Venture Chronicles

Morning - 10/23/03

New Fundings:

- Arena Solutions, Inc., a provider of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, today announced it has secured $5 million in Series C funding in led by Otter Capital, Arthur Rock and Warren Hellman. Arena will use the funds to accelerate sales, strengthen its market presence and maintain an aggressive approach to expanding the Arena PLM product.

- TimeSys Corporation, a provider of embedded Linux(R) and development tools, today announced that it has closed an $8 million round of funding led by Adams Capital Management. Additional investors participating in this round include The Hillman Company, Philips Electronics (a division of Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI)), and TimeSys CEO, Larry Weidman.

- BulldogIT, a Nashville, Tenn.-based provider of clinical information, financial, and productivity systems to hospitals through an ASP model, said it has closed its first round of funding with approximately $1.4 million.

Liquidity:

- Magma Design Automation, based in Cupertino, Ca., has acquired EDA start-up Silicon Metrics of Austin, Texas to form its new silicon correlation unit. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

- Macromedia, a publicly traded San Francisco-based software company, said it entered a definitive merger agreement to acquire San Diego-based eHelp, a developer of help authoring software. Macromedia will add eHelp's software to its product line. The deal is worth $26 million, not sure how much in cash vs. stock.

- Digital Insight, a Calabasas, Calif.-based publicly traded Internet banking provider, said it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Atlanta-based Magnet Communications, an provider of online cash management and business banking products, for approximately $61.8 million.

- British engineering and production technology company Invensys has agreed to sell its utility metering unit to the $1.5bn Resolute Fund managed by US private equity firm The Jordan Company. You may recall Invensys as the company that acquired and then sold Baan to SSA.

Main Dish:

- the 10 most overused words in technology
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1362005,00.asp

- even woodworking tools are not escaping dreaded End User Licence Agreements (EULA)
http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2003/10/22/221921/32

- I was at an RFID conference in Scotland a couple of weeks ago and saw an awesome presentation by an ex-Navy officer who is now a consultant to the DoD on RFID in their logistics operations. This article in EETimes adds more info on how the military is using RFID
http://www.eetimes.com/sys/news/OEG20031023S0054

- saw on the news last night that a huge sunspot could cause (more than normal) cell phone problems... I also heard from, of all places, Christie Brinkley (yeah, the supermodel) that the aurora borealis is visible at lower latitudes because of it. No, Brinkley didn't call me with the news, I saw her interviewed as part of the last Concorde flight this morning... and I don't think she had any idea why the aurora was more visible, just that it was.
http://space.com/scienceastronomy/solar_storm_031023.html

- Google is reportedly exploring IPO options... you may recall that the company hired former VC Lise Buyer to advise them on "market conditions".
http://news.com.com/2100-1024_3-5095984.html?tag=nefd_top

- Mistrial in the Quattrone trial, jury deadlocked.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/10/24/financial1247EDT0125.DTL

- Intel is working with a U.S. cancer research center to see if technology used to detect microscopic imperfections in wafers can be used to detect early signs of the disease
http://www.smalltimes.com/document_brief.cfm#brief_2

- T-Mobile has signed up with a company that provides nano base station technology to improve inbuilding cellular reception
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/9979.shtml

- I have often wondered who the hell buys products promoted via spam... after all, if nobody was taking these companies up on their offers, spam would naturally just go away. Turns out that 7% of recipients buy products from spam promotions. That's actually a really good response rate.
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/reports.asp?Report=102&Section=ReportLevel1&Field=Level1ID&ID=438

- time to ditch Internet Explorer for Firebird? I have largely done so, and with this plug in from Medroid that enables IE component functionality in IE I don't have any reason to go back.
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/34501
www.meadroid.com/neptune/

- the Amazon Look Inside the Book service is really cool, it does have the effect of Googling the entire printed catalog of a publisher. The WSJ article takes a look at O'Reilly's decision to not participate in the service.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB106691911037128200,00.html?emailf=yes

- lately I have been thinking that the way to build share in the lowest end of the SMB market is to just give stuff away... that's exactly what this company is doing with their FreeCRM offering
http://siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article.php/3098031

- VC resurgence reported by the Washington Post
http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/zforum/03/r_technews_henry102303.htm

- for investors, founders are short term CEOs. I can think of a number of our startups that were piloted by founders who ran out of gas at some point. But I think it's wrong for founders to take this as an indignity, the fact is that there are very few founder-CEOs of successful companies, hell you can name them. Founders and entrepreneurs typically have a different core set of skills than a professional CEO, just like how large company CEOs rarely succeed at the entreprenuer gig.
http://www.startup.wsj.com/columnists/enterprise/20031023-bailey.html

- The U.S. Senate approved a bill establishing a Do-Not-Spam list, it's even got a catchy title "The Can Spam Act"... although they should be careful as the Hormel company is getting a little sensitive about the use of their Spam trademark. This is a stupid bill that will only serve to increase unwanted emails, not reduce them. Once again, Senators and Congressmen, Spam is NOT telemarketing.
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/7082588.htm

- Pulver writes about Wifi coming to a telephone pole near you.
http://192.246.69.231/jeff/personal/archives/000184.html

- the very annoying X10 company filed for bankruptcy after a court found them in violation of a small companies IP for pop-up/under ads and set the compensatory relief at $4'ish million. The punitive phase was scheduled to begin the day the filed for bankruptcy, and is on on hold. Isn't it ironic that X10 would be forced into bankruptcy for an issue related to their pop-up ads?
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3097651

PSFT + ORCL

If there was any doubt that the hostile takeover attempt of PSFT by ORCL is dead, that was certainly put to rest this morning with PSFT's earnings announcement. PSFT posted a loss of 2 cents a share, but that was due to a charge taken for the JDE acquisition; absent of the noncash charge, the company would have earned $62 million, or 16 cents a share. At first I thought the math was wrong, because I recalled them increasing their share count as part of their takeover defense, but it's correct as they have 416 million shares outstanding. It's also worth noting that they acquired over 170 new customers in the quarter, their best in years.

Craig Conway and his management team deserve an enormous amount of respect for turning PSFT around and then beating back Ellison's Raiders while at the same time executing a complex acquisition of their own.

Turning PSFT around when Conway came on board was no small task. If you talk with Craig he will tell you the story of how PSFT didn't have operating budgets or plans when he became CEO. Amazingly, the various departments within the company just spent whatever they spent, and as long as they continued on the strong growth path they were it worked out. Additionally, they had a culture that didn't put a reward on performance and a penalty on poor performance, so while you made a lot of money if you performed well you didn't get put in the box if you performed badly. Employees in all areas did well in the good years, the sales teams made a ton of money and the rest of the employees did well on stock as well as direct compensation. When the company tanked, the employees saw a large amount of their wealth disappear and Conway faced an enormous morale challenge. All of this is kind of ironic when you consider that the company is primarily in the business of helping their customers better manage their human resources and financials!

The acquisition of JDE was no small task as the company didn't have a great track record of pulling off large acquisitions. I believe the acquisition of Red Pepper was the largest they had done prior to this, and well that didn't exactly blaze a path to glory. On top of the typical challenges of executing a tech acquisition, PSFT faced an additional challenge of integrating a company with a radically different company culture than their own. If you know JDE you will know what I am talking about. There was also the issue of layoffs, and of course the hostile takeover that Oracle initiated and turned up the volume on all through the process.

Oracle wrongly assumed that PSFT's pipeline would freeze and customers implementing the products would reconsider their decisions. All of this would contribute to worse than expected financial performance and the shareholders would revolt in the arms of Oracle. It might of worked if Oracle wasn't so reviled as a company. Oracle also didn't seem to appreciate that the customers who selected PSFT apps had rejected Oracle apps as part of their evaluation, so the idea of going with Oracle was really not an option for them. What did happen is that their customers and prospects rallied against the takeover, a testament to the work that PSFT has done to strengthen their long term relationships with customers. It also helped that Conway put in place in innovative money back guarantee of something like 5x the license cost that not only assured prospective customers of success but also had the handy side benefit of adding about half a billion in cost to Oracle should they succeed, it was really smart.

SAP figured that all of these customers would go into play in this scenario, and many of them did in fact look at SAP as an alternative solution. On a feature shootout, SAP would beat Oracle everyday of the week and twice on Sunday, so there wasn't much concern about Oracle acquiring PSFT, especially because the statements by Larry were so outlandish. Microsoft sat on the sidelines, apparently amused that Larry was making such as ass out of himself. IBM was caught in the middle, they knew that the first thing to go in a successful takeover would be PSFT support for DB2 and likely the relationship with IGS, but if they got into the mix and acquired PSFT, which they could easily have done, then their relationship with SAP would evaporate... ironically, they were a bigger loser in the success scenario than anyone else.

If it were any other company than Oracle, I think the takeover would have been successful. It's not that PSFT was in such a bad position, but rather that a competing vendor had a lot to gain by acquiring them. I don't think their apps are best in class, but in selected verticals they are very competitive. The management team is A+ and I expect we will see senior managers depart and go on to run very large companies on their own, much like how Oracle execs have gone on to great success.

It would appear that the attempted takeover of PSFT by ORCL is dead except in Larry's wildest delusions. Even Larry's underlings aren't talking about it anymore, except to quote the company line that they are "intent on acquiring Peoplesoft". It's really too bad that Chuck Philips had to have this as his opening act at Oracle, he deserves a lot more than this... of course, he's making millions as we speak so he is not getting any pity from me. Let's just say that Chuck's first season is 0-1.

Conway and Team deserves a standing ovation for what they have done over the last couple of years.

Morning - 10/22/03

New Fundings:

- Mobileway, a provider of mobile services, has secured $17 million in its Series C round of funding. Led by Mayfield, the round includes new, strategic investments from CDP Capital Technology Ventures, Intel Capital Corporation and others, as well as additional capital from second round investors.

- mtm laboratories, Heidelberg Germany, has received €3 million from Wellington Partners, which will conclude the company’s second round of funding. HBM Bio Ventures, Heidelberg Innovation and Mannheim Holdings invested €9 million the company in May 2003 as reported by Tornado Insider. The total second round now amounts to €12 million, which will be used towards product development as well as clinical studies and approval of the company’s CINtec products.

- I think I might have already covered this, but Brussels based payments software vendor Clear2Pay announced that it has completed its B-round funding with an additional investment from Intel Capital. The investors in the B-round included Big Bang Ventures, Koceram, Omega Pharma and the management. This additional extension brings the total raised capital to 8,4 million euro.

Main Dish:

- this is interesting, Bellsouth in Atlanta was ordered to provide DSL service to a customer who wasn't a Bellsouth phone customer. When I was thinking about disconnecting my phone service, my own Do-Not-Call list, I asked SBC if I could keep my DSL service. They said no, which I though smacked of illegal bundling, but I said okay and cancelled that too. I went with Comcast broadband cable, ditched Directv as well, and now I actually save about $100 a month. Do you think SBC would have been better off in the end if they just let me cancel my phone and keep my DSL? When VoIP matures to a consumer level technology, we could see an exodus from RBOCs who still believe their core business is voice communications. From where I stand, voice comm is just one feature that they bundle into a package of services that run over their data pipes.
http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/1003/22psc.html

- and more news on the FCC moves on VoIP
http://werbach.com/blog/2003/10/22.html#a1278

- software patents development in Europe, Stallman is against it (shocking!)
http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/10/21/1222214&mode=thread&tid=85

- U.S. wireless consumers have dished out $629 million in number portability service charges, despite the fact that not a single carrier has delivered the service. This Center for Public Integrity report blasts the zero accountability and for not disclosing what their actual costs are and are expected to be. Of all the carriers, AT&T Wireless is the highest with a $1.75 a month charge, while T-Mobile is at the bottom... they charge $0.00 per month. It's hardly surprising that while all of the carriers, except Verizon, fought tooth and nail against number portability requirements, they hardly hesitated about tacking on a monthly fee for the service that they weren't providing.
http://www.openairwaves.org/telecom/report.aspx?aid=67

- Red Hat released Enterprise Linux 3 claiming that this closes the gap between Linux and Unix for enterprise customers. Some of the notable enhancements are better multithreading support, high availability clustering, and support for 32-way systems
http://www.crn.com/sections/BreakingNews/dailyarchives.asp?ArticleID=45401

- Mattel announced a preview ISO of their upcoming BarbieOS, based on Debian. The company feels the time is right for a Linux-based operating system targeted at preteen and teenage girls dissatisfied with M$oft's offerings. The new OS will come in time for the all important Christmas season when executives expect young girls to come out in force and ask mom and dad for full powered Linux-based laptops.
http://qrxx.4t.com/barbieOS.htm

- First SonyEricsson came out with the P900, now they have an update to the still pretty new T610. The T630 is sweet, me gotta have one
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/9966.shtml

- Linux-based email is hot. We looked at Ximian before they were acquired, and I've been loving Evolution on my Linux desktop. Scalix is doing something as well. Now Suse comes out with a full blown WebDAV compatible server that will enable businesses to start implementing Linux mail servers without ripping out their Exchange infrastructure.
http://www.crn.com/sections/BreakingNews/dailyarchives.asp?ArticleID=45400

- Venture capital in India is booming
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=3663495

- CIO's should look at their IT ecosystem and business holistically, according to this Line56 article that I filed under "stating the obvious"
http://www.line56.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=5090

- "Free" or "open source" software, what do you need?
http://www.linuxworld.com/story/34296.htm

- SAP offers interest-free leasing program to SMB customers
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/10/21/HNsapleasing_1.html

- Free hotspots offer better returns for businesses than paid ones
http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2003/0,4814,86149,00.html

- 0 to 60 in 3.6 seconds. The world's fastest electric car. I know that electric cars offer more torque than gas ones, but you gotta admit that fast cars just sound cool. It's kind of like with my motorcycle, an Indian Chief, in that if they don't hear you coming what is the point.
http://radio.weblogs.com/0105910/2003/10/22.html

- MEMS and nanotubes in cellphones. This is follow up to the story I linked about the researcher in Socal getting a Darpa grant for nanotubes that do RF signal processing
http://www.smalltimes.com/document_display.cfm?document_id=6811

- I read the article via BoingBoing where Ian Grigg decries the poorly thought out threat model behind SSL, but I actually like Tim Orens' commentary on the article better.
http://www.pacificavc.com/blog/2003/10/21.html

- pretty interesting blog entry from a university student who participated in research studies on the effects of violent games. This post is much talked about in the gaming community.
http://www.homelanfed.com/index.php?id=18058

- will hydrogen powered cars be on our roadways anytime soon... don't count on it
http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,60926,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_5

Noon - 10/20/03

New Fundings:

- Integrated Sensing Systems, Inc. received a nearly $2 million federal grant for developing MEMS-based multi-drug infusion systems, according to a company news release.

- WK Technology Fund led a $10 million Series D round of financing for Peribit Networks, a developer of network optimization technologies. Foundation Capital, Accel Partners, and Mayfield also participated in the round.

- Arena Solutions, a provider of a Web-native software application for managing the product development design chain, raised a $5 million Series C round of financing. The round included investment from Otter Capital, Arthur Rock & Company, and individuals.

- Portwise, Sweden, received SEK$80m (I think that's about USD$9m). Cazenove Private Equity and Norwegian company Four Seasons Venture. Previous owner Scope Venture Capital partakes in the new issue as well. The money will be utilized for international expansion, first and foremost Europe.

Liquidity:

- Sockeye Networks, a developer of a routing optimization service for enterprises, e-businesses, and service providers, was acquired by Internap Network Services (Nasdaq: INAP) for approximately $1.75 million in Internap Network Services stock. Previous Sockeye investors include Akamai Technologies, Baker Capital, Battery Ventures, Credit Suisse First Boston, and Polaris Venture Partners.

- Key creditor Silicon Valley Bank has sold the assets of Austin, Texas-based EpicEdge Inc. after the company defaulted on $1.25 million in loans, EpicEdge reports in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Main Dish:

- Steve Ballmer spoke at the Gartner Group conference about M$oft's security issues and Open Source, and there is so much to disagree with that I won't go point-for-point at it. Ballmer says that "we rarely fail at something that is our top priority" which seems to acknowledge that they do have the capacity to fail, and in fact from my point of view they are. The Trustworthy Computing Initiative has been out for 2 years and we see more vulnerabilities in their software than ever before. Ballmer claims the vulnerability exposure rate for Red Hat Linux 6 was "5 to 10 times higher", well what is it? Come on, it's not like this is confidential data, the point is that they just don't know because most often the vulnerabilities are fixed before they are ever exposed, unlike their software. I think what this shows is that the security issues are proving to be an enormous achilles heel for M$oft and it's distracting them. Secondly, the Open Source OS movement is a real threat to them and because there isn't a single enemy to identify, the historical M$oft competitive strategies just don't work.
http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-5094279.html?tag=nefd_top

- I don't know what it is about 3G the last couple of days, but there's been a lot of new about it. Now, the Probe Group comes out and says that widespread deployments won't happen until 2007.
http://www.commsdesign.com/story/OEG20031021S0023

- "Microsoft monopoly good, Apple monopoly bad," M$oft lawyers charge. M$oft's David Fester warned that Apple's iTunes (and this is really good) "is a drawback for Windows users, who expect choice in music services, choice in devices, and choice in music from a wide-variety of music services..." I guess he's not aware that the Justice Dept. and attorneys general for 19 states have formally complained to a federal judge about a design feature of Windows that compels consumers who buy music online to use only Microsoft's Internet browser and steers them to a Web site operated by the company.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/33468.html
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/144726_msftantitrust21.html?source=techdirt

- The RIAA changes it's tactics, but not it's stripes. After taking 261 file sharers to court, including a 12 year old NYC girl, the first time around, the RIAA is sending warning letters this time to 200 file sharers giving them 10 days to settle before they take them to court. Assholes.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-10-19-music-swapping-suits_x.htm

- NO, not the booze! When new software goes bad, it's the people who suffer. The State of Mississippi's Alcoholic Beverage Control department installed a new delivery software system (ole Miss, like several other states, strictly controls the distribution of alcohol) that has some serious bugs meaning that new orders aren't being taken. Bottom line, if you want to stock up on Bud for that USM game this weekend, you are SOL. I am pleased to report that the State is putting the right priority on fixing this life altering development, stating that " "We will work 24 hours a day, seven days a week until we're up and running. "
http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/news/stories/20031017/localnews/472313.html

- 802.11 equipped PDA's reviewed
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1358910,00.asp

- Congresswoman DeGette (D-Colorado) is causing a dustup over an op-ed piece she wrote denouncing all regulation of the Internet.
http://importance.typepad.com/the_importance_of/2003/10/rep_degette_doe.html

- Sendo just came out with a very cool Symbian-based smartphone... you will recall that Sendo is the company that abandoned M$oft's smartphone platform about a year ago.
http://www.phonescoop.com/news/item.php?id=708

- and Sony-Ericsson came out with the P-900 smartphone. Paul has a P-800 and loves it.
http://my-symbian.com/uiq/intro_p900.php

- 2 out of 3 HR professionals surveyed said that they have found porn on employees computers. Don't know what conclusion to draw, I just thought I throw it in today because it's about porn.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=10350397&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=7546&rfi=6

- the Video Game Olympics recently concluded and Germany came out on top in the medal count. I guess with all the unemployment in Germany people have a lot of time on their hands to play video games.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3206908.stm

- M$oft's latest Office update has an interesting new feature that enables a "self destruct" switch in documents and emails... I bet Quattrone wishes he had that upgrade
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994295

- "We drowned our puppies" said a VC on the purging of venture portfolios
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/10/21/BUGED2FK2E1.DTL

- Socialtext has an interesting new enterprise collaboration product out that taps into weblogs.
http://www.socialtext.com/weblog/031021workspace.html

more stuff

- I opened up the Wall St. Journal today and got to the last section, titled "e-commerce". It sounded weird to read that section title, even though it's a regular section. The entire concept of e-commerce is dated, it should simply be "commerce" because that's what it is.

- 3G not ready yet, according to several European telcos
http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=42071

- Don Tapscott is out with a new book titled "The Naked Corporation". You may recall Tapscott as the author of several best selling business books, including "The Digital Economy". Personally, I prefer history books over business books.
http://www.economist.com/people/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2137974

- Massachusetts is going Open Source for government IT purchases, I'd bet that this is a trend. I know that California would save a bundle, and dent the huge deficit, by going Open Source... the Cal deal with Oracle is a $100m deal by itself.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1357556,00.asp

Morning Edition - 10/19/03

New Fundings:

- Kiwilogic, a German company that offers a customer communication solution raised a corporate round from DTMS. It's a little murky on the details, but it appears the two companies will jointly develop a solution, so it could be that the investment is in the form of development cost offset. Not clear.

Liquidity:

- Internet security software maker Symantec Corp., of Mountain View, says it's bought SafeWeb Inc., of Emeryville, which makes software that increases the security of corporate virtual private networks. It's an all-cash $26 million deal, according to Symantec.

Main Dish:

- a different look at the trend to outsource development to India. The article keys in on control of products, innovation, and trys to get some insight on what level of activity US companies are undertaking beyond project level.
http://www.svbizink.com/headlines/article.asp?aid=5065&iid=323

- GNU vs. Linux is a "house divided"
http://www.nj.com/business/ledger/index.ssf?/base/business-5/1066543853325720.xml

- Dean Kaman on the Segways successes and shortcomings. You gotta admire the true believers in the world.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1342965,00.asp

- a VoIP bakeoff between Skype and SIPphone
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1356967,00.asp

- it's only a matter of time before everything is linked to some genetic condition. This is actually pretty interesting and ties together work on seratonin (a key nerotransmitter for depression treatment), tryamines and histamines. The histamine piece is particularly interesting and goes back to the 1950's when researchers were studying things like allergies and discovered the chemical histamine that led to anti-histamine treatments. Researchers found that people on anti-histamines for longer periods of time were generally happier than those on placebos... this observation led to antidepression treatments based on seratonin uptake rehibitors. Amazing how everything gets connected together... now researchers are observing that seratonin also plays a role in intelligence and is genetically predisposed.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994290

- Merrill's "Hard News on Software" report
http://www.cwes01.com/9093/24013/ds/94835290.pdf

- Mitch Kapor has been working on a new desktop environment code-named Chandler as the key mission of his Open Software Applications Foundation. Whether or not you agree with Mitch, he deserves credit for being in that "true believer" category mentioned above, and for putting his own skin in the game to the tune of $5m.
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/fitzgerald1103.asp

- I heard a commercial for 7-Eleven's new beverage service that serves up to 1,300 different combinations of coffee and tea.... can you imagine 1,300 combinations? I would be curious to know what percentage of business is sold on the top 10 combinations. In other words, do you have 20 combos serving up 90% of the business, and you are able to bump the average selling price per unit up at the same time?
http://www.entrepreneur.com/franzone/article/0,5847,311341,00.html

- equating UMTS (3G) cell service as "arrogance" and further stating that "there are no services today that can be economically served up by 3G", Martin Cooper, the inventor of the cell phone, disparaged the industry for it's one size fits all mentality. However, I've been seeing cell carriers far less religious about what services they offer, witness T-Mobiles push for Wifi as an example. Nonetheless, it should be pretty clear to telecom execs that they need to focus on offering a wide range of services over the plumbing.
http://www.commsdesign.com/story/OEG20031020S0047

- new services based on location sensing for cell phone networks. I think it'd be pretty cool if my phone could tell me where the nearest Starbucks is when I'm traveling.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994270

- Can Tivo survive cable companies? Interesting article in the NYTimes about cable providers offering PVR functionality in their set top boxes. I have a Tivo, but I unplugged it a while ago when I built a media server that had the same functionality without the monthly subscription. Personally, I think it's just a matter of time before PVR functionality become pervasive in all consumer electronics that can benefit from it, I mean why buy a Tivo if your television mfg includes a 100gb drive and some easy to use software for an extra $100, or the cable company gives it to you for an extra $5 a month in a high end set top box? I'd be interested in hearing about other technologies that were believed to have "first mover advantage" only to find out that it was "first mover myth". There has to be about a dozen examples of companies that pioneered a technology only to get passed by as it went mainstream.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/20/technology/20tivo.html

- Britain has about 4,500 traffic cameras. Blowing them up, shooting them, or otherwise vandalizing them has become a weekly occurance as the public backlash builds. People are increasingly, and it's statistically evident, that these cameras do little to reduce crime or roadway carnage, and are instead used to monitor innocent people going about their lives, or to increase traffic fine revenue (and profitability when you don't have to pay a beat cop).
http://www.msnbc.com/news/981718.asp?0si=-

- John Markoff, the NYTimes reporter, compares blogging to CB radio... wasn't that big in the 70's?
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/technology/1066258791.php

- Pulver writes about end-to-end IP in the telecom business
http://192.246.69.231/jeff/personal/archives/000177.html

- UK retailer Marks & Spencer is testing RFID tags on clothing. Good for them... let's see if they can survive the privacy scaremongers.
http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/3093101

- Solaris vs. Linux... a long look at the functional differentiation between them. By the way, Linux 2.4 seems to come out ahead in almost all the tests.
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=4867

- John Patrick at IBM explains why some IEEE efforts to converge the public switched telephone network (PSTN) with the Internet is a big deal.
http://www.circleid.com/329_0_1_0_C.html

- good article on the rise-and-fall of George Gilder, the oft quoted futurist. Guys like this just crack me up, they make wild predictions of everything that can go right, yet claim ignorance to all the things that can go wrong, and often do. Futurists kind of remind of my fortune tellers and psychics, they tell you what you want to believe based on shreds of fact, yet aren't specific enough to be held accountable when things don't happen the way they predict. Paul Saffo is another one. What amazes me is when people quote futurists as if their predictions are fact.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/19/business/yourmoney/19gill.html