . . The dark side of the chip industry
David Sonnenfeld tells me about a new book he coedited with Ted Smith and David Naguib Pellow:

Challenging the Chip: Labor Rights and Environmental Justice in the Global Electronics Industry (Publication Date: August 24, 2006) is the first comprehensive examination of the impacts of electronics manufacturing on workers and local environments across the planet.
From Silicon Valley in California to Silicon Glen in Scotland, from Silicon Island in Taiwan to Silicon Paddy in China, the social, economic, and ecological effects of the international electronics industry are widespread. The production of electronic and computer components contaminates air, land, and water around the globe. As this eye-opening book reveals, the people who suffer the consequences are largely poor, female, immigrant, and minority.

December 14, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Tom Watch
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Doubleclick survey finds online ads are very effective

Doubleclick, the online ad network, just announced survey results that prove online ads influence people to buy stuff.

The company clearly hopes that its report will influence online ad buying. But influence is best expressed when it comes from third-parties that do not have a self-interest, which is not the case here.

The DoubleClick Touchpoints IV survey results revealed that influencers consider online advertising a key factor of their shopping process, second only to websites, as a source of further learning about purchase decisions. Nineteen percent of influencers cited web advertising as a source of information when they were researching a purchase, compared to 8 percent among the remainder of the sample.

Both segments cited websites as their top source of research when they are shopping, but influencers clearly rely more on the web than non-influencers, with 40 percent of influencers citing websites for this purpose versus 31 percent of non-influencers.

This part is curious: "influencers consider online advertising a key factor of their shopping process, second only to websites."

Aren't most online ads found on websites? Isn't context important in advertising? Will we get free floating online ads with no website needed?!
The DoubleClick Touchpoints IV survey: http://www.doubleclick.com/knowledge
December 14, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: New Rules Communications
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Feedback for ILikeTotallyLoveIt.com

Hi Tom,
we are students that just started a new web service called
iliketotallyloveit.com. On that site we offer a unique service that allows users to submit cool, hot, beautiful stuff, preferable with a link where it may be bought. If enough people agree that it is hot it will get promoted to the front page and thus exposed to a broad audience, comparable to digg.com. Rather than providing extensive product descriptions our site functions as a community-based popularity contest: which product is loved or not.
Since you guys also feature news and novelties in a different way, but with a similar audience we would be thrilled if you would check our site out and maybe review us on your site.
Thanks for taking the time.
Best,
Malte
www.iliketotallyloveit.com

Malte, thanks for your email. I love the concept, the interface needs a bit of work, but then again so does mine :-)
Also, you might want to approach Wists.com and see if you could do something together. Wists makes it very easy to grab an image of a product and add a comment.
With these types of services, I'd love to see things segmented in terms of types of users. My likes won't be same as that of my kids, and even within any age group, further segmentation would be useful.
Getting people to own their opinions in a public place is sometimes difficult because it can invite ridicule. But anonymous recommendations would mask spammers. It's an issue that many online sites/services face, how to encourage frequent and genuine opinions.
I like your approach and I'd love to know how things develop.
Maybe some of my readers will give you more feedback in the comments section here...

December 14, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag:
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Google's one square-inch business model...

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher
Google's ambition is to have a searchbox in front of someone all the time. From that small rectangle of user interface, maybe it measures 1 square inch, Google has built a massive business.

Microsoft owns far more user interface real estate than Google--you'd think it would be ahead of the game.

Microsoft's business model is very profitable and it is based on selling software rather than monetizing a square inch of space in front of someone. It's interesting that MSFT hasn't been able to capitalize on its far larger user interface real estate in the same way Google has, at least so far.

Is this a cultural block? Whatever the reason, it's interesting. Microsoft's position reminds me of my favorite American saying: "You can't get there from here."

December 14, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Google [GOOG]
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Gartner predicts hasta la Vista for future Microsoft OSs

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher
Gartner predicts the bleeding obvious: Vista will be the last Windows.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Research firm Gartner Inc. turned soothsayer on Wednesday by predicting that Windows Vista will be the last big release of Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) Windows operating system.

Source: Gartner predicts Vista to be last major Windows - Yahoo! News

Vista runs a web browser, which overlays Vista--paper covers rock...

Bill Gates saw it coming when he crushed Netscape and established Internet Explorer(IE) as market leader. He realized that the browser is the interface-not the OS.

It was the open source community that managed to revive Netscape's role as an alternative to Microsoft. But Microsoft did not give any respect to open source projects, it continually derided Linux for years. It did not see the challenge to IE as credible.

Microsoft could have kept far ahead of the Firefox/Safari/Opera etc, pack by innovating on Internet Explorer when it had the lead. Except MSFT decided to sit on it for about three years until the recent launch of IE7.

The new Internet Explorer 7.0 is good, it supports industry standards such as CSS far better than IE 6, and it has a many good features. If Microsoft had pushed that kind of innovation when it had pole position in the market, it would have taken the open source community a lot longer to catch up and challenge Internet Explorer.

This is the penalty from not innovating from a leadership position. The competitive distance is shortened, and short distances hearten people to challenge the status quo.

If Microsoft had pushed the envelope on IE, it would have cemented its position in owning the most important real estate in the world--the interface into our digital worlds.

December 14, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Microsoft [MSFT]
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December 13, 2006

12.13.06: Google auctions employee options

New York Times:

In a move that will enable its employees to earn more money from stock options — and perhaps motivate them to settle for fewer of them in pay packages as a result — Google said yesterday that it would create a system allowing options to be sold as well as exercised.

Under the program, Google will grant employees a new type of option, called a transferable stock option. The company will work with Morgan Stanley to set up a market that will enable financial institutions and other investors to bid for those options.

Experts briefed on the plan were divided on whether it might provide a useful model for other companies. But the move appears likely to reinforce Google’s reputation for financial innovation. ...Google said the plan was aimed at showing employees the full value of their stock options.

December 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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12.13.06: Yahoo, IBM go for enterprise search

AP reports:

IBM Corp. and Yahoo Inc. are teaming up to offer a free data-search tool for businesses, a quirky move challenging Google Inc. and other corporate-search specialists in a blossoming market.
IBM hopes the service, being announced Wednesday, bolsters its overall efforts to improve its dealings with small companies.
More broadly, though, Yahoo and IBM expect their partnership to shake up the field of "enterprise search," in which leading providers such as Google, Autonomy Corp. and Norway-based FAST are seeing forays from business software giants such as Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp. and SAP AG.

December 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag:
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Hurd asked to explain option sales

Mark Hurd exercised $1.37 million in options less than two weeks before HP disclosed its spying tactics in a SEC filing and congressional investigators want to know why. The sale does not appear to be part of a prescheduled program, AP reports. Indeed, seven other executives cashed out during that period, part of a three-week window where option holders are allowed to exercise their options.
The congressmen asked Hurd to explain the reason for the transaction, seeking an answer on "whether executives are cashing in ('bullet dodging') while in possession of potentially damaging material facts that shareholders do not know."
Dingell and Stupak also asked in the letter to "please inform us whether any other HP officers or directors engaged in similar transactions during this period."

December 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: HP [HPQ]
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Silicon Valley legend and hard-drive pioneer Al Shugart dies at 76

By Michael Kanellos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Al Shugart--the man who founded Seagate Technology, convinced his pet dog to run for public office, and favored Hawaiian shirts over business suits--has died at age 76.
The California native passed away at a hospital from heart failure Tuesday, a Seagate representative said.

Al Shugart
Shugart played an integral role in the development of the hard-drive industry. He was part of the original team of engineers at IBM that developed the first hard-drive storage system, which came out 50 years ago this year.
He then held several different positions in the industry before founding Seagate in 1979. The company went on to become a dominant force in the hard-drive industry. It is, in fact, the largest hard-drive manufacturer, and it is consistently profitable. Shugart left the company in 1998.

Source: Al Shugart, hard-drive pioneer, dies at 76 | CNET News.com

I met with Al Shugart a few years back during a family vacation in Santa Cruz. I rarely do this, but I asked him to autograph his business (retirement) card.

Silicon Valley used to be full off hard drive makers spawned from the PC revolution. Over the years, some 90 plus hard drive makers have consolidated into just a handful. Seagate recently acquired Maxtor and is the largest following a reorganization engineered by Silver Lake Partners which led to its relocation in the Cayman Islands.

- - -

Seagate Technology
PO Box 309 GT Ugland House South
Church Street
George Town,
Cayman Islands

Alan Shugart - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alan Shugart (b. 1930 in Los Angeles) is a leading engineer/executive in the ... He was the founder of Shugart Associates in 1973, later acquired by Xerox. ...

The Revolutionaries: Al Shugart

In 1951, the day after finishing college, Al Shugart joined IBM and ten years later ... In 1969, Shugart left Big Blue for Memorex and then launched Shugart ...

December 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Tribute
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December 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Rooster
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12.13.06: Epicenter of Web 2.0 boom: 625 Second

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

The boom is back in SoMa, the Journal's Pui-Wing Tam wrote yesterday, and the epicenter is 625 Second St. in the heart of the old dot-com streets.
On a recent Friday, one new tenant on the third floor, online software firm BuzzLogic was meeting with a venture capitalist. Nearby, Jill Gilbert, CEO of a start-up that compiles online and printed retirement home guides, held a yoga class with five employees. ... One start-up, LicketyShip, a same-day delivery service, has a punching bag by its cubicles and a place for people to sleep in the building if they're too busy to go home ...

Ummm ....
The master tenant of sorts on the third floor is LookSmart, which took a 10-year lease on the space in 1999 and whose stock hit $350 in early 2000. In 2001, the stock price was $2 but that was the time to buy as its now more than doubled to $5. With all that space and so few employees, LookSmart CEO John Simonelli decided to sublease to startups.
I know it sounds bubble-ish, but we thought, why not have a space to help incubate new companies?

Bubble-ish? Yeah. Despite the protestations of an employee at SpotDJ that "companies have pretty sane business ideas," the companies at 625 have disturbingly familiar wing-and-a-prayer business plans:
Online video editing and sharing outfit Cuts Inc says the company will earn revenue from Internet advertising on its Web site. Cuts' neighbor, start-up SpotDJ, whose software lets consumers pretend to be DJs, also says it plans to make money from ads. Ditto the Helium Report, which provides online guides for luxury destinations and products.

Time to open a hot new restaurant around the corner? Well, maybe not.
December 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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In media, the medium defines the DRM

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher
I was over at CNET on Tuesday being interviewed on video, about mobile video. I spoke about the trends, digital rights management (DRM), the role of wireless carriers, media producers, and content owners.

DRM is pivotal in the digital media world, it protects content. Whoever owns the dominant DRM will rule the world because DRM is the gatekeeper, it protects and collects. It protects the content and it is how the content is monetised, transformed into individually targeted media services.

Because of the strategic importance of the DRM, lots of companies want to own it. Yet no content owner wants one company to establish a dominant DRM because they could lose substantial controls.

That's why we face a future DRM hell as these things battle themselves to a conclusion, imho.

After the interview, I started thinking about our old analog media technologies, and their marvelously effective DRM features, all built into the physics of the medium. Analog protected against piracy and enabled profitable media business models--a perfect DRM. In media, the medium defines the DRM.

Consider conventional TV broadcast signals. Analog TV technology could be described as a very effective streaming video technology. It transmits massive amounts of video information through hundreds of channels simultaneously and wirelessly.

Each analog TV channel represents a wireless broadband system that can support any number of users, from ten to ten million--with no loss of performance from increased user load.

Analog TV has a broadcast range of more than a hundred miles. Try doing that with digital distribution technologies such as cellular networks, or WiMAX, all of which seem t

December 2006 Archives

December 31, 2006

12.31.06: Free Culture Foundation

December 22, 2006

12.22.06: Screen shots from P2P TV Venice Project

British Queen plans Xmas Podcast

Can dotMobi break the stranglehold of the wireless Telcos?

December 21, 2006

12.21.06: Juniper takes $900m hit, IBM nixes options for directors

12.21.06: Google updates Blogger

12.21.06: Labels sue AllofMP3.com in US court

December 20, 2006

12.20.06: Ericsson buys Redback for $2.1bn

Link in to SVW on LinkedIn

London notes: ... diversity & integration . . . London's Poles . . . media gathering at the Cheshire Cheese . . . SVW goes offline

December 15, 2006

12.15.06: Gizmodo: iPhone on Monday

12.15.06: Photoshop CS3 beta download

12.15.06: Indictments, guilty pleas on Chinese trade secret thefts

December 14, 2006

thisNthat before I head to London...

Doubleclick survey finds online ads are very effective

Feedback for ILikeTotallyLoveIt.com

Google's one square-inch business model...

Gartner predicts hasta la Vista for future Microsoft OSs

December 13, 2006

12.13.06: Google auctions employee options

12.13.06: Yahoo, IBM go for enterprise search

Hurd asked to explain option sales

Silicon Valley legend and hard-drive pioneer Al Shugart dies at 76

Alan Shugart - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Revolutionaries: Al Shugart

Find out which way the wind blows in Silicon Valley - SVW's Rooster newsletter

12.13.06: Epicenter of Web 2.0 boom: 625 Second

In media, the medium defines the DRM