Last February, I was in Silicon Valley for a week thanks to a course I was taking. Here’s a summary of what happened there. UC Berkeley: Center for new Music and Audio Technologies. Prof. David Wessel showed us a new instrument that was basically 32 touchpads. Each was connected to a sample loop and the [...]
Since last September, I’ve been taking a Ph.D. level course on the future of internet, IT and related fields called Bit Bang at Helsinki University of Technology’s Multidisciplinary Institute of Digitalisation and Energy. The students are all Ph.D. students from either TKK (HUT), University of Art and Design Helsinki or my own Helsinki School of Economics. [...]
Checking out the HP Touchmark PC demo on YouTube. Watch it and then let’s discuss it. The question on everybody’s lips is, why didn’t Apple do this? Your first hint: look at the way the guy is standing. Few people use their PCs in that position. I tried emulating the feeling a little, by making [...]
Context: I’m currently in discussion with a number of companies that are involved with SOA-vending & -consulting. As a result, I’ve been studying up a little on this market and hope to learn more by writing about it. Note: Since I know, judging by the response to other articles on enterprise-software, this isn’t exactly the [...]
This is once again a post “back to the community”. When I encountered this problem, I looked aroung the net and I found many discussion in different forums, but couldn’t find any solutions. This is how I got things working, your mileage may vary. I recently got a new computer, but I totally forgot that [...]
This post is aimed at helping friends bootstrap projects (although they certainly don’t need me to turn everything into gold, especially these ones). I apologize for the inconvenience caused to readers coming for content, not announcements, but these are 2 AMAZING projects that definitely deserve exposure. Unfortunately, a number of readers won’t be able to [...]
Here’s a quick question to all people used to either interact with or being part of software development teams. Consider a software vendor, a good one, and its technical headcount. It is no secret that R&D teams aren’t made of software developers only. In order to be deployed successfully, architectures and code need to be tested by [...]
I’m exhausted and it’s only half of the study trip, but I enjoy SO MUCH going with a great bunch of cool guys to amazing companies like OQO, Netvibes, City Council of SF, l’Atelier US, eBay, Box.net, SRI, Stanford, Meetro and tomorrow Twitter, Neocase, Microsoft, Google, Plug & Play, the Churchill Club, XOBNI – & the day after [...]
In chess, a gambetto – say it with an Italian accent, consists in sacrificing a piece at the beginning of a game to gain a competitive position on the exchequer – for example through the control of the center of the chessboard or one of the long diagonals. Getting back to business (we’ll get back [...]
Here’s a little fact sheet mixed with some thoughts on Green IT. Green IT is a truly serious topic that should be thought over and tackled over a long period of time. There is not one answer to the sustainable development challenge. On thing that’s pretty sure though is that Information Technology, an industry that [...]
Over the last 6 years, the Oracle has consistently outperformed its arch rival SAP (see chart below: SAP’s in red) Could M&A be more virtuous than organic growth after all? This is a real, tricky question: Oracle mostly grows through a well-thought acquisition strategy whilst SAP has always preached organic growth. Most people, including my [...]
I actually learnt what software architecture means something like 9 months – when Jean-Sébastien and Pierre discussed the architecture of CartoReso and I was listening, eyes wide opened not understanding the slightest bit of what was going on. However, it didn’t take long for me to realize how crucial designing a smart and robust architecture [...]
If you’re a software-as-a-service publisher (eg Google as far as Google Earth or Google Gear aren’t concerned, SalesForce, Idylis, TellMeWhere, Netsuite, Excentive, Facebook, Zlio, Brainsonic, Microsoft as far as Live or Titan are concerned, U.[Lik], eBay, Yahoo!, Inspirational Stores Group, Amazon, 37Signals, Neocase, Advance IT, Constellation, blueKiwi, SideTrade, Twitter, etc.), here are 5 reasons you’ll [...]
Dubai isn’t dumb when it comes to economic policy. Some economists there have noticed software giants (Google, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, SAP, IBM, BEA, Yahoo!, etc.) acquired companies on a valuation related to the number of software developers such preys accounted. A few years ago, it was commonly agreed that a software giant would be willing [...]
The difference between these startups and any Web 2.0 parody of brands is that a vast majority of these software startup actually generate cash. On the WWW, eCommerce companies put aside, the bulk of services generate zero revenues. In the so-called Web 2.0 world, only market leaders like Meetic, LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace are [...]
