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April 21, 2005
Is Google poised to bring down Goliath?
This isn't strictly an Open Source topic, but fascinating and relevant nonetheless. MATHIEU BALEZ at the Globe + Mail asks a lot of fascinating questions in this article ultimately arguing that Google could be positioning for some serious hardball with Microsoft.
A few choice ideas, "the network is the computer", Google runs everything on Linux, everyone has broadband now, if booting off the network becomes viable, old-world Operating Systems could become obsolete. Could it be true? Think about it, everything Google brings, all those solutions require only a browser. Imagine a stripped down OS which just ran a browser (read Linux) that you could download and have always up-to-date over the network. And it's free. Who can compete with that?
The idea is so cool, and so radical I can barely fathom it, but read this article because it will change your thinking one way or the other...
Also, on a related note, I just remembered Joel Spolsky's great article last June How Microsoft Lost the API War. It's an interesting discussion of technology directions, and how Microsoft's decision some time back to discard the backward-compatibility-at-any-cost mantra has cost them quite a lot.
Posted by admin at 06:32 PM | Comments (0)
jets, partners + ERP kings
If you follow their buying habits then you'll be interested to know that SAP's CEO Kagermann spent some time visiting VCs in the Bay Area recently.
Posted by admin at 06:23 PM | Comments (0)
April 17, 2005
outsourcing forecast - way down in 2005
As has been predicted in various places Gartner says a staggering 70% of indian business process outsourcing will die in the next few months.
Posted by admin at 03:03 PM | Comments (0)
open source liability - no problem
Ray Lane, the man who helped Oracle come back from tough times during the early 90's is now a VC at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He put together a panel at a recent Open Source Business Conference, where the challenges of established enterprise software were discussed.
He said CIO's
"are looking for alternatives, and open source may offer them greener pastures" adding, "Their interest in open source is not just about economics, but about higher quality, better participation, and improved responsiveness". Prescient indeed.
There is another side to the Open Source story these days though, it's reaching an almost fadish state of success.
Posted by admin at 02:42 PM | Comments (0)
April 10, 2005
the flipside of offshoring
Offshoring has been hailed as a boon or a bane depending on if you're a CEO extolling it's virtues to shareholders, or a displaced technology worker who perceives it as the cause.
Being an avid Economist reader, I have read carefully discussions of offshoring, and outsourcing. The truth is even if it were as simple as lay people claim - lower wages in India mean workers here are automatically displaced - it is still not simple offshore projects. Here's a link to Ed Sim's Beyond VC where he discusses increased costs of outsourcing.
As an employer who often subcontracts work, and remote management I can relate to their difficulties. Managing projects and building software involves a lot of communication, and unfortunately often a lot of miscommunication. Though technologies like VOIP + Skype certainly narrow the divide, culture & language barriers, and the continued lack of Computer Science degrees in general are not problems that will soon go away.
Posted by admin at 11:29 PM | Comments (0)
opening innovation
Eric Von Hippel has a lot to say about the democratizing affect of new Open Source technologies on technology innovation. Check out his book Democratizing Innovation available as a free PDF download, or from Amazon or MIT Press.
Posted by admin at 05:09 PM | Comments (0)
April 04, 2005
the continuing innovators dillemma
Since Clayton Christensen's book was published in 2003, the problem of innovation at entrenched companies has been well known. A fellow orablog writer posted about Microsofts 6.8 billion spent on R&D can't cut through the problem. Interestingly, I also found this related article on how this type of innovation is turning up in surprising places.
Posted by admin at 07:25 PM | Comments (0)
pros and cons of open source
A recent article cautions against open source databases. While caution is always good thing, the sword can cut both ways. There are plenty of websites and other smaller applications for which an enterprise database like Oracle might be overkill both in terms of budget, and firepower. But I still maintain that the Open Source databases will remain their own niche for some time to come.
Another article discusses a potential legal timebomb because Open Source conflicts with traditional intellectual property. ADTI's financing may be a factor too.
Posted by admin at 07:15 PM | Comments (0)