Posted on December 26, 2008
Filed Under Misc, Software, Technology & The Web | Leave a Comment
Bill did Charlie Rose which gives one a 55 minute view into what he thinks about where MSFT is now and where they are going. Given the size and importance of the company we thought we should review it.
Bill’s outside MSFT now but he clearly still cares about the company as well as some "special projects" like search.
The odd disconnect between what Bill believes and what the reality is in software today. The visions are fairly mainstream including thoughts about mobile computing, reading devices, video, screen technologies and so on. (Strangely enough Bill didn’t have much to say about what we see as the medium-term future of visual computing and RealVR.)
There’s clearly big opportunity in having Bill and his resources figure out some solutions to normal world problems like how to keep vaccines viable without refrigeration and many other areas.
Having the energy and intellectual interest, combined with the financial resources of a Gates/Buffett+ is a pretty big deal. The world isn’t rational because of dysfunctional incentive systems and it needs organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to address obvious problems.
Technology will play a big roll in delivering the best education effectively. Also technology will help with problems like water and cooling in emerging economies. At the same time technology plays a generally positive role in figuring out ways to spur development.
Go after some core problems like AIDS and Malaria are a major focus. Gates focuses mostly on developing new solutions and then relies on governments and other organizations to fund large-scale implementations.
On the surface having these guys go after solutions for the 10M children who die every year is obviously pretty awesome stuff.
Lots of the major cycles are 15 years in duration when it comes to new vaccines and crops which is a major factor in limiting advances.
The idea of taking 4-5% of the "innovation power" of large companies and directing it towards special needs of the world and the poor is a good one. [The fact is that taking 1c out of every dollar and focusing the right way will go a along way to solving these problems.]
Bureaucrats don’t get a wake up call from customers or markets. Same can be said in many ways about some non-profits. The ability to prioritize and understand real business scale issues are the core of what needs to be in place to solve some of these problems.
Overall a fairly grounded and noble presentation from Bill on what he is doing and how he still feels technology will play a major role. At the same time he hasn’t totally let go of technology projects at Microsoft but much remains to be seen about how they will do in software, search and so on.
Posted on December 19, 2008
Filed Under Companies, Markets & Finance, Misc | 1 Comment
More folks in the institutional brokerage and banking world should be reading the stuff Seth Godin and others are writing about. We all have an intuitive feel about why the newspapers are dying in part because many of us no longer read them.
What about institutional brokerage? For one thing the consumers in this market are very slow adopters. Most of these folks attend meetings, listen to voicemail and use email as their primary sources of information. During the 90’s before the Internet adoption wave took off an analyst could have a huge amount of impact on technology stocks. However the cost of that impact was a highly trained and hardworking staff of institutional sales and trading that cost our small boutique upwards of tens of millions of dollars per year. It was highly effective and thanks to a steady amount of invest banking revenue and the ability to have multiple research analysts share that channel, helped everyone make a ton of money.
The crux of the problem with the institutional model is that it breaks down at revenue rates under $100M and gets pretty ugly and depressing from there. It’s just not a viable business.
We started our independent research business in April of 2005 and have sworn off any kind of distribution or marketing costs in favor of just focusing on research and leaving the rest to our network of contacts and the growing world of online awareness and distribution. (We’ve dabbled a little bit here and there to test our conviction it’s been clear that money spent there is money wasted.)
Despite all that and perhaps as one would expect our distribution and footprint has expanded steadily while we simply focused on doing research. Like any business we have faced challenges and continue to hone our distribution capabilities but they largely build themselves organically or through partners. At the same time our direct network has expanded by about 100% from what it was in April of 2005 to number about 500 direct client/customer types who we interact with on a fairly regular basis and can use to "get things done" when the need arises.
Now of course could salespeople add value, but they may make more sense in the form of distribution partners rather than direct staff. By staying lightweight and leveraging existing infrastructure we think that we can deliver all that we could before from a research perspective without the ancillary 50 to 60 people we needed in the 1990’s. It’s true the revenue level is much smaller but it works with the new expense structure to create research compensation and net operating margins in line with the 90’s.
Brokers and banks seem to have plenty of more things to worry about in the short term but if these dynamics are secular, some deeper thinking is still required there.
Posted on December 19, 2008
Filed Under Misc, Software, Technology & The Web, Starting Up | Leave a Comment
This one isn’t about stocks but rather information and some of the new services out there that have changed how information is received, shared and put to use (sometimes.)
At the beginning of the year most of us weren’t using services like Twitter and social networking platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn have come a fair way over the course of the year. At the same time filtering services, alerts and Google reader are all very good alternatives to email for processing information.
Here are a few things to consider doing over the holidays (feel free to add more in comments!):
This is also a good time of the year to consider an upgrade to a time management tool of some sort. Lately we have been using Mac-based Things and like it quite a bit. Reading some books like Getting Things Done or the 4-hour Work Week may also help stimulate some better work habits in the new year.
In summary this is a good time to rationalize and prioritize your information processing and the new tools out there are important elements of taking full advantage of what’s out there. We left out as many as we included here so this is just a start.
Posted on December 11, 2008
Filed Under Misc, Software, Technology & The Web | Leave a Comment
Years ago we were at Le Web in Paris on the famous day when the organizers pre-empted the event with a series of political stump speeches (in French no less) to an infuriated audience.
This year the event was an unqualified success in our view although like all such events there are always armchair critics out there sniping away at it. (Running a conference of scale is a tough problem that breaks the best of them. Try it if you dare.)
We will publish the usual content summary note next week but in terms of the event we would highlight the following points:
Part of Le Web is coming with the right attitude. Le Web was never about incredible deep technology insights but rather about seeing a bunch of interesting content and bits of technology from around Europe and interact with new people while doing some creative work yourself. You also can’t just sit back at Le Web and expect it all to come to you. Move around and you’ll find happiness. (It’s okay to expect heat, network connections and food but some of these were circumstances only partially in control of the organizing team.)
If I had to position it I’d say it’s kind of between an O’Reilly ETech and a TED. It still needs to find more of a brand identity and harmonize with that. For example how nice should the food and dinner events be? For a poor 23 year old they were fine. For a 40 year old corporate executive or venture capitalists they were totally unacceptable. (Remember you’re trying to get these types together right?)
All conferences suffer a bit in the online world today. We can get so much done and participate remotely (usually for free) it makes it hard to justify the time and expense required to go somewhere. But Le Web was worth the time. The second day was inspiring, especially the afternoon. That alone was worth the trip.
Tags: #leweb, leweb, conferences
Posted on September 28, 2008
Filed Under Misc | Leave a Comment
Despite the advice of market pundits to spend this weekend relaxing we’ve been working on an update on open source software adoption. At the same time we have been back at the links after a multi-year hiatus. We started to think about why we got back into golf after the gap and the answer illustrates what I think is a fundamental structural shift that could help revive the sport.
Golf is a special sport for many reasons but athletically it is one of the few if not the only one when the implement that is used to hit the ball doesn’t stay constant as does a tennis racquet or baseball bat. A golfer may have to use 14 different clubs to get the job done. For all the attraction about the same number of people quit playing golf each year as take the sport up. It’s stagnant.
We know that clubs like Winged Foot are not going to change and we wouldn’t want them to. Playing there is a religious experience that shouldn’t be tampered with. However the notion of suspending our other obligations and connectivity for a half a day is getting harder and harder to do.
This summer we stumbled into a new model that was an epiphany for us. We stopped thinking about playing a full round of 18 holes. Our goal was always to squeeze in 9 and not even feel that we needed to commit to that if we were pressed for time. So all of a sudden we were playing three or four times a week but for much shorter duration. We could begin to incorporate golf into the normal, busy life tempo that most people have.
We have seen some "executive courses" with only short par-3 holes but many of them are more driven by space constraints rather than good ideas about changing how people relate to the club and the game.
Playing 9 is a great start but maybe more forward-thinking courses need to start thinking in 3’s instead of 9’s. Why not lay things out based on 6 out and in at least? That would make playing 6, 12, or 18 all easy to do. Six holes gets the round into the sub-90 minute range of a typical movie, tennis match or bike ride.
The shorter options would also open up better pricing without having to spend $100 on a full round it becomes easy to pay $20-$25 for 6. They economics could be better than expected because golfers would certainly make more visits to the course and I suspect would actually spend more time there.
In short by reengineering their approach to allow the sport to be integrated more easily into the typical lifestyle, golf could start to grow again.
Tags: golf, business, economics
Posted on October 18, 2007
Filed Under Companies, Markets & Finance, Misc | Leave a Comment
It’s just in the curious category (Leopard, market share gains and unlocked iPhone look very good) but worth noting.
The AC adapter for the MacBook Pro breaks like previous models. The problem is, you can’t get a new one. There isn’t a single one to be found in France and even Apple quotes 2 to 4 weeks for delivery.
When we tried to purchase one in the US we were only able to find one in the Boston area through a reseller and according to Apple they are not available anywhere but nobody knows why.
The problem of course is without the adapter your Mac is totally out of commission. It’s not very viable to wait a few weeks a new one.
Are power adapters that hard to make and stock? Does Apple have some odd problem with supply?
Puzzling.
Tags: Apple, AC Adapter, Mac
Posted on July 28, 2007
Filed Under Companies, Markets & Finance, Misc | Leave a Comment
There have been stories recently that the NY Times might discontinue their subscription-based offering TimesSelect. Part of the reason is that authors in the paper, especially in the OpEd section don’t want there to be a gate between their content and the world. As a writer, you want as many people as possible to read your work, it’s great if they pay but you generally favor readership over dollars.
The problem with TimesSelect and similar offering from other papers is that it’s annoying for the readers and subscribers. Some content is free, other requires a login. I’m a subscriber but sometimes my computer seems to forget how to login automatically and if the article isn’t that important I’m too busy to go through the whole "retrieve password" exercise.
So we’d completely understand if the Times decided to scrap TimesSelect. But it begs the question of if they do what then? We could write 20 pages here but instead suggest one option for the Times. When you stay at a resort you often get a simple short version of the Times (including the crossword) on 8 1/2 x 11 paper. I absolutely love it. If I lived full time in NY I’d subscribe to the Sunday Times but not the rest. We’re all too busy to sit down with the papers and page through them. It’s certainly all online today. However this packaging, combined with good editorial oversight would be a winner. I’d happily pay some amount per year for a 12 page PDF file of the NYTimes with just what I need to know. No advertising.
Display advertising online is now out of control. We have had to totally block and stop reading sites like Forbes.com, eWeek and ZDnet. The ads are overwhelming. You actually have to squint to see any of the text you are hoping to read.
Other publications, including the Financial Times, Nature and a probably all of them with a news focus need to find a way to deliver a nicely packaged version of the news to users that they would pay for. The efforts so far but the NYT and Dow Jones are pathetic. If the NYT just woke up and did something that adds value rather than just restricting access to random pieces of content they might be able to build a business out of it.
– Kris Tuttle
Tags: New York Times, Dow Jones, Newspapers, Subscriptions, TimesSelect
Posted on June 8, 2007
Filed Under Companies, Markets & Finance, Misc | Leave a Comment
Although not a fan of comics we had a chance and come to know Stan Lee back in 1999. At the time he had his own company, Stan Lee Media (SLEE), and was working to create totally new concepts of animation and stories that bridged the print comics and online world. (Despite the success of Spiderman and many of his famous characters the licenses and earnings accrue mostly to the big companies that own them now; not Stan.)
Stan was in his late 70’s then. (Said to be 84 now.) He has the creative energy and finesse to do things legions of younger and harder working experts struggle to achieve. He seems to effortlessly create characters and tell stories that delight and excite you. It just springs from him like a natural force.
Finally one of the majors (Disney) has announced that they have signed Stan up to a deal for the right of first refusal on any new IP he creates. Hopefully they are also providing some R&D funding so he can just keep doing what he does best and stop worrying about companies, investors and money.
For the record SLEE had a great run, up from about $8 to $24 with the great bubble of the 90’s despite limited revenue and losses. Of course the stock went to zero after the bubble burst. But through it all Stan survives and get’s another chance to thrill us with his genius. Those folks at Disney know something about entertainment.
Tags: Disney, Stan Lee, Spiderman, Inspiration