Archives for June 2007

How smart are you if you turn down the iPhone business?

admin · June 30, 2007 · 1 Comment

Seth Godin has this excellent post on Verizon turning down iPhone business from Apple.

The Verizon guy who turned down the iPhone

Given the mass hysteria, it’s probably not so good to be Denny Strigl this week. He’s the COO at Verizon quoted with pride about turning down the iPhone deal (Verizon turned down iPhone’s advances.)

The reason you need to care about this: Almost everyone is like Denny.

Most innovative business people who dream of bizdev imagine that they can be just like Steve Jobs. Come up with a super idea, a useful service, a great gizmo and go to an industry leader. Sign lots of NDAs and go to lots of meetings. Demand that they change their ways in order to make your wonderful innovation a game changer, something that will fix their broken industry and make you both a lot of money.

Hey, Steve Jobs himself couldn’t do it at…

The million dollar question on Web2.0, SaaS, RFID and so many other issues for many of us is – are you going to be like AT&T or Verizon? And how do you know. Here are some questions to ask yourself:

Do I look at glass half full or half empty? This is not a spiritual or philosophical question although it does come from your very way of being. Verizion tried to figure out what %-age of the pie they will get (its-not-fair argument) rather than how can I turn this into a great opportunity for both sides.
Am I trying to hold back the inevitable? Imagine yourself in Verizon’s shoes – the COO didn’t turn down iPhone business (at least not in his mind) – he was trying to ‘preserve balance to the force’ by not letting equipment manufacturers and value added service providers become the dominant player in mobile. I doubt game theory arguments will do him any good now though.
Are you denying reality? Mickey Mouse taught us many years back that eventually you have to look down and see that you have walked off the cliff, and when you do – gravity will kick in. Its useful for businesses and individuals to check in with reality every now and then. If you think selling 50K worth of boxes and software to a restaurant for a POS system is going to fly in 2 years, you must stop and look below.
Are you giving up because of “your Verizon”? In your work and personal life, you will get turned down and rejected by your version of a Verizon – the trick is to keep looking and not give up. However, make sure you do look down (see previous bullet).

And if you need more motivation, read up Guy Kawasaki’s blog. He turned down the Yahoo! CEO role many years ago (pre-IPO) costing him billion dollars plus. And he is a very smart guy.

Apple insider reveals secret plan to launch revolutionary iCar

admin · June 29, 2007 · 3 Comments

Apple insider, Mr. Jeremy Core, inadvertently revealed the seeds of a plan to launch a car later this year. The exact dates are not yet known but it is slowly becoming clear as to what features this revolutionary new car will have, short after the release of the iPhone.

Is Apple right again? Do cars have too many wheels?

In a major departure from conventional cars, Apple iCar will shun some of the common features like 4 wheels and round steering mechanism. Apple’s Core said Steve thinks that 4 wheels are just too many and confuse the average user. In fact, insider sources reveal that Steve nearly threw a fit when he saw the early prototypes with 4 wheels and a spare saying “Do I really need all these.. you (expletive deleted)! Go get me a car with 1 wheel like the iPod or the Mac!” After several rounds of negotiations, which at Apple primarily meant firing of senior engineers and architects, Jobs relented to go with a three wheeled design.

Of Square Pegs and Round Holes
Among other features of the three wheeler car, is a square steering wheel. Although awkward to use and reported to poke injuries on sharp turns, it does make the iCar appealing to a certain market segment. Apple’s Core refused to comment on reports of injury and neither confirmed nor denied the leaked statement by Steve, “Most people don’t know how to drive straight and the square steering wheel will let these (expletive deleted by FCC)-ing morons know when the steering wheel is straight.”

Microsoft Rune
Microsoft senior executives speaking on condition of anonymity said that they find the whole idea of 3 wheels and square steering wheel ‘simple minded and not what we have heard customers are asking for’. In fact, he thought that there might be liability arising out of use of the words steering wheel when the actual shipping product is square. There are unconfirmed rumors that Microsoft is planning to counter with Rune (pronounced “ruin”), a car which will come with 7 wheels. Although most customers will only use 4, Microsoft product managers believe that enterprises want the added security that comes with extra wheels. The pricing for the Rune is not yet fully decided but will most likely be based on per-wheel metric. The other key features of Rune:

Lots and lots of windows. The standard 4 side windows in most cars will be replaced by many smaller dedicated windows – one for looking at the side street, one for looking slightly up at the street lighting and so on. You can go to the Control Panel and follow the 19 step quick setup wizard to customize these windows.
6 Cup holders. Analyst from Gardener, Mr. Trim said that the cup holders will be slightly smaller than standard cups and will require customers to purchase new standard cups from Microsoft partners.

Integrated Experience with iGas
When approached for comments, Apple’s Core declined but mentioned the following features that are going to “Wow!” the customer in an apparent jab at Microsoft’s Wow campaign:

iGas Stores: The iCar will not run on gasoline currently available but will require a 90.5 octane that can only be procured from iGas stores run by Apple. Jobs believes that the current gas station experience leaves the customer with too many confusing choices and that iGas will provide a superior experience including hands-on car advice by Apple Machine Heads.
Pre-integrated and welded on Battery and other replacement parts: Apple has decided to enhance the user experience by completely bypassing the current car fixing industry known for over charging and other scams. In stead, you will have to ship, or drive the car to an Apple factory (in San Jose-California, Chapel Hill-North Carolina or Salt Lake-Utah).

The blogger (yes, me) conducted an informal phone survey of potential car buyers and the response was overwhelmingly positive. Here are some quotes:

“I can’t wait to go under 300K of debt to buy the iCar, it will be super awesome”, said 16-year old Michele. In an unrelated note, she is expected to be featured on MTV’s My Sweet Sixteen.
“Four wheels always seemed like an overkill, no wonder Detroit is going out of business”, said 32-year old software executive at a reputed German company.
“Round steerings are so totally square”, said 44-year old Chandra. As a vegan, she also appreciates that the iCar will have no leather parts.

What do you think? Will iCar finally break Toyota’s run to the top?

Note: I will reveal the first pictures of the iCar in next few days, so be sure to check back.

Facebook or Internet – What is the real social networking platform?

admin · June 26, 2007 · 3 Comments

It is my perhaps not so humble opinion that the internet will continue to evolve as the platform for social networking. The early successes and leading sites like Facebook that have gained traction have an opportunity to be part of the broader ecosystem but I disagree with the opinion of some of my peers that one particular company will dominate social networking. The desire to be the platform and the glory that comes with it seems to encourage every successful entrepreneur to declare his technology, website or tool to be the platform.

Lately, there is been a lot of discussion about Facebook and its platform ambitions in particular. Fellow Irregular, Dennis Howlett has a post on ZDNet today nicely summarizing some of the discussion.

What is a platform and how do I build one quickly?

I define a platform as a set of tools, technology or more broadly any layer that allows new products or services to be built with an order of magnitude less resources than was possible before the platform.

Excellent examples of platforms include railway network, power grid, internet, telephony network, etc. In the technology realm, platforms that have made an impact include mainframes, databases, operating systems, email, etc. For example – before the railway network, if you wanted to build a power plant or a factory, you had to lay down the tracks, buy rail engines and bogies, etc. and all the costs had to be borne by one single entity.

It takes a lot of time and effort to build a platform. Most importantly, all platforms start out as applications solving a particular business or technical problem – in other words, platforms evolve from applications. Computers started out as specialized calculators to perform census or scientific calculations and over several decades generalized to what we call computers. Similarly, road networks evolved over 100+ years as people built roads from point A to point B – till the ‘network effects’ kicked in and Eisenhower launched the famous Interstate project.

Do you remember the previous platforms? AOL??

Many online businesses have thought they can short circuit this process and become the platform. Remember, when AOL was the dominant internet (with its own domain name system or AOL Keywords) or Amazon was the platform for online shopping. A single business entity has advantages of speed and single minded-ness that it can leverage to provide a compelling solution rather than wait for the ecosystem to evolve but eventually the broader system catches up and overtakes the giants.

So what are the underlying issues Facebook is addressing. As quoted on the ZDNet blog, I think the following are the principles underlying a next generation social platform :

People want online identities to establish trust-based professional and personal relationships. FaceBook provides this but I believe in the long run a third party validation system could provide you with a ‘universal’ identity (with multiple faces/avatars/usernames) to conduct business over the wider internet.
People want control over who connects to them and when. FaceBook, email and GoogleGroups provide this in different ways.
People want a publishing platform. Unlike email, this is information or opinion you want to share but don’t want to push in an email. Blogs, MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube, etc all do this. Email and IM are not good at this.
Plus all the basic goodies like document sharing, managing relationships (invites, forwarding), messaging, etc.

These are just some of the issues and there are several groups and companies dedicated to solving some of these challenges like Identity & Trust, Content Management & User Control, Publishing, Messaging, etc.

I believe Facebook shows us in a small way what would be possible if we solved some of these challenges. But if you think Facebook is the final answer, then you may end up feeling like people that bet on MySpace as the social networking platform or AOL as the internet. Not very smart.

What do you think about Facebook? Is Google the real platform? What about Cisco & WebEx? Or Microsoft?

Charlie Munger’s lessons on life

admin · June 14, 2007 · Leave a Comment

Just read, Sharad Sharma’s excellent blog post on Charlie Munger’s commencement speech that summarizes some core principles and ways of being that one should embody for happiness and success. For those who do not know Charlie, he is a close friend and business partner of Warren Buffett (yes, that guy who made & then gave away his billions). Whether you are fascinated by Buffett’s money making prowess (materialist) or his charity (spiritualist) – this would be an interesting read. Sadagopan (also an Irregular) has a post on it too. So why am I chiming in?

Because I want everyone that stumbles upon my blog to read this address. Here is an excerpt from the middle:

Another thing, perverse incentives. You do not want to be in a perverse incentive system that’s causing you to behave more and more foolishly or worse and worse – incentives are too powerful a control over human cognition or human behavior. If you’re in one, I don’t have a solution for you. You’ll have to figure it out for yourself, but it’s a significant problem.

Perverse associations, also to be avoided. You particularly want to avoid working under somebody you really don’t admire and don’t want to be like. We’re all subject to control to some extent by authority figures, particularly authority figures that are rewarding us. Getting to work under people we admire requires some talent. The way I solved that is I figured out the people I did admire and I maneuvered cleverly without criticizing anybody so I was working entirely under people I admired. You’re outcome in life will be way more satisfactory and way better if you work under people you really admire. The alternative is not a good idea.

Read full speech here.

I would love to add my comments, my learnings and ideas on what is the right way to live but I know for sure Charlie would advise against it (as he says in the speech ‘keep the light under the bushel’).

(Update: For the interested reader, read this post by Sharad on Work Life Balance; Another update/correction: I menitioned Sharad is an Irregulars member- that was an error).

Security continues to be a key challenge for SaaS vendors

admin · June 8, 2007 · Leave a Comment

Jon Oltsik of CNet Blogs had an insightful post titled – Software as a Service needs a strong foundation of security. And I could not agree more. This is a key theme that is brought up in our discussions with ISVs and end customers.

Jon mentions three key points and I quote:

“SaaS vendors must become security beacons to succeed. These demands go beyond information and physical security; service providers will have to be familiar with their customers’ business processes in order to understand where their services are most vulnerable. In my mind, “business process security” is the new frontier and SaaS vendors must blaze the trail.

Data privacy is tantamount. Strong authentication, proactive auditing, and encryption must be a part of the SaaS design in order to restrict access to private and confidential data. The SaaS providers must assume liability for the cost and damages associated with any data breaches.

SaaS vendors find security partners from the get-go. Managed service providers like IBM, VeriSign, and Symantec have a huge opportunity to be the Good Housekeeping seal of approval on SaaS offerings. As part of these big deals, SaaS vendors must transfer risk to security experts, use these partnerships for marketing advantage, and maintain their focus on solving business problems.”

In addition, I would add the following:

It is not sufficient for the SaaS vendor to take a ‘trust me’ approach – they must be able to show the mechanisms and technologies they have put in place to ensure data security and privacy. For example, with Oracle Data Vault a SaaS vendor can ensure that the DBA will not be able to see the data and only manage and administer the database. This becomes even more important when the SaaS vendor relies on a 3rd-party managed hosting provider. The more the number of people one must trust, the less trustworthy the system is likely to be without using specific tools or methodologies.
User de-provisioning is very important. The truth is that the majority of data breaches take place by insiders or ex-employees. It is therefore important that the SaaS vendor be able to quickly disable (or de-provision) the user accounts when an employee leaves the company. This can be done in at least two different ways. First, the SaaS vendor can choose to use federation and rely on the customer to authenticate the user. Since each user is now authenticated for only a single session and the SaaS vendor does not have to explicitly disable access. The other approach is to put in place an Identity Provisioning system (such as Oracle Identity Manager) that allows SPML based provisioning of remote systems.
Think about auditing requirements upfront: It is important to be able to document the processes used for security and identity management for various compliance requirements. A system that allows you to explicitly model the business processes associated with security tasks such as user provisioning can help meet these requirements. Implicit processes cannot be seen or audited. BPEL is emerging as a standard language for modeling business processes.

It can cost a lot of time and money to bolt on security as an after thought to your SaaS solution. Customers have repeatedly mentioned security as one of the key hurdles to adoption of SaaS. A SaaS platform that is designed for secure computing, such as Oracle, can help save on costs and provide your customers with the confidence that Jon talks about.

What are the security challenges you face as an ISV? If you are a user of SaaS, what concerns do you have?

(This blog post is cross posted from The SaaS Plug-In Report on Oracle Blogs).