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Posts from the ‘Business Excellence’ Category

Feb 24

End of the line for Netscape

It is hard to say goodbye. I don’t remember the date, but I still remember the first time I saw or used a web browser exactly. I know it was NCSA Mosaic running on a UNIX box in a computer lab at BYU. Having been an avid Compuserve users (and trying AOL) I do remember thinking, this thing is going to change the world. I wish I had known how. For those of you as nostalgic for cyberculture, here is some more history about Mosaic (from Wikipedia).

Scholars consider Mosaic to be the web browser which led to the Internet boom of the 1990s. Robert Reid underscores this importance stating, “while still an undergraduate, Marc wrote the Mosaic software … that made the web popularly relevant and touched off the revolution” (p.xlii). Reid notes that Andreessen’s team hoped:

to rectify many of the shortcomings of the very primitive prototypes then floating around the Internet. Most significantly, their work transformed the appeal of the Web from niche uses in the technical area to mass-market appeal. In particular, these University of Illinois students made two key changes to the Web browser, which hyper-boosted its appeal: they added graphics to what was otherwise boring text-based software, and, most importantly [sic], they ported the software from so-called Unix computers that are popular only in technical and academic circles, to the Microsoft Windows operating system, which is used on more than 80 percent of the computers in the world, especially personal and commercial computers.(p.xxv).

There is more history of the Netscape browser and the company.

Also, evolt.org has a browser archive with almost every known version of every browser ever released. You must check it out. I think I am going to download Mosaic and try to run it on XP under Parallels on my MacBook Pro (is that legal?).

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Feb 22

Don’t put a stake in the ground

My friend Kelly Smith over at Curious Office has blogged about a Financial Times article about the need for flexibility in any endeavor, but certainly any Internet related business.  It really is a great article and the FT has some great content, so head on over (free subscription required).

From the FT article:

The quest to develop the internet’s next big thing can be full of unexpected twists and turns. PayPal, the online payments service, started as a way of transmitting payments securely between Palm Pilots. Its founders realised that there was an even bigger opportunity in online payments – and went on to sell the company to Ebay for $1.5bn (£767m).

Flickr, the photo website, grew out of a multiplayer online game being developed by its founders. Game Neverending never saw the light of day, but Flickr went on to be acquired by Yahoo, sparking a wave of interest in “Web 2.0″ sites.

“None of the big internet successes were like that,” he says. “If you want to build a great consumer internet company you have to be willing to try as much as you can, as fast as you can.”

We learned this at Myrio where our business plan changed several times during our early days.  The core idea was video delivery using IP and we knew we had to be disruptive.

We originally wanted to deliver video to enterprise customers, but that appeared to be a crowded market and getting more so each day.  Companies such as Cisco, RealNetworks, Microsoft, Apple and others were all vying to deliver CEO speeches and enterprise training videos over corporate networks.  Dead end for us.  So our model changed.

So we endeavored to stream real-time broadcast TV and VOD over IP (IPTV), and we made it work.  Much to the surprise of some very big companies (we even used their gear which they believed wouldn’t work).

Once we had it working, we knew we couldn’t waltz into a cable company and say, “Hey, we have a better way to do what you are already doing.”  A cable company wouldn’t simply switch to IPTV.   We needed to disrupt what cable companies were doing and we needed allies with networks and subscribers.  So we took our idea to PacBell.   Nada.  Sure they had networks and subscribers, but they lacked a key element.

So our business model changed again, and we found allies with subscribers, capital, and an entrepreneurial spirit in the independent telecommunications companies in rural America.

During all of this, our core remained, but our business plan was flexible and we hired excellent people (see earlier post: When Good Isn’t Good Enough) that could execute against a new idea.  We also utilized small teams of developers which allowed us to pivot quickly to meet the requirements of each market segment.  Again from the article:

[sic] Ooga Labs, a self-funded start-up whose 15 designers and engineers work in two-man teams to develop ideas in parallel. The goal is to churn out as many promising ideas in as short a time as possible.

[sic] “You can shrink the teams down to two people – a designer and an engineer. The smaller you go, the faster it goes.”

Please share your thoughts and ideas.

Feb 22

When Good Isn’t Good Enough

Great Business Week article (written by CEO of Rapleaf) on hiring the right employees as a startup or small company.

A company with fewer than 50 employees needs great programmers, not just good ones. And once you find them, you have to hold on to them. A startup needs people who not only can think creatively and process complex concepts quickly, but who are also fun to be around and enjoy working with others. We also look for people who value good ideas even when they come from someone else and who are unafraid to seize opportunities to grow. In a nutshell, we want the person everyone else asks for advice. In college, this is the person every other computer science student wanted on his team. No wonder so many people hire friends and former colleagues. One of the best predictors of future success is past performance.

Once you find great people, you need to work at keeping them. This, too, is an art.

The thing about great people is that they only want to work with other great people. This leaves you in something of a bind once you recruit a few. From then on, you can only recruit other great people or risk losing the ones you have.

Some great tips:

  • Don’t rely on academic background
  • Ask the candidate to solve a hard problem or show their creative skills, An example might be to explain a database to an 8 year old.
  • Avoid false positives (multiple rounds of interviews)
  • Work at keeping your great people
  • Big innovation often comes from massive collaboration and rapid iteration, get your people in one location

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Feb 8

Seattle Taps Its Inner Silicon Valley

Many communities dream of becoming the next Silicon Valley. But Seattle is actually doing it. The influx of entrepreneurs and of venture capitalists to bankroll them is slowly reshaping this city and a regional economy long buffeted by the booms and busts of the aerospace and timber industries. A start-up ecosystem needs social networks, support businesses and a business culture that views failure as a badge of honor, not shame. All of that is in place in Seattle.

Many communities dream of becoming the next Silicon Valley. This one is actually doing it.

Stroll through the hip Fremont District and you will sense the Valley vibe.Google recently opened a research lab here, its second in Microsoft’s backyard. Technology start-ups are sprouting up amid quirky neighborhood landmarks like a bronze statue of Lenin and the Fremont Troll, the giant concrete creature lurking beneath the George Washington Memorial Bridge.

More young companies are moving in downtown, near the art galleries and bookstores around Pioneer Square. Still others are spreading into the surrounding suburbs.

The influx of entrepreneurs and of venture capitalists to bankroll them is slowly reshaping this city and a regional economy long buffeted by the booms and busts of the aerospace and timber industries. A start-up ecosystem needs social networks, support businesses and a business culture that views failure as a badge of honor, not shame. All of that is in place in Seattle.

Money is pouring in. During the last 12 years, venture capital investment here has more than tripled, to about $1 billion annually. Last year Washington tied with Texas as the third-largest destination for venture capital money nationwide, behind California and Massachusetts.

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Feb 5

100 Things to do with Google Maps Mashups

100 cool things you can do with Google Maps Mashups. My favorites:

  1. Find Fast Food in the US
  2. Find a WiFi Hotspot in the US
  3. Map US telephone area codes
  4. Google Map your blog or website visitors
  5. Check the time in a world location.

What are yours?

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Dec 12

UPS saved 3 Million Gallons of Gas– By Not Turning Left

Mapping out routes for its drivers, drastically reducing the number of left-hand turns they make helped the company shave 28.5 million miles off its delivery routes, which has resulted in savings of roughly three million gallons of gas and has reduced CO2 emissions by 31,000 metric tons.

It seems that sitting in the left lane, engine idling, waiting for oncoming traffic to clear so you can make a left-hand turn, is minutely wasteful — of time and peace of mind, for sure, but also of gas and therefore money. Not a ton of gas and money if we’re talking about just you and your Windstar, say, but immensely wasteful if we’re talking about more than 95,000 big square brown trucks delivering packages every day. And this realization — that when you operate a gigantic fleet of vehicles, tiny improvements in the efficiency of each one will translate to huge savings overall — is what led U.P.S. to limit further the number of left-hand turns its drivers make.

The company employs what it calls a “package flow” software program, which among other hyperefficient practices involving the packing and sorting of its cargo, maps out routes for every one of its drivers, drastically reducing the number of left-hand turns they make (taking into consideration, of course, those instances where not to make the left-hand turn would result in a ridiculously circuitous route).

Last year, according to Heather Robinson, a U.P.S. spokeswoman, the software helped the company shave 28.5 million miles off its delivery routes, which has resulted in savings of roughly three million gallons of gas and has reduced CO2 emissions by 31,000 metric tons. So what can Brown do for you? We can’t speak to how good or bad they are in the parcel-delivery world, but they won’t be clogging up the left-hand lane while they do their business.

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Dec 4

Verizon Embraces Google’s Android

It is premature to remove Verizon from the list of anti-tech companies, but this is certainly a step in the right direction.

In yet another sudden shift, Verizon Wireless plans to support Google’s (GOOG) new software platform for cell phones and other mobile devices. Verizon Wireless had been one of several large cellular carriers withholding support from the Android initiative Google launched in early November.But given the stunning U-turn Verizon Wireless made Nov. 27, announcing plans to allow a broader range of devices and services on its network, Chief Executive Officer Lowell McAdam says it now makes sense to get behind Android. “We’re planning on using Android,” McAdam tells BusinessWeek. “Android is an enabler of what we do.”

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Dec 3

The Most Anti-Tech Organizations in America

History is replete with examples of products, companies, and industries that fail to adapt and adopt to new technology.  An article @PCWorld by Mark Sullivan on the 5 most anti-tech organizations in America.

Their names keep coming up over and over again in courtrooms and corridors of power across the country–those groups whose interests always seem to run counter to those of technology companies and consumers. They come in many forms: associations, think tanks, money-raising organizations, PACs, and even other tech-oriented industries like telecommunications.

The tech issues that they’re concerned with are what you might expect: digital rights management and fair use, patent law, broadband speed and reach, wireless spectrum and network neutrality. I talked to a good number of tech and media policy insiders in Washington, D.C.–mostly off the record–to find out who these groups are, how they operate, and who pays their bills. We’ll start with the biggest offenders first and work our way down.

  1. RIAA
  2. The Pharmaceutical/Biotech Industry
  3. Big Telco Companies, Industry Group USTelecom
  4. Verizon, AT&T, Progress and Freedom Foundation
  5. Large Wireless Carriers and the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA); TV Broadcasters and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB)

Ok, I buy the RIAA argument. I can even see how one can make an argument about big telcos and their industry organizations are slow to adopt new technologies. But the RIAA’s biggest crime, as it were, was not being anti-tech, but being out of touch with consumers–it’s customers.

Opposition to “net neutrality” is not by definition anti-tech. Case in point broadband. Take the MSOs and the introduction of cable modems. The cable industry moved at “broadband speed” to develop, test and deploy cable modem technology to the market. Why? They understood upcoming technology and bandwidth requirements and they anticipated customers demand. The cable industry took a risk and made investments assuming returns on those investments.

I’m not sure where net neutrality got off track.  The initial mantra was equal access to information flowing over the Internet.  Sounds great.  Unfortunately proponents call for government to enforce equality.  If you follow the major tech press you’ve undoubtedly heard the pro net neutrality arguments.  For a look at an opposing viewpoint, The Cato Institute has prepared a policy analysis document which can be found athttp://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-507es.html.

Such rhetoric and calls for preemptive regulation are unjustified. There is no evidence that broadband operators are unfairly blocking access to websites or online services today, and there is no reason to expect them to do so in the future. No firm or industry has any sort of “bottleneck control” over or market power in the broadband marketplace; it is very much a competitive free-for-all, and no one has any idea what the future market will look like with so many new technologies and operators entering the picture. In the absence of clear harm, government typically doesn’t regulate in a preemptive, prophylactic fashion as CBUI members are requesting.

Moreover, far from being something regulators should forbid, vertical integration of new features and services by broadband network operators is an essential part of the innovation strategy companies will need to use to compete and offer customers the services they demand. Network operators also have property rights in their systems that need to be acknowledged and honored. Net neutrality mandates would flout those property rights and reject freedom of contract in this marketplace.

The regulatory regime envisioned by Net neutrality mandates would also open the door to a great deal of potential “gaming” of the regulatory system and allow firms to use the regulatory system to hobble competitors. Worse yet, it would encourage more FCC regulation of the Internet and broadband markets in general.

waterslidesGovernment regulation of the Internet or broadband providers is a proverbial slippery slope–or in this case maybe better described as a slippery water slide.

The rest of the original article can be found at PCWorld

Nov 28

Super Trains: Plans to Fix U.S. Rail Could End Road & Sky Gridlock

Maglev TrainWith airports and highways more congested than ever, new steel-wheel and maglev lines that move millions in Europe and Japan have the potential to resurrect the age of American railroads.

Acela notwithstanding, high-speed rail has been a difficult sell in this country because of high startup costs and the traditional reliability of our air and highway transportation systems. But it’s increasingly apparent that, in many areas, those systems are reaching capacity. The average commuter spends 38 hours per year stuck in traffic. And air travelers are spending more time in security lines and waiting on the runway before they ever get into the air. According to the Department of Transportation, 2007 is on track to be the worst year in the past decade for airport delays, with 25 percent of flights arriving late.

Furthermore, all that waiting costs money—and fuel. The Texas Transportation Institute estimates that last year U.S. drivers wasted 2.9 billion gal. of fuel sitting in traffic. That kind of inefficiency is becoming increasingly worrisome, with oil cracking $80 a barrel and all those idling engines generating significant greenhouse gas emissions. By contrast, high-speed trains draw power from the electrical grid, which is fueled primarily by domestically produced energy sources, such as coal. Plus, trains require about a third as much energy per passenger mile as automobiles (see above). Although nothing powered through the grid is entirely carbon-neutral, high-speed trains produce no direct emissions. “In the United States, some people are commuting to and from work over 200 miles a day using expensive fuel on dangerous highways,” says Rod Diridon, chair emeritus of the California High-Speed Rail Authority. “We’re going to have a tough time meeting any reasonable standards of pollution control if we continue to rely upon automobiles and short-hop airlines for our transportation needs.”

Building high-speed train routes in the U.S. would not be easy or cheap. Almost every proposed route faces some sort of political fight, and, depending on who you ask and what technology you’re considering, the cost per mile of high-speed rail is anywhere from $5 million to $100 million. However, more and more transportation engineers and cityplanners are starting to see high-speed rail as the only rational way to ease the strain that booming populations are placing on their already overwhelmed infrastructure. “By 2035, the six counties in the Los Angeles region will add roughly 6 million people—that’s the size of two Chicagos—to the 18 million residents already living here,” says Richard J. Marcus of the Southern California Association of Governments. “How are all those people going to get around?”

As our current transportation infrastructure groans under the stress, the idea of high-speed trains is starting to catch on. Eleven existing railway corridors in the U.S. are undergoing improvements for an upgrade to high-speed steel-wheel rail. Some of the most advanced, such as those in California, may be running trains as fast as 170 mph within 11 years. In addition, there are several maglev projects in development—one connecting the Pittsburgh airport and city center; another between Atlanta and Chattanooga, Tenn.; and a third that would link Baltimore and Washington, D.C. While some maglev proposals have mini-mal support, others are being promoted by well-organized, politically connected operations. The most ambitious is the California-Nevada Interstate Maglev Project described earlier.

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Nov 27

Mac OS X Leopard: A perfect 10?

Leopard BoxApple’s new operating system and its massive new feature set challenge users and developers to explore new and better ways of working. I don’t think Leopard is a perfect 10, but the author, Tom Yager, opines that Leopard’s many new features and underlying capabilities allow Leopard to “stay out of the user’s way while being a microsecond away from answering any user demand, and to make sure that the user never has to do anything twice.”

This article is worth a read.

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