Charles Phillips recently emphasized Oracle’s SaaS leadership in an interview to Datamonitor: Always on the look out for growth, Oracle believes the SaaS movement will provide it with two revenue opportunities, one from additional database sales and the other from direct income from services. As far as databases are concerned, president Charles Phillips believes the […]
Mortgage Crisis: Warren Buffett explains the Hedge Fund game
As we go through this volatility and near madness in the equity markets triggered by mortgage crisis – further enhanced by hedge funds; I thought it would be good to go back and read what Warren Buffett said on this topic. And unlike my other posts, where I pontificate – I will simply quote Warren […]
Identity Crisis in the Land of Social Networks and Platforms
The Facebook platform debate continues to evolve with Dan Farber’s recent piece on Facebook, social capitalists and open networks and Wired’s very well thought out article Slap in the Facebook. The key question from my perspective is whether we consider the Internet as the platform or does Facebook or some other single entity come to […]
$piritual Business: Acceptance before Change
The response to my post on ‘Five lessons I learned at IIT Conference’ was overwhelmingly positive and got me to think about some other key lessons I have learned over the years. And many of these lessons did not come from the business domain exclusively. The common perception is that spirituality is for the ascetics […]
Top 5 Blog Posts
Here are some of my recent posts that have attracted more than their fair share of hits, and you may enjoy: Apple insider reveals secret plan to launch revolutionary iCar Charlie Munger’s lessons on life New Meme: Software is Free, Service is Not (Book Review) Power of visualization: Debunking Myths about the Developing World Five […]
Five Things I learned at IIT 2007 Alumni Conference
Jeff Immelt addressing IIT 2007: “GE loves the IIT product- its graduates”picture by PAN IIT 2007 I just spent last two days at the IIT 2007 Alumni Conference. I spent 4 years in the 90’s, the best 4 years of my life, in a small college town of Kharagpur. Although it does not have the […]
Deferred Life Plan, the new improved Al Gore and your career
If any of you have seen or heard the new Al Gore lately, you may have found him to be much more likable. Even if you still hate his politics, you may concede that this new Al Gore is more amiable than the politician Al Gore. He seems to be actually having fun, being himself […]
Coming to IIT 2007?
This week (July 6-9), IIT almuni are getting together in Santa Clara Convention Center for IIT 2007. With marquee names like Hillary Clinton, Arun Sarin (CEO, Vodafone), Jeff Immelt (CEO, GE) – this promises to be an exciting event. But the true stars of the show will be thousand plus IIT alumni gathered to meet […]
How smart are you if you turn down the iPhone business?
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 […]
Apple insider reveals secret plan to launch revolutionary iCar
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 […]
Facebook or Internet – What is the real social networking platform?
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 […]
Charlie Munger’s lessons on life
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 […]
Security continues to be a key challenge for SaaS vendors
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 […]
IBM invests in Kingdee of China (while everyone waits for Google to buy Salesforce)
While a lot of buzz has been generated about some Google-Salesforce announcement including speculations on Google acquiring Salesforce (and dismissals), the important news of the day seems to have been missed – IBM made a significant investment and acquired equity in Kingdee one of the local ERP vendors in China with global ambitions. Under the […]
New Meme: Software is Free, Service is Not (Book Review)
I recently received a complementary copy of the book, “Software is Free, Service is Not: The Dawn of Service Networks” written by ex-Oracle executives and co-founders of OpenWater – Mike Rocha and Tim Chou. The authors make the argument that most proprietary software used by businesses today is already paid for, and that the open […]
News:Tivo, Apple TV, SlingBox, Scientific Atlanta to live near a water heater
Yes, the time has come for all these devices that I have put up with in my living room – the cable box, the DVR/Tivo, Apple TV, SlingBox, storage backup, cable router, and even the gaming server (PS2/XBox) – to move out. They have made themselves a bit too comfortable over the years pretending to […]
Dyson and SaaS: That kind of a person!
One of my favorite bloggers is Seth Godin and he recently told this story of why a consumer refused to buy a Dyson vacuum cleaner because she probably doesn’t think of herself as that kind of a person – the kind that buys expensive vacuum cleaners. His key point was that consumers don’t just buy […]
Predicting the end of Salesforce?
Fellow Irregular, Joshua Greenbaum has posted this excellent note entitled Siebel 2.0: The end of Salesforce, and it follows up on an earlier post by Phil Wainewright How is AppExchange really doing? I recommend you to check both of these out. Here is a quote from Josh: The parallels (with Siebel), unfortunately, regarding Marc’s claims […]
Prosper is growing exponentially
I have been following Prosper for quite some time now. In my earlier posts, I have said that the size of the market could be 10s of billions, if not higher. The miracle of exponential growth associated with network effects seems to be kicking for Prosper finally. It recently crossed $60 million mark i.e., the […]
How about Citizenship for legal Visa holders?
I have mixed feelings on the new law. Although we need a pragmatic solution the illegal immigration issue, it does seem to reward those that did not follow the rules. What makes it worse is that the new law does not give any significant relief to those in the queue. How about allowing anyone on […]