deal architect

Weekend Stuff: The NFL Experience

Poor Paul Tagliabue. The former Commissioner did not get in to the NFL Hall of Fame even on his third try.

I mean how much more profitable could he have left the NFL?

On a glorious 65 degree Saturday I took my son to the NFL Experience. Hey how often does the circus, I mean, the Big Game come to town?  Tickets were a reasonable $ 18 each, parking $ 10.

A day later – at the Super Bowl, the face value of a ticket is $ 800. And the parking attendant told me that same spot would be $ 50.

Before you could enter the NFL Store tent, they put stickers on your cap and they made you put anything in your hand into a plastic bag and sealed it. God forbid you walked out with something you did not pay full price for.

Like the $ 38 dolphin my son is holding.

I mean tomorrow they even have the TSA (the airport security folks) as part of the game security. Ostensibly because they are good at “behavior detection”. I say because they are good at fluid detection. Anyone try to sneak in a beverage more than 3 oz. Hey, got to get them to pay $ 400 for the tailgate party :)

I mean that is a long way from the $ 1 admission fee in Canton in 1917. 

Poor Paul.

The only blemish I noticed in his tenure was the price of the Super Bowl ticket actually declined by 20% between 1996 in Phoenix and 1997 in New Orleans.

Hey, at that rate of decline I should be able to take my son to the game next time it comes back to town.

And Paul should be in the Hall of Fame by then.

Steelers outnumbered Cardinal fans 10 to 1 in the crowds today. I over heard one Pittsburgh fan say – we need to have more championships than any other team (they are tied with the Cowboys and 49ers)

There you go again – more greed.

Me, I am bucking for old man Warner. There is something about his get-up-repeatedly-after-getting-knocked-down career which seems more appropriate for our times.

Google's low self-esteem?

"This site may harm your computer" At first I thought it was a site I was trying to visit, then I noticed Google search is messed up this morning even when searching for Google, the company and Google Maps.

Weekend Stuff: The incredibly innovative Potato

I smiled when I saw the February potato promotion in the photo at Sweet Tomatoes. I wondered what my late Irish father-in-law would have said about all the exotic potato recipes.

On his first visit over, I ordered some potato skins at a restaurant - and he was surprised we actually ate the skin of the potatoes in the US. Only with new potatoes, my mother-in-law explained.

Though you commonly associate the Irish with potatoes, they actually are not that creative in the ways they eat it. They do have some interesting dishes like Boxty and have recently let McDonald's Fries into their diet.

And while we may be creative in the ways we eat it, the average American eats less than a third as many potatoes as a person in Belarus.  And they have 300 potato dishes. Worse, only a third of of our potato consumption is fresh. We eat way too many frozen fries and processed chips.

And as with everything else, China and India have become the biggest producers of potatoes. And are unleashing their own potato recipes into the world. Indeed, McDonald's burgers in India are meatless - the potato has taken over.

Check out this site for all kinds of trivia about potatoes.

BTW, Belarus also consumes plenty in liquid, Vodka form:)

Weekend Stuff: Cancierge

Good friend Hank "Memphis" Jones is a fine attorney. I have cajoled him for years to blog. And when he does he shows he is an ever better husband.

His blog is on cancer caregivers. His wife is going through treatment. I found this post particularly poignant - "First put oxygen mask over your face, and only then on your child's"

My wife lost her sister to cancer. I know how much it took out of Margaret. Hank's blog shows how important it is to take care of the caregivers, not just the patient. 

We are not invalides, Mr. Dell

At Davos, Michael Dell thought he was throwing Russian President leader Putin a softball by asking how the tech industry could help enhance its science and engineering talent.

Putin's response  - mercifully you can hear it in the beginning of his meandering long answer

Wonder if the Irish asked the Russians to slap Michael for Dell's recent decision to move out of Limerick

More New Florence

On the innovation blog

Mobile Payments

Crowd-sourcing the world

A new way to look at Davos

The US Future in Space

Re-SaaS-ion

As if the downturn was not bad enough, on-premise software vendors need to now accept IDC's new report that says SaaS deployment will accelerate in 2009

"By the end of 2009, 76% of U.S. organizations will use at least one SaaS-delivered application for business use."

"The percentage of U.S. firms which plan to spend at least 25% of their IT budgets on SaaS applications will increase from 23% in 2008 to nearly 45% in 2010."

"IDC has increased its SaaS growth projection for 2009 from 36% growth to 40.5% growth over 2008."

Shoes, spitballs and spam

Mike Arrington at TechCrunch was spat on today in Germany. He also discloses he has received death threats in the past year. In many ways, worse than the shoe attack on Bush - he had time to duck, and he has plenty of Secret Service to protect him from more serious threats.

What is the world coming to?

I sure am glad the worst I have received is spam (excluding the names I get called in negotiations). At a conference, I received a blog comment in the evening saying something to the effect of "I saw you at the conference. You have no reason to be that aloof. And your blog sucks and ...and ...".

I racked my brains to see if I had ignored anyone that day at the conference. I could not but sent this person an email (to the address he logged on the comment) apologizing and asking to meet him the next day. The email bounced - was not a real one. I even called the company in his URL, and they did not have any one with  his name in their voice mail directory. 

I did try - but figure this person did not really want a conversation. He just wanted to verbally spit on me and do it behind his digital mask.

Takes all kinds.

Disagree with Mike - that's why he allows blog comments. Write your own blog and beat him up. But don't do stupid things that make him think about quitting his blog.

The New Oracle?

Oracle adds a new wrinkle to its On-Demand SaaS pricing  - "The new ’standard’ single-tenancy option comes in at $90 per user per month. It’s still a dedicated server but, unlike the ‘enterprise’ option, Oracle decides when it gets patched and upgraded."

I would like Oracle and partners to similarly come close to matching with what I call SaCS pricing for its on-premise clients - to include maintenance, hosting, apps support, tuning, upgrades.

Also why stop at CRM? Why not ERP? Why not its vertical apps?

In typical Oracle fashion, though they cannot resist a dig at salesforce saying under some scenarios its pricing with frills balloons to $ 400 a user a month. Wow, those customers clearly have not heard of Deal Architect.

On the other hand, I can guarantee in almost every scenario Oracle's on-premise customer costs are more than $ 400 a user a month.

Oracle should focus on fixing that first.

Clearly they need AT&T in France

Phil Wainewright reports that Google tested its new offline Gmail features on the 186 mph Eurostar train in France.  The 3G service was intermittent and led to a new Google term - "flaky connection mode"

The French are obviously missing out on what we get from AT&T.

In its "The Internet cannot hide" ad campaign Bill Kurtis can access 3G service where Amelia Earhart's plane crashed in the Pacific, where the Abominable Snowman lives and where the leprechauns frolic near the pot at the end of the rainbow.

Oh and by the way, the French ought to think about giving up their flaky pastries and croissants too. Try some of our Southern biscuits. Goes well with the water Bill found at the Fountain of Youth.  :)