“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” — Albert Einstein

Blog » Archive for May, 2005

Oh, and here’s a lead …

Uncategorized | May 12th, 2005 | No Comments

For VCs looking for strong product company models, my suggestion is, make a trip to Calcutta (now called Kolkata), the erstwhile capital city of British India, and meet Arvind Agarwal.

Low-cost PCs

Uncategorized | May 12th, 2005 | 1 Comment

EE Times reports on the low-cost PC market in India: “Aiming at India residents with no PC experience, Novatium is developing the Nova NetPC, a thin client expected to cost just $100. The PC is now in beta-stage development and will reportedly be maintenance-free and appliance-like. Novatium’ three founders include Analog Devices’ chairman Ray Stata, […]

HP Algebra

Uncategorized | May 12th, 2005 | No Comments

I think it was in 3rd Grade that we first learnt the term BODMAS, but it was in the context of Arithmetic, not Algebra. That came later.
To refresh memories: The simplification of an algebraic equation or expression must be completed in a set order. The procedure follows the rules of BODMAS – any elements […]

Open Source of Book Publishing?

Uncategorized | May 6th, 2005 | 7 Comments

I want to point my readers to Peter Redford’s experiment in creating a Publishing Empire by using the web as a democratic medium akin to Open Source …
Browse Books, Inc. is a concept that Peter is experimenting with. A hypothetical press release could read … “Merged-media book publisher, BROWSE, announced today that it is unveiling […]

David’s sling-shot has not missed Goliath

Uncategorized | May 6th, 2005 | 1 Comment

If you want to follow the trajectory of a certain David’s sling-shot on its way to Goliath’s forehead, read Peter’s Blog. TVI versus Microsoft, the AutoPlay lawsuit.

Yahoo! Beats Google in this round

Uncategorized | May 5th, 2005 | No Comments

Key Rhetorical Question: Who understands the content game better? Semel or Schmidt?

Monetizing Video content is inherently more difficult than Text because the KeyWord AD phenomenon that has served Google well in the Text-centric search world, will not be as effective in Video. The simple and “algorithm” oriented Text-search paradigm does not work in the Video world. Google’s strength is in algorithms. But as it grows up, algorithms will not suffice.

Key thought-provoking question: What will?

Much Ado About Pricing

Uncategorized | May 5th, 2005 | No Comments

The software industry is going through much turmoil over licensing versus subscription, concurrent user versus named user, maintenance fees versus not, per processor …
A survey from Macrovision shows how Enterprises prefer to buy software (64% prefer perpetual licenses, versus 36% subscription). Surprisingly, they still prefer Perpetual License models, as opposed to Subscriptions, although all […]

Some mild stir in Programmable ASICs

Uncategorized | May 5th, 2005 | No Comments

EE Times reports: “End markets are presenting a serious problem to traditional ASIC design. Especially in consumer applications, but increasingly in other areas as well, markets tend to be fast-moving and fragmented. The system-on-chip that is perfect for midrange portable media players in China now is wrong today in the rest of the world and […]