deal architect

Happy Holi-duh!

Ok, some would consider the new Hyundai Big Duh Holiday Sale campaign a bit crude...but you know what it is so timely. Reasonably priced cars, generous warranty, and now good financing and rebates. No brainer given the jittery consumer with the real estate and stock market and credit crunch issues.

I have been impressed with the consumer electronics segment and the wow pricing this holiday. 40+ inch HD-TVs at sub-$ 800. Storage of half a TB at sub $ 100. Laptops at sub $ 400. Some GPS units at less than $ 100. Make it a no-brainer for the jittery consumer.

So I read Peter Sobiloff, a long time enterprise software executive and VC, ask in his Sandhill column Ready for a Downturn? It is a very good read, but I would have liked to have seen him recommend  some no-brainers.

Coz enterprises like individual consumers also get jittery - but also react pretty well to Big Duh sales.

Click Fraud?

Apple has been running tongue in cheek "Don't give up on Vista" TV ads.

But how in the heck do they show up on CNET's Vista Page?

And did the same prankster contrive that the last Google trade today was at $ 666?

Evil, I say...

Tech "Safe Driver" Discount

John Halamka, CIO at CareGroup HealthCare System (and Harvard Clinical Research) writes in Computerworld about the empty calories in maintenance, and asks for pricing to reflect usage - a "safety rating" in insurance industry terms.

I proposed last week to Oracle (and the industry in general) a 3 tier model - 10% for customer category a) those happy at current release, with no desire to upgrade and mostly seeking bug fixes and tweaks (in line with what third party maintenance firms charge for basic support); 15% for category b) those that plan to stay and upgrade within their Oracle, PeopleSoft, Siebel etc family tracks and full rates for category c) those eager to get to next generation SaaS, SOA applications including Oracle's own Fusion.

It's the software industry's turn to react to proposals being made by folks like John and me. One price for all is a broken maintenance pricing model.

I am being spray painted

A few months ago I wrote Can you spray paint innovation?

And last week at Oracle OpenWorld, I got a glimpse of their various social networking initiatives. And hope to hear from SAP in a week (disclosure: SAP is paying for travel). The agenda has the first four executive speakers with "Innovation" in the title of their sessions.

Innovation is good. The more innovation the more these vendors will show up in my other New Florence, New Renaissance blog. So I look forward to seeing concrete examples of these vendors innovating themselves and their business models, not just sprucing up "Atlanta airport".

And I hope we hear not just about web 2.0, but about leverage of mobility, telemetry, virtualization, next-gen analytics, SaaS - and others in the 40 categories I have on the New Florence blog.

And even better - examples where their customers have used these vendor tools to deliver MAGIC. Because they matter way more than mentions on New Florence.

In the meantime, does anyone have a good antidote for a scratchy, painted face? -)

Photo Credit - Wikipedia

Dad traveled the world with AT&T and all we got was a lousy t-shirt

AT&T Wireless has a new "seamless world" ad campaign touting its global presence. The ads combine names of states/cities to come up with a new destination.  See some of the ads here.

They also have a web page where you can personalize a T-shirt with your own destination. Just enter 3 places and the site configures your magical city - population 1. So I thought I would order for my kids.

Except I got sticker shock - $ 31.93 for each shirt. I guess we are spoiled in FL -plenty of 3 for $ 10 in the touristy places on International Drive in Orlando. I should ask Mr. Sartorial, Thomas Otter if he thinks they are worth the fashion statement.

But I guess it goes with the other AT&T Wireless pricing. $ 31.83 would get you, after taxes, a 12 minute mobile call on their network from India, and less than 6 minutes from Vietnam where the shirts probably originate. If you pay them for a discounted plan at $ 5.95 monthly.

So I end up not ordering, but I did go through the configuration process and the shirt would have looked like this -)

I could have  put VE-RI-ZON  or SP-RI-NT instead. So long as you don't mind paying the tariff they probably don't care.

Southwest Airlines may have a say though on some shirts -)

Of Dumb and Smart Pipes

Holman Jenkins Jr. writing in WSJ (sub required) praises telcos and the "smart pipes" they are investing in.

Ergo: "..despite the media euphoria over Google and its stock price, it has neither the business experience nor the lobbying clout nor the logical arguments to rewrite a world in which the legatees of the old Ma Bell have such a strong position."

Robert Cringely on the other hand speculates  "Two years ago Google had one data center. Today they are reported to have 64. Two years from now, they will have 300-plus. The advantage to having so many data centers goes beyond simple redundancy and fault tolerance. They get Google closer to users, reducing latency. They offer inter-datacenter communication and load-balancing using that no-longer-dark fiber Google owns. But most especially, they offer super-high bandwidth connections at all peering ISPs at little or no incremental cost to Google.

...For the first time, Internet TV will scale to the same level as broadcast and cable TV, yet still offer something different for every viewer if they want it."

and in his world view the pipes are dumb

"ISPs, which we've thought of as a threatened species, won't be touched, but then their profit margins are so low they aren't worth touching. After all, Wal-Mart doesn't try to own the roads its goods are carried over."

Readers, which side would you align with?

The Frugal Billionaires

Forbes

I envy their wealth. But I admire their modesty when it coming to flaunting wealth.

Apple: Obtuse or Opaque?

When HBS case studies are written about the iPhone, they will be glowing - but there will always be an asterisk. That the product rocked, but that it muddled through other 3ps of the 4Ps of marketing.

First you had the AT&T partnering issues and its refund coupon of $ 100 in the US and now the - mock-your-customer $ 1,483 T-Mobile German version. Sure blame the phone companies. Blame Vodafone for causing the T-Mobile issues. In the end, though, it is Apple's brand. You have to wonder what the Apple alliances and business development folks have been doing - not once but twice.

And if Apple is getting a cut out of the phone company pricing, as is generally rumored, why not disclose it? In this age of transparency that is the right thing to do. Its brand popularity should have been able to justify pricing much better than the phone companies can. Cell phone companies, at the best of times are not that popular - they top lists of consumer complaints logged by Better Business Bureau.

Shameless Plug: The Adventures of Spanky and Rein

If you like traveling across the beautiful country that is the US, you will love this book. And the companion blog. It is about the driving to and hiking at the highest points in every state (volume 1 - on eastern states, others to follow). Highest peak - Mount Mitchell, NC - 6,684 feet. Lowest peak - Britton Hill, FL - 345 feet. The book also has a detour into Canada.

Well, ok, this is also about a wonderful dog called Spanky - a Yellow lab/Terrier. Who happens to have a wonderful human - my long-time, crazy Estonian friend Rein Krevald. Who both just jump into a pickup and drive - and drive.

I take credit for encouraging Rein to start blogging. Rein is an excellent skier and ski coach, and I had hoped he would blog about those peaks. But while Spanky can do lots, that would really have been ambitious - )

And I am proud he has taken it a step further and compiled a book from the blog. Calling it is a "step" is a gross understatement. A lot of work has gone in to editing and getting the book ready. And as a bonus, Rein weaves in his ski trips into the book.

So, fellow readers get yourself a copy and follow on their trail. And if you order before December 31, I will subsidize the shipping and handling. Just tell Rein when ordering I sent you.

“We don’t lose enough bags to justify that investment,”

That investment would be in RFID and it would be just 20c a bag according to this NY Times article.

The airline industry would rather fly planes with no passengers but full of misplaced bags than make that investment?

I hate checking bags but do have two suggestions:

a) Particularly in Europe - please let us carry on bags. Modern planes have large overhead bins for a reason.
b) We pay $ 2.50 per flight segment to the TSA. Steal 20c from there and pay for the RFID. Trust me it will also help make our security leaner and tighter