August 29, 2010 by avram miller
I am spending a few days in Sharm el Sheikh at the base of the Sinai Peninsula. Today, in the tour office where I was arranging a boat trip for tomorrow, I saw a map. It showed three countries, Egypt, Palestine (which covered all the area of Palestine and Israel) and Jordon. Not one Israeli city was on the map include Eilat. I wondered if this was an old map, a current map or a horrible dream of a future without Israel. It was ironic that I saw this in a tour office. Israel was the country the developed Sharm as a tourist destination during the period it occupied Sinai and it turned all that over to the Egyptians who built extended the work the Israelis did in developing Sharm as a tourist destination.
Sharm is part of Egypt and is set up to make it easy for tourists. For instance you do not need a visa. There are many flights to Sharm from all over Europe and particularly for England and Russia. Sharm has more that 30 hotels including several 5 start hotels. It is basically a peninsula with one of the water ways being the Gulf of Suez (leading to the Suez Canal) and the Gulf of Aqab. At the top of this Gulf lies there cities, Taba (Egypt), Eilat (Israel) and Aqaba (Jordan). You can actual travel from Egypt to Jordon via Eilat in about ten minutes. On the very top east of Sinai, is Gaza one of the greatest hell holes in the earth with a populations of 500,000 people in an area about 17.5 sq miles. Contrast that to Sinai which has 23,000 Sq miles for 1.3 million people. I always have to wonder why those that rag on Israel (rightfully or wrongly) never call out Egypt for not doing much of anything to help the Palestinians. Why could Israel and Egypt not cooperate to build a resort area in the Mediterranean in Egypt just next to Gaza that could employee some of these people. The Gaza people have lots of construction experience.Or why not set up factories there. Or do something to help these people. By the way, Gaza is a bit less than 50 miles from Tel Aviv and every year the missiles they send get a bit closer to the large Israeli population centers. It is a little like having al-Qaida based in San Jose and sending missiles at Palo Alto but hoping to send them into San Francisco soon.
Tags: Sinai, Gaza
Posted in Israel, World Situation | 2 Comments »
August 23, 2010 by avram miller
Intel recently acquired (subject to approval) McAfee one of the leading (but not leader) in the area of computer security. The is a well thought out article in Forbes by Ed Sperling which you can read here. I have been reading a lot of article criticizing this move my former employer. As readers of this blog know I am often critical of Intel. Frankly, I think the company has displayed a lack of leadership (sorry Paul) and has been going sideways for the last ten years or so (ever since I left some may say…joke). I believe that security and protection is both an opportunity for Intel and by its absence a limitation to Intel and all the other computer companies. I don’t mean just protection for virus and hacking or even content protect. I personally have a much broader view of this which I will write about when I finally finish “Ten Trends for Ten Years” a project I am working on for myself.
I remember getting Intel to put in a processor ID which meant that each processor was unique. I saw how this could be used to provide protection but when customers found out about it, they screamed. They thought we were going to use it to track what they were doing. I wish I could remember when this happened and which processor. I know this happend again in 1999 but I am pretty sure this was the second time. Later, at what is now Intel Capital, I invested in in RSA. Sometime later, we made the first investment in Verisign. I saw Verisgn as a very important ingredient in making the internet safe for commerce. I think we invested just a million or so and sold our interest later for 100s of millions. But Intel did not take advantage of our special relationship with Verisign unfortunately.
About three years ago I had an opportunity to share some of my thinking with a senior members of Intel’s management about strategies that could be taken to increase growth. One of the things I pushed was security. I doubt that my suggestions had anything to do with their decision. They stopped listening to me the day I walked out the door or even earlier. But I am happy the reach the same conclusion.
Now I hope that they can make the acquisition a success. The will be a tall order. It is very hard to make acquisitions work and especially difficult for companies like Intel that are very internally focused. But Renee James who will be the responsible person at Intel for McAfee is a very capable and if anyone there can make it work, she can. I wish her luck.
Tags: computer security
Posted in Technology, The Post PC Period, about business | 2 Comments »
August 15, 2010 by avram miller
A former member of my team at Intel and now a close friend, visited with us this weekend. We talk about my recent post regarding Facebook. I explained in detail why I think Facebook is more valuable now than it will be in two years (see Facebook: Take the money and run). My friends, used Microsoft as an example of a company that did not have the best technology but still succeeded. He also cited Google. I thought they were poor examples and for many of the same reasons. There was a term that was popular in the early 2000s. It was “Built to last“. There was a book by this title. The idea was that some companies were built to last such as IBM, GM etc. while other companies were built to go public or to be acquired. Microsoft was built to last. Intel was built to last. Apple was built to last. Cisco was built to last. Google was the last major technology company that was built to last I think. Facebook was not built to last. Companies like Intel and Microsoft built their products from the ground up. But now more and more companies are able to create a company (notice I did not say “business”) with a thin veneer of technology. I actually think this is wonderful as long as the executives and boards of these companies are not confused by what they are doing. I think of companies like Facebook, Twitter, etc as media properties. They are probably like a really great TV series that has a 3-8 year run. And speaking of “run”. I say “take the money run”.
Posted in Social Media, Social Networks, about business | 2 Comments »
August 13, 2010 by avram miller
I really enjoy Facebook. But actually what I really enjoy is interacting with my friends. I probably don’t really like the company Facebook that much. Facebook has been very successful in tapping into social networking. Frankly, I am surprised about how powerful social networking is. But I think Facebook the company may think they are Social Networking. And if they do, they are confused. Facebook is a tool to facilitate social networking. What we like about the Facebook experience is the content and not the tool. The content comes from us the users of Facebook but it is currently pretty much trapped inside of Facebook (there are some ways of breaking it loose). Sometime in the next few years we will see the content break out of the closed world of Facebook. Check out this article in Wired. Or this movement. New and better tools for interacting with content will emerge. Check out pip.io for instance or Tumblr.
This reminds me of the early days of email with companies like CCmail and Hotmail. I read that Facebook is looking to go public in 2012 (assuming there is an IPO market). I want to bet that never happens for a number of reasons including potential lawsuits. I think that Facebook is very valuable in the mind of certain technology companies that have no road-map for the future but lots of cash. If I was on the board of Facebook I would be trying to get them to sell. And remember the devil always pays cash.
Tags: Facebook
Posted in Social Media, Social Networks, Technology | 2 Comments »
August 10, 2010 by avram miller
Tags: Post by Voice
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
August 8, 2010 by avram miller
There is a very interesting article in Newsweek about the Huffington Post that goes discusses the economics of advertising on the Internet. In 1994, I was going around giving talks about the potential of the i\Internet to become a new medium. Some of those reading this post maybe too young to remember that the Internet was a very different animal at that time. The first browser had just been launched the year before. The residential broadband network we all enjoy was in the very early stages of development. I had just signed up a number of companies like AOL, Intuit and Netscape to participate in the cable modem trails we had launched with Viacom Cable and Comcast. I could see pretty clearly that the high speed communication to the home coupled to PCs and the platform for development and distribution of content represented by the Internet would create this new medium not only for entertainment and information but also for communications, and commerce and education. However, I was struggling about the business model. I did not feel that subscription services like AOL (that is how AOL worked in those days) would be the successful model. I came to the conclusion that it would be advertising. In those days, everyone was asking “what is the killer app for the Internet”. It was generally accepted that the spreadsheet had been the killer app for the PC. I came to the conclusion that it was advertising. Obviously, advertising is not an application. But I felt that the potential of moving advertising dollars to Internet content companies would provide the financial fuel that would allow the development of a vast range of applications. And in general this was correct. But it is no longer working.
I am not an expert on advertising. These days because of technology I get to skip over most ads on TV and rarely look at a add on the net. I think the death of advertising as the source of revenue for Internet companies is the result of simple over abundance of places to put ads coupled with a doubt that they are very effective. But frankly, I am not sure how effective advertising was in the past on TV, magazines and radio. And am pretty sure that their value is declining quickly as we can all skip over ads or get content like pod-casts that do not even contain ads.
So what will replace advertising as a revenue source for content? It is not clear to me yet. I am think the combination of free and premium services for some companies (like Linkedin) will work. I think data mining will work for other. For instance, Google may become primarily a data mining company. Facebook can be one too although I think that Facebook does not have a very compelling future (more about that in a future post).
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
July 7, 2010 by avram miller
Andy wrote an article about job creation or the lack of said recently. I think Andy is totally right that high tech start ups are not the answer to domestic job creation. Large scale job creation for high tech can only happen if there is local manufacturing and I do not see that in the world we now live in. Even software and support services will move abroad if companies are successful although to a smaller degree. It is natural for companies to seek lower cost and we as consumers benefit from that. I was shocked that Andy, felt that taxing products that contained outside labor was a good idea. It is an awful idea in my opinion. First of all that is a tax on US Citizens in that we would have to pay more for products to that we could support American workers but more importantly it could destroy the world economy (if it is not already destroyed by the foolish actions of various governments). And we need to see countries like China, India etc develop for a number of reasons. On the other hand, we should push for fair valuation of Chinese currency, work standards etc.
There are a number of actions our pathetic government (and as always I mean all three branches and both major political parties) could take to increase domestic employment such a major creation of green jobs in both energy creation and most importantly in the short term, energy conservation, the basic problem is that there will not be enough jobs for Americans and we need to build a new model to deal with that. We were once a farming nation. Now we have twice as many people in prison than working on farms. We need to convert our major military industrial complex to creating such things as high speed rail. We need to make our education system work so that we create even more knowledge workers. There should be two years of nation service young people. These are just a few ideas. But most importantly, employment will stay high and we will get use to it. It is awful of course for those that are unemployed but we will not help them with taxes on imports.
Tags: Andy Grove, employement
Posted in Technology, about business | 2 Comments »
June 23, 2010 by avram miller
Here is a pretty
interesting link to an article on the future of Microsoft. Frankly, the only thing that surprises me about the prediction that Microsoft will decline into insignificance is that it will take this long. I have seen this movie before and I will probably see it again.
I have personally watch and participated in the first two of the major waves of computing which I describe below.
- The first one was proprietary vertical computing represented by mainframe companies like IBM and mini Computer Companies like Digital Equipment. These companies did everything themselves (hardware and system software and some application software). Apple is the only contemporary company that resembles this structure. IBM is still around but mainly a systems integrator. Digital was acquired by Compaq in 1998.
- The second one was the age of the personal computer. It was a horizontal structure where a few companies dominated the various hardware and software layers (Intel had more than 80% of the microprocessor business and close to 100% of the profits while Microsoft had about the same in the OS and dominated some of the application layers with their office products. At one time both Intel and Microsoft were the most valuable companies in the world. Now Wintel, once the most feared force in computing is no longer relevant.
- The third one is network computing and is led by Google although we have to deal with Apple a bit later. In this wave, the value has moved to the network and expanded encroach on the media industries. Much of the value is created by the consumers themselves. Advertising plays a key part in the monetization of this wave.
- The fourth wave will surly come even if I for one can not yet imagine what it is (although I try). And Google and the other companies riding the crest of the networking world will suffer the same faith as their predecessors.
Apple is amazing in that it has survived the first two waves and is dealing extremely well in the third wave. I will write more about Apple another time.
So why can companies not make it through these transitions? It is pretty simple: They would have to take the lead in destroying their own business. And if they were successful, they would see a reduction in profits at least at first. I know that if you give an CEO two choices, 1) continue as is with the knowledge that eventually your business will decline significantly and even fail or 2) take a hit now with the possibility that your business will recover in the long-term, they will choose 3) continue as it is and believe that you will figure out how to maintain the business. In other words they can not accept the future as it will be. This is not only true for businesses but also sadly for countries. The USA is Microsoft I am afraid (but further along in its decline).
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Tags: Microsoft, Intel, wintel
Posted in Avram's Past, about business | 2 Comments »
June 1, 2010 by avram miller
Please read this op-ed by Bob Herbert. I could not have said it better. Frankly, I think we deserve everything we are about to get but do our children and their children deserve it? If they survive and I really mean this question, they will hate us for what we did to their future by our shameful greed, neglect, ignorance and laziness.
I blame our political leaders a lot whom I think are not much better than a bunch of gangsters but we all of us (me included) are their enablers. I was misguided in thinking that Barack Obama could lead us out of the mess we are in. But he is just one more politician. Yes, better than most I guess not not willing to loose in the short term even of that means that we all loss much more in the long term. Maybe we would have been better off if McCain had won because then many of us would have been motivated to form some kind of opposition to the madness that is Washington. But then again would it have mattered much. I guess if we we want to put meat into Earth Day for instance, we have to put meat into Earth Day and have a barbecue.
Tags: future, offshore oil
Posted in Climate Change, Government, Making a difference | 1 Comment »
May 24, 2010 by avram miller
In 1965, at the age of 20, I was living in Paris. It was very expensive to call the USA. My friend, Mike, and I heard that there was a tape recorder that had just hit the market in Germany which was portable. So we went to a German border town. I don’t remember the name but the hotel we stayed in was called the “Bunker Hotel”. You get the picture!
In those days, the telephone operators knew how much you deposited by the sounds of the different kinds of coins. So we recorded the sounds that were needed to make a 3 minute call to the USA from Paris. Then when the operator said (in French of course), deposit x number of Francs, we played back series of sounds.
The second hack, was by passing our electric meter. We lived in a building with a concierge. The meter reader would come by one a month. We would get a notice from the concierge that if we were not home we should leave our key with him so he could let the meter reader in. I would un-do the by pass. When the meter reader arrive, he would see that we had used no electricity (we had jackets and candles). The good news was that we had an electric hot water heater and a shower (which was very unusual in Paris at that time). We put up ads at the Paris Conservatory of Music (where we were both taking classes) that we would provide any female students with free showers.
Tags: hacking
Posted in Avram's Past | 2 Comments »
