Archive for August, 2010

Sinai and Gaza

August 29, 2010

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.

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Posted in Israel, World Situation | 3 Comments »

Intel secures its future (maybe)

August 23, 2010

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.

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Posted in about business, Technology, The Post PC Period | 2 Comments »

Built to Blast

August 15, 2010

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 about business, Social Media, Social Networks | 3 Comments »

Facebook: Take the money and run!

August 13, 2010

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.

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Posted in Social Media, Social Networks, Technology | 3 Comments »

Audio Post

August 10, 2010


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Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

The killer app for the Internet is dying

August 8, 2010

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 »

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