Silicon Valley Watcher - reporting on the business of technology and media: Silicon Valley Archives

Silicon Valley's Machiavelli...or praying mantis? You decide....

by Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher.com

Louise’s guestblog on Steve Job’s return to Apple made me wonder if Gil Amelio knew the likely outcome of bringing back Steve Jobs? Did he stand any chance at all against Jobs, a veteran of many, many, gruesome political battles?

I have an image of a praying mantis Steve Jobs holding a still, rigid Gil Amelio, and calmly and coldly munching him head first. A victim of Silicon Valley's Machiavelli. Or was the acquisition of Next a reverse takeover of sorts, engineered by Jobs but with the cooperation of Gil Amelio, happy to get out of a rapidly failing company?

Jobs’ wasn’t doing that great at the time. Next had been struggling for 11 years and Jobs had been forced to ditch the workstation hardware business and regroup as a software company. It had some good software technology and enterprise software development tools but it was trying to compete in the Fortune 100 enterprise software market. You need to have a ton of money over a long period to market your software in that space. I’d run home too . . .
(pleasedonthavemekilledsteveiamjustapoorbloggertryingtokeepitrealsmileysmileysmiley)

Gil was a man in trouble too, Apple was sinking fast and it had a dire need for operating system technology.

Continue reading "Silicon Valley's Machiavelli...or praying mantis? You decide...." »

Posted by Tom Foremski on January 19, 2005 5:24 AM | Permalink

Leaders of the future software industry predict blue skies at sold-out SD Forum ...and IBM chief strategist talks with SiliconValleyWatcher

by Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

The remains of Silicon Valley’s wet winter refused to budge Wednesday as a large storm dumped cold rain all day long, and then at times it dumped it three times harder. I wasn’t going to let that stop me from heading into the depths of Silicon Valley and to a conference that promised to be a top summit (one day it’ll be a Yalta ;-) of the web services/software-on-demand community.

The new old guard of the software industry was assembling: Salesforce.com, RightNow Technologies, NetSuite, Webex, Qualys, Grand Central, Concur. And all the Venetian princes were there too: Marc Benioff, Halsey Minor, Greg Gianforte, and a senior representative of the Vatican -— IBM’s emerging technologies strategist Gerry Mooney.

Continue reading "Leaders of the future software industry predict blue skies at sold-out SD Forum ...and IBM chief strategist talks with SiliconValleyWatcher" »

Posted by Tom Foremski on March 23, 2005 6:35 AM | Permalink

Predictive technologies help companies and systems cope with swings in business, says Tibco CEO

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

Tibco Cherry.jpg I try to visit my founding sponsors on a regular basis to catch up with what's going on, and to chat about the industry. So recently I went down to Palo Alto for a meeting with Tibco CEO Vivek Ranadive and his right hand man Ram Menon, senior vice president, Worldwide Marketing. Tibco has been a stalwart supporter of SiliconValleyWatcher from the beginning.

I like this company - and there's nothing in our contract that forces me to say that. I like the culture, and I like the people. Tibco is very much old school Silicon Valley, calm, collegiate, an engineering culture.

This time, we're talking about Vivek's book project on the "Predictive Enterprise" a concept that describes Tibco's approach, and technologies that allow large companies to foresee business swings and take appropriate action.

Continue reading "Predictive technologies help companies and systems cope with swings in business, says Tibco CEO" »

Posted by Mike Faden on May 16, 2005 8:59 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

A tribute to one of Silicon Valley's most influential and forgotten researchers at Xerox Parc event

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

[This is why I love being in Silicon Valley...]

The place to be Wednesday evening was at Xerox PARC, for a reunion of the seminal Homebrew Computer Club and a tribute to a man that history has tried to forget, or at least relegate to a minor role: Doug Engelbart.

1st mouse.gif Mr Engelbart is usually remembered simply as the inventor of the computer mouse. But dozens of computer pioneers stood up Wednesday to acknowledge his much larger role, as one of the most profound and influential thinkers of their time.

The tributes to Mr Engelbart went on and on, long after the allotted time for the event, with many stories told publicly for the first time. It was priceless material for future archaeologists exploring this fascinating spot on earth.

Continue reading "A tribute to one of Silicon Valley's most influential and forgotten researchers at Xerox Parc event" »

Posted by Tom Foremski on June 9, 2005 5:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (5)

Exclusive interview with seminal 1960s computer visionary Doug Engelbart -- he's still here and looking for funding

...how the Sixties counterculture smashed the work of leading computer researchers

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

"How do you deal with society when its paradigm of what is right is so dominant?" Doug Engelbart, the 1960s computer visionary asked me the other evening. It's a question he has pondered many times over the past 20 years or so, ever since his research funding was taken away.

Mr Engelbart and his teams of researchers at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) shaped the look and feel of the PC, as John Markoff chronicles in his latest book What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry.

Mr Markoff's book raises the profile of Mr Engelbart, well known as the inventor of the computer mouse, and less well known for his seminal work in creating many of the concepts later found in the personal computer. Mr Markoff returns credit to where it is due.

What the book does not chronicle is how the rise of the PC killed funding for Mr Engelbart's work.

Continue reading "Exclusive interview with seminal 1960s computer visionary Doug Engelbart -- he's still here and looking for funding" »

Posted by Tom Foremski on June 10, 2005 3:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

What if Buckminster Fuller were still alive and looking for funding? I'm still in shock at Silicon Valley's blindness regarding Doug Engelbart

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

Over the past few days readers may have noticed that I've been writing (ranting too) a lot about Doug Engelbart, popularly known as the inventor of the computer mouse, but also the source of many computational models and applications that we take for granted today.

Some have likened him to a Buckminster Fuller. Tony Christopher from Digital Places tells me that one of the people on the board of Bootstrap.org, the Mr Engelbart-focused organization, once said "this is like having the chance to videotape/capture Leonardo DaVinci."

Continue reading "What if Buckminster Fuller were still alive and looking for funding? I'm still in shock at Silicon Valley's blindness regarding Doug Engelbart" »

Posted by Tom Foremski on June 15, 2005 12:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Garden party part two: How McNealy creates room at the top...

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

Part 2 of our tales from the annual SDForum Visionary Awards garden party in Woodside, at which the Valley aristocracy let their hair down and tell stories about each other.

Scott McNealy, Sun's CEO, introduced Carol Bartz, CEO of Autodesk and a former Sun VP. Mr McNealy played the familiar role of that irascible character we all know and love from many performances.

Mr McNealy was in classic form Wednesday evening, dressed in his signature jeans, light shirt and navy blue blazer, and sharing a vignette or two about Ms. Bartz, who used to work at Sun.

He recalls that Ms Bartz stomped into his office and resigned because of a generous rival job offer. Mr McNealy acted swiftly: He walked down the corridor and into the office of his VP of Marketing and said "You're fired." He walked back over to Ms Bartz and said "You can't resign, you're VP of Marketing!" What happened to Lloyd, Ms Bartz asked? "Lloyd is no longer with us," deadpanned Mr McNealy. Lots of laughter.

Continue reading "Garden party part two: How McNealy creates room at the top..." »

Posted by Tom Foremski on June 16, 2005 3:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Garden party part 5: SVW uncovers backyard plot by Microsoft loyalists. . .

. . .McNealy silenced by Redmond gold? And who else?

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

Ray Ozzie, creator of Lotus Notes, head of Groove Networks, and now CTO of Microsoft, won the last of the 2005 SDForum visionary awards. Although he deserves such an award for his body of work, I couldn't quite rid my mind of thoughts of Microsoft, and its hand at work.

It's not unnatural that the world's most innovative software company would seek to ally itself with the world's most innovative region bar none.

After all, being stuck up there in the soggy northwest, in the Fortress of Solitude, the cabin fever must be terrible. Here, in Silicon Valley, companies are challenged moment by moment. You get up and say one thing, and ten others will tell you you are a fool - and they'll prove it. That's what makes it good. That's why the innovation is here.

Looking back on the evening, there was clearly an attempt at some rapprochement between the world's capital of innovation, and the world's largest most-found-guilty-of-crushing-innovation-through-illegal practices computer company.

Continue reading "Garden party part 5: SVW uncovers backyard plot by Microsoft loyalists. . ." »

Posted by Tom Foremski on June 17, 2005 4:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I went to a garden party....and Carly Florina was there. So was Scott McNealy, Larry Sonsini, Ray Ozzie. and a digital Bill Gates, seeking valley love

. . . is BFG seeking love in all the wrong places?

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

I went to a garden party in the backyard of Heidi Roizen's house in Woodside. The event was the annual SDForum Visionary Awards.

This is a great event, because much of the Silicon Valley aristocracy turns out for it. It is small and comfortable; and people let their hair down and tell funny stories about each other.

The winners this year were:

Carol Bartz, CEO of Autodesk, introduced by Scott McNealy, still CEO of Sun
Bill Draper, of the Draper VC family dynasty (Tim is J.R, BTW), introduced by VC Ann Winblad of Hummer Winblad
Carly Fiorina introduced by Larry Sonsini, master of the universe
Ray Ozzie, formerly of Groove and now operating under the pay of Microsoft, introduced by a Max Headroom-like Bill Gates and then handed over to Esther Dyson

It was a great evening and here is the rest of it. . .

Garden party part two: McNealy's tips for creating room at the top

Garden party part three: Bill Draper, the godfather of Silicon Valley's oldest VC dynasty

Garden party part 4: Larry Sonsini leads valley lovefest for Carly Fiorina . . .

Garden party part 5: SVW uncovers backyard plot by Microsoft loyalists

Posted by Tom Foremski on June 21, 2005 3:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Who will save Plugged In--computer literacy for East Palo Alto kids?

Tom Foremski, Silicon Valley Watcher
In the center of Silicon Valley, just across the highway, and just minutes from the pristine streets and academic blissfulness of Palo Alto, is East Palo Alto. It is a ghetto in the traditional sense--poor, urban, mostly African American, and unsafe.

Plugged In, a charity that taught East Palo Alto children computer literacy, has had to lay off its entire staff. Here is more on this situation from my pals at IDBNetwork:

Plugged In was forced to lay off all six full-time staff members -- two of whom have kept working without pay. Losing Plugged In would be a terrible blow to East Palo Alto and to Silicon Valley as a whole.
The organization needs $27,000 by December 31 to keep operating into next year, and $108,000 for the entire year.

There's something seriously wrong with our priorities if non-profits like Plugged In that focus on bringing technology into the community -- right here in Silicon Valley, the center of technology innovation -- aren't being supported by the technology giants that live next door. Plugged In needs and deserves our immediate help.

We encourage you to help them in any way you can. Potential donors can contact Michael Levin at 650.322.1134 ext. 13 or at mlevin@pluggedin.org.

Donations may also be sent to EPA.net, c/o Plugged In, 1836B Bay Road, East Palo Alto, CA 94303.

---

To learn more about Plugged In visit:

http://whatcounts.com/t?ctl=1028297:3160203

Posted by Tom Foremski on December 13, 2005 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Silicon Valley is back . . . I have the dotcom

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher
[There has been a lot written recently that Silicon Valley is back--here is part of a post I wrote in mid-November 2004.]

I've had lots of chats about Silicon Valley lately and I’m of the Bachman Turner opinion that you ain’t seen nothing yet.

When I arrived here November 8, 1984, Silicon Valley was going through the down cycle following the PC boom. A hundred PC companies wanted just 10 per cent of the market, wanting to strike it rich, as rich as the Apple IPO—the Google celebrity IPO of its day.

Hundreds of Apple staff became millionaires, including secretaries and the guy that ran the parking lot. The media coverage was massive. VCs rushed in like a herd and funded a huge number of PC companies and when the bubble popped, the down cycle was harsh. Stories about Silicon Valley’s death were constant and grinding for several years. I’ve seen several business cycles and the same thing happens in each down cycle, endless speculation about Silicon Valley’s future. What future does Silicon Valley have?

I think I can answer that question very easily—and I’ll accept any size bet on this call: when Silicon Valley comes back, it will be bigger than before. (Actually, it’s been back for a while--hence this venture.)

[I was chatting with Ron Piovesan, from Cisco on this topic recently, and he says has also seen signs of improvement. He laughed when I said I own the dotcom name: SiliconValleyIsBack.com. I said I’m serious, I do own it!]

Silicon Valley is very much like a fairground slurpy -- big chunks of ice with most of the juice at the bottom.

And there is a lot of juice accumulating, the laptops are discretely reappearing in bars and restraunts, and there are many signs of bubbly behavior.

Silicon Valley is going to have a larger impact than before. I’ve been through several business cycles and each time Silicon Valley has come back stronger.

Continue reading "Silicon Valley is back . . . I have the dotcom" »

Posted by Tom Foremski on February 22, 2006 12:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

On McNealy departure: Where are the new leaders?

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

Scott McNealy's departure from Sun Microsystems has been on the cards for more than a year. It will likely be just one of many departures by veteran Silicon Valley and other captains of the tech industry over the next year or two, as that generation moves into the grey zone of life.

Mr McNealy has a superb track record, and his executive team over the years has gone on to lead many other companies. But it is hard to preside over a company that is not growing as Sun used to grow: explosively.

I remember chatting with Ed Zander, about a year after he left Sun and he spoke about how tough it was to downsize a workforce, and the many difficult decisions that Sun would have to make to survive the longest downturn in Silicon Valley's history. When you've spent most of your time hiring like mad, and focused on staff loyalty, downsizing is an anathema.

Managing a company that is growing very quickly is a very different challenge from managing a company in today's very tough markets. It is a very different culture and it requires a cultural change that not every company can manage well.

Sun has a huge market and has large opportunities, it won't go away anytime soon, but it does need a boost in the arm. I've often said that a Sun and Hewlett-Packard merger looks good to me, with some very good synergies. And it would be an interesting play against IBM, a West Coast v East Coast rivalry that could play well.

Is Mr McNealy's departure and the subsequent head count reduction, estimated at 5,000 by financial analysts, a way to dress up Sun for an acquisition or merger?

And who else will depart for the green pastures of the golf course? Steve Ballmer over at MSFT has been a bit quiet, Ray Ozzie is on the ascendent, there might need to be some room made at the top...

Who will be next to go is less interesting than who will be in the ranks of the new leaders of Silicon Valley and the tech industry. To be honest, I don't see much of a leadership emerging yet; maybe it is under the radar, maybe the new leadership will be apparent when the new upstart companies emerge?

But will we have new upstart companies that can survive beyond five years before they are acquired? Is the game these days a case of scale? In which case, the giant sucking sound of GOOG, YHOO, ORCL, SAP, INTC, EBAY, etc will dominate the technology/media world. And thousands of startups will compete to get sucked into those gargantuan organisations and we won't get the same crop of dynamic and colorful business leaders that used to characterize Silicon Valley.

That is one, very obvious scenario. However, the expected scenarios often don't come through quite as expected so I'm looking forward to picking out the new leaders. Let me know if you have any suggestions on who might be in the ranks of the new Silicon Valley/tech leadership.

Posted by Tom Foremski on April 25, 2006 7:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

The Next Big Thing...

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher
I had to take a break from interviewing and writing all day long so I popped down to the Ad:Tech conference downtown. But it was 7pm so all that was going on were the evening events.

I had some invites and it was a gorgeous evening in San Francisco and so I just wandered in and out of various places, content to observe and amble around.

And this is the point of this post: I can walk into any room and talk with anybody and I will walk away with a story. I like to joke with people that there are so many stories here, that I can kick over an empty soda can in the street and find a story. And it's true, and I do it time and time again.

So this evening I met the very excellent Chris Heuer, and his delightful entourage. And the wonderful thing about all of this is that there are so few people that speak this freakish pig-latin that people in the bloggerhood speak.

I certainly didn't speak it until I became a journalist blogger about a year or so ago. And at the time, I would estimate there were maybe 150 people that understood this special language...

Now, there is at least a 200 percent jump in that number. There might even be as many as 500 people that speak this language, worldwide (most are here).

And that number will not hockey stick, it will jump onto a logarithmic scale very, very soon. But in the meantime it's great to find like minded souls.

And it is so wonderful to be here, in Silicon Valley, the birth place (again!) of the next big thing. I've spent more than 20 years here, covering Silicon Valley as a reporter, looking over other people's shoulders with my notebook in hand, saying "Wow, that looks really interesting, tell me what you are doing."

Now, my colleagues in the mainstream media call me up and say "Wow, that looks really interesting, tell me what you are doing." It doesn't get any sweeter than that.

There is a new trend emerging, but it is not where you might expect it. Silicon Valley is buzzing, there is a new energy in the air, but it is not where most people think it is.

The next big thing is ... [I'll tell you if you ask me :-)

- - -

BTW, Chris Heuer and his buddies are heading over to New Orleans next week to bring the new social/media technologies to the neighborhoods and the small businesses that anchor the city's communities. It's a real test of our collaborative media technologies; if we say these technologies are powerful change-agents then let's put them to use in the most needed areas of our society!

My focus is schools, but there are many other places that we can put these powerful and very inexpensive technologies to great use. I support what Chris and his group are doing and you can too. You can contact Chris here on his web page if you'd like to help.

Posted by Tom Foremski on April 27, 2006 12:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Learning the business of innovation: Stanford hosts sold out Startup School weekend

By Mark Coker for Silicon Valley Watcher

Palo Alto - 600 people from countries as far away as Brazil and Japan will converge at Stanford University Saturday for Startup School 2006, a conference featuring a dozen tech industry movers and shakers such as Caterina Fake of Flickr fame and Joshua Schachter of social bookmarking site, del.icio.us.

No, attendees won’t learn how to build next generation Web 2.0 websites with PHP, Python or Ruby on Rails. Instead, they’re coming to receive a one-day crash course in how to build a successful technology business.

For those lucky enough to nab a ticket to the invitation-only conference, Startup School 2006 will offer attendees a rare chance to hear first-hand war stories from the successful pioneers behind some of the biggest technology trends shaping the industry today.

Continue reading "Learning the business of innovation: Stanford hosts sold out Startup School weekend" »

Posted by Tom Foremski on April 28, 2006 5:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Startup School: Launch fast, update frequently and be lazy

Mark Coker reports from Startup School at Stanford university where 600 people from around the world listened to some of Silicon Valley's top entrepeneurs give out their best advice.

By Mark Coker for Silicon Valley Watcher

Palo Alto - Launch fast, keep it simple, update frequently. That was the message hammered home this Saturday to 600 wide-eyed entrepreneurs packed into Stanford University’s Kresge Auditorium for Startup School 2006.

Attendees at the invitation-only event, who came from as far away as Europe, South America and Asia, were there to learn startup business advice from over a dozen tech industry movers and shakers. The crowd, mostly men in their early twenties, sat in rapt attention as they heard war stories of tech business success and failure from men and women not much older than themselves.

The event was co-sponsored by seed venture firm Y Combinator and Stanford’s BASES organization, and featured presentations covering fundamental topics such as funding, hiring, marketing, operations, and legal planning.

Joe Kraus: I'm a startup addict

Joe Kraus, the former co-founder of the Excite search engine that sold for $6.7 billion in 1999, kicked off the conference by confessing to the audience that he was a startup addict. The crowd laughed, probably wishing the same affliction upon themselves.

Continue reading "Startup School: Launch fast, update frequently and be lazy" »

Posted by Tom Foremski on April 30, 2006 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Soonr: How to make (almost) free cell phone calls to anywhere...

Soonr, a startup that gives you access to your PC applications from any cell phone, recently introduced a cool way to use Skype to make extremely cheap international calls on your cell phone, and also very cheap domestic calls--if you have the right calling plan.

I got a briefing on it last week from Soonr CEO Martin Frid-Nielsen: you download a little app onto your PC then using your cell phone you use Skype on your PC to place a telephone call. Within a few seconds, you get a Skype incoming call to your cell phone connecting you and your target phone number. In this way, you can make international calls on your cell phone for pennies instead of the 40 cents and above rates your cell phone network charges.

In my case, it is even cheaper because I get free incoming minutes on my Sprint calling plan, which means I'm not using up my monthly minutes.

But won't the cell phone companies get a bit upset with this, I asked? "Most people will be using up their monthly minutes, so it helps to drive their revenues," says Mr Frid-Nielsen. Check it out here, it's free. http://www.soonr.com/

More from Soonr release:

SoonR Talk works with a person’s PC like a switchboard to set up their calls. Users simply click on the buddy they wish to talk with and SoonR Talk tells their PC to call their mobile phone using SkypeOut, then instructs Skype to call the buddy and places the user into a conference. SoonR Talk can even create calls with multiple users from the mobile phone. Just like on the PC, SoonR Talk shows which buddies are online and if they are not there, a user can IM them so they can see the message the next time they are using Skype. SoonR Talk fully supports Skype chat.

SoonR Talk is the latest offering in SoonR’s line of services that delivers the power of a person’s PC to their mobile phone. Other SoonR service features include SoonR Desktop, that lets people search and access the files on their PC desktop and SoonR Organizer, that lets people check their Outlook email, calendar and contacts – on any mobile phone with a browser, without the need for synchronization or installing software on the phone.

Posted by Tom Foremski on May 9, 2006 2:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

This&That: Beyond Blogging; Take the man out of Manhattan; Beet TV; OutCast dinner; Blake leaves WetFeet and PR; Personal APIs; The Net DVD release

[I've caught one of those stomach bugs and am a bit low to the ground at the moment, but the blog must be fed(!)]

Last week I was with Chris Heueur over at the de Young, we were trying to do a podcast but it was surprisingly busy and this was a mid-week afternoon. So we popped back to his place in Duboce Triangle and recorded the podcast there on his deck in the gorgeous sunshine, in between pauses in his neighbor's lawn mowing activities.

It was a great conversation and Chris is using some of it for an event in Washington.D.C. called "Beyond Blogging 2006: The future of communications." (I didn't realises there was anything beyond blogging :-)

. . .

You can take the man out of Manhattan...and put him in Mountain View. That's what I learned last week when I met with Joshua Schachter, the founder of del.icio.us, the social bookmarking site. It explained why he had that New Yorker's expression on his face which can be summed up as slightly horrified.

On learning Mr Schachter's plight, I offered my condolences. He said he was still looking for decent restaurants in Mountain View, and he had heard that some places might even be open until midnight.

He told me he had spent 10 years in Manhattan and loved the place. After Yahoo acquired his company, he moved to Silicon Valley. "At least people here have heard of del.icio.us."

He says that Yahoo people ask a lot of questions but let him run the business group as he pleases. Yahoo provides the technical infrastructure, which is a big help. I couldn't get too much out of Mr Schachter on the record, but he says to look out for an interesting announcement this summer.

. . .

I recently spoke with Andy Plesser, from New York based Plesser Holland Associates and he tells me his video blogging venture over at Beet TV is doing well. One of his latest posts features Silicon Valley's most famous publisher, Tony Perkins, now at AlwaysOn.

And you might even see myself on Beet.TV very soon...

. . .

The Outcast CEO dinner last week is always an event worth attending. It didn't have quite the same energy as last year, but a lot interesting people showed up. I got to catch up with one of my favs, Satish Dharmaraj from Zimbra.

And the dinner-time show was provided byPeter Hirshberg from Technorati. Mr Hirshberg's presentation was funny and very insightful. I particularly loved his "Who wants to be a VC" a video that featured a group of 11 year old girls presenting business ideas to each other and deciding on who would get funding. I have an 11 year old daughter, Sarah, so I can relate very well. BTW, I recommend VC firms hiring a few 11 year old girls as consultants--they asked better questions than some of the real VCs :-)

. . .

I was sorry to hear Blake Barbera, is leaving the PR industry. Blake's WetFeetPR blog rapidly became one of the best sites on the subject of PR. Good luck in your next job Blake!

The future of PR is in the hands of Blake's generation and often it is these younger people in the PR agencies that know more about this emerging world of new media/new communications than their older colleagues. They haven't yet been taught what can and cannot be done, and they often have unique insights on PR and some of its ludicrous and wasteful practices.

. . .

I was thinking about how everybody seems to have a different way of communicating with the world. Some prefer email, others swear by instant messaging. I think we should all publish our own API to the world.

In the same way that an API (Application Programming Interface) tells software developers how an application or web service interacts with other software/services, a personal API would do the same.

I'm not sure what the right format to express a personal API would be but mine would be something like this:
Tom Foremski API

Email: Good but because of volume I sometimes miss emails and other times it can take days to answer. You can resend to make sure I saw it but please no phone calls. I have to impose daily email blackout periods of several hours at a time because I need uninterrupted time to write.
IM: Don't use it.
Cell phone: Good, please use especially when urgent or time related. It's okay to call anytime, I will answer if I can.
Desk phone: I don't give out this number.
Meetings: I like meetings and prefer them instead of email or phone in establishing relationships.
FAX: I don't use it.
Mail: Only for checks.

. . .

The Other Cinema recently released "The Net: The Unabomber, LSD and the Internet." It's an interesting documentary by a German team and it's fascinating to see how our tech culture in Silicon Valley/Bay Area became intertwined with that of a serial killer.

There are some great interviews in the DVD extra section. Stewart Brand and John Brockman offer several interesting stories on how part of the the computer industry became affected by the counter-culture movement in the early 1960s and the connection to the Beat writers.

For a really unique insight into the Internet, its creation and organization, the interview with Paul Garrin is fascinating and well worth buying the DVD to see. Mr Garrin has a truly unique perspective and his insights certainly set me thinking about things Internet-related in new ways.
From the description of "The Net."

This exquisitely crafted inquiry into the rationale of this mythic
figure situates him within a late 20th Century web of technology – a
system that he grew to oppose. A marvelously subversive approach to the
history of the Internet, this insightful documentary combines
speculative travelogue and investigative journalism to trace
contrasting counter cultural responses to the cybernetic revolution.

http://www.othercinemadvd.com/net.html

Posted by Tom Foremski on May 22, 2006 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

UK laptop ban will cripple business class productivity

The UK ban on laptops in planes leaving the UK or transferring through, is going to be a big blow to productivity for business travellers. Flights to the West Coast of California can take 12 hours or more, (equal to one and a half UK business days or one US business day.)

The UK is a major destination for many Silicon Valley executives. And London has been making a big push in Silicon Valley and in southern California to position itself as an ideal place to site European headquarters. Could the laptop ban hurt London's ambitions to attract more companies?

The ban comes in the wake of the discovery by British police of a plot to blow up an airplane.

The laptop ban, however, might enable airlines to offer travellers in-flight rentals of laptops. Users could bring their data and applications on USB flash drives.

Posted by Tom Foremski on August 10, 2006 1:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

diggrz: DJs spin not speak; Musical dating; Bake a cake for Amanda she's coming this way . . .

[diggrz: a tag for arts and culture trends and events - in and around Silicon Valley - a new feature from Silicon Valley Watcher]

By Lucaso for Silicon Valley Watcher
Lately, I've been deleting music podcasts because I'm tired of hearing a DJ's voice, even for the track listing.

If I wanted to know the track info, I'd look it up on the chapter list in iTunes or read the playlist. Save the chatter for the new Skype wi-fi cellie and let the music of the podcast speak for itself, dig?

If a picture is worth a thousand words than a song is worth at least 999. So, with that in mind . . . here are two of my new favorite podcasts: BetterPropoganda and Memekast.

BetterPropoganda is an established digital music portal and Memekast features guest DJs doing live mixes. Both are electronic/breakbeat/dance focused, and even if you're only dancing in your chair, they're still hot.These two podcasts have taken over my iPod by giving me 30-40 minute sessions that are mixed live and uninterrupted... perfect for repeat play.

Music to meet people by . . . Similar to Last.fm, Mog lets you discover "people through music and music through people."

Not enough video sharing sites . . . Dabble lets you search, collect and organize your favorite web videos. What's different about Dabble and other video sharing sites? Hmmm ... the UI?

Dave.tv, another video sharing beta. The difference with Dave.tv is that you can create an entire broadcasting channel to put it anywhere on the web.

Amanda is heading this way. . . Yes, old Rocketboom anchor and videoblog actress Amanda Congdon is headed west. You can check out her trip across the states at Amanda Across America.

. . .

Come back to Silicon Valley Watcher for more diggrz: arts and culture and events posts throughout the week.

[diggrz refers to the nomadic lifestyle offered by mobile digital technologies and gadgets - creating a "nomadig" culture. The diggrz name is also a tip-of-the-hat to some of the ideas of the Diggers, a democratic group that arose in 1649, out of the English revolution .

The Diggers were a radical group that cultivated and protected common lands, and sought to create egalitarian, self-sustaining communities. The Diggers would have found kindred spirits in today's software engineer culture, and the focus on creating commonly owned technologies through egalitarian open source community projects. - Tom Foremski]

Tag: diggrz

Posted by Tom Foremski on September 19, 2006 1:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

SVW Journal: Out and about at WebEx and SaaScon . . .

It is a busy week in San Francisco with the Intel Developer Forum (Intel is a sponsor of SVW), the Clean Tech California Awards, the software as a service conference, and in San Diego DEMO is happening.

I stayed close to home this week. Monday, I managed to miss a lunch time media roundtable about software on demand because I was trying to catch up with tons of stories, and trying to tweek my CSS style sheet on SVW.

. . . Cisco rolls its own instead of buying

I did speak with Cisco about their Digital Media Systems business, which they say could become a $1bn business group. It is being launched by an internal venture group.

This is a sharp departure from Cisco's normal way of growing business, which is to seek out companies for acquisition once the market horizon reaches that magic $1bn level. Internal development versus acquisitions? Does this mean acquisitions of private companies are getting a bit too richly valued for Cisco?

. . . enterprise software is turning into one big mashup

In the evening I ran over to the WebEx event at the W Hotel and spoke with David Knight, VP pf product Management at WebEx. This was the launch of the WebEx collaborative application platform.

I said to Mr Knight that every enterprise application seems to be turning into the same thing: collaborative apps linked into CRM, ERP and legacy systems. In a year or two, how will I tell the difference in features and capabilities between services from WebEx, Salesforce, RightNow Technologies, Siebel, SAP, Microsoft, and many other enterprise applications; all vying to be enterprise platforms built around collaboration tools.

Mr Knight said there will be a difference and I agree. The winner will be the one that can capture the most vital segment within a company and I think that segment is the salesforce. And do it with a killer user interface. WebEx has 2m users, that's a significant base to sell into.

. . . hunting stories from Greg Gianforte RightNow Technologies

I ran into Greg Gianforte, CEO of RightNow Technologies, one of my favorite executives in the enterprise software sector. I asked Mr Gianforte how his book "Bootstrapping Your Business: Start and Grow a Successful Company With Almost No Money" was doing.

He said it was doing well and he was enjoying letters and emails from readers who had taken his advice to heart, which is to raise money from your customers and not from VCs. [I'm republishing Mr Gianforte's column from last summer in SVW at the end of this post--it is worth reading many times.]

Go out and sell something encapsulates a lot of Mr Gianforte's advice, and it is true, many people find it hard to sell. But if you have a service or a product that can make someone's life better, then you have a responsibility to offer it to that person or company.

Mr Gianforte lives in Montana and he always has some good hunting stories to tell, and as he likes to remind me, he always eats what he kills. He is down in Silicon Valley a lot, but his Montana HQ provides a fresh perspective on our localized thinking.

Silicon Valley is a great place to be, it exposes everyone to cutting edge conversations and concepts. But sometimes we get too intoxicated by our own hot air, and get a bit ahead of ourselves. So it is always good to hear a fresh perspective from outside of the local echo chamber, and that's what a conversation with Mr Gianforte often provides.

. . . Soonr is better than later

I ran into the Soonr management team, also their very able representative Anastasia Marin from Connecting Point Communications.

I had a very interesting chat with Cindy Gordon, CEO of Helix, an e-commerce consultancy group based in Toronto, Canada. She introduced me to Mark Organ. CEO of Eloqua, also in Toronto. And Raghu Raghavan, CEO of Act On Software, based in Portland, Oregon.

. . . Back stabbing or back scratching?

I chatted with a lot of other people too, a lot of WebEx partners. And there are many of these platform + partner roll out events these days.

Everyone supports everyone's platform and turns up for each other's events but it seems there is little love lost between the partners and the platform providers. It may look like scratch my back and I'll scratch yours, but that's just on the surface ... :-)

. . .

Here is the excellent advice column from Greg Gianforte, CEO of RightNow Technologies. You should print it out and stick it on your bathroom mirror:

Reasons not to take venture capital

- If you start by selling your concept to potential prospects (rather than stock to VCs), you will either end up with initial customers or a conviction that your idea won't work. Why raise money and then find out which one it will be?

- Raising money takes time away from understanding your market and potential customers. Often more time than it would take to just go sell something to a customer. Let your customers fund your business through product orders.

- Adding VCs to the mix early gives you an additional set of masters you must serve in addition to your customers. It is always hard to serve two masters, especially in a startup.

-With no money you can't make a fatal mistake. This is a blessing. Without VC money, you are forced to figure out how to extract funds from your customers for value you deliver. Ultimately that is the only thing that really matters.

-Money removes spending discipline. If you have the money you will spend it - whether you have figured out your business model and market or not.

-Raising VC money determines your exit strategy. You will either sell the business or take it public. What if you end up with a very profitable, modest sized business that you want to just run? That is no longer an option once you raise VC money.

-You sell your precious equity very dearly before you have a proven business model. This is the worst time to raise money from a valuation perspective.

Don't forget Dell, HP, Microsoft all originally started without VC funding; you can build a big business with bootstrapping and without VC money.

At RightNow, we doubled our revenue and employees every 90 days for two years before we took any outside money, and even then the employees retained more than 75% ownership after raising $32m.

- - - Greg Gianforte : "Bootstrapping Your Business: Start and Grow a Successful Company With Almost No Money."

SVW affiliate link:

And he welcomes questions from SiliconValleyWatcher readers.

Posted by Tom Foremski on September 26, 2006 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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Former Financial Times journalist Tom Foremski and team reporting on the business of technology and media . Silicon Valley is becoming a Tech Media Valley.

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