deal architect

"Five Computer Clouds are all we need"

Google, amazon, salesforce.com, Sun (or VMWare) and Akamai ...we could run everything on their clouds, says Baris Karadogan, a VC.

There are way too many vertical enterprise applications, and infrastructure components missing from these stacks...but what is remarkable is we can even begin to discuss a world without Microsoft, IBM, SAP, Oracle, ATT, Verizon, Accenture and EDS  playing a major role in applications or data center or network.

Perhaps he also contributed to this survey?

Bite the hand that feeds you?

Zoli is uncomfortable that Sabeer Bhatia, who started then sold Hotmail to Microsoft is now planning to launch a SaaS version of Office.

If that is the case, then Intel is the worst offender in our industry as it keeps funding the new generation of chips which kills its own previous generation. How about Dave Duffield in the HR category?  PwC partners potentially competing with IBM? Gideon Gartner starting Giga?

Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Gartner are all big boys with plenty of lawyers - and big hands. A little competition is good for everyone.

Update: Matt Assay analyzes the offering with comments from Sabeer's company at bottom

Please don't call it Personnel or Human Resources any more!

Dirty Harry, 1971

Chief: Callahan, you've been transfered to Personnel.

Callahan: Personnel? That's for assholes.

Chief: I worked in Personnel for 10 years!

Callahan: Yeah.

If Dirty Harry had been a  flop I bet you we would still have Personnel departments. Instead they morphed to Human Resources. This was a huge opportunity for the governments and insurance companies to get in to the software market since they defined most of the tax algorithms and the forms. Amazingly, they did not even ask the HR software vendors for royalties on those -)

But last couple of years, a hot new category called Talent Management has emerged. Here's Bill Kutik and here's Jason Corsello on the category.

Talent as in focus on People more than Forms. Finally?

To my German friends

Deutsche Telecom, owner of T-Mobile, in response to a German injunction saying it could not force customers to sign a 2 year contract says "sure, just pay another 600 euros for the iPhone and we will unlock it"

The bargain basement price for an unlocked iPhone in Germany is now $ 1,483!

To my friends in Germany: Fly over to NYC for under $ 500 ( likely a bit more in December with the holidays). Make a long shopping list with the euro so strong against the dollar. All your friends are making the trip.

Include in that shopping list a US iPhone for $ 399. Don't hack anything, but don't activate AT&T either. When you get back to Germany, get from your local friends in Stuttgart this Skype application and use it with WI-FI. If you do not expect to use the iPhone to make calls, get an even cheaper iPod Touch (but it does not have a microphone)

And while you are here, why not come down and snap up some Florida real estate? Prices are down 10-20% this year and the dollar weakness sweetens its even more.

Willkommen!

More Innovation Helpings

On the New Florence blog - dessert for Thanksgiving!

Battery-as-a-service
NASA's Earth based projects
Recruitment via blogs and wikis
Global Hawk - Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, er Behemoth
Technology and Altruism
Time Magazine: Inventions of the Year
The "Greatest Sailboat Ever"
Cisco's Next Wave of Innovations

So will the Kindle voucher be usable at iTunes?

Dean Bubley thinks the amazon e-Book reader is overpriced. And he says that with strong British Pounds in his wallet on that side of the pond.

So will amazon refund $ 100 to early adopters?

And should my daughter send a letter like this, this time to Mr. Bezos?

No way to help the dollar

We need exports - desperately. Poor US dollar is being ridiculed everywhere.

But we can do better than this.

WSJ on Impact of Software M&A on Tech Users

"As software firms merge, synergy is elusive" - WSJ (sub required)

Glad others are pointing out that software M&A while good for investors has not been all that great for technology users.

My perspectives here and here. Dennis Howlett's here.

The article says the vendor tactics have become kinder and gentler than when CA was doing its many acquisitions...but the benefits to buyers have been similarly elusive.

Thanks to Mary Ann at Sandhill.com for the WSJ pointer. It was her polite reminder I owe her a column on the topic.

Vendor Value for Money

Ok, so readers know I am particularly tough on MISO - Microsoft, IBM, SAP, Oracle. And ATT & Verizon. And  Accenture and EDS.  And HP.

CIO Insight ran a survey which had respondents in buyer organizations score 38 large vendors on various "value for money" attributes. None of the vendors above show up in the top 10.

Other than HP. Will have to be nicer to them. Actually I was nice to them this morning.

First iTunes, next iCalls?

I wrote First DRM - next SIM card in July.

"It's taken a few years, and resistance from the music industry, but iTunes is finally moving away from DRM. It may take a few years but I would like to see Apple similarly move away from the equivalent in the telecom market - the locked SIM card."

It may be unraveling much quicker than that.

Fortune reports that  "a whopping 250,000 -- nearly 20% -- of the iPhones purchased so far haven't been activated for AT&T accounts."

Now a German court has issued a preliminary injunction against T-Mobile  preventing it from linking sales of  iPhone to a two-year T-Mobile contract.

Steve, listen to the market. It may be ready for what I described as the "iCalls" model - I think you are familiar with the basic model...

"Some day I would love to buy calls and data minutes by the drink from an "iCalls". That serviced by Apple. Or WalMart. Or AT&T. Or Verizon.  Or Virgin. Or Skype. Or Whoever.

Using an iPhone or a  8125. Or a Nokia. Or a Motorola."